Dewayne Johnson with his sons. Photo courtesy of Baum Hedland Law Firm.

There is real momentum in the fight against agrochemicals and the companies that peddle them. After a landmark victory in Hawai’i banning the neurotoxic pesticide chlorpyrifos in the state, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ordered the Environmental Protection Agency to do the same—nationwide. The EPA has 60 days to comply.

That same week, we watched on pins and needles as the Dewayne Johnson v. Monsanto Company case unfolded in a San Francisco courtroom. Johnson’s lawyers argued that Roundup and Ranger Pro—proprietary mixtures of glyphosate and other toxic ingredients produced by Monsanto (recently bought out by Bayer) —he had used while working as a groundskeeper at a San Francisco Bay Area school was a substantial factor in his non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma.

As the verdict was read in Johnson’s case late on a Friday afternoon, we couldn’t believe our ears. Our Real Food Media team was calling and texting up a storm, reeling from the news that David had defeated Goliath: the jury ruled that the company acted with malice and negligence in failing to warn consumers and awarded the plaintiff $289 million in damages (Bayer shares immediately plunged in value). Read Anna’s reflections on the trial in Civil Eats.

This was the first Roundup cancer lawsuit to proceed to trial. There are around 8,000 other plaintiffs waiting in the wings.

The effects of this historic trial are rippling out in other ways, too: two California cities, Novato and Benicia, have gone Roundup-free and Santa Rosa has banned the use of Roundup in city parks. Following the landmark verdict, Monsanto is also getting renewed attention for its manufacture of other toxic substances, such as Agent Orange, which the company supplied to the US military during the Vietnam War. Vietnam is now demanding compensation from the company for the effects of Agent Orange—including birth defects, cancers, and other deadly diseases from which millions suffer to this day.

To all the activists, movements, frontline communities, and advocacy organizations working to get toxic chemicals banned and justice for those placed in harm’s way, we want to say: Thank you. Your hard work is paying off. Let’s keep the momentum going!

Want to throw some additional shade on Monsanto (now owned by Bayer)? Head to Corporate Accountability’s website and vote for Bayer (AKA #StillMonsanto) in their Corporate Hall of Shame.

Header image from Sustainable Pulse

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The Good Food Purchasing Program from Real Food Media on Vimeo.

Every year, public institutions across the United States—from school districts to city governments—spend $150 billion dollars on food with virtually no oversight over, or awareness of, under what conditions these foods were produced. Without accountability tools in place, companies that routinely cut corners along the supply chain continue to receive substantial public contracts at the expense of community health, worker wellbeing, animal welfare, and the environment.

The lack of transparency in the public procurement process and food supply chains denies communities the right to ensure shared community values can help shape how their own taxpayer dollars are spent, which is particularly important for low-income students for whom the majority of their meals come from school. Until institutions and the communities they serve are armed with better information about their supply chains, business as usual will continue.

First adopted by the City of Los Angeles and the LA Unified School District in 2012, the Good Food Purchasing Program provides a metric-based, flexible framework and set of tools that creates greater transparency and accountability in public food procurement and encourages large public institutions to direct their buying power toward five core values—local economies, environmental sustainability, valued workforce, nutritional health, and animal welfare.

Following adoption in Los Angeles, the Center for Good Food Purchasing was created to help respond to interest around the country, providing cities support for evaluation and implementation. In the last two years, the Center has partnered with three other national organizations—Food Chain Workers Alliance, the HEAL Food Alliance, and us at Real Food Media—to respond to interest in the Program from across the country. Thanks to all of us working together, and with partners on the ground, the Program has passed in public institutions Chicago, Oakland, and San Francisco. Today, the Program influences over $300 million in taxpayer dollars to improve the food system and increase access to healthier school meals for millions of students.

At Real Food Media, we work with partners across the country and local coalitions to build public support for Program adoption. We work closely with local coalitions at various stages of campaign development to tailor resources that address local political context and communications priorities. We also help tell the story of the local, and national, impact of the Program.

Learn more about how to bring the Good Food Purchasing Program to your city at GoodFoodCities.org and follow the Program on Facebook and Twitter!

“Interest in the Good Food Purchasing Program has spread like wildfire, sparking efforts in Oakland, San Francisco, Austin, Chicago, the Twin Cities, New York, Cincinnati, and beyond. The scale of this expansion is nothing short of inspiring: the collective nationwide reach of these initiatives is soon expected to pass over 2 million meals every day.”

—Ricardo Salvador, Union of Concerned Scientists

Header photo by USDA

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by Anna Lappé

At 1:00 p.m. on Sunday, September 21, the 400,000 people gathered for the People’s Climate March in New York City took a moment of silence for those whose lives have already been lost because of climate change. The silence swept up Central Park West from Columbus Circle to 85th Street. A quiet fell among the Indigenous activists and solar power advocates, the high school students and octogenarians, all packed shoulder-to-shoulder. Ten seconds, 20 seconds, nearly a minute passed. Then, in the distance, a sound, quiet at first, but growing second-by-second until it surrounded us: shouts, hollers, and whoops sounding the alarm about our overheating planet. People around me cheered and hugged, tears streaming down faces. It was heartbreaking; it was exhilarating. We were not alone. We were legion.

The People’s Climate March in New York City in September was the largest expression of popular concern about the climate crisis the world has ever seen. But a march alone doesn’t make history.

Organizers called the New York City march the largest climate demonstration ever. Add to that the 2,646 satellite demonstrations from Berlin to Burundi, and the day’s actions were certainly the largest expression of popular concern about the crisis the world has ever seen.

Of course, a march alone doesn’t make history. To do that will require directly confronting the powerful fossil fuel interests that are central culprits in the crisis. Such a confrontation will, among other things, mean kicking the carbon polluters out of the climate negotiating rooms. A huge task, for sure. But we can take courage, and learn lessons, from the brave public-health activists who took on Big Tobacco.

For much of the twentieth century, Big Tobacco had done what Big Oil and King Coal are doing now: stalling regulation of a product that was killing millions a year. By the 1980s, the outcry against Big Tobacco had resulted in movement at the global level as The World Health Assembly began to develop the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control.

Civil society organizations such as Corporate Accountability International (for which I am an adviser) understood that in order to ensure the treaty had teeth, Big Tobacco couldn’t be involved in its framing. But there were divided camps. Some felt it would be impossible to kick Big Tobacco out of the negotiations. Others held steady – and they won. The result was 30 words that changed the tobacco fight for good. Article 5.3 in the Framework Convention states: “In setting and implementing their public health policies with respect to tobacco control, parties shall act to protect these polices from commercial and other vested interests of the tobacco industry.”

Compare Article 5.3 to what’s permissible in climate negotiations. At the annual climate meetings – called “Conference of Parties,” or COPs – Big Energy organizes pavilions, din- ners, and breakaway meetings. Some industry representatives have even attended COPs as official members of country delegations. Corporations have been granted official observer status and given key roles through industry trade associations. At last year’s COP in Poland, the World Coal Association partnered with the Polish Ministry of Economy to promote coal as a solution to climate change. At the 2011 COP in South Africa, the Carbon Capture and Storage Association, made up of fossil fuel and power companies, lobbied for and won carbon credits for new coal plants, even though carbon offsets for coal are known to be counterproductive.

Hundreds of organizations from around the world are pressuring the United Nation to heed the lesson from tobacco advocates and end the cozy relationship between Big Energy and climate negotiators. As advocates wrote in a November 2013 letter to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon: “We urge you to look at such examples and take commensurate action to protect climate policy-making from the vested interests of the fossil fuel industry – or companies whose core business model depends on the excessive emission of greenhouse gases – and their attempts to undermine and subvert urgently needed action.”

After the raucous moment of celebration at the People’s Climate March, the Corporate Accountability International contingent nearby cheered: “1, 2, Article 5.3: Let’s kick out big energy!” I know, it’s not exactly the catchiest chant, but it does zero in on a key to helping us turn that energizing day in the streets into the real stuff of history making.

Originally published in Earth Island Journal

Photo by South Bend Voice/Flickr

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