Natural Bytes E-newsletter #869: PFAS Are Placing Our Consuming Water Beneath Menace!
EPA’s Limits for PFAS Are Placing Our Consuming Water Beneath Menace
Tom Perkins writes for The Guardian:
“A number of surprising plaintiffs are behind a authorized problem aiming to kill the Environmental Safety Company’s groundbreaking new consuming water limits for extremely poisonous PFAS: the US’s water utilities, represented by their main commerce teams.
However utility business opposition to scrub water laws is nothing new. Although utilities’ mission is to supply the US with clear and secure water, their commerce teams have for many years usually fiercely opposed initiatives to enhance high quality.
Utilities have efficiently helped kill, delay or weaken nearly all proposed limits on poisonous substances like lead, the rocket gas perchlorate, and carcinogenic disinfectants.
The utility business additionally lobbied to weaken the Protected Consuming Water Act’s 1996 revision, which is essentially why the EPA since then has solely efficiently set a brand new restrict for one contaminant – PFAS – and that also could also be undone, stated Erik Olson, senior adviser to the Pure Assets Protection Council (NRDC) Motion Fund, who additionally lobbied on the laws.
The US now faces a baffling state of affairs during which those that are liable for cleansing its water are thought of to be the most important impediment to secure water, public well being advocates say. Utilities usually work ‘arm and arm’ with the chemical business to assault guidelines, Olson stated.
‘It has been throughout the board that when the EPA tries to advance robust new guidelines, many utilities battle in opposition to it,’ he added.”
Examine how the business ceaselessly downplays the general public well being dangers of poisonous substances and claims the associated fee to take away them are too excessive regardless of overwhelming proof that the chemical substances are poisonous at very low ranges
Please take motion! The rationale why PFAS has been detected within the blood of 98% of Individuals and is contaminating 45% of U.S. faucet water is as a result of firms like 3M and DuPont have all the time had (and, in response to the federal Environmental Safety Company, nonetheless have) a free move to dump their waste proper into streams, rivers and sewage techniques. Demand that our elected officers create laws to ban these poisonous substances! Inform your state legislators to ban poisonous PFAS!
ENVIRONMENT
5 Straightforward Methods To Defend Wildlife This Fall
By Justin Wheeler, Scott Hoffman Black and Deborah Seiler, The Xerces Society:
“Listed below are some easy methods you possibly can assist the fascinating invertebrates who might name your yard or backyard residence!
Go away the leaves, or transfer them only a bit.
Leaving the leaves and different plant particles doesn’t need to imply sacrificing your yard to the wilderness. A skinny layer of leaves is definitely wholesome for grass, however the leaves additionally don’t have to be left precisely the place they fall. You’ll be able to rake them into backyard beds, round tree bases, or into different designated areas. Leaves are nice for soil high quality: they will suppress weeds, retain moisture, and enhance vitamin. And perennial vegetation respect the additional insulation by means of the winter, too!
Keep away from shredding leaves; let the bugs do this for you!
Shredded leaves is not going to present the identical cowl as leaving them complete, and you might be destroying eggs, caterpillars, and cocoons together with the leaves. As an alternative of a mower, use a rake or blower to maintain leaves intact. In case you use leaves for compost, take into account making a leaf pile and permitting it to interrupt down naturally if house permits. Millipedes, roly-polys, and different leaf-eating bugs will assist and benefit from the meal! You too can add the leaves step by step to your present compost pile.
Flip these fallen branches and logs right into a brush pile habitat.
As an alternative of trashing items of wooden, stack them up! Loads of bugs hunt down fallen items of wooden to hibernate in. Piles could be as massive or small as you’ve house for, and you’ll cover the pile behind a hedge or wildflowers to maintain the yard wanting clear. Logs and stumps may also be used as borders round a local planting space so as to add definition to the house.”
Learn extra
PESTICIDES
Revealed: The U.S. Authorities-Funded ‘Non-public Social Community’ Attacking Pesticide Critics
By Carey Gillam, Margot Gibbs and Elena DeBre, The Guardian:
“In 2017, two United Nations consultants known as for a treaty to strictly regulate harmful pesticides, which they stated have been a ‘international human rights concern’, citing scientific analysis exhibiting pesticides could cause cancers, Parkinson’s illness, Alzheimer’s and different well being issues.
Publicly, the pesticide business’s lead commerce affiliation dubbed the suggestions ‘unfounded and sensational assertions’. In personal, business advocates have gone additional.
Derogatory profiles of the 2 UN consultants, Hilal Elver and Baskut Tuncak, are hosted on a web-based personal portal for pesticide firm staff and a variety of influential allies.
Members can entry a variety of private details about lots of of people from all over the world deemed a risk to business pursuits, together with the US meals writers Michael Pollan and Mark Bittman, the Indian environmentalist Vandana Shiva and the Nigerian activist Nnimmo Bassey.
Many profiles embrace private particulars such because the names of relations, cellphone numbers, residence addresses and even home values.
The profiling is a part of an effort – that was financed, partly, by US taxpayer {dollars} – to downplay pesticide risks, discredit opponents and undermine worldwide policymaking, in response to courtroom data, emails and different paperwork obtained by the non-profit newsroom Lighthouse Studies.”
Find out how our tax {dollars} are getting used in opposition to us to maintain us in darkish concerning the risks of pesticide publicity
HEALTHY DEMOCRACY
Defending the Proper to Protest
Annie Leonard, Patagonia Tales:
“Prior to now few years, company pursuits have been working additional laborious to erode the appropriate to do what activists do once they come collectively to handle an issue: converse out, set up, collaborate, elevate funds, and when different avenues of democratic participation fail to provide outcomes, put their our bodies on the road by means of acts of nonviolent civil disobedience.
These are all totally different types of protest, and all are important instruments within the toolbox of these looking for to forestall the plunder of our planet.
For communities most excluded from decision-making processes, protest is usually the one avenue of democratic participation that’s available. That is partly why civil disobedience—a tactic that oftentimes includes breaking the legislation—has helped cement monumental human rights wins for social actions internationally, led by the likes of Martin Luther King Jr., Rosa Parks, and Gandhi.
Protest, whether or not with phrases or one’s physique, is highly effective, not only for the decision-makers challenged, but in addition for the individuals. Traditionally, state-sanctioned violence in opposition to protestors unfairly targets Black, Indigenous, and different folks of shade—for fellow protestors, this makes the act of solidarity much more necessary.”
Examine how we protest as a result of it really works—and it’s exactly as a result of protest works when it’s beneath assault
NATURAL HEALTH
20 Pure Cures To Soothe a Sore Throat
Evaluation by Dr. Joseph Mercola:
“STORY-AT-A-GLANCE
* Sore throat, or pharyngitis, causes ache and irritation within the throat, making swallowing and speaking uncomfortable. It’s generally attributable to viral infections like colds or flu, however may also end result from bacterial infections, allergens, irritants, or acid reflux disorder
* Whereas most sore throats resolve on their very own inside per week, there are pure methods to appease your throat, scale back irritation and help your immune system
* Uncooked honey, saltwater gargle, apple cider vinegar, peppermint tea, marshmallow root and slippery elm have numerous therapeutic properties to supply reduction from discomfort and assist handle signs
* Further methods for reduction embrace steam inhalation to moisturize throat tissues, acupuncture to scale back the frequency and severity of sore throat and sufficient relaxation to help immune perform
* Prevention is healthier than treatment. Tricks to help your immune system and scale back your threat for sore throat are included beneath”
Study extra
PLEASE SUPPORT OCA & RI
Working In the direction of a Brighter Future
In addition to our on going campaigns and tasks, we’re funding and producing the upcoming People’s Food Summit on October sixteenth.
We’re producing this summit to teach folks about regenerative, natural farming and the way by means of this manner of farming, we are able to survive and thrive, letting farmer’s success tales from all over the world unfold, and be the inspiration for folks to implement these practices in their very own communities.
Learn these phrases from our former Worldwide Director Ronnie Cummins for one of many many the explanation why soil administration is among the many causes this manner of farming is so essential for the entire planet in our local weather disaster.
“We’re going to need to get again to natural soil administration in an effort to survive on this period of local weather instability as a result of with natural farming and natural husbandry or ranching, the soil is alive, it’s crammed with trillions of microorganisms and fungi, and it’s like a sponge, actually, in comparison with chemically handled soil, you set a shovel in it and you’ll see a distinction.
However the essential factor about having the soil alive and sponge-like is that when it rains, it retains that moisture beneath the soil, for a substantial time period, in order that when you’ve a protracted interval between rainfall, the vegetation can nonetheless survive.
Currently, we’ve had as an alternative of a gradual rain at predictable occasions, we frequently have all the way in which throughout North America, these torrential downpours, when it lastly does rain, it’s a flood, and the factor about natural soil, is that it may well soak up a whole lot of the water, it doesn’t all simply run off and wash away the soil, so it may well allow the vegetation to outlive, it holds the soil, it holds the vitamins in, so we don’t actually have a lot selection however to all grow to be reacquainted with the soil.
The soil is definitely the very most necessary factor round us, if we don’t take note of this, we’re going to be very very sorry, however the good factor is that we are able to grow to be natural gardeners, like our grandparents have been, even when we’re simply beginning with pots in our windowsills, after which our backyards, and so forth.
We will suppose earlier than we pull out our wallets, we are able to discover ways to prepare dinner once more from fundamental grains, eat decrease on the meals chain, you’ll be more healthy, you’ll be happier, and that is the way in which we’re going to be consuming sooner or later.”
Along with your assist we’re working in direction of a brighter future.
Donate $50 and recieve a paperback copy of The Regenerative Agriculture Resolution — by André Leu and Ronnie Cummins
Make a tax-deductible donation to Natural Shoppers Affiliation, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit
USDA WATCH
In ‘Barons,’ Austin Frerick Takes on the Most Highly effective Households within the Meals System
Twilight Greenaway writes for Civil Eats:
“I perceive meals reformers try to [make change] each day, however every now and then, it’s important to step again and take a look at the larger image. This [bill] was in-built a unique world. It’s so corrupted and corroded. We have to rethink it. And the USDA goes again to the Civil Struggle. It’s not a nasty factor to have a look at reorganizing the system. Let’s put meals analysis beneath Well being and Human Providers. Why does USDA have antitrust authority? We should always give that to the FTC.
The issue with USDA now’s it acts like a chamber of commerce, or a promotional company for the barons. And with each metric—besides company income—they’ve failed: The farmer’s share of the greenback is at an all-time low. One in 10 Individuals works within the meals system, and the way in which staff are handled is appalling. And by well being requirements, Individuals will not be doing nicely. It’s laborious to make a case that they need to proceed as-is based mostly on this guidelines of failures.
I would like readers to know that the system we have now now’s radical. It’s radical that one man in Iowa raised 5 million hogs a 12 months. The reforms in that final chapter, a whole lot of it’s going again to the way in which techniques was once—like placing animals again on land. That’s not radical; that’s how animals have lived for many of their existence. I perceive that the barons and their lackeys will body me as a radical, however no, it’s their company capitalist system that’s extremely radical. And you’ll’t speak about fixing or reforming one thing until you’ve an trustworthy dialog about the place it’s at.”
Study what occurs once you permit concentrated energy
Read Austin Frerick’s book to help understand the pitfalls of our American food system
REGENERATION INTERNATIONAL
Please Be a part of Us for the 4th Annual Individuals’s Meals Summit on October 16, 2024
Regeneration Worldwide (RI) is thrilled to host the Individuals’s Meals Summit, October 16, 2024!
This would be the fourth time Regeneration Worldwide will host the Individuals’s Meals Summit. This distinctive occasion is a serious 24-hour celebration of World Meals Day, that includes inspiring audio system from each area of our planet.
The 2021, 2022 and 2023 occasions have been spectacularly profitable, with over 500,000 folks, from all areas of the world, tuning in to look at and hearken to our quite a few audio system and their important matters.
In 2022, we promoted movies that we thought to be highlights of every area and reached one other 700,000 views, bringing the whole views to 1,200,000. As a result of we reached so many individuals, this occasion had a really excessive influence and can proceed to attach folks by means of regeneration and meals sovereignty.
The purpose of the summit is to boost the connectedness of world work amongst quite a few like-minded organizations. We search to have interaction lots of of 1000’s by exchanging data and sharing inspiring tales.
Our Mission:
1. Info Trade
2. Creating connections the place totally different teams can proceed working collectively afterwards
3. Stimulating a citizen-led analysis and storytelling journey
4. Beginning a partnership the place RI continues to allow the scale-up of tasks
5. Growing the attain of this very important data to lots of of 1000’s of individuals
It’s the solely 24-hour international, participatory, digital summit beginning in Oceania and shifting westwards by means of the time zones of Asia, the Center East, Africa, Europe, Latin America, and North America. The Individuals’s Meals Summit is a very participatory summit that empowers many of the world’s meals producers: the household farmers, pastoralists, and foresters who produce 70% of our meals. Regenerative natural agriculture, agroecology, and local weather change are featured within the summit.
We intend to develop this format for the 2025 summit and proceed to current the confirmed, farmer-based, real-world examples which are the way forward for our meals and farming techniques. These embrace agroecology, natural and regenerative farming, permaculture, agroforestry, holistically managed grazing, and lots of different techniques.
Watch this trailer for a peek into this inspiring 24 hours of tales from folks all over the world, about residing on the land and sharing practices that may heal the earth and convey abundance and connection
Register here for an email notification when this free online summit starts
Please join us and spread the word about the People’s Food Summit
HEALTH
Cancerous Flame Retardants in Black Plastic, Examine Says
Dieter Holger, Client Affairs:
“Black plastic is usually filled with cancerous, hormone disrupting flame retardants, a first-of-its-kind research finds.
A sushi tray, spatula and beaded necklace are amongst black plastic objects that examined with excessive ranges of the poisonous chemical substances, in response to a research printed within the journal Chemosphere and sponsored by environmental nonprofit Poisonous Free Future.
Flame retardants are linked to most cancers, mind harm and reproductive difficulties.
The research discovered flame retardants in 17 of the 20 merchandise that have been examined, with complete concentrations starting from 40 to 22,800 elements per million.
By comparability, a California legislation that went into impact in 2020 restricted flame retardants in youngsters’s merchandise, mattresses and upholstered furnishings to 1,000 elements per million.
The banned flame retardant deca-BDE was additionally current at ranges from 5 to 1,200 occasions better than the European Union’s restrict of 10 elements per million.”
Learn extra concerning the quantity of cancerous flame retardants that have been within the numerous black plastic objects
NATURAL MEDICINE
7 Well being Advantages of Elderberry
The Develop Community:
“Are you on the lookout for a secure, pure drugs to make use of this chilly and flu season? Elderberry gained’t disappoint. It’s been used all through human historical past, even being planted on the edges of gardens to behave as a guardian over the opposite vegetation. And simply because the Elder Mom taken care of her little ones within the backyard, she might help to take care of you and your little ones, too.
Elderberry medicines could be bought or created in a wide range of totally different kinds. Elder merchandise embrace teas, syrups, wines, lozenges and tablets, juices, sprays, powders, tinctures, kombuchas, soda, gummies, and practically the rest you possibly can think about. You’ll be able to even make your personal elderberry ice cream. Whereas elderberry syrup might be the most-used type of elderberry drugs, any of those could be acceptable and helpful. Use whichever one calls to you.
Each the flowers and the berries can be utilized in medicines. The flowers are extra mild. Because of this, many individuals like to make use of flower-based merchandise with youngsters.”
Learn concerning the secure, pure and highly effective advantages of Elderberry
GMOs
George Monbiot’s Ally RePlanet Accused of Smelling “Like Astroturf”
Jonathan Matthews writes for GM Watch:
“George Monbiot has attacked The Land journal for having succumbed to ‘the present wave of conspiracism’ in its criticism of his involvement with Mark Lynas and the rebranded ecomodernist group RePlanet, who promote nuclear energy, GMOs, and artificial meals.
Monbiot took exception to a lead editorial in The Land (situation no. 32) entitled Rebooting Actuality: Ecomodernists need to ‘reboot meals’: Mike Hannis smells astroturf. Within the editorial, The Land’s co-editor, who can be a Senior Lecturer in Ethics, Politics and Surroundings at Bathtub Spa College, wrote about RePlanet and its Reboot Meals marketing campaign, as a part of which, ‘RePlanet kindly funded a (Monbiot) talking tour of Europe, and related media blitz, selling Monbiot’s controversial guide Regenesis as a press release of their very own place’ In Regenesis, it might be remembered, Monbiot promotes artificial meals as a silver bullet for eliminating livestock-related farming, thus enabling the rewilding of huge tracts of rural land.
In his editorial, Hannis identified how nicely RePlanet’s aims serve the pursuits of business. As an illustration, their Reboot Meals marketing campaign explicitly goals to safe state funding for the rising artificial meals business. He may equally have pointed to how completely RePlanet’s campaigning to droop natural farming targets and decontrol GMOs synchs with key present marketing campaign objectives of the pesticides foyer in Brussels, the place RePlanet has an workplace.”
Examine how RePlanet’s cash is generated from financing a few of the most damaging industries on the planet
LITTLE BYTES
Different Important Studying and Movies for the Week
‘Nature Is Free, and the Finest Sort of Medication’: Is This the Good Stroll for Bettering Psychological Well being?
Buy Equal Exchange Fairly Traded Chocolates for Halloween
Regenerative Clothes: The Way forward for Sustainable Vogue?
6 Issues You’re Washing Strategy to Typically
‘Don’t Fear, You Will Not Be Uncovered to This Very Dangerous Pesticide’
Magnesium’s Essential Position in Mobile Power Manufacturing Revealed
Halloween Face Paint Can Be Poisonous to Children: Right here’s Find out how to Ditch the Make-up and DIY As an alternative
Some Filters Are Higher Than Others at Eradicating Without end Chemical compounds From Your Water
Historic Invoice Launched To Defend America’s Grey Wolves, Grizzly Bears & Bison
October is National Farm to School Month!
Youngsters Want Vitamin D to Heal Damaged Bones, Examine Says
Why Would possibly Eggs Be Useful To Forestall Dementia?
The Actual Purpose You Really feel Down After Darkish
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