© Paul Hilton / Greenpeace

Top news: Australian children educate their parents about climate change; Australian tuna industry stops overfishing; glyphosate, Monsanto’s shadow on Europe; super mice invade Europe.

 

#ClimateChange

A report from CISRO and Bayer research groups has found that Australian children are creating climate change awareness within their families. One in five parents say they don't believe in climate change, while their children are the drivers of green behaviours thanks to what they have learned at school. According to the report, 46 percent of parents are saying that their kids encouraged them to recycle rubbish and 27 percent are saying they were encouraged to take shorter showers.

 

#SustainableTuna

Greenpeace Australia released its third sustainable canned tuna ranking for the country. This edition shows exciting new developments from Australian canned tuna brands: most tuna companies have now stopped selling overfished Yellowfin tuna. This is a step up from the previous canned tuna ranking. Of all the companies, Safcol is the first Australian tuna brand to commit to a 100% sustainable tuna product.

 

#GMCrops

A new Greenpeace report confirms that glyphosate, a substance used to kill weeds in GM crops, is highly dangerous. It is used in dozens of commercially available herbicides. Widely used in South America and the US, glyphosate has been recognized in scientific literature as a cause of cancer and birth defects in animals and people, and poses a serious threat to biodiversity. The most common herbicide that uses glyphosate is Roundup, developed by Monsanto. In an effort to get ahead of their competitors however, Monsanto has also developed seeds which are resistant to Roundup, forcing farmers growing GMOs to spray extra herbicides on their crops. Greenpeace wants to make sure Europe doesn’t approve Monsanto’s Roundup resistant seeds.

 

#SuperMice

German and Spanish mice are being bred with an Algerian species from which they have been separated for over a million years. An unusual gene transfer - normally found in plants and bacteria , is being used to generate a new breed, resistant to the strongest poisons. According to the Current Biology report, this process could make mice resistant to almost all forms of pest control!