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Hundreds of Australian families will leave the city on the last weekend of this month to spend time on a farm and learn more about where their food and fibre come from. National Farm Day is an annual event organised by the National Farmers Foundation which has seen enthusiastic response from city dwellers keen to Continue Reading →
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| A fisherman surveys the scene as he steers his boat alongside a recently cleared area of fores |
The UK Independent this weekend ran major features alerting Britons to the 43 per cent of food products on supermarket shelves that contain palm oil and the impact it has on tropical rainforests.
Of Britain’s 62 most popular food brands, 32 contain palm oil representing six billion pounds of the sixteeen billion pounds spent anually on food. Palm oil is widely used in chocolates, breakfast cereals, bread and pre-baked foods and is generally identified as vegetable fat or vegetable oil.
Even Prince Charles’ organic food range, Original Duchy, has been shown to contain palm oil. Original Duchy raises money for environmental causes.
Men raised on the notion that going without a drink for long periods of time is a sign of toughness will feel vindicated by the results of a German study that shows bottled water contains an estrogen like compound. The study tested both yeast grown on water stored in PET bottles and snails cultured on a soil like medium in the bottles. In both cases the estrogen like compounds affected the fertility of the animals. Martin Wagner, lead researcher in the project at Goethe University now drinks tap water because of the results of the study. An epidemiologist from Rochester University, Shanna Swan, told the Discovery Channel, “this is another nail in the coffin for plastic drink bottles.” Glass bottles did not show the effect.
A Texas windfarm is testing a radar system that detects flocks of migrating birds and can shut down the wind turbines to protect the birds. A combination of bad weather and migratory birds leads to the deaths of at least 7,000 birds a year on wind farms in the United States. The new radar system is designed to calculate the odds of bird death and shut down the wind farm if they are unacceptably high. The impact of renewable energy generators on wildlife has become an issue in high sun and wind areas that are often ecologically senstitive.
The agribusiness giant and proponent of genetically modified seed, Monsanto, has mounted a 10million dollar law suit against the German government following a decision by the European nation to ban a new crop of the company’s MON810 maize. Known as Bt maize, the crop generates Bacillus Thuriensis, a substance toxic to the corn borer plant.
The maize has been grown in Europe since 2005 and previous bans on the basis of potential damage to humans have been overturned on legal grounds. This latest ban is founded on the potential of the crop to damage the environment. The company’s case is that there has been no new scientific evidence presented since the crop was initially approved four years ago.
UK government to fathom depth of marine energy potential A new study will provide the British government with data on how much renewable power the seas could generate. From the BusinessGreen, part of the Guardian Environment Network Digg it From the BusinessGreen, part of the Guardian Environment Network guardian.co.uk, Friday 1 May 2009 15.32 BST Continue Reading →