The same articled reported that The Sierra Club led the effort to stop these bills with the Humane Society of the U.S., “exerting significant pressure on the legislature” to revise the bills for real change. There was a threat of a ballot initiative. A ballot initiative or popular or citizen’s initiative “provides a means by which a petition signed by a certain minimum number of registered voters can force a public vote.” Evidently the CAFO industry in Michigan wanted none of that because a public vote means a heck of a lot more public scrutiny, an expose of the horrific lifestyle of CAFO animals is more like it.

The combined effort resulted in a new bill that gives”three species of confined animals more room to move.” That would be pigs, egg-laying chickens, and calves. Although the ag industry has 10 years to adopt this bill, it’s a victory over corporate agriculture and I hope a trend for more animal rights within the ag industry that have been non-existent for far too long.

I believe farm animal rights is directly connected to tainted food. Poorly treated animals equal sick animals. That’s why they were given antibiotics for years. If live animals are treated horrendously than the facilities that process the dead carcasses can hardly be any better. The latest recall of half a million pounds of ground beef was a wake up call for many. For a couple of people it was a death toll.

When we have to rush to our freezers to throw out food that may make us ill or even kill us reform is needed big time. Every little step counts. Thanks to those that took the time to contact their reps too. Between organizations like Michigan’s Sierra Club, The Humane Society of the U.S., and hundreds of other organizations that work tirelessly behind the scenes and involved citizens that bother to let their reps know what they want great things can be accomplished one step at a time.

Consumers have been warned about storing food in plastic, especially when that plastic container is also used in the microwave to heat the contents before eating because of BPA. Bisphenol A leaches from the plastic into the food. Baby bottles pose the greatest risk to children. And children suffer the worst from BPA especially the unborn fetus. BPA causes premature births and defects because it is a phthalate and phthalates are endocrine disruptors meaning they interfere with hormones.

I did a blog on BPA and other chemicals in plastics. I even suggested that BPA may be the reason for so much male pattern baldness, which is directly related to overproduction of certain hormones. The reports of defects in male babies from phthalates are horrifying. And it’s not a small percentage. One in three hundred baby boys are affected. Read the blog:
http://www.blogsmonroe.com/world/2008/05/plastics-birth-defects-baldness/.

Now we find that cans and food are a bad recipe too. Don’t think frozen food goes unscathed either. I just got home from the supermarket. Passing along the frozen food aisles, I picked up a couple of those entire “ready to cook” meals. You know the ones—in the PLASTIC bags.

And we wonder why cancer is on the rise? We’re gathering far more toxins from the air, earth, water, and food we eat than our grandparents. The FDA is investigating how and why the BPA is in canned food. Hopefully, we’ll soon seen BPA free canned goods.

How friendly is it? The rallies are nothing more than the tangible power of polluting industries like coal and oil that are backing them and strangling the rest of America from moving forward with clean energy jobs, work on new infrastructure to deliver that clean energy, and economic turnaround, not to mention the health aspects of cleaner air and water for generations to come.

It’s ludicrous to call this movement “friendly” to America at all. Who releases invisible, and sometimes odorless, but nevertheless harmful pollutants into the air that also ends up in our water? Who dumps chemicals, drugs, and makes huge environmental mistakes like oil spills and coal slurry spills into our waterways? And did it ever occur to anyone that when we’re assured from the different polluting entities that the parts per million or PPM that is being released is well within the limits of what is healthful for humans that there are 100’s of other industries saying likewise? So the safe limits of PPM of mercury, ammonia, carcinogens from incinerators, and the thousands of supposedly controlled substances entering the air meet up with the PPM limits of mercury, lead, pharmaceutical compounds, big Ag runoff and the like found in our drinking water that meet up with the sometimes tainted food we eat full of additives like corn syrup solids that help along the Type II diabetes problem in the U.S.

The industries that do this to our air, water, and food protest global warming as way to sideline the real issue, which is their pollution, in order stop any policies that might make them clean up their mess, and to avert new green industry that is competition. It’s one of the greediest ploys ever and polluting industry is pulling out all the stops. They put saving jobs out front at these rallies to mask the bad they do to the environment and all of us including their employees in the long run. The rise in cancer rates and new diseases isn’t a coincidence but may be more of an indication of what we’re really eating, breathing, and drinking.

These anti-environmental rallies are called “grassroots” events but DeSmogBlog dubbed them “glorified company picnics.” A New Mexico blog FBIHOP reported: “The Houston Astroturf event [was] an ‘energy employee’s rally’ a more fitting description of the closed door event that drew somewhere between 2,500-3,500 oil industry employees who were bussed in and given yellow ‘Energy Citizen’ t-shirts in “‘another high-priced photo op for the oil and gas industry.’”

It was also stated that one of the rallies in Texas was organized by the DW Turner PR firm that represents BP and Chevron.

The biggest “Friends of America” rally slated for Labor Day in West Virginia is no different. It’s backed by none other than Massey Energy that is a notoriously dirty coal company. According to the Rural Blog, The Lexington Herald-Leader reported:

Massey Energy Co. will pay a record $20 million for polluting streams around its coal mines in Kentucky and West Virginia, and spend another $10 million to prevent future problems. The lawsuit filed by the Environmental Protection Agency last May charged that Massey discharged excess amounts of metals, sediment and acid mine drainage into hundreds of rivers and streams in the two states.

The Rural Blog also included Louisville’s The Courier-Journal statement:

The civil penalty [for Massey] is the largest ever for violating wastewater discharge permits, and “stems from the massive, 300-million-gallon slurry spill in Martin County, Ky., in October 2000, often described as the southeastern United States’ worst environmental disaster, as well as 4,500 violations of Clean Water Act permits at mines in the two states. Many of the violations exceeded limits by 40 percent, with some pollutants discharged at levels more than 10 times their limit, the government said.

So if you run across Massey’s CEO Don Blankenship’s invitation to the Labor Day rally on You Tube where he says: “Hello I’m Don Blankenship and I’d like to invite you to a Labor Day rally in West Virginia. We’re going to have Hank Williams and have a good time but we’re also going to learn how environmental extremists and corporate America are both trying to destroy your jobs,” beware of the devil who likes to confuse.

Massey IS corporate America at its polluting finest. These rallies support the real extremists.

BTW the rallies aren’t limited to a few states. Michigan has one slated for September 3rd, Detroit’s Burton Manor Banquet and Conference Center.

http://www.allbusiness.com/legal/trial-procedure-suits-claims/10272123-1.html
.

http://irjci.blogspot.com/2008/01/massey-paying-record-penalty-for-water.html.

http://act.credoaction.com/campaign/verizon_massey/?rc=homepage.

The 7-year study tested more than a 1,000 fish. The USGS warns Americans to limit the amount of large predator freshwater fish they eat like WALLEYE! Hear that Michiganders? Enjoy, but limit the amount you eat.

Even worse about a quarter of all those fish have mercury levels higher than what the EPA says is safe. If you followed my blogs through a few years of the Bush Administration, the EPA was corporate friendly to say the least.

The article then defers to the National Fisheries Institute’s response to this study: “If you have a family member that’s out there fishing in a stream, beware.” That pretty much supports the story. The Fisheries Institute just wanted to make it clear that the fish you buy in a store isn’t as bad as that fish you caught in what you thought was a nice clear stream. I did a blog on this long ago. You’ve got a choice of wild caught fish with mercury or farm raised fish with PCB’s.

Since I sit in my TV room that overlooks the canal while I write this, I’m also looking at the wetlands behind my house. I can’t help but think of the huge chain of animals that call the canal home–all the little baby geese, and ducks that I’ve fed that swim up every spring, the little muskrats that run up my berm and grab one of my apples on the ground, the turtles that sun themselves on the downed logs, and all the birds in the mix including swans. I can’t help but think what we’ve done to them. Not fair, not fair at all.

And just what causes mercury in the water EVERYWHERE? Gee I wonder. Did you know that the coal lobby managed to gouge holes in the House version of the American Climate and Energy Security Act so that coalburners will still supply half of our electricity until 2025 and the rate of pollution will go unchanged for the next 15 years? According to Earthjustice, not only will they keep polluting but may expand with 27 new coalburners that will also be exempt from having to curb or capture any pollution.

When you consider the fuss Americans made at the American auto industry for producing gas guzzling, polluting SUV’s because the same American’s demanded those types of cars, you can clearly see this is a really unfair playing field as to who is towing the line on pollution or not. The coal industry is no different than oil—they are fat with money unlike our auto industry. Money talks. That’s what every other polluting industry thinks too. As Earthjustice reports, “The concessions the coal industry has gained so far have encouraged other fossil fuel lobbyists to step up their efforts to maintain the disastrous status quo.” That means some pretty hefty offers heaped on our congress people.

And everyone is already saying the Senate will never pass the House version. The Senate will undoubtedly water it down more. Unless of course we voice our opinion to our reps to move forward and not weaken the bill but fill those unfair gaps in a bill that must include all industry not just a chosen few.

We’re going to shoot off our foot before long and continue working up our leg if we don’t see that reform isn’t a choice but a necessity.

http://unearthed.earthjustice.org/blog/2009-july/trip-van-noppen/lets-defend-climate-change-bill.

Aside from illness is the resident’s inability to sell their homes. One small business owner said his filters, heat boiler, and water softener got so clogged with iron they no longer worked. Who’s going to pay for that? And why has the state been so slow to do something about the ever-growing contaminated plumes infiltrating our groundwater? The article claims state officials have known about the problem for at least a decade. But the reason nothing has been done is because agriculture is the number 2 industry in Michigan employing thousands and bringing in billions.

What I don’t understand is if this industry is so profitable why don’t they put some money toward cleaning up their act? The article went on to say that the state and industry are working out the problems behind closed doors and without public input. What we have here is self-regulation that went horribly wrong. Belief in self-regulating industry comes from none other than Michigan’s Republican Senate.

I distinctly remember Michigan Democratic congress people trying to get stiffer regulations on CAFO’s in the past few years. They cited pollution of the interior of N.C. as an example of what can happen when huge industries like Smithfield Foods in that instance contaminated land, streams, and eventually the coastal waters from their practice of spraying fields with wastewater that included animal feces, blood, pesticides, antibiotics, etc. But our Senate squashed the Dem’s proposal saying the current regulations were good enough. They took the less is better route, (trusting industry), and opting to fine perpetrators when and if an “accident” happened. Only this is no accident. It’s standard practice for industry to spray their wastewater on surrounding land. What the senate proposed was: “We’ll smack them on the back of their hands, and fine them for being bad,” then back to business as usual. And the senate won.

I also wrote a blog just about a year ago that the state was cutting the DEQ, so no one would be around to monitor wetland contamination (groundwater) or pollution spills. http://www.blogsmonroe.com/world/2008/09/deq-wont-be-checking-on-wetlands-or-pollution-spills-due-to-cuts/. The gist of that blog, however, was how the Republican Senate just a few months earlier fought to keep at least 25% of all of Michigan’s groundwater out of the Great Lakes Compact, and specifically out of the public’s domain. Surely they anticipated more statewide cuts in light of the economy, which would leave wetlands and/or groundwater not only unprotected but also without regulators nosing around. It was an industry’s dream scenario.

So Michigan’s Republican Senate is responsible for blocking more regulation for CAFO pollution that directly affects our groundwater, fighting to keep 25% of Michigan’s groundwater from protection under the Great Lakes Compact, and the whole time knowing full well that there would be fewer regulators on hand to monitor any violators. The citizen’s in the Freep article should be “Afraid of the Water”—very afraid. They should thank Michigan’s Senate for helping industry along.

Michigan’s Republican Senate has protected industry above the health and monetary concerns of Michigan residents more than not. This is not how government is supposed to work. We elect officials to represent us not industry. You may say the senate is only protecting jobs. At 63 billion in profits last year just for Michigan’s food industry, they can afford to be good stewards of the land that keeps them in business. Job loss is just a threat. What they really fear is profit loss. But if industry, especially the food industry, continues their practices as before, they are in essence, stupidly poisoning the ground that feeds them, and everyone else in their path.

The Waterpod is a revamped “green” barge that is parked at Brooklyn Bridge Park in New York right now but will float along to visit all 5 burroughs of New York in a 6 month stretch. It’s a home/gallery for the artists on board where vistors can come and view the ways the ship sustains itself. There are organic gardens with some 27 different kinds of vegetables, two kinds of fruit, and even chickens. The gardens are watered with “gray” water, or water that is used for washing, showering, etc., that is recycled. There is a manual treadmill pumping system that delivers the water to the gardens for about an hour every day. The project is evolving as it moves along. There are plans for hydroponic gardens and I see that there will be an art gallery to visit on board.

I saw some of the Waterpod on Good Morning America. Each artist has pretty cramped living quarters but his/her living space with no lack of technical gadgetry is solar and battery powered for now with plans to incorporate wind power too. The Waterpod Project website has a layout map of all the things that have been incorporated on this barge to make it a viable living and commercial space.

Have a look at what some enterprising engineers have come up with as a possibility for green living space in the future.

http://www.thewaterpod.org/about.html/a>

Please read this article and know what you are eating and what that poor animal goes through in the process. Once you’ve got a grasp of what big factory farms are all about, remember that the Department of Agriculture has been turning a blind eye to them to for years. At a time when many of us are becoming more and more environmentally conscious, we know that not only preserving small farms but also helping them to flourish once again is key to getting healthier food on our plates while allowing animals a lifestyle they deserve.

In my last blog I quoted Dr. Albert Schweitzer regarding compassion for all living things, that it is the root of all ethics. Well there are far too many people in Michigan’s House of Representatives that just don’t get it. Compassion for living things, including other human beings, is drastically slipping in our so-called “Christian” country. It begins with animals.

House Bill 5127 according to the Humane Society of the U.S., grants the Department of Agriculture sole authority to regulate livestock health and welfare, and require the Department to adopt industry standards regarding the treatment of farm animals. They also preempt local ordinances or regulations regarding animal care standards for farm animals. And HB 5128 establishes an industry dominated animal care advisory council to review and establish animal care standards for farm animals.

What? The very people, the USDA, that have turned a blind eye to the abuse of farm animals relative to factory farms for years are to be in charge? After reading the link above, anyone with a conscious could not possibly allow these bills to pass. What happened in S. Carolina’s factory farms resulted in one of the largest fines for pollution by the EPA ever. It was against Smithfield Foods. The USDA knew about it, but Smithfield Foods has deep pockets. If the pollution from that Smithfield Food’s factory farm in the interior of S. Carolina made it all the way to the ocean, what are factory farms even doing in a place like Michigan surrounded by fresh water? All of us know that groundwater eventually ends up in the lakes, yet there are 2200 factory farms currently in Michigan. Now our legislature wants to water down farm animal rights and regulation by granting the USDA complete control of our farm animal’s welfare?

This is not good for farm animal’s lives, Michigan’s food supply, or our fresh water supplies. It just looks like a way to dump responsibility on an already overburdened federal agency because it’s cheaper and/or easier. Granting the USDA the right to decide what happens to cows, pigs, chickens, turkeys, etc., is like the fox watching the henhouse again. Big corporations will lobby the USDA as they have in the past and end up with control of everything.

Monroe can call Kate Ebli about voting against these bills in the Michigan House at 517-373-2617. Your call can make a big difference to all the farm animals in Michigan, our food and dairy supplies, and our freshwater. We need to start living more compassionate lives. It’s called EMPATHY, the ability to put ourselves in another’s position, right down to animals. There is no reason for cruelty toward something innocent–ever.

But the biggest travesty is that the people on this island off the SE coast of Africa are already suffering a severe food crisis. Naturally they are protesting because they may soon be losing THEIR land. This in turn is causing a governmental crisis. The world needs to let the people of Madagascar and those CEO’s of Daewoo know we are watching and will not in any way stand around and let this happen. We know about the wonderful biodiversity there and the plight of the people. What business does Korea have intruding on an island off of Africa anyway? We’re worried about N. Korea, and S. Korea proposes to do this? This is just not getting enough media attention considering the biodiversity issue at stake. Some of the world’s most rare creatures are found in Madagascar ONLY.

Anyone with children has seen the animated features “Madagascar and Madagascar II.” Like “Charlotte’s Web” these animated animal icons in Madagascar films are far removed from the horror the creatures they imitate suffer in real life. Little pigs like the one in “Charlotte’s Web” more than not will be found rotating in their whole bodily form on some rotisserie barbeque somewhere this summer. And the animals in “Madagascar” are no different. The lemur is already endangered. We’ve watched the Discovery, Science, Nat Geo, and Sundance Channels, Jeff Irwin and Jack Hanna enough to catch presentations about Madagascar and hopefully comprehend that Madagascar is a biological wonder http://www.wildmadagascar.org/overview/FAQs/.
That notwithstanding, the hostile takeover of any people’s agricultural property by another country, especially a people already suffering a food crisis, should be a call for intervention by the U.N. if their own country doesn’t soon support them.

We’re hardly hearing about this advance on Madagascar in the news. Please sign petitions to let both Korea and Madagascar know the world is watching and protesting. The people of Madagascar have managed to keep the biodiversity of their island country in tact forever. Just last year they agreed to “sell more than nine million tons of carbon offsets to fund rainforest conservation in a newly established protected area. Conservationists say the deal protects endangered wildlife, promotes sustainable development to improve the economic well-being of people living in and around the park area, and helps fight global warming” according to the website “wildmadagascar.org.” And this is how they are repaid by the world community? Much of that biodiversity could be lost with one bad decision, the decision to look the other way instead of protesting along with the people of that country. The U.S. should have much to say to S. Korea about this proposed plan.

To sign petitions: http://www.care2.com/c2c/share/detail/1172161.

http://www.regenwald.org/international/englisch/.

Since 1975 exposure to cancer causing agents in the environment has increased. Remember the early 70’s the Clean Air and Water Act was enacted because we were polluting horribly. All the reports I’ve read say our air and water have indeed cleaned up a great deal since the early 70’s. Yet this letter states that more work related and environmental pollutants are causing the majority of cancers and that trend began in the mid 70’s. Hmmm.

The NCI still claims 94% of all cancers are caused by smoking, obesity, sun, yada, yada, yada and only 6% to environmental factors. But that consensus came from a 1981 report from Sir Richard Doll in the U.K. Here is where motive changes how we should view Sir Doll’s report. He was also a consultant for Monsanto, and the asbestos industry. Just before he died in 2002, “Doll admitted that most cancers, other than those related to smoking and hormones, “are induced by exposure to chemicals often environmental.”

This was scary stuff I was reading. We’ve been mislead for quite awhile. We are not causing our own cancers as much as we have been lead to believe. There is a list of cancers increasing at a rapid rate caused by factors not under our control. It is clear that other agencies besides the NCI need be involved in the prevention of cancer like the EPA, FDA, and OSHA. The agencies that can control the rise of preventable cancers because what we are breathing, drinking, and eating is affecting our health.

And as far as new cures for cancer, this letter had disturbing facts, but not hard to believe. I’m helping my mother through the aftermath of cancer and do not trust that the standard route works all that well either. My suspicions were confirmed when I read:

Furthermore, the NCI has touted the imminent success of new cancer treatments – promises that have seldom borne out, and which have been widely questioned by the independent scientific community. For instance, in 2004, Nobel Laureate Leland Hartwell, President of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Control Center, warned that Congress and the public are paying NCI $4.7 billion a year, most of which is spent on “promoting ineffective drugs” for terminal disease.

Well then, there you have it. Cancer is more easily preventable than cureable.

Read the very candid letter from the medical and scientific community and list of cancers on the rise and their causes:
http://world-wire.com/news/0906150001.html.