The Health Dangers of Roundup (glyphosate) Herbicide. Jeffrey Smith & Stephanie Seneff

Soil erosion is threatening our food security

Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations
Published on May 15, 2019

Soil may not look like much but without it we wouldn’t be able to produce our food! But soil erosion is threatening our food security. Every 5 seconds the equivalent of one soccer pitch is eroded! Once we lose this soil we won’t see it again in our lifetime. If we don’t act now, over 90% of the Earth’s soils could become degraded by 2050. We need to protect our soils for a secure future of food!

Food-matters

Carbon Levels in Atmosphere Reach Highest Ever in Human History

May 14, 2019

In more environmental news, carbon levels in the atmosphere registered 415 parts per million over the weekend — a level that has not been seen in over 3 million years. The reading was observed at an observatory in Hawaii and is the latest indicator of the fast-growing threat of atmospheric carbon concentration driving climate change. Meteorologist Eric Holthaus tweeted, “Not just in recorded history, not just since the invention of agriculture 10,000 years ago. Since before modern humans existed millions of years ago. We don’t know a planet like this.”

CA Jury Orders Monsanto to Pay Over $2 Billion in Roundup Cancer Lawsuit

May 14, 2019

In Oakland, California, Monsanto has been ordered to pay its highest damages yet in the third lawsuit over the popular weedkiller Roundup. A jury has ordered Monsanto, which is owned by German pharmaceutical giant Bayer, to pay more than $2 billion in punitive damages to Alva and Alberta Pilliod — a couple who were both diagnosed with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma cancer after using Roundup on their properties for over 30 years. The main ingredient in the herbicide is glyphosate, and is said to cause the cancer. Attorneys for the plaintiffs estimate that there are tens of thousands of similar cases against Roundup pending in courts around the country. This is attorney Brent Wisner speaking after the verdict was announced.

Brent Wisner: “Monsanto keeps denying that it causes cancer and these two fine people here are casualties of that deception. This is going to continue until Monsanto and now Bayer takes responsibility for its product. People are dying, people are getting sick and they have no idea that it is being caused by Roundup.”

Earlier this month, the EPA said that glyphosate is not carcinogenic. However other scientific studies, and the World Health Organization have found that human exposure can in fact lead to cancer.

“New economic and moral foundations for the Anthropocene” with Prof Eric Beinhocker

Oxford Martin School
Scheduled for Jun 20, 2019

The biosphere and econosphere are deeply interlinked and both are in crisis. Industrial, fossil-fuel based capitalism delivered major increases in living standards from the mid-18th through late-20th centuries, but at the cost of widespread ecosystem destruction, planetary climate change, and a variety of economic injustices. Furthermore, over the past 40 years, the gains of growth have flowed almost exclusively to the top 10%, fuelling populist anger across many countries, endangering both democracy and global action on climate change.

This talk will argue that underlying the current dominant model of capitalism are a set of theories and ideologies that are outdated, unscientific, and morally unsound. New foundations can be built from modern understandings of human behaviour, complex systems science, and broad moral principles. By changing the ideologies, narratives, and memes that govern our economic system, we can create the political space required for the policies and actions required to rapidly transform to a sustainable and just economic system.

Oxford Martin School,
University of Oxford
www.oxfordmartin.ox.ac.uk