‘On Tuesday, 26 March 2013, President Barack Obama signed the Agriculture Appropriations Bill into law. Within the legislation exists a provision, “The Monsanto Protection Act,” that has many speculating the future of food in American because it protects genetically modified seeds patents from litigation over health risks. Since Obama signed the bill, nearly 250,000 have signed a petition to President Obama. RT’s Margaret Howell has more on the bill and how “frankenfish” could be making their way into supermarkets across the nation oihj 0ji (28 March 2013)’.
Tracing the evolution of the human diet from our earliest ancestors can lead to a better understanding of human adaptation in the past. It may also offer clues to the origin of many health problems we currently face, such as obesity and chronic disease. This fascinating series of talks focuses on the changing diets of our ancestors and what role these dietary transitions played in the evolution of humans. Leslie C. Aiello (Wenner-Gren Foundation) begins with An Overview of Diet and Evolution, followed by Richard Wrangham (Harvard Univ) on Fire, Starch, Meat, and Honey, Steven Leigh (Univ of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign) on Diets and Microbes in Primates. – Center for Academic Research and Training in Anthropogeny.
Jeffrey Smith, Executive Director-Institute for Responsible Technology, leading spokesperson on the health dangers of Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs), author of the books “Seeds of Deception: Exposing Industry and Government Lies about the Safety of the Genetically Engineered Foods You’re Eating” and “Genetic Roulette: The Documented Health Risks of Genetically Engineered Foods.” Genetically modified crops are all the rage these days – and have taken over the agriculture industries of many countries. But just how dangerous are genetically modified crops – and do we really need to be relying so heavily on them? (23 August 2012).
“Outrageous! That’s what you’ll say over and over again when you read how the biotechnology companies have manipulated the government, our food, and the media, and put an entire generation at risk.”
—Ben Cohen (of Ben and Jerry’s)
“This is a brilliant book which combines shrewd dissection of the true nature of GM technology, a devastating critique of the health and environmental hazards of GM crops, and scarifying examples of the manipulation of both science and the media by the biotech industry… What is so exciting about this book is that it is no dry text of scientific exegesis—it positively fizzes with the human drama of the cabals and conspiracies behind the scenes… It is meticulously documented and powerfully written, somewhere between a documentary and a thriller.”
—From the UK Edition forward by Michael Meacher, former UK environment minister
“Clear, profound, and unerringly accurate… If you care about the future of life on this dear planet… this is the book to get.”
—John Robbins, Author, The Food Revolution and Diet For A New America
“The revelations in this book are being made public at a pivotal time in the global GM debate, and could tip the scales against the biotech industry. The evidence in the book refutes U.S. science and safety claims, and undermines the basis of their WTO challenge.”
—Andrew Kimbrell, director of the Center for Food Safety
[1] “What people are saying about Seeds of Deception, the world’s best-selling book critical of genetically engineered food:” Seeds of Deception. http://www.seedsofdeception.com/.
Nearly two billion people, about one-third of the world’s population, don’t have access to energy, according to the United Nations. So the leading goal for the upcoming 2012 United Nations Earth Summit is “energy for all” by the year 2030, mostly from renewable and sustainable resources. VOA’s Zulima Palacio reports (15 May 2012).
On the dedicated website one can read the following: ‘On 20th – 22nd, June 2012, the UNCSD will take place in Rio de Janeiro. Also referred to as the Rio+20 or the Earth Summit 2012 due to the initial conference held in Rio in 1992, the objectives of the Summit are: to secure renewed political commitment to sustainable development; to assess progress towards internationally agreed goals on sustainable development and to address new and emerging challenges. The Summitwill also focus on two specific themes: a green economy in the context of poverty eradication and sustainable development, and an institutional framework for sustainable development’.[1]
Another talking shop leading to another missed opportunity??? On the website Swichboard, the Natural Resources Defense Council’s staff blogpage, Jacob Scherr writes optimistically that “[y]et we believe that this Earth Summit can [nevertheless] be a success – indeed historic and transformative. But first we need to recognize that it is impossible to negotiate – let alone implement – a single business plan for the entire planet. We have tried that approach before in Rio, Johannesburg, Copenhagen, and elsewhere. We need instead to create new platforms to encourage and facilitate governments and stakeholders to take actions to meet the numerous globally-negotiated goals and to hold them accountable for their commitments. In other words, we need to crowdsource sustainability”.[ii] Now that does sound hip and cool, “crowdsourcing sustainability” . . . but how feasible will that prove to be??? Scherr explains that during “the Rio+20 preparatory meetings, we were encouraged by the increased discussion among governments and civil society of this new approach to global summitry. Gustavo de Fonseca of the GEF recently blogged that “the dream for Rio – ‘The Future We Want’ – will most likely emerge from the realization that groups of committed people, organizations, businesses and states can indeed make a difference in the time frame that the planet and our society require,” but not from another conference text. My colleague Michael Davidson calls it the “potluck” approach, which involves all the stakeholders bringing something worthwhile to the party and not trying to mix it up all into one dish. Finally, an environmental reporter with fresh eyes contrasted the futility of the negotiations with the potential of “individual countries, communities, companies, and nonprofit organizations” taking concrete actions to move us towards a more sustainable future”.[3] But, really???
It’s been while since posted something on Fukushima . . . and now, as we can read in The Independent, it has been a ‘year since the Fukushima nuclear plant was destroyed, the fight to prevent disaster goes on. In an exclusive dispatch from the reactors, David McNeill becomes the first European journalist to revisit Japan’s ground zero’.[1] But before digging into McNeill’s narrative, here is Dr Helen Caldicott, whom I have featured on numerous occasions in the past, talking to Arnie Gundersen on her weekly radio show If You Love This Planet.
(14 Feb 2012)
And, as the earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear meltdown happened quite some time ago, here is a handy timeline compiled by the Independent:
11 March 2011
At 2.46pm a magnitude 8.9 earthquake strikes Japan’s north-eastern coast, triggering a devastating tsunami and a series of strong aftershocks.
12 March
A state of emergency is declared. About 170,000 people are evacuated from a 20km (12-mile) zone around the Fukushima nuclear plant after an explosion in one of its reactors.
13 March
Around 190 people are treated in hospital for radiation exposure.
17 March
Helicopters dump tons of water over the Fukushima plant in an attempt to cool the overheating nuclear reactors as fears over a meltdown grow.
22 March
Abnormal radiation levels are detected in tap water, vegetables, milk and fish.
25 March
Japan expands the exclusion zone around the plant, and asks a further 130,000 residents to evacuate as fears over the extent of the damage to the reactors worsen.
26 March
Levels of radioactive iodine in the sea near the Fukushima nuclear plant are found to be 1,250 times higher than the safety limit, according to officials.
30 June
Radiation contamination is found in 10 children’s urine samples, according to a citizen’s group.
19 July
Transport of beef from Fukushima is prohibited, but a crisis ensues after it emerges that meat from cattle fed on contaminated hay has already been distributed nationally.
8 September
A total of 15,000 terabecquerels of radiation were released into the sea from the damaged plant, according to the Japan Atomic Energy Agency.
29 September
Core temperatures for all three damaged reactors dip below 100C for the first time.
28 October
The Fukushima plant released twice as much radioactivity into the atmosphere as originally thought, a study by the Norwegian Institute for Air Research finds.
27 January 2012
The Japanese government had a secret plan to evacuate everyone living within 155 miles of the plant should the situation have spiralled out of control, it emerges. This would have included the Tokyo metropolitan area – home to 30 million people.
3 February
Researchers working around the Fukushima plant say bird populations there are dwindling, one of the first indications of the impact of radioactive fallout on local wildlife.[2]
And now let’s turn to The Independent’s David McNeill: the “journey to Fukushima Daiichi begins at the border of the 12-mile exclusion zone that surrounds the ruined nuclear complex, beyond which life has frozen in time. Weeds reclaim the gardens of empty homes along a route that emptied on a bitterly cold night almost a year ago. Shop signs hang unrepaired from the huge quake that rattled this area on 11 March [2011], triggering the meltdown of three reactors and a series of explosions that showered the area with contamination. Cars wait outside supermarkets where their owners left them in Tomioka, Okuma and Futaba – once neat, bustling towns. Even birds have deserted this area, if recent research is to be believed. The reason is signalled by a symphony of beeping noises from dosimeters on our bus. As we drive through a police checkpoint and into the town of Tomioka, about 15km from the plant, the radioactivity climbs steadily, hitting 15 microsieverts per hour at the main gate to the nuclear complex. At the other end of the plant, where the gaping buildings of its three most damaged reactors face the Pacific Ocean, the radiation level is 100 times this high, making it still too dangerous to work there. Inside the plant’s emergency co-ordination building, the air is filled with the sound of humming filters labouring to keep the contamination out”.[3]
Radiation Spread in Pacific from Fukushima 2012
But already in May 2011, the Natural News’ Ethan Huff reported that the ‘US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced [on 4 May 2011] that it is ceasing its special monitoring protocols in the US for radiation from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster in Japan, despite the fact that no real progress at the plant has been made, and threats to the US are persistent. At the same time as the EPA announcement, foreign reports also indicate that levels of radiation in Pacific waters near the Fukushima plant are now up to 1,000 times normal levels, with no real indication of where this radioactive water is flowing. The EPA has stated that radiation levels in the US related to the Fukushima incident have been “consistently decreasing,” and that the agency no longer needs to regularly test food, air, and water for radiation in the manner that it has been. In fact, the agency is so confident that it states in its announcement that “[t]he next round of milk and drinking water sampling will take place in approximately three months.” But just a few weeks ago, EPA data revealed that several milk and water samples from across the country were testing positive with dangerously high levels of radiation‘.[4] And now we are in February 2012, and the Fukushima disaster fallout is still in full swing . . .
Tent cities have sprung up all over America and poverty has a key role in the increasing numbers. Homeless people have been forced to seek refuge in camps in the woods over the last 5 years. What will it take to make places like these obsolete? Richard Eskrow, senior fellow at The Campaign for America’s Future, helps us answer this tough question (7 December 2011).
While Occupy Wall Street tents have been popping up all across the U.S., homeless people have been forced to Occupy a camp in the woods over the last 5 years. RT’s Anastasia Churkina reports from New Jersey’s Tent City — and finds out why the homeless haven’t been joining the protests (7 December 2011).
In fact, somebody, probably Pastor Steve Brigham, has even ensured that Tent City has an internet presence now: ‘2005 started out a few people homeless trying to find shelter. Now known as Tent City a makeshift village in the woods near Lakewood, New Jersey has approximately 70 people seeking shelter. Now six years later it’s a battle to be able to call this place home for some. With eviction notices from the township on its doorstep. Tent city is in need of community support’.[1]
One of the Tent City dwellers, a certain Elwood E. Hyers, has said this about living in Tent City: “Instead of being depressed that you’re homeless, at least this way you’re going inside and saying ‘wow’. You shut the door and don’t feel homeless”.[2]
A small business owner and independent investor, as well as blogger and propagandist Mac Slavo writes that “[w]hile Americans [seem to] argue amongst themselves over wages, union bargaining rights, government spending, monetary easing, and a host of other issues, including who’s to blame for the country’s malaise, Minister Brigham and his community [at Tent City] trudge on, despite what’s happening outside of their neighborhood microcosm. As millions struggle to hold on to the American Dream, the residents of this New Jersey “Tent City” have already experienced loss, and the emotional roller coaster that inevitably follows. They’ve gone through the first four stages of loss – denial, anger, bargaining, depression. In a situation where everything has been lost, and hope seemingly doesn’t exist, only the fifth stage, acceptance, becomes applicable. These individuals and families have accepted what has happened, and understand that they have a choice. Either give up and wallow in regret and blame. Or, empower oneself, and those around you, and move forward by whatever means are available”.[3]
Another way to look at the situation is to assume that the fifth stage would be resignation, which would be anathema to the American Dream and its championing of the underdog striving hard to overcome adversity and emerge victorious.
Earlier this year, Australia’s Today Tonight’s East Coast anchor Matt White presented a special report on meat glue,[1] another amazing product that has already revolutionised the way we live and die, while eating our way to an early grave.
Last year, attorney at American food poisoning lawyers of Marler Clark, Zach Mallove reported on the EU’s ban: on ‘May 20, [2010,] the European Parliament voted to ban bovine and porcine thrombin used as an additive to bind separate pieces of meat together into one piece. According to European Union lawmakers, the additives, which are commonly called “meat glue,” have no proven benefits” and create products that “carry an unacceptably high risk of misleading consumers” instead. Another consideration EU lawmakers considered was the higher risk of bacterial infection in meat products created with thrombin, due to the larger surface area of meat and the cold bonding process that is used. The decision not to authorize meat glue as an additive rejects an earlier European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) positive safety opinion on the use of ‘meat glue’ in 2005. Meat glue is an enzyme composed of thrombin and fibrogen, obtained from blood plasma. It can be used by the meat industry as a food additive for reconstituting fresh meat to create a product of desirable size and form. The method can also be applied to poultry, fish and seafood’.[2] So, banned in the EU but apparently not in Australia, the U.S. or Asia . . . Mallove adds ominously that “[s]ome lawmakers stressed that meat glue had been declared safe and was already used in some countries”.[3] According to the Colloids for Life Blog, “meat glue is widely used” by American and Australian meat manufacturers.[4]
Eric Schlosser’s somewhat mistitled book Fast Food Nation (2001) details in great depth the state of the American meatpacking industry and how the need for increased profit reduces safety concerns, leading to unsafe meat products being used all over the U.S. Now, the addition of meat glue to the already hazardous recipe for carnivorous diets can only mean that meat-eaters are getting a really raw deal . . . The South African website Food Stuff, reports that in ‘the United States, meat glue is most commonly sold under the label Activa TG, which is manufactured and marketed by the Japanese food and pharmaceutical giant Ajinomoto. The company, whose name translates as “the essence of taste”, also credits itself with the discovery of umami — a taste described most simply as savoury — and is the world’s largest manufacturer of monosodium glutamate, or MSG. Ajinomoto operates in over 23 nations worldwide, where it widely markets several versions of the meat glue, each one modified for a specific type of flesh or protein, including fish, red meat, and even dairy. Long used in cheap, reconstituted meat products like chicken nuggets, the enzyme first showed up on a swanky menu in 2004 when chef Heston Blumenthal made a “mackerel invertebrate” by de-boning a fish and gluing it back together. Blumenthal owns the Fat Duck in Bray, Berkshire, England, which some critics consider the best restaurant in the world. Since then, the binding agent has been championed by other chefs attracted to such gastronomic trickery, like Dufresne, and Grant Achatz at Chicago’s restaurant Alinea, who was once called the “love child of Julia Child and Einstein.” Meat glue is now so popular that Ajinomoto is considering offering smaller-sized, more consumer-friendly packaging for home cooks. While Ajinomoto declined a request to release specific sales figures for meat glue, the company did acknowledge a rapid uptick in sales’.[5] How long before Ajinomoto lobbyists will be able to tear down the walls of EU Regulations???
Ajinomoto’s account executive for Canada and much of the United States Guy Tinay declared, “The business is increasing every year significantly”.[6] And Willy Dufresne, “cook” at the swanky New York establishment WD-50 even stated that “Meat glue makes us better chefs”.[7] With Ajinomoto’s money and high-profile chef’s endorsements, one cannot but wonder about the obduracy of EU bureaucracy . . .
[1] I would like to thank the Facebooker Advocatefor Savingdogs for bringing this item to my attention.
UN Earth Summit Strives for Energy for All
Nearly two billion people, about one-third of the world’s population, don’t have access to energy, according to the United Nations. So the leading goal for the upcoming 2012 United Nations Earth Summit is “energy for all” by the year 2030, mostly from renewable and sustainable resources. VOA’s Zulima Palacio reports (15 May 2012).
On the dedicated website one can read the following: ‘On 20th – 22nd, June 2012, the UNCSD will take place in Rio de Janeiro. Also referred to as the Rio+20 or the Earth Summit 2012 due to the initial conference held in Rio in 1992, the objectives of the Summit are: to secure renewed political commitment to sustainable development; to assess progress towards internationally agreed goals on sustainable development and to address new and emerging challenges. The Summitwill also focus on two specific themes: a green economy in the context of poverty eradication and sustainable development, and an institutional framework for sustainable development’.[1]
Another talking shop leading to another missed opportunity??? On the website Swichboard, the Natural Resources Defense Council’s staff blogpage, Jacob Scherr writes optimistically that “[y]et we believe that this Earth Summit can [nevertheless] be a success – indeed historic and transformative. But first we need to recognize that it is impossible to negotiate – let alone implement – a single business plan for the entire planet. We have tried that approach before in Rio, Johannesburg, Copenhagen, and elsewhere. We need instead to create new platforms to encourage and facilitate governments and stakeholders to take actions to meet the numerous globally-negotiated goals and to hold them accountable for their commitments. In other words, we need to crowdsource sustainability”.[ii] Now that does sound hip and cool, “crowdsourcing sustainability” . . . but how feasible will that prove to be??? Scherr explains that during “the Rio+20 preparatory meetings, we were encouraged by the increased discussion among governments and civil society of this new approach to global summitry. Gustavo de Fonseca of the GEF recently blogged that “the dream for Rio – ‘The Future We Want’ – will most likely emerge from the realization that groups of committed people, organizations, businesses and states can indeed make a difference in the time frame that the planet and our society require,” but not from another conference text. My colleague Michael Davidson calls it the “potluck” approach, which involves all the stakeholders bringing something worthwhile to the party and not trying to mix it up all into one dish. Finally, an environmental reporter with fresh eyes contrasted the futility of the negotiations with the potential of “individual countries, communities, companies, and nonprofit organizations” taking concrete actions to move us towards a more sustainable future”.[3] But, really???
[1] “Earth Summit 2012” earthsummit2012. http://www.earthsummit2012.org/about-us/about-rio.
[2] Jacob Scherr, “Reflections on the Race to Rio: Crowdsourcing Sustainability at Earth Summit 2012” Switchboard (14 May 2012). http://switchboard.nrdc.org/blogs/jscherr/reflections_on_the_race_to_rio.html.
[3] Jacob Scherr, “Reflections on the Race toRio”.
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Climate Change, Current Affairs, Environment, Food Safety, Global Warming, Obama, Oil and Gas, Political Commentary, Uncategorized, United Nations