In the News

For Americans, Giving Roses Is a Foreign Affair

New York Times via Dow Jones
02/11/2007

If you are giving or receiving roses this Valentine's Day, chances are that they came from the same countries that produced your coffee. Nearly 90 percent of all roses sold in the United States are imported, and most of those come from Colombia. Other major rose importers include Ecuador, Mexico and Guatemala.

In future years, the same country that produces your tea may fill your vases with roses: China has made it a national priority to become one of the world's major rose exporters...  
 

Every Rose Has Its Thorn

Utne Magazine
02/08/2007

Excerpt from article:

Analyzed by the most soulful of poets and adored tenderly by the most perfunctory of scientists, flowers have resounded through the ages as emblems of beauty, sex, and love -- the ideal token of affection for a sweetie or loved one. Yet the modern commercial flower and the $40 billion a year industry behind it have a sinister side that might just change the way you say "be mine" this Valentine's Day.

The Ghost of Debt and Modern-Day Slavery in Liberia

The Cable (The College of St. Scholastica)
02/07/2007

By Lorena Rodriguez

“Imagine… a 10 year old child forced to carry 70 pounds of rubber using a stick and two pails several times a day. Because of these harsh conditions, the children cannot fully grow up physically and mentally. They are being used as beasts of burden.”

- From speech by Alfred Brownell, LL.M., President of Green Advocates,

Monrovia, Liberia, 24 January 2007

In flowers, too, green is the new red

San Francisco Chronicle
02/07/2007

Walk into any supermarket and you'll find products that satisfy not only your taste buds but your values, too. Fair Trade coffee and chocolate, organic apples and free-range eggs are becoming mainstream thanks to the demands of socially and environmentally responsible shoppers. But what about those flowers in buckets near the cash register? Where did those come from? Under what conditions were they grown?

'Real Toy Story' reveals dark side of toy industry

USA Today
01/28/2007

Making and selling toys isn't exactly fun and games.

In fact, The Real Toy Story paints the industry as a shiny apple that is practically rotten to the core.

And if that apple were a toy, a company would make it out of plastic in a Chinese sweatshop for 45 cents, tie it in with a movie or TV show, sell it for $9.99 at Wal-Mart and hope that the kid who wound up with it would nag his parents to buy the rest of the line.... 

Click here for full article>>

Bill targets U.S. companies profiting from sweatshops overseas

McClatchy Newspapers
01/23/2007

 

WASHINGTON - A bipartisan group of senators introduced legislation Tuesday aimed at preventing American companies from profiting from the use of foreign sweatshops and other unfair labor practices abroad.

Sen. Lindsey Graham, a South Carolina Republican, joined four Democrats and independent Sen. Bernard Sanders of Vermont in sponsoring a bill that would allow U.S. firms to sue competitors that they believe are selling imported products made in overseas sweatshops.

Senators seek ban on "sweatshop" imports

Reuters
01/23/2007

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Six U.S. senators introduced a bill on Tuesday to stop imports of clothing and other goods made under "sweatshop" conditions, as part of a bigger effort to refashion trade policy to boost workers' rights.

"This ... is legislation we will push very hard this year," said Sen. Byron Dorgan, a North Dakota Democrat and leading critic of President George W. Bush's handling of trade... 

Click here for full article>>

How fair is your eco gear?

Now Toronto
01/22/2007

Someone must have slipped some thing in my water, because a giant two-dimensional sex kitten seems to be beckoning me to try on a bamboo bra. A few feet later, a billboard promises 10 per cent off anything in the store if I simply slip on a pair of organic jeans. But this is no hippy mirage. It's the mall at 6 pm on a Monday.

Welcome to the mainstreaming of eco chic.

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