Category Archives: Protection

Abuse of public trust, All, Energy, Justice, Protection
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Brawny Paper TowelsGreen Drinks friend Natalie B writes, urging us to:

LEAVE THESE PRODUCTS ON THE SHELF!
Did you know that the manufacturer of these products gives financial support to:

  • Alec (American Legislative Exchange Council) that supports the “Stand Your Ground Laws” and the Tea Party
  • Wisconsin Gov. Scott who is a union buster
  • Funding voter suppression bills

If you are middle and working class in America these products are not your friends. Leave them on the shelf!

  • Angel Soft toilet paper
  • Brawny paper towels
  • Dixie plates, bowls, napkins and cups
  • Mardi Gras napkins and towels
  • Quilted Northern toilet paper
  • Soft ‘n Gentle toilet paper
  • Sparkle napkins
  • Vanity fair napkins
  • Zee napkins
  • Construction Products
  • Georgia-Pacific paper products and envelopes
  • Dense Armor
  • Densglass
  • Dryguard
  • FibreStrong
  • FireDefender
  • Flexrock
  • ToughArmor
    Textiles
  • Antron Carpet Fiber
  • Comforel
  • Coolmax
  • Cordura
  • Dacron
  • Lycra
  • Polarguard
  • Polyshield
  • SolarMax
  • Sommerelle
  • Stainmaster Carpet
  • Tactel
  • Thermolite
    Gasoline
  • Chevron
  • Conoco
  • Union
  • Union 76

More information at treehugger.com

All, At Green Drinks, Biking/Walking, Complete streets, Energy, Environment, Health, Justice, New solutions, Protection, Sustainable communities, Water

Green Drinks September 2012

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In September, Green Drinks discusses

  • How to Save the Internet and advocate for an open internet
  • Why fracking has such a disastrous impact on our national/local water supplies and why this practice should be ended
  • How to build healthy, bikeable/walkable communities

SAVING THE INTERNET & NET NEUTRALITY

Green Drinks Paterson-Clifton June 2012Open internet access is one of the great freedom fights of our time. We have to use it so we don’t lose it. This is now a standard topic of discussion at every Green Drinks 3 event. See more at http://thewei.com/kimi/verizon-wants-to-control-your-internet-keep-them-out/

FRACKING AWARENESS RESOURCES & ACTIONS

  • http://www.foodandwaterwatch.org/water/fracking/fracking-action-center/
  • Global Frackdown http://www.globalfrackdown.org/
  • http://shalegasoutrage.org/ NJ & Philly on 20 Sept 2012

Newark Green drinks

Meets 1st Mondays at Rio Rodizio Newark except on major holidays.
1st Monday this month was Labor Day, so we didn’t meet.

Hackensack Green Drinks

Monday, 10 Sept 2012 7-9pm (and 2nd Mondays)
At Victor’s Maywood Inn, 122 W. Pleasant Avenue, Maywood NJ

Global FrackdownHackensack Green Drinks will be joined by members of 350.org and Food & Water Watch who will discuss climate actions and tell us about fracking teach-ins happening in September.

Paterson-Clifton Green Drinks

Tuesday, 18 September 2012 7-9 pm (and 3rd Tuesdays)
The Sultan Restaurant, 429 Crooks Avenue, Clifton NJ (outside if the weather’s nice)

Where to find us

Green Drinks 3 http://greendrinks3.org/
Like us on Facebook https://www.fb.com/thegreenwei/
Follow us on Twitter http://twitter.com/greenwei

Other events and actions

In solidarity with the Global Frackdown Actions taking place, September is Green Drinks 3 Fracking Awareness month.

FRACKING AWARENESS & ACTIONS
http://www.foodandwaterwatch.org/water/fracking/fracking-action-center/
Global Frackdown http://www.globalfrackdown.org/
http://shalegasoutrage.org/ NJ & Philly on 20 Sept. 2012

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99% SPRING GROUP MEMBERS are welcome at any Green Drinks meeting. We discuss action plans and volunteer opportunities at most Green Drinks events.

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Help Protect National Forests

America’s national forests provide essential habitat for lynx, grizzlies and other wildlife — and clean water for millions of Americans. Yet new rules could threaten the sanctity of these special places, paving the way for more logging and more destructive development on our national forests. Help protect these special places. Sign the petition online at: http://dfnd.us/vYt93D

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Prevent racism from blocking the Latino & Black vote

Watch the 4 minute video by Van Jones’ Rebuild the American Dream team
http://thewei.com/kimi/racist-romney-gop-move-to-block-the-latino-black-vote/ )

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SHOE DONATIONS FOR HAITI
Collected at Stride Rite Wyckoff location ONLY
Monday-Saturday 10am-6pm
319 Franklin Ave, Wyckoff NJ

Stride Rite of Wyckoff is accepting worn/used shoes, children’s and adults for donation. All donations are sent to Haiti. We have received hundreds of pairs of shoes to date, but the need is much greater.

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After Rio+20: Moving Beyond 2015
RSVP at http://j.mp/rio20plus
15-19 OCT 2012 (9am – 5pm only)
COST: FREE
Ramapo College, 505 Ramapo Valley Road, Mahwah, NJ
In the campus Student Center Room SC 137

The speakers for this event series are all key players from Civil Society Organizations and from the United Nations, collectively engaged in planning for a post-Rio+20 future. The purpose of the workshop series is to lay out the framework for a road map to plan for a Global Citizens Movement to help us move beyond the major United Nations Rio+20 conference held earlier this year in June.

In this intensive workshop, the many dimensions of the UN Conference in Rio de Janeiro will be explored, and a coherent path forward will be charted.

As you may be aware, by most conventional accounts, Rio+20 was at least a disappointment, if not a failure. We argue that real, path-breaking, and innovative solutions began to emerge from the grassroots level out, and we will present many dimensions of these solutions, as well as strategize a way forward into a more sustainable future.

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Support the Ramapough Indians.
Tell the EPA to clean up Ford’s mess in Ringwood.

Journalist Jan Barry started the research on the tragic and intentional pollution of a housing development which was home to members of a tribe of Ramapough Indians in Ringwood, NJ, and collaborated with HBO to create Mann v. Ford, a moving documentary about the crushing impact this has had on the health of tribe members as well as the water source for the entire region.

The site was prematurely de-listed by the EPA from its Superfund cleanup status, and several years later became the first site to be listed for a second time. Ford has resisted taking responsibility for the poisonous effects on tribe members of the toxic paint sludge it trucked in under cover of nightfall every day for many years, and has also resisted funding the cost of cleanup.

Make sure the EPA knows you support the clean-up of the Ramapough Indians by (Action 1) signing the Change.org petition and (Action 2) sending a letter to the EPA. Petition and sample letter available at

Tell the EPA to clean up Ford’s mess in Ringwood

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Click to give Hackensack Riverkeeper the chance to win a grant from Chase Community Giving
(must have a Facebook account)

Click on http://j.mp/gd4hrk2012
Click on “VOTE”
Click Accept the APP
Click “VOTE” again and a pop-up window should appear.

You get two votes, so use your second vote for any other organization

How can you get extra votes to vote for us?
• Share the special link you get with your Facebook friends – you may get an extra vote. (Make sure you use both of your original 2 votes so you can use the extra vote)
• Chase customers automatically get two more votes by logging in from the Chase Community Giving home page accessible through the Chase website

Learn more about Hackensack Riverkeeper’s amazing ecological advocacy and nature tours and cleanups at http://hackensackriverkeeper.org

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Click to give Morris County Hispanic-American Chamber of Commerce the chance to win $30,000
(You get 10 votes just for having an email address)

Click on http://j.mp/mchaccvoh

MCHACC was selected as a Voices of Health finalist for its commitment to the health of ethnic minority individuals in the northern New Jersey area. Learn more about the chamber at http://mchacc.org.

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OUR SPONSOR
MENTION GREEN DRINKS FOR 20% OFF Online or at the store

Eco Galleria

Eco Galleria at the Historic Oradell Train Station
400 Maple Avenue, Oradell, NJ
201-447-GIFT (4438)
http://www.ecogalleria.com

Eco Galleria carries fun or fine items handcrafted by artists from throughout the Americas in many price ranges. Including eco-friendly jewelry, pottery, glass, wood, fiber, watches, bags and more. Call ahead to have your gift boxed, wrapped and ready for pick-up or shop online at http://ecogalleria.com

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Interested in sponsoring Green Drinks? If you have a good cause or service, we have a contact base of about 6000 that can learn about your through our meeting announcements. Contact Kimi for information mailto:kimi@thewei.com or 862-203-8814
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All, Energy, Environment, Justice, Nature, New solutions, Protection, Water

Protect our world – say goodbye to dirty fuel & coal

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The Sierra Club tells us that coal industry is heavily subsidized by American taxpayers to the tune of tens of billions of dollars and it’s clear that this industry’s power is not diminishing. But it should diminish. In fact, it’s so dangerous that it should be done away with altogether. In the process of mining, coal destroys waterways, ecosystems, trees, miners’ health and the health of residents of nearby communities. A well-documented example of this is the tragedy of mountain-top mining in the Appalachian Mountains, a practice which Robert Kennedy Jr., affected citizens and environmental activists continue valiantly fighting to bring to a permanent end.

When it’s burned, coal puts massive amounts of carbon in the air, and this is a main contributor to global warming which brings on drought, soaring temperatures, the rising of seas that will take over island cities and coastal areas, tsunamis, floods and drought. Coal is also a dirty fuel, so burning its puts heavy pollutants in the air that lead to poor air quality and acid rain.

Why aren’t people all over the world staging huge protests to ban coal mining and replace it with clean energy sources? It boils down to this: we’ve been supporting coal so long it’s become sort of a global institution. We can’t imagine a world without a massive coal industry any more than we can imagine a world without gas-powered vehicles, so we protect the industry even though it’s killing both us and our Earth Mother. World citizens protect our institutions. But, the truth is that clean energy is our future: it’s environmentally friendly, health friendly. It’s a massively growing jobs industry, is economically friendly and it’s also cool (in more ways than one). Can you say, win-win-win-win-win? There’s nothing wrong with protecting institutions but they need to work for us. It’s so clear that we need to give up on the old fuels that are destroying us and turn to clean energy with open arms.

For those worried about the impact that embracing clean energy will have on our economy and jobs, just look at the evidence. The Boston Herald reports,

“The growth of Massachusetts’ renewable energy economy is outpacing the overall economy nearly tenfold, according to a new report that measures clean energy sector employment and the number of businesses that use clean energy practices.”

Avaaz is working to prevent horrific environmental destruction in Australia. Please sign the petition.

Australia could let mining magnates build one of the world’s largest coal ports on top of the Great Barrier Reef ecosystem – opening access to 8 billion extra tonnes of planet-killing coal and risking the survival of this entire amazing world heritage site.

US laws which address environmental issues are the Clear Air act and Clean Water Act. They need to be strengthened and expanded.

The Clean Water Act
http://www.epa.gov/lawsregs/laws/cwa.html
The River Network’s Course on using the Act to protect local waterways
The Clean Air Act
http://www.epa.gov/air/caa/peg/
Other Proposed Legislation
2009 Waxman-Market Climate Energy bill (Died)
Everything you always wanted to know about the Waxman-Markey energy/climate bill — in bullet points and ejmatters.org/docs/Waxman-Markey_bill_summary_6-2-09.pdf

H.R. 724, the Security in Energy And Manufacturing (SEAM) Act (sponsored by Congressman Steve Rothman).  If enacted, this legislation would make needed investments in a clean energy economy by rebuilding the U.S. manufacturing sector.  It provides a 30% tax credit or grant to companies that open new or expanded facilities that manufacture a wide range of clean energy products, including wind turbines, solar panels, hybrid vehicle systems, carbon capture and sequestration systems, and biofuel refinery components, among others in the U.S. I strongly believe that this is the path we must take to end our dependence on both foreign and domestic oil and move toward a secure clean energy future. H.R. 724 is currently pending before the House Committee on Ways and Means.

H.R. 3307, the American Renewable Energy Production Tax Credit Extension Act of 2011 (co-sponsored by Congressman Steve Rothman). If enacted, this bill would provide a clean, 4-year extension of the existing production tax credit (PTC) for wind, biomass, geothermal, small irrigation, landfill gas, trash, and hydropower. This tax credit was created in the Energy Policy Act of 1992 and has frequently been extended in year-end packages of expiring tax provisions, as well as in the Energy Policy Act of 2005. The current incentive is set to expire this year for wind and in 2013 for other renewable energy forms. Historically, at least six to eight months before the tax credit expires, financial lenders hesitate in providing capital for projects because of the uncertainty created by the pending expiration of the credit, stalling projects from coming online. This is why many of my colleagues and I believe it is imperative to pass H.R. 3307 now as our economy continues to recover. If the PTC is not renewed, those projects working under the credit will be reduced in size, will not be completed or will add costs, resulting in higher electricity prices for consumers. This measure is currently pending before the House Committee on Ways and Means.

All, Health, Justice, Protection, Urban, Water

Truths about society in new book Days of Destruction, Days of Revolt

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Tim Knight shares a review of the book. Now I can’t wait to read it.

Excerpt from the preface

The ruthless hunt for profit creates a world where everything and everyone is expendable. Nothing is sacred. It has blighted inner cities, turned the majestic Appalachian Mountains into a blasted moonscape of poisoned water, soil, and air. It has forced workers into a downward spiral of falling wages and mounting debt until laborers in agricultural fields and sweatshops work in conditions that replicate slavery. It has impoverished our working class and ravaged the middle class. And it has enriched a tiny global elite that has no loyalty to the nation-state. These corporations, if we use the language of patriotism, are traitors.

Tim says,

I just finished Days of Destruction, Days of Revolt by Chris Hedges and Joe Sacco. It is superb, and I’ve spent a fair amount of time typing in passages from the book below in order to capture some of its theme.

The “me” of twenty years ago wouldn’t be caught dead reading a book like this. It is, after all, an unflinching assasination of our present capitalist system. As a younger person, I was wholeheartedly (and more than a little ignorantly) devoted to a dog-eat-dog, lassiez-faire capitalist system. And, in my adult life, I have lived that way, at least inasmuch as I created, built, and sold a successful business and have, before, during, and after that time, been a very active participant in the financial markets (both by way of trading as well as writing).

Experience and observation have moderated my views, however. At the outset I will say that I still regard capitalism as the most proper, natural, and constructive economic system, but I’m a much firmer believer in a modified version – – consistently-regulated with a distribution of wealth more akin to the 1970s than the present day – – than I ever imagined I would be.

and

There are several broad regions of the United States covered in the book, including the Indian reservations of South Dakota; the mean streets of Camden; the wretched lives of the produce-pickers in Southern Florida; and the “moonscape” of West Virginia’s coal country. It is this last area that includes a talk with Larry Gibson, an activist in West Virginia who grew up there, had to leave for a while due to family poverty, and has returned to try to fight for the region’s sake. He says the following, which is perhaps my favorite section of the entire book:

“Living here as a boy, I wasn’t any different than anybody else. First time I knew I was poor was when I went to Cleveland and went to school They taught me I was poor. I traded all this for a strip of green I saw when I walking the street. And I was poor? How ya gonna get a piece of green grass between the sidewalk and the street, and they gonna tell me I’m poor. I thought I was the luckiest kid in the world, with nature. I could walk through the forest. I could hear the animals. I could hear the woods talk to me. Everywhere I looked there was life. I could pick my own apples or cucumbers. I could eat the berries and pawpaws. I love pawpaws. And they gooseberries. Now there is no life there. Only dust. I had a pigeon and when I’d come out of the house, no matter where I went, he flew over my head or sat on my shoulder. I had a hawk I named Fred, I had a bobcat and a three-legged fox that got caught in a trap. I wouldn’t trade that childhood for all the fancy fire trucks and toys the other kids had.

Abuse of public trust, Health, Justice, Protection, Water

Terrible destruction: Appalachian mountaintop removal mining

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While residents of New Jersey and Pennsylvania deal with the health threat presented by fracking, people in the Appalachias continue to wage their long and mighty struggle to preserve their health and economy in the face of the ongoing destruction visited upon them by mountaintop mining, a practice scientists have called, “pervasive and irreversable.”

The New York times describes mountaintop removal as

…a radical form of strip mining that has left over 2,000 miles of streams buried and over 500 mountains destroyed. According to several recent studies, people living near surface mining sites have a 50 percent greater risk of fatal cancer and a 42 percent greater risk of birth defects than the general population.

Foto by Damon Winter/The New York Times
Ryan Massey, 7, shows his caps. Dentists near Charleston, W.Va., say pollutants in drinking water have damaged residents’ teeth. Nationwide, polluters have violated the Clean Water Act more than 500,000 times.

When Robert Kennedy, Jr. came to Bergen Community College in Paramus, New Jersey and spoke about his fight to halt this practice, my younger son, Ari, a high school junior and I were there to hear him. Kennedy is an environmental lawyer, and years ago he fought to stop mountaintop removal mining on the premise that it violates the Clean Water Act. Kennedy won his court battle, but lawyers for the opposition filed a lawsuit disputing the meaning of the word “fill” relative to the practice of dumping left-over sludge into streams and rivers in that region, claiming that the sludge did not “fill” up the waterways since there was still water in them after the dumping occurred, and got permission to resume their destruction of nature and of people’s lives.

The Obama Administration is working to improved the lives of Appalachia’s residents by establishing a ban on mountaintop mining, but, big monied interests have the sympathy of the courts. On July 31, a judge overthrew new protections put in place by the federal Environmental Protection Agency, and ruled that mountaintop mining operations they had blocked, could resume. This type of favoritism is not new.

Robert Kennedy Jr.’s fight agains the devastation

The Appalachian Center reviews The Last Mountain, a documentary featuring Kennedy which addresses this issue

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. – the best national advocate the anti-mountaintop removal movement has – is an effective narrator and driving force throughout the film. He puts the destruction and willful violation of laws meant to curb such environmental destruction into passionate, thoughtful words.

For instance, standing atop a “reclaimed” mountain with mine safety consultant Jack Spadaro, Kennedy looks around at a “forest” that is nothing but scrub grass and picks up a chunk of rock that’s supposed to count as topsoil. He says, “The extraordinary thing about this is how many lies they have to tell to make this whole fiction work. They have to say this is a forest. They have to say this is soil. And the amazing thing is how many people believe them.”

Kennedy was also powerful when addressing one of the key areas of conflict among the residents of Appalachia: the notion that protecting the environment must come at the sacrifice of jobs. As Kennedy says in a discussion with Coal Association President Bill Raney, most of the coal jobs in Appalachia have been lost to mechanization, not to environmental regulations. Coal companies are extracting as much coal as ever with a fraction of the work force.

His explanation of idea of “the commons” and how the notion that America’s water and environment are owned by us all has been eroded is also very compelling.

Congressional Bills and The Law

Congressman Steve Rothman wrote to me about bills in Congress on both sides of the mountaintop mining issue. Democrats want to stop it, but Republicans want to prohibit any regulations of the coal mining industry. When people tell you there’s no difference between Democrats and Republicans, remember this fact. Rothman writes,
Like you, I believe that communities need to be protected from hazardous emissions and destructive practices that jeopardize their health and that of the surrounding ecosystem. As you know, H.R. 5959 was introduced by Representative Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) on June 19, 2012. If enacted, this legislation would require a study of the potential harm of mountaintop removal coal mining on the health of individuals in surrounding communities. If mountaintop mining is found to be harmful to health, a moratorium would be placed on mountaintop mining until it was deemed to be safe. This bill is currently pending before the House Committees on Transportation and Infrastructure and Energy and Commerce. The environment and the people of the Appalachians need to be protected from careless mining practices.

You may also be interested to know that, H.R. 3049, the so-called “Coal Miner Employment and Domestic Energy Infrastructure Protection Act,” was introduced by Representative Bill Johnson (R-OH) on November 14, 2011. If enacted, this irresponsible bill would amend the Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act to prohibit the Department of Interior from regulating the coal mining industry, overturning 35 years of established precedent and putting our health and waterways at risk. I strongly oppose H.R. 3049 and any other legislation that would work to weaken the ability of federal agencies to regulate polluting energy industries and toxic run off into our rivers and lakes. This legislation is pending before the House Committee on Natural Resources.

Environment, Health, Justice, New solutions, Protection, Sustainable communities

EPA’s pollution assessment tool in beta

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The EPA released a beta version of the new Community-Focused Exposure and Risk Screening Tool (C-FERST). It will increase the availability and accessibility of science and data for evaluating impacts of pollutants and local conditions, understanding the overall environmental health consequences of your community and ranking risks. The tool will enable communities to identify environmental health issues, rank and prioritize issues, make informed and cost-effective decisions to improve public health, and promote actions.

Feedback is needed to finalize development, so please give C-FERST a test drive and share your experiences. More information here.

Abuse of public trust, All, Food, Health, Justice, Protection

Diabetes kills. Support NYC’s huge sugar drinks ban.

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I’m really happy Mayor Bloomberg is pushing to ban on huge sugary drinks in New York City. Publicity about this alone will increase consciousness about just HOW bad these drinks are. They’re killing people! Stress on the body’s insulin producing system and being overweight are important factors contributing to the onset of Type 2 diabetes and sugary drinks are big contributors to obesity and exaggerated sugar consumption.

Although designer healthy food is annoyingly expensive and the elitist marketing scheme around it totally disgusts me, don’t let the marketers fool you: deals for good food can be found, or made, with a little effort. Growing some of your own fruits and veggies is one way to go. My family has a community garden plot that gives us fresh veggies all summer long, and we are learning to can and pickle extra produce to see us through colder months. A friend of ours grows edible plants in the windows of his home. A truly healthy diet is a low-cost diet too, since the ingredients for slow-cooked meals costs relatively little compared to processed foods, which anyway are unhealthy from the get-go. We think that we’re in such a big rush to get (where exactly?) that we have no time to cook and good food. Let’s not be rushing off to an early grave. We can dial down the speed of our lives, eat well in the company of friends, family and work colleagues: and change our habits, lives, health and futures, forever.

As one Facebook friend pointed out today, there are plenty of yummy foods out there. Making healthy choices means getting used to different tastes, not less delicious ones.

Diabetes today is an epidemic in poor urban neighborhoods

Harvard professor Frank Hu writes for the American Diabetes Association

… studies and randomized clinical trials show that type 2 diabetes is largely preventable through diet and lifestyle modifications. Translating these findings into practice, however, requires fundamental changes in public policies, the food and built environments, and health systems. To curb the escalating diabetes epidemic, primary prevention through promotion of a healthy diet and lifestyle should be a global public policy priority.

CBS news reports, “Since 1980, obesity in children has almost tripled to more than 12 million … Only 17 percent of students get the recommended one hour of moderately vigorous physical activity a day.” And the Daily News tells us, a “study published … in the (medical journal) Pediatrics, found that the percentage of adolescents age 12 to 19 with Type 2 diabetes or pre-diabetes nearly tripled from 9% in 1999 to 23% in 2008.”

And it’s an intentionally created epidemic

Are there unscrupulous businessmen out there planning to make sure children get less exercise and worse food in school, who are looking at the best ways to addict our kids to fat-making fast food and insulin blowing/tooth rotting sugary drinks so they will become diabetics at an early age? You can bet your bottom dollar those people are out there en force; and also that they’re extremely good at their jobs. The goal? To make very rich the pharmaceutical and medical equipment companies selling the medicines and paraphernalia diabetics need: monitoring supplies, leg stockings, wheelchairs, prosthetic limbs, special shoes and hospital beds. The market is vast, and we haven’t yet considered the revenue this disease produces for the medical professionals and institutions who treat it.

In These Times author Susan J. Douglas writes

Type 2 diabetes is caused by excess weight, lack of exercise and poor diet, and is directly related to poverty … Diabetes is the leading cause of blindness and kidney failure in the country; it often leads to amputation. It’s the sixth leading cause of death in the United States and costs us $132 billion a year. And it’s preventable, save for the enormous financial interests involved in its preservation. “Bad Blood” brought together three American scandals–poverty, our morally bankrupt for-profit health care system and the practices of our nation’s fast food joints.

Combined, they make up an illness-industrial complex, in which big players in the food industry, insurance industry and medical establishment profit wildly. But they need more raw materials to keep them going, more fodder for their assembly lines. Poor people of color are that fodder, and very few of the rest of America seems to care.

Abuse of public trust, Education, Environment, Food, Justice, Protection

How major corporations control universities

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From May 11, 2012 article

Academic research is often dictated by corporations that endow professorships, give money to universities, and put their executives on education boards.

Here’s what happens when corporations begin to control education.

“When I approached professors to discuss research projects addressing organic agriculture in farmer’s markets, the first one told me that ‘no one cares about people selling food in parking lots on the other side of the train tracks,’” said a PhD student at a large land-grant university who did not wish to be identified. “My academic adviser told me my best bet was to write a grant for Monsanto or the Department of Homeland Security to fund my research on why farmer’s markets were stocked with ‘black market vegetables’ that ‘are a bioterrorism threat waiting to happen.’ It was communicated to me on more than one occasion throughout my education that I should just study something Monsanto would fund rather than ideas to which I was deeply committed. I ended up studying what I wanted, but received no financial support, and paid for my education out of pocket.”

http://www.alternet.org/story/155375/how_corporations_like_monsanto_have_hijacked_higher_education