Green Options

Alright.  I know that the title of this post is controversial for this website, but I’m serious about this. Read a little further and this might not seem so radical.

Over the last 40 years I have gardened in Denver, Davis California, Western Colorado, Delaware and in San Diego county.  By far the most challenging place to garden has been in San Diego.  We have no winter here to knock back the pest populations.  We have lots of misty, cloudy days in May and June because we are only 2 miles from the ocean. It is pretty much of a pest and disease heaven.  I am constantly fighting pest issues in my garden and vineyard here, and I often wish I had better tools to do that.

The chemical giant Bayer — the same Bayer which brought you aspirin, heroin and mustard gas, and currently manufactures a wide variety of pesticides, herbicides, polyurethanes and other questionable chemicals — has wrapped their toxic fingers around our rice.

This is nothing new. The company’s glufosinate-resistant LL62 genetically modified rice isn’t commercially grown, but that doesn’t mean that it hasn’t already entered the global food supply.

You’ve done it.  I’ve done it. We’ve all squawked at the lack of green-ness current gadgets have to offer. In fact, Greenpeace has built an entire campaign around it.

A new report shows that atrazine, the second-most widely used agricultural herbicide in America, poses a serious threat to amphibians.

For a long time now, I’ve been hearing about the worrisome disappearance of amphibians around the world.  One third of amphibian populations on Planet Earth are threatened with extinction.  A new study finds that atrazine, the second most widely used farm herbicide in the country, is partly responsible for this decline.

The Environmental Working Group (EWG) tested ten brands of bottled water and found that Wal-Mart’s “Sam’s Choice” contained chemical levels higher than is legal in California, and exceeding voluntary limits set by the industry.

The study found that 10 popular brands of bottled water, purchased from grocery stores and other retailers in 9 states and the District of Columbia, contained 38 chemical pollutants altogether, with an average of 8 contaminants in each brand.  The group is not disclosing most of the brand names at this point, but did single out Wal Mart’s “Sam’s Choice,” as a brand to be wary of.

The Environmental Working Group found that some of the Sam’s Choice bottled water bought from stores in Mountain View and Oakland, California, came from the Las Vegas Valley Water District’s public water supply, which is sometimes chlorinated.  Scott Huntley, a spokesman for the Las Vegas Valley Water District, said he had no knowledge that Wal-Mart was using Las Vegas’s water supply for bottling.

On Tuesday, the Environmental Working Group filed a notice to sue Wal-Mart, stating that the chain did not effectively warn the public about the health risks of their bottled water.