Alan Greene, M.D., is a beloved practicing pediatrician, leading authority, and spokesperson for the green baby movement. Named "the Children's Health Hero of the Internet" by Intel, Dr. Greene teaches at Stanford University School of Medicine.
As Past President of The Organic Center, founding partner of the Collaborative on Health and the Environment and an Advisory Board member of Healthy Child Healthy World, Dr. Greene has an impressively green resume – and a wonderfully down-to-earth perspective. That could be because he has four children himself.
"In my job as a pediatrician at Packard Children’s Hospital at Stanford University School of Medicine over the last ten years, I've seen how clinical experience, science, research, and technology have increased the choices that doctors and parents can make," says Dr. Greene. "But there’s also an important new set of choices parents can make that can have a beneficial impact on the environment."
More pesticides and more chemical fertilizer are used to grow corn in the United States than any other crop.14Most of the corn, almost fifty million acres of it, is GM corn.15 If we change corn production, we change agriculture.
Commercial corn production is the biggest culprit in an environmental disaster looming in the Gulf of Mexico. There is a marine dead zone the area of New Jersey, which doubled in size between 1985 and 1999. Aquatic life cannot survive in the oxygen-depleted water. According to the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy, a primary cause of the dead zone is fertilizer runoff from the midwestern corn belt that filters first into the Mississippi River and then dumps into the Gulf. It’s a powerful picture of the cost of industrial corn production.16 The industrial production of conventional corn has had a devastating impact on the American landscape—on our soil, air, livestock, and waters. Switching from conventional to organic corn could do wonders for the health of your family. And no other change would improve the health of so many acres of cropland.
REFERENCES : 1. Jacobson, M. F. Six Arguments for a Greener Diet. Washington, D.C.: Center for Science in the Public Interest, 2006, p. 11.
2. Ash, M., Livezey, J., and Dohlman, E. Soybean Backgrounder. Outlook Report No. OCS-200601. U.S. Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service. www.ers.usda.gov/publications/OCS/apr06/OCS 200601. Apr. 2006.
4. U.S. Department of Agriculture, Pesticide Data Program. Annual Summary Calendar Year 2005. www.ams.usda.gov/Science/pdp/Summary2005.pdf. Nov. 2006. (This summary reports that 14.5 percent of soybeans had residues of chlorpyrifos.)
U.S. Department of Agriculture, Pesticide Data Program. Annual Summary Calendar Year 2004. www.ams.usda.gov/Science/pdp/Summary2004.pdf. Feb. 2006. (This summary reports that 28.9 percent of soybeans were contaminated with chlorpyrifos.)
U.S. Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service. “Adoption of Genetically Engineered Crops in the U.S.” www.ers.usda.gov/Data/biotechcrops . July 14, 2006.
Fernandez-Cornejo, J., and Caswell, M. The First Decade of Genetically Engineered Crops in the United States. USDA Economic Information Bulletin No. 11. www.ers.usda.gov/publications/EIB11 . Apr. 2006.
6. Fernandez-Cornejo and Caswell, 2006.
7. Mendoza, T. C. “Evaluating the Benefits of Organic Farming in Rice Agroecosystems in Philippines.” Journal of Sustainable Agriculture, 2004, 24(2), pp. 93–115.
8. Davis, D., Epp, M., and Riordan, H. “Changes in USDA Food Composition Data for 43 Garden Crops, 1950 to 1999.” Journal of the American College of Nutrition, 2004, 23(6), pp. 669–682.
10. Plazier, J. C. “Feeding Forage to Prevent Rumen Acidosis in Cattle.” University of Manitoba, Faculty of Agricultural and Food Sciences. www.umanitoba.ca/afs/fiw/020704.html . July 4, 2002.
11. Diez-Gonzalez, F., and others. “Grain Feeding and the Dissemination of Acid-Resistant Escherichia Coli from Cattle.” Science, 1998, 281, pp. 1666–1668.
Russell, J. B., Diez-Gonzalez, F., and Jarvis, G. N. “Potential Effects of Cattle Diets on the Transmission of Pathogenic Escherichia Coli to Humans.” Microbes and Infection, 2000, 2, pp. 45–53.
12. Rule, D. C., and others. “Comparison of Muscle Fatty Acid Profiles and Cholesterol Concentrations of Bison, Beef Cattle, Elk, and Chicken.” Journal of Animal Science, 2002, 80, pp. 1202–1211.
13. U.S. Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service. Briefing Rooms: Corn. www.ers.usda.gov/Briefing/Corn . Apr. 20, 2006.
14. U.S. Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service, 2007.
U.S. Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service. “U.S. Consumption of Plant Nutrients.” [Table.] www.ers.usda.gov/Data/FertilizerUse/Tables/Table1.xls . (Table indicates that total U.S. 2005 fertilizer use was 22,146,200 tons, or 44.3 billion pounds.)
U.S. Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service. “Adoption of Genetically Engineered Crops in the U.S.” www.ers.usda.gov/Data/biotechcrops . July 14, 2006.
“Hypoxia, the Gulf of Mexico’s Summertime Foe.” Watermarks, Louisiana Coastal Wetlands Planning, Protection, and Restoration News, Sept. 2004, pp. 3–5. www.lacoast.gov/watermarks/2004-09/water marks-2004-10.pdf.
Berman, J. R., Arrigo, K. R., and Matson, P. A. “Agricultural Runoff Fuels Large Phytoplankton Blooms in Vulnerable Areas of the Ocean.” Nature, 2005, 434, pp. 211–214.
Raising Baby Green: The Earth Friendly Guide to pregnancy, Childbirth, Baby Care by Alan Greene, M.D
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