Song for Jasmine

For the eco-minded individual, March is a good month. There are events of all shapes and sizes that you can take part in. Here are a few of them.

The biggest event this month will undoubtedly be Earth Hour. It takes place at 8:30 pm local-time on Saturday 27th, wherever you are in the world. Participating is simple, sign up on the website (so they can know how many people take part) and then, when the time comes, just turn off your lights for an hour. The idea is not to save electricity, one hour of lighting won’t make that much difference to anything. No, the idea is to show your support for solid action in favour of tackling climate change. There’s more information on the Earth Hour FAQ, if you’re interested.

Last year, hundreds of millions of people worldwide took part. Towns, cities, and major landmarks across the globe darkened to show their support for action to tackle climate-change. The fact that world leaders let us down in Copenhagen in December only makes it all the more important that we send the message loud and clear once more. So go on, sign up, switch off, and do something different in the dark for an hour!

If you’re in Canada, there’s another event that might interest you. March 11th has been declared Bottled Water Free Day.

This has been organised by the Canadian Federation of Students, the Sierra Youth Coalition and the Polaris Institute. Their aim is simple, they want to encourage people to pledge to stop drinking bottled water.

Why? Because bottled water represents a great deal of plastic and fuel used to transport water that is no better than tap water – and often is tap water – so that people can pay 1000 times as much as it would cost them to take it from the tap. The bottles leach chemicals into the water, which is not good, and then they often end up in landfill instead of being recycled, which is also not good.

If you’d like to know more, take a look at the video, or click on the logo above to go to the Bottled Water Free Day site.

On this side of the pond, there’s the next edition of Semaine sans pesticides (Week without pesticides) coming up, March 20-30. Pesticides are used so heavily these days that people in developed countries are contaminated from birth, which can’t be good. Take a look at the protective gear this guy is wearing in order to spray that stuff on your food!

There are ever-growing numbers of organic farmers out there, so healthier food is becoming more and more available, which is a good thing. For that matter, you can grow your own vegetables organically with little effort, so it’s quite possible to get off the pesticides. It would be great if more farmers took the organic route!

Semaine sans pesticides is a growing event, with participation from all over the world, though most of the events are in France. Why not check out their map and see if there’s something of interest near you. You can turn up and show your support, or simply find out more about the pesticides on your plate.

On a smaller scale, if you’re in Ferney-Voltaire on Monday 29th, drop in to the Cafe du Soleil (14 Grand Rue) at 8pm. The association Eco-pratique will be meeting to discuss reducing electricity consumption, swapping personal experience and ideas. If you’re in the area, drop in and join the fun!

Easter has come and gone, and those of you lucky enough to have a garden may well have been out in it planting things. I don’t have a garden, and my mum is probably raising her eyebrows right now because I didn’t get that much done in hers over Easter, but I do have a terrace, and I am looking forward to trying my hand at growing a few plants this year.

I’ve grown vegetables in pots before, but not without pesticides and fertilisers. This year will be different, I intend to follow the growing trend and see how well I manage without chemical assistance. If it’s good enough for Michelle Obama, it’s good enough for me!

Michelle Obama wants to plant an organic garden in the white house lawn, and apparently this is upsetting the agricultural chemicals industry in the US. They are concerned that it sends the wrong message because it is organic. This despite the fact that more and more people out there are moving away from pesticide use. The fourth Semaine sans Pesticides (‘week without pesticides’), just last month, was twice the size of the one last year.

14 countries participated, from Canada, South America, Europe, and Africa (a summary is available online). Pesticides are nasty chemicals, and it seems a lot of people, the world over, think we can do without using so much or so many of them. But how?

Fortunately for the small gardener, there’s a lot of good information out there about natural pest control, such as using coffee to repel slugs and snails, using neem oil as an environmentally-friendly pesticide, companion planting, for mutual pest-resistance, selecting plants to attract useful insects, and growing vegetables in pots. I’ve even read some of it, and have decided what I want to grow this year.

I want to grow lettuce, beetroot, chard, and spring onions. Beetroot leaves are good in salads, so they’re not just for the roots. I also want to plant a few herbs (basil, thyme, rosemary, mint), as much for the smell as anything. I’ve chosen these plants for a variety of reasons:

• they’re easy and fast to grow, so I can hope to get something quickly
• for the most part, they’re cut-and-come-again, so I can hope for a long season
• lettuce and chard, in particular, don’t keep too well in the fridge. By growing my own, I hope to have them fresh whenever I want them.
• they don’t need staking, so occasional high winds and storms won’t damage them (I hope)
• in the event of a disaster (hailstorm, heatwave, locusts, whatever) I should be able to replace them rapidly

Incidentally, if your parrot likes beetroot, do bear in mind that it retains its colour as it passes through the digestive system of your feathered friend. Jasmine liked beetroot, but the first few times we gave it to her we were a little concerned about the red droppings at the bottom of the cage a few hours later!

I also want to grow some flowers, partly for the colour but also for the local birds and insects – some of them anyway. The local bees will probably like the thyme, and I’m sure they’ll go for sunflowers too. The sunflower heads will be kept for feeding the birds later in the autumn and winter.

The minimal research I’ve done so far suggests that french marigolds are good at deterring aphids, so they’ll be very much in evidence, in and around the other plants. Nasturtiums are easy and, if I am to believe what I hear, edible too, but I’m not convinced. Maybe I’ll try them, maybe not.

I don’t intend to be too ambitous with my gardening this year. I won’t have a great deal of time for it and I’m not expecting to save a lot of money. I do expect to grow some tasty food, and to have a lot of fun in the process. I’ll let you know how it goes!

Some dates for your diary:

• 28th March, 8:30-9:30 local time, Earth Hour
• 22nd April, Earth Day
• 20th-30th March, Semaine sans Pesticides (“Week without pesticides”)

Earth Hour is something that started only two years ago, but is catching on fast. In 2007, 2.2 million homes and businesses in Sydney, turned out their lights for one hour, as a gesture to raise awareness about global warming. Last year, 50 million people took part, in 400 cities in 35 countries around the world.

This year, over 80 countries will take part, representing over 1400 cities (and growing fast). The Eiffel Tower in Paris is one of many major landmarks worldwide that will have its lights turned off for that hour. Apparently Switzerland hasn’t heard about it yet, but there’s still time.

They’re hoping to have a billion people participate this year, so please visit the Earth Hour site, watch their rather impressive video, and join in. Maybe invite a friend or two over for the evening of the 28th and see how much fun you can have with the lights out!

Earth Day, just over three weeks later, is a bit less dramatic, but they claim to already have a billion people participate in their activities, so it’s no small thing. Earth Day has been around since the 1960′s, and is aimed at raising awareness about environmental issues. There are a variety of different events, organised all over the place, so there may be something near you. Switzerland are on board this one, at least in Zurich, as far as I can tell. It’s unfortunate that the earthday.net web-site is so poorly structured, it’s really hard to find anything useful there. You might have more luck with Google., or you can find some ideas on how to participate at the earth911.com site.

Making the bridge between Earth Hour and Earth Day, you can take the Earth Hour 2 Earth Day Challenge if you want to do more.

Another noteworthy event is “Semaine sans pesticides” (“Week without pesticides”). This started in France, and is young, like Earth Hour, this year being only its fourth year. France uses more pesticide than any other country in Europe (76,000 tonnes per year), and this movement is all about letting people know there are better ways of doing things. It has also become an international event, and this year it has gone as far as Brazil. Check out their website to find out what’s going on near you.

An American study published last year showed that pesticides can be measured in young children on a conventional diet, and that switching to organic foods eliminated the pesticides from the childrens’ bodies in less than 36 hours. Switch back to a conventional diet and the pesticides are detectable again almost immediately, which means the children are eating pesticides every day. I don’t know about you, but that rather worries me.

So, there’s a lot going on in the near future, and it’s easy to get involved. Attend one or more of the events for Earth Day or Semaine sans Pesticides, or switch off your lights for an hour on the 28th and have some fun.

Oh, that reminds me, I haven’t mentioned this to DweezelJazz yet. DweezelJazz, fancy spending an hour with me in the dark on a Saturday evening?

Donna Robertson becomes ill when she is exposed to perfumes, aftershaves, air freshener, fabric conditioner and furniture polish. She has been diagnosed as allergic to perfumes and chemical cleaners. Her allergies are so severe that her entire lifestyle has been changed to accomodate them.

Donna actually believes she has Multiple Chemical Sensitivity (MCS). This is a particularly severe form of allergy where the person shows an allergic or asthmatic reaction to a wide variety of substances, instead of just a few. The trouble is, many doctors do not believe MCS exists, and the medical profession will not help her. To quote Donna:

Donna isn’t the only person in the world with MCS. In “A letter to Senator Dianne Feinstein”, Patricia Rattray describes her own experiences, and describes the attitude and response she encounters from people:

MCS has been known since the 1940s-1950s, though the first description of it is actually attributed to Edgar Allen Poe in “The Fall of the House of Usher”, in 1839.

MCS is very similar to allergy and asthma in many ways, differing more in degree and in the number of substances that provoke the reaction than anything else. Why is it, then, that some people don’t believe MCS exists?

The typical response of people who express such disbelief contains two aspects:

1. MCS is psychological, the person is imagining it or is somehow expressing some phsychological need through their belief in their illness
2. MCS is poorly defined in medical terms, and is not recognised as a proper medical condition with clear diagnostic guidelines

Often, the second argument is used to ‘prove’ the first: “your doctor doesn’t believe in it so you must be imagining it”. Those sound like powerful arguments, but before we accept them, we should look a the history of a few other conditions. These same arguments have been used before, many times, for many other conditions. Often, they have not withstood the scrutiny of scientific research.

In the 1930′s – 1950′s, there were seven medical conditions known as the ‘holy seven’ psychosomatic illnesses. In other words, the medical establishment thought they were all in the mind of the person who claimed to be sufferring from them. The holy seven are: asthma, rheumatoid arthritis, ulcerative colitis, essential hypertension, neurodermatitis, thyrotoxicosis and peptic ulcer

I’d never heard of some of them, but if you follow the links to wikipedia you’ll find that most are now on a solid footing as well-understood conditions with known causes. None are now considered to be in the patients’ imagination.

It’s hard to believe that the medical profession once believed that asthma was a mental condition, not physical. People can die of asthmatic attacks, if it’s all in their mind that shows one heck of an imagination!

As for rheumatoid arthritis, I challenge anyone to tell their grandmother that she is imagining that.

Peptic ulcers are often caused by Helicobacter pylori. This was first found in the human stomach in 1875, but the results were forgotten, because the bacterium couldn’t be cultured in the lab. It was finally proven to cause ulcers when the scientist researching it, Barry Marshall, drank a beaker of it to prove his point, early in the 1980′s. He became ill as a result, and the link was proven. Apparently, they didn’t think he was imagining it then, maybe he lacks imagination?

So much for the first argument. What about the medical definition and diagnosis of MCS? In 1996, the Environmental Protection Agency said:

We shouldn’t read too much into that, lack of concensus often means that there is not enough clear evidence, not that the evidence that exists is wrong.

While there is no clear understanding of the causes of MCS, there are some clear definitions. The National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences defines MCS as a

In 1989, they defined 6 criteria for justifying a diagnosis of MCS (which they called ‘Idiopathic Environmental Intolerance’):

1. Symptoms are reproducible with repeated (chemical) exposures.
2. The condition is chronic.
3. Low levels of exposure (lower than previously or commonly tolerated) result in manifestations of the syndrome (i.e. increased sensitivity).
4. The symptoms improve, or resolve completely, when the triggering chemicals are removed.
5. Responses often occur to multiple chemically-unrelated substances.
6. Symptoms involve multiple-organ symptoms (runny nose, itchy eyes, headache, scratchy throat, ear ache, scalp pain, mental confusion or sleepiness, palpitations of the heart, upset stomach, nausea and/or diarrhea, abdominal cramping, aching joints).

I’d say that was a fairly clear definition, so who agrees?

The MCS Referral & Resources site has a list of organisations that recognise MCS as a real condition, which includes 25 US Federal Government Agencies, Commissions, Institutes & Departments. These include the US Congress, the EPA, American Lung Association, the American Medical Association, the Department of Justice, The Forest Service of the Department of Agriculture, the Department of Education, and even the US Army Medical Evaluation Board. Clearly not all of these agencies have a vested interest in promoting MCS awareness, and would not do so unless they thought it was real.

Among those who do not acknowledge the existance of MCS, the Environmental Sensitivities Research Institute might seem like a surprising entry, until you find out that its board of directors includes representatives of Monsanto, Proctor and Gamble, and the Cosmetic, Toiletry and Fragrance Association. Clearly, they would not want it acknowledged that their products can make people sick.

So, on the one hand we have a history of medical conditions that were thought to be all in the mind of the patient, which the medical establishment finally finds a real physical basis for, sometimes taking decades. Blaming someone else’s imagination for your own lack of understanding seems to be normal.

On the other hand, we have increasing acceptance of the existance of MCS across many parts of the US government, including agencies which have nothing to gain from acknowledging it (apart from healthier people, I guess). These people are taking decisions that will cost them money to implement because they believe MCS is real.

Donna Robertson, I believe you.

Allergies can cause runny noses and rashes, but they can also cause extreme changes in behaviour. Dr.Doris Rapp has known this for many years, and in October 1989 she appeared on the Phil Donahue show to tell America about it. The show received 175,000 letters as a result, and the switchboard was jammed with callers wanting to know more.

Dr.Rapp is a board certified environmental medical specialist and pediatric allergist. She told the audience two things that went against the mainstream medical opinion of the time, and in fact are still not as widely recognised as they should be.

• Allergies can cause changes in behaviour. These can often be severe and uncontrollable, and frequently go unrecognised or are misdiagnosed as psychological problems.
• People can be allergic to a wide variety of things, more than just the usual suspects. Many of the people she examines have been told by doctors that they could not possibly be allergic to things that they have begun to suspect for themselves, only to find that they were right.

The entire TV show is available on YouTube, and I can recommend it to anyone who has 45 minutes spare to watch it. For those of you that don’t, here are some of the highlights I have extracted for you. I should add that I have no medical background, and everything I report here is from watching the video for myself.

The first clip shows Ned. He’s allergic to tomato, milk, and natural gas. He was misdiagnosed as having Tourette’s syndrome, because his allergies cause him to become extremely violent. In this extract you can hear him say that he knows he is being violent but that he can’t help himself.

Jonathon (not shown here) is allergic to tree pollen. He became violent when he went outside to play. He’s also allergic to many processed foods and bananas. Even the smell of bananas provokes a strong reaction from him.

Alicia was classified as a difficult child, with manipulative behaviour and temper tantrums. She becomes giddy and giggly when she eats peas. She also reacts to detergents on peoples clothing, sometimes reacting to someone simply as they walk by.

Marsha spent 57 days in hospital at $750 per day, but was not correctly diagnosed. She becomes sad and withdrawn when she comes into contact with flouride, such as we find in toothpaste and tap water. After she was correctly diagnosed and treated, her IQ went from 56 to 128. Quite a difference.

Daryl became angry and sad and hid under the table when exposed to the air in his school after construction work took place. His pulse was 120 when he sat in the class, but only 100 when he was running around in the playground outside. His IQ rose 19 points when an air purifier was put in the room with him.

Another boy, Brian, became so violent that his family had to move. He is allergic to milk, peanuts, wheat, soy, and corn. Like most of the children on this show, he is also allergic to sugar.

Dr.Rapp proposes a simple way for you to investigate for yourself if you suspect that someone you know has allergies or sensitivities.

• Have the person write something, draw something, or describe how they feel
• Have them eat something
• 20 minutes later, have them write, draw, or describe their feelings again

You can also try this in different rooms in your home, at school, indoors and outdoors, to see if the environment is a factor.

If you suspect a food allergy you can schedule certain foods to be off the menu for 4 days, then back on, and see what changes when you do that. By trial and error, you may be able to identify a source of problems. As Dr.Rapp says, when you see a sudden change in behaviour, mood, or responsiveness, think about what the person ate, smelled, or touched.

One more thing she emphasised on that show. If your doctor tells you that it’s impossible to be allergic to something, they’re probably wrong.

The BBC published an article on Tuesday with the title Farmers fear EU pesticide rules. Interestingly, a few hours later they changed the title to “Euro MPs back pesticide controls”. This concerns the very law that I mentioned in a previous post, “Optimism“.

It’s a shame the BBC changed the title, but the story still made it out into the world with that title, so i feel I am allowed to refer to it as such. So why should British farmers fear these rules? The majority of the EU states welcomes them, as do I, though the MEPs don’t ask me for my opinion.

Apparently, they fear the rise in price that would follow the drop in productivity, even to the point that the ‘British carrot’ could become extinct. Why, then, does the Soil Association believe otherwise? The Soil Association is an organisation that supports and promotes organic farming. They published a report in October 2008 entitled “England And Wales Under Organic Agriculture”, in which they discuss the consequences (email them if you want a copy, it’s not available for download). They point out that going completely organic could, for the UK, reduce the use of fertilizers by 95%, spraying by 98%, and increase jobs by 73%. There are many other benefits, not least of which is a huge reduction in the carbon footprint of their food.

The common objection to going organic is that yields would decline. This report shows that they would not suffer as much as is often claimed, Britain would not starve. It might even be better off with the right balance of farming techniques, there’s plenty of scope. If the Argentinians can manage to raise organic beef on large farms and export it around the world, surely Britain can do likewise?

Unfortunately, the soil-association report doesn’t mention the fate of the British carrot, so I don’t know what would happen there.

France is not so scared of going organic, it seems. The French are putting 12 million euros annually into turning their farms organic. They want organic production to grow considerably in the near future. France is the biggest consumer of pesticides in europe, but they don’t seem to be scared of running out of carrots as they change their ways.

Personally, I buy most of my food from a French organic chain, Satoriz (Jasmine often came with us). Their prices are reasonable, the quality is good, and they have a full range of organic products, from soap and baby food to beer and wine. Oh yes, and carrots, like the one at the top of this post. I’ve also noticed that the food I buy from there tastes better than food I get from elsewhere. Satoriz have a lot of shops in my area, and have recently opened a large new outlet. I hope they continue to do well.

America, too, has an agricultural system strongly based in the use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides. As Obama prepares to be sworn in as president, there are people calling on him to reform the way the USA produces food, citing largely the same reasons.

So if all the French, the Argentinians, and the USA think they can produce food without so many chemicals, I have to wonder what the British farmers have to fear? Surely they aren’t really scared for their carrots?

Jasmine is an African Grey parrot. That’s her flying through the banner, here in the kitchen, and elsewhere on this site. She came to live with us in April 2007, and just 18 short months later we had to have her put down. She had such severe allergies to the chemicals and products that people use everyday that she wasn’t able to survive. She should have outlived me, but she wasn’t even three years old. She would have been three this month, November 2008.

I have become increasingly concerned in recent years about pollution, climate change, and the ways in which we are poisoning our world. African Greys are an endangered species, on the CITES lists, and for Jasmine to succumb to allergies induced by modern western life is as ironic as it is tragic.

Jasmine’s story has been told elsewhere, on the Dweezeljazz and Chipper’s Alley blogs. With this blog I hope to share some of the things that I find beautiful about the world and to raise awareness (my own included) about the ways in which we can help to preserve it.

I am English in origin, but have lived in France for many years now. I intend to build this site in both languages in parallel, and hope the native French-speakers among you will forgive me my mistakes.