By Jacob Markey, LifeSmarts Summer 2010 intern

The standard of living for most Americans is far better than even when my parents grew up in the 60s. With advances in industry, medicine, and technology, Americans live longer and have access to goods and information like never before. We can hop on a plane and travel across the world in less than a day and converse with people face-to-face who are thousands of miles away using Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), a technology I enjoyed while studying abroad this past fall.

Globalization and industrialization have benefited Americans, but have come at a terrible cost to our planet. To power our cars, planes, and factories, we consume nearly 20 million barrels per day of oil. Combined with coal and natural gas, Americans rely on non-renewable sources for over 80% of our country’s energy needs. Using these energy sources pollutes the Earth. Together with the rapid industrialization of countries like China and India and the world’s continual population growth, a dangerous amount of tension is being placed on the Earth.

The consensus in the scientific community is that substantive change must happen. Many feel a failure to do so will alter the Earth in a plethora of irreversible ways, including an increase in temperature, the melting of the polar ice caps, and changes to ecosystems and agriculture around the world. The sad part is that even with drastic changes, much damage has already occurred.

The good news is that we can change our course! After scientists realized chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) were the prime cause of the growing hole in the ozone layer, countries around the world signed the Montreal Protocol, eliminating their use. Even though the ozone layer will take decades to replenish, it has begun to recover, signaling a success in the fight against products that can harm our planet.

Dealing with human-created environmental problems is likely to be one of the biggest issues in the 21^st century. Teens should therefore follow this issue closely. The world’s youth is responsible for cleaning up the mess left by previous generations. Whether its government policy trying to redress environmental damage or the development of new green technology, the health of our planet is sure to remain a hot topic.

By Sally Greenberg, NCL Executive Director

Monday afternoon, NCL staff paid a visit to the Capital Area Food Bank, the Washington DC area’s largest food distribution facility. With me on the visit were Courtney Brein, our Linda Golodner Food Safety and Nutrition Fellow, Daniel Dahlman, our new communications associate, and Karen Marcus, of Finkelstein Thompson, the law firm that represented NCL in the suit.

NCL’s connection to the CAFB stems from NCL’s case against a cereal manufacturer for false and deceptive advertising. The case settled in 2010, and as part of the settlement, NCL arranged to have 96,000 boxes of cereal delivered to the food bank for distribution throughout some of the poorest neighborhoods in the District. We didn’t know this at the time we negotiated this contribution, but the CAFB told us that cereal is in great demand because it is so expensive, and having cereal in this volume will delight food bank clients.

Lynn Brantley, the CAFB’s renown Executive Director and one of the bank’s founders, greeted us at the entrance. She described how the bank got its start in the 1970s as part of an interfaith campaign drive to address hunger in the District. The CAFB then distributed 1 million pounds of food a year; the facility has grown by leaps and bounds since then, serving 700 distribution facilities in the metropolitan area, including food pantries, soup kitchens, child care providers, faith-based organizations, group homes, senior centers, shelters and youth programs. Today the bank distributes 28 million pounds a year of food, including a great deal of fresh produce.

What I found most interesting were the pre-packed bags of food intended for school children and seniors. CAFB’s Molly McGlinchy, who led us on the tour, told us that a lot of kids whose families run low on money toward the end of the month may get breakfast and lunch at school, but they’ll miss an evening meal. They are sent home over the weekend or at night, therefore, with a bag that includes a box of spaghetti, cans of green beans and pears and peaches, and a big jar of red pasta sauce.

The seniors’ package contained similar nutritious foods. In addition to the donations the CAFB receives, the bank also buys food at reduced rates from retailers. We saw food of every description – cans of Vienna sausage, canned chili with and without meat, peanut butter, cake and brownie mixes (very popular!) even vitaminwater!
NCL is proud indeed that our efforts to prevent false and deceptive advertising in the cereal marketplace resulted in this bountiful contribution to the Capital Area Food Bank. The visit today to CAFB reinforced NCL’s historical connection to those in society who suffer from hunger and poverty. We were really so pleased to be able to direct nearly 100,000 boxes of cereal to those in greatest need of nutritious food.

This February 14^th, millions of lucky loved ones will be receiving chocolate and flowers, the ubiquitous staples of Valentine’s Day gift giving. But the beautiful flowers and delicious chocolates we all enjoy this time of year often come at the expense of exploited adult workers or child laborers in the cocoa and flower industries.

Flower farm abuses

Valentine’s Day accounts for 40 percent of annual fresh flower sales in the United States. To meet the holiday’s huge demand for flowers, flower retailers regularly purchases large amounts of flowers from farms in Ecuador and Cuba. According to Change.org, two-thirds of flower farm workers in these countries are women. The women are routinely forced to work 80-hour weeks with no overtime pay, are subjected to harassment and abuse from male supervisors, and often suffer from health problems such as eye infections and miscarriages brought on by prolonged contact with dangerous pesticides. Despite these well-documented abuses, 1-800-Flowers (the largest florist in the world), has so far refused to offer consumers Fair Trade flowers that require farms to adhere to certain worker’s rights standards. Concerned consumers can sign Change.org’s petition urging 1-800-Flowers to sell Fair Trade flowers by clicking here and those who want no part in the exploitation of women can buy their flowers from local farmers or from competitors, such as Whole Foods and Stop & Shop, that sell Fair Trade flowers.

Forced and child labor at cocoa plants

The cocoa industry has its own record of worker abuse and exploitation. Since 2001, cocoa produced from West Africa has fallen under great scrutiny because of allegations that children are involved in harvesting the crop under sometimes harsh conditions. The U.S. Department of Labor’s List of Goods Produced by Child Labor or Forced Labor includes cocoa from five countries, including the Ivory Coast and Ghana. According to the International Labor Rights Forum, the U.S. Department of State estimates that more than 109,000 children in Cote d’Ivoire’s cocoa industry work under “the worst forms of child labor,” and that some 10,000 are victims of human trafficking or enslavement. Just last month, two Ivory Coast workers died while loading cocoa onto a United States-bound ship because they were overworked and never received proper training. The disappointing labor rights record throughout the West African cocoa industry has prompted the Payson Center for International Development at Tulane University to urge chocolate companies to take responsibility for their supply chains by working to ensure labor rights compliance and implementing traceability systems for their cocoa supply chains. Hershey has so far has remained conspicuously absent from labor rights discussions and has made no effort to help ensure the safety of its cocoa suppliers despite posting record earnings in 2010. Click here to sign a petition to urge Hershey to support Fair Trade certified cocoa.