Increasingly, many people are concerned about GMOs – Genetically Modified Organisms – and whether they are indeed safe for human consumption.  And rightly so.

GMOs are food crops that have been drastically altered by a process that uses bacteria to invade cells of plants with a DNA foreign to that plant.  The altered cell is then cloned into the plant.

The altered plant – say corn – will then be able to survive an otherwise deadly dose of weed killer, with about 68 per cent becoming herbicide-tolerant.  These altered crops are known to have much higher residues of toxic herbicides as they have been exposed to massive amounts of petroleum-based pesticides and chemical fertilizers.

So why would anyone “go GMO”?

It’s driven by industry...mostly through research done by chemical companies.

They’ve been doing research for many years.

The genetic blueprints of fruit, grains and vegetables are being restructured with conglomerations of DNA from viruses, bacteria, insects and animals.  Yes, animals!

On March 27, 2010 at 8:30 pm, approximately one billion people came together to participate in Earth Hour, the world's largest awareness event.

The Global event shows that by joining forces each one of us can take a strong stance to protect the planet for ourselves and for future generations.  Earth Hour is a way to stand up against climate change to drive the enviroment movement forward with one simple action.  Most cities and towns around the globe participated in Earth Hour with major land marks like the Golden Gate bridge in San Francisco, the Lions Gate bridge in Vancouver, the entire strip in Las Vegas, the Eiffel Tower, CN Tower in Toronto, many huge buildings in Washington D.C. and large buildings all over the world; all turning off their Lights for 1 hour.

The city of Barrie, Ont. had a huge street concert downtown on the evening of March 27.
Here in Vernon, the city-sponsored Earth Hour event was a big success with exception to the fact that the venue was too small.  The candlelit event at the Bean Scene saw people standing inside and outside on a cold evening. The coffee house was not large enough and I'm sure turned away many people who wanted to find a seat inside.  Lots of support for the hour with almost no advertising.  If they had good promotion they probably could have filled the recreation centre.

_{Me? Methane? I beg your pardon!}

Earth Hour started in Sydney, Australia in 2007; which was only 3 years ago.  The question is, why has Earth Hour grown so fast in such a short period of time?  Earth Day which has been around for 40 years has not grown as fast.  Maybe the reason that Earth Hour is such a success is because it is so simple.  All you have to do to participate is to turn your lights off for 1 hour on a Saturday evening. I believe people do want to do something to support the cause of Global Warming and this is an easy way of lowering their carbon foot print.  For those people wanting to really make a difference to lowering their carbon emissions here is another easy but very powerful way to contribute.  Follow Paul McCartney's advice for lowering Green House Gases; it is called Meatless Mondays.  According to the U.N.'s International Panel on Climate Change, the very largest contributor to GHG is livestock.  It is reported that livestock causes 18% of the planets' GHG, even higher than transportation itself which makes up 11% of the planets GHG.  Experts have told us that livestock produce methane gas which is 24 times more potent than CO2 as a Green House Gas.  The famous musician of the Beatles suggests that everone give up eating meat for 1 day a week to lower their carbon foot print.  This is also good for peoples' health.  Walking instead of driving is another method of improving one's health and helping to lower GHG; a win-win for everyone.
Earth Day was celebrated on April 22, 2010.

Global Warming is the single largest threat to life on this planet.  But it gives us an opportunity.  We can act now to reduce greenhouse gases (GHG).

There’s a side effect to reducing GHG and slowing down climate change... it’ll be good for the economy and for creating jobs.

At present, our economy is all about “power” and making a small percentage of the population extremely rich while the majority of people suffer.

The new economy will be built by a paradigm shift where new technologies—with better, cleaner sources of energy—will replace the old sources which polluted.  Levels of GHG are presently at 387 parts per million.  The goal is to reduce them to 350 ppm, according to scientists, who have said that would slow down warming.  Last month’s world conference in Copenhagen was held to get world governments to do their part to reduce GHG.  People the world over were hoping that a fair, ambitious and binding treaty would result.

While that treaty was not achieved, there was an agreement to ensure that the temperature would not exceed 2 degrees Celcius, with governments hopefully signing that sometime in 2010.  More than 15 million people worldwide rallied their voices for strong action for the accord, 600,000 people in the U.S.A. alone.

Why the 2-degree mark?  A temperature increase of more than two degrees will see ocean levels rise, affecting millions of people around the world.  Tuvalu, a country made up of a group of small South Pacific islands, is already in trouble from rising sea levels as ocean storms send waves past the shore and into the center of their islands.  People are becoming climate refugees!  The Maldives are another example of islands threatened by the rising sea.

Something must be done, and soon.

I believe we could get to 350 ppm by just doing three things:

• replace fossil fuel burning vehicles with electric vehicles
• replace coal and gas burning plants that produce electricity with alternative sources of energy produced by the wind, solar, biomass, wave and tidal generating facilities.
• eat less meat -- livestock production is the largest producer of methane gas and nitrous oxide.  Methane is 23 times more potent as a green house gas than CO2 and nitrous oxide is 296 times more potent than CO2.

Everyone can do their part...Why not start with Paul McCartney’s “Meatless Mondays”?

Slowing down Global Warming is a really cool thing to do.