Image via WikipediaGirl Scouts censor Facebook criticism of palm oil in cookies
This week, frustrated individual scouts, their parents, and Girl Scout cookie buyers logged onto the Girl Scouts’ highly trafficked Facebook page as a part of a social media “Day of Action.” They left comments asking Scouts leadership to change their recipe so that cookie fans wouldn’t have to choose between orangutans and Thin Mints.
Not what the Girl Scouts USA PR team wanted to hear, so they just erased the comments from the Facebook page. When the internet began to erupt in blistering criticism of this censorship, the Scouts PR team set up a new thread with the header:
This morning, Girl Scouts was the focus of an article regarding Palm Oil in our cookies. Our bakers exclusively source palm oil from members of the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil. The Girl Scout Cookie Program is the most successful entrepreneurship program for girls—and only girls—in the world. Follow the link for more information. Please use this thread for all comments relating to palm oil.
Which transformed petty censorship into outright misinformation. The above paragraph is, to put it mildly, less than truthful. Not surprising, given that it’s ripped straight from food-industry talking points on palm oil.
The Girl Scouts should know better. They have been alerted multiple times to the fact that membership in the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO), an industry-dominated forum, is in itself meaningless. The only requirement for companies to join and say they’re members is that they write a $2,000 check every year to the RSPO. Being a member of the RSPO doesn’t mean your products are any better for the environment, protect a single orangutan, or save a single tree. Also, for the record, membership doesn’t mean that the palm oil in the product isn’t grown on a plantation usingslave labor or child labor, serious and seemingly widespread problems in the palm-oil industry.
Now, the RSPO does also have a program in which they certify so-called “Sustainable Palm Oil,” i.e. palm oil that isn’t grown on land deforested since 2005, and that meets some other basic safeguards. Although the certification process isn’t considered 100 percent reliable, it’s a step in the right direction and major palm-oil purchasers like Unilever, Nestle, McDonald’s, and others have all pledged to buy only certified sustainable palm oil for their entire supply chains.
But here’s the key point: Members of the RSPO, including the Girl Scouts’ suppliers, are under no obligation to actually buy the certified sustainable palm, and most don’t. In fairness, one of the Girl Scouts’ bakers, Kellogg’s, recently announced that it was going to purchase “Green Palm” certificates for its entire product line, a good first step but not the same as purchasing certified sustainable palm oil or finding other environmentally friendly alternatives.
'Clean stoves' would save lives, cut pollution
smoke from dirty stoves and fires kills almost 2 million people each year, most of them women and children. It kills more than twice as many people as malaria.
On average, women and girls in developing countries spend up to 20 hours a week searching for fuel — time they could spend going to school, running a business, or raising their families. And if they live in areas of conflict, leaving home to search for fuel puts them at great risk of assault or rape.
The technology for clean cookstoves already exists. Several companies are already producing them, and countries like India, China, and Mexico have begun to introduce them in national programs. But the uptake has been slow, because there hasn't been a widescale effort to coordinate these efforts, or to make the stoves affordable in the developing world.
Multiple supporters
That's why we are excited about the Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves, a partnership led by the United Nations Foundation that brings together governments, multilateral, private sector, and non-profit organizations. The Alliance will drive research and development efforts to make new stoves that are more durable, affordable, and tailored to the cooking needs of specific cultures. It will help bring down costs, trade barriers, and other obstacles that have prevented cookstoves from being used widely. And it will promote the benefits of clean stoves, to encourage more families to start using them. A major goal for the Alliance is for 100 million households to take up clean cookstoves by 2020.
Hillary Rodham Clinton is U.S. secretary of State and Julia Roberts is the new Global Ambassador for the Alliance for Clean Cookstoves. They will both appear on the Oprah Winfrey Network's Extraordinary Moms special, presented and executive produced by Ms. Roberts, airing Saturday, May 7 from 8-9:30 p.m. (EDT/PDT). Please visit http://cleancookstoves.org/ for more information.
Three new, separate studies confirm: Common pesticides harm kids' cognition
School-age children have lower IQs when their mother's are exposed to pesticides during pregnancy. This is the conclusion of 3 independent studies released today in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives. Looking at nearly 800 children from California and New York, the studies each found that maternal exposure to certain common pesticides during pregnancy predicts lower IQ, poorer working memory and perceptual reasoning. In other words, kids exposed to low levels of pesticides in uteroface significant cognitive impairment later in life.
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School-age children have lower IQs when their mother's are exposed to pesticides during pregnancy. This is the conclusion of 3 independent studies released today in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives. Looking at nearly 800 children from California and New York, the studies each found that maternal exposure to certain common pesticides during pregnancy predicts lower IQ, poorer working memory and perceptual reasoning. In other words, kids exposed to low levels of pesticides in uteroface significant cognitive impairment later in life.read more
Brazil: more GE crops, more pesticides
GE foxes invited to guard USDA henhouse
Earlier this year, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) shocked the American public with its hasty approval of three highly controversial GE crops in a row (alfalfa, sugar beets and ethanol corn). In doing so, the agency effectively thumbed its nose at U.S. federal courts and spit in the face of consumers and farmers alike. Now, USDA has apparently decided that getting sued for ignoring U.S. environmental laws is getting to be too much of a hassle. So they've come up with a new plan: why not let Monsanto evaluate the potential harms of its new transgenic products? It’ll be so much quicker this way. And save USDA a lot of money.
The two-year pilot program allowing GE developers to conduct their own environmental assessments for USDA is an “experiment” to improve its systems, says USDA. Tom Philpott calls it a craven way out.
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Earlier this year, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) shocked the American public with its hasty approval of three highly controversial GE crops in a row (alfalfa, sugar beets and ethanol corn). In doing so, the agency effectively thumbed its nose at U.S. federal courts and spit in the face of consumers and farmers alike. Now, USDA has apparently decided that getting sued for ignoring U.S. environmental laws is getting to be too much of a hassle. So they've come up with a new plan: why not let Monsanto evaluate the potential harms of its new transgenic products? It’ll be so much quicker this way. And save USDA a lot of money.The two-year pilot program allowing GE developers to conduct their own environmental assessments for USDA is an “experiment” to improve its systems, says USDA. Tom Philpott calls it a craven way out.
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Pesticides & "testicular dysgenesis" (male reproductive harm)
New tests conducted by British scientists show that widely used agricultural pesticides disrupt male hormones, and may be contributing to a suite of reproductive disorders increasingly common among men.
Reduced sperm count, infertility and abnormal genitals are among the problems some scientists have dubbed “testicular dysgenesis syndrome.” This latest study greatly strengthens the evidence that these problems may be linked to environmental contaminants.
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Protect our soil – we can’t live without it
Farmers are the stewards of the land; sadly, politics often dictate how they farm. In the coming days, Congress will make decisions on funding priorities for 2012, and dramatic cuts to soil conservation programs are being proposed.
We cannot afford to let this happen. Our nation’s ability to produce adequate healthy food, and to protect vital air and water resources, depend on how we treat the soil. Cutting soil conservation programs now will have devastating consequences long into the future. Call your Congressmember today and let them know healthy soil is well worth the modest investment.
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Princes & farmers on the future of food
Endosulfan win: One more for network power
Lawmakers tackle persistent chemicals - yay!
Today we are one step closer to protecting kids in this country — and around the globe — from persistent chemicals.
A group of senators proposed a new law this week to revamp our 35-year-old system of managing toxic chemicals. Our friends in Washington tell us this version of the bill is stronger than the attempt that stalled in Congress last year. How very refreshing to have good news coming out of DC!
Got Fairness? Apr 14
Tomorrow morning, as you pour milk into your kids’ cereal bowls or buy a latte to get you going, take a moment to think about the dairy and other family farmers who will be braving gusty winds off Lake Michigan to converge on the steps of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange. These farmers are demanding an end to the price fixing and speculation by traders that has bankrupted thousands of family farmers across the U.S., while spurring food crises worldwide.read more
"SUV-Sized Tar Balls Are Breaking Up and Coming In on a Daily Basis"
It's been months now. People aren't being heard. I'm not being heard. My friends are getting sick, there's wildlife coming in all the time. It's a mess down there. It's so nasty. There's oil. There's tar balls. There's dead animals. I walked a 15-mile area in Long Beach and there was over 200 dead jellyfish, 30 dead birds, 25 to 30 dead fish of all kinds, a dead eel, two dead rats. We have a health care crisis down there—11,000 sick people right now. And it's going to get worse.
( I've seen headlines of 100,000 sick )
Living in the Flood Zone
Iran's Ahmadinejad survives worst storm of his presidency
Pakistanis disclose name of CIA operative
( I've seen headlines of 100,000 sick )
Living in the Flood Zone
Iran's Ahmadinejad survives worst storm of his presidency
Pakistanis disclose name of CIA operative
U.S.-Pakistan Flare-Up Threatens Troop Supply Route
the preferred option is to have an open, cooperative relationship with Pakistan. That's according to American officials, but even more important for Afghan officials, who will always have Pakistan as a neighbor, says Jaweed Ludin, Afghanistan's deputy foreign minister."The one thing from our point of view that has to be addressed is the fact that there are safe sanctuaries that terrorists and Taliban enjoy outside Afghanistan, and until these sanctuaries are removed, there is no way you can even imagine victory,"
NY Times Ignores Its Own Reporter's Key Tweets In Patting Itself On The Back Over Speed Of Its Bin Laden Coverage
Al-Qaeda is a CIA proxy
Madmen in power always need a fictitious "evil" enemy to keep the game of war going, and keep the money flowing. Government is only able to grow and become more powerful by scaring the people about an outside enemy that is almost always manufactured and hyped by the government itself.
Bin Laden was the devil personified even though he was not behind the September 11 attacks. His legend was deliberately created by the state terrorists and myth makers in the Bush administration, the CIA, the Pentagon, and Israel, who were behind 9/11, to justify a policy of aggression against innocent countries, and a policy of repression against the people in America and the West.
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