Environment

US is Incapable of Removing Aspartame from Market, Consumer Protection shifts to International Focus

A horrifying conclusion, but these are the facts: without a massive overhaul at the FDA resulting from a very large hue and cry from the American public, nothing will ever get done in terms of the FDA removing this neurotoxic carcinogen from the market. There is considerable hope, however, in efforts going on right now in Sacramento, California to require a carcinogen label on aspartame containing products, as well as international efforts to fight back against the misleading corporate propaganda that assures hundreds of millions that "aspartame" is somehow safe to consume.

Talk about Fake News! These Ajinomoto guys in Japan win the Gold Prize for getting away with audaciously lying to consumers in every nation.

On the day that you read this article, 200 species of life on Earth (plants, birds, animals, fish, amphibians, insects, reptiles) will cease to exist. Tomorrow, another 200 species will vanish forever.

The human onslaught to destroy life on Earth is unprecedented in Earth's history. Planet Earth is now experiencing its sixth mass extinction event and Homo sapiens sapiens is the cause. Moreover, this mass extinction event is accelerating and is so comprehensive in its impact that the piecemeal measures being taken by the United Nations, international agencies and governments constitute a tokenism that is breathtaking in the extreme.

And it is no longer the case that mainly 'invisible' species are vanishing: those insects, amphibians and small animals about which you had never even heard, assuming they have been identified and given a name by humans.

sn’t that sweet?

As the evidence mounts that we are fast approaching the final point-of-no-return beyond which it will be impossible to take sufficient effective action to prevent climate catastrophe – see 'The World Passes 400 PPM Threshold. Permanently' http://www.climatecentral.org/news/world-passes-400-ppm-threshold-permanently-20738

Over the last five years, the Youngstown, Ohio region has suffered over 700 man-made earthquakes, an illegal dumping of fracking waste into our river, accidental spills that destroyed private ponds and a small wetland, the trucking of radioactive solid fracking-waste into a low-income neighborhood and shale-gas fracking in the Safe Drinking Water Source Protection Area of our water supply, the Meander Reservoir. Because our elected officials have refused to prevent these ongoing harms to public health and safety, Frackfree Mahoning Valley and the Youngstown Community Bill of Rights Committee are using the ballot box to codify into law our rights as citizens to clean air, clean water and a sustainable future. This battle to codify the unalienable rights of citizens over the privileges of corporations and the self-interests of some elected officials, political parties, and community leaders, began in 2013. In 2015, the Community Bill of Rights (CBR) charter amendment only lost by 299 votes out of over 12,000 votes cast.

Supporters of nuclear power like to argue that nukes are the key to combatting climate change. Here’s why they are dead wrong.

Every nuclear generating station spews about two-thirds of the energy it burns inside its reactor core into the environment. Only one-third is converted into electricity. Another tenth of that is lost in transmission. According to the Union of Concerned Scientists:

At a meeting with the deputy political director of the AFL-CIO during my campaign for Congress, she looked across her desk and told me that I could get major union support by coming out in favor of the Keystone XL oil pipeline.

That was five years ago. Since then, the nation’s biggest labor federation has continued to serve the fossil fuel industry. Call it union leadership for a dead planet.

The New York Times published an astonishing article last week that blames green power for difficulties countries are facing to mitigate climate change.

The article by Eduardo Porter, How Renewable Energy is Blowing Climate Change Efforts Off Course, serves as a flagship for an on-going attack on the growth of renewables. It is so convoluted and inaccurate that it requires a detailed response.

As Mark Jacobson, director of Atmosphere/Energy Program at Stanford University, pointed out to me via email: