say no to GMO

my friend sam has recently gotten all activist on me and has started researching things that we can do to help limit genetically modified foods, seeds and organisms enter our food chain or at the very minimum to be labelled so that we as consumers can make choices about what we ingest.

it scares me that unless i purposely choose to eat organic food, anything from fresh produce to even processed food can be or may contain genetially modified (GM) organisms and i wouldn't even know it because manufacturers and producers aren't required to disclose GM food sources in north america.

and to think that it's mostly one company that is harnessing the power of GM to control the finances and crops of our farmers and slowly extend that power to take hold of our sustenance.

"Once they have established the norm that seed can be owned as their property and 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, its strategic. Its more powerful than bombs, its more powerful than guns. This is the best way to control the populations of the world."

dr. vandana shiva

well in canada we are getting another chance to change this!! it's a small step but a step in the right direction.

please write to your MP to vote in favour of bill c-370 - An Act to amend the Food and Drugs Act (mandatory labelling for genetically modified foods).

if you don't who your MP is, you can look them up based on your postal code here.

you can also handwrite a letter and send it via snailmail for free!

and if you need some help with drafting up a message, sam wrote a quick message that you can use too:

Dear ________________,
We all have the right to know what we are eating and the right to not eat GE foods. I support mandatory labelling of GE food, which is already practiced in over 40 countries in Europe and elsewhere. MP Alex Atamaneko’s Bill C-370 would allow implementation of mandatory labelling in Canada. I am asking you to vote in favour of Bill C-370. Please confirm your intention to support this important bill

let's harness this new found patriotism and love for canada that sprouted from the olympics and show harper that we care about all aspects of our home and native land - not just athletic part!

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still need more convincing that GM labelling is imperative? i found a site where you can watch the world according to monsanto.

'say no to GMO' part deux coming soon! stay tuned.

the suzuki diaries

just wanted to share a link to a great mini-site for a nature of things episode of a trip to europe that david suzuki and his daughter sarika made this summer: the suzuki diaries.

it has a great travelogue of their trip written by sarika, videos of the episode and suggestions on how we can incorporate some of the wonderful environmentally sustainable things that people in denmark, germany (the most environmentally friendly country in the world), france and spain are doing.

a recap of things i found inspiring:

• germany has already met their sustainable energy targets for 2010, harvesting energy from the sun and wind


• germany's sustainable energy sector is the fastest growing industry in the country, employing more than 200,000 (300,000?) people


• 36% of copenhagen commuters ride to work (the city wants to increase that to 50%). watch the online video, the images of all the cyclists in the city is truly amazing (and very chic).


• new buildings in spain must have photovoltaic technology and solar hot water heating systems

canadians really need to step up and start changing the way we live. we are seeing the effects of global warming right here, in our own country yet we aren't making any drastic changes stop it.

and this includes me too. one of my new year's resolutions has to include some type of environmental action item.

feeling a bit lost

one of my most favourite illustrators kozyndan recently created a beautiful panorama. they write that this article about plastic was a starting point for the trash monsters that they've drawn in their illustration.

i consider myself pretty eco-conscious and i try my best to reduce, reuse and recycle, but the plastic ocean article that inspired kozyndan's panorama really shocked me.

the article talks about how plastics are making their way into our food chain. among more conventional info about plastics affecting wild life, it also says that:

that is so scary. what scared me even more is that i'm surrounded by plastic! just quickly scanning everything i own, my cellphone, tv, computer, pen, chair, desk lamp... not only is everything in my house plastic, all my food comes wrapped in plastic, my skin care and hair care products - plastic, junkmail - wrapped in plastic, ...i even own nylon clothing!

sadly, most of this plastic can't be recycled because there are no facilities to do this in ontario (and probably north america). and even if it is recycled, according to this article, virgin plastic needs to be added to the recycled plastic for it to be reusable.

the article made me want to stop all my consumption of plastic, but it's everywhere. i can reduce my intake of plastic things, but it seems like i'll never be able to cut out all plastic from my life.

and that is why i'm feeling a bit lost and sad right now. i'm living in and leaving a world that is filled with plastic that will never go away.

more enviro links

i'm assuming everybody knows about treehugger, but recently i learned about another hip enviro blog called inhabitat that reports on environmentally friendly things that give just as much thought to the aesthetic as they do to the practical.

i learned about inhabitat through domino magazine's super cute interview where they interview the editor-in-chief of inhabitat, Jill Fehrenbacher. In the iterview, she talks about what her environmentally friendly fantasy day would bet.

now i totally want a solar powered radio.

happy first day of spring!

with all this bad and sad news that has been dominating the media (the US recession's impact on the canadian economy, gold/oil/stock prices tumbling, 5 year anniversary of the iraqi invasion, our PM wanting to sue the opposition party - that's our tax money!), i was so happy to read that percy schmeiser was able to settle his law suit with evil GMO producing monsanto (although surprisingly this victory was not reported on the cbc today).

for the past 8 years, percy schmeiser has been fighting monsanto's patent infringement accusations, where monsanto accused schmeiser of stealing their genetically modified roundup ready canola seeds by not paying the company for the special seeds nor paying them the annual licensing fee required to harvest canola with this special gene.

the fact that a company patented a life form is scary enough, but what's scarier is that monsanto has agents that go and test farms to ensure that their GMO is not being used by unlicensed farmers. a total cash grab, when cross pollination of crops happens naturally. wind, bees, birds and other creatures don't care about human created boundaries.

shockingly, schmeiser lost the first court case where the supreme court ruled in monsanto's favour. so, schmeiser fought back, appealed and sued monsanto for contaminating his crops - his canola seeds have been carefully developed by his family for the past 50 years. go percy!

more indepth info:
• percy schmeiser's battle
• the future of food (a movie)
• svalbard seed vault (via sameer's blog)

photo: a hopefully non-GMO canola field in edmonton