The World According to Monsanto GMO Documentary

MrMaxBliss

Published on Sep 6, 2012

Hello my friends, be prepared for some challenging truths and be warned, our governments are being exposed for the puppet pretend democracies they are…. big BUSINESS calls the shots. People …. just in the way of their progress. We can change our fate, if we unify and use the only weapon feasible to beat the global elite ( major share holders in Monsanto) People Power. uploaded by Uploaded by eboyuk on May 18, 2011

There’s nothing they are leaving untouched: the mustard, the okra, the bringe oil, the rice, the cauliflower. Once they have established the norm: that seed can be owned as their property, royalties can be collected. We will depend on them for every seed we grow of every crop we grow. If they control seed, they control food, they know it — it’s strategic. It’s more powerful than bombs. It’s more powerful than guns. This is the best way to control the populations of the world. The story starts in the White House, where Monsanto often got its way by exerting disproportionate influence over policymakers via the “revolving door”. One example is Michael Taylor, who worked for Monsanto as an attorney before being appointed as deputy commissioner of the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in 1991. While at the FDA, the authority that deals with all US food approvals, Taylor made crucial decisions that led to the approval of GE foods and crops. Then he returned to Monsanto, becoming the company’s vice president for public policy.

Thanks to these intimate links between Monsanto and government agencies, the US adopted GE foods and crops without proper testing, without consumer labeling and in spite of serious questions hanging over their safety. Not coincidentally, Monsanto supplies 90 percent of the GE seeds used by the US market. Monsanto’s long arm stretched so far that, in the early nineties, the US Food and Drugs Agency even ignored warnings of their own scientists, who were cautioning that GE crops could cause negative health effects. Other tactics the company uses to stifle concerns about their products include misleading advertising, bribery and concealing scientific evidence.

Environmental Justice http://courses.dce.harvard.edu/~envre145
Environment Ethics http://courses.dce.harvard.edu/~envre120
Food-Matters http://Food-Matters.TV
EE Film Festival
EJ Film Festival

Report: Climate change may pose threat to economic growth – CNN.com

http://www.cnn.com/2013/10/29/world/climate-change-vulnerability-index/

By Tim Hume, CNN
updated 1:29 AM EDT, Wed October 30, 2013

A farmer and his children plant a field with bean seeds and fertilizer in southern Ethiopia in 2008, a year after severe floods in the country destroyed most of the food crop. Ethiopia is the 10th most vulnerable country to climate change impacts, according to a report by Maplecroft.

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• Climate change may be “serious obstacle” to sustainable growth in key cities, says report
• The climate change vulnerability index is published by risk analysis firm Maplecroft
• Nearly a third of the world’s economy will come from highly or extremely vulnerable places
• Bangladesh was the most vulnerable country and its capital the most vulnerable city

Hong Kong (CNN)

Aspen Institute – 2008 | Lester Brown, Plan B, 3.0

AspenInstitute

Uploaded on Mar 28, 2008

With Lester Brown. Introduction by Sam Champion. Lester Brown’s plan for environmental stewardship.

The Aspen Institute and National Geographic magazine host the first ever Aspen Environment Forum, in Aspen, Colorado—a powerful, three-day exchange examining the future of our shared environment.

Part 2:

Sequence of full set of 2008 Aspen Institute sessions:

Sequence of full set of 2009 Aspen Institute sessions:

and

http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=Aspen+Environment+Forum+2009&oq=Aspen+Environment+Forum+2009

Global Climate Change http://courses.dce.harvard.edu/~envre130
Environmental Justice http://courses.dce.harvard.edu/~envre145
Environment Ethics http://courses.dce.harvard.edu/~envre120
Food-Matters http://Food-Matters.TV

Connected | Official Trailer

connectedthefilm

Published on Apr 16, 2012 Available on iTunes at: http://bit.ly/VGQ1R2

“Everything from the Big Bang to Twitter…Incredibly engaging.”
– The New York Times

facebook.com/connectedthefilm
www.connectedthefilm.com
twitter: @tiffanyshlain

With wonderful heart and an impressive sense of scale, Tiffany Shlain’s vibrant and insightful documentary, Connected, explores the visible and invisible connections linking major issues of our time—the environment, consumption, population growth, technology, human rights, the global economy—while searching for her place in the world during a transformative time in her life. Employing a splendidly imaginative combination of animation and archival footage, plus several surprises, Shlain constructs a chronological tour of Western modernization through the work of her late father, Leonard Shlain, a surgeon and best-selling author of Art and Physics and The Alphabet Versus the Goddess. With humor and irony, the Shlain family life merges with philosophy to create both a personal portrait and a proposal for ways we can move forward as a civilization. Connected illuminates the beauty and tragedy of human endeavor while boldly championing the importance of personal connectedness for understanding and coping with today’s global conditions.

Directed and edited by Tiffany Shlain

Produced by Tiffany Shlain Carlton Evans

Written by Tiffany Shlain, Ken Goldberg, Carlton Evans, and Sawyer Steele

Global Climate Change http://courses.dce.harvard.edu/~envre130
Environmental Justice http://courses.dce.harvard.edu/~envre145
Environment Ethics http://courses.dce.harvard.edu/~envre120
EE Film Festival
EJ Film Festival

After Sandy: Why Rebuilding The Coast Is Doomed to Failure by Rob Young: Yale Environment 360

http://e360.yale.edu/feature/after_sandy_why_rebuilding_the_coast_is_doomed_to_failure/2705/

31 Oct 2013: Opinion

After Sandy: Why Rebuilding
The Coast Is Doomed to Failure

One year after Hurricane Sandy devastated parts of the U.S. East Coast, the government is spending billions to replenish beaches that will only be swallowed again by rising seas and future storms. It’s time to develop coastal policies that take into account new climate realities.

by rob young

Since Hurricane Sandy hit the U.S. East Coast a year ago, federal, state, and local governments have made an important de facto policy decision without any debate, discussion, or national plan. It is this: We will attempt to hold the nation’s shorelines in place using whatever means possible and whatever the cost. We will do this despite the undisputed scientific fact that

Jeffrey Bruno
Houses along the New Jersey shore were badly damaged by Hurricane Sandy.

sea levels are rising and coastal erosion along these shores will only increase in the future. We will do this even though it will be environmentally damaging and the costs will be extremely high, with never-ending expenditures.

Yes, there has been much talk about building “better” and “smarter.” There have been plans for increasing “resilience,” which is a conveniently vague term. President Obama’s Hurricane Sandy Rebuilding Task Force released its long-awaited report in August. There were many good recommendations for increasing post-disaster efficiency and for using better science to understand flood risk. But one sure-fire solution for reducing vulnerability was glaringly absent: The report lacked any suggestion that we should be developing long-term plans for getting infrastructure out of high hazard areas.

Raising buildings is only a solution if you commit to holding the beaches in place forever.

Yes, there is much talk in the report about elevating structures and roads, and good suggestions about flood-proofing urban services like the power grid. Many resort communities in New Jersey have taken the call to elevate homes seriously. But elevating buildings above the hazard is only a temporary solution to coastal vulnerability. It’s like standing in a river that is rising due to a flood. You can roll up your pants or hike up your skirt, but if the water keeps rising you will get wet. Better to just step out of the water. In the year since Sandy, our response has been to roll up our pants, but sea level will continue to rise and our shorelines will continue to erode at an ever-increasing rate.

…(read more).

Global Climate Change http://courses.dce.harvard.edu/~envre130
Environmental Justice http://courses.dce.harvard.edu/~envre145
Environment Ethics http://courses.dce.harvard.edu/~envre120

Kumi Naidoo | Guests | BillMoyers.com

http://billmoyers.com/guest/kumi-naidoo/

Related Features

• Greenpeace Head Offers Himself as Guarantor for Release of ‘Piracy’ Activists in Russia
• Kumi Naidoo on the Urgency of Climate Action
• Will Climate Change Put You Underwater?
• Help Save the Planet

From the Web

• Greenpeace International

Kumi Naidoo

Executive Director, Greenpeace International

Kumi Naidoo is the executive director of Greenpeace International, the largest independent direct-action environmental organization in the world. Under his leadership, Greenpeace convinced Unilever and Coca-Cola to discontinue the use of HFC gases, persuaded Nestle to stop buying palm oil from Sumatra, which suffers from continual deforestation, and has pressured Facebook to “unfriend” coal.

Naidoo is currently taking on major oil companies looking to drill in the Arctic, fighting what he calls “the defining environmental battle of our time.” His Save the Arctic campaign, which is supported by close to 4 million people worldwide, brought Naidoo to the organization’s front lines. In 2011 and 2012, Naidoo climbed oil rigs in the Arctic to protest oil exploration and drilling in the region, a bold move that placed Greenpeace and its cause once again in the international spotlight.

Naidoo was drawn to human rights as a young teen during the anti-apartheid movement in his homeland, South Africa. After being beaten and imprisoned for participating in the struggle against racism, he eventually fled the country. Naidoo spent his time in exile at Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar, earning a doctorate in political sociology.

In 1990 Naidoo returned to South Africa and became a prominent human rights activist, holding leadership positions on a wide range of education, development, women’s rights and social justice initiatives including South Africa’s first national literacy program and a 1997 national men’s march protesting violence against women and children.

From 1998 to 2008, Naidoo was the secretary general and CEO of Johannesburg-based Civicus: World Alliance for Citizen Participation, where he became honorary president. He has also served as a co-chair of Global Council’s Global Call to Action Against Poverty since its inception in 2003. When appointed executive director of Greenpeace International in 2009, he said: “History teaches us that real change only comes when good men and women are prepared to put their lives and personal safety on the line to advance the cause of justice, equity and peace.”

Global Climate Change http://courses.dce.harvard.edu/~envre130
Environmental Justice http://courses.dce.harvard.edu/~envre145
Environment Ethics http://courses.dce.harvard.edu/~envre120

Former Irish President, Climate Justice Advocate Mary Robinson Urges Divestment of Fossil Fuel Firms

democracynow

Published on Oct 29, 2013

http://www.democracynow.org – As the New York region marks the first anniversary of Superstorm Sandy, hurricane-strength winds are battering northern Europe today. At least a dozen people have already been killed across Britain, Germany, the Netherlands, Denmark and France. Amidst an increase in extreme weather and storms, we discuss the movement to confront climate change with Mary Robinson, former Irish president and U.N. high commissioner for human rights. She now heads the Mary Robinson Foundation–Climate Justice, where her efforts include campaigning for the divestment from fossil fuels. “We can no longer invest in companies that are part of the problem of the climate shocks we’re suffering from,” Robinson says. “To me it’s a little bit like the energy behind the anti-apartheid movement when I was a student. We were involved because we saw the injustice of it. There’s an injustice in continuing to invest in fossil fuel companies that are part of the problem.”

Global Climate Change http://courses.dce.harvard.edu/~envre130
Environmental Justice http://courses.dce.harvard.edu/~envre145
Environment Ethics http://courses.dce.harvard.edu/~envre120

Depleted Uranium – CONSEQUENCE OF WAR: BIRTH DEFECTS Surge After UK-US MILITARY ACTION In IRAQ. Study Finds

Conspirafied0   Published on Oct 15, 2012

CONSEQUENCE OF WAR: BIRTH DEFECTS Surge After UK-US MILITARY ACTION In IRAQ. Study Finds

Babies born in the cities at the heart of the US and UK’s bloodiest military campaigns in Iraq are more likely to have heart defects, deformed limbs and brain damage, according to a new report.

In the survey, more than half of all babies who were conceived after the US invasion of Fallujah were born with birth defects. Before the siege, it was one in 10.

Graphic images of babies with twisted limbs, organs forming on the outside of bodies and inflated skulls are included in the study funded by the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at the University of Michigan.

Weaponry used by the US in Fallujah and UK forces in Basra has left a “footprint of metal” on the population, and been connected to a disturbing rise in birth defects and miscarriages in those cities, which was published in the Bulletin of Environmental Contamination and Toxicology last month.

In Basra’s Maternity Hospital, birth defects increased by more than 60% in the past seven years, linked by the report’s authors to an increased exposure to metals released by the bombs and bullets used over the past decade, including lead and mercury.

The World Health Organisation has also been probing the effect on babies and families of toxic substances used in the bombardment of the city, where hundreds of Iraqis died.

The WHO report into birth defects in Iraq is due next month, but is expected to show a startling increase in deformities in babies born after the Iraq War.

In the study, headed by Mozhgan Savabieasfahani, researchers found that between 2007 and 2010 in Fallujah, more than half of all babies monitored by researchers were born with birth defects.

Before the war, this figure was around one in 10.

More than 45% of all pregnancies surveyed ended in miscarriage in 2005 and 2006, compared to only 10% before the invasion, although mothers experiencing traumatic stress during the invasion could also have been more likely to miscarry.

The most common abnormalities found in the children of Fallujah are congenital heart defects; 24 out of 26 children were born with the defect.

Also common are neural tube defects, which affect 18 out of 46 children, which can result in spina bifida.

Hair samples taken from the population of Fallujah revealed levels of lead in children with birth defects five times higher than in other children, and mercury levels six times higher.

Basra children with birth defects had three times more lead in their teeth than children living in areas of Iraq which were not subject to similar bombardments.

A UK government spokesperson told the Independent there was no “reliable scientific or medical evidence to confirm a link between conventional ammunition and birth defects in Basra.

“All ammunition used by UK armed forces falls within international humanitarian law and is consistent with the Geneva Convention,” they said.

American forces bombed Fallujah in April 2004, and again seven months later in some of the heavy air strike campaigns seen during the iraq offensive.

The US military has denied they used depleted uranium, which has been repeatedly linked to birth defects.

Other damaging metals include lead and mercury. Lead can pass from mother to child and cause acute lead poisoning, leading to brain and nerve damage.

Environmental Justice
Environment Ethics

Nuclear, DU, Depleted

Listen to related story on DU armements and ammunition from the BBC Newshour, 21 March 2023:

Shackles and Ivy: The Secret History of How Slavery Helped Build America’s Elite Colleges

democracynow

Published on Oct 30, 2013

http://www.democracynow.org – A new book 10 years in the making examines at how many major U.S. universities — Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Brown, Dartmouth Rutgers, Williams, and the University of North Carolina among others — are drenched in the sweat, and sometimes the blood, of Africans brought to the United States as slaves. In “Ebony & Ivy: Race, Slavery and the Troubled History of America’s Universities,” Massachusetts Institute of Technology American History Professor Craig Steven Wilder reveals how the slave economy and higher education grew up together. “When you think about the colonial world, until the American Revolution, there is only one college in the south, William & Mary … The other eight colleges were all northern schools and they’re actually located in key sites, for the most part, of the merchant economy where the slave traders had come to power and rose as the financial and intellectual backers of new culture of the colonies,” Wilder says.

See related:

• Harvard & the Legacy of Slavery
• To Divest or Not to Divest? Harvard’s Profitable Energy Investments in Historical Perspective
• Recalling Some of the Chapters from the Harvard DIVESTMENT Struggle…Part 1

Traces of the Trade – Filmmaker Uncovers Her Family’s Shocking Slave Trading History

freespeechtv

Published on Oct 30, 2013

Katrina Browne documented her roots in the film, “Traces of the Trade: A Story from the Deep North,” which revealed how her family, based in Rhode Island, was once the largest slave-trading family in U.S. history. After the film aired on PBS in 2008, Browne went on to found the Tracing Center on Histories and Legacies of Slavery.

See alternatively:

Global Climate Change http://courses.dce.harvard.edu/~envre130
Environmental Justice http://courses.dce.harvard.edu/~envre145
Environment Ethics http://courses.dce.harvard.edu/~envre120