The documentary The World According to Monsanto, by French journalist Marie-Monique Robin has finally been subtitled in Portuguese on YouTube. It is divided into 12 chapters. If you are serious about finding out what is behind the genetic engineering applied to food you need to see this video.

Robin is now working on uncovering the relationship between agricultural industrialization and the rising number of cancer cases in the world, according to an interview she gave to Epoca magazine. We’ve known for a while that industrialized food is equal to packaged garbage. The issue now is the extent to which this is harming our health. For instance, a feature published by Estadão on Tuesday, reports that we are poisoning our kids with too much fat, salt and sugars.

Transgenics are just a part of the problem. The main issue is the carelessness of the industry - and of a good portion of consumers - about something as fundamental as the food we eat every day. We should always know what we are eating, what it can do to our bodies, the side effects, and so forth. But to do this, the food industry needs to be honest with us, which is something that doesn’t happen. They only act when pressured by consumers and/or by the Law - when they do act. But we are here to pester them until they get their act together and change their current business paradigm, aren’t we?

Anyway, on to the film. Click to watch on YouTube.

Barium, beryllium, cadmium. Anyone who is not a chemist knows little about these elements—except, perhaps, that they were part of the old periodic table, from high school. Although they seem exotic and unusual, these and other heavy metals are used in the majority of electronic devices that abound in our daily lives. They make cell phone batteries last longer or prevent computers from exploding.
While they are new, machines and other technological tools usually cause us little damage—nothing much more than stress and annoyance. But when they become obsolete, pile up in landfills or are incinerated, we can see features of our electronic devices that were not specified in the user’s manual: their heavy metals decompose and contaminate the soil, the air and the water. This may bring about health problems that range from fetus malformation to serious neurologic consequences, kidney failure and cancer.

Behind those computers financed in 24 installments, free cell phones, increasingly powerful MP3 players and other electronic gadgets sold by next to nothing there is a cheap, disposable and toxic technology. To give you an idea of the problem, according to Greenpeace, every year, 50 million tons of chips, circuits, boards, computers, cell phones and other cyberparaphernalia are thrown away. This is such a huge number that it is almost unimaginable. If all of the electronic waste we generate every year were put on a train, its railway cars would circle the world—and even so, it’s hard to imagine so much waste.

The useful life of electronic gadgets is lessened in inverse proportion to which the increase in their consumption. In 1997, a personal computer used to last for over half a decade. In 2005, a computer was already considered obsolete after two years of use. Today, after only a few months any device can be considered an antique.

Throughout the world, technology companies are trying to change their image as polluters and struggling to decrease their environmental impact. Since 2005, many of them have started collecting their own used equipment in order to reuse raw-materials on the assembly lines. This is a modest move, but it involves a radical change in the way they think about their business.

*Full version of the article written in collaboration with Bruna Menegueço, reporter, published in Gestão Empresarial magazine.

Read this post at the Guindaste blog: Technology in the green trend

Holiday spending is barely over and the list of school supplies has already arrived—and, what is worse: with a 15 percent increase! To avoid spending the rest of the year paying this bill, the first step is to reuse everything that is in good condition: folders, scissors, rulers, backpacks, lunch boxes and other items do not need to be replaced every year. When covered with some nice paper, that old notebook becomes new. Shop around on prices (use the Internet for this) and see if the school has any sort of special deals with any stores that provide discounts. Here are some other good tips for saving money:

- Leave your kid at home
It’s like going hungry to a supermarket: children in an office supplies shop only make the bill go up…

- Buy in groups
Get together with other parents and buy wholesale.  Sometimes, this can reduce prices by half.

- Get away from toys
Name brand materials or those featuring a toy are usually much more expensive.

- Don’t be in a hurry
The least expensive options run out faster on stores. Hit the stores as soon as possible.

*Full version of article published in AnaMaria magazine.

Read this post at the Guindaste blog: Save money on school supplies!