Organic Bytes
Newsletter #840: Is Blocking the Sun Being Normalized?

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GEOENGINEERING

Once a Conspiracy, Blocking the Sun Is Being Quietly Normalized

Alexis Baden–Mayer, Esq., Political Director, Organic Consumers Association writes:

In 2021, Snopes said social media posts about “Bill Gates funding efforts to block the sun” were “mostly false.”

Then, in 2023, Politico reported that the White House was “cautiously” opening “the door to study blocking sun’s rays to slow global warming.”

Now, in 2024, Climate Wire is reporting that the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) recently organized a private two-day meeting on solar geoengineering “to prepare for an expected surge of Silicon Valley funding related to last-ditch measures for slowing global warming.”

This is all very weird, especially since EDF’s official position on geoengineering is that, “Deliberate climate interventions such as albedo modification should not be undertaken for the foreseeable future as they present serious ecological, moral and geopolitical concerns.”

Read about EDF’s position on geoengineering: Our position on geoengineering

TAKE ACTION

Concerned About Unintended Effects of Solar Geoengineering?

Send this letter to your legislators!

TAKE ACTION: Tell your state legislators to say no to solar geoengineering!

Dear [Member of State Legislature]

Nobel Prize winner Paul Crutzen wrote a seminal essay in 2006, asking if injection of sulphate particles (which act to cool the atmosphere because they are reﬂective, and scatter a small fraction of incoming sunlight back into space) into the stratosphere was a feasible solution to tackling climate change.

Subsequent research suggests that so-called “stratospheric aerosol injection” could cool the global climate by as much as 2°C, but there are many downsides to this intervention.

It might result in temporary global cooling, but it would also disrupt Asian and African monsoon systems that are the water supply of billions of people.

Injection of sulphate particles into the stratosphere leads to ozone destruction and increased UV radiation, which damages human health and the Earth’s ecosystems, for example killing plankton near ocean surfaces.

Stratospheric aerosol injection would do nothing to combat the underlying causes of global warming. Greenhouse gas emissions would continue to rise, causing ocean acidification, and the impacts of acid rain could be intensified.

If stratospheric aerosol injection were implemented and then stopped, “termination shock” would ensue. Atmospheric temperatures would rebound by as much as 5 degrees centigrade in a few decades.

Now is the time to take a stand against stratospheric aerosol injection and other forms of solar radiation modification.

State legislators in Rhode Island have introduced the Atmosphere Protection Act. Similar legislation should be considered across the country.

Learn more at https://www.handsoffmotherearth.org or https://www.solargeoeng.org.

The only tried-and-true climate solution with multiple benefits and no downside is regenerative organic agriculture.

Learn more at RegenerationInternational.org.

Thank you!

[Your Name]

TAKE ACTION: Tell your state legislators to say no to solar geoengineering!

BOOK CORNER

Perennial Power: Why You Need Perennials in Your Garden

The Resilient Farm and Homestead, Revised and Expanded Edition by Ben Falk.

“Perennial plants are growing to become the base load engines of our regenerative land system at the Whole Systems Research Farm.

These permanent producers only need to be established rarely—once every couple of decades to every century or three, depending on species—yet they can produce annually while building soil health and requiring little or no fertility inputs.

Because perennials are established only once a decade or century compared to annuals, which must be established once every year, they are able to put more energy into larger seed yields relative to annuals, which must spend a much higher proportion of their lifetime simply becoming established.

In addition, the roots of perennial plants inhabit deeper layers of the subsoil horizon with each passing year.

A landscape covered in mantle of perennial plants has the capacity to transform ever more subsoil (mineral soil) into topsoil (organic-matter-rich material) with each passing year.

A landscape of annual plants functions only to a very shallow layer—typically, the top six to eighteen inches of the earth’s surface, depending on soil quality, aridity, species, and other factors.

Many perennial plants penetrate two, three, six, twelve feet or even farther into the earth.

This rooting capacity brings organic matter, water, and biological activity—the basis for organic soil formation into the subsoil.

When we harness this mechanism, perennial plants allow us to farm more deeply the earth beneath our feet, thus doubling, tripling, or more the amount of mineral and other resources we are able to draw on in our job of growing value from the intersection of sun, soil, water, and living organisms.”

THE TRUTH ABOUT FACTORY FARMS

America is a Factory Farming Nation

Nina Lakhani, writes for the Guardian:

“Record numbers of US farms are going out of business with small farms and Black farmers the hardest hit – again, according to the 2022 agriculture census, a comprehensive snapshot of the state of America’s farms and farmers published every five years by the Department of Agriculture (USDA). Yet industrial factory farms rearing thousands of livestock in confinement have further expanded into rural America, acquiring smaller farms, raking in taxpayer subsidies and generating environmental harms.

The agriculture census is a mammoth data collection effort involving more than a million farmers, which tracks the number, size and types of farm across sectors, as well as the farmers and the financials – at the national, state and county levels. It provides insights into the impact – good and bad – of government programs on farmers, workers, land use, animals, waterways and the climate, and should inform future policy. The latest data set includes the Covid pandemic – an extraordinary time when global food prices, government farm subsidies and food insecurity all surged.

Large farms and corporations benefit most from taxpayer dollars.

Small and medium dairy farms have fared worst. Almost 7 million dairy cattle – 75% of the total – are now reared in confinement on factory farms, each with 2,000 or more cows. ‘As industrial confinements drive family-scale farmers off their land … the benefits flow to private coffers while our communities and environment are left holding the bag,’ said Amanda Starbuck, FWW research director.”

Want Better Food? Demand a Better Farm Bill!

PESTICIDES

USDA Pesticide Data Program Continues to Mislead the Public on Pesticide Residue Exposure

Beyond Pesticides writes:  

“The latest U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) pesticide residue report, the 32nd Pesticide Data Program (PDP) Annual Summary report, released in January, finds that over 72 percent of tested commodities contain pesticide residues (27.6 percent have no detectable residues), mostly below the level the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has set for tolerances (allowable residues) whose safety standards have been called into question by advocates.  

USDA spins its report findings as a positive safety finding because, as the Department says, “[m]ore than 99 percent of the products sampled through PDP had residues below the established EPA tolerances.” USDA continues, “Ultimately, if EPA determines a pesticide use is not safe for human consumption, EPA will mitigate exposure to the pesticide through actions such as amending the pesticide label instructions, changing or revoking a pesticide residue tolerance, or not registering a new use.”

As Beyond Pesticides reminds the public annually when USDA uses the report to extol the safety of pesticide-laden food, the tolerance setting process has been criticized as highly deficient because of a lack of adequate risk assessments for vulnerable subpopulations, such as farmworkers, people with compromised health or preexisting health conditions, children, and perhaps, cultural/ethnic and regional subgroups of the general population, and a failure to fully assess serious health outcomes such as disruption of the endocrine system (which contributes to numerous serious diseases). Beyond Pesticides recommends choosing organic produce whenever possible—the vast majority of which does not contain synthetic pesticide residues.

To alert the public to the tolerances allowed on food commodities, Beyond Pesticides maintains the database Eating with a Conscience, which identifies the multiple pesticides that can be used on individual crops and the resulting exposures not only to consumers, but to farmworkers, farmers, neighboring communities, and the environment.”

Read about important highlights regarding environmental contaminants

Make Your State the First to Ban Monsanto’s Roundup Weedkiller!

REGENERATIVE AGRICULTURE

We Can’t Achieve Food Justice if We Don’t Prioritize Soil Health

Danielle Nierenberg writes for Food Tank:

“It is obvious to most of us that food is a human right. But our discussions of food justice need to be grounded—literally—in what experts are calling a right to healthy soils.

Without well-nourished soil, “the global issues of climate change and food security cannot be addressed,” says soil scientist Dr. Rattan Lal. He’s the recipient of the World Food Prize and a Distinguished University Professor of Soil Science at The Ohio State University.

I had the opportunity to chat with Dr. Lal recently at a U.N. human rights conference on food justice in Doha, Qatar. World leaders had some crucial discussions at that summit—and, as always, I personally learned so much from Dr. Lal.

‘The right to food and right to soil are inextricably linked,’ Dr. Lal says.

If we want good food, we need good soil. Ninety-five percent of food nutrients come from soils, the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization calculates—which makes the problem of soil erosion so much more concerning.

About a third of the world’s soils are currently degraded, the FAO says, and poor land management practices and hyper-industrialized agriculture is pushing that number higher.

And while poor soils hurt the environment, good soils can help repair the earth. Healthy soils, boosted by regenerative farming practices, can sequester more carbon from the atmosphere and more effectively store and drain water. Farmers can use techniques like no-till growing, cover cropping, rotational grazing and planting, and implementing other buffers against erosion.”  

Check out Regeneration International for updated information about Regenerative Agriculture

SUPPORT OCA AND RI

New Morning

We at OCA, like millions of Americans, as well as organic consumers and farmers across the world, are ready for a New Morning.

We yearn to wake up and move beyond our daily nightmares—endless wars, bioweapons, vaccine profiteering, genetic manipulation, technocratic dehumanization, elite domination, political polarization, and degenerate/toxic food, farming, and land use.

We firmly believe that a New Morning is within our reach. As close as the knives and forks in our hands, the soil under our feet, our computers and phones to communicate and mobilize, our wallets and purchasing power, and our local public squares and voting booths.

We have the power to wage a peaceful, non-violent, but world changing revolution that is regenerative, healthy, equitable, and organic.

But we must become more than spectators. We must all participate in revitalizing our culture, our politics, our food and our health.

To defeat the powerful forces of greed and evil, we must join together, raise our voices, and keep our eyes on the prize:

an organic and regenerative future of peace, freedom, and justice.

We are facing a crucial funding challenge at this time, so we need your help more than ever to keep this movement growing!

Please help us out if you can. 

Make a tax-deductible donation to Organic Consumers Association, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit

Make a tax-deductible donation to Regeneration International, our international sister organization

Click here for more ways to support our work

HEALTH STUDY

The Anti-Inflammatory Properties of Ginger 

Dr. Joseph Mercola writes:

“Ginger has powerful anti-inflammatory properties that data show may be related to how it influences neutrophils. Research also shows ginger may protect against this common condition.

STORY AT-A-GLANCE

* The bioactive compounds in ginger help counteract neutrophil hyperactivity in certain autoimmune diseases by increasing cyclic adenosine monophosphate (cAMP), which in turn inhibits neutrophil extracellular trap (NET) formation

* Researchers were encouraged to find a natural supplement that could help fight overactive neutrophils and may complement treatment programs to relieve symptoms of diseases like rheumatoid arthritis, lupus and antiphospholipid syndrome

* Ginger positively influences your gut by accelerating gastric emptying, and thus reduces the potential for heartburn. Alongside other spices, it can increase your gut microbiome diversity and, in turn, help to suppress long-term weight gain

* Ginger can modulate pain associated with menstruation, osteoarthritis, migraines and delayed onset muscle soreness. Research also finds cardioprotective properties, which may be attributed to antihypertensive and antiplatelet activity”   Read about how Ginger is from the same family as cardamom and turmeric and is indigenous to tropical Asia. However, since ginger does not grow in the wild, the exact origins are unclear. It has been used medicinally and in food for at least 5,000 years.”

REGENERATION INTERNATIONAL

What Is the Billion Agave Project?

Regeneration International writes:

A pioneering group of Mexican farmers are transforming their landscape and their livelihoods. How? By densely planting (1600-2500 per hectare), pruning, and intercropping a fast-growing, high-biomass, high forage-yielding species of agaves among pre-existing (500 per hectare) deep-rooted, nitrogen-fixing tree species (such as mesquite), or among planted tree seedlings.

When the agaves are 3 years old, and for the following 5 – 7 years, farmers can prune the leaves or pencas, chop them up finely with a machine, and then ferment the agave in closed containers for 30 days, ideally combining the agave leaves with 20% of leguminous pods and branches by volume to give them a higher protein level. In Guanajuato, mesquite trees start to produce pods that can be harvested in 5 years. By year 7, the mesquite and agaves have grown into a fairly dense forest. In year 8 – 10, the root stem or pina (weighing between 100-200 pounds) of the agave is ready for harvesting to produce a distilled liquor called mescal.

Meanwhile the hijuelos (or pups) put out by the mother agave plants are being continuously transplanted back into the agroforestry system, guaranteeing continuous biomass growth (and carbon storage).

In this agroforesty, system farmers avoid overgrazing by integrating rotational grazing of their livestock across their rangelands. They feed their animals by supplementing pasture forage with fermented agave silage.  

Learn more about this this groundbreaking regenerative project!

Support the amazing Billion Agave Project

MILLIONS AGAINST MONSANTO

Pregnant Women in Indiana Show Fourfold Increase in Toxic Weedkiller in Urine

Johnathan Hettinger and Carey Gillam write in The Guardian:

“Pregnant women in a key US farm state are showing increasing amounts of a toxic weedkiller in their urine, a rise that comes alongside climbing use of the chemicals in agriculture, according to a study published on Friday.

The study, led by the Indiana University school of medicine, showed that 70% of pregnant women tested in Indiana between 2020 and 2022 had a herbicide called dicamba in their urine, up from 28% from a similar analysis for the period 2010-12. The earlier study included women in Indiana, Illinois and Ohio.

Notably, the study also found that along with a larger percentage of women showing the presence of dicamba in their bodies, the concentrations of the weed-killing chemical increased more than fourfold.

The findings add to a growing body of literature documenting human exposure to chemicals used in agriculture, and various known and potential health impacts. Many scientists have particular concerns about how farm chemicals affect pregnant women and their children, but say more research – and more regulatory scrutiny – is needed.” 