A partnership between Scotts and the National Wildlife Federation was recently announced to the dismay of people everywhere that love the mission of NWF: Inspiring Americans to protect wildlife for our children’s future. What do they have to gain? One – greenwashing. The other – funds.

photo credit:flickr

Monsanto

To begin this sad greenwashing story we need to start with Monsanto. Monsanto began in 1901 as a chemical company and has recently gained notoriety in environmental circles for its hand in GMO crops. Monsanto is also behind:

• Agent Orange. Monsanto knew about the human health effects before Agent Orange was even used in Vietnam, yet continues to block any compensation for veterans that were exposed to the herbicides toxicity. The dioxin in Agent Orange may well be one of the most toxic chemicals on the planet.
  
• Bovine Growth Hormone (rBGH). This is the synthetic GE hormone that has been banned in every other industrialized nation for health reasons, except for the U.S. It causes cows to become sick, requiring even more antibiotics that have their own negative health effects. It causes harm to people. Instead of addressing the problem, Monsanto sued a dairy farm that labeled their milk rBGH-free. Due to consumer concern, Monsanto dumped their division responsible for rBGH, but have never owned up to the harm it causes.
• Untested and unlabeled GMOs. A Monsanto official declared that the job of proving safety was up to the FDA. That is almost funny given the number of government officials have serious ties to Monsanto. In fact:

In order for the FDA to determine if Monsanto’s growth hormones were safe or not, Monsanto was required to submit a scientific report on that topic. Margaret Miller, one of Monsanto’s researchers put the report together. Shortly before the report submission, Miller left Monsanto and was hired by the FDA. Her first job for the FDA was to determine whether or not to approve the report she wrote for Monsanto. In short, Monsanto approved its own report.

• Inflated success of GMO crops. The Monsanto scientists pushed through de-regulation of their GMO patents due to the promise that farms would use fewer pesticides and have greater yields, when in fact neither have come to pass. Instead, reports show, taxpayers have subsidized billions of dollars on Monsanto and received lower crop prices, loss of major export orders product recalls, and “superweeds” that are resistant to Roundup in return.
• Persecution of small family farmers. They not only take out ads and encourage anonymous tips regarding seed saving from year to year, they actively pursue farmers whose crops were contaminated by the wind. The explanation is that these farmers must now pay Monsanto their technology fee for use of the seeds – even though they all told us there was no need to worry about cross-contamination. This is not only scary for those farmers, but terrifying for those that make their living on organic farms and those that rely on organic corn, canola, soybeans, dairy, and milk to feed their families.
• Roundup and its harmful effects.  The use of Roundup comes with a whole host of problems to humans and to birds, fish, beneficial insects and even the soil it is used on. Roundup’s heavy use is even hindering the yields from crops that were GMO for it to be used on.
• And more, including PCBs, Aspartame, DDT, and farmer suicides.

Scotts and Monsanto

So you may be asking yourself why I just spent so much time talking about Monsanto when Scotts is the company partnering with the National Wildlife Federation. Scotts is Monsanto’s exclusive agent for the international marketing and distribution of consumer Roundup. They are intrinsically linked, as is their mission.

Scotts Miracle-Gro is a corporation that makes billions of dollars a year as the maker of pesticides, weed killers, and genetically-modified grass seed that ravage our natural world and uphold Monsanto’s values, or lack thereof, of profits first and safety later. This is what is called “taking money from the enemy.”

Scotts, Monsanto, and the National Wildlife Federation

The NWF has spent decades working to safeguard America’s wildlife and wildlife habitat. They actively engage in improving federal and state policies that will improve wildlife conservation. Scotts and Monsanto actively work against it, including doing their best to get exerting their influence within the federal government through the “revolving door” of key people moving from Monsanto to government and back again.

The NWF has an important mission to get kids outside, to connect with nature, to be healthier. Scotts’ products ensure that our outdoors are less safe due to the increase in pesticides used on lawns, city parks, and farms. Pesticide exposure from products like Roundup is linked to many health problems beginning prenatally and extending well beyond.

The NWF is working to solutions to the climate change crisis. Scotts, benefiting from the lobbying of Monsanto, is putting our food security at risk during this time of rapidly changing climate patterns. The U.S. is being set up to be a country of monoculture that can’t be sustainable with the impending problems of global warming.

Take Action

Sign this petition: Stop NWF from Partnering with Scotts/Monsanto

Then, let the National Wildlife Federation know what you think.

• Call NWF at 1-800-822-9919, M-F 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. EST
• Comment on NWF’s Facebook page
• Contact NWF on their website
• Tweet a message to @NWF

Lastly, share the message! If your friends and family aren’t informed they can’t take this important action.

Will you tell NWF that a partnership with Scotts/Monsanto is not what will help them get kids outside and connect with nature?

Update: Yesterday (and several days after this post was written), NWF announced that they will be ending their partnership with Scotts! Now use your time to tell them how much you appreciate it!