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Food Democracy Now! Petition Sustainable Choices for the USDA

Food Democracy Now! is a grassroots campaign comprised of farmers, writers, activists, policy advocates and people who eat. A petition is circulating to bring our attention to the desperate need for sustainable practices regarding food. The Food Democracy Now! petition asks President-elect Barack Obama and newly appointed Secretary of Agriculture, Tom Vilsack to consider leaders for the Under Secretary level who understand organic and sustainable agriculture.

While some are more concerned with the appointment of Vilsack, Dave Murphy of FoodDemocracyNow! remains hopeful;

We understand that many in the sustainable agriculture community are disappointed with President-elect Obama’s selection of former Iowan Governor as our next Secretary of Agriculture. Concern over his record regarding genetically modified organisms (GMOs) and the proliferation of confined animal feeding operations (CAFOs) during his time in office have given many in this community pause over the type of change he may be willing to implement as the head of the USDA. The fact is that many in Iowa who have worked with Gov. Vilsack in the past have always appreciated his willingness to listen to the concerns of family farm and rural advocates and believe that he may be able to realize more progressive change at the USDA as he will not be hampered by a Republican House and Senate as he was as governor. We are also encouraged by the fact that President-elect Obama has committed to payment limitations, eliminating subsidies for factory farms and labeling GMOs in the human food chain.

Twelve sustainable choices are listed at the end of the petition. FoodDemocracyNow! is working hard to get 100,000 signatures by January 1st, 2009. To join the likes of Bill McKibben, Michael Pollan, Wendell Berry and Eric Schlosser, just to name a few, SIGN IT!

agriculture, community, farm, farms, Food, mckibben, Michael Pollan, NYTimes, Obama, Organic, Outdoors, sustainable, USDA

The New York Times Features Eco Chick Guide to Life!

4 Comments

by Starre Vartan · 09/22/08

Wow, I really wasn’t expecting this, I must say! In the Style section of the Sunday edition of the paper, right where I belong

You can read the review on the Times’ site here, or below. I have to say it certainly IS bizarre to be mentioned alongside Sarah Palin, whose policies I couldn’t object to more (especially her support for the Alaskan wolf-shooting free-for-all that was a program I specifically organized against when I worked for Friends of Animals). Her pro-drilling stance (we need alternative energy, not more oil to exacerbate global warming) and anti-birth control positions (like the world needs MORE people!!) are horrors to this environmentalist’s heart.

But maybe Ms. Palin will pick up a copy of my book after this- who know? Enjoy!

EVERY now and then, someone comes along who shows the rest of us how much we take for granted the freedoms of our daily lives. The eco-journalist, blogger and all-around green genie Starre Vartan is one such person. In “The Eco Chick Guide to Life,” her earth-first program for glamorous but environmentally conscious living, she mines new lodes of guilt, finding gems of awareness and providing detailed eco-wise shopping guides for the body, the closet, the home and the larder.
Not everyone will find it easy to get with her program. Ms. Vartan shares her tips for eschewing wasteful packaging products. For example, did you realize you could make your own toothpaste, dog toys and mildew remover? And turn stained scraps of cloth and tarps into handbags?
Still, she understands that most people prefer to go shopping, and allows for substitutions. For instance, once you’ve sworn off leather and pleather (whose manufacture unleashes “known carcinogens and water polluters”), you can splash out on shoes made of hemp, canvas, car tires, or wood and cork. But if you’d like to hew to her line, she has plenty of recommendations, not only for when you’re up and about, but for when you’re in the bedroom. Shun furniture from old-growth forests, and buy vintage whenever possible. As for the bedroom, “Once you see your bed as a product of the industrial chemical industry” — tainted with formaldehyde and toxic glues, and topped with a mattress “suffused in flame-retardants” — you may want to spring for one of the organic mattresses that Ms. Vartan prefers. “Sexy AND healthy,” she explains.
This all may sound a bit obsessive, despite its upbeat, energetic presentation. But Ms. Vartan argues that nature’s warning signs are so plentiful that “nobody can ignore the fact that there’s an environmental crisis going on.” She cites “wacky” weather, the spread of toxins through the food chain and the extinction of thousands of plant and animal species.
MS. VARTAN’S sensibility may be catching on. Only last week, Sarah Palin, the governor of Alaska and the Republican nominee for vice president, backed off somewhat from previous statements that diminished the human role in the environmental crisis commonly called global warming. During an interview with Charles Gibson on ABC, Governor Palin said, “I’m attributing some of man’s activities to potentially causing some of the changes in the climate.”
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eco chick guide to life, media, NYTimes, Politics

Cell Towers and Health Effects: Cellular Disservice?

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by Kimberly Jordan Allen · 07/08/08

This past week a local in my town contacted me to see if I would be interested in discussing the issues surrounding a potential cellular tower that would be constructed within one mile of my house. Some of us from the town had the chance to voice our concerns to the Connecticut Siting Council, which is the governing body that determines zoning for these towers in our state.

Having written about microwave energy and electromagnetic fields a few years ago, I remembered interviewing Carl Blackman, a research scientist in the Environmental Carcinogenesis Division of the EPA, and asking him about cell phones and cellular base stations in relation to electromagnetic fields and the possible health impact. Blackman was one among quite a few scientists and researchers I interviewed who reiterated the same sentiment: “We just don’t know yet. The science is not in.” The fact that the jury is still out on this vast topic, in a field (pardon the pun) that is ever-expanding, is enough, for some, to warrant grassroots action.

The subject is controversial and highly debated, although the issue is one that people are dealing with world-wide. The fear is that without mobile phones and cell towers covering every inch of land, emergency services will be left without connection, leaving us, “with a hole big enough to drive a hearse through…” as I recently read in a concerned citizen’s letter to the NYTimes. One concern is that the proliferation of these towers and devices has gone largely unmonitored, unregulated, and, according to some scientists, could potentially lead to serious health issues.

The World Health Organization has advised that the “precautionary principle” be enacted as a preemptive move before certainty of harm is verified by science. This essentially means that when any new technology is evolving beyond the scope of scientific research, it is advisable to protect oneself through risk management. So, while some still think that those who discuss this topic with seriousness are delusional and should be stuttering through the park, wearing a tinfoil hat, others, including the World Health Organization, the National Institutes of Health, and member countries of the European union feel it is worth serious discussion.

In Europe, some governments have set exposure standards below those of the standardizing agencies, in order to try to protect their citizens. In India, towers were recently banned from school and residential areas to protect people following studies that showed potential harm to the brain. The United States Federal Telecommunications Act of 1996, Section 704(a) removes environmental considerations from the tower siting process, which denies citizens the opportunity to protest based on ecological concerns (zoning) or health issues.

In 2006, the International Association of Firefighters (IAFF,) the largest union of first responders in North America, passed a resolution banning cellular towers from firehouses until more research is done, because firefighters were suffering from ill health. Internationally, the concern regarding the exponential proliferation of wireless devices and base stations to support them has provoked scientific studies and prompted legislators to err on the side of caution when it comes to regulations. Many scientists are discussing the potential impact on DNA, neurological function, and human health while others study migratory birds and the reproduction patterns of all animal populations in the vicinity of strong electromagnetic fields.

In my town, in NW Connecticut, we are currently experiencing the battle. The cellular tower has been proposed to be on Route 7, a scenic highway that runs parallel with the Appalachian Trail. The AT park manager has sent a letter in response to the proposed tower stating that they had no problem with it, so long as Cellco/Verizon makes the tower look like a tree and plants 25 white pines along the trail.

The tower site is also within one mile of two schools and is next door to the largest employer of the town. The site abuts a friend’s property. Both he and his wife are cancer survivors and fear the tower could affect their health. At the public hearing, where town members were allowed to voice their opinions to the siting commission (who ultimately decides whether the tower goes up or not,) people expressed various concerns:
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allergies, Animals, birds, Cancer, car, children, death, Energy, epa, Europe, farm, health, India, interview, local, magazine, media, mom, News, NYTimes, oil, opinion, Outdoors, Plants, schools, skin, spring, Technology, Teens, trees

The Kids Are Not Going to Be Alright: They're Going to Be Pissed

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by Starre Vartan · 12/20/07

Several of my friends have had babies in the last few years, and some are on their second round already. Though it seems to me that there are far too many people on the planet already, it’s difficult to begrudge anyone the basic human drive to reproduce, and my friends’ kids ARE ridiculously cute. I’m pretty sure they are all genius artists who will invent the next version of rock ‘n roll and create world peace, too. But every time I play with them, surrounded as they typically are by plastic toys, educational videos and the other detritus of modern children’s lives, I look into their eyes and I know: in 20 years, they are going to hate us.

Of course all teenagers and college students hate their parents a little bit (or a lot, depending on the hormones), as it’s part of forging one’s own identity. Isn’t it the American way to hold your parents in contempt until you’re at least 25, and then become them?

But these kids are going to have good reason for their anger, and I predict a revolution when these tiny tots grow to understand the legacy their parents have left them. They will inherit a planet-wide environmental mess, and it might not be impossible to fix, but it’s going to take the best minds of their age (plus their offspring), lots of money, and a singular desperation to fix what’s wrong before it’s too late. What these kids face in the coming years will make the mistakes my generation has been left with: Rockefeller drug laws, repeated pointless wars in the Middle East, and lack of marriage rights for homosexuals, seem like quaint oopsies in comparison. They’ll be figuring out how to handle the planet-altering effects of massive droughts (hey, it’s already happening) and global warming has barely gotten underway), disintegration of ecological webs as species disappear during the current mass extinction, and human migration due to the effects of global warming, not to mention changes we can’t even foresee yet.

Well, you say, each generation has to pick up after the one prior to it in one way or another; what gives those kids in diapers more permission than anyone else to let us have it? The answer is that we know what we’re doing to the environment and we still continue to do it.

adults, atmosphere, babies, children, Energy, fall, Global Warming, health, junk, kids, mainstream, media, movies, New York Times, News, NYTimes, plastic, produce, recycle, resources, spring, style, sustainable, Target, Tea, video, Vote, waste

We Be Jammin'

9 Comments

by Starre Vartan · 11/04/07

Noise Pollution is Environmental Pollution
What’s more annoying than a crying baby? Ruder than tossing a butt on the street? More disgusting than an airsick neighbor on a plane?

Cell phone chatter.

BLAH, BLAH BLAH….why don’t people GET it? Nobody wants to hear what you’re saying into your mobile phone! I don’t care if you grandfather is dying, your dog pooped on the floor, or that you got a raise. I JUST WANT SOME QUIET!!!!!

And now that I know these details of your life, I HATE YOU. Even though I’m sure if I met you at a party over a wine or three, you’d be my new best friend.

Yes, I know I should be a more zen person, content to let life’s annoyances float over my head with nothing more than a nod and a beautific smile, but damn it, no matter how hard I try to achieve the zen there’s always a person on a phone to challenge me anew. And it’s a battle I rarely win.

If noise pollution is environmental pollution, then inappropriate cell phone chit-chat should be treated like the toxic crap it is. Shut it down and contain it. But how? These people rarely respond to rude looks and shushing.

Now there’s a pollution solution.

Jammers Unite!

This article in the NYTimes (OK, so I’m now officially behind the times, yuk, yuk, but I really didn’t know about these being so easily available) shows us how we can all start blocking cell phone signals in a significant area around our persons. Cell phone jammers block the signal between the tower and the phones within a given area and calls are cut off. I can’t wait to use this on the train, judiciously, of course. Only obnoxious a**holes who can’t follow the rules (on my train it’s simple; speak in a low and civil tone, and go into the vestibule for extended conversations).

If a significant percentage of the population does this, soon we’ll have a little peace and quiet where before there was just constant jabber. Let’s do it!

Shout out to Bri for hooking me up with this article.

Baby, car, farm, NYTimes, party, Pollution, Technology, Wine