“Pests” and “Weeds” are really just names we give to animals and plants that don’t suit our purposes. The worms in you composter aren’t pests but the caterpillars chowing down on your strawberries are.

I was puzzled at a recent article in the Huffington Post that seemed almost... well, gleeful over an increasing threat of a pest known as a bollworm. Apparently the author thinks the proliferation of bollworms is a great way to ‘stick it’ to ‘evil corporations’ like Monsanto.

But let’s back up for a moment. Here is a short history of modern agriculture. As humans there are certain crops we like to farm. You know, things that are useful to us like corn and wheat and cotton and whatnot. I doubt there is a single dandelion farm on earth. The problem for us is that sometimes mother nature doesn’t want to go along with our plans. Events like plant diseases, pest infestations and droughts can have a severe impact on whether any useful crops can be grown at all. So over the last few decades special seeds and chemicals have been developed to protect our crops from these threats.

Whew! Keeping up with me so far? Let’s soldier on...

The problem is, as with the pink bollworm, that by developing a type of special genetically-modified cotton that kills pink bollworms we have pushed the bollworms to develop a resistance to the GMO cotton. These “super bollworms” can chomp on all the cotton plants they like until a new type of cotton with improved protection is developed.

And according to the HuffPost article this is somehow a good thing. I don’t see how. Farmers will lose out financially through destroyed crops and at the end of the day we’ll have less cotton and cotton will be more expensive to purchase as a result.

So could this have been avoided? Sure, I suppose we could have never used the technology and allowed ‘natural’ cotton crops to be devastated by bollworms year after year. Overall we’d have no cotton and lots of poor farmers. But I guess we would have helped support the global bollworm population... is that supposed to be a good thing?

Another take on this is to think of the farms of the world as living systems – like the human body. Year after year various forms of influenza spiral around the globe and every year new vaccines are developed to combat the spread. The result is that every year lives are saved but every year new vaccines must be developed for the next round of influenza. Well, it’s a similar cycle for the crops that farmers grow. Season after season they grow crops and each year there are different threats that can harm the crops. Farmers combat these threats in whatever way they can and then the next year the whole thing starts again.

Some might argue that we should simply let nature take its course. That’s a nice idea in principle but it’s hardly realistic or practical. These big agricultural systems exist to feed the demand of our big global population, with the side benefit of driving economies all along the way.

Sticking with cotton and bollworms, let’s look at two scenarios.

Scenario One – We ‘let nature take its course’

The farmer in India gives up and decides to stop fighting the pests that attack his crop year after year. He decides to grow non-GMO cotton and as a result his farm is devastated. (That’s right. His cotton will not magically evolve and develop some kind of special defence on its own- and certainly not in one season. It will be wiped out.) The Indian farmer, his family, and the families of all the other devastated farmers starve to death. In China, thousands of workers are laid-off as garment factories close.

On the other side of the world puzzled shoppers stop pushing their carts through Wal-Mart to gawk at the empty racks of clothes, with the few available items priced at 10 times their previous cost.

Scenario Two – We fight

The Indian farmer decides enough is enough. He uses the latest technology to combat the pests that destroy his cotton crops. He has a record harvest and he and all of the other Indian farmers can provide for their families. Tons of cotton is shipped to China where new factories open every month to produce new cotton garments.

And on the other side of the world it is life as usual.

Are my two scenarios ridiculous? They’re dramatic but certainly within the realm of possibility. It is in our very nature as human beings to survive and provide for ourselves.  We develop medicines to treat diseases that afflict our bodies. If those treatments become ineffective we develop new ones.  This bollworm situation is no different.

Seed companies already have an alternative cotton ready to go and are working on new innovations all the time. Do they profit from all this work? Sure they do - it’s a free market. But if they don’t work to prevent these pests then who will?

» Huffington Post

Depending on where you live and where you shop you may have already been exposed to certain types of labels on your food. For example, if you were to go to your meat department you would find various cuts of beef and on those packages you’d find information on when the meat was packaged, when it will expire, and whether it is on sale. You may also see a sticker on the package that declares it to be “100% Local”, “Black Angus” or “AAA”. There may also be a label that indicates the meat has been inspected or approved by someone.

Fact is, we make a lot of assumptions about the food we buy and most of us have little or no idea what those labels really mean. If I showed you three steaks and one was labelled “AAA” one was “Silver Select” and one bore a sticker that read “Premium Cut” could you tell me which steak was the best? Of course not. I can’t tell the difference myself and each major grocery store near my home uses these exact labels to indicate that certain cuts of meat are somehow different than the others on the shelf. I guess I’ll just have to take their word for it.

For the past few years there has been a growing movement in the EU and in North America to label GMO foods as ‘genetically modified’. Great, another label on my food.

A lot of the food we consume has been treated with pesticides or genetically modified somewhere along the way. And there are all of those foods that claim to be all-natural or organic (although just what that means depends on what you are buying and where you are buying it).

So let’s say that five years from now GMO labels are mandatory. Billions of dollars have been spent to improve supply chain tracking and execute detailed farm and food production inspections. There are three labels: A big red “GMO” sticker, a green “ORGANIC” sticker and a yellow “NATURAL” sticker.

Let’s play a little game. I’ll describe some foods and you determine what sticker, if any should go on the package.

A Chicken Breast
A single chicken breast from a chicken that was not genetically modified, was raised in a free range environment, but 25% of its feed was not certified organic.

A Can of Tomato Soup
The tomatoes are organic, grown in natural soil with no synthetic fertilizers and no pesticides. The tomatoes were allowed to ripen naturally on the vine before begin harvested and turned into soup. However, a preservative in the soup was derived from genetically-modified corn.

An Apple
A single apple that was grown over a thousand miles away that was irrigated with water that destroyed an ecosystem and fertilized with natural fertilizers that used three times the energy of a synthetic equivalent and was harvested by hand by an illegal Mexican immigrant who is paid barely enough to live on. Oh – the apple is completely organic and is not genetically modified or sprayed with any kind of chemical.

Alright. So how did you do? What stickers did you give each item? These examples are not silly or far-fetched. A glass of milk. An apple. A potful of pasta. These seem like simple food items but even the simplest items can have a very complex story behind them.

What percentage of the ingredients in your ‘Organic Choco-Puff” cereal have to be organic for it to still be considered officially organic? Or before a GMO sticker needs to go on the box?

Labels should help clarify things for consumers, not make them more complicated. Government certifications and labels are mixed so completely with marketing claims and meaningless buzzwords that it’s made it almost impossible to buy a simple loaf of bread based on anything but the expiry date.

The organic industry was already done this to us. They have a variety of special concessions and rules that allows food producers to use non-organic ingredients in packaged “organic” food items. The food industry as a whole has some pretty crazy rules about what called be dubbed “cheese” or “low-fat”.

I think that before anyone puts a single new label on my food that the current food labelling mess needs to be sorted out. Develop government standards – preferable international ones – and enforce them.  And ban the marketing B.S. from all food packaging and promotion.  Then finally work out a cost effective and efficient way to improve monitoring the food chain for adherence to the guidelines from top to bottom. Do all of those things and maybe then you can add some new stickers to my food.

» Organic Consumers

If you're wondering what President Barack Obama is up to today - well, he's going to be signing off on a little thing called the $787-billion economic stimulus package, and if you haven't been following the particulars, ten per cent of said package will be allocated to environmental initiatives.

Congress passed the stimulus bill last Friday, and a review by Environment America has assessed the breakdown as follows:

☆ Clean energy projects will receive a $32.80 billion boost

☆ $26.86 billion will go toward energy efficient projects

☆ Eco-friendly transportation initiatives will receive $18.95 billion

The grand total: $78.61 billion going toward environmental initiatives. Obama has said the package will result in a number of "green collar jobs" being created or saved over the next few years

» BusinessGreen.com

Many of us are eco-conscious in lots of little ways in our daily lives.  We try to drive less, we buy organic, we recycle and compost.  But what about work?  For many of us our green mindset gets turned-off the moment we walk through the office door and we turn into wasteful pigs!  Here are some great tips to add to your list of New Year's resolutions.

1. Make sweaters part of the dress code.  Every one degree reduction in building temperature can result in an 8% energy bill savings.  Less energy consumption and lower energy bills sounds like two great reasons to throw on a cardigan!

2. Change your habits.  Take a moment to evaluate the little things you do day-in, day-out.  Maybe you don't recycle documents, or maybe you print more often than you should.  Pick one or two little things you can do differently and try to stick with those changes throughout the year.

3. Flick the switch!  Turn off your office lights when you leave.  Power down your computer (or at least turn off your monitor!).  Just becuase you're not paying the electricity bill is no reason to waste power.

4. Walk, you lazy bum!  Or at least take public transit.  Do you really need to drive to the other side of town just to get a stupid bagel for lunch?

5. Bitch about recycling.  Pester the people in charge of purchasing about buying recycled paper.  The average office worker goes through 10,000 pages a year.  Eight workers go through an entire tree.

...read the rest...

The GenSet Locomotive is just one way transportation company CSX is demonstrating their commitment to operating a sustainable business. Not only has the company achieved an impressive 80 per cent improvement in efficiency with their freight rail, making it three times more efficient than other transport methods, they also actively participate in Climate Leaders, an EPA industry-government partnership that works to develop climate change strategies and assist partner companies in reducing their environmental impact. Participating in the Climate Leaders program is entirely voluntary.

Beyond their environmentally-conscious locomotives, CSX also recycles upwards of three million railroad cross ties each year, collecting and shredding the hard wood. They are currently exploring the possibility of burning the wood for electricity onsite, which would be put right back on the grid. Approximately two million gallons of oil used by company locomotives is recycled each year, and later used to heat buildings. With over 34,000 employees and a freight system that extends across 23 states, CSX has also implemented energy-efficient lighting and heating in their buildings and even recycles the water consumed by their facilities. In the future as technology continues to evolve, the company is also exploring the possibility of using solar energy to power their facilities.

However the company's biggest eco-friendly initiative is their constant drive for improved fuel efficiency through projects such as the GenSets. By reducing fuel consumption, the company is able to save money while being environmentally conscious. Or as one company representative put it, "The safer and more efficient we are, the more financially successful we are."

The initiatives aren't just driven by the company, but by their customers. In response to shippers inquiring about their environmental impact, CSX developed a carbon calculator meant to help compare estimated carbon emissions of transport and visibly show the difference choosing rail can make.

To learn more about what CSX is doing to practice environmental stewardship, visit their official site.

» CSX

The U.S. economy may be in a downturn in the here-and-now, but a recent UN report is looking ahead to the future - far, far ahead. In fact, if you currently have young children - or are planning to within the next few years - you may be able to start looking toward their career options even now.

According to the report titled Green Jobs: Towards Decent work in a Sustainable, Low-Carbon World, millions of jobs will be created in the green industry by the time 2030 rolls around. In a similar way that technological advances in computers caused a significant boom in the IT employment industry just a few years ago, the global move toward curbing climate change is expected to spawn new jobs and investment opportunities (albeit to a much smaller extent than the IT field). The phenomenon will not be limited to North American and Europe; significant advances and opportunities in developing countries is also expected.

The continued development of biofuels is expected to create 11 million jobs alone and as a shift toward solar, wind and geothermal power occurs, more jobs in the field will be inevitable.

Additional highlights of the report include:

- Climate change will still negatively affect individuals and their families, and therefore significant action must be taken to reduce the impact.

- The downside of the job boom is the "dirty, dangerous and difficult" reputation it is already building. Agriculture and recycling sectors will need to be boosted to offer fair pay, secure employment contracts and the elimination of exposure to hazardous materials.

- Industries such as agriculture and services will need to promote the preservation and restoration of the earth.

- To be successful, government leaders, workers and employers will have to work together to ease tension and make the transition as smooth as possible.

» UN Environment Programme