A Website to Enhance and Protect the Health of Mother Earth
Organic Lifestyle Comments (0)
It It was really heartening to hear that at recent meetings in Europe, the idea was brought forth that the many-faceted movements and groups concerned with the health of the environment, the health of our food and farming systems, the health of the ecological web of life on our planet, and the mental and spiritual health of the human beings on this plant need to coalesce into a meta-movement that includes them all.
Is there really any difference between the Native Americans who are standing up for pure water and conservationists who want to protect our rivers and oceans? Is there any fundamental difference between those who want to stop chemical corporations from polluting the land and waters of the earth from those folks who want to purchase organic food because they know it won’t contain agricultural chemicals, antibiotics, and GMOs? And is there any difference between those who want to arrest and reverse climate change and those who want to convert our energy systems from carbon-based exploitation of fossil fuels to renewable, clean energy sources? I could name a hundred NGOs that want rational environmental change and whose purposes dovetail with all these others.
We need to get together.
What would that look like if all of us banded together to promote environmental improvement? First of all, we’d need to coalesce around a single idea that connects us all. Very simply, that idea is health. The word “health” contains the word “heal,” and the aim of all our groups is to heal the sores, cankers, and diseases caused by rapacious modern industry. The diseases show up in disruptions to the planet’s healthy ecosystems, in the participants in the environmental web of life, in the mutated amphibians, sick waterfowl, and disappearing species of the great extinction we’re going through. The word “health” is also related to the word “whole.” In this case, wholeness refers to the situation where all available environmental niches are filled with functioning participants. In other words, where a natural system is most biodiverse, it is most healthy.
Biodiversity is the key to health. Any ecosystem has a set of trophic niches ready to be filled. A trophic niche is a place in the system that not only has food for a creature, but a beneficial role for that creature to play. That’s why the die-off of creatures in the great “Sixth Extinction” we’re going through is so destructive. Every unfilled trophic niche in an ecosystem is an opportunity for a disruptive creature or organism to fill it and take over, causing great harm.
Mental and spiritual health likewise flow from an attunement with nature. We are all the children of nature; Gaia—the living organism that is the earth–is our mother. We do not know better than nature how to conduct ourselves. Our task is to understand nature—her laws, tendencies, energies, directions, movements—and pattern our social and economic systems on her. If you take notice, nature’s arrangements are all sustainable. Everything else is, by definition, unsustainable and will eventually collapse.
So yes, let’s erect the big tent under which all those people and organizations working for the health of the planet and those creatures who live on it can find a home. Together we can assail the forces working against that goal. We don’t have much time. Climate change is fast upon us. Species extinction is progressing rapidly. Huge multinational corporations are taking over world agriculture and poisoning the earth. If we stay separated into little fiefdoms, caring only about our own narrow interests, we will not succeed.
But together we will prevail. Hence I’ve registered www.gaiashealth.com as the umbrella and big tent under which any and all organizations and individuals who are working to promote the health of the planet and its creatures can shelter.
I will be working to have Gaia-friendly institutions around the world gather at this website. If you want to help out, simply nominate organizations, institutions, and individuals you know are working to protect and enhance the health of Mother Earth.
***
KEEPING AN EYE ON THE ORANGE ONE
With the election of Donald Trump as President, we can only hope that his campaign promises were just rhetoric and that he really doesn’t plan to abrogate the Climate Change Agreement, revoke the nuclear deal with Iran, lend government support to increased use of fossil fuels, and so many others.
But until we see otherwise, we can only believe that he meant what he said regarding these environmental treaties and issues. For progressives, his election and Republican control of Congress appears to be the recipe for an unmitigated disaster.
It therefore behooves the environmentally concerned to watch the actions of Trump, Congress, and the future right-wing Supreme Court carefully. On November 11, Trump gave us a clue as to his policies on the environment. In looking for someone to follow through on his campaign vow to dismantle one of the Obama administration’s signature climate change policies, Trump probably could not have found a better candidate for the job than Myron Ebell.
According to The New York Times, “Mr. Ebell, who revels in taking on the scientific consensus on global warming, will be Mr. Trump’s lead agent in choosing personnel and setting the direction of the federal agencies that address climate change and environmental policy more broadly.
“Mr. Ebell, whose organization is financed in part by the coal industry, has been one of the most vocal opponents of the linchpin of that policy, the Clean Power Plan. Developed by the Environmental Protection Agency, the plan is a far-reaching set of regulations that, by seeking to reduce carbon emissions from electricity generation, could result in the closing of many coal-burning power plants, among other effects.”
And what will Ebell be doing in the Trump administration? He’s been picked to head up the EPA.
***
HYDROPONIC IMPORTS BEING SOLD AS ORGANIC
An organic industry watchdog contends the USDA has quietly allowed a flood of hydroponically-produced fruits and vegetables, largely imported, to be illegally labeled and sold as “organic.”
This produce is generally grown under artificial lighting, indoors, and on an industrial scale. The Wisconsin-based Cornucopia Institute has filed a formal legal complaint against some of the largest agribusinesses involved in the practice and their organic certifying agents.
The controversy will come to a head in mid-November, when the National Organic Standards Board (NOSB) is expected to vote at its semiannual meeting in St. Louis on whether or not hydroponic operations (growing without soil) should be legalized for organic certification. This vote comes six years after the NOSB initially reaffirmed that hydroponics and aquaponics should be prohibited under the organic label.
Disregarding that prohibition, the USDA has allowed over 100 foreign and domestic soil-less operations to become certified organic, creating unfair competition for soil-based U.S. growers. The U.S. is an outlier in international commerce as most countries prohibit the organic certification of soil-less hydroponic produce, including the 28 countries of the European Union (EU), Mexico, Japan, and Canada.
“Astute consumers have turned to organics to procure fruits and vegetables for their family knowing that certified farmers do a better job of stewarding the land by nurturing the complex biological ecosystem in the soil, which creates nutrient-dense, superior food,” said Mark Kastel, senior farm policy analyst at The Cornucopia Institute. “Hydroponic and container systems rely on liquid fertilizers developed from conventional crops or waste products. Suggesting that they should qualify for organic labeling is a specious argument.”
The Cornucopia complaint specifically targets two of the giants in U.S. hydroponic production, the organic berry behemoth, Driscoll’s, and a major tomato, cucumber, and bell pepper producer, Wholesum Harvest. Both agribusinesses have production in the U.S. and Mexico and are certified by California Certified Organic Farmers (CCOF) and Quality Assurance International (QAI), respectively.
Pioneers of the organic movement, including the “Agrarian Elders” and other diversified farmers, are incensed by the rise of “organic” hydroponics and are leading the “Keep the Soil in Organic” movement. They are witnessing firsthand the displacement of domestic organic produce with hydroponic versions.
These organic farmers argue that organic agriculture has always been entirely centered on the biological complexity found in properly managed, fertile soil. Iconic farmer and author, Eliot Coleman, of Maine explains, “The phrase ‘organic hydroponic’ is an oxymoron—a figure of speech in which contradictory terms appear in conjunction. Hydroponic growers produce crops in sterile surroundings and douse plant roots with liquid nutrients that can never begin to duplicate the biological complexity of fertile soil.”
In addition, organic hydroponic produce, whether imported or grown by giant agribusinesses in the U.S., is not identified in the marketplace. Consumers have no way of knowing if the berries, tomatoes, peppers, or cucumbers they are purchasing are truly organic.
The Cornucopia Institute has engaged the public by distributing a proxy letter to organic stakeholders (available as a download through the hydroponics link in the projects tab on their website). The organization says it has already received thousands of originally signed letters which they will hand deliver to the NOSB at their St. Louis meeting starting November 16.
“There is a higher authority than the USDA, or even the federal courts, in these matters,” said Kastel, “and that’s the community of organic farmers, and their loyal customers who vote every day in the marketplace with their dollars. They are clearly voicing their opposition to the faux organic production that is flooding the marketplace.”
What’s not even mentioned is the energy needed to power artificial lighting to grow crops hydroponically. Crops grown outdoors have a free, sustainable, and very powerful light source: the sun.
***
ANTIBIOTIC RESISTANT BACTERIA IN CONVENTIONAL POULTRY
A new study published in the scientific journal Clinical Infectious Diseases has found evidence that an antibiotic-resistant strain of the bacteria Staphylococcus aureus can be transmitted to consumers via grocery store poultry meat. Robert Skov, a lead researcher on the paper, said in a statement, “At present, meat products represent only a minor transmission route for MRSA to humans, but our findings nevertheless underscore the importance of reducing the use of antibiotics in food-producing animals as well as continuing surveillance of the animal-food-human interface.”
***
ORGANIC FARMING BOOSTS YIELDS, UPS PEST CONTROL
Organic farming increases biological control of pests and yields in barley
A recent study published in Landscape Ecology has reaffirmed that organic farming leads to greater yields and pest control by supporting natural predators, and demonstrated that these benefits associated with organic farming are maintained regardless of the surrounding landscape.
***
LESS ANTIBIOTIC-RESISTANT E. COLI IN ORGANIC PIGS
A study published in the scientific journal PLOS ONE tested swine from four different European countries—Denmark, France, Italy, and Sweden—and found that those raised on organic farms consistently harbored less antibiotic-resistant E. coli than swine raised on conventional farms. “For all four countries, resistance was substantially lower in organic than conventional pigs…This knowledge, together with a continued effort to improve animal health and thereby reduce the overall need for antibiotics, would be valuable to reduce antibiotic resistance without compromising animal welfare,” the authors concluded.
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was really heartening to hear that at recent meetings in Europe, the idea was brought forth that the many-faceted movements and groups concerned with the health of the environment, the health of our food and farming systems, the health of the ecological web of life on our planet, and the mental and spiritual health of the human beings on this plant need to coalesce into a meta-movement that includes them all.
Is there really any difference between the Native Americans who are standing up for pure water and conservationists who want to protect our rivers and oceans? Is there any fundamental difference between those who want to stop chemical corporations from polluting the land and waters of the earth from those folks who want to purchase organic food because they know it won’t contain agricultural chemicals, antibiotics, and GMOs? And is there any difference between those who want to arrest and reverse climate change and those who want to convert our energy systems from carbon-based exploitation of fossil fuels to renewable, clean energy sources? I could name a hundred NGOs that want rational environmental change and whose purposes dovetail with all these others.
We need to get together.
What would that look like if all of us banded together to promote environmental improvement? First of all, we’d need to coalesce around a single idea that connects us all. Very simply, that idea is health. The word “health” contains the word “heal,” and the aim of all our groups is to heal the sores, cankers, and diseases caused by rapacious modern industry. The diseases show up in disruptions to the planet’s healthy ecosystems, in the participants in the environmental web of life, in the mutated amphibians, sick waterfowl, and disappearing species of the great extinction we’re going through. The word “health” is also related to the word “whole.” In this case, wholeness refers to the situation where all available environmental niches are filled with functioning participants. In other words, where a natural system is most biodiverse, it is most healthy.
Biodiversity is the key to health. Any ecosystem has a set of trophic niches ready to be filled. A trophic niche is a place in the system that not only has food for a creature, but a beneficial role for that creature to play. That’s why the die-off of creatures in the great “Sixth Extinction” we’re going through is so destructive. Every unfilled trophic niche in an ecosystem is an opportunity for a disruptive creature or organism to fill it and take over, causing great harm.
Mental and spiritual health likewise flow from an attunement with nature. We are all the children of nature; Gaia—the living organism that is the earth–is our mother. We do not know better than nature how to conduct ourselves. Our task is to understand nature—her laws, tendencies, energies, directions, movements—and pattern our social and economic systems on her. If you take notice, nature’s arrangements are all sustainable. Everything else is, by definition, unsustainable and will eventually collapse.
So yes, let’s erect the big tent under which all those people and organizations working for the health of the planet and those creatures who live on it can find a home. Together we can assail the forces working against that goal. We don’t have much time. Climate change is fast upon us. Species extinction is progressing rapidly. Huge multinational corporations are taking over world agriculture and poisoning the earth. If we stay separated into little fiefdoms, caring only about our own narrow interests, we will not succeed.
But together we will prevail. Hence I’ve registered www.gaiashealth.com as the umbrella and big tent under which any and all organizations and individuals who are working to promote the health of the planet and its creatures can shelter.
I will be working to have Gaia-friendly institutions around the world gather at this website. If you want to help out, simply nominate organizations, institutions, and individuals you know are working to protect and enhance the health of Mother Earth.
***
KEEPING AN EYE ON THE ORANGE ONE
With the election of Donald Trump as President, we can only hope that his campaign promises were just rhetoric and that he really doesn’t plan to abrogate the Climate Change Agreement, revoke the nuclear deal with Iran, lend government support to increased use of fossil fuels, and so many others.
But until we see otherwise, we can only believe that he meant what he said regarding these environmental treaties and issues. For progressives, his election and Republican control of Congress appears to be the recipe for an unmitigated disaster.
It therefore behooves the environmentally concerned to watch the actions of Trump, Congress, and the future right-wing Supreme Court carefully. On November 11, Trump gave us a clue as to his policies on the environment. In looking for someone to follow through on his campaign vow to dismantle one of the Obama administration’s signature climate change policies, Trump probably could not have found a better candidate for the job than Myron Ebell.
According to The New York Times, “Mr. Ebell, who revels in taking on the scientific consensus on global warming, will be Mr. Trump’s lead agent in choosing personnel and setting the direction of the federal agencies that address climate change and environmental policy more broadly.
“Mr. Ebell, whose organization is financed in part by the coal industry, has been one of the most vocal opponents of the linchpin of that policy, the Clean Power Plan. Developed by the Environmental Protection Agency, the plan is a far-reaching set of regulations that, by seeking to reduce carbon emissions from electricity generation, could result in the closing of many coal-burning power plants, among other effects.”
And what will Ebell be doing in the Trump administration? He’s been picked to head up the EPA.
***
HYDROPONIC IMPORTS BEING SOLD AS ORGANIC
An organic industry watchdog contends the USDA has quietly allowed a flood of hydroponically-produced fruits and vegetables, largely imported, to be illegally labeled and sold as “organic.”
This produce is generally grown under artificial lighting, indoors, and on an industrial scale. The Wisconsin-based Cornucopia Institute has filed a formal legal complaint against some of the largest agribusinesses involved in the practice and their organic certifying agents.
The controversy will come to a head in mid-November, when the National Organic Standards Board (NOSB) is expected to vote at its semiannual meeting in St. Louis on whether or not hydroponic operations (growing without soil) should be legalized for organic certification. This vote comes six years after the NOSB initially reaffirmed that hydroponics and aquaponics should be prohibited under the organic label.
Disregarding that prohibition, the USDA has allowed over 100 foreign and domestic soil-less operations to become certified organic, creating unfair competition for soil-based U.S. growers. The U.S. is an outlier in international commerce as most countries prohibit the organic certification of soil-less hydroponic produce, including the 28 countries of the European Union (EU), Mexico, Japan, and Canada.
“Astute consumers have turned to organics to procure fruits and vegetables for their family knowing that certified farmers do a better job of stewarding the land by nurturing the complex biological ecosystem in the soil, which creates nutrient-dense, superior food,” said Mark Kastel, senior farm policy analyst at The Cornucopia Institute. “Hydroponic and container systems rely on liquid fertilizers developed from conventional crops or waste products. Suggesting that they should qualify for organic labeling is a specious argument.”
The Cornucopia complaint specifically targets two of the giants in U.S. hydroponic production, the organic berry behemoth, Driscoll’s, and a major tomato, cucumber, and bell pepper producer, Wholesum Harvest. Both agribusinesses have production in the U.S. and Mexico and are certified by California Certified Organic Farmers (CCOF) and Quality Assurance International (QAI), respectively.
Pioneers of the organic movement, including the “Agrarian Elders” and other diversified farmers, are incensed by the rise of “organic” hydroponics and are leading the “Keep the Soil in Organic” movement. They are witnessing firsthand the displacement of domestic organic produce with hydroponic versions.
These organic farmers argue that organic agriculture has always been entirely centered on the biological complexity found in properly managed, fertile soil. Iconic farmer and author, Eliot Coleman, of Maine explains, “The phrase ‘organic hydroponic’ is an oxymoron—a figure of speech in which contradictory terms appear in conjunction. Hydroponic growers produce crops in sterile surroundings and douse plant roots with liquid nutrients that can never begin to duplicate the biological complexity of fertile soil.”
In addition, organic hydroponic produce, whether imported or grown by giant agribusinesses in the U.S., is not identified in the marketplace. Consumers have no way of knowing if the berries, tomatoes, peppers, or cucumbers they are purchasing are truly organic.
The Cornucopia Institute has engaged the public by distributing a proxy letter to organic stakeholders (available as a download through the hydroponics link in the projects tab on their website). The organization says it has already received thousands of originally signed letters which they will hand deliver to the NOSB at their St. Louis meeting starting November 16.
“There is a higher authority than the USDA, or even the federal courts, in these matters,” said Kastel, “and that’s the community of organic farmers, and their loyal customers who vote every day in the marketplace with their dollars. They are clearly voicing their opposition to the faux organic production that is flooding the marketplace.”
What’s not even mentioned is the energy needed to power artificial lighting to grow crops hydroponically. Crops grown outdoors have a free, sustainable, and very powerful light source: the sun.
***
ANTIBIOTIC RESISTANT BACTERIA IN CONVENTIONAL POULTRY
A new study published in the scientific journal Clinical Infectious Diseases has found evidence that an antibiotic-resistant strain of the bacteria Staphylococcus aureus can be transmitted to consumers via grocery store poultry meat. Robert Skov, a lead researcher on the paper, said in a statement, “At present, meat products represent only a minor transmission route for MRSA to humans, but our findings nevertheless underscore the importance of reducing the use of antibiotics in food-producing animals as well as continuing surveillance of the animal-food-human interface.”
***
ORGANIC FARMING BOOSTS YIELDS, UPS PEST CONTROL
Organic farming increases biological control of pests and yields in barley
A recent study published in Landscape Ecology has reaffirmed that organic farming leads to greater yields and pest control by supporting natural predators, and demonstrated that these benefits associated with organic farming are maintained regardless of the surrounding landscape.
***
LESS ANTIBIOTIC-RESISTANT E. COLI IN ORGANIC PIGS
A study published in the scientific journal PLOS ONE tested swine from four different European countries—Denmark, France, Italy, and Sweden—and found that those raised on organic farms consistently harbored less antibiotic-resistant E. coli than swine raised on conventional farms. “For all four countries, resistance was substantially lower in organic than conventional pigs…This knowledge, together with a continued effort to improve animal health and thereby reduce the overall need for antibiotics, would be valuable to reduce antibiotic resistance without compromising animal welfare,” the authors concluded.
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