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Raj Patel: In Attacks on Obama, Food Stamps, Newt Gingrich is “Racially Coding Poverty”

Mon, 23 Jan 2012 00:00:00 -0800

Democracy Now - By Amy Goodman - Jan. 23 (News Analysis) - what is really needed is a conversation about poverty and why the need for food stamps is so high. "It’s true that disproportionately people of color are affected by food insecurity. But what Gingrich is doing, of course, is racially coding poverty by calling President Obama 'the food stamp president,'" Patel said. "He’s invoking these ideas of racialized poverty. Of course, if you look at the people who are on the food stamp program, you see that the majority of them are white and poor." Patel is author of the popular book, "Stuffed and Starved: The Hidden Battle for the World Food System."

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Reef Fish at Risk as Carbon Dioxide Levels Build

Sat, 21 Jan 2012 00:00:00 -0800

readersupportednews.org - Jan. 21 (Special Report) - Rising carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions threaten the survival of some fish species by sending their central nervous systems haywire.' Australian Associated Press

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Why the FDA Okays Eating Seafood 10,000 Times Over the Safe Limit for Dangerous Carcinogens

Mon, 19 Dec 2011 00:00:00 -0800

AlterNet - By Brad Jacobson - Dec. 19 (News Report) - The FDA downplayed the risk of contamination and ignored staff members who proposed higher levels of contamination protection while providing no scientific evidence to back up its policy.

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U.S. Publicly Shifts Climate Stance in Face of Widespread Criticism -- Then Quietly Backtracks

Fri, 09 Dec 2011 00:00:00 -0800

Democracy Now - By Amy Goodman - Dec. 09 (News Report) - Talks at the U.N. Climate Change Conference in Durban have entered their last official day, with focus now on a European Union-sponsored road map calling for a new climate treaty to be negotiated by 2015. The treaty would impose binding cuts on the world's biggest emitters of the heat-trapping gases, but would not likely go into effect until 2020. After being publicly heckled by a U.S. college student on Thursday and facing widespread accusations of obstructing the Durban talks, U.S. climate envoy Todd Stern said the Obama administration supports the E.U. road map. The U.S. State Department later backtracked on Stern's comments by taking the unusual step of issuing a clarification to its position, saying it does not yet support a legally binding deal to cut emissions. When Amy Goodman then tried to question Stern and fellow lead U.S. negotiator Jonathan Pershing about the apparent retraction, they refused to answer. [includes rush transcript]

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Is Newt right? Food stamps can take you to Hawaii?

Fri, 02 Dec 2011 00:00:00 -0800

PolitiFact - Dec. 02 (Fact Check) - Republican presidential hopeful Newt Gingrich loves to talk about food stamps. And the former House speaker had plenty to say at a campaign appearance in Council Bluffs, Iowa. "Remember, this is the best food stamp president in history," Gingrich said. "So more Americans today get food stamps than before. And we now give it away as cash -- you don't get food stamps. You get a credit card, and the credit card can be used for anything. We have people who take their food stamp money and use it to go to Hawaii. They give food stamps now to millionaires ...

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Are We Nearing the End of the Line for Edible Ocean Fish?

Sun, 24 Jul 2011 00:00:00 -0700

truth-out.org - By Mark Karlin - Jul. 24 (News Report) - Due to global warming and other factors, the marine ecosystems are being severely compromised. One of the factors contributing to the degradation of our oceans is massive, industrial, commercial overfishing. The Times cites a report that many species of fish are "either vulnerable to extinction, endangered or critically endangered."

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After BP's Oily Assault, Fishermen Struggle to Survive

Mon, 18 Jul 2011 00:00:00 -0700

readersupportednews.org - By Rocky Kistner, - Jul. 18 (News Report) - 'The oil is not gone; it keeps coming in places like Grand Isle, LA, and Biloxi,MS, rolling in with the tides as globs of tar balls and sheen. Louisiana beaches near Port Fouchon and parts of the rich fishing grounds in Barataria Bay remain still closed due to oil contamination.'

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Climate Change and Disaster in Montana

Sun, 17 Jul 2011 00:00:00 -0700

readersupportednews.org - By Naomi Klein, - Jul. 17 (News Analysis) - 'So the flooding may have caused the pipeline spill. But here is the really uncomfortable question: Did the pipeline cause the flooding? Not this one particular pipeline, of course, but all the pipelines, and all the coal trains, and all the refineries and the power plants they supply?'

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Monsanto Cash Incentives Under Federal Investigation

Sat, 16 Jul 2011 00:00:00 -0700

readersupportednews.org - By Kathryn Gilje, - Jul. 16 (News Report) - n some circles, it would be called a bribe, at best. Evidence revealed last week shows that Monsanto's former Chief Financial Officer admitted that the agrichemical corporation planned to spend $150 million in cash and trade incentives in Latin America, North America and Europe to spur the uptake of the pesticide glyphosate, better known as RoundUp. $150 million is no small change - and surely that's not all that's been spent. The news came to light last week as part of an investigation by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Sadly, small farmers around the world know all too well the carrot and stick approaches that Monsanto and other pesticide giants use to lure farmers (and nations) toward industrial agriculture and onto the pesticide treadmill.

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Famine in Somalia, Horn of Africa Described as "Worst Humanitarian Disaster in the World"

Wed, 13 Jul 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Democracy Now - By Amy Goodman - Jul. 13 (Special Report) - U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has issued an urgent appeal over the crisis in Somalia, where more than 11 million people are in need of life-saving assistance as they face the worst drought in decades. The United Nations describes the Somali drought as the worst humanitarian disaster in the world, and a top U.N. official Valerie Amos urged the world to make the link between climate change and the drought. The extended drought is forcing an estimated 3,000 people a day from Somalia to neighbouring Kenya and Ethiopia. We speak to Yves van Loo in Nairobi of International Committee of the Red Cross in Somalia, who was in Mogadishu just two weeks ago. We also speak to investigative reporter Jeremy Scahill who recently returned from assignment in Somalia.

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Yellowstone Oil Spill Prompts Evacuations

Sun, 03 Jul 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Huffington Post - By Matthew Brown - Jul. 03 (News Report) - Hundreds of barrels of crude oil spilled into Montana's Yellowstone River after an ExxonMobil pipeline beneath the riverbed ruptured, sending a plume 25 miles downstream and forcing temporary evacuations, officials said. The break near Billings in south-central Montana fouled the riverbank and forced municipalities and irrigation districts Saturday to close intakes. The river has no dams on its way to its confluence with the Missouri River just across the Montana border in North Dakota. It was unclear how far the plume might travel.

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Urban food security: Feeding tomorrow's cities

Fri, 01 Jul 2011 00:00:00 -0700

significancemagazine.org - By Paul Teng, Margarita Escaler, Mely Caballero‐Anthony - Jul. 01 (Investigative Report) - Urban food riots have already destabilised governments. Can the world's cities be fed?Paul Teng, Margarita Escaler and Mely Caballero‐Anthony say that city‐dwellers may have to grow more of their own food.

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Roundup: Scientists Say World's Top-Selling Weedkiller Causes Birth Defects

Fri, 24 Jun 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Huffington Post - By Lucia Graves - Jun. 24 (News Report) - The chemical at the heart of the planet's most widely used herbicide -- Roundup weedkiller, used in farms and gardens across the U.S.-- -- is coming under more intense scrutiny following the release of a new report calling for a heightened regulatory response around its use. Critics have argued for decades that glyphosate, the active ingredient in Roundup and other herbicides used around the globe, poses a serious threat to public health. Industry regulators, however, appear to have consistently overlooked their concerns. A comprehensive review of existing data released this month by Earth Open Source, an organization that uses open-source collaboration to advance sustainable food production, suggests that industry regulators in Europe have known for years that glyphosate, originally introduced by American agricultural biotechnology giant Monsanto in 1976, causes birth defects in the embryos of laboratory animals.

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Feeding Resistance: Food Not Bombs Members Arrested in Orlando For Serving Meals Without a Permit

Fri, 24 Jun 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Democracy Now - By Amy Goodman, Juan Gonzalez - Jun. 24 (News Report) - The City of Orlando — the home of Disney World in Florida — is being sued in court today over a city law that has effectively made it illegal for any group to feed more than 25 people at a time in downtown parks without a permit. It also limits groups to no more than two permits per park, per year. The group Food Not Bombs has refused to obey the new law—saying food is a right, not a privilege—and has continued to serve free meals to the poor and homeless. However, over the past month more than 20 members of the organization have been arrested. Keith McHenry, who helped found Food Not Bombs over 30 years ago, was arrested Wednesday and remains in jail. We speak with Benjamin Markeson, an activist involved with Food Not Bombs for several years who was arrested earlier this month; and the group's attorney, Shayan Elahi.

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USDA to Probe Companies Running School Cafeterias

Fri, 24 Jun 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Education Week - By Nirvi Shah - Jun. 24 (Special Report) - The U.S. Department of Agriculture's watchdog arm plans to look closely at whether the food-service-management companies running many school cafeterias are passing along all the discounts and rebates they receive from their suppliers to the districts that hire them.

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Japan Nuclear Plant A 'Ticking Time Bomb,' Says Physicist

Wed, 22 Jun 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Huffington Post - Jun. 22 (News Report) - Though global fears about radiation emissions from the heavily damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power facility have calmed in the weeks since Japan's devastating March 11 earthquake and tsunami, famed physicist Michio Kaku insists the situation remains a "ticking time bomb." A professor of theoretical physics at the City University of New York and the City College of New York, Kaku discussed some recent revelations about the disaster's impact, and noted that Japanese officials still don't yet have control at the site.

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As Japan Nuclear Crisis Worsens Citizen-led Radiation Monitors Pressure Govt to Increase Evacuations

Fri, 10 Jun 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Democracy Now - By Amy Goodman - Jun. 10 (News Report) - Almost three months after the earthquake and tsunami that triggered a nuclear disaster in Japan, new radiation "hot spots" may require the evacuation of more areas further from the damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power facility. Japan’s Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency recently admitted for the first time that full nuclear meltdowns occurred at three of the plant’s reactors, and more than doubled its estimate for the amount of radiation that leaked from the plant in the first week of the disaster in March. “What they failed to mention is that they discharged an equally large amount into the ocean,” says our guest Robert Alvarez, former senior policy adviser to the U.S. Secretary of Energy. “As [the radiation] goes up the food chain, it accumulates, and by the time it reaches people who consume this food, the levels are higher than they originally were when they entered the environment.” We also go to Tokyo to speak with Aileen Mioko Smith, executive director of the group Green Action. She says citizens are leading their own monitoring efforts and calling for additional evacuations, especially for young children and pregnant women.

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The Pesticides and Politics of America's Eco-War

Fri, 10 Jun 2011 00:00:00 -0700

truth-out.org - By Mike Ludwig - Jun. 10 (Investigative Report) - Starvrum points to a lone oysterman gathering the day's catch from neighboring mudflats and shakes his head. Starvrum used to harvest oysters from the thick mud exposed by the low tide, but he has not brought in a catch in three years. He refuses to participate in the lucrative business, a traditional mainstay of the local economy, because the pesticides sprayed on adjacent mudflats drifted onto his oyster beds.

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Contaminated compost? Toxins might be lurking in that bag you’re about to buy

Wed, 08 Jun 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Grist - By Tom Laskawy. - Jun. 08 (Special Report) - by Tom Laskawy. Do you know what’s in your compost? The growing number of municipal and commercial composting operations has been one of the few bright spots in the environmental landscape, from San Francisco’s curbside composting service to this industrial-scale composting facility in Delaware . But Josh Harkinson in Mother Jones has harshed our green-tinged buzz. Thanks to fractured or lax regulations as well as the ubiquitous contamination of our environment by industrial chemicals (particularly heavy metals and pesticides), there’s a distressingly real risk of toxic chemicals making it into commercial and municipal compost. And it’s a particular problem for organic growers: Pesticide-laced compost has presented a quandary for the USDA’s National Organic Program ever since California regulators traced residues of dichlorophenyl-dichloroethylene, a breakdown product of DDT, and bifenthrin, an ant killer, to compost in pots of organic wheatgrass in Northern ...

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Roundup Birth Defects: Regulators Knew It Causes Birth Defects

Tue, 07 Jun 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Huffington Post - By Lucia Graves - Jun. 07 (News Report) - Industry regulators have known for years that Roundup, the world's best-selling herbicide produced by U.S. company Monsanto, causes birth defects, according to a new report released Tuesday. The report, "Roundup and birth defects: Is the public being kept in the dark?" found regulators knew as long ago as 1980 that glyphosate, the chemical on which Roundup is based, can cause birth defects in laboratory animals.

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The Few The Proud The Thin

Thu, 26 May 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Op Ed News - By Martha Rosenberg - May. 26 (Special Report) - In a report released last fall by the Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD), the United States is the fattest of 33 countries. Mexico and New Zealand are next runners up with India and Indonesia the thinnest. Luckily the report didn't break US obesity down state by state or we'd have further shame.

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House GOP Proposal Seeks $285 Million in FDA Cuts

Tue, 24 May 2011 00:00:00 -0700

foodsafetynews.com - By Marler Clark - May. 24 (News Report) - A new budget proposal put forth by House Republicans Monday would cut the U.S. Food and Drug Administration's budget for Fiscal Year 2012 by $285 million, an 11.5 percent reduction from FY 2011, just as the agency moves to implement an ambitious new food safety law.

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Senate Republicans Introduce Bill to Abolish the EPA

Fri, 06 May 2011 00:00:00 -0700

readersupportednews.org - By Brad Johnson - May. 06 (News Report) - Senate Republicans have introduced legislation to abolish the Environmental Protection Agency, established 40 years ago by President Richard Nixon to give Americans clean air and water. The bill, introduced by Sen. Richard Burr (R-NC), would merge the EPA, which enforces environmental laws, with the Department of Energy, which manages nuclear energy and energy research, into one department.

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USDA Puts Food Deserts On the Map

Fri, 06 May 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Miller-McCune - By Emily Badger - May. 06 (Special Report) - It’s ‘soda, soda everywhere and not a vitamin in sight’ across swaths of America identified in the USDA’s new online ‘food desert locator map.

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Coke, BPA, and the Limits of 'Green Capitalism'

Tue, 03 May 2011 00:00:00 -0700

readersupportednews.org - By Tom Philpott - May. 03 (News Analysis) - Last week, Coca-Cola shareholders voted by a 3-to-1 margin to continue using BPA, a toxic industrial chemical, in the lining of its soft-drink cans.

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