The US had a record number of beach closures and health advisories last year, the most in 15 years since research organizations have been monitoring them. -The Clean Water initiative is primarily focused on protecting water quality in coastal watersheds and in the near-shore marine environment. Consequently, the Surfrider Foundation advocates for strong water quality regulations, adequate marine recreational water quality monitoring, reporting and posting, reduction of polluted discharges into the ocean and education regarding personal responsibility for the reduction water pollution. They also support smart land use planning to ensure that coastal environmental resources are protected and healthy watersheds are maintained.
-In 2001, the UN FAO and World Health Organisation estimated that developing countries spend US$3 billion annually on pesticides. However, one-third of these pesticides did not meet internationally accepted quality standards. Developing countries are used as a dumping ground for hazardous chemicals, many of which are banned throughout much of the rest of the world because of the serious threats they pose to human health and the natural environment. Cambodia is one such country.
-Pesticides are toxic by design. Every year, pesticides are estimated to cause tens of millions of cases of accidental poisoning. Many of these poisoning cases are in the developing world where awareness of the dangers is lacking. Symptoms of pesticide poisoning can range from short-term headaches and nausea to convulsions, unconsciousness or death. Longer-term effects include damage to nervous systems, respiratory and skin diseases, cancers and birth defects. What's Your Poison? highlights the shocking evidence between pesticides and damage to human health.
-EJF's work to raise awareness of the human health impact of endosulfan and the publication of End of the Road for Endosulfan led to the Cambodian Government announcing a ban on the import, sale and use of this dangerous pesticide. Find out why endosulfan is so dangerous to human health: [Read EJF's report End of the Road for Endosulfan]
-Cotton uses nearly 10% of the world's pesticides, and of this, 25% of the world's insecticides. The consequences for human health and the environment are well known, particularly in the developing world where pesticides are not subject to stringent regulation and where public awareness of the risks are limited. There has been a slow response from producers, traders and retailers to developing and promoting organic cotton production that can sustain environment and rural communities.
Winston Churchill once said something like if you're under 30 and you're not a Democrat, than you have no heart. But if you're over 40 and you're not a Republican, than you have no brains. Well now I am in my mid thirties and I am fed with both of them. If you follow that cheese race and pay any attention to politics today in the US and have the ability to somewhat think for yourself instead of blindly following a "leader," you should be very fed up. We should be thankful for our rights while we use the voice our forefathers worked so hard to get into the constitution that most modern day spin doctors today dance around. Today The Republican and Democratic parties are almost the same. Some people even refer to the two as one party, the Republicrat party. Neither of the two major parties are interested in doing what is best for Americans, nor what American voters want their representatives to do. As an American, it is our privilege and duty to vote for people who are willing to represent our interests, not their own interests or those of corporate lobbyists.
Love your new shirt - know how the cotton was grown?
Over two thirds of the world's cotton - used in the clothes we all wear - is grown in developing countries and the former Soviet Union.
Valued at US$35 billion a year, global cotton production should be improving lives but this "white gold" all too often brings misery to millions.
Forced child labour, heavy pesticide use and environmental degradation are all rife in cotton production, but most people are still in the dark about the full story behind the clothes we wear and how they are produced.
Unless you have made a positive choice and are wearing certified organic or fairly traded cotton, you won't know it from the label.
The Environmental Justice Foundation is leading an international campaign to end human rights and environmental abuses in cotton production, and to promote organic and fairly traded cotton.
Read the reports, watch the award-winning short film and then TAKE ACTION so you can Pick Your Cotton Carefully.
Watch "White Gold - The True Cost of Cotton"
EJF Campaigns:
* to raise public awareness of the conditions under which cotton is produced
* to press retailers to ensure they only sell "clean cotton"
* for an EU regulation on forced child labour, and for cotton products to show the country of origin of the cotton on the label
The struggle to preserve public access to the beach is spreading across the nation from California to Connecticut and from Florida to the Great Lakes. California's beaches belong to all the people. The wealthy rich prick beachfront enclave of Malibu and media mogul David Geffen nevertheless filed suit to cut off the people'sright to reach the beach. A Newport Beach city councilmember opposes improvements to a public beach because "with grass we usually get Mexicans coming in there early in the morning and they claim it as theirs and it becomes their personal, private grounds all day." People of color and low-income people suffer first and worst from the efforts to privatize public beaches. While eighty percent of the 34 million people of California live within an hour of the coast, disproportionately White and wealthy homeowners stand to benefit from the privatization of this public good, while communities of color and low-income communities are disproportionately denied the benefit of coastal access.
Beaches are not a luxury. Beaches are a public space that provide a different set of rhythms to renew public life. Beaches are a democratic commons that bring people together as equals. People swim and splash in the waves, "people watch," surf, wile away the afternoon under an umbrella, scamper between tide pools, or gaze off into the sunset. Public access to the beach is integral to democracy and equality. Rio de Janeiro, like Los Angeles, is marked by some of the greatest disparities between wealth and poverty in the world. Yet Rio's famous beaches are open to all, rich and poor, Black and White. The beach in Rio is the great equalizer. California's world famous beaches must also remain public for all, not the exclusive province of the rich and famous. The Connecticut Supreme Court has recognized the First Amendment right of non-residents to use a public beach against efforts by the city of Greenwhich to restrict access to its residents. A New Jersey appellate court has recognized the right of public access to reach the beach at a private club under the public trust doctrine. A Michigan court, however, has recently limited public access to the beach along Lake Michigan. In Florida, 60% of the "public" beaches are now "private."
In order to make a difference before it gets to late The center For the law and Public Justice along with the Surfrider foundation have put together a "Free the Beach" campaign. For more information go to http://www.surfrider.org/media5.asp
Your unique spirit and individual personality are not mistakes; there is a plan and a purpose for your life. Pay Attention, when you are being lied to. Please do not be fooled, each one of us is responsible for the decisions we make and the actions we do or do not take.
