Millions Against Monsanto: http://organicconsumers.org/monsanto/index.cfm
4 ways to Avoid GMOs: http://www.greenfestivals.org/visionaries/keep-monsanto-out-of-your-home-4-ways-to-avoid-gmos
Green America: http://www.greenamerica.org/
Global Exchange: http://www.globalexchange.org/
Seattle Green Festival: May 21 & 22, Qwest Events Center: http://www.greenfestivals.org/future-tickets
May 21st & 22nd, 2011
Qwest Event Center This year’s Seattle Green Festival has found an exciting and larger new home perfect for its expanded program at the Qwest Event Center. Green Festival is the event to attend to find the most authentic environmental and socially responsible products, practices and information for anyone interested in green lifestyle and sustainable practices. Renowned keynotes, regional focused classes and workshops, local expert demonstrations and talks are complimented with activities and fun for every age and interest. Featuring Seattle’s best local vegan and organic restaurants, Washington states top organic beer makers and wine vintners, cutting-edge cinema, all-day yoga and movement classes, interactive cultural dance and music, and our biggest ever green kids pavilion compliment the largest eco-friendly marketplace of over 350 exhibitors. Join us May 21-22 at the Qwest Event Center; it’s your path to greener living and the best party with a purpose!
Is anyone interested in going to the Green Festival? --Katherine
Here is a description from Landmark Theater's web site:
"A Spanish film crew arrives in Bolivia to make a film about Columbus in the New World. Idealistic director Sebastian (Gael García Bernal, The Motorcycle Diaries) wants to denounce the injustices of the past, focusing on exploitation of the indigenous people. Practical producer Costa (Luis Tosar, Cell 211), working on a tight budget, has chosen Bolivia, one of Latin America’s poorest countries, to stand in for Santo Domingo because extras will work for only $2 a day. After an open casting call almost degenerates into a riot, Sebastian hires outspoken Daniel (Juan Carlos Aduviri) to play the rebel Indian leader. But when the locals begin demonstrations against a multinational's plans to privatize water—even the rain—Daniel is in the thick of them, endangering the film’s shooting schedule. The thought-provoking screenplay by Paul Laverty (The Wind That Shakes the Barley) cunningly parallels the Spanish conquest of the Americas with the modern spread of capitalism. This fascinating mixture of past and present, fiction and fact, features spectacular scenes of the period film within a film. Directed by Icíar Bollaín (Take My Eyes). (Fully subtitled)"
Playing at the Harvard Exit
The documentary "The Corporation" has a section on Bechtel Corporation's attempt to privatize water -- even the rain -- in a Bolivian city.
I became interested in this subject after reading an article in the February Harper's Magazine about illegal gold mining in Suriname -- a French Territory directly to the north of Brazil, that is almost entirely Rain Forest, with tributaries to the Amazon River. Because it's just been published, the article is not yet available online. Highly recommended.
http://www.heemskerk.sr.org/GoldMining/GoldMining.html
"Small Scale Gold Mining in Suriname," by Marieke Heemskerk, anthropologist specializing in development and conservation.
[PDF] from commdev.orgM Heemskerk - Cultural Survival Quarterly, 2001 - commdev.org
In recent decades, small-scale gold mining has gained importance both as a source of income
for the poor and as a cause of environmental degradation in low-income countries. Gold mining
and its surrounding service economy sustain millions of households in the Amazon, and ... Cited by 10 - Related articles - View as HTML - BL Direct - All 3 versions
[PDF] from mariekeheemskerk.orgM Heemskerk - Ecological Economics, 2001 - Elsevier
Natural resource booms have been central to conservation and development in resource-rich
Latin American countries, yet the origin of these events remains poorly understood. Understanding
the socioeconomic drivers of resource booms is important because such sudden ... Cited by 13 - Related articles - All 9 versions
[CITATION] Livelihood decision making and environmental degradation: small-scale gold mining in the Suriname Amazon
File Format: PDF/Adobe Acrobat - Quick View by JH Mol - Related articles
Environmental impacts of bauxite and gold mining in Nassau. Mountains, Suriname. J.H. Mol. Paramaribo, February 2009. Description of Nassau Mountains ... www.atbc2008.org/data/File/Articles/NassauSummary.pdf - Similar
http://www.nationsencyclopedia.com/Americas/Suriname-MINING.html
Encyclopedia of the Nations: entry on Mining in Suriname
http://travel.mongabay.com/suriname/indexes/gold%20mining1.html
Photos of gold mining in Suriname and its effects on the environment.
http://www.voanews.com/english/news/7-Killed-in-Suriname-Gold-Mine-Collapse-109853559.html
Alcoa and Newmont, U.S. based multinational corporations involved in Suriname gold mining.
http://www.dominionpaper.ca/articles/2240
"Gold Mining in Suriname's Tribal Communities," by Maya Roblin-Ghanie, The Dominion
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5abRD9h78BI
"Good-bye Suriname," YouTube video: weird combination of sentimental music and facts about mercury's effects on neurotransmitters.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vdHAQG_koW0 -- news story from Al-Jazeera.
Iamgold is a Canadian company that is legally mining gold in Suriname. They see themselves as the "heroes" of this story -- safe mines, paying taxes, etc. The illegal miners are the Suriname natives and illegal immigrants from Brazil.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jjJg_NWty74
"The Artisanal Gold Mining Process Using Gold-Mercury Amalgam, from Start to Finish"
This provides an excellent explanation of how the Gold-Mercury process works.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FIbhwaw5PQg&feature=related
"Mercury: The Burning Issue, Part 1," by The Blacksmith Institute
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pPGPbbHY03M&feature=related
"Mercury: The Burning Issue, Part 2," by The Blacksmith Institute
This 20-minute documentary is mostly about the gold mining in Indonesia, but it does an excellent job of explaining how the mercury (and cyanide) in small-scale mining are used and get into the environment.
Gene Sharp's writings were disseminated and read in Egypt before the anti-regime protests began.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gene_Sharp
"Shy U.S. Intellectual Created Playbook Used in Revolution" by Andrew W. Lehren, New York Times, Feb 17, 2011:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/17/world/middleeast/17sharp.html?pagewanted=2&ref=todayspaper
"Gene Sharp Interview," by Amitabh Pal, The Progressive, March 2007
http://www.progressive.org/mag/intv0307
"Lessons from the Godfather: Interview with Gene Sharp," by Jeff Severns Guntzel. Utne Reader, July - August 2010
http://www.utne.com/Politics/Gene-Sharp-Interview-Power-of-Nonviolence.aspx
"Gandhi, the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and . . . Gene Sharp?" by Dennis Ballentine. Online Journal, February 17, 2011
http://onlinejournal.com/artman/publish/article_6909.shtml
These are dark days for the environmental movement. A year after being on the cusp of passing landmark legislation to cap greenhouse gases, greens are coming to accept the fact that the chance of national and international action on climate change has become more remote than ever. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is under attack by newly empowered Republicans in Congress who argue that the very idea of environmental protection is unaffordable for our debt-ridden country. Accustomed to remaining optimistic in the face of long odds, the environmental movement all at once faces a challenge just to stay relevant in a hostile political climate. In 2004, authors Michael Shellenberger and Ted Nordhaus faced a harsh backlash from the greens when they released a polemic essay called "The Death of Environmentalism, " but now it appears they might have been ahead of their time.
Even as traditional environmentalism struggles, another movement is rising in its place, aligning consumers, producers, the media and even politicians. It's the food movement, and if it continues to grow it may be able to create just the sort of political and social transformation that environmentalists have failed to achieve in recent years. That would mean not only changing the way Americans eat and the way they farm — away from industrialized, cheap calories and toward more organic, small-scale production, with plenty of fruits and vegetables — but also altering the way we work and relate to one another. To its most ardent adherents, the food movement isn't just about reform — it's about revolution.
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Executive Director of Honor the Earth, Winona LaDuke, argues for Indigenous concepts of sustainability, and critiques traditional linear models. She is concerned with the present economics of an expansion economy, with its environmental, social and political implications. She also discusses the Ojibwa prophecies of a green path, and presents casework from the White Earth reservation, and other projects, such as the Navajo green economy transition, and the implications of this for a larger society. She asks how do we transition to a green and sustainable economy and what are the costs for doing so and the process needed to get us there.
If you want to avoid sugar, aspartame, trans-fats, MSG, or just about anything else, you read the label. If you want to avoid G.M.O.’s — genetically modified organisms — you’re out of luck. They’re not listed. You could, until now, simply buy organic foods, which by law can’t contain more than 5 percent G.M.O.’s. Now, however, even that may not work.
In the last three weeks, the U.S. Department of Agriculture has approved three new kinds of genetically engineered (G.E.) foods: alfalfa (which becomes hay), a type of corn grown to produce ethanol), and sugar beets. And super-fast-growing salmon — the first genetically modified animal to be sold in the U.S., but probably not the last — may not be far behind.
Global food prices are soaring again, as droughts, freezes and floods have affected various crops in many parts of the world. At the same time, demand is rising with living standards in fast-growing countries.
The price spikes are not as sharp as they were in 2008, but the new volatility reflects more than the sum of recent freakish weather "events," from severe droughts in China and Russia to floods in Australia to a deep freeze in Mexico.
Economists and scientists have identified longer-term changes -- from global warming to China's economic growth to a lack of productive farmland -- as the culprits. Is the world producing enough food -- specifically grain? Is this a continuation of the 2008 crisis, or something quite different?
