
2015 has been declared the International Year of Soils by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization. Dr. Vandana Shiva, who has been at the forefront of the food democracy movement, wants to take the momentum from the victories for food sovereignty in 2014 and make 2015 an even bigger year.
Shiva recaps how food activists reclaimed seed freedom by rolling back seed laws that made it illegal to save seeds in Europe and Colombia, and how a judge overruled the arrest of farmers in Indonesia who saved their seeds. Proponents of GMO got desperate, suing Vermont, Maui, Kauai and the Big Island in Hawaii for wanting to know what's in their food.
A longtime crusader against multinational corporations' push for industrial, chemical farming, Shiva offers regenerative agriculture as the solution. "Organic farming and ecological agriculture is the answer to the havoc that has been created by fossil fuels."
Shiva compares us all to seeds, saying "for a while we might lie underground, but at the right moment we germinate and burst out with all of our potential." She said, "In the year of soil, let us celebrate the connections between Mother Earth and ourselves. We are, after all, of the Earth. We are all made of soil ... Let us stay united, let us stay strong, let us stay joyful."
Watch Dr. Vandana Shiva's new year message:
In many schools, the study of climate change is limited to the science. But at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, students in one class also learn how to take climate action.
Listen:
<iframe style="border: none" src="//html5-player.libsyn.com/embed/episode/id/17278520/height/45/theme/standard/thumbnail/yes/direction/backward/" height="45" width="100%" scrolling="no" allowfullscreen webkitallowfullscreen mozallowfullscreen oallowfullscreen msallowfullscreen></iframe><p><em>Reposted with permission from </em><em><a href="https://yaleclimateconnections.org/2021/01/college-course-teaches-students-how-to-be-climate-leaders/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Yale Climate Connections</a>.</em></p>EcoWatch Daily Newsletter
By Daniel Raichel
Industry would have us believe that pesticides help sustain food production — a necessary chemical trade-off for keeping harmful bugs at bay and ensuring we have enough to eat. But the data often tell a different story—particularly in the case of neonicotinoid pesticides, also known as neonics.
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By Andrea Germanos
Fed up with "empty promises" from world leaders, a dozen youth activists on Wednesday demanded newly sworn-in President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris take swift and bold climate action — even more far-reaching than promised on the campaign trail — stating that their "present and future depend on the actions your government takes within the next four years."
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When wind turbine blades reach the end of their usefulness, most are sawed into transportable pieces and hauled to landfills, where they never break down. Because of the resources and energy that go into producing these blades, this type of disposal is inefficient and wasteful. Recently, several innovative companies have begun brainstorming better ways to repurpose this green technology after it goes offline.
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New fossils uncovered in Argentina may belong to one of the largest animals to have walked on Earth.
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