WEEDS AND DEEDS

The cotton industry may be forcing us all into oblivion. If not by using up all the water on the planet to feed this weed, or by spraying millions of tons of pesticides every year on them to kill the pesticides it attracts, then perhaps it will get to us by upsetting the balance of nature as GM cotton plants are cultivated. These are already suspect in cattle diseases, as lots of GM cotton seed has been fed to cattle which has become sick. Now it turns out the bees are sick, sick and tired of mankind trying to fool Mother Nature, and they may well buzz off. Could this be in part due to GM cotton flowers? Pesticides are a main suspect, and of course, when you turn lush farmland into desert, you're not helping the planet.

So where are the journalists in the midst of all this? They seem to have buzzed off faster than a fleeing queen from an infected hive. This week we protested the use of cotton in the Anya Hindmarch bag, and not a word of it got into the mainstream press. Then the Evening Standard carries the story about the AH bags being made in China in a sweatshop, and the next day every paper in the UK has a story about how terrible the Anya Hindmarch bag is. Some manage to mention the fact that it is made of cotton, and that this is bad for the environment. But none mention a solution, not a word about hemp, or jute, or even flax. Ah, but that would take work. Lots of queens in the press, but not a lot of workers, maybe they all quit the hive.

Those left behind are happy, however, to promote cotton, with the Independent featuring lots of pictures of white cotton shirts, cheap at £430, or the Times including a catalogue from a company called "Cotton Traders".

So, I urge all readers of this post to call these papers and put them to work on hemp.

The Independent: 020 7005 2000 (ask for Michael McCarthy/David Randall)

The Guardian: 020 7278 2332 (ask for John Vidal)

Daily Mirror: 020 7293 3000

The Sun: 020 7782 4000

Daily Express: 0871 434 1010

Daily Mail/Evening Standard: 020 7938 6000

Daily Telegraph: 020 7931 2000

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