Michelle Ferrari says that when she told anyone between school age and 60 that her newest documentary was about Rachel Carson, she got blank stares.

There’s a serious information gap about just who this important woman was, a gap that is particularly troubling considering the issues that continue to pervade the world of environmental science and agriculture. Ferrari’s new documentary for PBS, part of the American Experience series, is here to give all viewers a sense of this incredible woman, author, and activist.

For those unfamiliar with her, Rachel Carson was the author of “Silent Spring,” the 1962 phenomenon that unleashed an extraordinary national debate about the safety of the then-brand-new pesticide DDT.

The film, Ferrari notes, is an “origin story” – this is true in more ways than one.

The early part of the film displays the origin of one of the first synthetic pesticides: DDT. Shocking images of soldiers spraying what was first used as a method of controlling lice-borne typhus all over the faces and bodies of people in war-torn Naples give way to the pesticide coming home, to farmers spraying it all over their crops without giving a second thought to their own health.

But more than the story of DDT’s misguided rise to popularity, this film is the story of the woman who noticed – and who did everything in her power to draw attention to this nationwide misstep.

“It’s an origin story of our ongoing national debate about the benefits and hazards of technology,” says Ferrari. “And Carson started that conversation.”

The film artfully shows both the enormity of the effects of Carson’s work and the intimacy of this very private, soft-spoken person.

“She was a very determined person. She had strong ethics, and she really, really cared about the natural world,” says Ferrari. “She was a pretty shy person, a pretty solitary person, and I think that was the place she felt most comfortable, and she was afraid it was going to disappear.”

This fear makes sense given the tools that the film gives the viewer; after all, it is also Carson’s biography, her origin story.

As a young woman, Carson loved to explore the woods and dreamed of being a writer. Once at college, Carson became enthralled by biology, but she was forced to cut her studies short to help care for her family. After taking a job as an information specialist at the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, she, almost accidentally, became the translator of the wealth of scientific research to which she had access for the masses, writing print articles and, later, two popular books about the sea, something that taught her that “everything was connected to everything else.” Carson hoped that everyone would understand this sentiment, some day.

While the sea is painted in the film as something that she loved, the subject of her third book is more of a mission: “Silent Spring” was a story that Carson felt responsible to tell, despite the misgivings of her closest friend and confidante.

“She just thought that there was information that was missing, and she wanted to supply it,” says Ferrari. “She felt a responsibility.”

Ever the scientist, Carson’s work was not inflammatory, but rather cautious. For Carson, the question of pesticides was not a simple dichotomy: technology in agriculture was neither all-good nor all-evil. This point of view, Ferrari feels, is one that most people share.

“I think that the average person is conflicted and feels a little bit both ways,” she says. “They want the birds and the trees, but they want their cars, too. And it’s hard for most people to imagine stepping back from the trappings of civilization in a way that would preserve the environment. And so I think it’s a really hard conversation to have.”

And yet Carson was determined to have it. Hiding the terminal cancer she was battling, Rachel Carson published “Silent Spring” in 1962, and it became an instant bestseller. Two years later, when Carson died, the environmental movement had already been sparked.

“In the ’60s, chemicals provided solutions to complex, often devastating challenges like famine and disease. Carson was the first person to point out there’s a price to be paid for that world,” says Mark Samels, executive producer of American Experience. “She guided us towards an understanding of the interrelatedness of nature, and challenged us to think about our impact on the world around us.”

This, of course, is one key reason that this documentary is so timely, more than 50 years after Rachel Carson’s book was first published.

“I think that in many ways, we’ve been having that conversation continuously since the early 1960s,” says Ferrari. Maybe we’re no longer talking about DDT, but we are still discussing neonicotinoids, fracking, climate change, and often in the same terms. A talk that Carson gives in the film seems eerily contemporary, as she describes, in detail, the reactions of the farm bureaus in two Pennsylvania counties to “Silent Spring” and then – quoting journalists – says that, “No one we had spoken to had read the book but all disapproved of it.”

“I think she’d be extremely dismayed because while there’s a different manifestation of the problems, I think the problems are actually the same,” says Ferrari. “Because I think that the lesson — the overall lesson from Silent Spring, was not that DDT should be banned, but that we should approach our environment with caution and care. And that lesson has not been learned. I wouldn’t say that it’s been totally ignored; an entire environmental movement has grown up since that book. But it hasn’t been learned.”

“Rachel Carson” premieres on American Experience Tuesday, January 24, 2017, 8:00 – 10:00 p.m. ET (check local listings) on PBS, featuring the voice of Mary-Louise Parker as Rachel Carson.

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The post Rachel Carson and ‘Silent Spring’ are Back in the News Thanks to PBS appeared first on EcoSalon.

So… You think that you come into contact with a lot of pesticides everyday by merely being a human who lives in this dirty, toxic world? Well, we can say without a doubt that every human on planet Earth doesn’t have it as bad as the honeybees.

You may be thinking, “what the heck do you mean?” Well, here are the details:

Scientists have discovered a new way to gauge the amount of pesticides in honeybees. And preliminary research has discovered that–brace yourselves– residue from 57 different pesticides are commonly found in a typical honeybee.

How Scientists Found the Dreaded 57

To examine the amount of pesticides affecting bees, Tomasz Kiljanek and a team of researchers from the National Veterinary Research Institute in Poland, developed a method to better analyze pesticides. “They [the researchers] can now analyze 200 pesticides at the same time,” Treehugger reports. The method is able to examine many of the pesticides that are currently approved for use in the European Union.

The scientists decided to pursue their research they think bee health should be a public health concern. “Bees are considered critically important for the environment and agriculture by pollinating more than 80 percent of crops and wild plants in Europe,” Kiljanek says.

The scientists involved in the study note that it’s incredibly difficult to find the exact cocktail of pesticides inside bees. But once this information is deciphered, it could help people discover the complex relationship between bees and pesticides. Also, different types of pesticides used over varied periods of time could affect honeybees in different ways.

Checking Current Levels

So, the only way to understand what pesticides are in honeybees right now is to examine the pesticide concentration levels currently in honeybees.

And “what they [scientists] found after investigating more than 70 honeybee poisoning incidents was the presence of 57 different pesticides present in the bees,” Treehugger reports.

Now, Kiljanek notes that this is just the beginning of the research that needs to be conducted. “Honeybee poisoning incidents are the tip of the iceberg,” he notes. “Even at very low levels, pesticides can weaken bees’ defense systems, allowing parasites or viruses to kill the colony. Our results will help expand our knowledge about the influence of pesticides on honeybee health, and will provide important information for other researchers to better assess the risk connected with the mix of current used pesticides.”

We hope future research will reveal more information because we know one thing is certain: Honeybees need our help. Without bees, nothing can survive.

Related on EcoSalon

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Image of honeybee via Shutterstock

The post How Many Pesticides are in Honeybees? The Answer Will Give You Chills appeared first on EcoSalon.

ColumnOctober is Breast Cancer Awareness Month, and with it comes a slew of advertising opportunities for big companies. It’s called: pinkwashing.

Pinkwashing is a term coined by Breast Cancer Action. According to the group’s definition, a pinkwasher is “a company or organization that claims to care about breast cancer by promoting a pink ribbon product, but at the same time produces, manufactures and/or sells products that are linked to the disease.”

Over the years, during the month of October, companies from Proctor & Gamble to KFC jump on board in the name of breast cancer awareness (I mean, in the name of their bottom line, because when there’s a chance to support a cause, there’s also a chance to make money) failing to point out that often the products whose percentage of proceeds goes to breast cancer awareness are full of the chemicals that cause the cancer in the first place.

Much of this discussion is focused around beauty products – like providing breast cancer care packages with beauty products laden with chemicals known to cause cancer – but there are a wide variety of food brands who get on board as well. Not to mention companies who develop and use pesticides to grow our food in the first place.

Did you know that the primary corporate sponsor of Breast Cancer Awareness Month is Astra Zeneca? Yes, the pharmaceutical company. The same pharmaceutical company who makes a profit off of its cancer treatments (the sales of their top selling breast cancer drug Tamoxifen comes in at $573 million per year worldwide), as well as parenting a successful agrochemical business, developing and selling carcinogenic pesticides.

As the Breast Cancer Fund notes, “Modern food-production methods have opened major avenues of exposure to environmental carcinogens and endocrine-disrupting compounds. Pesticides sprayed on crops, antibiotics used on poultry, and hormones given to cattle expose consumers involuntarily to contaminants that become part of our bodies. Some of these exposures may increase breast cancer risk.”

Some examples of pink food products you can get your hands on this year: pink pizzas, brownies with pink frosting, pink pancakes, a buttery chardonnay or just get completely decked out in pink Hard Rock Cafe gear and then down a Hard Rock Cafe energy drink. And for those food companies who don’t participate, consumers fail to pull back the layers on what these kind of marketing campaigns really mean, that people rally together to try to get chains like Taco Bell to launch a pink taco.

The food and cancer connection isn’t a new discussion; what we eat matters. Obesity for example has been shown to increase the risk of premenopausal breast cancer by 70 percent, which make the sales of things like breast cancer awareness pizzas and energy drinks so disgusting.

But as Breast Cancer Fund points out “tips to ‘fight cancer’ often list reducing fat intake as a crucial step, but don’t mention that one reason this may reduce your risk is because high-fat, animal based foods are a main route of exposure to cancer-causing organochlorine pesticides and dioxin.”  In other words, there are a lot of chemicals used in modern day food production that are known carcinogens, and whether or not we are watching what we eat, we may still be ingesting them.

Some of the big agricultural players and their favorite pesticides have been linked to increased in risk for cancer, like Monsanto’s Round-Up and Syngenta’s Atrazine (which is so bad the European Union banned it in 2005). You will be very happy to know that, yes, Monsanto does take part in Breast Cancer Awareness Month, and even sends volunteers to Race for the Cure. Pesticides and pinkwashing are a match made in heaven.

Considering the severity of breast cancer – today 1 in 8 women will be diagnosed with breast cancer in their lifetime – this is about more than just eating well. It is about holding companies accountable for putting chemicals into our food system. Because while huge amounts of money have poured into breast cancer awareness and research, these companies haven’t done anything to actually tackle the problem; breast cancer cases are projected to increase by 50 percent by 2030. Huge corporations make money off of the pesticides and herbicides that cause cancer, and then pharmaceutical companies reap the benefits of more and more breast cancer patients needing their treatments. It’s a vicious cycle.

“Pinkwashing has become a central component of the breast cancer industry: a web of relationships and financial arrangements between corporations that cause cancer, companies making billions off diagnosis and treatment, nonprofits seeking to support patients or even to cure cancer, and public relations agencies that divert attention from the root causes of disease,” wrote Breast Cancer Action Executive Director Karuna Jaggar in an op-ed piece last year.

Money for research into finding a cure for breast cancer is essential. Just ask any breast cancer survivor. But as we have seen, often that money is tainted, and if we want to eliminate breast cancer in the first place then we need to do more than just treat it.

We need to regulate (and in many cases, eliminate) the use of chemicals, pesticides and herbicides. As a friend of mine recently put it, “thanks to anyone who has supported cancer research – my friends and I appreciate it. We are living proof that it really does help people. Pinkwashing, however, does not.”

This Breast Cancer Awareness Month, think about what’s on your plate, and think about what companies are doing something to change the status quo of how our food is produced. Boycott the ones who aren’t. Sign a petition calling for change. Support a local organic farmer, and thank them for not putting pesticides into our watersheds.

That’s where the real change is going to come from, not from a plate of pink cupcakes.

Related on EcoSalon

We Love Breast Cancer Awareness, We Hate Breast Cancer Commercialization

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This is the latest installment of Anna Brones’ weekly column at EcoSalon: Foodie Underground, an exploration of what’s new and different in the underground movement, and how we make the topic of good food more accessible to everyone. More musings on the topic can be found at www.foodieunderground.com.

Image: DixieBelleCupcakeCafe

The post Beware of Pinkwashing in Your Food: Foodie Underground appeared first on EcoSalon.

We all know bumblebees’ lives are vulnerable because of pesticides. But now, bumblebees have a new (not that new) foe to contend with: climate change.

The below video, courtesy of Climate Desk, features scientists explaining how climate change is hurting bumblebees.

Related on EcoSalon

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The post Bumblebees are Negatively Affected by Climate Change [Video] appeared first on EcoSalon.

If you happen to have a run-in with a monarch butterfly in the near future, consider yourself lucky. They’re about to be listed as endangered species.

The Center for Food Safety, the Center for Biological Diversity, Xerces Society and renowned monarch scientist Dr. Lincoln Brower have petitioned the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to extend Endangered Species Act protection for the monarch butterfly. The agency will now review the status of the monarchs, a process that takes about one year.

Monarch butterfly populations have declined by a staggering 90 percent in the last 20 years, a drop that the groups say is beyond significant. “Our petition is a scientific and legal blueprint for creating the protection that the monarch so direly needs, and we are gratified that the agency has now taken this vital first step in a timely fashion,” George Kimbrell, Senior Attorney for Center for Food Safety said in a statement. “We will continue to do everything we can to ensure monarchs are protected.”

Experts agree that the monarch butterfly is experiencing such a decline due largely in part to the planting of genetically modified crops. Most genetically modified crops being planted in the Midwest, where most of the monarchs are born, are resistant to Monsanto’s Roundup, the glyphosate-based herbicide that kills off milkweed, the monarch caterpillar’s only food.

“The population has declined from a recorded high of approximately 1 billion butterflies in the mid-1990s to only 35 million butterflies last winter, the lowest number ever recorded,” the Center for Food Safety said in a statement. “The overall population shows a steep and statistically significant decline of 90 percent over 20 years. In addition to herbicide use with genetically engineered crops, monarchs are also threatened by global climate change, drought and heat waves, other pesticides, urban sprawl and logging on their Mexican wintering grounds.”

And the groups note that rising global temperatures could make the monarch’s homes, both winters in Mexico and summers in the U.S., unsuitable to sustain the species in the very near future.

According to the CFS, monarchs need “a very large population size to be resilient to threats from severe weather events and predation.” A whopping 50 percent of monarchs winter population in Mexico can be eaten by birds and mammals in just one winter. And extreme weather conditions can also be devastating: “a single winter storm in 2002 killed an estimated 500 million monarchs — 14 times the size of the entire current population,” CFS explained.

“We are extremely pleased that the federal agency in charge of protecting our nation’s wildlife has recognized the dire situation of the monarch,” said Sarina Jepsen, the Xerces Society’s endangered species director. “Protection as a threatened species will enable extensive monarch habitat recovery on both public and private lands.”

Monarchs, like bees, are important pollinators vital to the health of our food chain. Honeybee populations are also currently being threatened by similar environmental hazards.

Find Jill on Twitter @jillettinger

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Image: U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service

The post The Monarch Butterfly May Soon Be on the Endangered Species List appeared first on EcoSalon.

The once-common monarch butterfly is MIA, and it doesn’t bode well for the health of our species.

Unable to survive the cold temperatures that blanket the U.S. during winter months, the monarch butterfly population heads to Mexico and Southern California every year to bask in the warmth. Following instructions built into their DNA, subsequent generations of monarch butterfly seek out the very same trees and bushes in which their parents were born, even though they’ve never been there before. And the happy cycle begins all over again. That is, until this year.

“This year, for the first time in memory, the monarch butterflies didn’t come, at least not on the Day of the Dead,” reported Jim Robbins for the New York Times. “They began to straggle in a week later than usual, in record-low numbers. Last year’s low of 60 million now seems great compared with the fewer than three million that have shown up so far this year. Some experts fear that the spectacular migration could be near collapse.”

A world without the monarch butterfly. Think about that. Our children could grow up without ever knowing what it’s like to feel this orange-and-black fairy land on their arm, or seeing one hatch from their cocoon (my favorite science project as a child).

So what’s causing the monarch butterfly to break from thousands of years of tradition? Some say pesticides, specifically the neonicotinoids often blamed for the decline of the honey bee. But even if all pesticides had never been used on a single U.S. crop, experts say the monarch butterfly would still be in peril.

“There’s no question that the loss of habitat is huge,” Douglas Tallamy, a professor of entomology at the University of Delaware, told the New York Times. “We notice the monarch and bees because they are iconic insects,” he said. “But what do you think is happening to everything else?”

Every time we tear raze a meadow, cluster of trees, or wetland to put up a parking lot, we’re destroying a monarch butterfly’s home. Every time we uproot native plants like the milkweed to install a sterile lawn and genetically-engineered flowers, we take food out of a monarch butterfly’s mouth. Which eventually means less food for our own families.

Like the bee, the monarch butterfly is a pollinator. Many forms of life are sustained by the seeds, fruits, nuts, berries, and foliage that result from pollination–including humans. This is what the produce section of your grocery store would look like if pollinators like the butterfly go the way of the Dodo. Scary.

So what can we do to save the monarch butterfly? Well for one thing, eat organic when you can, and never use chemical pesticides on your property. Encourage the growth of native plants, especially the milkweed, as well as nectar-producing flowers that attract butterflies. Purchase only FSC-Certified wood products, since illegal logging in Mexico is devastating monarch butterfly habitats there. Lastly, support programs working to protect the monarch butterfly. Visit MonarchWatch.org to learn more.

Related on Ecosalon:

Some Butterflies Doomed, Others Thrive With Climate Change

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Image: usfwsnortheast

The post The Monarch Butterfly is Disappearing and that’s Bad News for Humans appeared first on EcoSalon.

People can be so convincing. Especially when it comes to food.

Humans love enthusiasm. We adore showmanship and passion. Attend a four-hour long Bruce Springsteen concert or the Super Bowl, and see if you don’t leave feeling inspired and renewed in the human spirit (if also a bit exhausted…and broke). It’s why pundits run the gamut of extremes; because for (almost) every opinion out there, some open mind will listen–and form more opinions.

It’s all ego stuff, if we want to get technical…ideas occupy the mind, the identity of who we are and our purpose. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, particularly if we do good things with what we learn and believe. It’s also a cunning wolf-in-sheep’s-clothing game for marketers and multinational (food) corporations.

Take into consideration the great lengths corporations go to in order to sell you their packaged, processed foodstuffs, and the pieces begin to fall into place. It’s definitely at the heart of fear-mongering tactics designed to keep you from eating the healthiest food options.

When the Environmental Working Group recently released their 9^th annual Dirty Dozen and Clean Fifteen produce guides to pesticides in produce, it’s no surprise that industry trade group United Fresh Produce Association said: “it is irresponsible to mislead consumers with a sensational publicity stunt disguised as science.” They made this claim despite the fact that the EWG takes its rankings directly from U.S. government data on produce. But, apparently, the UFPA wants you to not worry about pesticides. Now who’s sensational? The conventional produce industry certainly doesn’t want you to buy fruits and vegetables that are organic and locally grown on a small farm. In fact, they’d prefer it if you buy the safest of all: canned or frozen.

The same tactic is behind the lawsuit that got New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s soda ban overturned. Despite everything we know about sodas—particularly their effects on children—the industry turned the issue into a discussion about Big Government and Americans losing their rights. As if we were one sip away from being imprisoned, stripped of our identities, and sent to government labor camps.

Or, take the raw milk issue. Nearly half of all U.S. states ban the sale of raw dairy products because of the “health risks,” but there are still minimal regulations on the health or safety of the places (you cannot call them farms) where the overwhelming majority of our nation’s dairy comes from. These filthy, sad, terrifying and inhumane massive factories produce far more health risks than a glass of milk from a loved and well-tended to cow. You know the kind, they have a name, not a number stapled to their ear or branded into their hide.

Then of course, there’s the hot button food issue of our time: GMOs. Giant chemical companies now own patents on most of what’s on the average American’s dinner plate. They claim to be advancing food science, our safety, our farming culture. They tell us non-GMO crops are bug-infested and nutrient-deficient inferior-quality products. We must support GMOs because it’s our duty to our farmers, our children, our health. But we know the opposite is true. Even if their science was on point, why go to all the trouble to patent and protect seeds? It’s a motive as murky as the misty trail of pesticides lingering over a field of GMO corn.

So, why do they do it? Why do they want us to be scared of healthy food?

If Profit, Power and Control aren’t answer enough, we must also consider that this is how things have been done for a while. Like Gandhi said, ridicule and resistance come before acceptance. Even as moral as the issues clearly seem to be, there really are no rules—defining what food should be is a very fine line. For some of us, eating ethically, organically and mindfully makes a lot of sense. For others, eating cheap, fast and at the expense of others is just as reasonable.

In many instances in our food industry, there are genuine people who truly believe in what they’re doing—even when that’s beating animals into submission, or telling a farmer he’s going to face a lawsuit for unauthorized planting of a GMO seed. Similar to The Boss giving his best performance night after night, or an athlete playing the game of his career on the Super Bowl field, people are driven to do what they feel drawn to. And as much as we might disagree with the tactics employed by our food system, we must remember, they’re people too, driven by their own motivations. And while those motivations may be greed and fear, like any motivation, it can change. In fact, it’s often those who’ve been deeply entwined in the corruption of an industry that become the most valuable voices of opposition. The fact is, for now at least, Big-Ag will continue to try and scare you. They’ll try to seduce you. Sometimes, they’ll probably even win. But eventually, they’ll lose.

Keep in touch with Jill on Twitter @jillettinger

Image: freezelight

The post Why the Food Industry Loves to Scare Us Into Eating Scarier Food appeared first on EcoSalon.

We live in an increasingly toxic world, and labels don’t always tell the truth. Staying healthy requires a little bit of homework. These apps can help.

Despite safety standards and regulations, harmful ingredients linger in almost everything we touch. Over a lifetime, exposure to these harmful substances can put us at risk for serious illnesses and diseases. Even worse, toys and foods marketed to children are some of the worst chemical culprits, and too much exposure too early in life can significantly stunt physical and mental development. A 2011 study from the University of California, San Francisco revealed that 100 percent of expectant mothers are exposed to multiple chemicals; these toxic chemicals can effect our health before we even enter the world.

To protect ourselves and our families from dangerous substances like BPA (Bisphenol A), phthalates, formaldehyde, and chemical pesticides and fertilizers, we need to be educated about what to look for, the risks posed, and healthier alternatives. Unfortunately, we very rarely see these ingredients (or the companies who use them) discussed in the mainstream media.

Self-education is a necessity, but who has time to pore over ingredient lists or toxicology analyses? Here are a handful of mobile apps that you can download instantly and use to keep these health-threatening substances out of your home and life.

1. App: Dirty Dozen (Free)
Toxins Identified: Pesticides in produce

Created by the Environmental Working Group, the “Shopper’s Guide to Pesticides in Produce” app will help you determine which fruits and vegetables have the most pesticide residues and are the most important to buy organic. You can lower your pesticide intake substantially by avoiding the 12 most contaminated fruits and vegetables and eating the least contaminated produce.

2. App: findNano (Free)
Toxins Identified: Nanoparticles

Use findNano to discover consumer products that manufacturers claim to use or are enabled by nanotechnology in everything from sporting goods to food products, electronics and kids’ toys. And if you find a nano-product not on the list – no problem. Using the “submit new product” function, users can take or select a photo of the product and submit it for possible inclusion in future updates.

3. App: Cosmetifique ($0.99)
Toxins Identified: Chemicals in cosmetics

Cosmetifique shows you the quality of the INCI (International Nomenclature of Cosmetic Ingredients) of your cosmetic products. When you look for ingredients, the app displays results in different colors (green for good, yellow for acceptable, orange for not good and red for awful) that enable you to verify the risks associated with each ingredient.

4. App: Peaceful Nursery Guide ($0.99)
Toxins Identified: Chemicals in kids’ products

The Peaceful Nursery app features a quick and easy shopping checklist of all the right items to buy for the nursery, along with tips about what to avoid, and an explanation of what chemicals are often found in each product.

5. App: GoodGuide (Free)
Toxins Identified: Chemicals in food, personal care, and household products

The GoodGuide mobile app makes it fast and easy to find safe, healthy, green, and ethical products, instantly delivering the information you need, when you need it most — in a store and on the go. Use the handy barcode scanner feature to retrieve product ratings and information on your phone while shopping.

Top image: shawnzlea

The post 5 Mobile Apps For A Non-Toxic Lifestyle appeared first on EcoSalon.

Understanding the organic behind the wool.

Technically wool is organic, but the processes involved in turning the fiber into soft sweaters, mittens and heavy winter coats renders it a far cry from the original plush coats of fluffy sheep. Unfortunately, a large percentage of wool fiber comes from farms where pesticides, insecticides and chemical inputs have become the norm that are depended on.

Conventional wool farming also often involves a toxic and cruel procedure called “dipping,” in which sheep are submerged in pools of chemical parasiticides. Not only does dipping have severely negative effects on the health of the sheep, but studies have found that these parasiticides can cause changes in human nervous systems. Disposal of the dipping liquids can also contaminate ground water, looping right back into the entire process.

H Fredriksson

Wool production is classified as livestock production, and organic wool farming requires strict adherence to a set of rules and standards. This means farmers cannot use any chemical inputs on their fields or their feed crops and must steer clear of chemical based insecticides and pesticides. The fiber bearing animals can only be fed 100% organic grains, graze on organic pastures, cannot be vaccinated with anything synthetic, and should be well-managed and cared for.

Wool farmers must therefore control parasites without chemicals, keep pastures clean and provide good nutrition for their livestock in order to keep them as happy and healthy as possible. Sustainability is also practiced through organic wool farming, as stocking ratios are set so that the land can regenerate itself and sustain its environment and the animals grazing on it. Mills that process the wool must also be free of synthetic chemicals and demonstrate water consciousness, methods that are not deemed viable in the world of fast fashion.

However, thanks to the efforts of farmers, textile producers and designers that understand the importance of sustainable livestock management and production, organic wool can make its way into our closets. Wool is an extremely versatile option for apparel, since its natural cell structure allows it breathable qualities that can be applied for warming or cooling effects, especially when blended with other fibers.

Jasco is a fabric producer that has noticed this and has been providing fashion designers with eco fabrics made in the USA since 2005. One of their most popular products is their range of organic wool, which is sourced by the likes of Carrie Parry, Helena Fredriksson, Rolando Santana, Nicole Bridger and Araks. New York City based designer Eviana Hartman of Bodkin has also favored organic wool in her contemporary designs, featuring it in her fall collection for German label Hessnatur.

Bodkin

The Fibershed Project in Northern California fully integrates the concepts of organic livestock management and fiber production. Three of the farmers in Fibershed produce wool through sustainable methods and a high level of animal care. Farmers Jean Muir and Sally Fox raise Merino sheep that produce extremely beautiful, fine gauge wool in a range of natural colors, while Julie Rosenfeld keeps a very healthy flock of alpaca and Alisson Arnold obtains fluffy fleece from her angora rabbits.

Their wool can be purchased either as raw fiber, yarn or finished garments online at the Fibershed Marketplace. These farmers demonstrate the versatility in wool types that even one breed of sheep can produce, as everything from the rainfall to the grass quality and food type in a certain area will affect the type of wool that the animals offer.

Imperial Knits in northeastern Oregon produces wool by considering the impact of each part of their production process. Although not certified organic, their methods are often more sustainable and considerate of the land than what certification guidelines require. They have integrated a no plow method that has improved soil tilth and radically reduced their use of fossil fuels.

Imperial Knits transports their wool to a family-owned mill in Alberta that uses no sulfuric acid, chemicals or extreme heating in processing the wool, nonetheless producing beautiful, fine quality wool. Imperial Knits yarn can be purchased online and in yarn shops nationwide alongside creative director Anna Cohen’s gorgeous patterns. Make sure to check out her next runway show at Portland Fashion Week in October.

The post Pulling the Wool Off Our Eyes appeared first on EcoSalon.

A round-up of what we’re reading right now.

Do you know what’s in your food? What’s really in your food? Some pesticides to start with. [Via TakePart]

It’s summer; if you don’t start bike commuting now, when will you? This guide will get you started. [Via Women’s Adventure]

Guess who is the latest purveyor of Hermès knockoffs? Hermès employees of course. [Via Refinery29]

Aggressive in ankle boots? As it turns out, your shoes really do say something about your personality. [Via How About We]

Being uncomfortable is what soul searching is all about. [Via Elevation Outdoors]

If that summer road trip has you craving a good microbrew, this map will point you in the right direction. [Via Pop Chart Lab]

Creativity killers are everywhere, can we add Facebook to the list? [Via Co.CREATE]

Image: Luca Violetto

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