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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dkto_IoZOUY

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ARE WOMEN THE KEY TO  SOLVING CLIMATE CHANGE?

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ARE WOMEN THE KEY TO  SOLVING CLIMATE CHANGE?

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6. Yes!

Women and men do not experience climate change in the same way.

Ecofeminism provides an additional alternative to ecological thought and social organizing, while promising unity among women and those who suffer from oppression

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5.  Women are more likely to encounter biological problems accompanying a polluted environment.

*Child bearing

*Toxins in the air, soil and water have detrimental consequences for women and children

* Birth defects

*Disease

* Miscarriage

*infertility

*Children may suffer after ingesting elevated levels of harmful chemicals in their mothers’ milk.

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Play from 30 second mark to 1:30 mark

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Weekend Update on Hamilton's Handwritten Letters - SNL

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Weekend Update anchors Colin Jost and Michael Che tackle the week's biggest news, including Alexander Hamilton's handwritten letters being auctioned. Jake Rocheck (Mikey Day) reports live from the friend zone. Get more SNL: http://www.nbc.com/saturday-night-live Full Episodes: http://www.nbc.com/saturday-night-liv...

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It's hard to believe the disturbing facts that our earth is suffering from extreme weather & so many terrible environmental changes. Subscribe to American Eye http://goo.gl/GBphkv 5. Food Prices Due to droughts and other inconveniences while trying to grow food due to climate change, this could have a steep increase on food prices and farmers ability to grow crops!

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Leonardo DiCaprio & Obama Talk Climate Change

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7 INSANE Effects of Climate Change in Your Lifetime

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For many people just hearing the words climate change causes an immediate trigger response, with random, jabbering phrases spewing out of their face such as "it's natural", "it's a liberal conspiracy" and "My fridge cold how global warming do a thing now?".

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There are several types of pollution, and while they may come from different sources and have different consequences, understanding the basics about pollution can help environmentally conscious individuals minimize their contribution to these dangers. In total, there are nine recognized sources of pollution in the modern world. These sources of pollution don't simply have a negative impact on the natural world, but they can have a measurable effect on the health of human beings as well.

Air Pollution

Air pollution is defined as any contamination of the atmosphere that disturbs the natural composition and chemistry of the air. This can be in the form of particulate matter such as dust or excessive gases like carbon dioxide or other vapors that cannot be effectively removed through natural cycles, such as the carbon cycle or the nitrogen cycle.

Air pollution comes from a wide variety of sources. Some of the most excessive sources include:

Vehicle or manufacturing exhaust

Forest fires, volcanic eruptions, dry soil erosion, and other natural sources

Building construction or demolition

Depending on the concentration of air pollutants, several effects can be noticed. Smog increases, higher rain acidity, crop depletion from inadequate oxygen, and higher rates of asthma. Many scientists believe that global warming is also related to increased air pollution.

Water Pollution

Water pollution involves any contaminated water, whether from chemical, particulate, or bacterial matter that degrades the water's quality and purity. Water pollution can occur in oceans, rivers, lakes, and underground reservoirs, and as different water sources flow together through the water cycle the pollution can spread.

Causes of water pollution include:

Increased sediment from soil erosion

Improper waste disposal and littering

Leaching of soil pollution into water supplies

Organic material decay in water supplies

The effects of water pollution include decreasing the quantity of drinkable water available, lowering water supplies for crop irrigation, and impacting fish and wildlife populations that require water of a certain purity for survival.

Soil Pollution

Soil, or land pollution, is contamination of the soil that prevents natural growth and balance in the land whether it is used for cultivation, habitation, or a wildlife preserve. Some soil pollution, such as the creation of landfills, is deliberate, while much more is accidental and can have widespread effects.

Soil pollution sources include:

Hazardous waste and sewage spills

Non-sustainable farming practices, such as the heavy use of inorganic pesticides

Strip mining, deforestation, and other destructive practices

Household dumping and littering

Soil contamination can lead to poor growth and reduced crop yields, loss of wildlife habitat, water and visual pollution, soil erosion, and desertification.

Noise Pollution

Noise pollution refers to undesirable levels of noises caused by human activity that disrupt the standard of living in the affected area. Noise pollution can come from:

Traffic

Airports

Railroads

Manufacturing plants

Construction or demolition

Concerts

Some noise pollution may be temporary while other sources are more permanent. Effects may include hearing loss, wildlife disturbances, and a general degradation of lifestyle.

Radioactive Pollution

Radioactive pollution is rare but extremely detrimental, and even deadly, when it occurs. Because of its intensity and the difficulty of reversing damage, there are strict government regulations to control radioactive pollution.

Sources of radioactive contamination include:

Nuclear power plant accidents or leakage

Improper nuclear waste disposal

Uranium mining operations

Radiation pollution can cause birth defects, cancer, sterilization, and other health problems for human and wildlife populations. It can also sterilize the soil and contribute to water and air pollution.

Thermal Pollution

Thermal pollution is excess heat that creates undesirable effects over long periods of time. The earth has a natural thermal cycle, but excessive temperature increases can be considered a rare type of pollution with long term effects. Many types of thermal pollution are confined to areas near their source, but multiple sources can have wider impacts over a greater geographic area.

Thermal pollution may be caused by:

Power plants

Urban sprawl

Air pollution particulates that trap heat

Deforestation

Loss of temperature moderating water supplies

As temperatures increase, mild climatic changes may be observed, and wildlife populations may be unable to recover from swift changes.

Light Pollution

Light pollution is the over illumination of an area that is considered obtrusive. Sources include:

Large cities

Billboards and advertising

Nighttime sporting events and other nighttime entertainment

Light pollution makes it impossible to see stars, therefore interfering with astronomical observation and personal enjoyment. If it is near residential areas, light pollution can also degrade the quality of life for residents.

Visual Pollution

Visual pollution - eyesores - can be caused by other pollution or just by undesirable, unattractive views. It may lower the quality of life in certain areas, or could impact property values and personal enjoyment.

Sources of visual pollution include:

Power lines

Construction areas

Billboards and advertising

Neglected areas or objects such as polluted vacant fields or abandoned buildings

While visual pollution has few immediate health or environmental effects, what's causing the eyesore can have detrimental affects.

Personal Pollution

Personal pollution is the contamination of one's body and lifestyle with detrimental actions. This may include:

Excessive smoking, drinking or drug abuse

Emotional or physical abuse

Poor living conditions and habits

Poor personal attitudes

In some cases, personal pollution may be inflicted by caregivers, while in other cases it is caused by voluntary actions. Taking positive steps in your life can help eliminate this and other sources of pollution so you can lead a more productive, satisfying life.

Pollution Types Are Connected

All types of pollution are interconnected. For example, light pollution requires energy to be made, which means the electric plant needs to burn more fossil fuels to supply the electricity. Those fossil fuels contribute to air pollution, which returns to the earth as acid rain and increases water pollution. The cycle of pollution can go on indefinitely, but once you understand the different pollution types, how they are created, and the effects they can have, you can make personal lifestyle changes to combat poor conditions for yourself and others around you.

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There are several types of pollution, and while they may come from different sources and have different consequences, understanding the basics about pollution can help environmentally conscious individuals minimize their contribution to these dangers. In total, there are nine recognized sources of pollution in the modern world.

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Climate change, together with other natural and human-made health stressors, influences human health and disease in numerous ways. Some existing health threats will intensify and new health threats will emerge. Not everyone is equally at risk. Important considerations include age, economic resources, and location.

In the U.S., public health can be affected by disruptions of physical, biological, and ecological systems, including disturbances originating here and elsewhere. The health effects of these disruptions include increased respiratory and cardiovascular disease, injuries and premature deaths related to extreme weather events, changes in the prevalence and geographical distribution of food- and water-borne illnesses and other infectious diseases, and threats to mental health.

For more information on the health effects of climate change, visit the Third National Climate Assessment's Health Chapterexternal icon , Fourth National Climate Assessment's Health Chapterexternal icon , and the USGCRP Climate and Health Assessmentexternal icon .

For more on the effects of climate change on health in different regions, see "Preparing for the Regional Health Impacts of Climate Change in the United States." pdf icon [PDF - 4 MB]

For more information about how climate change disproportionately affects some communities, visit CDC's webpage on justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion (JEDI) in climate adaptation planning.

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Climate change, together with other natural and human-made health stressors, influences human health and disease in numerous ways. Some existing health threats will intensify and new health threats will emerge.

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The issue can be overwhelming. The science is complicated. Predictions about the fate of the planet carry endless caveats and asterisks.

We get it.

So we've put together a list of quick answers to often-asked questions about climate change. This should give you a running start on understanding the problem.

1. 1. How much is the planet heating up?

1.7 degrees is actually a significant amount.

As of October 2015, the Earth had warmed by about 1.7 degrees Fahrenheit since 1880, when records begin at a global scale. That figure includes the surface of the ocean. The warming is greater over land, and greater still in the Arctic and parts of Antarctica.

The number may sound low, but as an average over the surface of an entire planet, it is actually high, which explains why much of the world's land ice is starting to melt and the oceans are rising at an accelerating pace. The heat accumulating in the Earth because of human emissions is roughly equal to the heat that would be released by 400,000 Hiroshima atomic bombs exploding across the planet every day.

Scientists believe most and probably all of the warming since 1950 was caused by the human release of greenhouse gases. If emissions continue unchecked, they say the global warming could ultimately exceed 8 degrees Fahrenheit, which would transform the planet and undermine its capacity to support a large human population.

2. 2. How much trouble are we in?

For future generations, big trouble.

The risks are much greater over the long run than over the next few decades, but the emissions that create those risks are happening now. Over the coming 25 or 30 years, scientists say, the climate is likely to resemble that of today, although gradually getting warmer. Rainfall will be heavier in many parts of the world, but the periods between rains will most likely grow hotter and therefore drier. The number of hurricanes and typhoons may actually fall, but the ones that do occur will draw energy from a hotter ocean surface, and therefore may be more intense, on average, than those of the past. Coastal flooding will grow more frequent and damaging.

Longer term, if emissions continue to rise unchecked, the risks are profound. Scientists fear climate effects so severe that they might destabilize governments, produce waves of refugees, precipitate the sixth mass extinction of plants and animals in Earth's history, and melt the polar ice caps, causing the seas to rise high enough to flood most of the world's coastal cities.

All of this could take hundreds or even thousands of years to play out, conceivably providing a cushion of time for civilization to adjust, but experts cannot rule out abrupt changes, such as a collapse of agriculture, that would throw society into chaos much sooner. Bolder efforts to limit emissions would reduce these risks, or at least slow the effects, but it is already too late to eliminate the risks entirely.

3. 3. Is there anything I can do?

Fly less, drive less, waste less.

You can reduce your own carbon footprint in lots of simple ways, and most of them will save you money. You can plug leaks in your home insulation to save power, install a smart thermostat, switch to more efficient light bulbs, turn off the lights in any room where you are not using them, drive fewer miles by consolidating trips or taking public transit, waste less food, and eat less meat.

Perhaps the biggest single thing individuals can do on their own is to take fewer airplane trips; just one or two fewer plane rides per year can save as much in emissions as all the other actions combined. If you want to be at the cutting edge, you can look at buying an electric or hybrid car, putting solar panels on your roof, or both.

If you want to offset your emissions, you can buy certificates, with the money going to projects that protect forests, capture greenhouse gases and so forth. Some airlines sell these to offset emissions from their flights, and after some scandals in the early days, they started to scrutinize the projects closely, so the offsets can now be bought in good conscience. You can also buy offset certificates in a private marketplace, from companies such as TerraPass in San Francisco that follow strict rules set up by the state of California; some people even give these as holiday gifts. Yet another way: In states that allow you to choose your own electricity supplier, you can often elect to buy green electricity; you pay slightly more, with the money going into a fund that helps finance projects like wind farms.

In the end, though, experts do not believe the needed transformation in the energy system can happen without strong state and national policies. So speaking up and exercising your rights as a citizen matters as much as anything else you can do.

4. 4. What's the optimistic scenario?

Several things have to break our way.

In the best case that scientists can imagine, several things happen: Earth turns out to be less sensitive to greenhouse gases than currently believed; plants and animals manage to adapt to the changes that have already become inevitable; human society develops much greater political will to bring emissions under control; and major technological breakthroughs occur that help society both to limit emissions and to adjust to climate change.

The two human-influenced variables are not entirely independent, of course: Technological breakthroughs that make clean energy cheaper than fossil fuels would also make it easier to develop the political will for rapid action.

Scientists say the odds of all these things breaking our way are not very high, unfortunately. The Earth could just as easily turn out to be more sensitive to greenhouse gases than less. Global warming seems to be causing chaos in parts of the natural world already, and that seems likely to get worse, not better. So in the view of the experts, simply banking on a rosy scenario without any real plan would be dangerous. They believe the only way to limit the risks is to limit emissions.

5. 5. Will reducing meat in my diet help the climate?

Agriculture of all types produces greenhouse gases that warm the planet, but meat production is especially harmful - and beef is the most environmentally damaging form of meat. Some methods of cattle production demand a lot of land, contributing to destruction of forests; the trees are typically burned, releasing carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Other methods require huge amounts of water and fertilizer to grow food for the cows.

The cows themselves produce emissions of methane, a potent greenhouse gas that causes short-term warming. Meat consumption is rising worldwide as the population grows, and as economic development makes people richer and better able to afford meat.

This is worrisome: Studies have found that if the whole world were to start eating beef at the rate Americans eat it, produced by the methods typically used in the United States, that alone might erase any chance of staying below an internationally agreed-upon limit on global warming. Pork production creates somewhat lower emissions than beef production, and chicken is lower still. So reducing your meat consumption, or switching from beef and pork to chicken in your diet, are both moves in the right direction. Of course, as with any kind of behavioral change meant to benefit the climate, this will only make a difference if lots of other people do it, too, reducing the overall demand for meat products.

6. 6. What's the worst-case scenario?

That is actually hard to say, which is one reason scientists are urging that emissions be cut; they want to limit the possibility of any worst-case scenario coming to pass. Perhaps the greatest fear is a collapse of food production, accompanied by escalating prices and mass starvation. Even with runaway emissions growth, it is unclear how likely this would be, as farmers are able to adjust their crops and farming techniques, to a degree, to adapt to climatic changes. Another possibility would be a disintegration of the polar ice sheets, leading to fast-rising seas that would force people to abandon many of the world's great cities and would lead to the loss of trillions of dollars worth of property and other assets. Scientists also worry about other wild-card scenarios like the predictable cycles of Asian monsoons' becoming less reliable. Billions of people depend on monsoons to provide water for crops, so any disruptions could be catastrophic.

7. 7. ​Will a tech breakthrough help us?

Even Bill Gates says don't count on it, unless we commit the cash.

As more companies, governments and researchers devote themselves to the problem, the chances of big technological advances are improving. But even many experts who are optimistic about technological solutions warn that current efforts are not enough. For instance, spending on basic energy research is only a quarter to a third of the level that several in-depth reports have recommended. And public spending on agricultural research has stagnated even though climate change poses growing risks to the food supply. People like Bill Gates have argued that crossing our fingers and hoping for technological miracles is not a strategy - we have to spend the money that would make these things more likely to happen.

8. 8. How much will the seas rise?

The real question is not how high, but how fast.

The ocean is rising at a rate of about a foot per century. That causes severe effects on coastlines, forcing governments and property owners to spend tens of billions of dollars fighting erosion. But if that rate continued, it would probably be manageable, experts say.

The risk is that the rate will accelerate markedly. If emissions continue unchecked, then the temperature at the Earth's surface could soon resemble a past epoch called the Pliocene, when a great deal of ice melted and the ocean rose by something like 80 feet compared to today. A recent study found that burning all the fossil fuels in the ground would fully melt the polar ice sheets, raising the sea level by more than 160 feet over an unknown period.

With all of that said, the crucial issue is probably not how much the oceans are going to rise, but how fast. And on that point, scientists are pretty much flying blind. Their best information comes from studying Earth's history, and it suggests that the rate can on occasion hit a foot per decade, which can probably be thought of as the worst-case scenario. A rate even half that would force rapid retreat from the coasts and, some experts think, throw human society into crisis. Even if the rise is much slower, many of the world's great cities will flood eventually. Studies suggest that big cuts in emissions could slow the rise, buying crucial time for society to adapt to an altered coastline.

9. 9. Are the predictions reliable?

They're not perfect, but they're grounded in solid science.

The idea that Earth is sensitive to greenhouse gases is confirmed by many lines of scientific evidence. For instance, the basic physics suggesting that an increase of carbon dioxide traps more heat was discovered in the 19th century, and has been verified in thousands of laboratory experiments.

Climate science does contain uncertainties, of course. The biggest is the degree to which global warming sets off feedback loops, such as a melting of sea ice that will darken the surface and cause more heat to be absorbed, melting more ice, and so forth. It is not clear exactly how much the feedbacks will intensify the warming; some of them could even partially offset it. This uncertainty means that computer forecasts can give only a range of future climate possibilities, not absolute predictions.

But even if those computer forecasts did not exist, a huge amount of evidence suggests that scientists have the basic story right. The most important evidence comes from the study of past climate conditions, a field known as paleoclimate research. The amount of carbon dioxide in the air has fluctuated naturally in the past, and every time it rises, the Earth warms up, ice melts, and the ocean rises. A hundred miles inland from today's East Coast, seashells can be dug from ancient beaches that are three million years old, a blink of an eye in geologic time. These past conditions are not a perfect guide to the future, either, because humans are pumping carbon dioxide into the air far faster than nature has ever done.

10. 10. Why do people question climate change?

Most of the attacks on climate science are coming from libertarians and other political conservatives who do not like the policies that have been proposed to fight global warming. Instead of negotiating over those policies and trying to make them more subject to free-market principles, they have taken the approach of blocking them by trying to undermine the science.

This ideological position has been propped up by money from fossil-fuel interests, which have paid to create organizations, fund conferences and the like. The scientific arguments made by these groups usually involve cherry-picking data, such as focusing on short-term blips in the temperature record or in sea ice, while ignoring the long-term trends.

The most extreme version of climate denialism is to claim that scientists are engaged in a worldwide hoax to fool the public so that the government can gain greater control over people's lives. As the arguments have become more strained, many oil and coal companies have begun to distance themselves publicly from climate denialism, but some are still helping to finance the campaigns of politicians who espouse such views.

11. 11. Is crazy weather tied to climate change?

Scientists have published strong evidence that the warming climate is making heat waves more frequent and intense. It is also causing heavier rainstorms, and coastal flooding is getting worse as the oceans rise because of human emissions. Global warming has intensified droughts in regions like the Middle East, and it may have strengthened the drought in California.

In many other cases, though, the linkage to global warming for particular trends is uncertain or disputed. That is partly from a lack of good historical weather data, but it is also scientifically unclear how certain types of events may be influenced by the changing climate.

Another factor: While the climate is changing, people's perceptions may be changing faster. The Internet has made us all more aware of weather disasters in distant places. On social media, people have a tendency to attribute virtually any disaster to climate change, but in many cases there is no scientific support for doing so.

12. 12. Will anyone benefit from global warming?

Countries with huge, frozen hinterlands, including Canada and Russia, could see some economic benefits as global warming makes agriculture, mining and the like more possible in those places. It is perhaps no accident that the Russians have always been reluctant to make ambitious climate commitments, and President Vladimir V. Putin has publicly questioned the science of climate change.

However, both of those countries could suffer enormous damage to their natural resources; escalating fires in Russia are already killing millions of acres of forests per year. Moreover, some experts believe countries that view themselves as likely winners from global warming will come to see the matter differently once they are swamped by millions of refugees from less fortunate lands.

13. 13. Is there any reason for hope?

If you share this with 50 friends, maybe.

Scientists have been warning since the 1980s that strong policies were needed to limit emissions. Those warnings were ignored, and greenhouse gases in the atmosphere have since built up to potentially dangerous levels. So the hour is late.

But after 20 years of largely fruitless diplomacy, the governments of the world are finally starting to take the problem seriously. A deal reached in Paris in December commits nearly every country to some kind of action. Religious leaders like Pope Francis are speaking out. Low-emission technologies, such as electric cars, are improving. Leading corporations are making bold promises to switch to renewable power and stop forest destruction. Around the world, many states and cities are pledging to go far beyond the goals set by their national governments.

What is still largely missing in all this are the voices of ordinary citizens. Because politicians have a hard time thinking beyond the next election, they tend to tackle hard problems only when the public rises up and demands it.

14. 14. How does agriculture affect climate change?

It's a big contributor, but there are signs of progress.

The environmental pressures from global agriculture are indeed enormous.

The demand for food is rising, in large part because of population growth and rising incomes that give millions of once-low income people the means to eat richer diets. Global demand for beef and for animal feed, for instance, has led farmers to cut down huge chunks of the Amazon rain forest.

Efforts are being made to tackle the problems. The biggest success has arguably been in Brazil, which adopted tough oversight and managed to cut deforestation in the Amazon by 80 percent in a decade. But the gains there are fragile, and severe problems continue in other parts of the world, such as aggressive forest clearing in Indonesia.

Scores of companies and organizations, including major manufacturers of consumer products, signed a declaration in New York in 2014 pledging to cut deforestation in half by 2020, and to cut it out completely by 2030. The companies that signed the pact are now struggling to figure out how to deliver on that promise.

Many forest experts at the Paris climate talks in late 2015 considered the pledge as ambitious, but possible. And they said it was crucial that consumers keep up the pressure on companies from whom they buy products, from soap to ice cream.

15. 15. Will the seas rise evenly across the planet?

Many people imagine the ocean to be like a bathtub, where the water level is consistent all the way around. In fact, the sea is rather lumpy - strong winds and other factors can cause water to pile up in some spots, and to be lower in others.

Also, the huge ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica exert a gravitational pull on the sea, drawing water toward them. As they melt, sea levels in their vicinity will fall as the water gets redistributed to distant areas.

How the rising ocean affects particular parts of the world will therefore depend on which ice sheet melts fastest, how winds and currents shift, and other related factors. On top of all that, some coastal areas are sinking as the sea rises, so they get a double whammy.

16. 16. Is it really all about carbon?

Here's a quick explainer.

The greenhouse gases being released by human activity are often called "carbon emissions," just for shorthand. That is because the two most important of the gases, carbon dioxide and methane, contain carbon. Many other gases also trap heat near the Earth's surface, and many human activities cause the release of such gases to the atmosphere. Not all of these actually contain carbon, but they have all come to be referred to by the same shorthand.

By far the biggest factor causing global warming is the burning of fossil fuels for electricity and transportation. That process takes carbon that has been underground for millions of years and moves it into the atmosphere, as carbon dioxide, where it will influence the climate for many centuries into the future. Methane is even more potent at trapping heat than carbon dioxide, but it breaks down more quickly in the air. Methane comes from swamps, from the decay of food in landfills, from cattle and dairy farming, and from leaks from natural gas wells and pipelines.

While fossil-fuel emissions are the major issue, another major creator of emissions is the destruction of forests, particularly in the tropics. Billions of tons of carbon are stored in trees, and when forests are cleared, much of the vegetation is burned, sending that carbon into the air as carbon dioxide.

When you hear about carbon taxes, carbon trading and so on, these are just shorthand descriptions of methods designed to limit greenhouse emissions or to make them more expensive so that people will be encouraged to conserve fuel.

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united nations framework convention on climate change

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Short Answers to Hard Questions About Climate Change

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The issue can be overwhelming. The science is complicated. Predictions about the fate of the planet carry endless caveats and asterisks. We get it. So we've put together a list of quick answers to often-asked questions about climate change. This should give you a running start on understanding the problem.

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Climate Change: Vital Signs of the Planet

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"Climate change" and "global warming" are often used interchangeably but have distinct meanings. Similarly, the terms "weather" and "climate" are sometimes confused, though they refer to events with broadly different spatial- and timescales.

Weather vs. climate

"If you don't like the weather in New England, just wait a few minutes."

Weather refers to atmospheric conditions that occur locally over short periods of time-from minutes to hours or days. Familiar examples include rain, snow, clouds, winds, floods or thunderstorms. Remember, weather is local and short-term.

Climate, on the other hand, refers to the long-term regional or even global average of temperature, humidity and rainfall patterns over seasons, years or decades. Remember, climate is global and long-term.

Global warming

Global warming refers to the upward temperature trend across the entire Earth since the early 20th century, and most notably since the late 1970s, due to the increase in fossil fuel emissions since the industrial revolution. Worldwide since 1880, the average surface temperature has gone up by about 0.8 °C (1.4 °F), relative to the mid-20th-century baseline (of 1951-1980).

Climate change

Climate change refers to a broad range of global phenomena created predominantly by burning fossil fuels, which add heat-trapping gases to Earth's atmosphere. These phenomena include the increased temperature trends described by global warming, but also encompass changes such as sea level rise; ice mass loss in Greenland, Antarctica, the Arctic and mountain glaciers worldwide; shifts in flower/plant blooming; and extreme weather events.
Shutterstock credits: wandee007 (left), Amy Johansson (middle), Avatar_023 (right).

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What's in a name? Weather, global warming and climate change

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"Climate change" and "global warming" are often used interchangeably but have distinct meanings. Similarly, the terms "weather" and "climate" are sometimes confused, though they refer to events with broadly different spatial- and timescales. "If you don't like the weather in New England, just wait a few minutes."

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Women, Men and Climate Change (Connections)

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Women, Men and Climate Change (Connections)

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2. Women identify with being feminine, the body, Earth, sexuality and flesh

Men identify with being masculine, spirit, mind and power.

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4. Women often bear the responsibility of feeding and caring for their children while maintaining a household.

Women are at higher risk of harm and even death due to climate change.

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3. Women and children are seen as being closest to nature yet, they are the most vulnerable to ecological destruction.

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1. Climate change directly impacts the ability of women to achieve their own human rights and increases gender inequalities.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EtsalyhQOjQ

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What was already a tense situation in Standing Rock, North Dakota - the scene of the #NoDAPL protest - grew worse Sunday night when police allegedly struck the protestors with water cannons in freezing temperatures. The official line from the Morton County Sheriff's Department, however, was that protestors had allegedly set fires, and thus needed to be extinguished, calling it an "an ongoing riot." On social media, Twitter users countered that the tear gas canisters set off by the police had in fact started them. Though it's difficult to affirm one account based on photographs alone, water cannon photos of the Dakota Access Pipeline protests in Standing Rock appear to support the protestors' version of events.

Footage from a drone is perhaps the clearest picture of what happened. In the footage, can see the water cannon aiming at protestors in addition to nearby fires, and at one point the water is aimed upwards, seemingly to bring down the drone. Standing Rock Sioux tribe member LaDonna Brave Bull Allard told The Guardian that the protestors "were [being] attacked with water cannons."

She continued, "It is 23 degrees out there with mace, rubber bullets, pepper spray, etc. They are being trapped and attacked. Pray for my people."

A spokeswoman for the Indigenous Environmental Network told The Guardian that 167 people were injured and seven were taken to the hospital.

The Militarized Police

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The Water Cannons

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Drone Footage

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The Protestors

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[Twitter Embed: https://twitter.com/viperpilot08/status/800603813140795392]

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The Scene

[Twitter Embed: https://twitter.com/NativeApprops/status/800536704218234880]

The police and protestors have come into more conflict since the onset of winter temperatures, BuzzFeed reported. The protestors have tried to improve their campsites to face the cold, angering local police. Friday Morton County Sheriff Kyle Kirchmeier told them to go home in a statement:

Protestors at the camps are erecting unlawful structures in an attempt to fortify for the coming winter weather, but their actions are both illegal and likely insufficient to protect them from the elements. We've seen that many of these protestors are not from North Dakota and may not be familiar with the harshness of our winters, and we urge them to leave the camps and seek appropriate shelter for their own health and safety.

Plus when you combine the elements with water cannons, hypothermia is even more of an issue. In a video posted to Twitter, a Standing Rock EMT said in addition to treating wounds from rubber bullets, the medical team's main focus was finding ways to keep people warm. If you would like to support the protests, consider giving a donation.

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These Scary Photos Of Dakota Access Pipeline Protests Reveal How Bleak The Situation Has Become

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What was already a tense situation in Standing Rock, North Dakota - the scene of the #NoDAPL protest - grew worse Sunday night when police allegedly struck the protestors with water cannons in freezing temperatures. The official line from the Morton

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the sacred land at the heart of dakota pipeline fight - cnn.com

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Story by Jessica Ravitz, CNN
Video by Sara Sidner and Matthew Gannon, CNN

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The sacred land at the center of the Dakota pipeline fight

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Corporate greed and potential environmental disaster are arguments against the Dakota Access Pipeline. But a big issue for the Standing Rock Sioux and other Native Americans is the threat to sacred land.

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Over the weekend, the US Army Corps of Engineers finally delivered some good news to the thousands of protesters camped out at the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation: Construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline would be halted.

The proposed pipeline would have carried crude oil underneath Lake Oahe, a dammed-up part of Missouri River and the main water source for the reservation. The Sioux tribe has repeatedly expressed concerns that the pipeline could lead to contamination of their water supply and threaten its water and treaty rights.

After months of the stand-off involving protesters (who call themselves Water Protectors) and police, the Army Corps announced on Sunday that it would not grant permission for Dakota Access LLC (DPL) to drill under the river. In a statement, it said that it would instead "explore alternate routes for the pipeline crossing."

For the thousands of protesters-comprising of members of the Sioux Tribe, indigenous people from across America, non-indigenous allies, and veterans-camped out at the Standing Rock Indian Reservation, the news came as welcome relief in the biting cold. It was the culmination of an intense struggle that involved shocking levels of police brutality.
Read more: How 'Porn's New King' Allegedly Swindled a Native American Tribe Out of Millions

Photographer Celine Guiout photographed and interviewed the women of Standing Rock a week before the Water Protectors were told that their months-long test of endurance and activism had paid off. "Women are definitely a driving force in this massive gathering," she tells Broadly. "All the women I had the chance to meet throughout my stay were incredibly optimistic about the outcome and peaceful resolution of the current situation. These women were completely unmovable in their faith."

Beatrice Menasekwe Jackson from the Tsimshian tribe in Ketchikan, Alaska, now living in Michigan

We are here because as women, we are caretakers of the water and caretakers of the earth. We want the Earth to be in good condition so the water that goes through our bodies helps our children to be healthy and grow up strong in mind, body, and spirit. We want them to have the balance that they need here in creation, so they won't be torn apart by political parties by color, race, or gender. We're going to make a more beautiful world for them.

I'm here also because my children can't be here. I'm going to go home and tell them everything I've seen, so that when my time of not-travelling comes they will be able to go out and do that for me. Even though I'm a great grandmother, I took my own pension [from being a] retired teacher and made the journey. It's all worth it, being here and sharing with the women our songs and the water prayers.

Bibi, from the Juaneño tribe in San Juan Capistrano, California

Why am I here? Oh my gosh, it starts way back when I was a little girl-it was born in me. You can't take what's in you away, and that's your spirit, [knowing] your ancestors and your families have suffered enough. I have suffered enough. Natives are not going to take it anymore because you can't take from us no more. You take away our land, you take away our pride, you try to take away everything. They have stripped us of everything, [but] not no more. We're here till the end, and I have hope that we're going to beat this. Ever since I was a little girl I knew I had a big important purpose in life and when it came time for this I knew it was it. Ever since I've been here there hasn't been [anything] but good things happening. Miracles are happening at Standing Rock, and it's not going to stop.

Cortney Collia from Kalamazoo, Michigan

For my personal experience in Kalamazoo, we've had the largest inland oil spill in the United States. It was years ago, in 2010, and that water still isn't clean. They said they cleaned [it], but I work right along that river teaching kids and they aren't allowed to go into the water anymore. If they do, they end up with a rash, and you can see a sheen on the surface still-the grass is dying and so are the trees. I work at a nature center and for education purposes I take the kids canoeing down the river, [but] I can't let them splash around or swim like kids should in water. We are trying to teach them about the importance of taking care of nature and resources. Our bodies are 70 percent made of water and it keeps us alive, and having warnings [telling kids] not to touch the water is heartbreaking. I can't let that happen to anybody else. So I made my journey here multiple times, to make sure it doesn't happen again.

Vanessa Castle and her horse, Medicine Hat, from the Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe in Port Angeles, Washington

I got here over a month ago-drove out here for nine hours by myself. I came out here for mine and the future generations; to protect the water and also to stand up for the rights of our tribes. As indigenous peoples, we are constantly battling with prejudice and injustice, and as a woman without any children in my family it was my turn to come and stand for what we believe in. I'm here to protect the resources that we have rights to.

Melaine Stoneman, from the Sicangu Lakota (Burnt Thigh Nation) tribe in Pine Ridge Reservation, South Dakota

I have been here since day one. I run the women's group that we have here, and my main point is to provide the women, children, and elderly [with] safety as an essential part here at Oceti Sakowin [Camp]. One of our great emphases now is to create all unity between all indigenous and non-indigenous women, and to unify in prayer to help stop the pipeline.

Faith Spotted Eagle and her daughter, Brook, from the Yankton Sioux (Ihanktonwan Dakota Oyate) tribe in Yanktown Reservation, South Dakota

Faith Spotted Eagle: I've been here on and off since April. I grew up along the river, I always jokingly say, "This is my river, so I'm sharing it with you." The river has so much to teach and it has its own spirit and so we've been drawn to that spirit of the river water. I think that all of us had this dreams of doing what we can and we've been called to it in our lifetime, so the river and the land are helping us fulfill those dreams.

It really is bigger than us; it's not even about us sometimes, it's about my grandson's grandchildren's grandchildren-that's what it comes down to. It's so marvelous to watch him, because I think that's my DNA, my blood, and that's going to live on for generations. And it has to, because if we don't stop all the oil industries and the climate change that's going on... I can't even imagine my grandchildren not being protected. So that's why I'm here.

Brook: As indigenous people, we're always thinking forward [to the next] seventh generation. The way that we understand it is that we protect our people-we're indigenous, we're tribal-and part of that indigeneity is that our relatives are not just human. They are also non-human. These are our rivers that have a spirit and are part of our nation, and our original mother that we all belong to. So I'm part of a women's society. My role as a women in a women's society I'm here to support in any way that I can with my elders. They are the original freedom fighters and they've always been freedom fighters, so right now we're in training. We're also fighting alongside them, so I'm here in service of my people.

Courtney and Amber McCornack, from Albert Lea, Minnesota

Courtney McCornack: We've been back and forth for months. I brought my daughter here and we have been building teepees with other women and donating them to the people that need them. I want her to stay connected to her intuitive side, which is what the Native American communities have been doing since the beginning. The sense of community here is truly amazing-true respect for each other and the most powerful prayers I have heard in my entire life from sundown to sunrise.

Urtema Dolphin, from London

I've arrived a couple of days ago from London-I arrived in the storm. I came because I've been following this issue for many months, and become more and more involved watching videos on social media. I just felt that I had to be here, and so I'm representing lots of people from all over the world. I'm bringing their prayers with me [and] spiritually they are all travelling with me. So here I am, ready to help.

Anonymous aunt and her niece, with tribal affiliations from the Desert Southwest, Apache, and Mexican tribes

We are here because Native people have been fighting for sovereignty on this land for over 500 years. This is a monumental event; unprecedented. We want to show corporate America that many people are not supportive of mineral extractions and we're all about clean water and being healthy people. The only way to maintain that is standing up for what's right. We have the kind of technologies to be able to have cleaner energy sources but that power is being held by the leaders and the privileged, so the rest of us get screwed in the end.

We are here to change that and support the people. It's not only for our kids, but it's also for the future generations. Even for the cops at the bridge, the water in me recognizes the water in them. Even if we're on opposing sides, we still have the same communality which is our bodies are made of water. So I'm just going to keep praying and appealing to that.

Tosha Luger from the Hunkpapa tribe of the Seven Council Fires of the Lakota Sioux in Standing Rock

I was born and raised in these lands. I lost my husband and my father a year ago, very close to each other, and I was broken. I live on a ranch just south of here and I would go down to the river every day. It healed me-really, truly healed me. Being here is a very humbling experience and we must remain focused. This river goes all the way out to the Missouri River and all the way down to the ocean. That's what we are protecting.

I was crushed when that girl's arm got blown off... I myself ended up with a concussion, got tear-gassed and maced and stood in the freezing cold whilst they were spraying us with water cannons. They are telling us to go home, but they don't understand that we are already home.

In order to change things, we must remain in prayer and peace. I feel so honored for all these people who have heard our prayers and have joined us in this, and I hope they will bring our healing and teachings back to where they are from and start changing the world, empower Mother Earth, and be more compassionate, kind, and empathetic.

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'Miracles Are Happening': Photos of the Tireless Women of Standing Rock

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Over the weekend, the US Army Corps of Engineers finally delivered some good news to the thousands of protesters camped out at the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation: Construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline would be halted. The proposed pipeline would have carried crude oil underneath Lake Oahe, a dammed-up part of Missouri River and the main water source for the reservation.

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If you control agriculture, you control the populations of the world

The Gates Foundation's ties with Monsanto and corporate agriculture in general speak volumes about its real agenda, which is to create a monopolistic system of world control in every area of human life. Vaccines, pharmaceuticals, GMOs, reproductive control, weather manipulation, global warming -- these and many other points of entry are the means by which the Gates Foundation is making great strides to control the world by pretending to help improve and save it.

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(NaturalNews) After it was exposed that the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the philanthropic brainchild of Microsoft founder Bill Gates, purchased 500,000 shares in Monsanto back in 2010 valued at more than $23 million, it became abundantly clear that this so-called benevolent charity is up to something other than eradicating disease and feeding the world's poor ( http://www.guardian.co.uk). It turns out that the Gates family legacy has long been one of trying to dominate and control the world's systems, including in the areas of technology, medicine, and now agriculture.

The Gates Foundation, aka the tax-exempt Gates Family Trust, is currently in the process of spending billions of dollars in the name of humanitarianism to establish a global food monopoly dominated by genetically-modified (GM) crops and seeds. And based on the Gates family's history of involvement in world affairs, it appears that one of its main goals besides simply establishing corporate control of the world's food supply is to reduce the world's population by a significant amount in the process.

Bill Gates' father, William H. Gates Sr., has long been involved with the eugenics group Planned Parenthood, a rebranded organization birthed out of the American Eugenics Society. In a 2003 interview with PBS' Bill Moyers, Bill Gates admitted that his father used to be the head of Planned Parenthood, which was founded on the concept that most human beings are just "reckless breeders" and "human weeds" in need of culling ( http://www.pbs.org/now/transcript/transcript_gates.html).

Gates also admitted during the interview that his family's involvement in reproductive issues throughout the years has been extensive, referencing his own prior adherence to the beliefs of eugenicist Thomas Robert Malthus, who believed that populations of the world need to be controlled through reproductive restrictions. Though Gates claims he now holds a different view, it appears as though his foundation's initiatives are just a modified Malthusian approach that much more discreetly reduces populations through vaccines and GMOs ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Robert_Malthus).

William Gates Sr.'s association with Planned Parenthood and continued influence in the realm of "population and reproductive health" is significant because Gates Sr. is co-chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation ( http://www.gatesfoundation.org/leadership/Pages/william-gates-sr.aspx). This long-time eugenicist "guides the vision and strategic direction" of the Gates Foundation, which is currently heavily focused on forcing GMOs on Africa via its financing of the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA).

The Gates Foundation has admittedly given at least $264.5 million in grant commitments to AGRA ( www.gatesfoundation.org/about/Documents/BMGFFactSheet.pdf), and also reportedly hired Dr. Robert Horsch, a former Monsanto executive for 25 years who developed Roundup, to head up AGRA back in 2006. According to a report published in La Via Campesina back in 2010, 70 percent of AGRA's grantees in Kenya work directly with Monsanto, and nearly 80 percent of the Gates Foundation funding is devoted to biotechnology ( http://www.organicconsumers.org/articles/article_21606.cfm).

The same report explains that the Gates Foundation pledged $880 million in April 2010 to create the Global Agriculture and Food Security Program (GAFSP), which is a heavy promoter of GMOs. GAFSP, of course, was responsible for providing $35 million in "aid" to earthquake-shattered Haiti to be used for implementing GMO agricultural systems and technologies.

Back in 2003, the Gates Foundation invested $25 million in "GM (genetically modified) research to develop vitamin and protein-enriched seeds for the world's poor," a move that many international charities and farmers groups vehemently opposed ( http://healthfreedoms.org). And in 2008, the Gates Foundation awarded $26.8 million to Cornell University to research GM wheat, which is the next major food crop in the crosshairs of Monsanto's GM food crop pipeline ( http://www.organicconsumers.org/articles/article_21606.cfm).

The Gates Foundation's ties with Monsanto and corporate agriculture in general speak volumes about its real agenda, which is to create a monopolistic system of world control in every area of human life. Vaccines, pharmaceuticals, GMOs, reproductive control, weather manipulation, global warming -- these and many other points of entry are the means by which the Gates Foundation is making great strides to control the world by pretending to help improve and save it.

Rather than promote real food sovereignty and address the underlying political and economic issues that breed poverty, Gates and Co. has instead embraced the promotion of corporately-owned and controlled agriculture and medicine paradigms that will only further enslave the world's most impoverished. It is abundantly evident that GMOs have ravished already-impoverished people groups by destroying their native agricultural systems, as has been seen in India ( http://www.naturalnews.com/030913_Monsanto_suicides.html).

Some may say Gates' endeavors are all about the money, while others may say they are about power and control. Perhaps it is a combination of both, where Gates is still in the business of promoting his own commercial investments, which includes buying shares in while simultaneously investing in programs to promote Monsanto.

Whatever the case may be, there is simply no denying that Gates now has a direct interest in seeing Monsanto succeed in spreading GMOs around the world. And since Gates is openly facilitating Monsanto's growth into new markets through his "humanitarian" efforts, it is clear that the Gates family is in bed with Monsanto.

"Although Bill Gates might try to say that the Foundation is not linked to his business, all it proves is the opposite: most of their donations end up favoring the commercial investments of the tycoon, not really "donating" anything, but instead of paying taxes to state coffers, he invests his profits in where it is favorable to him economically, including propaganda from their supposed good intentions," wrote Silvia Ribeiro in the Mexican news source La Jornada back in 2010.

"On the contrary, their 'donations' finance projects as destructive as geoengineering or replacement of natural community medicines for high-tech patented medicines in the poorest areas of the world ... Gates is also engaged in trying to destroy rural farming worldwide, mainly through the 'Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa' (AGRA). It works as a Trojan horse to deprive poor African farmers of their traditional seeds, replacing them with the seeds of their companies first, finally by genetically modified (GM)."
Sources for this article include: http://www.guardian.co.uk http://www.seattleglobaljustice.org http://english.pravda.ru http://www.organicconsumers.org/articles/article_21606.cfm http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Eugenics_Society
http://www.naturalnews.com/033148_seed_companies_Monsanto.html

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Bill Gates, Monsanto, and eugenics: How one of the world's wealthiest men is actively promoting a corporate takeover of global agriculture

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(NaturalNews) After it was exposed that the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the philanthropic brainchild of Microsoft founder Bill Gates, purchased 500,000 shares in Monsanto back in 2010 valued at more than $23 million, it became abundantly clear that this so-called benevolent charity is up to something other than eradicating disease and feeding the world's poor ( http://www.guardian.co.uk).

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Anthony Gucciardi
Infowars.com
Feb 12, 2013

Bill Gates is primarily known as the multi-billionaire who Microsoft, the company behind the most popular computer operating system known as Windows. With this massive wealth, he has retired from leading Microsoft and now instead focuses his money and time on furthering genetically modified technology, geoengineering, experimental vaccinations, and preaching about how Monsanto is the answer to world hunger.

It should come as no surprise, then, that Gates owns 500,000 shares worth 23 million US dollars (or more) of Monsanto stock. The very same company that has been caught running slave rings in Argentina in which workers were forced to work 14+ hours a day while withholding payment, has used their massive finances to fund organizations that literally fake FDA quotes to support GMOs, and of course peddling through GMOs that have been linked to numerous health concerns.

This is not even taking into account the farmer suicides that occur around every 30 minutes due to Monsanto's failing GMO crop yield bankrupting small-time farmers in India's notorious ' suicide belt '.
Bill Gates Funding Corporations Caught in Child Slave Rings
And if that's not enough, The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has even teamed up with Cargill to pump GMO soy into the third world. Cargill, of course, is the the 133 billion dollar corporation that also has been found in direct violation of human rights laws. Cargill was sued by the International Labor Rights Fund for trafficking children from Mali and forcing them to work on cocoa bean plantations for around 12 to 14 hours each day without pay, food, or sleep. The company even continues to purchase cotton from Uzbekistan, where it is well known that child slave labor is used in the cultivation.

Bill Gates himself even filmed commercials for Monsanto's GMOs, propping them up as the 'solution' to world hunger despite even the United Nations admitting that GMOs cannot fight hunger as effectively as traditional farming. Headed by an entity known as the International Assessment of Agricultural Knowledge, Science and Technology for Development ( IAASTD), a team of 900 scientists and researchers studied the issue of world hunger. The results of the major study were very simple: 900 scientists agreed that GMO crops were not the answer to the world hunger, and revealed this in 2008 - long before Bill Gates began claiming that GMOs were the answer while ignoring this readily available information.

Even the Union of Concerned Scientists examined the true yield of GMO crops, only to find that the GM crops do not produce increased yields over the long run - despite their excessive cost and extreme danger to health and environment. The lack of scientific support behind the GMO crops was so startling to the Union that they documented all the details in a 2009 report entitled "Failure to Yield."

Watchdog groups have criticized Gates' support of these corporations after finding out about his massive funding. One such group, a part of the Community Alliance for Global Justice, stated:

"Monsanto has a history of blatant disregard for the interests and well being of small farmers around the world... [This] casts serious doubt on the foundation's heavy funding of agricultural development in Africa..."

So why is Bill Gates, a man who is propped up by the media as an angel of philanthropy, pumping millions (if not billions) into these operations? And why is he claiming that GMOs can fight world hunger when we know this is not true due to decreased yields and other problems?
I Asked Bill Gates Why
In a unique opportunity to ask Bill Gates himself why he has purchased 500,000 shares of Monsanto behind the scenes (expelled into the news thanks to tax information) and teamed up with Cargill to expand GMOs worldwide, myself and several others asked him ourselves.

Yesterday Gates opened himself up to questions from online users via the social sharing site Reddit, in which he posted an open interview of sorts known as an 'Ask me Anything' post. This is essentially an invitation for questions that the subject will answer via text. While I had a large number of questions for Gates, such as if he actually eats GMOs himself, I simply asked him:

"Why did you buy 500,000 shares of Monsanto stock?"

Unsurprisingly, the comment received a large degree of feedback. Users asked Gates to please respond to the question, and several others posed similar variations to Gates that all went unanswered (as to be expected). Some quotes from users in response to my question included:

User Lawfairy replied: "I wish he'd answered this one - to me, this is one of the most curious things about Mr. Gates, whom I otherwise respect as one of the foremost humanists of our generation... Mr. Gates' relationship with Monsanto is, in my mind, simultaneously the most morally troubling thing about Mr. Gates"

Another user posted (with links intact): "Would you be willing to take some time to give us some insight with your investments in Monsanto? Despite having the headlines of "ending world hunger", this company has done some despicable things in the past 100 years and I don't believe they have the public's best interest in mind. Having a single company or entity trying to "control", "manipulate" or "own" the world's food supply, in my opinion, is not the way to end world hunger."

Another user answered with: "Because he is supporting the Bilderberg group!"

None of these received a response nor did the many others I could not include in this article. The answer, it seems, is to bring this topic to the mainstream. The very same mainstream that seems to think Bill Gates is some sort of philanthropic super star that can do no evil. I am opposed to all wrongdoing at every level, and I find it absolutely disturbing that someone funding the GMO agenda and slave-labor-linked companies has been met with applause.

This post originally appeared at Natural Society

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Bill Gates Dodges Questions on Why He Owns 500,000 Shares of Monsanto " Alex Jones' Infowars: There's a war on for your mind!

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Anthony Gucciardi Infowars.com Feb 12, 2013 Bill Gates is primarily known as the multi-billionaire who Microsoft, the company behind the most popular computer operating system known as Windows. With this massive wealth, he has retired from leading Microsoft and now instead focuses his money and time on furthering genetically modified technology, geoengineering, experimental vaccinations, and preaching about how Monsanto is the answer to world hunger.

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The Standing Rock Sioux tribe has opposed the Dakota Access Pipeline since first learning about plans for the pipeline in 2014. But it's only been in recent months that the issue has gained national attention, as thousands of protesters-including many Native Americans-have gathered in North Dakota in attempt to block the 1,200-mile project. And, with both supporters and opponents vowing to fight through the harsh North Dakota winter, the battle shows no signs of ending anytime soon.

Here's what you need to know:
What is the Dakota Access Pipeline?
The pipeline is to be built by Texas-based Energy Transfer Partners and is designed to transport as many as 570,000 barrels of crude oil daily from North Dakota to Illinois. The pipeline would be a key conduit connecting oil wells in the state's Bakken Shale, where the development of fracking has opened billions of gallons of new oil to recovery, to other valuable consumer markets, including the Gulf Coast, Midwest and East Coast. The nearly $4 billion project was first proposed in 2014 with an anticipated completion of this year.

Construction of the Dakota Access oil pipeline continues near St. Anthony, an unincorporated community in Morton County, N.D., Oct. 8, 2016. Kristina Barker-The New York Times/Redux

Why are the Sioux and others protesting the project?
The pipeline has united a number of different interest groups with a variety of objections, but Native Americans have been at the center of the opposition. The pipeline would travel underneath the Missouri River, the primary drinking water source for the Standing Rock Sioux, a tribe of around 10,000 with a reservation in the central part of North and South Dakota. Builders of the pipeline insist that they have taken extraordinary measures to safeguard against disaster, but opponents point out that even the safest pipelines can leak. The Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA) has reported more than 3,300 incidents of leaks and ruptures at oil and gas pipelines since 2010. And even the smallest spill could damage the tribe's water supply. The Standing Rock Sioux also argue that the pipeline traverses a sacred burial ground. And while the land being used for the pipeline is not technically on its reservation, tribal leaders argue that the federal government did not adequately engage the Standing Rock Sioux during the permitting process-a requirement under federal law.

More broadly, environmental activists say the pipeline would contribute man-made climate change by building up the country's oil infrastructure. They insist that fossil fuels-including the vast reserves in the Bakken Shale-need to be kept in the ground to protect the world from the worst effects of climate change. Proponents of the pipeline argue that oil producers would likely ship the oil by rail line if construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline was halted, as much of the oil produced in North Dakota already is-and argument that was also used in favor of the now canceled Keystone XL pipeline.

Native American veterans carry U.S. and tribal flags before entering the "Rocking the Rez" Pow Wow on Oct. 1, 2016 in Ysleta del Sur Pueblo, Texas, expressing support for protesters that have blocked construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline. John Moore-Getty Images

Read More: Shailene Woodley: The Truth About My Arrest
How have opponents and supporters responded?
Opponents of the project have responded with both protests and litigation in an attempt to slow-and eventually stop-the pipeline. The protests began months ago with a core group of attendees, and have heated up recently as the issue gained more attention. There are now thousands of people at the construction site or in a nearby encampment, according to the tribe. Protesters have set up teepee and tent camps on land owned by Energy Transfer Partners to slow the progress of construction and have threatened to block the highway. More recently, celebrities and public figures like actor Shailene Woodley, actor Mark Ruffalo and civil rights activist Jesse Jackson have traveled to North Dakota in solidarity with the Standing Rock Sioux. The most dedicated protesters say they will remain through winter, even though the average low temperature in North Dakota reaches nearly 0 F (-17.8 C) in those months.

The tribe has also sued the Army Corps of Engineers, which permitted the project, alleging that the agency violated the National Historic Preservation Act (NHPA) and the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). NHPA requires the agency to consider the cultural significance of federally-permitted sites and NEPA to consider the implications for the waterways. The litigation is ongoing though a court rejected an argument that construction should be halted while the case winds through the courts.

Supporters of the pipeline-which include state and local government leaders -have showed little interest in accommodating the project's critics, particularly the protesters on the ground. North Dakota Governor Jack Dalrymple has called in the National Guard as well as an army of other police officials. More than 140 people were arrested this week, even as construction on the pipeline has continued.

Protesters and tribal leadershave accusedofficials of unnecessarily rough treatment. Police have used pepper spray, rubber bullets and concussion cannons, among other tactics, according to the tribe. Amy Goodman, a journalist with the Democracy Now! program, was arrested while covering the protest for allegedly trespassing. Footage she captured showed police officers allowing their dogs to charge protesters.

Protesters of the Dakota Access pipeline encampment sits Wednesday, Oct. 26, 2016, on private property near Cannon Ball, N.D., owned by the pipeline developer, Texas-based Energy Transfer Partners. James MacPherson-AP

Read More: Does President Obama Want to Keep Fossil Fuels in the Ground?
How has the federal government responded?
The Obama administration-including the Army Corps of Engineers, the Department of Justice and the Department of Interior- temporarily blocked construction on the project in September in hopes of conducting a review, but a federal court intervened to allow the project to proceed. President Obama has taken no additional steps and has said nothing officially about the pipeline, but has come to the defense of protesters, saying "you're making your voices heard" at a White House event for tribal leaders.
What do the presidential candidates say?
The federal government has authority over the project's permits and the next Administration would have the power to cancel the project-or at least revoke its permits after further assessment. Hillary Clinton declined to take a firm stance calling for both sides to "find a path forward that serves the broadest public interest." Donald Trump-who owns stock in Energy Transfer Partners-has called for the removal of regulations on the oil and gas industry but has not commented specifically on the pipeline.
Is the Dakota Access Pipeline the next Keystone XL?
The Dakota Access Pipeline has drawn parallels to the Keystone XL pipeline. Opposition to that project, which Obama eventually rejected, became a litmus test in the eyes of some activists for public officials to show their commitment to addressing environmental issues. But at the same time significant differences remain. Perhaps most importantly, Keystone crossed into Canada, making it an international issue that gave authority over its final approval to the State Department. The federal government has the authority over the Dakota Access Pipeline because it crosses interstate waterways. Stopping the project would be heavier lift for any administration.

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What to Know About the Dakota Access Pipeline Protests

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The Standing Rock Sioux tribe has opposed the Dakota Access Pipeline since first learning about plans for the pipeline in 2014. But it's only been in recent months that the issue has gained national attention, as thousands of protesters-including many Native Americans-have gathered in North Dakota in attempt to block the 1,200-mile project.

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Ome Tlaloc walked through the North Dakota hills with a flashlight and a walkie-talkie, scouting for police in the prairie dark. Earlier that evening, I'd met the 30-year-old on Highway 1806, where he'd been sitting behind a makeshift barricade. Now he was doing reconnaissance. The Morton County Sheriff's Department and the National Guard, stationed ahead of us on the road, were planning to raid the camp where Tlaloc and hundreds of other protesters had been living for the past week. The barricade was meant to stop the cops, or at least to slow them down. As he walked, Tlaloc listened to his radio for the code words that would signal when he and his comrades were to spring into action: "Eagle's Claw."

The Standing Rock Sioux reservation sits in the Dakota Prairie Grasslands, an endless sweep of elephantine hills once home to millions of members of the Lakota Nation. Today, it's inhabited by fewer than 9,000 of their surviving descendants, and one of the few places in America where buffalo roam wild. In late July, the Dallas-based Energy Transfer Partners informed the Standing Rock Sioux that in five days its subsidiary would begin construction on a section of the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) next to the reservation. After that, members of more than 200 Native American tribes and their allies gathered to block what would be America's longest crude oil pipeline. Their encampments of teepees, tents, and RVs were mostly ignored by the media until private security guards set dogs on protesters and a few journalists were arrested, sparking a national conversation about tribal sovereignty, environmental racism, and police brutality.

The October night I met Tlaloc, the stakes in the #NoDAPL movement were as high as they'd ever been. If the " water protectors," as the protesters called themselves, were cleared out, the pipeline would continue east under the Missouri River, coming within 1,500 feet of Lake Oahe, the Standing Rock Sioux's water supply. A leak or spill, activists believed, would poison the drinking water of as many as 10 million people, nearly all of them on Native American reservations. The protesters' goal was to block construction until March 2017, when Dakota Access would have to reapply for a federal construction permit - a delay that might make the project financially unfeasible. If the protesters were removed before then, Dakota Access would complete the 1,172-mile pipeline that would transport up to 570,000 barrels of crude a day. (On Dec. 4, the Army Corps of Engineers announced that it would not approve a permit for the pipeline to run beneath Lake Oahe.)

Tlaloc stopped at the top of a ridge. Off in the distance was the trench holding the lengths of 30-inch metal pipe. "An old Sioux prophecy says that a black snake will come to destroy the world at a moment of great uncertainty," he said. "Unless the youth stop it."

Back at the barricade, men in camo fatigues sipped cowboy coffee and waited. Pup tents formed a circle around a pit fire. "They've killed us before," said Harry Beauchamp, a 63-year-old Assiniboine from Montana. Resting his cowboy boots on a soup pot, he told us about his participation in the 1973 standoff between members of the American Indian Movement and law enforcement agents in South Dakota that ended in the deaths of two Native American activists. A few weeks earlier, he'd been attacked by a dog brought in by a pipeline security contractor. His future son-in-law, he said, was bringing him a rifle. "I'm not going to let this be another Wounded Knee," he said.

The next day, a pale sun burned through the morning haze, backlighting 200 sheriff's deputies and National Guardsmen in full riot gear. Behind them were an armored personnel carrier, a land-mine-resistant truck, and the pipeline's private security force - overseen by TigerSwan, a North Carolina firm that's done work for the U.S. government in Afghanistan and Iraq. "This is a state highway," a police commander said into a loudspeaker. "You must clear the road."

On Aug. 19, North Dakota Gov. Jack Dalrymple, who served as an adviser to Donald Trump's presidential campaign, had declared a state of emergency, and the National Guard mobilized three weeks later. On Sept. 3, security contractors turned dogs on the protesters. Not long afterward, Standing Rock Sioux tribal Chair Dave Archambault II asked the Justice Department to investigate civil rights violations against activists. "This country has a long and sad history of using military force against indigenous people - including the Sioux Nation," he wrote. "[W]hen I see the militarization taking place in North Dakota against Indian people, I am genuinely concerned."

Over the next 12 hours, I watched as grandmothers with red feathers in their hair, Oglala elders in ceremonial regalia, and teens astride horses were teargassed, tased, and arrested. Cops fired rubber bullets at protesters and blasted them with earsplitting whines from Long Range Acoustic Devices. As the police marched down the highway, the crowd, echoing Black Lives Matter protesters, held their arms in the air and shouted, "Hands up, don't shoot!"

Native Americans are more likely to be killed by police than members of any other group, even African Americans. More than 1 in 4 Native people live in poverty. (The average individual income on the Standing Rock reservation is $4,421.) Native unemployment levels are nearly double those of the overall population; their youth suicide rate is the highest in the nation.

Many at Standing Rock saw the threat of environmental catastrophe as inextricable from racial injustice. An early proposal to route the Dakota Access Pipeline through Bismarck, 45 miles north of the reservation, was rejected by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers because of concerns that it could harm the municipal water supply. (Bismarck's population is 92 percent white.) "But it's okay if it poisons Natives' water, right?" said Chanse Adams-Zavalla, a 22-year-old who grew up on the Maidu reservation just north of Santa Barbara, California. He wore a camouflage backpack that had "Fuck Off" written on it and a matching camo cap that said "Smile More." In May 2015, the coastline near his reservation was ravaged by the rupture of an oil pipeline. "It's disgusting what happened to my people, bro, and we're still being treated that way," he said.

Young protesters with red bandannas over their faces dragged tree trunks onto the highway and set them on fire. A heavyset teen stood before the flaming barricade, his back to the police. "Stop lighting these barricades on fire, brothers!" he said. "I'm a member of the Standing Rock Sioux tribe." He paused and looked at his feet like he might cry. "After this, I have to live here."

"Sellout!" a young man in a balaclava shouted, hurling a tire onto the pyre. Someone else picked up the chant. "Sellout! Sellout!"

The scene underscored the conflicts within the anti-pipeline movement. Some activists, led in part by a group of protesters who lived in a compound called Red Warrior Camp, were committed to stopping the pipeline through direct action. While many Standing Rock Sioux were out on the front lines, Archambault was also lobbying Washington in hopes of a legal victory. In early November, Red Warrior Camp was asked to leave Standing Rock for promoting tactics that the tribal leadership thought were too extreme. There were also tensions between white-led environmental groups like 350.org, which focuses on climate change, and Native activists, who believe the larger issue is one of tribal sovereignty and the unfinished struggle for Native American rights. The protesters were spread among three encampments, including a largely Native camp and another filled with white activists that I heard described as the "Brooklyn" of Standing Rock.

Back at the barricades, Miles Allard, a Sioux man with a white mullet, rushed to the assistance of the teen who'd tried to calm the crowd. "The only way we're going to win this is by prayer," Allard said. "If we use violence, we will lose."

"I didn't come here to lose," Beauchamp said, dropping a bundle of kindling onto the pavement before walking off in anger. "And I didn't come here to fight my own brothers. I quit. I'm going home."

"Why do they want to kill us?" asked LaDonna Allard over breakfast at the Prairie Knights Casino and Resort, the area's largest employer. Allard, a Sioux woman, was hosting a protest camp on her land; she was accompanied by her husband, Miles, who had called for nonviolence at the barricades a few days earlier. The police had won those clashes, clearing the road and arresting 142 protesters, including the Allards' daughter, Prairie. (During a prior arrest, Allard said, her daughter was stripped naked, left in a cell overnight, and asked repeatedly, "Who's your mother?") Construction resumed on the pipeline, whose North Dakota section was roughly 95 percent complete.

Allard recalled the life of her great-great-grandmother, Nape Hote Win, who as a 9-year-old survived the 1863 Whitestone massacre, an attack by the U.S. Army 50 miles east of Standing Rock. She was held in a prisoner-of-war camp for seven years. That battle paved the way for the Standing Rock Sioux to be confined to their current reservation. Allard's father had to flee his land in 1948 after the government dammed the Missouri, flooding his farm. Her father and son were buried along the pipeline's path.

On Election Day, Energy Transfer Partners announced that it would defy a request from the Obama administration to postpone construction and would begin tunneling under Lake Oahe in two weeks. CEO Kelcy Warren had given more than $100,000 to support Trump, a stockholder. "Overall, I'm very, very enthusiastic about what's going to happen with our country," Warren told investors after the election. In mid-November, the Army Corps of Engineers stepped in and said it would not allow completion of the pipeline until there had been further review of its environmental impact. Reaffirming that decision in early December, the Corps said it would consider alternate routes for the pipeline. ETP attacked the decision as "the latest in a series of overt and transparent political actions by an administration which has abandoned the rule of law in favor of currying favor with a narrow and extreme political constituency."

"We're in a war," Allard said, beginning to cry. "How did this happen? I did nothing wrong. I have a right to say 'no.' I have a right to live in my own country, on my own land."

Later that night, I passed Beauchamp's tent, but it was empty. He had gone back to Montana, feeling bitter and defeated. Adams-Zavalla, however, was in great spirits. "This isn't the end of our movement," he said. "It's the beginning." Fifty horses had just arrived from the Oglala-Sioux reservation, as had 100 Native American youth runners who'd jogged from Arizona. That afternoon, the Seven Council Fires had been lit for the second time since 1862, a ceremony in which the seven branches of the Dakota Sioux demonstrated their unity. "When my grandkids ask me where I was during Standing Rock," Adams-Zavalla said, "I know what I'm going to tell them."

"Even if somehow, someway, they build this pipeline," he went on, "they've inadvertently sparked a whole generation of us indigenous folks and everyone who wants to stand with us to fight for Mother Earth. We're going to inherit this planet, bro, and everyone's welcome to inherit it with us if they want."

Around us, protesters were chopping wood, battening down tarps, and getting ready for the long Dakota winter. On a hill overlooking the camp, DAPL roughnecks labored away. The moment was uncertain, yet jubilant - each side racing toward the future it imagined.

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How Standing Rock sparked a national movement toward environmental justice

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Ome Tlaloc walked through the North Dakota hills with a flashlight and a walkie-talkie, scouting for police in the prairie dark. Earlier that evening, I'd met the 30-year-old on Highway 1806, where he'd been sitting behind a makeshift barricade. Now he was doing reconnaissance.

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#9

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How Monsanto's GMO Creations Caused 291,000 Suicides in India

Indian Farmers Facing Debt, Reliance on GMOs

It is no secret that Monsanto is making life difficult for countless farmers in America with its parented seeds. After all, the biotech giant has already filed 145 lawsuits (or on average about 9 lawsuits every year for 16 straight years) against farmers who have "improperly reused their patented seeds." But did you know that Monsanto is also leading hundreds of thousands of farmers to suicide?

Biotech has attempted to dismiss the rise in farmer suicides in India due to the introduction of genetically modified crops, but the problem is too pervasive to wipe under the rug. While there are numerous contributing factors to farmer suicides in India, debt is the largest concern that has been fueled by non-viable crops.

Biotech sells seeds that either don't grow or lead to the development of unstoppable superweeds and superbugs. Subsequently, biotech urges and nearly forces farmers to purchase RoundUp and other herbicidal chemicals which the farmers can ill afford. Thus, the mind-numbing cycle begins. Read this post for more in-depth information.

What's worse is that after a farmer commits suicide, the debt falls on the remaining family members. Monsanto, Dow, Bayer, and other suicide seed sellers have essentially created a generational slave economy based on their toxic chemical and seed monopolies.

According to figures outlining farmer suicide rates, 17,638 Indian farmers committed suicide in 2009 - about one death every 30 minutes. Oftentimes, the farmers would commit the act by drinking the very same insecticide that Monsanto supplied them with - a terrible end in which Monsanto has wrecked the lives of independent and traditional farmers.

Many families are now ruined thanks to the mass suicides, and are left to economic ruin and must struggle to fight off starvation:
Now, Monsanto has caused a massive 291,000 suicides in India with its GMOs, chemical creations, and shameless business practices.

'We are ruined now,' said one dead man's 38-year-old wife. 'We bought 100 grams of BT Cotton. Our crop failed twice. My husband had become depressed. He went out to his field, lay down in the cotton and swallowed insecticide.'

". . . the motivations for these suicides follow a familiar pattern: Farmers become trapped in a cycle of debt trying to make a living growing Monsanto's genetically engineered Bt cotton. They always live close to the edge, but one season's ruined crop can dash hopes of ever paying back their loans, much less enabling their families to get ahead. Manjusha's father, like many other suicide victims, killed himself by drinking the pesticide he spreads on his crops."

In the video below, Dr. Vandana Shiva talks about the current situation in India and how GMO's have affected farmers there. Dr. Shiva is an Indian environmental activist and anti-globalization author.

About Mike Barrett:

Mike is the co-founder, editor, and researcher behind Natural Society. Studying the work of top natural health activists, and writing special reports for top 10 alternative health websites, Mike has written hundreds of articles and pages on how to obtain optimum wellness through natural health.

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Monsanto Caused 291,000 Suicides in India

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Indian Farmers Facing Debt, Reliance on GMOs It is no secret that Monsanto is making life difficult for countless farmers in America with its parented seeds. After all, the biotech giant has already filed 145 lawsuits (or on average about 9 lawsuits every year for 16 straight years) against farmers who have "improperly reused their patented seeds."

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#4

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#5 http://drought.unl.edu/DroughtBasics/DustBowl/CopingandRecovering.aspx
Those who remained in the drought regions were forced to endure severe dust storms and their health effects, diminished incomes, animal infestations, and the physical and emotional stress over their uncertain futures. Humor helped; tales about birds flying backward to keep from getting sand in their eyes, housewives scouring pots and pans by holding them up to keyholes for a sandblasting, and children who had never seen rain were among the favorite stories of Dust Bowl inhabitants. In the end, it was a combination of willpower, stamina, humor, pride, and, above all, optimism that enabled many to survive the Dust Bowl. These qualities are succinctly expressed in the comments of one contemporary Kansan: “We have faith in the future. We are here to stay” (quoted in Hurt, 1981).

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#3 Viganello ... A world without sunlight...

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Viganella Avoids Sunless Months with Huge Mirror

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Viganella, a village in Italy, builds a giant mirror to combat 83 days of no sunlight. --On the Bonus Show: Chimps beat humans in memory test, Russian meteor explosion, arcade games dispense beer, more... If you liked this clip of The David Pakman Show, please do us a big favor and share it with your friends...

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#2 Viganello

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Winter light for an Italian village | DW Documentary

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Villages in Italy are not usually short of sunlight. But Viganella in Piedmont lies at the bottom of a deep valley. Deep winter means little sunshine. But a giant mirror is bringing more light back to the town square.

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#1

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10 Reasons Norway is the Greatest Place on Earth (HD)

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Visit our Website at: http://www.earthporm.com/ Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/EarthPornn Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/earthporndotus Google+: https://plus.google.com/+Earthporm 10 Reasons Norway is the Greatest Place on Earth 1. It's One of the Happiest Places on Earth Norway ranked second in a 2013 world happiness report conducted by the United Nations.

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#8
The Control of Nature

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Gary Rinehart clearly remembers the summer day in 2002 when the stranger walked in and issued his threat. Rinehart was behind the counter of the Square Deal, his "old-time country store," as he calls it, on the fading town square of Eagleville, Missouri, a tiny farm community 100 miles north of Kansas City.

The Square Deal is a fixture in Eagleville, a place where farmers and townspeople can go for lightbulbs, greeting cards, hunting gear, ice cream, aspirin, and dozens of other small items without having to drive to a big-box store in Bethany, the county seat, 15 miles down Interstate 35.

Everyone knows Rinehart, who was born and raised in the area and runs one of Eagleville's few surviving businesses. The stranger came up to the counter and asked for him by name.

"Well, that's me," said Rinehart.

As Rinehart would recall, the man began verbally attacking him, saying he had proof that Rinehart had planted Monsanto's genetically modified (G.M.) soybeans in violation of the company's patent. Better come clean and settle with Monsanto, Rinehart says the man told him-or face the consequences.

Rinehart was incredulous, listening to the words as puzzled customers and employees looked on. Like many others in rural America, Rinehart knew of Monsanto's fierce reputation for enforcing its patents and suing anyone who allegedly violated them. But Rinehart wasn't a farmer. He wasn't a seed dealer. He hadn't planted any seeds or sold any seeds. He owned a small-a really small-country store in a town of 350 people. He was angry that somebody could just barge into the store and embarrass him in front of everyone. "It made me and my business look bad," he says. Rinehart says he told the intruder, "You got the wrong guy."

When the stranger persisted, Rinehart showed him the door. On the way out the man kept making threats. Rinehart says he can't remember the exact words, but they were to the effect of: "Monsanto is big. You can't win. We will get you. You will pay."

Scenes like this are playing out in many parts of rural America these days as Monsanto goes after farmers, farmers' co-ops, seed dealers-anyone it suspects may have infringed its patents of genetically modified seeds. As interviews and reams of court documents reveal, Monsanto relies on a shadowy army of private investigators and agents in the American heartland to strike fear into farm country. They fan out into fields and farm towns, where they secretly videotape and photograph farmers, store owners, and co-ops; infiltrate community meetings; and gather information from informants about farming activities. Farmers say that some Monsanto agents pretend to be surveyors. Others confront farmers on their land and try to pressure them to sign papers giving Monsanto access to their private records. Farmers call them the "seed police" and use words such as "Gestapo" and "Mafia" to describe their tactics.

When asked about these practices, Monsanto declined to comment specifically, other than to say that the company is simply protecting its patents. "Monsanto spends more than $2 million a day in research to identify, test, develop and bring to market innovative new seeds and technologies that benefit farmers," Monsanto spokesman Darren Wallis wrote in an e-mailed letter to Vanity Fair. "One tool in protecting this investment is patenting our discoveries and, if necessary, legally defending those patents against those who might choose to infringe upon them." Wallis said that, while the vast majority of farmers and seed dealers follow the licensing agreements, "a tiny fraction" do not, and that Monsanto is obligated to those who do abide by its rules to enforce its patent rights on those who "reap the benefits of the technology without paying for its use." He said only a small number of cases ever go to trial.

Some compare Monsanto's hard-line approach to Microsoft's zealous efforts to protect its software from pirates. At least with Microsoft the buyer of a program can use it over and over again. But farmers who buy Monsanto's seeds can't even do that.

The Control of Nature

For centuries-millennia-farmers have saved seeds from season to season: they planted in the spring, harvested in the fall, then reclaimed and cleaned the seeds over the winter for re-planting the next spring. Monsanto has turned this ancient practice on its head.

Monsanto developed G.M. seeds that would resist its own herbicide, Roundup, offering farmers a convenient way to spray fields with weed killer without affecting crops. Monsanto then patented the seeds. For nearly all of its history the United States Patent and Trademark Office had refused to grant patents on seeds, viewing them as life-forms with too many variables to be patented. "It's not like describing a widget," says Joseph Mendelson III, the legal director of the Center for Food Safety, which has tracked Monsanto's activities in rural America for years.

Indeed not. But in 1980 the U.S. Supreme Court, in a five-to-four decision, turned seeds into widgets, laying the groundwork for a handful of corporations to begin taking control of the world's food supply. In its decision, the court extended patent law to cover "a live human-made microorganism." In this case, the organism wasn't even a seed. Rather, it was a Pseudomonas bacterium developed by a General Electric scientist to clean up oil spills. But the precedent was set, and Monsanto took advantage of it. Since the 1980s, Monsanto has become the world leader in genetic modification of seeds and has won 674 biotechnology patents, more than any other company, according to U.S. Department of Agriculture data.

Farmers who buy Monsanto's patented Roundup Ready seeds are required to sign an agreement promising not to save the seed produced after each harvest for re-planting, or to sell the seed to other farmers. This means that farmers must buy new seed every year. Those increased sales, coupled with ballooning sales of its Roundup weed killer, have been a bonanza for Monsanto.

This radical departure from age-old practice has created turmoil in farm country. Some farmers don't fully understand that they aren't supposed to save Monsanto's seeds for next year's planting. Others do, but ignore the stipulation rather than throw away a perfectly usable product. Still others say that they don't use Monsanto's genetically modified seeds, but seeds have been blown into their fields by wind or deposited by birds. It's certainly easy for G.M. seeds to get mixed in with traditional varieties when seeds are cleaned by commercial dealers for re-planting. The seeds look identical; only a laboratory analysis can show the difference. Even if a farmer doesn't buy G.M. seeds and doesn't want them on his land, it's a safe bet he'll get a visit from Monsanto's seed police if crops grown from G.M. seeds are discovered in his fields.

Most Americans know Monsanto because of what it sells to put on our lawns- the ubiquitous weed killer Roundup. What they may not know is that the company now profoundly influences-and one day may virtually control-what we put on our tables. For most of its history Monsanto was a chemical giant, producing some of the most toxic substances ever created, residues from which have left us with some of the most polluted sites on earth. Yet in a little more than a decade, the company has sought to shed its polluted past and morph into something much different and more far-reaching-an "agricultural company" dedicated to making the world "a better place for future generations." Still, more than one Web log claims to see similarities between Monsanto and the fictional company "U-North" in the movie Michael Clayton, an agribusiness giant accused in a multibillion-dollar lawsuit of selling an herbicide that causes cancer.

Monsanto brought false accusations against Gary Rinehart-shown here at his rural Missouri store. There has been no apology. Photographs by Kurt Markus.

Monsanto's genetically modified seeds have transformed the company and are radically altering global agriculture. So far, the company has produced G.M. seeds for soybeans, corn, canola, and cotton. Many more products have been developed or are in the pipeline, including seeds for sugar beets and alfalfa. The company is also seeking to extend its reach into milk production by marketing an artificial growth hormone for cows that increases their output, and it is taking aggressive steps to put those who don't want to use growth hormone at a commercial disadvantage.

Even as the company is pushing its G.M. agenda, Monsanto is buying up conventional-seed companies. In 2005, Monsanto paid $1.4 billion for Seminis, which controlled 40 percent of the U.S. market for lettuce, tomatoes, and other vegetable and fruit seeds. Two weeks later it announced the acquisition of the country's third-largest cottonseed company, Emergent Genetics, for $300 million. It's estimated that Monsanto seeds now account for 90 percent of the U.S. production of soybeans, which are used in food products beyond counting. Monsanto's acquisitions have fueled explosive growth, transforming the St. Louis-based corporation into the largest seed company in the world.

In Iraq, the groundwork has been laid to protect the patents of Monsanto and other G.M.-seed companies. One of L. Paul Bremer's last acts as head of the Coalition Provisional Authority was an order stipulating that "farmers shall be prohibited from re-using seeds of protected varieties." Monsanto has said that it has no interest in doing business in Iraq, but should the company change its mind, the American-style law is in place.

To be sure, more and more agricultural corporations and individual farmers are using Monsanto's G.M. seeds. As recently as 1980, no genetically modified crops were grown in the U.S. In 2007, the total was 142 million acres planted. Worldwide, the figure was 282 million acres. Many farmers believe that G.M. seeds increase crop yields and save money. Another reason for their attraction is convenience. By using Roundup Ready soybean seeds, a farmer can spend less time tending to his fields. With Monsanto seeds, a farmer plants his crop, then treats it later with Roundup to kill weeds. That takes the place of labor-intensive weed control and plowing.

Monsanto portrays its move into G.M. seeds as a giant leap for mankind. But out in the American countryside, Monsanto's no-holds-barred tactics have made it feared and loathed. Like it or not, farmers say, they have fewer and fewer choices in buying seeds.

And controlling the seeds is not some abstraction. Whoever provides the world's seeds controls the world's food supply.

Under Surveillance

After Monsanto's investigator confronted Gary Rinehart, Monsanto filed a federal lawsuit alleging that Rinehart "knowingly, intentionally, and willfully" planted seeds "in violation of Monsanto's patent rights." The company's complaint made it sound as if Monsanto had Rinehart dead to rights:
During the 2002 growing season, Investigator Jeffery Moore, through surveillance of Mr. Rinehart's farm facility and farming operations, observed Defendant planting brown bag soybean seed. Mr. Moore observed the Defendant take the brown bag soybeans to a field, which was subsequently loaded into a grain drill and planted. Mr. Moore located two empty bags in the ditch in the public road right-of-way beside one of the fields planted by Rinehart, which contained some soybeans. Mr. Moore collected a small amount of soybeans left in the bags which Defendant had tossed into the public right-of way. These samples tested positive for Monsanto's Roundup Ready technology.
Faced with a federal lawsuit, Rinehart had to hire a lawyer. Monsanto eventually realized that "Investigator Jeffery Moore" had targeted the wrong man, and dropped the suit. Rinehart later learned that the company had been secretly investigating farmers in his area. Rinehart never heard from Monsanto again: no letter of apology, no public concession that the company had made a terrible mistake, no offer to pay his attorney's fees. "I don't know how they get away with it," he says. "If I tried to do something like that it would be bad news. I felt like I was in another country."

Gary Rinehart is actually one of Monsanto's luckier targets. Ever since commercial introduction of its G.M. seeds, in 1996, Monsanto has launched thousands of investigations and filed lawsuits against hundreds of farmers and seed dealers. In a 2007 report, the Center for Food Safety, in Washington, D.C., documented 112 such lawsuits, in 27 states.

Even more significant, in the Center's opinion, are the numbers of farmers who settle because they don't have the money or the time to fight Monsanto. "The number of cases filed is only the tip of the iceberg," says Bill Freese, the Center's science-policy analyst. Freese says he has been told of many cases in which Monsanto investigators showed up at a farmer's house or confronted him in his fields, claiming he had violated the technology agreement and demanding to see his records. According to Freese, investigators will say, "Monsanto knows that you are saving Roundup Ready seeds, and if you don't sign these information-release forms, Monsanto is going to come after you and take your farm or take you for all you're worth." Investigators will sometimes show a farmer a photo of himself coming out of a store, to let him know he is being followed.

Lawyers who have represented farmers sued by Monsanto say that intimidating actions like these are commonplace. Most give in and pay Monsanto some amount in damages; those who resist face the full force of Monsanto's legal wrath.

Scorched-Earth Tactics

Pilot Grove, Missouri, population 750, sits in rolling farmland 150 miles west of St. Louis. The town has a grocery store, a bank, a bar, a nursing home, a funeral parlor, and a few other small businesses. There are no stoplights, but the town doesn't need any. The little traffic it has comes from trucks on their way to and from the grain elevator on the edge of town. The elevator is owned by a local co-op, the Pilot Grove Cooperative Elevator, which buys soybeans and corn from farmers in the fall, then ships out the grain over the winter. The co-op has seven full-time employees and four computers.

In the fall of 2006, Monsanto trained its legal guns on Pilot Grove; ever since, its farmers have been drawn into a costly, disruptive legal battle against an opponent with limitless resources. Neither Pilot Grove nor Monsanto will discuss the case, but it is possible to piece together much of the story from documents filed as part of the litigation.

Monsanto began investigating soybean farmers in and around Pilot Grove several years ago. There is no indication as to what sparked the probe, but Monsanto periodically investigates farmers in soybean-growing regions such as this one in central Missouri. The company has a staff devoted to enforcing patents and litigating against farmers. To gather leads, the company maintains an 800 number and encourages farmers to inform on other farmers they think may be engaging in "seed piracy."

Once Pilot Grove had been targeted, Monsanto sent private investigators into the area. Over a period of months, Monsanto's investigators surreptitiously followed the co-op's employees and customers and videotaped them in fields and going about other activities. At least 17 such surveillance videos were made, according to court records. The investigative work was outsourced to a St. Louis agency, McDowell & Associates. It was a McDowell investigator who erroneously fingered Gary Rinehart. In Pilot Grove, at least 11 McDowell investigators have worked the case, and Monsanto makes no bones about the extent of this effort: "Surveillance was conducted throughout the year by various investigators in the field," according to court records. McDowell, like Monsanto, will not comment on the case.

Not long after investigators showed up in Pilot Grove, Monsanto subpoenaed the co-op's records concerning seed and herbicide purchases and seed-cleaning operations. The co-op provided more than 800 pages of documents pertaining to dozens of farmers. Monsanto sued two farmers and negotiated settlements with more than 25 others it accused of seed piracy. But Monsanto's legal assault had only begun. Although the co-op had provided voluminous records, Monsanto then sued it in federal court for patent infringement. Monsanto contended that by cleaning seeds-a service which it had provided for decades-the co-op was inducing farmers to violate Monsanto's patents. In effect, Monsanto wanted the co-op to police its own customers.

In the majority of cases where Monsanto sues, or threatens to sue, farmers settle before going to trial. The cost and stress of litigating against a global corporation are just too great. But Pilot Grove wouldn't cave-and ever since, Monsanto has been turning up the heat. The more the co-op has resisted, the more legal firepower Monsanto has aimed at it. Pilot Grove's lawyer, Steven H. Schwartz, described Monsanto in a court filing as pursuing a "scorched earth tactic," intent on "trying to drive the co-op into the ground."

Even after Pilot Grove turned over thousands more pages of sales records going back five years, and covering virtually every one of its farmer customers, Monsanto wanted more-the right to inspect the co-op's hard drives. When the co-op offered to provide an electronic version of any record, Monsanto demanded hands-on access to Pilot Grove's in-house computers.

Monsanto next petitioned to make potential damages punitive-tripling the amount that Pilot Grove might have to pay if found guilty. After a judge denied that request, Monsanto expanded the scope of the pre-trial investigation by seeking to quadruple the number of depositions. "Monsanto is doing its best to make this case so expensive to defend that the Co-op will have no choice but to relent," Pilot Grove's lawyer said in a court filing.

With Pilot Grove still holding out for a trial, Monsanto now subpoenaed the records of more than 100 of the co-op's customers. In a "You are Commanded ... " notice, the farmers were ordered to gather up five years of invoices, receipts, and all other papers relating to their soybean and herbicide purchases, and to have the documents delivered to a law office in St. Louis. Monsanto gave them two weeks to comply.

Whether Pilot Grove can continue to wage its legal battle remains to be seen. Whatever the outcome, the case shows why Monsanto is so detested in farm country, even by those who buy its products. "I don't know of a company that chooses to sue its own customer base," says Joseph Mendelson, of the Center for Food Safety. "It's a very bizarre business strategy." But it's one that Monsanto manages to get away with, because increasingly it's the dominant vendor in town.

Chemicals? What Chemicals?

The Monsanto Company has never been one of America's friendliest corporate citizens. Given Monsanto's current dominance in the field of bioengineering, it's worth looking at the company's own DNA. The future of the company may lie in seeds, but the seeds of the company lie in chemicals. Communities around the world are still reaping the environmental consequences of Monsanto's origins.

Monsanto was founded in 1901 by John Francis Queeny, a tough, cigar-smoking Irishman with a sixth-grade education. A buyer for a wholesale drug company, Queeny had an idea. But like a lot of employees with ideas, he found that his boss wouldn't listen to him. So he went into business for himself on the side. Queeny was convinced there was money to be made manufacturing a substance called saccharin, an artificial sweetener then imported from Germany. He took $1,500 of his savings, borrowed another $3,500, and set up shop in a dingy warehouse near the St. Louis waterfront. With borrowed equipment and secondhand machines, he began producing saccharin for the U.S. market. He called the company the Monsanto Chemical Works, Monsanto being his wife's maiden name.

The German cartel that controlled the market for saccharin wasn't pleased, and cut the price from $4.50 to $1 a pound to try to force Queeny out of business. The young company faced other challenges. Questions arose about the safety of saccharin, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture even tried to ban it. Fortunately for Queeny, he wasn't up against opponents as aggressive and litigious as the Monsanto of today. His persistence and the loyalty of one steady customer kept the company afloat. That steady customer was a new company in Georgia named Coca-Cola.

Monsanto added more and more products-vanillin, caffeine, and drugs used as sedatives and laxatives. In 1917, Monsanto began making aspirin, and soon became the largest maker worldwide. During World War I, cut off from imported European chemicals, Monsanto was forced to manufacture its own, and its position as a leading force in the chemical industry was assured.

After Queeny was diagnosed with cancer, in the late 1920s, his only son, Edgar, became president. Where the father had been a classic entrepreneur, Edgar Monsanto Queeny was an empire builder with a grand vision. It was Edgar-shrewd, daring, and intuitive ("He can see around the next corner," his secretary once said)-who built Monsanto into a global powerhouse. Under Edgar Queeny and his successors, Monsanto extended its reach into a phenomenal number of products: plastics, resins, rubber goods, fuel additives, artificial caffeine, industrial fluids, vinyl siding, dishwasher detergent, anti-freeze, fertilizers, herbicides, pesticides. Its safety glass protects the U.S. Constitution and the Mona Lisa. Its synthetic fibers are the basis of Astroturf.

During the 1970s, the company shifted more and more resources into biotechnology. In 1981 it created a molecular-biology group for research in plant genetics. The next year, Monsanto scientists hit gold: they became the first to genetically modify a plant cell. "It will now be possible to introduce virtually any gene into plant cells with the ultimate goal of improving crop productivity," said Ernest Jaworski, director of Monsanto's Biological Sciences Program.

Over the next few years, scientists working mainly in the company's vast new Life Sciences Research Center, 25 miles west of St. Louis, developed one genetically modified product after another-cotton, soybeans, corn, canola. From the start, G.M. seeds were controversial with the public as well as with some farmers and European consumers. Monsanto has sought to portray G.M. seeds as a panacea, a way to alleviate poverty and feed the hungry. Robert Shapiro, Monsanto's president during the 1990s, once called G.M. seeds "the single most successful introduction of technology in the history of agriculture, including the plow."

By the late 1990s, Monsanto, having rebranded itself into a "life sciences" company, had spun off its chemical and fibers operations into a new company called Solutia. After an additional reorganization, Monsanto re-incorporated in 2002 and officially declared itself an "agricultural company."

In its company literature, Monsanto now refers to itself disingenuously as a "relatively new company" whose primary goal is helping "farmers around the world in their mission to feed, clothe, and fuel" a growing planet. In its list of corporate milestones, all but a handful are from the recent era. As for the company's early history, the decades when it grew into an industrial powerhouse now held potentially responsible for more than 50 Environmental Protection Agency Superfund sites-none of that is mentioned. It's as though the original Monsanto, the company that long had the word "chemical" as part of its name, never existed. One of the benefits of doing this, as the company does not point out, was to channel the bulk of the growing backlog of chemical lawsuits and liabilities onto Solutia, keeping the Monsanto brand pure.

But Monsanto's past, especially its environmental legacy, is very much with us. For many years Monsanto produced two of the most toxic substances ever known- polychlorinated biphenyls, better known as PCBs, and dioxin. Monsanto no longer produces either, but the places where it did are still struggling with the aftermath, and probably always will be.

"Systemic Intoxication"

Twelve miles downriver from Charleston, West Virginia, is the town of Nitro, where Monsanto operated a chemical plant from 1929 to 1995. In 1948 the plant began to make a powerful herbicide known as 2,4,5-T, called "weed bug" by the workers. A by-product of the process was the creation of a chemical that would later be known as dioxin.

The name dioxin refers to a group of highly toxic chemicals that have been linked to heart disease, liver disease, human reproductive disorders, and developmental problems. Even in small amounts, dioxin persists in the environment and accumulates in the body. In 1997 the International Agency for Research on Cancer, a branch of the World Health Organization, classified the most powerful form of dioxin as a substance that causes cancer in humans. In 2001 the U.S. government listed the chemical as a "known human carcinogen."

On March 8, 1949, a massive explosion rocked Monsanto's Nitro plant when a pressure valve blew on a container cooking up a batch of herbicide. The noise from the release was a scream so loud that it drowned out the emergency steam whistle for five minutes. A plume of vapor and white smoke drifted across the plant and out over town.Residue from the explosion coated the interior of the building and those inside with what workers described as "a fine black powder." Many felt their skin prickle and were told to scrub down.

Within days, workers experienced skin eruptions. Many were soon diagnosed with chloracne, a condition similar to common acne but more severe, longer lasting, and potentially disfiguring. Others felt intense pains in their legs, chest, and trunk. A confidential medical report at the time said the explosion "caused a systemic intoxication in the workers involving most major organ systems." Doctors who examined four of the most seriously injured men detected a strong odor coming from them when they were all together in a closed room. "We believe these men are excreting a foreign chemical through their skins," the confidential report to Monsanto noted. Court records indicate that 226 plant workers became ill.

According to court documents that have surfaced in a West Virginia court case, Monsanto downplayed the impact, stating that the contaminant affecting workers was "fairly slow acting" and caused "only an irritation of the skin."

In the meantime, the Nitro plant continued to produce herbicides, rubber products, and other chemicals. In the 1960s, the factory manufactured Agent Orange, the powerful herbicide which the U.S. military used to defoliate jungles during the Vietnam War, and which later was the focus of lawsuits by veterans contending that they had been harmed by exposure. As with Monsanto's older herbicides, the manufacturing of Agent Orange created dioxin as a by-product.

As for the Nitro plant's waste, some was burned in incinerators, some dumped in landfills or storm drains, some allowed to run into streams. As Stuart Calwell, a lawyer who has represented both workers and residents in Nitro, put it, "Dioxin went wherever the product went, down the sewer, shipped in bags, and when the waste was burned, out in the air."

In 1981 several former Nitro employees filed lawsuits in federal court, charging that Monsanto had knowingly exposed them to chemicals that caused long-term health problems, including cancer and heart disease. They alleged that Monsanto knew that many chemicals used at Nitro were potentially harmful, but had kept that information from them. On the eve of a trial, in 1988, Monsanto agreed to settle most of the cases by making a single lump payment of $1.5 million. Monsanto also agreed to drop its claim to collect $305,000 in court costs from six retired Monsanto workers who had unsuccessfully charged in another lawsuit that Monsanto had recklessly exposed them to dioxin. Monsanto had attached liens to the retirees' homes to guarantee collection of the debt.

Monsanto stopped producing dioxin in Nitro in 1969, but the toxic chemical can still be found well beyond the Nitro plant site. Repeated studies have found elevated levels of dioxin in nearby rivers, streams, and fish. Residents have sued to seek damages from Monsanto and Solutia. Earlier this year, a West Virginia judge merged those lawsuits into a class-action suit. A Monsanto spokesman said, "We believe the allegations are without merit and we'll defend ourselves vigorously." The suit will no doubt take years to play out. Time is one thing that Monsanto always has, and that the plaintiffs usually don't.

Poisoned Lawns

Five hundred miles to the south, the people of Anniston, Alabama, know all about what the people of Nitro are going through. They've been there. In fact, you could say, they're still there.

From 1929 to 1971, Monsanto's Anniston works produced PCBs as industrial coolants and insulating fluids for transformers and other electrical equipment. One of the wonder chemicals of the 20th century, PCBs were exceptionally versatile and fire-resistant, and became central to many American industries as lubricants, hydraulic fluids, and sealants. But PCBs are toxic. A member of a family of chemicals that mimic hormones, PCBs have been linked to damage in the liver and in the neurological, immune, endocrine, and reproductive systems. The Environmental Protection Agency (E.P.A.) and the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, part of the Department of Health and Human Services, now classify PCBs as "probable carcinogens."

Today, 37 years after PCB production ceased in Anniston, and after tons of contaminated soil have been removed to try to reclaim the site, the area around the old Monsanto plant remains one of the most polluted spots in the U.S.

People in Anniston find themselves in this fix today largely because of the way Monsanto disposed of PCB waste for decades. Excess PCBs were dumped in a nearby open-pit landfill or allowed to flow off the property with storm water. Some waste was poured directly into Snow Creek, which runs alongside the plant and empties into a larger stream, Choccolocco Creek. PCBs also turned up in private lawns after the company invited Anniston residents to use soil from the plant for their lawns, according to The Anniston Star.

So for decades the people of Anniston breathed air, planted gardens, drank from wells, fished in rivers, and swam in creeks contaminated with PCBs-without knowing anything about the danger. It wasn't until the 1990s-20 years after Monsanto stopped making PCBs in Anniston-that widespread public awareness of the problem there took hold.

Studies by health authorities consistently found elevated levels of PCBs in houses, yards, streams, fields, fish, and other wildlife-and in people. In 2003, Monsanto and Solutia entered into a consent decree with the E.P.A. to clean up Anniston. Scores of houses and small businesses were to be razed, tons of contaminated soil dug up and carted off, and streambeds scooped of toxic residue. The cleanup is under way, and it will take years, but some doubt it will ever be completed-the job is massive. To settle residents' claims, Monsanto has also paid $550 million to 21,000 Anniston residents exposed to PCBs, but many of them continue to live with PCBs in their bodies. Once PCB is absorbed into human tissue, there it forever remains.

Monsanto shut down PCB production in Anniston in 1971, and the company ended all its American PCB operations in 1977. Also in 1977, Monsanto closed a PCB plant in Wales. In recent years, residents near the village of Groesfaen, in southern Wales, have noticed vile odors emanating from an old quarry outside the village. As it turns out, Monsanto had dumped thousands of tons of waste from its nearby PCB plant into the quarry. British authorities are struggling to decide what to do with what they have now identified as among the most contaminated places in Britain.

"No Cause for Public Alarm"

What had Monsanto known-or what should it have known-about the potential dangers of the chemicals it was manufacturing? There's considerable documentation lurking in court records from many lawsuits indicating that Monsanto knew quite a lot. Let's look just at the example of PCBs.

The evidence that Monsanto refused to face questions about their toxicity is quite clear. In 1956 the company tried to sell the navy a hydraulic fluid for its submarines called Pydraul 150, which contained PCBs. Monsanto supplied the navy with test results for the product. But the navy decided to run its own tests. Afterward, navy officials informed Monsanto that they wouldn't be buying the product. "Applications of Pydraul 150 caused death in all of the rabbits tested" and indicated "definite liver damage," navy officials told Monsanto, according to an internal Monsanto memo divulged in the course of a court proceeding. "No matter how we discussed the situation," complained Monsanto's medical director, R. Emmet Kelly, "it was impossible to change their thinking that Pydraul 150 is just too toxic for use in submarines."

Ten years later, a biologist conducting studies for Monsanto in streams near the Anniston plant got quick results when he submerged his test fish. As he reported to Monsanto, according to The Washington Post, "All 25 fish lost equilibrium and turned on their sides in 10 seconds and all were dead in 3½ minutes."

Jeff Kleinpeter, of Baton Rouge, was accused by Monsanto of making misleading claims just for telling customers his cows are free of artificial bovine growth hormone.

When the Food and Drug Administration (F.D.A.) turned up high levels of PCBs in fish near the Anniston plant in 1970, the company swung into action to limit the P.R. damage. An internal memo entitled "confidential-f.y.i. and destroy" from Monsanto official Paul B. Hodges reviewed steps under way to limit disclosure of the information. One element of the strategy was to get public officials to fight Monsanto's battle: "Joe Crockett, Secretary of the Alabama Water Improvement Commission, will try to handle the problem quietly without release of the information to the public at this time," according to the memo.

Despite Monsanto's efforts, the information did get out, but the company was able to blunt its impact. Monsanto's Anniston plant manager "convinced" a reporter for The Anniston Star that there was really nothing to worry about, and an internal memo from Monsanto's headquarters in St. Louis summarized the story that subsequently appeared in the newspaper: "Quoting both plant management and the Alabama Water Improvement Commission, the feature emphasized the PCB problem was relatively new, was being solved by Monsanto and, at this point, was no cause for public alarm."

In truth, there was enormous cause for public alarm. But that harm was done by the "Original Monsanto Company," not "Today's Monsanto Company" (the words and the distinction are Monsanto's). The Monsanto of today says that it can be trusted-that its biotech crops are "as wholesome, nutritious and safe as conventional crops," and that milk from cows injected with its artificial growth hormone is the same as, and as safe as, milk from any other cow.

The Milk Wars

Jeff Kleinpeter takes very good care of his dairy cows. In the winter he turns on heaters to warm their barns. In the summer, fans blow gentle breezes to cool them, and on especially hot days, a fine mist floats down to take the edge off Louisiana's heat. The dairy has gone "to the ultimate end of the earth for cow comfort," says Kleinpeter, a fourth-generation dairy farmer in Baton Rouge. He says visitors marvel at what he does: "I've had many of them say, 'When I die, I want to come back as a Kleinpeter cow.' "

Monsanto would like to change the way Jeff Kleinpeter and his family do business. Specifically, Monsanto doesn't like the label on Kleinpeter Dairy's milk cartons: "From Cows Not Treated with rBGH." To consumers, that means the milk comes from cows that were not given artificial bovine growth hormone, a supplement developed by Monsanto that can be injected into dairy cows to increase their milk output.

No one knows what effect, if any, the hormone has on milk or the people who drink it. Studies have not detected any difference in the quality of milk produced by cows that receive rBGH, or rBST, a term by which it is also known. But Jeff Kleinpeter-like millions of consumers-wants no part of rBGH. Whatever its effect on humans, if any, Kleinpeter feels certain it's harmful to cows because it speeds up their metabolism and increases the chances that they'll contract a painful illness that can shorten their lives. "It's like putting a Volkswagen car in with the Indianapolis 500 racers," he says. "You gotta keep the pedal to the metal the whole way through, and pretty soon that poor little Volkswagen engine's going to burn up."

Kleinpeter Dairy has never used Monsanto's artificial hormone, and the dairy requires other dairy farmers from whom it buys milk to attest that they don't use it, either. At the suggestion of a marketing consultant, the dairy began advertising its milk as coming from rBGH-free cows in 2005, and the label began appearing on Kleinpeter milk cartons and in company literature, including a new Web site of Kleinpeter products that proclaims, "We treat our cows with love ... not rBGH."

The dairy's sales soared. For Kleinpeter, it was simply a matter of giving consumers more information about their product.

But giving consumers that information has stirred the ire of Monsanto. The company contends that advertising by Kleinpeter and other dairies touting their "no rBGH" milk reflects adversely on Monsanto's product. In a letter to the Federal Trade Commission in February 2007, Monsanto said that, notwithstanding the overwhelming evidence that there is no difference in the milk from cows treated with its product, "milk processors persist in claiming on their labels and in advertisements that the use of rBST is somehow harmful, either to cows or to the people who consume milk from rBST-supplemented cows."

Monsanto called on the commission to investigate what it called the "deceptive advertising and labeling practices" of milk processors such as Kleinpeter, accusing them of misleading consumers "by falsely claiming that there are health and safety risks associated with milk from rBST-supplemented cows." As noted, Kleinpeter does not make any such claims-he simply states that his milk comes from cows not injected with rBGH.

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Monsanto's Cruel, and Dangerous, Monopolization on American Farming

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Gary Rinehart clearly remembers the summer day in 2002 when the stranger walked in and issued his threat. Rinehart was behind the counter of the Square Deal, his "old-time country store," as he calls it, on the fading town square of Eagleville, Missouri, a tiny farm community 100 miles north of Kansas City.