Karl Tupper's blog

A few weeks ago, I blogged about the controversy surrounding the premier of Troubled Waters, a documentary about the dead zone in Gulf of Mexico. To recap: the University of Minnesota, one the film's main sponsors, cancelled its debut at the last minute, apparently out of concern that it might offend Big Ag interests in the state. You see, the deadzone forms each year when the Mississippi River delivers nutrient pollution from industrial farm fields in the Midwest to the Gulf. It's a problem that can't be solved without significant changes to our food system, and the film highlights innovative farmers on the cutting edge of that transformation.

At PAN, we've been big fans of our friend and ally Sandra Steingraber, so it came as no surprise when we saw that Utne Reader had just named Sandra one of 25 "Visionaries Who Are Changing Your World" in its November-December issue.

India has the unique distinction of being the world's largest user and producer of endosulfan as well as the site of world's most notorious endosulfan poisoning, in the state of Kerala. In 1979, the Plantation Company of Kerala began spraying endosulfan by helicopter over the cashew trees near the town of Padre. The highly toxic, endocrine disrupting insecticide regularly drifted over the village and contaminated its water supply for twenty-plus years.

After sweeping across Canada, the movement to end the cosmetic use of pesticides is gaining a foothold in New England. Last week, the town council of Scarborough, Maine, held a public debate on a proposed ordinance that would restrict the use of pesticides on town property, including parks, sports fields, and school playgrounds. Homeowners would still be free to apply chemicals to their lawns and gardens, but the sponsors of the measure hope that many citizens would be inspired to follow the town's lead.

On my way back from the Stockholm Convention meeting in Geneva, I stopped for a few days in Illinois to attend the Peoria and Springfield screenings of the documentary film Living Downstream. PAN was a co-sponsor of the five-city screening tour, and I had the honor of moderating the post-film Q&A sessions with filmmaker Chanda Chevannes and Sandra Steingraber, the author of the book that the documentary is based on.