Month: June 2014

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VT GMO Labeling Action – June 16th

BREAKING NEWS:
Industrial Food Corporations
Attack VT’s GMO Labeling Law

Friday June 13, 2014

ACTION ALERT:

Rally to Defend Vermont’s New GMO Labeling Law

WHEN: Monday June 16, 2014 at 2:00PM

WHERE: Church Street, Burlington
– in front of the Ben & Jerry’s Scoop Shop

WHO: Vermonters who care about what’s in their food

Rural Vermont, a founding member of the Vermont Right to Know Coalition, invites everyone who cares about your right to know what’s in your food to join us for a rally in support of Vermont as we defend our new GMO Labeling Law.

Yesterday, the Grocery Manufacturers Association (GMA) and a host of their industrial food corporate allies filed a lawsuit in federal court calling for Vermont’s GMO Labeling Law to be struck down.

The rally is being organized collaboratively by Ben & Jerry’s, the Governor’s Office, and the Vermont Right to Know Coalition. The goal of the rally is to demonstrate broad support for Vermont’s new GMO Labeling Law and to promote the Vermont Food Fight Fund.

Ben & Jerry’s will unveil a new ice cream flavor that will help support the VT Food Fight Fund and of course, free samples will be available.

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Got Fracked Gas Vermont?

A state that would outlaws fracking and yet allows the transport of fracked gas through its boarders is complicit and has only outlawed this practice as a facade. The public good of Vermont has spoken. This is not the solution to our energy needs.

Excerpt from Barre Montpelier Times Argus below –

Opponents showed up in large numbers Thursday for the second of two public hearings on the proposed natural gas pipeline that would serve the International Paper mill in Ticonderoga, New York.

Opponents of Phase II of the Vermont Gas Systems project cited a litany of mostly environmental, but also economic and moral, reasons the Public Service Board should deny a permit that would extend the pipeline from Middlebury, southwest to Shoreham and Cornwall, and under Lake Champlain, to the IP plant.

At the start of the three-hour hearing Thursday at Middlebury Union High School, 80 people, almost all opponents, had signed up to speak.

Many in the auditorium were wearing “Stop the Fracked Gas Pipeline” stickers.

Morris Palmer, of North Ferrisburgh, said human excess has left a burden for his generation. “I’m 23 years old and I’m a little pissed because your generation got to enjoy cheap fossil fuel without having to worry about things like climate change,” Palmer said.

Climate change and the environment were on the minds of others who spoke.

A Middlebury woman expressed concern about the future of Lake Champlain and the thousands of people who depend upon the lake for their drinking water.

She said burying the pipeline under the lake would stir up toxins from the IP plant that have “remained in the sediment for decades.”

“So what we’re considering is threatening the health of Lake Champlain and the drinking water supply of nearly 200,000 people for the sake of a handful of Phase II gas customers,” she said.

She also said the pipeline could also have a negative impact on tourism in Vermont and New York.

Another person, citing Section 248 criteria, said the pipeline does not meet the public good and will have adverse effects on public health and the environment.

read the full article here – http://www.timesargus.com/article/20140614/NEWS03/706149920

link to the petition – http://www.change.org/petitions/governor-peter-shumlin-stop-the-vermont-gas-pipeline

and the Stop VT Pipline FB page – https://www.facebook.com/pages/Stop-the-Vermont-Gas-Pipeline/242450002563631?directed_target_id=0v