The Gazette Friday, June 10, 2011 The first-ever Awakening Festival takes place June 18 in Hudson, with speakers from across the United States and Canada. The festival will focus on human and planetary health, with a special emphasis on ways to make positive impacts in local communities, according to event founder Lianne Bridges. The festival includes workshops, music, dance, an outdoor marketplace, 14 gues ...

The director of The Real Dirt on Farmer John has just released his latest, award-winning Queen of the Sun, which highlights the tragedy of colony collapse disorder taking place around the globe. Utilizing his photography talents, Taggart Siegel  juxtaposes "the catastrophic disappearance of bees with the mysterious world of the beehive," while weaving "an unusual and dramatic story of the heart-felt struggl ...

I've been off on the road lately, helping to conduct the first Northwest Lawn & Garden Pesticide Summit in Seattle and then consulting with alternative energy and lawn care companies in Florida. So I'm behind on my emails and blogging. I have to admit, though, that this photo caught my attention in my in-box. In protest of her neighbors' spraying of synthetic chemicals on their lawn, this SafeLawns supporte ...

Don Huber, an emeritus professor at Purdue University and retired U.S. Army Colonel, was virtually ignored after writing a letter in January to Tom Vilsack, head of the USDA, about the environmental and animal health dangers associated with the use of glyphosate and requesting a moratorium on deregulating crops genetically altered to be immune to Roundup. Dr. Huber was sent a polite letter in response, and, ...

Results being released from a new study completed by the National Institute of Occupational Safety & Health confirms the risk faced by agricultural workers who are exposed to airborne drifts of pesticides. Published on-line in Environmental Health Perspectives, the study, titled "Acute pesticide illnesses associated with off-target pesticide drift from agricultural applications — 11 States, 1998–2006," ...

It began in 2002 with an integrated pest management policy. Now the University of Colorado- Boulder is making its boldest move yet. Frank Bruno, Vice Chancellor for Planning and Administration, announced that it will be phasing out its use of herbicides on campus fields, and instead treating grounds with a more natural "compost tea," a liquid that can be used as both a fertilizer and to prevent plant diseas ...

Last week Dedham, MA mother and cancer activist, Erin Boles, joined celebrity spokeswoman Jessica Alba to urge  Scott Brown to support the "Safe Chemicals Act of 2011", introduced as a bill in April by Senator Frank Lautenberg (D- NJ). The Safe Chemicals Act, a bill now in the Senate, would overhaul the 35-year-old Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), which is widely perceived to have failed to protect publ ...

"Society stands on the precipice of forever being bound to transgenic agriculture and transgenic food." So begins the amended complaint brought against Monsanto this month by the Public Patent Foundation, a public interest group representing 84 plaintiffs from New England across the country to the Pacific Northwest. The complaint describes Monsanto's "aggressive patent assertion behavior" and includes a num ...

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Glenstone Brings Tukey for Pesticide Reduction Seminar WASHINGTON, D.C. — As part of an ongoing campaign to reduce the application of toxic pesticides in the Chesapeake Bay region, America’s leading expert on natural lawn care will present a free educational lecture titled “SafeLawns: Why & How to Create a Beautiful Landscape Naturally” on Monday, June 13. Sponsored by Glenstone, a non ...

Conservation, organic-agriculture, anti-pesticide and food-safety groups joined forces yesterday to ask Congress to appropriate $10.8 million for research and management of the bat-killing disease known as white-nose syndrome, which has reached epidemic proportions in the eastern United States. The groups also urged passage of the Wildlife Disease Emergency Act, a bill to address wildlife health crises like ...