Concerns About Farm Raised Fish

(Green Living Zone is pro wild fish over farm raised in favor of maintaining sustainability.)

| Roddy Scheer and Doug Moss |

Farm-raised fish can still absorb mercury, since most fish farms are located in the ocean, close to or abutting the shoreline. They can also absorb PCBs and dioxins, as the near-shore waters they occupy are the first stop for run-off from land-based sources of pollution.

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Dear EarthTalk: I thought “farm raised” was the way to go when buying fish, to avoid mercury contamination. But are there other concerns about farm raised that make some fish a poor choice for good health? What are the safest fish to buy and which should be avoided? And what about those frozen blocks of fish I get at Trader Joe’s? Are they safe to eat?

—Tim Jeffries, Springfield, MA

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Mercury is a neurotoxin that settles into the ocean in large concentrations after we spew it out of industrial smokestacks when burning fossil fuels like coal and oil. It is then taken up by smaller sea life such as plankton and then spread up through the food chain as larger fish eat smaller ones. We humans then eat the mercury-laced seafood—wild salmon, tuna, swordfish and other fish—and breathe it in our air. Repeated exposure to mercury pollution can cause brain, kidney and developmental problems for people.

Farm-raised fish may have somewhat less exposure to mercury than their wild free-foraging cousins because they are usually fed a controlled diet, often consisting of more grains and soy, a cheaper and more abundant source of calories, than fishmeal. But they can still absorb mercury, since most fish farms are themselves located in the ocean, just close to or abutting the shoreline.

Farmed fish can also absorb PCBs and dioxins, as the near-shore waters they occupy are the first stop for run-off from land-based sources of pollution. And the fact that their primary feed source comes from conventionally grown terrestrial crops means that their diets can include trace amounts of pesticides and herbicides as well. Also, most farmed fish are exposed to dose after dose of antibiotics to keep diseases and pests at bay in their crowded underwater pens, much in the way “factory farmed” land animals are drugged to help them cope with cramped, unsanitary conditions. In fact, studies have shown that farm-raised fish have more toxins overall than their wild-caught cousins, though exceptions of course do exist.

The best way to know which fish are safe and which are not is to download a region-specific seafood buying guide from the Monterey Bay Aquarium’s Seafood Watch program.

These guides aid the decision-making process when shopping for seafood in a store or ordering it at a restaurant by dividing the fish available in that part of the country into three categories: Best Choices, Good Alternatives and Avoid.

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And bring your Seafood Watch guide to Trader Joe’s as well—at least for now. In 2010, after months of lobbying by Greenpeace and a growing number of concerned shoppers, Trader Joe’s agreed to offer only “sustainable” seafood in its stores by the end of 2012. To its credit, they already removed endangered Chilean Sea Bass from shelves in 2005, followed by Orange Roughy in 2009 and Red Snapper in 2010.

In the spirit of its recent pledge, however, Trader Joe’s is now working with third-party, science-based organizations to establish definitions and parameters for addressing customer concerns about overfishing, destructive catch or production methods, and the importance of marine reserves. Until 2013 at Trader Joe’s—and indefinitely at other stores that haven’t made specific commitments regarding the sustainability of their seafood—make sure to check that labels disclose the type of fish for sale and its source in regard to wild or farm-raised, and then check that info against the Seafood Watch list.

CONTACTS: Seafood Watch; Trader Joe’s “Note to Our Customers about Trader Joe’s Seafood”.

Green Living Zone’s TAKE ON THIS CONTROVERSIAL SUBJECT: It is best to be informed on all sides. Even though this article references a lot of scietific studies and details, it seems to be  most about the policies of  Trader Joe’s.

Here is an article that favors wild salmon over farm raised salmon that will give you more food for thought!

Wild Salmon vs. Farmed Salmon

Which is better for Salmon Sustainability: Farmed vs Wild Salmon?

Natural Weed Control

One of my Favorite recycled Earth Talk Question and Answer Columns
as seen in E Environmental magazine, reprinted with Permission from E.

You could pull those dandelions out and have them in a salad or here are a few natural weed control techniques from the Earth Talk experts! – Karen

Dear EarthTalk: I pruned back an overgrown bush in my back yard last fall and now the soil around it is covered in dandelions and other weeds. Is there any way to get rid of these weeds without resorting to RoundUp and other chemical herbicides?

– Max S., Seattle, WA

Weeds are nothing if not opportunistic. While you may not have bargained for getting one form of eyesore (weeds) by clearing another (an overgrown bush), dandelions and other fast-growing, quickly spreading plants know no bounds when some new territory opens up. They will colonize and spread out given the slightest opening—after all, that‘s what defines them as weeds.

Of course, conventional herbicides such as Monsanto‘s RoundUp will take down the weeds in a jiffy, but the negative effects on people, animals and the environment may be both profound and long-lasting. Independent studies of RoundUp have implicated its primary ingredient, glyphosphate, as well as some of its “inert” ingredients, in liver damage, reproductive disorders and Non-Hodgkin‘s Lymphoma, as well as in cardiovascular, gastrointestinal, nerve and respiratory damage.

California‘s Department of Pesticide Regulation reports that, year after year, RoundUp is the number one cause of pesticide/herbicide-induced illness and injury around that state. RoundUp is also blamed for poisoning groundwater across the U.S. and beyond, as well as for contributing to a 70 percent decrease in amphibian biodiversity and a 90 percent decrease in tadpole numbers in regions where it is used heavily.

No doubt, the most eco-friendly way to get rid of weeds is to yank them out without the aid of poisons.

Yank them out of the ground!

Given that you‘ll have to manually remove dead weeds from your yard after applying RoundUp (or any other “post-emergent” herbicide), why not just pull them up by hand in the first place? No doubt, the most eco-friendly way to get rid of weeds is to yank them out without the aid of poisons. Unfortunately, many weeds have long deep roots which need to be pulled completely if you don’t want them to grow back; if need be, use a metal weed puller with a hooked end or a mechanical grabber—available at any local garden supply or hardware store—if you don’t want to have to pull those very same weeds next year.

Garden expert Dean Novosat of the Garden Doctor website suggests giving the weed beds a good watering the night before you pull weeds. “…the soil will be softened and will yield the entire weed plant, root and all,” he says. Another way to kill weeds, he says, is by pouring boiling hot water over them.

Of course, once you’ve killed or pulled up all those weeds—and make sure you‘re thorough or else it‘s waste of time—you‘ll want to make sure new ones don‘t start showing up in their place. Planting some regionally appropriate and ideally native plants in place of the removed weeds would be a good first step—check with a local nursery about what some good choices might be for your neck of the woods.

Once the area is cleared (and replanted), cover it with three to six inches of mulch. Mulch forms a barrier between the soil and the sun, depriving any new germinating weeds of the sunlight they need to photosynthesize. Mulch is composed of large chunky material such as wood chips and bark nuggets, and works well for weed control also because it is low in nutrients and thus won‘t fertilize plant starts below.

CONTACTS: California Department of Pesticide Regulation; The Garden Doctor.

Photo: © Lastonien, courtesy Flickr

Have an opinion or weed  control technique you would like to share?

A Green Post from GreenLivingZone.com by Karen Ann Teeters

How can kids go green? Get them off the couch and into nature.

One of my favorite recycled Earth Talk Question and Answer Columns as seen in E Environmental magazine, reprinted with Permission from E.

Dear EarthTalk: What are some things that children and families can do to be greener (and to provide life lessons for the kids in the process)?

– Cynthia Mosher, via email

There are many ways to be green around the family that are sure to rub off on the littler ones in your midst—if they don’t beat you to it, that is.

With environmental awareness so widespread among younger people in our society, most kids have learned more about being green from their school teachers and camp counselors than we adults might have gleaned in a lifetime. For one, the environmental “Three R’s”—Reduce, Reuse, Recycle—are followed at many schools nowadays. But just because your kids might hear about it at school doesn’t mean that it is sinking in, and that’s where you come in. By reinforcing such messages at home and on outings—and leading by example—you can be certain that today’s ‘tweens will be tomorrow’s greens.

If you don’t know where to start, look for the metaphorical low-hanging fruit: recycling. Learn what types of items your city or town accepts for recycling and sort accordingly. Teach your kids what goes into the recycling bin, and put them in charge. In many locales, residents must pay for trash hauling but not for recyclables, so diverting more of your waste stream to recycling will also leave more money in your wallet for those outings to the ice cream truck and toy store. Also, raid your recycling bin when the kids want to make arts and crafts; reusing materials for creative endeavors is about as green as you can get.

Another way to teach kids about being green is by talking about the foods we eat, where they come from, and the environmental impact our food choices have. No one wants to cause pollution or eat chemicals, kids included, so sourcing your food from local and organic sources when possible—and explaining why to your children—will benefit not only their development but the health of the Earth as well. Many vegetarians have chosen to avoid meat for environmental reasons, and should make sure their kids know why so they can make informed choices for their own diets accordingly when it’s their turn to decide.

Exploring the outdoors near or far with the family is also a great way to teach kids about appreciating and respecting nature and its wild plant and animal inhabitants. Any tidbits of knowledge you might have about the natural history of the place you’re visiting will be eagerly absorbed and remembered by the kids.

Richard Louv underscores the importance of fostering a connection between children and nature in his book, Last Child in the Woods. In it, Louv traces the evolution of a phenomenon he calls “nature deficit disorder,” whereby kids raised on a steady diet of video games and junk food may not turn into the great stewards of the outdoors we might hope for. His solution? Get them off the couch and into nature, where they will surely be wowed by what they encounter.

Last Child in the Woods has inspired dozens of “Leave No Child Inside” initiatives around the U.S. since its 2005 publication, and Louv has gone on to found the Children & Nature Network, which works with upwards of 50 regional groups across the U.S. that offer programs connecting children and nature. Parents can find events and activities near them via the group’s free online interactive “movement map.”

Most kids today learn more about being green from their school teachers and camp counselors than their parents learned in a lifetime. But it’s good to reinforce those lessons at home, and recycling is a good place to start. Teach your kids what goes into the recycling bin, and then put them in charge.

Reprint From: Week of 7/26/09

Amazon Book Picks for Green Kids.

Hold Down on Arrow to go back and forth.

Click on Pic for more details.

Links of interest:

Richard Louv’s Site

http://www.childrenandnature.org/

Emagazine:

http://www.emagazine.com/

Comments from Karen: We always say we are keeping the planet green for generations to to come. But aren’t we also responsible to make sure the next generation appreciates this gift we call planet earth?

Share with us:

What techniques have you used to help young kids

be more conscious of the importance of connecting

with nature and honoring our planet?

(This topic is very controversial. I invite you to read my two cents at the end of this article and I invite you to share your own opinions and links to other articles and blogs as well!)

One of my Favorite recycled Earth Talk Question and Answer Columns
as seen in E Environmental magazine, reprinted with Permission from E.

EARTHTALK

Dear EarthTalk: I keep meeting people who say that human-induced global warming is only theory, that just as many scientists doubt it as believe it. Can you settle the score?
– J. Proct or, London, UK

So-called “global warming skeptics” are indeed getting more vocal than ever, and banding together to show their solidarity against the scientific consensus that has concluded that global warming is caused by emissions from human activities.
Upwards of 800 skeptics  took part in the second annual International Conference on Climate Change—sponsored by the Heartland Institute, a conservative think tank—in March 2009. Keynote speaker and Massachusetts Institute of Technology meteorologist Richard Lindzen told the gathering that “there is no substantive basis for predictions of sizeable global warming due to observed increases in minor greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide, methane and chlorofluorocarbons.”
Most skeptics attribute global warming—few if any doubt any longer that the warming itself is occurring, given the worldwide rise in surface temperature—to natural cycles, not emissions from power plants, automobiles and other human activity. “The observational evidence…suggests that any warming from the growth of greenhouse gases is likely to be minor, difficult to detect above the natural fluctuations of the climate, and therefore inconsequential,” says atmospheric physicist Fred Singer, an outspoken global warming skeptic and founder of the advocacy-oriented Science and Environmental Policy Project.
But green leaders maintain that even if some warming is consistent with millennial cycles, something is triggering the current change. According to the nonprofit Environmental Defense, some possible (natural) explanations include increased output from the sun, increased absorption of the sun’s heat due to a change in the Earth’s reflectivity, or a change in the internal climate system that transfers heat to the atmosphere.

A raft of recent peer reviewed studies -– many which take advantage of new satellite data -– back up claims that it is emissions from tailpipes and smokestacks (and now factory farmed food animals, which release methane) that are causing global warming. A growing cadre of so-called "global warming skeptics," however, denies these connections and chalk it up to natural cycles. Getty photos

But scientists have not been able to validate any such reasons for the current warming trend, despite exhaustive efforts. And a raft of recent peer reviewed studies—many which take advantage of new satellite data—back up the claim that it is emissions from tailpipes, smokestacks (and now factory farmed food animals, which release methane) that are causing potentially irreparable damage to the environment.
To wit, the U.S. National Academy of Sciences declared in 2005 that “greenhouse gases are accumulating in Earth’s atmosphere as a result of human activities, causing surface air temperatures and subsurface ocean temperatures to rise,” adding that “the scientific understanding of climate change is now sufficiently clear to justify nations taking prompt action.” Other leading U.S. scientific bodies, including the American Meteorological Society, the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the American Geophysical Union have issued concurring statements—placing the blame squarely on humans’ shoulders.
Also, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), a group of 600 leading climate scientists from 40 nations, says it is “very likely” (more than a 90 percent chance) that humans are causing a global temperature change that will reach between 3.2 and 7.2 degrees Fahrenheit by the end of this century.
CONTACTS: Heartland Institute; Science and Environmental Policy Project; U.S. National Academy of Sciences; IPCC.

Recycled from:

Week of 4/5/2009

EarthTalk is now a book! Details and order information at: www.emagazine.com/earthtalkbook.

GOT AN ENVIRONMENTAL QUESTION? Send it to: EARTHTALK, c/o E/The Environmental Magazine, P.O. Box 5098, Westport, CT 06881; submit your question at: www.emagazine.com/earthtalk.html; or e-mail us at: earthtalk@emagazine.com.

Did you enjoy this article? Subscribe to E/The Environmental Magazine!

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Comments from Karen…

I think this topic is very open for debate as there are reputable scientists on both sides  of this argument!

The 2009 third annual International Conference on Climate Change—sponsored by the Heartland Institute did have even more credited scientists than last year’s event. Thing is because the Heartland Institute is perceived as a “conservative think tank” many liberal environmentalists think the opinions and research may be suspect.

Personally I think the pollution  from man made efforts or greenhouse gases have caused a lot of harm to living beings and needs to be reversed. Whether the  earth is warming up or cooling off, it is up to human beings to change habits. Less consumption of things, less clearing of trees, less fishing in deep waters and less mass farming needs to start asap. I think the message in Leonardo’s DiCaprio’s , The 11th Hour was huge toward this effort. And the first part of the documentary did emphasize global warming. Oil based industrialization is dirty and causing death and that can be proven! Part of the earth is getting cooler and part of the earth is getting warmer. Cause for concern, yes but we still need to look at our actions and turn them around  to return earth to a more natural, sustainable state!

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What do you think? Feel free to include links to informational data.

One of my favorite recycled Earth Talk Question and Answer Columns
as seen in E Environmental magazine, reprinted with Permission from E.

EARTHTALK
Week of 3/22/2009

Dear EarthTalk: I want to start an organic vegetable garden in my yard and I would like to know how to combine crops to make better use of time and space.
– Val Thomason, Denton, TX

Most commercial farms concentrate on growing a few select crops to supply a wide variety of customers, but gardening at home is a different story entirely. Most backyard food gardeners are looking to augment their family’s diet with a variety of seasonal fruits, vegetables and herbs throughout the growing season.
For those of us who face time and space constraints in our gardening endeavors, combining crops within the same planting areas makes a lot of sense. Such techniques are particularly well-suited to organic gardens where chemical fertilizers and pesticides aren’t used to artificially boost crop productivity.

Various vegetable growing techniques -- combining crops, "interplanting," "vertical gardening" and succession planting -- can combine to yield a substantial bounty from even the smallest of backyard garden plots.© Getty Images

The most common way to combine garden crops is via an age-old technique called interplanting, which in essence means planting various garden edibles with different growth and spacing attributes together in the same soil beds or rows. One example involves combining fast-maturing vegetables, such as lettuce, field greens or beets, with slower-maturing ones like winter squash or pole beans. According to the informational “Our Garden Gang” website, mixing tall plants, like sweet corn, peas or staked tomatoes, with low-growing crops such as melons or radishes, is another way to maximize diversity and yield.
Building on the idea of interplanting, Better Homes & Gardens magazine suggests that gardeners combine plants that produce vines and can be grown on trellises or fences along with low-growing crops. So-called “vertical gardening” concentrates much more production into each square foot of planting area. Also, the magazine reports, crops grown off the ground “tend to be healthier because they are less likely to contract fungus infections or soil-borne leaf diseases.” Tomatoes, pole beans, cucumbers, snap peas, melons and winter squash are all examples of crops suitable for vertical gardening if staked or supported properly.
Another common technique often employed by “weekend” gardeners, organic or otherwise, is succession planting, which entails replacing a finished crop with a different one, or planting a single crop in small amounts over an extended period of time. One example would be to replace a spring crop with a summer crop, such as planting cucumbers—which thrive in warmer weather—where the peas had been growing earlier. Another form of succession planting involves staggering the planting of seeds from one specific crop throughout its growing season to ensure a continuing supply as long as possible.
Some crops particularly well-suited to succession planting include bush beans, lettuce, spinach and radishes, each of which have long growing seasons but can be harvested after only a few weeks. A related technique would be to plant both early- and late-maturing varieties of the same type of crop around the same time, and harvesting the resulting crops successively. Tomatoes and corn, for example, each come in varieties that ripen at different times during their respective growing seasons.
And while it may be easy to get carried away with edible gardening, don’t forget to plant a few flowers to spruce up the look of your garden and also attract bees to help pollinate your food crops. Marigolds and sunflowers are good choices as they are relatively easy to grow organically and tend to attract lots of bees.
CONTACTS: Our Garden Gang; Better Homes & Gardens.

EarthTalk is now a book! Details and order information at: www.emagazine.com/earthtalkbook.

GOT AN ENVIRONMENTAL QUESTION? Send it to: EARTHTALK, c/o E/The Environmental Magazine, P.O. Box 5098, Westport, CT 06881; submit your question at: www.emagazine.com/earthtalk.html; or e-mail us at: earthtalk@emagazine.com.

Did you enjoy this article? Subscribe to E/The Environmental Magazine!

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My two cents-

My Italian Grandfather had an organic garden that took up almost 1/5 of of his property on a large corner lot and his corn was the best! No butter or salt needed! He always had a copy of Organic Gardening magazine sitting in his living room.

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What do you think? Are you an organic gardener?  What is your approach?