The Unknown Micro World : Dust Mites

Most of us never think about the little creatures that live throughout our lives. I am not talking about the worms or the ants, but the organisms even smaller than that, the ones that live in the Micro World. As the video featured below illustrates, these microorganisms are EVERYWHERE, and it makes me itchy just thinking about what they do and where they do it.

However, it is important to understand that these organisms are not harming us but simply making use of what is abundant just like every other creature on this planet. In the case of the dust mites, they feed off of dead skin flakes that fall off our skin by the millions everyday. If carbon dioxide were more abundant than oxygen thousands of years ago, maybe that's what we would need to breathe to survive. As it is, oxygen is more abundant although many would argue that this is changing.

Nevertheless, the point is that we are all functioning much in the same way as these microorganisms do. If we want to reach any stable level of sustainability, we must accept that although these organisms may freak most of us out, they have helped us survive as a species.

Please enjoy the video and be sure to comment below.

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Monsanto Genetically Engineering Bees

After being blamed by massive amounts of bee keepers for the Honey Bee collapse, Monsanto purchased the largest bee research firm called Beeologics back in September of 2011.

Their website says:
"Beeologics LLC is an international firm dedicated to restoring bee health and protecting the future of insect pollination. While its primary goal is to control the Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) and Israeli Acute Paralysis Virus (IAPV) infection crises, Beeologics' mission is to become the guardian of bee health worldwide. Through continuous research, scientific innovation, and a focus on applicable solutions, Beeologics is developing a line of RNAi-based products to specifically address the long-term well being of the bees. "

In case you don't know RNAi-based products are a mechanism meant to block gene expression. RNAi-based products are genetically engineered products that Monsanto is now planning to use on the honey bees! The same bees who's health, (many beekeepers believe) has already been compromised by Monsanto's genetically engineered plants that produce pesticides. Their answer to this problem should be to stop making GM food, but instead it is to make more genetically engineered products that they will unleash on our planet without research to show any of them are safe.

RNAi (ribonucleic acid interference) is a process within living cells that moderates the activity of genes. It has been known by other names, including co-suppression, post transcriptional gene silencing and quelling. They all described the RNAi phenomenon. RNAs (ribonucleic acid) are the direct products of genes, and these small RNAs can bind to other specific messanger RNA (mRNA) molecules and either increase or decrease their activity, for example by preventing an mRNA from producing a protein. RNA interference has an important role in defending cells against parasitic genes - viruses and transposons, but also in directing development as well as gene expression in general.

Monsanto In Route to Control Seeds & Pollination
Monsanto is already on its way to owning most of the seeds on the planet. They are replacing the natural spirit made food with Monsanto made frankenfood. They now also want to own the means of pollinating the food. Their frankenfoods that produce pesticides are believed by beekeepers to be killing the honey bees. Monsanto's solution to the colony collapse disorder is to replace God's honeybees with Monsanto's genetically modified bees that are resistant to all the pesticide producing food they make.

Just as their GM seed has trespassed onto organic/conventional farmers fields by pollinators bringing pollen from one field to another, these frankenbees will also get out into the world and end up contaminating the native bees. When this happens Monsanto will probably sue any bee keeper who has bees that show similar genetics to their patented bees. Beekeepers could be forced to buy Monsanto bees when all bees are contaminated and changed into frankenbees.

Then there is you and I. Are we destined to be frankenpeople? Are we already contaminated? I eat only organic food in hope to not be contaminated by their products. We all need to do this to stop them. Do not buy anything but organic food or at least buy local from farmers you know who do no not sell genetically modified food. Do not buy non-organic corn, soybeans, cotton, canola and sugar beets - this means sugar as they are almost all GMO. Read labels. It is my opinion that the problems with human fertility, increased gastrointestinal problems and many other human diseases that have increased in the recent past may be linked to genetically engineered food. The research with animals certainly supports it. If nothing else, don't you wonder why so many more people have food allergies nowadays?

We must talk to our representatives and tell them we want labeling of GM food immediately if not outright banning of it until it has more research. So far the research is frightening. Since it is so hard to work on a federal level, get your state or even your local county to ban the growing of GM food in the county. If Monsanto claims they will sue your state or county for banning them (as they have been doing), tell your officials you will stand behind them. Don't let your officials be bullied by Monsanto.

Why do 40 other countries ban GM food outright or have laws regulating GM food when the United States won't even label it? It is up to us as citizens to get this changed.

Without the labeling, the only way for you to be safe is to eat organic food you grow or you get from reputable farmers/groceries. Additionally, this way you make sure you are not funding the further expansion of Monsanto, Bayer or Syngeta.(All part of the GM food chain.)

http://dreamingabeautifulworld.blogspot.com/2012/04/monsanto-genetically-engineering-bees.html

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Eat Real Newsletter: January 2013

Eat Real News

January 2013

Welcome to the first edition of the Eat Real Newsletter, Food Day's own monthly publication offering content related to Eating Real. We'll share with you cutting-edge food systems resources, information on upcoming events, food policy news and insight, and everything else in between as we work year-round towards creating a healthy, affordable, sustainable food system.

Contents:
Real Food News—Gaining Momentum to Take on Big Soda
From the Blog—TEDxManhattan Changing the Way We Eat 2013
Food Day 2013—Not Too Early to Start Planning!
Upcoming Opportunities
Stay Connected with Food Day

Food Day aspires to celebrate our food system when it works, and fix it when it’s broken. Michael Jacobson, Center for Science in the Public Interest Executive Director and Food Day Founder

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Real Food News—Gaining Momentum to Take on Big Soda

In 2012, Food Day's partners fought hard to pass the landmark soda tax ballot measures in Richmond and El Monte, California. The Life’s Sweeter campaign ran a “Pour One Out” video contest to raise awareness around sugary sweetened beverages and engage the public on a national level, while Dunk the Junk traveled to Richmond to create a unique mural in support of the soda tax and host a ceremonial “soda funeral.” Despite earmarks on the Richmond ballot for obesity prevention programs and the fact that Richmond and El Monte have some of the highest obesity rates in California, both ballot measures were soundly struck down by voters after amulti-million-dollar attack campaign from the beverage industry.

While this loss was initially disheartening, public health advocates have reminded themselves that change comes with patience, vigilance, and smart planning. According to an article from the Berkeley Media Studies Group, “[Richmond City Councilman Dr. Jeff] Ritterman has announced a new goal to see 14 California cities put forth soda tax proposals by 2014, with the idea that this flurry of measures would stretch the beverage industry's resources so thin that this might allow a few of the ballot proposals to pass.”

Read more from the Berkeley Media Studies Group article: Advocates Bulking Up for the Next Battle with Big Soda.

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From the Blog—TEDxManhattan Changing the Way We Eat 2013

On February 16, 2013, The Glynwood Institute for Sustainable Food and Farming will host the third annual TEDxManhattan, "Changing the Way We Eat" conference. TEDxManhattan is a full day of talks broken into three sessions—Inform, Educate, and Empower— exploring the state of our food system and our progress toward sustainability. The impressive speakers’ list includes chef Ann Cooper, Maisie Greenawalt, VP of Strategy of Bon Appétit Management Company, Anna Lappé, author and a founding principal of the Small Planet Institute, and Tama Matsuoka Wong, a professional forager. Read more about TEDxManhattan in our blog.

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Food Day 2013—Not Too Early to Start Planning!

The 3rd annual Food Day is October 24, 2013, and while that might seem like a lifetime away, it’s never too early to start planning. TheFood Day website hosts a one-stop shop of organizing tools that will get you excited about Food Day and make the organizing process much easier for you and your partners.

Visit our resource library for the Food Day Guide for Organizers, School Curriculum, 2012 Wrap-Up, and other tools that can help you organize not only for Food Day, but for food systems reform year-round. And stay tuned, our 2012 Food Day Campaign Report will be released shortly!

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Upcoming Opportunities
Webinar—From Supersize to Human-size: Shrinking Sugary Drink Portions
January 15, 2013 2:00 - 2:30pm EST
Join New York City Health Commissioner Dr. Thomas A. Farley and his colleagues from the NYC Department of Health and Mental Hygiene to learn how to reshape sugary drink portion size norms in your community. Register here.

Webinar—Expenditures on Food Marketing to Kids and Adolescents
January 22, 2013 3:00 - 3:30pm EST
Food marketing experts from the Center for Science in the Public Interest, the Federal Trade Commission, and ChangeLab Solutions will discuss findings from the Federal Trade Commission's updated Food Marketing to Children and Adolescents report (2008), highlight how food marketing has changed overtime, and describe options for state and local policy makers to address unhealthy food marketing to children. Register here.

6 Week Course—An Introduction to the U.S. Food System: Perspectives from Public Health Begins January 23, 2013 
Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health is offering a free 6-week online course exploring how food intersects with public health and the environment as it moves from field to plate. The course begins January 23. Register here.

Webinar—Understanding the Future Policy Implications of the Richmond and El Monte, CA 2012 Soda Tax Ballot Measures
January 24, 2013 3:30 - 4:15pm EST

This webinar will review the California soda-tax proposals, describe lessons learned, and offer suggestions for future ballot soda-tax initiatives. Expert speakers will specifically address message framing, campaign organization, and industry tactics, and provide motivation for future soda tax proposals. A question and answer period will follow the presentations. Register here.

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Stay Connected with Food Day



Food Day
http://www.foodday.org/

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Better Than Human: Why Robots Will — And Must — Take Our Jobs

It’s hard to believe you’d have an economy at all if you gave pink slips to more than half the labor force. But that—in slow motion—is what the industrial revolution did to the workforce of the early 19th century. Two hundred years ago, 70 percent of American workers lived on the farm. Today automation has eliminated all but 1 percent of their jobs, replacing them (and their work animals) with machines. But the displaced workers did not sit idle. Instead, automation created hundreds of millions of jobs in entirely new fields. Those who once farmed were now manning the legions of factories that churned out farm equipment, cars, and other industrial products. Since then, wave upon wave of new occupations have arrived—appliance repairman, offset printer, food chemist, photographer, web designer—each building on previous automation. Today, the vast majority of us are doing jobs that no farmer from the 1800s could have imagined.

It may be hard to believe, but before the end of this century, 70 percent of today’s occupations will likewise be replaced by automation. Yes, dear reader, even you will have your job taken away by machines. In other words, robot replacement is just a matter of time. This upheaval is being led by a second wave of automation, one that is centered on artificial cognition, cheap sensors, machine learning, and distributed smarts. This deep automation will touch all jobs, from manual labor to knowledge work.

First, machines will consolidate their gains in already-automated industries. After robots finish replacing assembly line workers, they will replace the workers in warehouses. Speedy bots able to lift 150 pounds all day long will retrieve boxes, sort them, and load them onto trucks. Fruit and vegetable picking will continue to be robotized until no humans pick outside of specialty farms. Pharmacies will feature a single pill-dispensing robot in the back while the pharmacists focus on patient consulting. Next, the more dexterous chores of cleaning in offices and schools will be taken over by late-night robots, starting with easy-to-do floors and windows and eventually getting to toilets. The highway legs of long-haul trucking routes will be driven by robots embedded in truck cabs.

All the while, robots will continue their migration into white-collar work. We already have artificial intelligence in many of our machines; we just don’t call it that. Witness one piece of software by Narrative Science (profiled in issue 20.05) that can write newspaper stories about sports games directly from the games’ stats or generate a synopsis of a company’s stock performance each day from bits of text around the web. Any job dealing with reams of paperwork will be taken over by bots, including much of medicine. Even those areas of medicine not defined by paperwork, such as surgery, are becoming increasingly robotic. The rote tasks of any information-intensive job can be automated. It doesn’t matter if you are a doctor, lawyer, architect, reporter, or even programmer: The robot takeover will be epic.

And it has already begun.....

Click on the link to read the full article: http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2012/12/ff-robots-will-take-our-jobs/

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Australia Adds New Weather Map Colors for Extreme Heat

Climate change is causing 'catastrophic' danger in much of the country


By Brooke Jarvis
January 8, 2013 3:50 PM ET

Australia is facing record-breaking temperatures in next week's forecast – a heat wave so intense that the Australian Bureau of Meteorology has been forced to make new charts.

For the first time, the century-old agency's forecast map now includes a gauge for temperatures up to 54° Celsius (129.2° Fahrenheit), complete with new colors – deep purple and hot pink – to indicate areas experiencing heat above 50°C (122°F).

Though Australia's existing heat record, set in 1960, still stands for the moment, officials believe it may soon be surpassed. The nation's Bureau of Meteorology has been open about the impact that rising greenhouse gases are already having there: The agency's website declares that Australia is "experiencing rapid climate change," including more frequent heat waves and changing rainfall patterns.

The current heat wave has produced above-average temperatures for 80 percent of the country – the nationwide average on Monday was 104 degrees Fahrenheit – and scores of wildfires. The state of New South Wales, home to Australia's most populous city, Sydney, is facing its greatest fire danger ever, officials say. In some areas of the state, the official fire danger rating is "catastrophic."

Nor are heat waves and wildfires Australia's only climate woes. Decades of drought are causing the salination of groundwater in the nation's prime agricultural region; warming and acidifying oceans are killing the Great Barrier Reef; and extreme storms are increasing. As Rolling Stone's Jeff Goodell reported in 2011, the tendency of climate change to "amplify existing climate signals" means that already extreme places like Australia will be the first to experience the kind of major impacts that could be in store for the rest of the world. "Australia is the canary in the coal mine," said David Karoly, a climate researcher at the University of Melbourne, in that story. "What is happening in Australia now is similar to what we can expect to see in other places in the future."

Read more: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/australia-adds-new-weather-map-colors-for-extreme-heat-20130108#ixzz2ICB2R1Ad 
Follow us: @rollingstone on Twitter | RollingStone on Facebook

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2012: The Year We Did Our Best to Abandon the Natural World

The Guardian / By George Monbiot
January 1, 2013

Emissions are rising, ice is melting and yet the response of governments is simply to pretend that none of it is happening.


Exhaust rises from cooling towers at the Neurath lignit coal-fired power station in Grevenbroich, Germany. Nearly 200 nations gather in Doha from Monday for a new round of climate talks as a rush of reports warn extreme weather events may become commonpla
It was the year of living dangerously. In 2012 governments turned their backs on the living planet, demonstrating that no chronic problem, however grave, will take priority over an immediate concern, however trivial. I believe there has been no worse year for the natural world in the past half-century.

Three weeks before the minimum occurred, the melting of the Arctic's sea ice broke the previous record. Remnants of the global megafauna – such as rhinos and bluefin tuna – were shoved violently towards extinction. Novel tree diseases raged across continents. Bird and insect numbers continued to plummet, coral reefs retreated, marine life dwindled. And those charged with protecting us and the world in which we live pretended that none of it was happening.

Their indifference was distilled into a great collective shrug at the Earth Summit in June. The first summit, 20 years before, was supposed to have heralded a new age of environmental responsibility. During that time, thanks largely to the empowerment of corporations and the ultra-rich, the square root of nothing has been achieved. Far from mobilising to address this, in 2012 the leaders of some of the world's most powerful governments – the US, the UK, Germany and Russia – didn't even bother to turn up.

But they did send their representatives to sabotage it. The Obama administration even sought to reverse commitments made by George Bush Sr in 1992. The final declaration was a parody of inaction. While the 190 countries that signed it expressed "deep concern" about the world's escalating crises, they agreed no new targets, dates or commitments, with one exception. Sixteen times they committed themselves to "sustained growth", a term they used interchangeably with its polar opposite, "sustainability".

Read More Here: http://www.alternet.org/2012-year-we-did-our-best-abandon-natural-world

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