August 5, 2022
  Greetings!  
 

This summer has been challenging with climate-change related high temps, flooding, and drought. As we approach the last days of summer, we focus on things we can do to reduce pesticide impacts on climate change, our seriously degraded soil, and you and yours from toxic mosquito control pesticides. A critical and doable action to slow this trend: remember organic soil optimally sequesters carbon and apply these land care practices to your lawn, your yard, your farm. 

The Rodale Institute produced a report several years ago on its 30-year study which found that if the planet went organic, we could actually reverse climate change! See Rodale Institute's latest encouraging 2020 report. The more owners/keepers of land that transition to organic land care and farming, the more we advance mitigating climate change. Your backyard, your lawn, your farm can contribute to sequestering carbon by going pesticide-free/organic. Go here for free downloadable Rodale Institute how-tos.

Take Action! Tell your Congressional Rep to co-sponsor HR5987 to prevent EPA from bending to industry pressure and replacing the worldwide definition of a PFAS with a weakened definition, that lets industry off the hook by eliminating 6,000 of the 12,000 PFAS chemicals from regulation. Take 2 minutes to please send an email now.

Thank you for helping us with the 'good fight'!  Deep gratitude for you, our readers, for following us and taking the steps to reduce pesticide use and its damaging impacts. Like to see what else we do? Go here.

 
  ORGANIC LIVING  
 

Vote With Your Wallet, Vote With Your Fork! GO Organic! Where to shop and how to go organic in all you do -- even on a budget! Learn how

For outdoor and indoor gardeners: Check out our page on GROWING, the Go Organic way, inviting beauty and bounty into our yards and gardens. Learn more

Want to learn to combat the climate crisis through your food? Download the Buyers Guide to Regenerative Food. Learn more

Find regenerative farms near you with this map!

Food prices are climbing, but you can still eat organic on a budget. Check out these 75 tips for conserving cash while eating healthful nutritious organic foods. Learn more
Are you a "Conscious Consumer?" To be one means educating yourself about how your consumer choices impact people, animals, your personal/planetary health. It leads to eating more plant-based foods, fewer animal products and purchasing "certified organic."  Learn more 

Don't rely on dangerous mosquito pesticides. Download this infographic for ways to manage mosquitoes safely and effectively without pesticides. Learn more

To learn about how to opt out of Maryland's Mosquito Control Program, go here: bit.ly/3nxUHZU

 

 
  NEWS and VIEWS  
 
Days after Md state legislators introduced a pollinator-protecting bill restricting neonicotinoid pesticide use, Bayer, Syngenta, CropLife America, Md Farm Bureau in collaboration with Md Dept. of Agriculture planned and executed a counter-offensive to the 2014-2016 Pollinator Protection Act bill. Emails obtained by U.S. Right to Know show the strategies they used over the next two and a half years to try to kill the bill. Learn more
 Glyphosate/RoundUp news...

Excellent analysis from the NRDC: 9th Circuit Court rules EPA must re-assess the risks of glyphosate. Three Things to Know. Learn more

Take action: In light of this recent federal court ruling, Beyond Pesticides is out with a petition to demand that EPA ban this commonly used toxic herbicide. Sign on.

Friends of the Earth and allies are leading a campaign for Lowe's and Home Depot to immediately end sales of carcinogenic Roundup and other glyphosate-based weedkillers. See why advocates are calling for this action to protect our health and the environment. Learn more
Neonics, glyphosate... disconcertingly, there are many other toxic pesticides, including this class of synthetic pyrethroids.
Many mosquito control pesticides contain synthetic pyrethroids, known to cause or worsen respiratory issues. Children exposed to pyrethroids can experience brain damage, asthma, and other neurological damage. Is it worth the health risks? Learn more
The relationship between climate change and biodiversity is often overlooked in the regulation of the pesticide industry. Learn how they are interdependent, and how adverse effects from one can bolster adverse impacts on the other. Learn more
 
  POLLINATOR / BEE BUZZ  
 

There's some good news for Eastern US monarch butterflies, but we need to continue planting milkweed in Canada and the USA, preserving overwintering sites in Mexican forest, and promoting flowering plants in the flyway in all 3 countries. Learn more 

However worldwide, monarchs have just been red listed as "Endangered" by International Union of Conservation of Nature.

Send us your garden pictures! We'd like to feature them on our social media. Email us
 
  LET'S GET SERIOUS ABOUT SOIL, food security & climate change--yes they're related!  
 
A new organic milk line that relies on grazing, animal welfare, healthier cows, well-paid farmers, and conservation practices could help save both the Chesapeake Bay and struggling dairy farmers. Learn more
Tractors & other machinery used on farms have grown enormously heavier over the past 60 years, now weighing as much as the heaviest dinosaurs. The weight of these massive contraptions have since proven detrimental for soil health, causing soil to be chronically compacted. Learn more
As heat-related illness and death are a growing problem in US agriculture, who will protect the farmworkers we rely on for our food supply? The Occupational Safety & Health Administration still hasn't established national safety guidelines. Learn more
 
  GOOD READS & DEEDS  
 
DDT is linked to other ubiquitous toxic chemicals, as well as social inequality, race, and environmental pollution - and yet, the tobacco industry has funded a secret campaign to bring it back! Elena Conis explains this connection and the disastrous effects of DDT in her book, "How to Sell a Poison."  Learn More

Please help support our work to protect our babies, bees, and the Bay!