Going organic in India

Stephan:  Here is some lovely good news about organic farming in India. I am going to follow this closely to see how it plays out in the years ahead.
An organic farm in Sikkim, India

An organic farm in Sikkim, India

What does it take to turn 75,000 hectares (1 hectare is 2.47 acres, so 75,000 hectares is 185,329 acres)  of farmland organic? Well, people in the state of Sikkim can now speak to that. A mountainous region in eastern India, Sikkim recently became the first state in that country to go fully organic.

The Chief Minister of Sikkim announced this vision for the state’s 290 square miles of agricultural land in 2003, in response to the serious environmental and health problems resulting from chemically intensive farming methods. A combination of political will, use of local farmer’s traditional knowledge and the willingness to share technical know-how made this vision a reality.

This news is especially encouraging coming from India, which has very high rates of pesticide use — and where media stories abound about farmer suicides and pesticide related cancer clusters. This is also a wonderful model to point to as we struggle to […]

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Putin is a bigger threat to Europe’s existence than Isis

Stephan:  George Soros, as I know from direct personal knowledge, was the only uber rich American who understood the opportunity presented by the fall of the Soviet Union. He poured millions of dollars into Russia in the hopes that a democracy could be assisted to emerge. Soros is a true geopolitical thinker -- a remarkably rare skill possessed by very few politicians -- and he understood what was at stake. Unfortunately the American Congress and the Presidency could not rise to the challenge, could not abandon, indeed still has not abandoned Cold War thinking, and so created the conditions that brought Putin to power. In a very real sense the incompetent thinking of the U.S. leadership created Putin. Here is Soros' excellent assessment of what is going on now amongst the EU, the US and Russia. I should note that I completely agree with this essay, and it bodes ill for a peaceful future.
 ‘Once Putin saw the opportunity to hasten the EU’s disintegration, he seized it, ’ asserts George Soros. Credit: Isopix/REX

‘Once Putin saw the opportunity to hasten the EU’s disintegration, he seized it, ’ asserts George Soros.
Credit: Isopix/REX

The leaders of the US and the EU are making a grievous error in thinking that president Vladimir Putin’s Russia is a potential ally in the fight against Islamic State. The evidence contradicts them. Putin’s aim is to foster the EU’s disintegration, and the best way to do so is to flood Europe with Syrian refugees.

Russian planes have been bombing the civilian population in southern Syria forcing them to flee to Jordan and Lebanon. There are now 20,000 Syrian refugees camped out in the desert awaiting admission to Jordan. A smaller number are waiting to enter Lebanon. Both groups are growing.

Russia has also launched a large-scale air attack against […]

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The Koch Brothers’ Dirty War on Solar Power

Stephan:  Arizona, Florida and Nevada have been the trench warfare lines between carbon and non-carbon energy.  This story describes some of this dirty but little discussed combat. It should come as no surprise that the Koch brothers are the Darth Vaders in the story, and that Florida Governor Rick Scott is their thuggish henchman. What always amazes me is that in Red value state voters routinely vote for Creationism and corporations against their own jobs and well-being, and I predict they will do it again in November.
Billionaire industrialists Charles and David Koch

Billionaire industrialists Charles and David Koch.

After decades of false starts, solar power in America is finally poised for its breakthrough moment. The price of solar panels has dropped by more than 80 percent since President Obama took office, and the industry is beginning to compete with coal and natural gas on economics alone.

But the birth of Big Solar poses a grave threat to those who profit from burning fossil fuels. And investor-owned utilities, together with Koch-brothers-funded front groups like American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), are mounting a fierce, rear-guard resistance at the state level – pushing rate hikes and punishing fees for homeowners who turn to solar power. Their efforts have darkened green-energy prospects in could-be solar superpowers like Arizona and Nevada. But nowhere has the solar industry been more eclipsed than in Florida, where the utilities’ powers of obstruction are unrivaled.

The Sunshine State has the best solarity east of the Mississippi, and the third-best rooftop solar potential in America. Yet measured by solar production, it ranks just 16th […]

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This Meat Company Dumps More Pollution Into Waterways Each Year Than ExxonMobil

Stephan:  Animal waste from industrial animal, fish, and fowl husbandry is an enormous problem. Where I grew up on the Chesapeake Bay and, particularly north up toward Maryland, it got so bad it was the killing the Bay's ecosystem. But even I, who follow this trend pretty closely, was not prepared for this report. Tyson Foods in my view is one of the Villain Corporations. We never buy any Tyson product.

Tyson Foods, one of the largest producers of meat in the world, is responsible for dumping more toxic pollution by volume into U.S. waters than companies like Exxon and Dow Chemical, according to a new analysis from environmental advocacy group Environment America.

The analysis, released last Wednesday, coincides with a decision by Tyson shareholders not to institute a new water policy that would have mandated the company keep better track of its water pollution both inside and outside of its direct facilities.

Water pollution from Tyson Foods comes from a variety of sources, from the fertilizer used by farmers to grow feed for animals to the manure produced by raising thousands of animals in factory farms. But those figures aren’t publicly available, as Tyson is only legally required to report pollution from its processing plants to the EPA’s Toxic Release Inventory. According to those reports, Tyson dumped 104 million pounds of pollutants into U.S. waterways between 2010 and 2014 — the second highest volume of toxic discharges reported by any company, and higher than the discharges of companies like US Steel Corp, Koch Industries, and ExxonMobil.

“In the public’s mind, if you were to ask who are the big […]

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If There Are No New Farmers, Who Will Grow Our Food?

Stephan:  For about six years, since I first began seeing data on it, I have been following and writing about  this agriculture trend -- The Transformation of the American Food System, and its Effects on Wellness -- about aging farmers and who will grow food for us after they retire. It is a serious trend that corporate media doesn't talk about, but which is going to affect your life in the future. Here is a report on some of the major relevant issues.
Programs across the country are trying to make it easier for new farmers to get started and put down roots. Here’s why: There’s only one farmer under 35 for every six over 65. By 2030, one-quarter of America’s current farmers will retire.

Programs across the country are trying to make it easier for new farmers to get started and put down roots. Here’s why: There’s only one farmer under 35 for every six over 65. By 2030, one-quarter of America’s current farmers will retire.

Against a backdrop of lush green mountains and swaying papaya trees, La‘amea Lunn readies his crop of carrots, kale, and eggplants for the weekly farmers market. He carefully tends his one-third acre on Oahu, Hawai‘i, preparing produce for a market stall he shares with friends—young farmers like himself, a few of whom he met when they worked neighboring plots on this land owned by the University of Hawai‘i.

At 32, Lunn has an office job with a career in restaurant kitchens behind him. He hopes to own a farm of his own, […]

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