A Six-Legged Solution to Pollution

The U.S. not-for-profit Environmental Working Group recently published a list of 43 fruits and vegetables according to the amount of pesticide(s) each would bring to your table. The ranking was based on the results of nearly 43,000 tests for pesticides done by the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration between 2000 and 2004. The group makes available both a detailed description of the criteria they used to develop the ranking, and the full data set for the resultant list.
They started their list of studied fruits and vegetable at the number one, for the food item you want to avoid the most. Grabbing that #1 was the peach, which had the highest likelihood of multiple pesticides on a single sample. 86.6% of the sampled peaches had two or more pesticide residues.
Waltzing in at the number 41, out of 45, was the mango. Fewer than 10% of the mangoes sampled had detectable pesticides on them and fewer than one per cent had more than one pesticide residue. The results, of course, are based on U.S. grown produce, but they still have a great deal of relevance to Canadians since so much of the produce sold in our stores is imported from the States.
If this news concerns you, one way you can lower your exposure to pesticides is to buy organic. A valid concern, however, for those farmers seeking to produce crops that can be certified organic is how to control pests that endanger their crops and threaten their profit margin without resorting to pesticides.
The July issue of "The Economist" presents an article titled "Ant and Tech". It highlights a pollution-free solution to the problem for mango farmers that has been producing great results in Africa. There, fruit flies attack and destroy approximately 40% of the continent's crop. The flies are so common a problem in African mangoes that America has totally banned the import of the fruit, in an attempt to protect its own groves.
The use of pesticides, which might help with the problem can present the African farmer with his own sword of Damocles, since they cost more than the farmer may be able to spend, are difficult to spray effectively on tall-standing trees, and are generally a case of closing the barn door after the livestock has all wandered off, since the farmer must first spot an infestation before he sprays for it.
Agricultural scientists looked at using parasitic wasps to control the pesky flies but the wasps kill only about one fly in 20, which means far too many survive. About the only recourse available to the beleaguered farmers was the early harvest of their crops, beating the flies to the punch. This reduced the crop value.

A way to increase the value of the harvest by as much as two-thirds has crawled up the mango tree trunks, however, and presented itself in the form of weaver ants. A study by Paul van Mele and his colleagues in the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research on these busy little insects and their effects on mango crops has been published in the latest issue of the Journal of Economic Entomology.
Van Mele surveyed several orchards in Benin and found less than one fruit fly pupa in each batch of 30 mangoes from trees where weaver ants had taken up residence, while there was an average of 77 pupae in batches from trees without the little six-footed fruit fly foes. The weaver ants are most efficient at mounting a posse to track down and ingest fruit flies and a host of other mango harming pests. They can deliver a painful bite to humans but an easy way around that problem at harvest time is simply to do the work with poles rather than shinnying up the trunks.
Weaver ants have been used as six-legged pest control in Asia for many long years and Australia, too, has begun using the mighty, miniature warriors. What's holding back North America?
Van Mele set out to teach a group of farmers in Burkina Faso how to make use of the weaver ants, needing just one day for the whole process. All he had to do was to show them how to run a string from a weaver ant nest to the trees needing their protection. Instant, inexpensive, and innocuous, the ants allow the farmers to market their mangoes as organic to the European market, and greatly increase their income thereby.
We need to think about what pesticides are capable of killing, along with the fruit flies. For a real eye-opener, you might want to read "The Body Burden", a report on an investigation looking at industrial chemicals, pollutants, and pesticides found in human umbilical cord blood. Popular wisdom used to teach that the placenta shielded the cord blood and the baby from most chemicals and pollutants, but that head-in-the-sand idea has been blasted out of the waters of our complacency now.
Maybe we don't need to use poisons strong enough to kill on the foods we put into our mouths and the mouths of our children. Maybe we just need to have a little more patience and look a little more to nature.

Green Up Your Spending

If you're interested in Fair Trade, you might find this interactive map worth a look. It starts you off by informing you that over 600,000 producers (families, farmworkers, and tea pickers) sell their coffee, tea, cocoa and more on Fair Trade Certified terms. Then it invites you to roll your cursor over the red dots on the map to learn more about Fair Trade producing countries. It's an easy learn; the kind of quick-facts info that can be used in an A-plus school project, so let your kids know about it. It could also be used by a teacher exploring human geography and ethics with their students. In fact, the whole site is a good place to spend a little time.
One easy way to help the movement is to send the site's link on to the people on your contacts list. Another way to get involved is to be found in the cup of coffee you might well be sipping while you e-mail the link to those friends of yours.
Since 70% of the world's coffee is grown by small family farmers, for instance, supporting fair trade provides a really easy way for you to make a difference. Take a minute at the store to look for the Fair Trade Certified logo before you buy. Do the same at your local coffee shop - Starbucks, Second Cup - whatever it might be. Before you order, ask them if their offerings are fair trade. Join in and be a part of the move to "green up your spending".

Supreme-ly Clogged Arteries?

Toronto is heading into another line-up of days with humidex readings in the unpleasant range. The prairies are being hit by record setting heat, but even without a heat-wave, a lot of people are thinking in terms of a nice cool drink. Stepping up to bat is Tim Horton's with a new take on their iced capp, the Iced Capp Supreme.
On the theory of "forewarned is forearmed" let me give you a few numbers relevant to the Butter Caramel Iced Capp Supreme. Since it's the one being hyped lately in a lot of TV ads, that might well be the one you ask for when you step up for your turn at the counter.
A large 18-ounce cup Supreme will cost your waistline 560 calories. It'll assault your arteries with 17 grams of saturated fat and 1 gram of trans fat. Instead of the "caramel drizzle", it should come complete with a cardiologist to check your heartrate as you down it. The good folks at Tim Horton's should consider printing the cups with the picture of a clogged artery shown here. That way, people ordering one would be better able to think of it as cardiac arrest in a cup. Not even the villainous Big Mac matches it for damage waiting to be done. McDonald's famous nasty-in-a-bun weighs in at 540 calories and 10 grams of saturated fat, plus 1/2 gram trans fat.
Some supposedly health-conscious types are suggesting you can cut down on its health-hacking properties by asking for 2% or even 1% chocolate milk instead of the cream used otherwise and requesting the whipped cream normally piled on top be omitted. Of course, if you do that, you're not really getting a Supreme anyway, so why bother?
Either make sure your will is up-to-date before you start guzzling these killers, or just display a little supreme smarts of your own and skip this one altogether.

The Idiot Alert Files Welcome Catherine Zeta-Jones

It seems the lovely Catherine has more money than she has brains and it's weighing down the pockets of her designer duds, so she has to be constantly searching for ways to lessen the burden. Thank heavens she found one at a salon in South Kensington. The good folks there fly Beluga caviar from Iran in for the star, five days before she wants a treatment for her hair. The buzz is that each time she has her mane plastered with fish eggs, her pockets end up $400.00 lighter. The treatment starts with a truffle-based shampoo, then proceeds to the roe. Imagine some prankster being able to smuggle a truffle-hunting pig into the salon. I wonder if Micheal Douglas finds himself fighting strange urges to slap a few strands of her hair between some crackers every time she comes home from a treatment.
The American war machine is always on the lookout for hidden weapons of mass destruction. Do you think they know that Catherine Zeta-Jones is helping to keep one going right under their very noses? Obviously, the mentally challenged actress has never had it explained to her that poverty is a weapon of mass destruction. I'm sure her "incredibly rich and vibrant" hair could look just as lovely after a good lathering-up with Suave shampoo. Then the mental midget could figure out the cost difference, (or have her accountant do it for her if the math is too hard) and send it off to a Third World children's charity.
Don't hold your breath on this one, however. I'm betting Zeta-Jones can't quite muster up enough active brain cells to understand the concept of compassion involved.

Need Some Inspiration?

If you're one of the legions who accepts global warming as fact, then you're likely also one of those who accept that there has to be some changes made, ASAP. The thing is continuing old ways is sometimes just so easy while breaking with them is not. It's an effort that has to come from each one of us, not just some vague "they" who we can self-righteously condemn for doing nothing while we continue to blast our AC's and buy more incandescent light bulbs. If you need a little inspiration to fuel your determination to save our planet, you can find some in an unlikely source - Formula One racing - according to Nick Fry, team principal of Honda racing. Interviewed at July 22nd's European Grand Prix, Fry had some interesting comments to make. "Unless Formula One can become a contributor to the technology that might help the environment, it's likely it will become a dinosaur," he predicted. Fry has been pushing for a cut to carbon emissions and waste in the sport and to get his message out there, he put a big picture of the earth on his team's two cars at this year's race, instead of the usual commercial logos.
Honda's race cars currently emit 17 tonnes of CO2 a year; 1,500 grams of CO2/km, a rate ten times higher than a small road car. Formula One's International Automobile Federation has proposed rule changes for 2011 that would include a switch to smaller turbo-compounded 2.2 litre engines that run on bio-fuel. Of course, there are those who are screaming about the proposed changes but if the FIA is getting involved, it doesn't seem too likely that the screamers will be able to impose their stupidity on the sport, and thereby the rest of us.
Surely, if a die-hard holdout like Formula One can make an effort, you can too. It's not really that hard. Just read on for a little help on how to start up your engines of change.


We Canadians produce approximately 700 megatonnes of greenhouse gases a year. We really need to change that, and it's a change that is within our reach. We just can't sit around waiting for others to do the doing. Each one of us needs to become the person we are waiting for.
If you need any tips to help you get started, there are a couple of interesting sites available to you. One is "Reduce the Juice", an Ontario youth-led electricity conservation program. Headed up by Phoebe Lusk and Sara Wicks, the project started two years ago and was meant to get the town of Shelburne to conserve electricity in 2005. Great results there inspired the two to take it to the town of Orangeville in 2006, and the only question now is where it will head next. Any high school teacher looking for a project to catch the students' interest first day back this September should take a look at the Reduce the Juice site. You could get your class off to a start that would motivate them all year and end up benefiting your whole community. It would all make great resume material, for you and your students.




Another site to check out, whether you're a teacher or not, is Flick Off, a site dedicated to helping each of "manage our damage". It will help you to "Flick Someone Off", and give you help to take action yourself, with suggestions for steps to take at home, at school, at work, at the store and with friends. That just about covers everything, doesn't it? If you want to do even more, they've got ideas for you from speaking your mind in their forum and nominating a "Flicker of the Week" to contacting your MP and entering the "FlickFest" contest. There are wallpaper and banner freebies as well as T-shirts and bracelets to buy. Rupert Grint, or "Ron" as Harry Potter movie fans know him, sported a Flick Off T-shirt for a recent MTV interview.
The site has something of value for everyone, not just Canadians. As a matter of fact, anybody who enjoys breathing is bound to find food for thought at this site. Got a little time to invest in your own future? Try spending a few minutes at Flick Off.

Small Problems?

In case you're having a bad day; if you're feeling like every little thing is going wrong and nothing could be worse, read on. The news from Hunan province will put a different slant on your day and help you realize just how small your problems really are.
Central China's Hunan province has been experiencing a plague of rats. That's right, an estimated two billion of the rodents have been making their presence felt in 22 counties around Dongting Lake, chomping through crops there to a boogie beat for the last two weeks.
Flooding on the Yangrze River flushed them out and caused farming communities to be overrun by the pests. Tan Lulu, working for the conservation group WWF in Changsha has reported that farmers are using every weapon to hand to fight the inundation. One strike with a shovel can kill three rats at a time, they are so numerous.
The state newspaper, the China Daily, reports that 1.6 million hectares of farmland have been overrun by the rats who have eaten crop roots and stems. They also claim that area residents have killed more than 2.3 million rats, creating 90 tons of rat corpses.
I'm not sure exactly how they would have arrived at their numbers, but it doesn't change the fact that there's very little in the way of a bad hair day that could come anywhere close to this. The very real worry for sanitation officials is the outbreak of disease, either carried by the live rats, and/or brought about by the pile-up of corpses.
According to Lulu, a drought that preceded the flooding made the problem that much worse. The drought exposed land that used to be part of Dongting Lake, and the opportunistic rodents moved in to take up residence. When the flooding occured, they fled to higher ground.
Anybody got some rat poison to spare?

Ta Ta, Zheng Xiaoyu

In a speech he made in 2001, China's former top drug regulator declared that "corrupt officials in the system should be severely punished according to the law." On Tuesday July 10, 2007, the Chinese government took him at his word and executed him. Kudos to them.
During his eight-year tenure heading up the State Food and Drug Administration, he, his wife and his son had solicited and accepted gifts and bribes from eight drug companies that totalled more than 6.5 million yuan. The loot included a car, a villa and corporate stock, among other things, in return for special favours. Those favours meant doing things like approving medicines that should never have made it to the market; like turning a blind eye to tens of thousands of crates of unsafe pharmaceuticals that went to China's own citizens. There is no way to know how many deaths and how much suffering resulted directly from Zheng's cupidity.
Zheng was sentenced on the 29th of May and his appeal was heard last month. The method of execution has not been disclosed, but who cares? Zheng was garbage and garbage needs to be swept away. Whether you use a broom or a mop makes no difference.
Some are saying Zheng was made a scapegoat. Maybe he was. Obviously, he is not the only corrupt official still in power, but if there is to be any clean-up, a start had to be made somewhere. It may be the last good deed Zheng did when he went to his death. Hopefully it will help bring the message to others indulging in malfeasance that they should be ready to pay the ultimate price tag for their corruption.

Run Screaming, It's Wal-Mart!

I was just out to Port Perry for a wonderful day soaking up the friendly, small-town atmosphere. My other half and I spent time taking photos down by the lake, and delighting in the taste-tempters to be had at the Pantry Shelf, as well as browsing the small stores that nestle up to each other along their main street. For someone used to the big box store and sprawling mall approach that Toronto takes to retail, Port Perry's stores offer an oasis of relaxed, no-pressure shopping.
We stopped for a latte and I found myself looking in horror at a 6-page paper being circulated by the group called "Concerned Citizens of Scugog". It decries the proposed opening of a Wal-Mart shopping centre in Port Perry.
The paper makes some damn good points. Citing a November 2005 study done on the effects of Wal-Mart openings on communities, it should give anyone food for thought. The credentials of the study's authors certainly give credence to its content. They are as follows:
DAVID NEUMARK
University of California, Irvine - Department of Economics; Public Policy Institute of California; National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER); Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA)
JUNFU ZHANG
Clark University
STEPHEN M. CICCARELLA Jr.
Cornell University - Department of Economics; Public Policy Institute of California
The study found that a Wal-Mart opening reduces county-level retail employment by approximately 150 workers, indicating that each Wal-Mart worker replaces approximately 1.4 retail workers. Now correct me if I'm wrong, but that means an actual drop in the number of those drawing a paycheque in the retail sector. That might not be a big problem, I suppose, as long as every one who beomes one of those 1.4 is all smiles and chuckles about losing their livelihood to the giant retailer. I'm guessing, however, that not every one who loses their job is going to be happy about it. The study states that the average loss in retail employment following an opening is 2.7%. Wal-Mart boasts ad nauseum that they are continually lowering the prices but that does no one any good at all if there are fewer and fewer local people with any money to spend. Can someone explain, please, how all this is supposed to do anything good for the local economy?
Another valid point the Concerned Citizens make is about the size of the behemoth looming over their community. The proposed store would be a 125,000 square-foot blight on the landscape, just about 2.5 times larger than Reid's Independent, the area's current large retailer. Again, can anyone explain to me why someone made the decision that this small town should have one of the largest Wal-Marts in Canada dumped on it? The Citizens do a little interesting math on their paper around this issue. They tell their readers that dividing 20,173, the number of their residents by the store's planned square footage would give every man, woman, and child 6,2 square feet all to themselves when they go shopping, if they all go at once, of course. That figure, by the way, does not include the area of the parking lot.
Why, why, why? This is just plain stupid. It's not progress. It is simply yet another money grab being proposed by a chain not exactly known for caring about the communities in which they establish their economy-busting emporiums.
The paper that rained all over my parade that sunny day in Port Perry stayed completely away from the question of ethics, or lack thereof, involved in Wal-Mart's union bashing, pathetically low wages and merchandise sourcing. I'll do the same since I do want to finish this blog entry sometime today rather than sometime next week. I do, however, wish the Concerned Citizens of Scugog all the very best in their quest to keep this pox from infecting their neighbourhood.

Fashionably Green

If you're concerned about replacing chemical content with natural wherever possible in your life, you might be interested in a little trip to www.cargocostemics.com to check out what they have to offer.
Launched in 1996 by Hana Zalzal, CARGO is a line of make-up products that invites its users to be "Be-you-tiful". Not everything they do would fit under the green banner of the environmentally-conscious, but their "PlantLove" lipsticks sure do.
Currently sellling for $20.00 CDN, they'll be kind to your wallet. They also offer a little visual treat if you plant the box they come in, since it will grow you some wildflowers. They're contained in tubes made from a compostable corn-based polymer called PLA, a renewable resource that isn't going to end contributing to landfill. Last, but not least, a portion of the proceeds from the PlantLove lipstick sales goes to St. Jude's Children's Research Hospital.
Going green just couldn't be any more fashionable if it tried.

Goin' to the Dogs?

Yet another Western excess ... the Dog's Goodies Food & Fashion shop in Wiesbaden, Germany, serves as today's example of people with just too much money in their pockets and not enough of an idea of how to use it wisely.
I know this is by no means the only such shop but it is the one someone just drew to my attention, so I'll use it as my whipping-boy. The owner, Janine Saraniti-Lagerin, is a former florist who knows how to make her way through the world. Her success is not the problem I have with this place and the others of its ilk. The reason I would add this shop to my list of sad head-shakers is the fact of its developed countries' success.
"Selbst im Ausland kennt man uns schon. Wir bekommen Anfragen aus Polen, Rumänien, USA, Russland, Italien, Spanien und noch vielen mehr" declares their website . "Even in foreign countries they know us. We get inquiries from Poland, Romania, the USA, Russia, Italy and Spain, and many more."
What stands out for me in that list is the absence of any third world countries. Their presence on it would be an impossibility. Their concern is not the pampering of dogs with garlic cookies and whole-grain muesli bars. It is, rather, the feeding of their children, too many of whom suffer from rickets and other diseases born of malnutrition. Their concern is the little ones who are starving.
What is completely beyond my comprehension is the western world dog-owners who fail to make those hungry little ones their concern. Own your dog, sure. Pamper him a little with an extra bone now and then, sure. Just get a grip on reality and remember that dogs survived for millenia without any minty biscuits and they can continue to do so. Children, however, do not survive very long at all without food. If you're a dog owner with that much disposable income; if all that extra change in your pockets is dragging your drawers down off your backside, I have a suggestion. Scoop up all that money and count it out. Maybe add a little extra even, and then take it right down to your local food bank. You could also take it your financial institution and exchange it for a money order which you could then send to any organization that helps the hungry little ones, worldwide.
Give the dog a rawhide bone to keep it busy while you calculate the monthly cost of visits to places like Wiesbaden's doggie shop and write out some cheques to send off, instead. Each one of those money missives you send will help to make your world a better place, a little bit at a time. You may never look into the eyes of someone starving to death, but it doesn't mean it's not happening. Don't fall into the trap of "out of sight, out of mind".
Remember the world's hungry the next time you fill your dog's bowl with ordinary kibble or table scraps, and feel good about what you've done to help.

Let John Help You Feel Better

If you've been feeling like there's some kind of cosmic conspiracy working against you lately, John Lyne's story might just cheer you up a little. I just found out about this man who is billed as "Britain's unluckiest man". There couldn't be too many folks with as much bad luck as this guy. As of November 2006, poor John had already had 16 major accidents befall him through his years to date.
Apparently the man's run-ins with an unkind fate began when he was a kid. He was riding on a horse-drawn cart when he fell off. To add insult to injurt, he was run over by a delivery van before he could be rescued.
As a 14-year-old, he once broke an arm in a fall from a tree. While he was riding a bus home from the hospital, the bus got involved in a crash which ended up with him having the same arm broken in another place.
Last November's incident saw Lyne fall in a manhole and sustain injuries which would necessitate an expected 32-week recovery period. Lyne has been quoted as saying he is not bitter about his perverse luck. Rather, he expresses gratitude simply to be alive, although he does say his "mates, family and wife Susan just laugh about it."
There now. Does knowing about John help you feel just a little bit better?