FW: Organic Bytes: Crooked Bankers, Climate Crisis, Sweatshop Beef, Monsanto Busted, and more...

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Organic Bytes: Crooked

Bankers, Climate Crisis, Sweatshop Beef, Monsanto Busted, and more...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hello Laura,

ORGANIC BYTES #146

Health, Justice and Sustainability News Tidbits with an Edge!

 

10/2/2008

 

 

 

IN THIS ISSUE:

 

Quote of the Week

Warning: Latest News on

Global Warming May Cause Soiling of Trousers

Alert of the Week: Say

NO to Sweatshop " Natural " Beef

Web Video of the Week:

Zeitgeist - The Federal Reserve

State Voting Alert: CO,

MI, NC, NM, PA, VA, WI

United Nations

Reprimands Monsanto for Trying to Take Over the World's Food

Supply

EPA and Bush

Administration Finally Busted for Gutting Factory Farm Pollution

Laws

Mad Court vs. Mad Cow

Web Tool of the Week:

Follow the Oil Money

Headlines of the Week

 

 

 

 

Written and edited by Craig Minowa and Ronnie Cummins

 

 

 

 

 

 

Quote of the Week

" I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous

to our liberties than standing armies. If the American people ever

allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by

inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow

up around the banks will deprive the people of all property until their

children wake-up homeless on the continent their fathers

conquered. "

Thomas

Jefferson 1802

For daily information on the nation's economic crisis, and

related news, please bookmark the OCA's website http://www.OrganicConsumers.org as well as two of

our favorite news sources http://www.commondreams.org and http://www.counterpunch.org

And for an informative, uplifting antidote the the network TV

news, tune in to Amy Goodman's daily one-hour video, audio, or print

broadcast, Democracy

Now: http://www.democracynow.org

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Warning:

Latest

News on Global Warming May Cause Soiling of Trousers

Exceeding climate scientists' worst fears, a new global study

shows that greenhouse gas emissions are continuing to rise at

dangerous, life-threatening levels. Due to growing public concern and

efforts around the world to curb runaway fossil fuel pollution, many

climate experts have expected to see CO2 emissions begin to level off

or decline. Unfortunately the latest greenhouse gas statistics, just

released, covering the period of 2006-2007, indicate a three percent

increase in climate-destabilizing CO2 emissions. Three percent may not

sound like a lot, but this figure actually exceeds the most dire

worst-case projections by a group of Nobel Prize-winning international

scientists in 2007.

The U.N's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change warns that

a temperature change between 3.2 and 9.7 degrees Fahrenheit will lead

to catastrophic environmental changes, including massive flooding, crop

failures, starvation, and global conflict. Given the new CO2 emissions

data, basically reflecting government inertia and corporate greed in

large greenhouse gas polluting giants such as the U.S., China, and

India, scientists now project, if current trends continue, a

catastrophic global increase in world temperature of 11 degrees by the

end of this century. The new data also shows the average U.S.

consumer generates more carbon dioxide pollution by far than anyone

else in the world.

This news comes just days after Arctic scientists discovered

that the melting permafrost is releasing millions of tons of methane, a

greenhouse gas 20 times more powerful than CO2. The inconvenient truth

is that more drilling, coal plants, and resource wars like the bloody

occupations in Iraq

and Afghanistan,

compounded by energy, chemical, and greenhouse gas intensive industrial

agriculture, are literally acts of collective suicide. We must make the

transition to a green, relocalized, and organic economy ASAP, and help

the rest of the world, especially China

and India,

do the same, or civilization as we know it is doomed.

Learn more

 

 

 

 

 

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Say NO to Sweatshop " Natural " Beef

Join

OCA, UFW, and the Teamsters Union October 4 & 5 to rally for Farm

Workers' Rights in Front of Whole Foods Markets

Last week, the Organic Consumers Association put a

call out to our network to support the United Farm Workers' ongoing

union drive at Beef Northwest, a chain of Oregon cattle feedlots,

producers of the popular brand, Country Natural Beef. Thousands of you

have responded, signing our petitions or volunteering to leaflet in

front of targeted Whole Foods supermarkets across the country, demanding

an end to labor exploitation in the $70 billion " natural " and

organic food and farming sector.

OCA believes that a healthy and sustainable food system

depends on respect for the workers, animals and the environment.

Unfortunately, labor laws in the United States do very

little to protect the nation's two million farm workers, some of the

most exploited and vulnerable members of our society. Labor unions,

like the United Farm Workers, represent one of the few ways that

workers can organize and gain economic justice and dignity in a system

rife with abuse and exploitation. It's time for Whole Foods to show as

much concern for the workers at its Northwest Beef feedlots, as it

supposedly does for the animals.

For more information about OCA's Whole Foods Campaign, to join

our actions with the UFW and the Teamsters on October 4 & 5, or to

learn more about the realities of farm workers in the United States,

please visit: http://www.organicconsumers.org/ufw.cfm

 

 

 

 

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Web Video of the Week:

Zeitgeist

- The Federal Reserve

The original two hour Zeitgeist movie was released in 2007,

but its provocative and insightful investigation of the history of the

Federal Reserve and the U.S.

central banking system could not be more relevant than right now. Every

American needs to truly understand the background of this system. We

have posted the section of the movie focused on the Federal Reserve.

It'll make you think twice about everything you are hearing in the

news.

Watch

 

 

 

 

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STANDING TOGETHER FOR POSITIVE CHANGE:

HELP OCA FIGHT FOR HEALTH, JUSTICE, & THE ENVIRONMENT

In hard times, nonprofits like the OCA need you

help more than ever. Support the OCA today with a tax-deductible

donation.

Donate Now: http://www.organicconsumers.org/donations.htm

 

 

 

 

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State Voting Alert:

CO, MI,

NC, NM, PA, VA, WI

The Organic Consumers Association has joined the Peace Impact

coalition to do an intensive voter registration and get-out-the-vote

project in seven key states. Please click the state page links below to

get more information on registering to vote, registration deadlines,

early voting, voting by mail, and volunteering to register others. If

you live in one of the above states, please For all others, please follow

 

 

 

 

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United Nations Reprimands Monsanto for Trying to

Take Over the World's Food Supply

The President of the United Nations General Assembly condemned

Monsanto for profiteering in his opening remarks last week. President

H. E. M. Miguel d'Escoto Brockmann noted that the global food crisis is

worse than ever. In his remarks at the UN in New York City, he cited World Bank

figures, which now blame 75% of the food crisis on the current mass

transfer of food crop production towards biofuels. According to

Brockmann, the world's food supply " has been subordinated to the

economic aims of a handful of multinational corporations that

monopolize all aspects of food production, from seeds to major

distribution chains, and they have been the prime beneficiaries of the

world crisis. A look at the figures for 2007, when the world food

crisis began, shows that corporations such as Monsanto and Cargill,

which control the cereals market, saw their profits increase by 45 and

60 per cent, respectively. "

Learn more

 

 

 

 

 

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Good News of the Week:

EPA and

Bush Administration Finally Busted for Gutting Factory Farm Pollution

Laws

In 2007, Organic Bytes reported that the Bush Administration

had eliminated pollution laws that required factory farm pollutants to

be monitored and documented. In place of the old regulations, a new

program was created that invited factory farms, which are more

specifically known as CAFOs (Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations ),

to monitor their own pollution and voluntarily submit those reports to

the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Not surprisingly, last week,

the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) released a report

indicating the new factory farm pollution policies aren't really

working very well. According to the report, the EPA " is

responsible for regulating CAFOs and requires CAFOs that discharge

certain pollutants to obtain a permit. " Yet according to the

report, the EPA isn't effectively regulating factory farm pollution,

because the agency currently has little data on how much and what type

of pollution these CAFOs are putting out. Even more embarrassing, the

EPA's data is so weak, they don't even know how many CAFOs there are. Given

the fact that one of these factory farms can put out as much raw sewage

as a U.S. city, the GAO report suggests it might be a good if the EPA

considered restarting that whole monitoring and enforcing thing it used

to do.

Learn more

 

 

 

 

 

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Mad Court vs. Mad Cow

A federal court has ruled in favor of the USDA in a

long-standing dispute between the agency and a Kansas-based natural

beef company that wants to test all of its meat for Mad Cow Disease.

The USDA currently tests only a tiny percentage of U.S. beef cows for the fatal disease,

unlike the EU or Japan,

where basically all cows are tested at slaughter for the disease. The

USDA's controversial and dangerous policy, an obvious attempt to cover

up the fact that the routine practice of feeding slaughterhouse waste,

blood, and manure to animals on non-organic farms has spread Mad Cow

Disease a to many cows in the USA, has caused a number of major foreign

nations to ban U.S. beef imports.

In an effort to re-establish trade, Creekstone Farms, a natural

beef producer, (which does not feed slaughterhouse waste to its

animals) responded to the loss of its foreign markets in Japan and

Korea by asking the USDA if the company, itself, could pay to have all

of its meat tested for BSE (Mad Cow Disease), thereby assuring leery

foreign buyers of the meat's safety. In an outrageous move, the USDA

threatened the company and its CEO with fines and imprisonment if they

were to begin testing the safety of their beef. Creekstone took the

USDA to court, claiming food manufacturers should have the right to

invest in testing to make sure their food is safe. But a DC Court of

Appeals recently ruled against Creekstone, saying the USDA has

" broad powers' in interpreting how to enforce food safety laws.

Learn more

 

 

 

 

 

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Web Tool of the Week:

Follow

the Oil Money

www.FollowTheOilMoney.org is an

exciting tool that tracks which companies are pumping their dirty oil

money into politics, who is receiving it, and how it correlates to key

climate, energy and war votes. For the first time ever, you can see

exactly how members of Congress who vote in favor of Big Oil also

accept over four times more oil money than those who vote in the public

interest.

 

 

 

 

 

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Headlines of the Week:

1) The Financial Crisis and the Food Crisis: Two Sides of

the Same Coin

2) White House Stops EPA From Regulating Perchlorate

 

3) Thousands of Families Sue Over Vaccine Link to Autism

4) Marketers Eye Fair Trade Certified As the New 'Green'

5) What's Really Going on with the U.S. Economy

Let OCA sift through the media smog and bring you the top new

and analysis of the day. The OCA website has 20 or more news articles

posted each day, and a library of over 4,000 articles covering issues

including health, justice, food and farming, politics, and the

environment. Bookmark OrganicConsumers.org

 

 

 

 

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Mobilizing Organic Consumers In MN

Through the Organic Consumers Fund's Grassroots Netroots Alliance

project, voters are pressing the politicians to support strict organic

standards, mandatory labels for genetically engineered food, and the

conversion of U.S.

farmland to organic. Find out who's answering the call in MN here.

*Learn more about OCA related action alerts and other news in

MN here.

*Join MN discussion groups in our forum.

*Post events in MN on our community calendar

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

SIGN-UP FOR OCA'S ACTION ALERTS

 

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DR. BRONNER'S MAGIC SOAPS HELPS LEAD WAY

IN ORGANIC BODY CARE

NEW! Dr. Bronner's USDA Certified Organic personal care products

AVAILABLE NOW IN OUR NEW WEB STORE!

Dr. Bronner's is supporting the Organic Consumers Association's " Coming

Clean " campaign for strong organic body care standards. For more info on Dr. Bronner's go here!

 

 

 

 

 

Please forward this publication

to family and friends, place it on web sites, print it, duplicate it and

post it freely. Knowledge is power!

 

NOTE TO CO-OP AND NATURAL FOOD STORE SUBSCRIBERS:

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Phone: (218)- 226-4164 Fax: (218) 353-7652

 

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