#212 11 F e b 10
ORGANIC
Org a nic Consum er s A sso ci at ion
Climate Catastrophe:
Surviving the 21st Century
by Ronnie Cummins and Will Allen
The climate, energy, and political catastrophe we are facing is
mind-boggling and frightening. Yet there is still time to save
ourselves, to move beyond psychological denial, despair, or
false optimism. There is still hope if we are willing to con-
front the hydra-headed monsters that block our path, and
move ahead with a decisive plan of action. The inspirational
message we need to deliver is that we’re not just talking about
drastically reducing fossil fuel use and greenhouse gas pollu-
tion, but rebuilding society, creating in effect a New Woman
and a New Man for the 21st Century. What we are witnessing
are the early stages of a mass grassroots consciousness-raising
and taking back of power from out-of-control corporations,
banks, corporate-controlled media, and politicians. This cul-
tural and political revolution will empower us to carry out a
deep and profound retrofitting of industry, government, edu-
cation, health care, housing, neighborhoods, transportation,
food and farming systems, as well as our diets and lifestyles.
Read more: www.is.gd/8c7bn
Stop Spreading Sewage Sludge!
Thank you to everyone who sent an e-mail to San Francisco
Mayor Gavin Newsom asking him to stop San Francisco’s
sewage sludge giveaway program. His office has been flooded
with thousands of e-mails, but the city’s not talking to us yet.
We need to step up the pressure. This week, we’d like to ask
you to make calls to Mayor Newsom’s office.
In 2008, Organic Style Magazine called San Francisco Mayor
Gavin Newsom the World’s Greenest Mayor. Apparently,
Organic Style wasn’t aware that the “World’s Greenest Mayor”
is, in the guise of giving something valuable to its own citi-
zens, giving toxic sewage sludge to city gardeners touting it as
“organic biosolids compost.”
San Francisco—like many other cities in the country—con-
tracts with a sewage sludge company (Synagro) to “trans-
port and dispose of” its sludge. Since dumping sludge in the
oceans was stopped in 1991, dumping sludge on farmland
(this is called “land application”) became the cheapest way to
dispose of sludge.
The thing that distinguishes San Francisco from other cit-
ies dumping sludge on farmland is that it has launched an
aggressive PR offensive targeting its own citizens to get them
to help dispose of toxic sludge in their own gardens.
This campaign involves falsely labeling the sewage sludge
as “organic biosolids compost” and holding well-publicized
free giveaways of sludge-in-disguise to gardeners who then
unwittingly turn their own gardens into hazardous materi-
als dumps.
If the World’s Greenest Mayor can get away with this, watch
out, because there’s no telling what the toxic sludge industry
will do in your town!
That’s why we’re putting out a national call to all of our mem-
bers and readers to encourage organic consumers across the
country to help us stop San Francisco’s toxic sewage sludge
giveaways. Please take action today: www.is.gd/8c7qK
Written and edited by Alexis Baden-Mayer & Ronnie Cummins · Please post, distribute, & subscribe: organicconsumers.org/organicbytes.cfm
We are Making Positive Change · Our Work Depends on You! Please Donate: www.organicconsumers.org/donations.cfm
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Victory!
USDA Drops National
Animal ID Program
Under pressure from small farmers and
organic consumers, the USDA announced on
February 5, 2010, that it is suspending its con-
troversial National Animal Identification System
(NAIS) and offering a new approach to tracking
animal disease and food contamination. This is a
major victory for the OCA, our allies, and organic
farmers and ranchers, who have complained that the USDA’s goal of tagging every
farm animal in country wouldn’t do anything to prevent disease, would be unneces-
sary and expensive for small and organic farmers, and couldn’t be enforced without
violations of privacy and religion.
Already, the implementation of NAIS in Wisconsin has resulted in an Amish farmer
and a small-scale cattle rancher being charged and fined for not registering, and in
Michigan a cattle farmer’s herd was put under quarantine and forcibly tagged when
he wouldn’t submit to the state’s mandatory NAIS program.
For more information: organicconsumers.org/nais_faq.cfm
Take Action: Save Family Fishermen & Women!
Policy decisions that have transformed farms into industrial food production
machines with grave ecological, health and economic consequences are being mir-
rored on the marine side. The fishing industry is being industrialized and corpora-
tized with disastrous consequences.
As concerned organic consumers we urge everyone who cares about the nation’s
small fishermen and fishing communities to stand shoulder to shoulder with us at
the US Capitol and noon on February 24th and demand a sea change in fisheries
management. Just as dairy farmers are being forced off their land at an alarming rate,
large fishing corporations are putting hard working family fishermen out of business,
destroying fishing communities and endangering our access to locally caught and
sustainably harvested seafood.
On Wednesday, February 24 from noon to 3pm, commercial, recreation and charter
fishermen will gather on the steps of the Capitol Building in Washington, DC to pro-
test the current mismanagement of our nation’s fisheries.
The rally, under the “United We Fish” campaign, will tell Congress that the Mag-
nuson-Stevens Fishery and Conservation Act of 2006, the nation’s federal fisheries
management legislation, is being manipulated to favor large corporations and pun-
ish small producers.
Learn more: www.unitedwefish.blogspot.com and www.savingseafood.com
Sign the petition: www.is.gd/8c6Rl
McCain Bill Would Repeal Access to Supplements
McCain’s so-called Dietary Supplement Safety Act would repeal key sections of the
popular Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act. It would give the FDA uni-
lateral power, with little or no scientific justification, to ban vitamin supplements
except for those produced by Big Pharma corporations.
If McCain’s bill passes, we can look to Europe for a snapshot of what we may be in for:
the European Food Safety Authority has sharply reduced the list of available supple-
ments and is in process of reducing potencies to ridiculous levels, such as less beta
carotene than can be found in half of a large carrot. Europeans already look to the US
to obtain their dietary supplements.
If this bill passes, where will we obtain ours?
Please take action immediately. Tell your senators not to co-sponsor the McCain’s
anti-consumer legislation and to do everything in their power to defeat it. Then for-
ward this to your friends and family and ask them to do the same! www.is.gd/8c72G