CAMELIA NOTES ON HEMP AND COTTON

In the August issue of Camelia Jilly Cholmondeley and her hemp bedsheets are featured. Gill Dexter writes about Jilly's interest in hemp which started when she was working in PR for environmental charities. Looking at the destruction of the Aral Sea, which came about as a result of cotton production, she realised we needed to start using a better textile. Dexter notes"...cotton is one of the thirstiest crops on the planet. - Unesco estimates that to produce enough cotton for an average t-shirt weighing 500g, 4,100 litres of water are required. Sadly, organic cotton, hailed by many as an ecologically sound alternative is even worse - the absence of pesticides means the yield is lower, so the water consumption for an organic t-shirt is higher still. Yet by contrast, the World Wildlife Fund say that a t-shirt produced using 55% hemp and 45 % cotton would use just 1,600 litres of water in its production."

The article then goes into the history of hemp and the reasons for hemp suppression, especially in the US where it is still illegal to grow. This means that the likes of Jilly Cholmondeley must source their hemp from China and Italy. She was able to find suppliers after visiting the Premiere Vision Textile Fair in Paris, where she met someone who supplied hemp to Giorgio Armani. Hemp's wicking and anti-microbial qualities were of interest to her, and the latter she had tested by the Jodrell laboratory at Kew Gardens, which confirmed that it did indeed contain anti-microbial qualities. On a tangential, more personal note, I have noticed over the years that hemp leaves left in water have not attracted the usual foetid smells that other leaves do, and that when moths attacked my rice and wheat flour, the hemp flour was untouched. This may not be a scientific conclusion, but it is worth noting and following up. Will do, one of these days...

But getting back to the article, and again on a personal note, I have had the pleasure of meeting Jilly and can see she is quite sincere and knowledgeable. She sells her wares on the net at www.jillycholmondeley.com and also in shops such as Eco, at 213 Chiswick High Street, W4 - www.eco-age.com

For other posts on this blog about Jilly Cholmondeley, Eco, or cotton, click on tags below

BIRDS, BEES, GM CROPS AND

COTTON PICKING FACTS

Two issues commonly discussed on this site are GM crops and bees, even if they are a bit peripheral to hemp. Both issues are also discussed in the Summer 2007 issue of Science in Society. Dr Mae Wan-Ho weighs in on both, along with notes on the birds, including the hempophilic sparrows. Katherine Hamnett talks about cotton pesticides.

Dr Ho, a physicist, discusses the universal harmony that molecules have with each other, and in turn, the harmony that organs in the same body will therefore also have. In an article titled "Quantum Jazz, the Tao of Biology", she talks about this phenomenon in the terms of the 'liquid crystalline continuum.'

Poetically she notes: "Quantum jazz is the music of the organism dancing life into being, with every single cell, every molecule and atom taking part, emitting light and sound with wavelengths of nanometres to metres in kilometres; spanning a musical range of 70 octaves, each improvising spontaneously and freely, yet keeping in tune and in step with the whole."

Wow! I wish my high school science courses were that inspiring. Maybe they make these classes boring so people do not later in life grasp the necessary science to challenge the large companies that are trying to run our lives. Dr Ho, along with Prof Joe Cummins, goes on to speak of GM crops, with a note on GM maize 59122 being found not safe. Opposite that in the magazine is another note on GM maize, this one about MON 863, which French scientists have found to be toxic...Zut alors, quel surpris.

As to bees, this is the issue in which the report about the mobile phones placed in hives in Landau proved that they cause bees to vacate the hives. Along with bees, she speaks of birds, two subjects to which I did pay attention to in my boring 8th grade science class. Of the aves she notes that mobile phones are causing breeding and reproduction failures, specifically in House Sparrows (Passer domesticus) and, somewhat appropriately, White Storks (Ciconia ciconia).

Hamnett picks on cotton, telling us that 3 million cases of pesticide poisoning are reported each year by WHO. I bet they forgot to mention that in the Dow Chemical and Monsanto shareholder reports. They might also have forgotten to mention the facts that 20-90 kg of pesticdes are used per hectare on cotton plantations in Uzbekistan, which has caused 90% of the land to be contaminated. DDT and lindane blow around the region, causing cancer to the inhabitants. 43 million tonnes of pesticide-laden dust. Central Asians have the highest incidence of throat cancer in the world.

Hamnett only briefly touches, however, on the fact that cotton depletes the water, and that the Aral Sea has lost most of its volume, which means that agriculture in the region is a mess, and that migrating birds do not show up. Hamnett then promotes her own brand of 'organic cotton' as if this were some kind of answer. "It's not about choosing something else, it's about choosing the right cotton." So it's OK to destroy other people's water if you are a fashion guru sticking an organic label on the stuff. What about hemp? Oh, that's hard work for people like her, she once wore a hemp outfit from hemp made in the UK, but decided it was easier to perpetrate the cotton industry and make lots of money. However, the article was illuminating from the point of view of all the pesticide problems that cotton occasions. Too bad, though, that she and so many other gurus do not care to point to the long run solution of hemp cultivation.

DRESSED TO KILL

[Image right of author with Bobby Pugh of The Hemp Shop, hanging out at The Body Shop in Knightsbridge, just before picketing the Anya Hindmarch shop. Photo by Chris Sanders, whose posts on the subject can be found at www.schmoontherun.blogspot.com on March 23]

In Little Shop of Horrors, the main character is a plant who grows and grows and insists on being fed. "Feed me Seymour", it bleats to the young shop assistant. Nerdy young Seymour obeys.

Many in the world today are obeying the orders from an overgrown pest, the cotton industry. It uses 50% of the world's pesticides, and by growing Glossypium ubiquitously, creates a dangerous monocrop situation where pests thrive. But what may be worse, and what cannot be cured by ill-informed do-gooders trying to revamp cotton's image by offering us organic cotton (along with Kosher pork chops...), is the fact that cotton is thirsty and consumes vast amounts of water; the Aral Sea is now half the size it was in the 1960s, the Indus is in danger, and cotton crops in Australia simply fail, after selfishly using up all the water around.

On 25 April cotton bags, and not even organic cotton bags, will go on sale at Sainsburys all over the UK. The production of these bags has helped to kill many people, according to Katherine Hamnett, some 142,000 Indians die or fall prey to diseases brought on by cotton culture every year. But who cares when you have the press on your side? These people are as idealistic as the National Socialist Party, and they do not want facts. Make them look cool and they'll not care that they are fools, or that their cotton goods are brough in blood. At the Natural Products Show at London's Olympia this Monday, there were the preachers of cotton all over the place, all beaming with joy at the fact that they are feeding and watering this monster plant. They were as naked as the Emperor, and even the rather large cotton leaf could not hide their ignorance, or their greed.

Why are they not campaigning for hemp, jute, bamboo or ramie? Bags, for instance, do not need to be soft and tactile, they need to have the strong fibres of hemp or jute. But to answer the question, let's look at the money involved. The cotton industry can pump millions into the press whores who then go out and swoon for the crop that is turning the Aral Sea and the Indus into dry beds. They will write their articles about cotton and never go live anywhere near these waterways. High and dry they will be, but somewhere in New York or London.

Join us on April 25 at Camden Sainsburys to protest against the use of cotton for the Anya Hindmarch bags they are selling, for more info contact me at cotingas@hotmail.com

LA GOES ECO WITH MINAWEAR HEMP

A recent hip tongue-in-cheeky kind of piece appeared in the Los Angeles City Beat, click here to be taken to it. Nice to know that someone is looking at the ecology for once. Fashion may be killing the earth as cotton, on which so much of it is based, is a plant which is drinking us out of house and home. The Aral Sea is now half its usual size, with farms destroyed all around it. Much the same is happening in California. So the next time you see some real super cool person wearing their earth destroying gear, remember, someone is dying to make them feel good. Not that most of them care...

Water is now becoming a scarce resource, even in London there are water shortages, and it is expected that the deserts all over the world will expand into arable farmland, with billions starving. Growing and wearing hemp is part of the solution.