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Breaking Green News and Other Odds and Ends

Groovy Green Livin Breaking Green News [1]

Breaking Green News

Life is a bit crazy over here with work, year end school activities and packing up three boys for overnight camp [2]. I know I’m not alone, we’re all feeling the crunch right about now. I wanted to leave you for the weekend with a few breaking green news stories worth a share. I’m always amazed by what can happen in a week. Some stories seem bigger than others, but all are steps in the right direction.

Panera Bread to drop artificial ingredients from its menu

Panera Bread says it will remove artificial colors, flavors, sweeteners and preservatives from its food by 2016. One more example of how consumer pressure works! There are about 1,800 Panera Bread cafes in the United States. Unlike Chipotle, Panera isn’t dumping genetically modified ingredients, but their new policy also does state the chain’s commitment to ‘‘transparency”. This action by Panera is a step in the right direction, with room for improvement. 

Obama’s new proposed climate rules

In an historic step to fight climate change, the EPA released its “Clean Power Plan” this week. In a nutshell, the EPA is seeking a 30% cut in power plant carbon emissions by 2030. I listened as EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy delivered the plan on Monday. She said “When we think about our children, it’s easy to see why we must be compelled to act.” According to Grist [3], Electric generation accounts for about 40 percent of current U.S. CO2 emissions. Take a look HERE [3]for The nine things you need to know about Obama’s new climate rules

Groups call on Method and Ecover to stop using SMOs (synthetically modified organisms) in their products

Many of us have Ecover and Method products in our cabinets so I thought this was something we all need to consider before purchasing these products again.

17 groups combined forces this week and sent an open letter [4] to Ecover and its American subsidiary, Method, demanding that they cancel plans to use oils and other ingredients derived from synthetic biology, a new and unregulated type of genetic engineering.  [5]

The New York Times reported [6] that synthetic biology ingredients are rapidly entering consumer and food products. Since there are no regulations in place and labeling isn’t required, consumers have no way of knowing whether or not these genetically engineered ingredients are in products. There’s also a glaring absence of studies evaluating the safety of these ingredients.

Parent organizations unite against climate change

In other breaking green news, Moms Clean Air Force put together a post highlighting a variety of parent organizations [7] (including me!) committed to fighting climate change [8]. I truly believe that our voices do make a difference. As Dominique Browning [7] so eloquently stated: “No politician wants to make a mother angry. And nothing makes us angrier than threats to the little (and big) ones we love so dearly.”

Thanks to Moms Clean Air Force for all their hard work on this issue and for including me.

Do you have any breaking green news to share? Have a fabulous, groovy green weekend! 

 

 

photo credit: PhOtOnQuAnTiQuE [9] via photopin [10] cc [11]