Happy New Year everyone! May it be a safe and healthy year for you!
We just came out of a challenging 2021 on all too many fronts, and we are still faced with many of those challenges this coming year. Strengthening our immune systems to protect us during the continued pandemic--which is also impacted by our stress level--is key in our efforts to stay safe, resilient, and healthy.
As we launch our journey into 2022, we encourage our readers to increase your reliance on all things organic, to support a healthier immune system. Please check our GoOrganicMd.org website periodically, as we regularly add new information for organic living including product sources--from cosmetics, bedding, cleaning products, clothing, to safely addressing pest and land care issues, and more!
This first newsletter of the year includes our monthly good news/not-so-good news posts to keep you up to date and the actions you can take to make a difference.
The European Union is moving toward a sustainable food system that promotes organic farming and will lead to increased food security and help the climate crisis. When will the USA do the same?Read more
And here's what we can individually do about it...
Increase or shift to a plant-based diet, particularly one centered on whole foods not ultra-processed products--it could reduce food's associated greenhouse gas emissions by as much as 73%. Read more
TAKE ACTION: Along with increasing your plant-based diet days, making it an organic plant-based diet will further mitigate climate change, as crops grown in organic soil optimally sequester carbon!
"It's long past time for atrazine to be banned and the EPA needs to crack down on the reckless overuse of glyphosate," Brett Wilkins writes after the EPA's most recent determination on these dangers. Read more
According to a new analysis of corporate-backed studies on the chemical glyphosate, only 2 out of 11 industry studies given to EU regulators in support of the re-approval of the main ingredient in #Roundup herbicide are scientifically "reliable". Read more
Your actions matter! Watch video Kristen Harbeson, MPEN board member, highlights the effectiveness of our work together.
Help us keep it up in 2022 by donating to our double match campaign!
"With reduced pesticide use, we saw within the first year wild bees returned to the fields, and our findings showed an average 26% increase in watermelon yield" says Ian Kaplan of Perdue. Read more
Evidence is building that so-called 'inert' ingredients in pesticide formulations are harming pollinators and undermining regulatory determinations that designate products as 'bee-safe.'Read more
This new study reveals that even a single insecticide exposure in a bee's first year of life may take several generations before bees recover. Read more
Soil health is crucial to fighting climatechange, but a new study finds that funding to support it is lacking in the Environmental Quality Incentives Program. Read more
As a botanist, Robin Wall Kimmerer has been trained to ask questions of nature with the tools of science. As a member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation, she embraces the notion that plants and animals are our oldest teachers. In Braiding Sweetgrass, Kimmerer brings these two lenses of knowledge together to take us on "a journey that is every bit as mythic as it is scientific, as sacred as it is historical, as clever as it is wise". She circles toward a central argument: that the awakening of ecological consciousness requires the acknowledgment and celebration of our reciprocal relationship with the rest of the living world. For only when we can hear the languages of other beings will we be capable of understanding the generosity of the earth, and learn to give our own gifts in return.
Reclaiming the Commons: Biodiversity, Traditional Knowledge, and the Rights of Mother Earth is written by Vandana Shiva, a scholar, author, environmental activist, and food sovereignty advocate thatlays out the scientific, legal, political, and cultural struggle to defend the sovereignty of biodiversity and indigenous knowledge. Corporate war on nature and people through patents and corporate Intellectual Property Rights has unleashed an epidemic of biopiracy resulting in important legal battles fighting efforts to patent the rights to many plants. The book goes beyond the legal struggle to position the necessary solutions to corporate control including the exploring the Rights of Nature and proposing a framework for a Universal Declaration of the Rights of Mother Earth.
Please help support our work to protect our babies, bees, and the Bay!
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