Tag Archives: monsanto

This Holiday Season say NO to GMO Chestnuts

by Anne Petermann, Executive Director, Global Justice Ecology Project

In a society rising up against the corporate capture of our food supply in the form of GMOs, a new untested and not-yet-approved GMO food is being promoted: the GMO chestnut.

A recent op-ed in the Washington Posthowevermakes the silly assertion that this emerging new GMO food will be the answer to hunger and a step toward reconnecting with our food supply:

Repopulating our woods — and even our yards, our commons and our courthouse lawns — with [GE] American chestnuts would put a versatile, nutritious, easily harvested food source within reach of just about everyone. For those living on the margins, it could be a very real hedge against want. For everyone, it could be a hedge against distancing ourselves from our food, which can be the first step toward a diet low in the whole foods that virtually every public health authority tells us we should eat more of.

Really?  A food source for the poor?  People are going to be heading out with their burlap sacks collecting GMO chestnuts to roast, grind into flour or boil into candy?  This is the answer to hunger?  And what is the health impact of eating GMO chestnuts?  Is this even being assessed?  No.

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Filed under Actions / Protest, Biodiversity, Food Sovereignty, Forests, GE Trees, Genetic Engineering, GMOs, Greenwashing

Earth Minute: RoundUp Herbicide Contaminating People and the Environment

Note: Global Justice Ecology Project collaborates with the Sojourner Truth show on KPFK each week for an Earth Minute on Tuesday and an EarthWatch segment on Thursday.

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Filed under Biodiversity, Climate Change, Food Sovereignty, Genetic Engineering, Industrial agriculture, Pollution, Water

Happy Earth Day, Monsanto. With love, the Mud People

Note: Orin Langelle is co-founder and Board Chair of Global Justice Ecology Project.  Please visit his new project, Langelle Photography.

-The GJEP Team

By Orin Langelle. Source: Langelle Photography

Photo: Orin Langelle

Photo: Orin Langelle

Big River Earth First! and “mud people” demonstrate against Monsanto’s corporate sponsorship of Earth Day 1990.  The person standing behind the over-sized check was questioned by a reporter from a NBC TV affiliate in St.  Louis.  The mud person interviewed replied in “mud language” which was translated into English by one of the protesters. The segment aired that evening as the lead story on the local NBC TV news.  Monsanto did not comment.

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Filed under Actions / Protest, False Solutions to Climate Change, Food Sovereignty, Industrial agriculture

2012 Top ten articles on Climate Connections

Note: The following are the top ten articles from Climate Connections from 2012, based on the number of views each story received. Several articles were written by GJEP, or were sent to Climate Connections by the original authors. They are posted in reverse order, from number 10 through number 1.  Our blog received a record 270,000 visitors in 2012 from over 200 countries.

Please subscribe to Climate Connections, like us on Facebook, and follow us on Twitter.

Happy New Year,

-The GJEP Team

10. Three responses to Bill McKibben’s new article, “Global Warming’s Terrifying New Math” (July 24)

By Anne Petermann, Executive Director of GJEP, Rachel Smolker of BiofuelWatch, and Keith Brunner, GJEP Communications Associate

Bill McKibben, in his new Rolling Stone article, “Global Warming’s Terrifying New Math” does an effective job at summarizing the hard and theoretical numbers that warn us of the devastating impacts of continuing to burn the Earth’s remaining fossil fuel reserves–yet it somehow falls short of its stated goal to help mobilize a new movement for climate action.  Continue reading here

9. Breaking News: Secret US military testing of radiological materials on poor and minority communities (September 24)

By Anne Petermann, Executive Director of GJEP, and Orin Langelle, GJEP Board Chair

During an interview we conducted last week in St. Louis, MO, Dr. Lisa Martino-Taylor gave us a long description of research she had conducted into a major military cover up of the use of U.S. citizens as test subjects for military experiments related to the Cold War.
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Filed under Actions / Protest, Climate Change, Ending the Era of Extreme Energy, Energy, False Solutions to Climate Change, Green Economy, Greenwashing, Indigenous Peoples, Industrial agriculture, Nuclear power, Oil, Political Repression, Posts from Anne Petermann, Rio+20, Tar Sands

Nine arrested during ‘Occupy Monsanto’ protest in Oxnard

By Ricardo Lopez, September 12, 2012.  Source: LA Times

Note: Global Justice Ecology Project Executive Director Anne Petermann and Board Chair Orin Langelle will be in St. Louis this weekend to speak at the Occupy Monsanto Conference.  They will be connecting the dots between Monsanto and genetically engineered tree manufacturer ArborGen, as well as rallying support for the Campaign to Stop GE Trees.  You can read GJEP’s press release outlining the ties between Monsanto and ArborGen here, and you can sign the petition to stop GE trees here

-The GJEP Team

Source: Occupy Monsanto

Nine protesters were arrested Wednesday on suspicion of trespassing after blocking access to a Monsanto seed distribution center in Oxnard, group organizers said.

Those arrested were part of a decentralized network of food activists and Occupy protesters, said Adam Eidenger, a spokesman for the Occupy Monsanto group.

Their aim is to protest Monsanto’s sales of genetically modified seeds, he said. They also sought to bring attention to Proposition 37, a ballot initiative set to come before California voters this fall.

The initiative, if passed, would require foods containing genetically modified materials to be labeled as such. Eidenger said the Occupy Monsanto group, however, is not affiliated with “Yes on 37,” the group urging voters to pass the measure.

About a dozen protesters arrived at Seminis Vegetable Seeds in Oxnard, a Monsanto subsidiary, Wednesday morning and blocked access to the facility, organizers said.

Eidenger said Wednesday’s protest kicks off several dozen planned events around the world to call attention to genetically modified foods.

A request for comment from Monsanto was not immediately returned Wednesday afternoon.

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Filed under Actions / Protest, Bioenergy / Agrofuels, Genetic Engineering

Daniel Ravicher and Mark Kastel on KPFK Radio’s Sojourner Truth Show

Listen to this week’s interview with Mark Kastel and Daniel Ravicher as they discuss the preemptive lawsuit filed against Monsanto on behalf of 60 farmers, organic agriculture organizations and seed companies. Global Justice Ecology Project partners with Margaret Prescod and the Sojourner Truth show weekly to provide these interviews.

Click here to listen!

Mark Kastel is co-founder of The Cornucopia Institute, a progressive farm policy research group based in Wisconsin and acts as its Senior Farm Policy Analyst. He directs its Organic Integrity Project.

Daniel Ravicher is PUBPAT’s Executive Director and a Lecturer in Law at Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law. 

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Filed under Actions / Protest

This week’s Earth Minute on KPFK

This week’s Earth Minute discusses Monsanto and how they are using the aftermath of earthquake to get Haitian farmers hooked on their seeds and chemicals. The peasants have declared that they will burn these seeds calling them a “very strong attack on small agriculture, farmers, biodiversity and local creole seed varieties”. They are then instead demanding food sovereignty and the right to define their own agricultural policies to grow healthy food for the local market and to grow in a way that respects the environment and mother earth. Something Monsanto knows nothing about.

Click here to listen to the podcast

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Filed under Climate Change, Climate Justice, Earth Minute, Greenwashing, Indigenous Peoples, Media, Posts from Anne Petermann, Water