Dear EarthTalk: What is biochar and how can it help reduce my carbon footprint?

Biochar is a naturally occurring, fine-grained, highly porous form of charcoal derived from the process of baking biomass—and it’s been associated with fertile soils for some two thousand years. “Biochar is found in soils around the world as a result of vegetation fires and historic soil management practices,” reports the International Biochar Initiative (IBI), a trade group representing the world’s burgeoning biochar industry. “Intensive study of biochar-rich dark earths in the Amazon has led to a wider appreciation of biochar’s unique properties as a soil enhancer.”

Environmentalists hail biochar, a form of charcoal derived from baking biomass, as a savior of soils damaged by agricultural overuse and pollution that can sequester significant amounts of carbon dioxide in the process. Photo by Marcia O’Connor, courtesy of Flickr CC.

Indeed, researchers have been hard at work perfecting their own methods for manufacturing biochar by baking biomass in giant oxygen-free kilns. The resulting biochar can then be used as a soil amendment to help restore tired, compromised farmland, not to mention contaminated industrial sites, all the while taking carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere. A liquid by-product of the biochar production process can also be converted into a carbon-neutral “biofuel” that can displace other carbon intensive fuels.

Farmers can layer biochar into their fields where it becomes part of the soil matrix and helps retain water and essential agricultural nutrients like nitrogen, phosphorous and potassium. “You can basically think of it as a soil reef upon which abiotic and biotic phenomena happen,” says David Shearer, CEO of Full Circle Biochar, one of a handful of U.S. based biochar start-ups working to commercialize the age-old “technology.” Farmers like the fact that using biochar can lower their water and fertilizer bills as well as yield more and better quality agricultural products—leading to better market performance overall. “This is really a hedge for farmers,” reports Shearer. “It really helps them manage their financial risk and it helps them manage risk into the future around production.”

Beyond agriculture, biochar can also be used to clean up polluted land. “For example, if you have a mine that has contaminated soil adjacent to it, biochar … will allow you to remediate soils,” says Shearer. He adds that biochar also makes for an excellent filtration medium: “We know that activated charcoal has been used for millennia as a filter mechanism, and so there is discussion in the biochar community that maybe the first step is we’ll use it as a filtration media, and then we’ll move to agriculture as the cost of production of biochar comes down.”

As far as environmentalists are concerned, the greater the demand for biochar the better, given the fact that it is a potent storage mechanism for carbon dioxide that would otherwise head into the atmosphere and contribute to climate change. “The carbon in biochar resists degradation and can hold carbon in soils for hundreds to thousands of years,” reports IBI. “We can use this simple, yet powerful, technology to store 2.2 gigatons of carbon annually by 2050. It’s one of the few technologies that is relatively inexpensive, widely applicable and quickly scalable. We really can’t afford not to pursue it.”

CONTACTS: International Biochar Initiative (IBI), www.biochar-international.org; Full Circle Biochar, www.fullcirclebiochar.com.

Send questions to: earthtalk@emagazine.com.

EarthTalk® is written and edited by Roddy Scheer and Doug Moss and is a registered trademark of E – The Environmental Magazine (www.emagazine.com).

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Blue Ridge Press editor Glenn Scherer lives in Rochester, VT. Direct email to him at
scherer@blueridgepress.com

INTRODUCTION: Climate talks are underway in Lima, Peru. But the world’s water crisis isn’t a key part of those talks, despite climate change’s threat to the world’s rivers. In the U.S., record floods and drought now annually do multi-billion dollar damage to rivers – harming drinking water supplies, the economy, agriculture, energy, transportation and recreation. Blue Ridge Press editor Glenn Scherer returns to his Vermont “home stream”, and invites readers to return to their childhood swimming and fishing holes to see how global warming has altered these beloved places.

*     *     *

Granville Beach was a secluded swimming hole on a snaky bend of the White River, the ideal place to meet Vermont neighbors on a hot summer day before 2011’s Hurricane Irene. Now, the sandy shore, deep waters overhung with box elders, streamside wildflowers, and the lively buzz of riparian birds and dragonflies are gone.

Replaced by a shallow channel choked with silt and shattered trees, lined by eroded clay banks topped by a tangle of Japanese knotweed – a foreign invader whose seeds filled almost every riverside plant niche after the storm.

America’s rivers are changing, and not for the good. Their flows are being altered by global warming’s wildly erratic precipitation shifts: torrential rains, floods and drought.

As climate models predicted decades ago, places that once got lots of rain, now often get more. Since the 1950’s, Northeastern downpours have grown 74 percent heavier. They’re 45 percent heavier in the Midwest, 26 percent heavier in the Southeast, and 21 percent on the Great Plains. Likewise, places that got less rain in past, now see intensifying drought.

A visit to California’s Central Valley last spring, during the worst drought in 500 years, shocked me to my core. The San Joaquin River, a shadow of itself, was a trickling blue thread through barren sand. The vast San Luis Reservoir that irrigates the nation’s most important farmland and supplies Silicon Valley drinking water was almost empty.

In the nearby High Sierra, where Great Sequoias have endured weather vagaries for millennia, the stress of global warming was also evident. The Kaweah River, fed on a steadily diminishing alpine snowpack, flowed at a fourth its normal volume. Its formerly wide streambed was dotted by 15-foot tall desert yuccas.

In the Southern Appalachians, climate change is overheating and degrading prime trout streams. The Midwest’s Missouri River has altered its flow radically in the last 50 years, bringing severe water shortages to Montana and Wyoming, and flooding to the Dakotas. In the Southwest, 11 of the last 14 years have seen drought. Lake Mead, water source to 2 million Las Vegas residents, stands at 39 percent capacity, its lowest ever.

These extreme precipitation shifts are a double edged sword: Torrential rains increase runoff – dumping silt, topsoil, pesticides, road salt, sewage, and industrial contaminants including coal ash, oil, and natural gas fracking fluids, into rivers. Lack of rain hurts too: drought concentrates pollutants in shrinking volumes of water and promotes algae blooms that suffocate aquatic systems.

This isn’t only a U.S. problem. In 1990 and again in 2012, the primitive Kogi tribe of Colombia, South America broke a centuries-long silence with modern humanity to serve us a warning. Keen observers of nature’s interconnectedness, the Kogi warned that global warming is destroying the earth’s rivers, the web of life, and the Great Earth Mother.

Ecologists and economists are starting to agree with them. The record Mississippi River floods of 2011 did $5 billion in damage. A year later, a near record drought saw the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers racing to blast a barge channel from river bedrock to keep the nation’s vital cargo of corn, wheat and coal flowing.

Such mad hydrological mood swings are worsening as global warming escalates, hammering and shattering the world’s great river systems. None go untouched.

Rivers, not dollars, are our nation’s lifeblood. These vital arteries give us our drinking water, grow and transport our crops, provide energy, offer recreation and spiritual rejuvenation. They are sickening as the world warms. Their impoverishment threatens national security, the economy, ecology, and life itself.

A proactive response to climate change is needed now – but won’t happen without you. So travel to your childhood swimming or fishing hole, to your “home stream”, and see if it still flows sweetly or is lost to memory… perhaps forever.

We can protect our waterways from global warming, but not without a huge political sea change. After seeing the state of your “home stream”, maybe you’ll become part of the wave that will bring that change.

Blue Ridge Press editor Glenn Scherer lives in Rochester, VT. Send your “home stream” observations to him at scherer@blueridgepress.com ©2014 www.blueridgepress.com.

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Using “greywater” from sinks, showers and washing machines to irrigate outdoor gardens is a great way to increase the productivity of backyard ecosystems while reducing household water use by as much as 30 percent. Pictured: A backyard garden watered with residential greywater. Photo by Jeremy Levine; courtesy of Flickr.

Now that solar panels are so commonplace on rooftops across the country, reusing so-called greywater—that is, the waste water from sinks, showers, tubs and washing machines—for landscape irrigation may be the next frontier in the greening of the American home, especially if you live in an arid region where water use is restricted. In fact, reusing your graywater may be the only way to keep your lawn and garden healthy without taking more than your fair share of the community’s precious freshwater reserves.

“Using water from sinks, showers and washing machines to irrigate plants is a way to increase the productivity of sustainable backyard ecosystems that produce food, clean water and shelter wildlife,” reports Greywater Action, a California-based non-profit dedicated to educating and empowering people to use water sustainably. According to the group, a typical U.S. single family home can reduce water use by as much as 30 percent by installing some kind of greywater reclamation system while simultaneously reducing pollution into nearby water bodies by filtering out contaminants locally. Capturing and reusing greywater can also be part of the battle against climate change, given that you’ll be helping grow plants that sequester atmospheric carbon dioxide while reducing demand on a regional wastewater treatment facility that’s likely powered by fossil fuels.

The simplest way to get into home greywater reuse is to install a “laundry-to-landscape” system that sends washing machine wastewater outside via a diversion tank and hose that can be moved around to irrigate specific sections of the yard. Equipment costs for such a set-up max out at $200, but labor and expertise may tack on another few hundred dollars. Handy homeowners can do much of the work in setting up such systems themselves, though those without much home repair or plumbing experience might at least consult a professional. Greywater Action suggests one way to reduce costs is by digging trenches for diversion pipes and mulch basins yourself — or enlist friends who want to support the effort and learn about residential greywater reuse in the process.

A more comprehensive system can draw wastewater from sinks, showers and tubs, too—and then filter and distribute it to backyard landscaping via a drip irrigation network. Getting such a system professionally installed can run upwards of $5,000.

Either way, once the greywater diversion system is in place, you’ll need to be careful about what goes down the drain, given how it might affect the plants and soils right outside. “In any greywater system, it is essential to put nothing toxic down the drain — no bleach, no dye, no bath salts, no cleanser, no shampoo with unpronounceable ingredients, and no products containing boron, which is toxic to plants,” adds Greywater Action.

For more information on installing a greywater reuse system yourself, check out the resources section of Greywater Action’s website, where you’ll find diagrams, written instructions and even videos to make the job go smoother. Those more inclined to hire a professional can browse through listings of qualified installers across the country. And if you want to see how it’s done first-hand, sign up to attend one of Greywater Action’s one-day workshops on how to install a greywater catchment and diversion system in a residential setting.

CONTACT: Greywater Action, www.greywateraction.org.

Send questions to: earthtalk@emagazine.com.

EarthTalk® is written and edited by Roddy Scheer and Doug Moss and is a registered trademark of E – The Environmental Magazine (www.emagazine.com).

The post EarthTalk®: Reusing Greywater At Home By RODDY SCHEER and DOUG MOSS appeared first on Yonkers Tribune.

Blue Ridge Press editor Glenn Scherer lives in Rochester, VT.

Granville Beach was a secluded swimming hole on a snaky bend of the White River, the ideal place to meet Vermont neighbors on a hot summer day before 2011’s Hurricane Irene. Now, the sandy shore, deep waters overhung with box elders, streamside wildflowers, and the lively buzz of riparian birds and dragonflies are gone.

Replaced by a shallow channel choked with silt and shattered trees, lined by eroded clay banks topped by a tangle of Japanese knotweed – a foreign invader whose seeds filled almost every riverside plant niche after the storm.

America’s rivers are changing, and not for the good. Their flows are being altered by global warming’s wildly erratic precipitation shifts: torrential rains, floods and drought.

As climate models predicted decades ago, places that once got lots of rain, now often get more. Since the 1950’s, Northeastern downpours have grown 74 percent heavier. They’re 45 percent heavier in the Midwest, 26 percent heavier in the Southeast, and 21 percent on the Great Plains. Likewise, places that got less rain in past, now see intensifying drought.

A visit to California’s Central Valley last spring, during the worst drought in 500 years, shocked me to my core. The San Joaquin River, a shadow of itself, was a trickling blue thread through barren sand. The vast San Luis Reservoir that irrigates the nation’s most important farmland and supplies Silicon Valley drinking water was almost empty.

In the nearby High Sierra, where Great Sequoias have endured weather vagaries for millennia, the stress of global warming was also evident. The Kaweah River, fed on a steadily diminishing alpine snowpack, flowed at a fourth its normal volume. Its formerly wide streambed was dotted by 15-foot tall desert yuccas.

In the Southern Appalachians, climate change is overheating and degrading prime trout streams. The Midwest’s Missouri River has altered its flow radically in the last 50 years, bringing severe water shortages to Montana and Wyoming, and flooding to the Dakotas. In the Southwest, 11 of the last 14 years have seen drought. Lake Mead, water source to 2 million Las Vegas residents, stands at 39 percent capacity, its lowest ever.

These extreme precipitation shifts are a double edged sword: Torrential rains increase runoff – dumping silt, topsoil, pesticides, road salt, sewage, and industrial contaminants including coal ash, oil, and natural gas fracking fluids, into rivers. Lack of rain hurts too: drought concentrates pollutants in shrinking volumes of water and promotes algae blooms that suffocate aquatic systems.

This isn’t only a U.S. problem. In 1990 and again in 2012, the primitive Kogi tribe of Colombia, South America broke a centuries-long silence with modern humanity to serve us a warning. Keen observers of nature’s interconnectedness, the Kogi warned that global warming is destroying the earth’s rivers, the web of life, and the Great Earth Mother.

Ecologists and economists are starting to agree with them. The record Mississippi River floods of 2011 did $5 billion in damage. A year later, a near record drought saw the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers racing to blast a barge channel from river bedrock to keep the nation’s vital cargo of corn, wheat and coal flowing.

Such mad hydrological mood swings are worsening as global warming escalates, hammering and shattering the world’s great river systems. None go untouched.

Rivers, not dollars, are our nation’s lifeblood. These vital arteries give us our drinking water, grow and transport our crops, provide energy, offer recreation and spiritual rejuvenation. They are sickening as the world warms. Their impoverishment threatens national security, the economy, ecology, and life itself.

A proactive response to climate change is needed now – but won’t happen without you. So travel to your childhood swimming or fishing hole, to your “home stream”, and see if it still flows sweetly or is lost to memory… perhaps forever.

We can protect our waterways from global warming, but not without a huge political sea change. After seeing the state of your “home stream”, maybe you’ll become part of the wave that will bring that change.

Gnosis, The Elder Brothers’ Warning

Published on May 6, 2013
The Kogi are an indigenous people living in the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta mountains of northern Colombia, in South America.

They are the only civilisation to have survived the Spanish conquests and to have kept their individuality. They are perhaps the only indigenous people in the world who, because of the particular nature of their surroundings, have been able to keep themselves apart and sustain their culture inviolate. And not only that.

The one anthropologist who managed to study them in the 1940′s and 50′s concluded that though they are similar in some ways to the other Indian peoples around the Caribbean, northern Central America and south to the Andes, there are such profound differences that “in the end the Kogi stand alone”.

They have survived to this day, keeping their traditions and relying upon, and looking after, the mountain environment. They believe it is their duty to look after the mountain which they call “The Heart of the World”. They call themselves the Elder Brother and refer to the new- comers as the Younger Brother, who they believe is destroying the balance of the world.

In 1990 the Kogi decided they must speak out to the rest of the world. They had survived by keeping themselves isolated but they decided that it was time to send a message to the Younger Brother. They could see that something was wrong with their mountain, with the heart of the world. The snows had stopped falling and the rivers were not so full. If their mountain was ill then the whole world was in trouble.

Blue Ridge Press editor Glenn Scherer lives in Rochester, VT. Send your “home stream” observations to him at scherer@blueridgepress.com ©2014 www.blueridgepress.com.

The post Are We Losing Our Rivers? By GLENN SCHERER appeared first on Yonkers Tribune.

Dear EarthTalk

The cost of electricity derived from residential rooftop solar panels could achieve “price parity” with fossil-fuel-based grid power in 47 U.S. states by 2016 according to a new report from Deutsche Bank. Photo by  64MM; courtesy of Flickr CC.

The cost of electricity derived from residential rooftop solar panels could achieve “price parity” with fossil-fuel-based grid power in 47 U.S. states by 2016 according to a new report from Deutsche Bank. Photo by and courtesy of 64MM, Flickr CC.

Rooftop solar panels on have always been the province of well-to-do, eco-friendly folks willing to shell out extra bucks to be green, but that is all starting to change. According to the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), the cost of putting solar panels on a typical American house has fallen by some 70 percent over the last decade and a half. And a recent report from Deutsche Bank shows that solar has already achieved so-called “price parity” with fossil fuel-based grid power in 10 U.S. states. Deutsche Bank goes on to say that solar electricity is on track to be as cheap or cheaper than average electricity-bill prices in all but three states by 2016—assuming,that is, that the federal government maintains the 30 percent solar investment tax credit it currently offers homeowners on installation and equipment costs.

But therein could lie the rub. The federal tax credit for residential solar installations expires in 2016, and it’s anybody’s guess whether and to what extent the Republican-dominated Congress will renew it. Legislative analysts report that while Congress is unlikely to abandon the program entirely, big cutbacks could be on the way. But Deutsche Bank maintains that even if the credit is reduced to 10 percent, solar power would still achieve price parity with conventional electricity in some 36 states by 2016.

Meanwhile, homeowners in states where additional local incentives are available and there’s lots of sunshine—such as across the Southwest—may in fact already be able to power their homes cheaper with the sun than from the grid. Homeowners looking to go solar should check out the Database of State Incentives for Renewable and Efficiency (DSIRE), a free online database of all the different state and local incentives for solar and other forms of renewable energy.

And prices for solar are expected to keep falling as technologies improve and financing becomes more affordable. Solar leasing has helped hundreds of thousands of Americans realize the dream of going solar without breaking the bank. The companies behind such programs—SolarCity, SunRun and others—take care of installation, maintenance and upgrades while the customer ends up paying about as much for clean, green power as for grid power from coal or other fossil fuels.

Of course, solar is still a bit player in the scheme of things in terms of U.S. and global electricity production. But with costs coming down, we can expect to see a lot more solar panels going up on rooftops across the land in the coming decade. Environmentalists concerned about our changing climate say the sooner the better, as our dependency on coal and other fossil fuels for electricity is a big contributor to global warming.

Congress will definitely be considering whether or not to extend the solar investment tax credit when it reconvenes in 2015. If you’re part of the silent majority of Americans who would like to see the credit extended so that middle class Americans can continue to afford to convert to solar power, be sure to speak up and let your Congressional delegation know.

CONTACTS: Deutsche Bank, www.db.com; National Renewable Energy Laboratory, www.nrel.gov; SolarCity, www.solarcity.com; SunRun, www.sunrun.com.

Send questions to: earthtalk@emagazine.com.

EarthTalk® is written and edited by Roddy Scheer and Doug Moss and is a registered trademark of E – The Environmental Magazine (www.emagazine.com).

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Environmental Advocates of New York.

“It is shameful that as communities across the state struggle to find the funding to repair crumbling sewage systems and drinking water supplies, we learn that the Cuomo Administration was working in secret for more than a year to divert more than a half a billion dollars from clean water funds to pay for a new bridge.

“The manner in which this plan was devised, advanced and approved is beyond reproach. Governor Cuomo should let this plan go, and the Environmental Facilities Corporation (EFC) board should immediately direct staff to aggressively move these funds to the communities that are in desperate need of it.

“The report, released November 20, 2014, reveals for the first time the breathtaking details of how the Cuomo Administration set out to raid clean water funds with as little due process, oversight and accountability as possible. The ABO believes the EFC and its board violated the state’s open meetings law, willfully dismissed standards for public notice and comment, failed to properly engage an independent effort with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, and advanced a process that lacked transparency and disclosure. According to the ABO, the EFC board defers too much to staff and must increase its engagement and better adhere to state law governing its make-up and procedures in order to protect public interests.

Environmental Facilities Corp.

“It has been clear that reforms of the EFC process are needed and this report identifies some key areas in which to act. As the 2015 Legislative Session gets underway, we urge the Legislature to conduct the necessary oversight and pass laws that that will clean up the operations of the clean water funding programs and ensure these funds are used for their intended purpose.

“Though we are deeply dismayed by the content, we are grateful for the independent work of the ABO in examining the actions of the EFC and its board. It is time to fix the broken process, drop efforts to raid this fund, and finally move forward with the vital clean water infrastructure projects that our communities need.”

Peter Iwanowicz is executive director of Environmental Advocates of New York.

The post Authorities Budget Office Report on Clean Water Funds Raid for the “New” New York Bridge By Executive Director PETER IWANOWICZ appeared first on Yonkers Tribune.

(L-R):Anthony Pereira (Alt Power), Heather Leibowitz (Director, Environment New York), and Senator Kevin Parker at The Solaire, a luxury green apartment complex with LEED Gold Certification.

“We can get to 20% solar energy in New York by 2025 if we just keep our foot on the accelerator,” said Heather Leibowitz, Director of Environment New York. “That’s a small fraction of what’s possible, but it will make a big difference in the quality of our lives and the future of our planet.”

The group’s researchers found that solar has grown 63% in recent years. Even if this pace slowed to 47%, solar could still generate 20% of New York’s electricity in just over a decade— a goal once thought improbable by many.

Achieving this goal, the report said, would cut as much carbon pollution as taking 3 million cars off the road each year, and put New York more than halfway to the benchmark set by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Clean Power Plan, which requires cuts in power plant carbon pollution of 44% by 2030.

“The benefits to New York from producing 20 percent of our electricity from clean, solar power by 2025 are enormous, which is why the findings contained in the Environment New York Research & Policy Center report are extremely encouraging. Migrating our energy economy to renewable and sustainable sources will help us meet our goal of a pollution-free energy future,” said State Senator Kevin Parker, the Ranking Democratic Member on the Senate Energy & Telecommunications Committee. He added: “In my capacity as the Ranking Democrat on the Energy Committee, I remain committed to accelerating New York’s leadership in renewable energy, and in taking concrete action against climate change, while we continue to build a prosperous, sustainable energy economy.”

Solar is currently the fastest-growing industry in the country, adding 143,000 jobs nationwide in 2013. According to the latest solar jobs census from the Solar Foundation, the solar industry employed more than 5,000 people in New York in 2013.

The report quantifies the New York’s enormous solar energy potential using data from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory. Already, the New York is home to more than 35 million residential and 1.9 million commercial rooftops that could host solar panels, and it has enough technical potential to meet the state’s energy needs eleven times over each year.

“When it comes to solar energy, the sky’s the limit,” said Leibowitz. “Getting to 20% solar is just the first step to a future powered entirely by pollution-free energy.”

Environment New York Research & Policy Center is a statewide advocacy organization bringing people together for a cleaner, greener, healthier future. http://www.Environmentnewyork.org

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Dear EarthTalk

Proponents of genetic engineering (GE)—whereby DNA from unrelated species is combined to produce improved or novel organisms—insist that the benefits of increased crop yields and less agricultural waste outweigh the potential risks, but many environmental and public health advocates aren’t convinced.

According to the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS), one risk of GE is that our new “frankencrops” could become invasive, toxic to wildlife, or dangerous in other as-yet unknown ways. “But the most damaging impact of GE in agriculture so far is the phenomenon of pesticide resistance,” reports UCS, adding that millions of acres of American farmland are infested by weeds that have become resistant to Monsanto’s popular herbicide glyphosate (known to most by its trade name Roundup). “Overuse of Monsanto’s ‘Roundup Ready’ trait, which is engineered to tolerate the herbicide, has promoted the accelerated development of resistance in several weed species.

As a result, farmers are now turning to older, more toxic herbicides—and agribusiness companies are responding in kind with new rounds of GE crops engineered to tolerate these older chemicals. UCS worries that the process repeating itself is only leading us down the path of plants evolving quickly to overcome our defenses however technically brilliant they may be.

As for health risks, UCS acknowledges that eating refined products derived from GE crops is unlikely to cause health problems, but maintains that inserting a gene from one organism into another could still have unintended health consequences. For example, those with food-borne allergies could be at increased risk for reactions given the combination of genes in what looks like any other vegetable or piece of fruit. “This phenomenon was documented in 1996, as soybeans with a Brazil nut gene—added to improve their value as animal feed—produced an allergic response in test subjects with Brazil nut allergies,” reports UCS.

Given these risks, some 21 countries and the European Union (EU) have instituted policies requiring foods created with GE technology to be labeled as such so consumers can know what they are buying and putting into their mouths. EU rules mandate that if any ingredient in a food has 0.9 percent or higher of genetically modified organisms, it must be marked accordingly on its packaging. Environmentalists in the U.S. would like to see the federal government put in place a similar policy—research from the non-profit Just Label It found nine in 10 Americans to be in favor of mandated GE labeling—but lobbying interests from agricultural states with a vested interest in selling more GE products still hold lots of sway over elected officials. So for now, Americans concerned about what’s in their food will need to do their own homework regarding what’s safe to put on their dinner tables.

Luckily some natural foods retailers are making it easier for consumers intent on avoiding GE foods. Whole Foods, for one, is working toward full disclosure via labeling in regard to which of the foods on its store shelves contain GE ingredients. While Whole Foods may be a pioneer in this regard, environmentalists are hoping other U.S. grocery store chains will follow suit so that Americans can decide for themselves whether or not to take the risk of eating GE foods.

CONTACTS: UCS, www.ucsusa.org; Just Label It, justlabelit.org.

Send questions to: earthtalk@emagazine.com.

EarthTalk® is written and edited by Roddy Scheer and Doug Moss and is a registered trademark of E – The Environmental Magazine (www.emagazine.com).

The post EarthTalk®: Assessing the Risks of Genetically Engineered CropsBy RODDY SCHEER and DOUG MOSS appeared first on Yonkers Tribune.

Rev. Peter Sawtell

Last summer, Iraq’s Yazidi people fled to the desert to escape religious persecution. Trapped atop Mount Sinjar, the refugees started dying of thirst. In a humanitarian effort applauded worldwide, our U.S. military air-dropped bottled water and saved many lives.

Likewise, church groups who provide disaster relief and overseas development assistance put water projects at the top of their priority lists. Many Americans may also sympathize with Irish protestors who last week demonstrated in vast numbers against the privatization of their nation’s water system, resulting in high water prices.

Clearly, access to clean affordable water, essential to life, is a vital question of human ethics and morality.

Unfortunately, our water policies at home seem to be far less generous and forward thinking than abroad.

Since January 2013, the city of Detroit has cut off drinking water to over 50,000 impoverished households that were behind on their utility bills. With cutoffs continuing at up to 3,000 per week, families are forced to decide between high water prices and food.

This October, a federal judge allowed the cutoffs to continue, concluding that while “water is a necessary ingredient to sustaining life,” there is no legally “enforceable right to free and affordable water.” Judge Steven Rhodes’ decision essentially establishes water as a privilege for those who can afford it, not a basic human right.

I disagree, and so do United Nations investigators looking into the Detroit cutoffs. They say that water is the most basic of human survival needs, and a public health necessity.

Clean water for all used to be a guiding vision in America. In the past, our municipal water systems were built to guarantee safe, inexpensive water to millions of citizens.  These enormous public projects with their wells and reservoirs, pumping and purifying stations, and vast networks of water mains, have been essential to the growth of thriving cities and healthy communities.

Most water utilities are monopolies. They have to be, since multiple utilities serving a service area would mean chaos. Many are government run, though a recent trend has turned public water utilities over to private business. Unfortunately, privatization brings the profit motive into play, and drives water prices up.

The single source of supply means that none of us can shop around for the best water prices. We can’t easily gather our own water. We depend on the municipal supply. If the system becomes too costly, the poor are put in a desperate situation.

Water monopolies, chartered by local governments, have an obligation to provide affordable and reliable water to all members of their service community. There can be no moral justification for stranding citizens without clean water, or for charging prices that make water access economically impossible.

As a basic matter of morality, communities must ensure that all citizens have — at minimum – water for drinking and sanitation, made available at the lowest price.

Admittedly, water utilities are in a tough spot. Dwindling and degraded supplies, aging infrastructure, and growing populations make it hard to provide affordable water for all. Their system-wide costs have to be covered. But those costs mustn’t be carried on the backs of those in need.

That may mean subsidizing water costs for the underprivileged, just as we subsidize winter fuel bills. This is good public policy. Inadequate water for sanitation can lead to the spread of disease, while lack of affordable drinking water can result in civil unrest. 120,000 took to the streets in Ireland this October to protest water privatization and increased rates. Similar events in Bolivia led to mass protests and violence in 2000.

Ethicists around the world speak of water as a human right, an essential need that cannot be denied. Access to water, to that human right, is just as real to the people of Detroit as to the Yazidi stranded in the desert – and denying it is just as wrong.

A lush green lawn, swimming pool, or 20-minute shower is not a right. But a glass of water, a working toilet, and the ability to bathe are minimal necessities that should be available to every American.

Water is no dry topic. It is the most basic and essential service provided by municipalities. As people of conscience, we must speak clearly and loudly whenever access to water is threatened.

Rev. Peter Sawtell is executive director of Eco-Justice Ministries, www.eco-justice.org .©Blue Ridge Press 2014.

The post Water Is a Human Right in Detroit, Ireland, Iraq, Everywhere! By Rev. PETER SAWTELL appeared first on Yonkers Tribune.

Rev. Peter Sawtell

Drinking water is not a dry topic. In the U.S. and globally, water is at the heart of clashes between economic policy and basic human rights. Access to clean water is a question of human ethics and morality.

We all know that clean, available water is essential for life. Church groups providing disaster relief and third-world development assistance put water projects at the top of their priority lists.

Last summer, the Yazidi people in Iraq fled to the desert to escape religious persecution. Trapped atop Mount Sinjar, the refugees started dying of thirst. In a humanitarian effort that saved many lives, our U.S. military air-dropped bottled water to them.

Unfortunately, our water policies seem to be far more generous and forward thinking abroad than at home.

Since January, the city of Detroit has cut off drinking water to over 50,000 impoverished households that were behind on their utility bills. With cutoffs continuing at up to 3,000 per week, families are forced to decide between high water prices and food.

In October, a federal judge allowed the cutoffs to continue, concluding that while “water is a necessary ingredient to sustaining life,” there is no legally “enforceable right to free and affordable water.” Judge Steven Rhodes’ decision essentially establishes drinking water as a privilege for those who can afford it, not a basic human right.

I disagree, and so do United Nations investigators looking into the Detroit cutoffs. They say that water is the most basic of human survival needs, and a public health necessity.

Clean water for all used to be a guiding vision in America. In the past, our municipal water systems were built to guarantee safe, inexpensive water to millions of citizens. These enormous public projects with their wells and reservoirs, pumping and purifying stations, and vast networks of water mains, have been essential to the growth of thriving cities and healthy communities.

Most water utilities are monopolies. They have to be, since multiple utilities serving a service area would mean chaos. Many are government run, though a recent trend has turned public water utilities over to private business. Unfortunately, privatization brings the profit motive into play, and drives water prices up.

The single source of supply means that none of us can shop around for the best water prices. We can’t easily gather our own water. We depend on the municipal supply. If the system becomes too costly, the poor are put in a desperate situation.

Water monopolies, chartered by local governments, have an obligation to provide affordable and reliable water to all members of their service community. There can be no moral justification for stranding citizens without clean water, or for charging prices that make water access economically impossible.

As a basic matter of morality, communities must ensure that all citizens have — at minimum – water for drinking and sanitation, made available at the lowest price.

Admittedly, water utilities are in a tough spot. Dwindling and degraded supplies, aging infrastructure, and growing populations make it hard to provide affordable water for all. Their system-wide costs have to be covered. But those costs mustn’t be carried on the backs of those in need.

That may mean subsidizing water costs for the underprivileged, just as we subsidize winter fuel bills. This is good public policy. Inadequate water for sanitation can quickly lead to the spread of disease, while lack of affordable drinking water can result in civil unrest. When Bolivia privatized its water supply in 2000, the Bechtel Corporation dramatically raised water prices. The poor revolted, Bolivia declared martial law and the company was ousted.

Ethicists around the world speak of water as a human right, an essential need that cannot be denied. Access to water, to that human right, is just as real to the people of Detroit as to the Yazidi stranded in the desert – and denying it is just as wrong.

A lush green lawn, swimming pool, or 20-minute shower is not a right. But a glass of water, a working toilet, and the ability to bathe are minimal necessities that should be available to every American.

Clean water is the most basic and essential service provided by municipalities. As people of conscience, we must speak clearly and loudly whenever access to water is threatened.

Rev. Peter Sawtell is Executive Director of Eco-Justice Ministries, www.eco-justice.org ©Blue Ridge Press 2014

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