Human Civilisation Will Collapse Unless Culture Of Greed & Excessive Consumerism Is Stopped, Report Warns

Oldspeak:“Infinite ‘Growth’ and unfettered consumption is unsustainable on a finite planet. Despite this obvious and basic fact, many civilizations before ours have tried and failed with this toxic economic model as will ours if we don’t make fundamental changes to our cultures now. The stakes are incalculably higher now as our seemingly incurable strain of virulent capitalism has spread across the globe to most all dominant cultures, even those that have thrived for thousands of years like China & India have adopted a view of greed as success. We are exhausting our planet’s resources much faster than it can replenish them, and its finite resources disappearing ever faster.  This can only go on for so long before supplies are unable to support our careless and voracious demands. We must free ourselves from the crushing yoke of our transnational corporate overseers, driving us relentlessly via their ubiquitous and insidious consumption propaganda networks to work ever harder and longer for ever more fiat currency to consume ever more things we don’t need, creating ever more waste and pollution we’re running out of places to dump. We need Barefoot Economics. Now.

Related Video:

Chilean Economist Manfred Max-Neef on Barefoot Economics, Poverty and Why The U.S. is Becoming an “Underdeveloping Nation”

By Andrew Hough @ The U.K. Guardian:

The world’s population is burning through the planet’s resources at such a reckless rate – about 28 per cent more last year – it will eventually cause environmental havoc, said the Worldwatch Institute, a US think-tank.

In its annual State of the World 2010 report, it warned any gains from government action on climate change could be wiped out by the cult of consumption and greed unless changes in our lifestyle were made.

Consumerism had become a “powerful driver” for increasing demand for resources and consequent production of waste, with governments, including the British, too readily wanting to promoted it as necessary for job creation and economic well-being.

More than £2.8 trillion of stimulus packages had been poured into economies to pull the world out of the global recession, it found, with only a small amount into green measures.

But the think tank warned that without a “wholesale transformation” of cultural patterns the world would not be able to “prevent the collapse of human civilisation”.

The think tank found that over the past decade consumption of goods and services had risen by 28 per cent to $30.5 trillion (£19bn) – with the world digging up the equivalent of 112 Empire State Buildings of material every day.

The average American consumes more than his or her weight in products each day, many US two year-olds can recognise the McDonald’s “Golden Archers” sign, although they cannot read the letter, and an average western family spends more on their pet than by someone trying to live in Bangladesh.

A cultural shift from consumption to valuing sustainable living was needed because government targets and new technology were not enough to rescue humanity from ecological and social threats.

Without action, humans faced problems including changing climates, obesity epidemics, declines in wildlife, loss of agricultural land and more production of hazardous waste.

Consumerism it said had “taken root in culture upon culture over the past half-century … (and) become a powerful driver of the inexorable increase in demand for resources and production of waste that marks our age”.

Erik Assadourian, the institute’s project director, said it was “no longer enough to change our light bulbs, we must change our very cultures”.

At current consumption rates, 200 square metres of solar panels a second and 24 wind turbines every hour were needed to be built to satisfy energy levels.

The think tank said it was not just the United States that was guilty of a culture of excess with other developing countries such as Brazil, India and China adopting greed as a success symbol.

China, one of the world’s biggest greenhouse gas emissions producers, recently overtook the US as the world’s top car market.

“More than 6.8 billion human beings are now demanding ever greater quantities of material resources, decimating the world’s richest ecosystems, and dumping billions of tons of heat-trapping gases into the atmosphere each year,” the report said.

This number will only increase as people in the developing world aspire towards a Western-styled consumer lifestyle.

Mr Assadourian added: “Until we recognise that our environmental problems, from climate change to deforestation to species loss, are driven by unsustainable habits, we will not be able to solve the ecological crises that threaten to wash over civilisation.

“We’ve seen some encouraging efforts to combat the world’s climate crisis in the past few years.

“But making policy and technology changes while keeping cultures centered on consumerism and growth can only go so far.”

He said such measures such as banning incandescent light bulbs and steering children away from consumerism through toy libraries would help.

 

California Slammed With Radiation: Fukushima Radiation Plume Hit Southern & Central California

Oldspeak:“If you live in California, or anywhere along the pacific coast of North America, you should be concerned. Radiation levels 500% higher than normal are being found in coastal seaweed. Los Angeles and Anaheim, high population centers, are receiving the highest amounts of radioactive fallout right now, over 1 year later. (research shows chronic exposure to low level radiation is more dangerous than acute exposure to high doses.) Radioactive rain outs are expected to continue for some time on the pacific coast. Radioactive debris is beginning to wash up on the pacific coast, and radioactive seawater will soon lap west coast shores. Acceptable levels of radiation exposure have been raised, and measurement of airborne radiation has been stopped in the U.S. and Canada. Scores of ring seals have washed up on Alaska’s Arctic coastline since July, suffering or killed by a mysterious disease marked by bleeding lesions on the hind flippers, irritated skin around the nose and eyes and patchy hair loss on the animals’ fur coats. Seafood from Japan is not being tested for radioactivity. Why is this ongoing threat being reported so lightly, if atal in Corporate media? The health and well-being of millions is being threatened, while radiation detectors have been turned off. While more money is being poured into building more nuclear reactors. There’s a lot of information about this ongoing disaster that’s not being shared with the public. The people need to be asking more questions about what’s going on and what is or isn’t being done about it.

Related Stories:

Japan Nuclear Plant May Be Worse Off Than Thought

Where’s That Radioactive Sulfur Now? Possibly In Your Pants

Four Sites Where You Can Monitor U.S. Radiation Levels

By Washington’s Blog:

Fukushima Radiation Plume Hit Southern and Central California

The Journal Environmental Science and Technology reports in a new study that the Fukushima radiation plume contacted North America at California “with greatest exposure in central and southern California”, and that Southern California’s seaweed tested over 500% higher for radioactive  iodine-131 than anywhere else in the U.S. and Canada:

Projected paths of the radioactive atmospheric plume emanating from the Fukushima reactors, best described as airborne particles or aerosols for 131I, 137Cs, and 35S, and subsequent atmospheric monitoring showed it coming in contact with the North American continent at California, with greatest exposure in central and southern California. Government monitoring sites in Anaheim (southern California) recorded peak airborne concentrations of 131I at 1.9 pCi m−3

Anaheim is where Disneyland is located.

EneNews summarizes the data:

Corona Del Mar (Highest in Southern California)

• 2.5 Bq/gdwt (gram dry weight)= 2,500 Bq/kg of dry seaweed
  

Santa Cruz (Highest in Central California)

• 2.0 Bq/gdwt = 2,000 Bq/kg of dry seaweed

Simon Fraser University in Canada also tested North American seaweed after Fukushima:

• “In samples of dehydrated seaweed taken on March 15 near the North Vancouver SeaBus terminal, the count was zero; on March 22 it was 310 Bq per kilogram; and by March 28 it was 380 Bq/kg.” -Vancouver Sun
• Seaweed in Seattle also tested positive for iodine-131; levels were not reported -KIRO
• No results after March 28 were reported

In addition, radioactive debris is starting to wash up on the Pacific Coast. And because the Japanese are burning radioactive materials instead of disposing of them, radioactive rain-outs will continue for some time … even on the Pacific Coast.

Of course, the government is doing everything it can to help citizens cover up what’s occurring. We pointed out in January:

Instead of doing much to try to protect their citizens from Fukushima, Japan, the U.S. and the EU all just raised the radiation levels they deem “safe”.

Nuclear expert Arnie Gundersen says that high-level friends in the State Department told him that Hillary Clinton signed a pact with her counterpart in Japan agreeing that the U.S. will continue buying seafood from Japan, despite that food not being tested for radioactive materials [see this].

And the Department of Energy is trying to replace the scientifically accepted model of the dangers of low dose radiation based on voodoo science. Specifically, DOE’s Lawrence Berkeley Labs used a mutant line of human cells in a petri dish which was able to repair damage from low doses of radiation, and extrapolated to the unsupported conclusion that everyone is immune to low doses of radiation….

Indeed:

American and Canadian authorities have virtually stopped monitoring airborne radiation, and are not testing fish for radiation. (Indeed, the EPA reacted to Fukushima by raising “acceptable” radiation levels.)

So – as in Japan – radiation is usually discovered by citizens and the handful of research scientists with funding to check, and not the government. See this, this, this, this, this and this.

The Japanese government’s entire strategy from day one has been to cover up the severity of the Fukushima accident. This has likely led to unnecessary, additional deaths.

Indeed, the core problem is that all of the world’s nuclear agencies are wholly captured by the nuclear industry … as are virtually all of the supposedly independent health agencies.

So the failure of the American, Canadian and other governments to test for and share results is making it difficult to hold an open scientific debate about what is happening.

And it’s not just radiation from Japan.  An effort by the Southern California Edison power company to secretly ramp up production to avoid public disclosure may have led to a leak at the San Onofre nuclear power plant.

And see these articles on California radiation exposure courtesy of EneNews:

• Anaheim, CA has highest amount of radioactive fallout of any EPA air monitoring station in Continental U.S. for iodine-131
• Over EPA limit: Cesium levels in San Francisco area milk now higher than 6 months ago
• USGS: Los Angeles area had highest cesium deposition in US after Fukushima
• “Tends to concentrate in the testicles”: 360+ atoms of radioactive sulfur per day may have been inhaled by Californians after Fukushima
• Unprecedented Spike: 1501 atoms of radioactive sulfur per meter³ was detected in California air
• Radioactive sulfur in California spiked to highest levels ever detected: University researchers
• Controversy after US gov’t estimate showed 40,000 microsievert thyroid dose for California infants from Fukushima — Data not released to public — “Very high doses to children”
• Spike in radiation levels for West Coast? “Abnormal” readings on 8 of 18 EPA monitors for California, Oregon, Washington — Devices now “undergoing quality review”
• Nuclear policy expert: “Striking” that radioactive iodine-131 in California rainwater is so far above level permitted in drinking water
• Uranium-234 detected in Hawaii, Southern California, and Seattle

“Planetary Genocide”: Fukushima One Year Later : The Poisoning Of Planet Earth Continues

Oldspeak:” While hundreds of thousands (perhaps millions?) will develop various radiation-related illnesses (cancers and diabetes, as well as radiation-induced miscarriages, stillbirths and birth deformities) over the next decades, the coffers of the medical profession, pharmaceutical companies, and nuclear industry will be bursting with profits. The 1986 nuclear accident at Chernobyl continues its deathly impact –and that was only one reactor. Fukushima had six reactors. As long as profits trump safety, and as long as the entire nuclear industry has ties to the military, we will never be safe. Valid citizens’ and medical concerns continue to be ignored. We are all expendable.-Dr. Ilya Sandra Perlingieri “Profit Is Paramount” We’re all being continuously and systemically poisoned by toxic radioactivity. Why has there been so little coverage of this existential threat in corporate media?

 

by Dr. Ilya Sandra Perlingieri @ Center For Research On Globalization:

“The most difficult thing of all is to see is what is right in front of your eyes.”  Goethe.

 

As we approach the tragic one-year anniversary of Fukushima’s multiple nuclear reactors’ accident on March 11, that initially affected the entire Japanese population, we now know that this nightmare has engulfed all of us. Let us also not forget that this is the third nuclear attack on the Japanese (the first two were Hiroshima and Nagasaki). Given what has not been done to ensure public safety, we cannot think of it any other way. From the very first day, there were lies and a massive cover-up of the extent of the destruction and the inherent radioactive dangers –not just from Japanese officials and TEPCO corporate reports, but also from the US. The Mark 1 reactors, built by General Electric, have design flaws. There are many of these same-designed reactors in the US.

 

A year later, much of the corruption, deceit, and careless practices have been documented extensively here at Global Research –while mainstream news continues Orwellian doublespeak. Last month, in a rare but very belated mainstream account, CBS News reported that after the tsunami and nuclear accident: “The normal lines of [government] authority completely collapsed in Japan.” See:

 

www.cbsnews.com/8301-18563_162-57386266/report-govt-collapsed-during-japan-nuke-crisis

 

Early on, even essential radioactive monitoring was shut down. In May 2011, the prestigious Norsk Institute’s online site was blocked from the US. They had been monitoring on a daily basis the worldwide radioactive contamination to which we were all –and continue to be– exposed. Conveniently, any early radiation monitoring in the US was inconsistent, with numerous sites supposedly not working for one or another reason. Then the so-called “acceptable” radiation levels in food were raised in the US and EU:

www.activistpost.com/2011/04/eu-follows-epa-raises-acceptable.html

 

As Dr. Helen Caldicott and Dr. Chris Busby have repeatedly reported: “There is no safe level of radionuclide exposure, whether from food, water, or other sources. Period.” See:

www.globalresearch.ca/PrintArticle.php?articleId=23902

and

 

www.helencaldicott.com/2011/05/unsafe-at-any-dose/#more-285

 

So, what is not monitored, or where the radiation rates are manipulated, then no one –government officials and corporations– can ever be held accountable, nor can increased death rates, diabetes, stillbirths, birth defects ever be attributed to this catastrophic planetary event.

 

When have we ever been told the truth about our life-long systemic radiation poisoning? For decades, we have been uninformed experimental laboratory rats since before the Manhattan Project. There never were any ethical or precautionary considerations. Greed and secret agendas trumped everything else.

 

With various half-lives –some eons-long– of numerous radioactive components, the human race and every other living creature on our planet is on its way to extinction, due to the known sterilization effects of radiation. Here is a short list of the half-life of five of the radioactive isotopes that are and will continue to poison all of our children, and us, ad infinitum, in the air we breathe, the food we eat, and the water we drink and in which we bathe:

• 
  ·         Cesium 137: 30 years

 

• ·         Plutonium 239: 24,000 years

 

• ·         Strontium 90: 29 years [mimics calcium in the body]

 

• ·         Uranium 235: 700-million years

 

• ·         Iodine 131: 8 days [absorbed into the thyroid and gives heavy radiation dose. Also goes into the soil, passed onto us through cow’s milk.]

 

In a report released just a few week’s ago, the milk tested in the San Francisco area still had radioactive levels of Cesium 134 and Cesium 137. According to even a compromised EPA, these are now at “150 percent of their maximum contaminant level.” Here’s the chart:

http://enenews.com/highest-level-radioactive-cesium-san-francisco-area-milk-august-2011-150-epas-maximum-contaminant-limit-chart

 

In addition, Fukushima’s Unit 3 reactor also used MOX [mixed oxide], a plutonium-uranium fuel mixture that is deadly. A single milligram of MOX is 2-million times more deadly than enriched uranium.

 

Current radiation levels reported on Feb. 25 in Tokyo, 100 miles from Fukushima and an international hub, are “25 times the Fukushima mandatory evacuation zone.” The eminent physicist Dr. Paolo Scampa has reported in detail his latest calculations on deadly radiation exposure here (see page 2):

www.veteranstoday.com/2012/02/25/evacuate-tokyo-and-all-us-forces-from-japan

For 30-million Japanese this is an epic tragedy.

 

Any reasonable safety precautions or realistic evacuations never took place at Fukushima or elsewhere. In addition, a collection of 40-years worth of 600,000 spent fuel rods posed an immediate HazMat threat that never went away. The water poured over them evaporated into radioactive steam to go directly into our planet’s atmosphere and the tons of sea water sprayed on the entire nuclear conflagration were criminally dumped into the Pacific Ocean. Again, because it was not monitored, we will never know how many millions of tons of radioactive water were dumped into the Pacific Ocean. The entire web of ocean life then was irreversibly contaminated with radioactive nuclear waste and detritus, as the ocean currents carried this nightmare to the west coast shores of North America (California, Oregon, Washington, and Vancouver). As with other major planetary bodies of water, the Pacific Ocean has become an enormous radioactive garbage dump of incalculable proportions that are beyond any remediation currently known to science. This majestic body of water has become one of our planet’s toilets.(1)

 

What about the entire web of ocean life? From the great and magnificent whales to the variety of microscopic life, this entire vast ecosystem has been poisoned. Yet, we will never know the immense extent of death and destruction that Fukushima caused to it. Even knowing that the ocean food chain is contaminated with radioactivity, this was not reported by mainstream media. So, the fishing industry is catching and selling various fish and crustaceans that are radioactive. How many tons of these have gone up through the entire food chain, and then sold to uninformed consumers who eat these HazMat foods? Profits always trump our safety and well-being. This is the massive global poisoning of our only home –Mother Earth. We are fortunate, however, that the alternative internet media has reported on these dangers.

 

While hundreds of thousands (perhaps millions?) will develop various radiation-related illnesses (cancers and diabetes, as well as radiation-induced miscarriages, stillbirths and birth deformities) over the next decades, the coffers of the medical profession, pharmaceutical companies, and nuclear industry will be bursting with profits. The 1986 nuclear accident at Chernobyl continues its deathly impact –and that was only one reactor.(2) Fukushima had six reactors.

 

Medical reports are already showing a significant rise in deaths due to Fukushima’s radioactive fallout. Noted toxicologist and internist Dr. Janet Sherman recently said:” Based on our continuing research, the actual death count here [in the US] may be as high as 18,000…but we continue to find that infants are hardest hit because their tissues are rapidly multiplying, they have undeveloped immune systems, and the doses of radioisotopes are proportionally greater than for adults.” See:

www.radiation.org/press/pressrelease111219FukushimaReactorFallout.html

 

This massive and frightening crisis is the result of no precaution, no prevention, and no care or concern for human or any other kind of life on our planet. None of this is mainstream news. E.O. Wilson (“The Future of Life” and “Biodiversity”) and Bill McKibben (“The End of Nature”) were writing about these issues decades ago. The dangers of the nuclear age continue to mount with off-the-scale disastrous results to all of us.

 

How much longer can we be deceived about the extreme dangers of nuclear energy and nuclear weapons? Everything that encompasses nuclear energy is unsafe. It is hazardous in the extreme. Further, nuclear waste has been accumulating for six decades. There is NO LONG-TERM SAFE WAY TO STORE ANY NUCLEAR WASTE. For example, countless drums of nuclear waste have been dumped into the ocean, and have been found to be leaking radioactive poisons.

 

Everything on our planet has been contaminated with life-long and long-term radiation. I continue to write: “Invisible does not mean safe.” With many nuclear facilities in the US old and having numerous problems, the core issue of it as a hazardous endeavor remains. Two nuclear plants with serious troubles are Vermont Yankee, and just last month San Onofre (built right on a fault line). They are just the tips of the proverbial radioactive iceberg.

 

So, as long as profits trump safety, and as long as the entire nuclear industry has ties to the military, we will never be safe. Valid citizens’ and medical concerns continue to be ignored. We are all expendable.

 

This is not a one-issue health and/or environmental crisis. We MUST think of the bigger picture, across many disciplines. We are in the midst of a long-planned and multi-pronged assault on our health and our planet’s. The destruction of real and long-term good health has been replaced by multiple and chronic diseases (often caused by enormous toxic pollution that envelops all of us). Our entire biology has been battered for a century. The blood-brain barrier has been breached. Nano-technology and invisible stealth-created micro-organisms –both unregulated– are our modern-day plagues. Many were created in some bio-hazard lab. To add to this is the poisoning of our water, air and food supply. In 1998, the print-edition of London’s “The Ecologist” (perhaps the earliest environmental magazine, first published in the 1970s), devoted their entire issue to “The Monsanto Files. Can we survive genetic engineering?”(3) For many years, F. William Engdahl (“Seed of Destruction”) and Dr. Mae Wan-Ho both have written about the abundant and well-documented dangers of genetic engineering and the GM poisoned foods.

 

Add to that:, we have an illegal but on-going geo-engineered aerosol 24/7/365 stealth assault overhead that has completely changed our air and poisoned our health. In numerous lectures and research papers, Clifford Carnicom has documented that our air has been transformed to a plasma state; and with it is the associated tragedy of Morgellons syndrome that was created from some synthetic self-replicating nano-organism. There is no “off switch” for this; but the media ridicules sufferers. Time magazine recently published an article noting that these very real and documented symptoms were “delusional.” Into this synergistic nightmare are also 100,000 chemicals –90 percent of which are untested– that surround our every move.

 

Last, but by no means the least, of these hazards is the hidden dangers of the EMF/RF spectrum [Electromagnetic Frequency/Radiation Frequency]. The proliferation of this deadly technology encompasses: cell phones and Wi-Fi and their towers that poison our landscapes. With more than 5-billion cell phones sold, consumers were never told how dangerous they were. Outdated data and reports do not include the now constant barrage of these higher frequencies that wreck our health. There is also newly reported research demonstrating that this also includes impairment of cognitive function and brain damage.(4)

 

The latest release of this hazardous technology is the so-called “Smart” Meters that are being installed all over North America and Europe without any mandate and without any preliminary research that the utility [electric, gas, and water] companies did on the numerous biological threats they are already causing people who have had a meter installed.(5)

 

With 8,000 complaints, California leads the US in the most vocal concerns about these meters. Several cities, including Santa Cruz, CA, have banned them with year-long moratoria. There was never any mandate to force these meters on anyone; the utility companies did not warn customers of the extreme risks of constantly pulsing EMF, nor did they warn customers about breakage to our DNA or brain damage. The American Academy of Environmental Medicine (founded in 1965) has called for a moratorium on these dangerous meters.(6) It is conceivable that the unfolding EMF crisis will be far worse than the asbestos and tobacco hazards combined. Scientist Prof. Olle Johansson of Sweden’s prestigious Karolinska Institute, has been warning about these invisible biological dangers for decades. See:

1. 
   1.    www.youtube.com/watch?v=eS7YIZ1x0r8

and

1. 2.  www.youtube.com/watch?v=lJZumEgSblQ

 

Corporations have personhood and have the same legal standing as any real humans. They have the financial means to block any real justice for the environmental and health damage their products continue to cause. They are rarely held accountable. Add to that the destruction of 30-years of environmental laws meant to protect us, this is another part of the disaster recipe in which we live out our days. The nuclear industry has never told us the truth about the permanent level of radiation dangers to which we are all exposed. The plunder of our planet and the destruction of vast ecosystems have been documented for decades. These poisons, mostly invisible, envelop our every move, contaminate our DNA, and wreck our health and ability to reproduce safely. The past 10 years this destruction has been accelerated at a phenomenal rate, while mainstream media continues to report lies.

 

Nevertheless, more and more millions of people are waking up and connecting many of the dots of these epidemics of serious illnesses, loss of millions of jobs, theft of millions of homes, stealing of trillions of dollars of wealth to pay off banksters, CEOs and insiders, while the middle class around the globe is in extremis. Evidence continues to mount of what insider trading and printing of fiat money has done to destroy people’s lives and economies around the globe. We cannot minimize or discount a situation that is totally out of control; and we cannot think of each of these HazMats as separate problems. They are all inter-related and they are destroying out health. Connecting the dots of this multi-pronged assault on all of us as well as our entire biosphere is ESSENTIAL. It is not sustainable. It is up to all of us to become well-informed and educated about what is happening, join together, and to paraphrase Dr. Rosalie Bertell “refuse to co-operate in our own destruction.” We still have that choice.

 

Remember: What we don’t look for, we can’t find. If those in charge decide NOT to monitor or report the dangers, then no one is ever held accountable –that includes those in charge. We all suffer the consequences.

 

NOTES:

1. Dr. Ilya Sandra Perlingieri. “The Pacific Ocean: A Radioactive Garbage Dump.” May 14, 2011:

http://consciouslifenews.com/pacific-ocean-radioactive-garbage-dump/116277

 

2. Mittica, Pierpaolo, et al. “Chernobyl. The Hidden Legacy.” London: Trolley, Ltd., 2007; and Dr. Ilya Sandra Perlingieri. “Chernobyl: The Horrific Legacy. 25 Years and Counting.” April 25, 2009:

www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=13349

 

3. “The Monsanto Files. Can we survive genetic engineering?” London. The Ecologist. Vol. 28, No. 5: Sept./Oct. 1998.

 

4. Adamantia Fragopoulou et al. “Brain proteome response following whole body exposure of mice to mobile phone or wireless DECT base radiation.” Jan. 25, 2012.There is an abstract at:

 

http://electromagnetichealth.org/electromagnetic-health-blog/mice-proteome

 

5. See: “The Invisible Hazards of ‘Smart’ Meters.” August 19, 2011:

 www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=26082; and ‘”Smart’ Meter Dangers Update: Scientific Proof of These Hazards.” Feb. 10, 2012:

http://consciouslifenews.com/smart-meter-dangers-update-scientific-proof-hazards/1124466

 

6. “American Academy of Environmental Medicine calls for a halt to wireless smart meters.” Jan. 23, 2012:

http://emfsafetynetwork.org/?p=6985

 

Educator and environmental writer Dr. Ilya Sandra Perlingieri is the author of the highly acclaimed book, “The Uterine Crisis.” London’s “The Ecologist” calls this book “an inspiration.”

 

Under Industry Pressure USDA Works To Speed Approval Of Monsanto’s Genetically Engineered Crops & Allow “Self-Regulation”

Oldspeak:” ‘Under a new two-year pilot program at the USDA, regulators are training the world’s biggest biotech firms, including Monsanto, BASF and Syngenta, to conduct environmental reviews of their own transgenic seed products as part of the government’s deregulation process.’ -Mike Ludwig. ‘It’s the equivalent of letting BP do their own Environmental Assessment of a new rig’ -Bill Freese, Center for Food Safety I don’t know what part of demostratably dangerous effects on humans, animals and the environment these people don’t understand. In one of the Bastions of GMO, Brazil a 2 headed baby was just born. I guess when this starts happening more regularly, people will start paying attention to the poison in their food, that has been shown to cause among many things birth defects. o_O “Ignorance Is Strength”

By Mike Ludwig @ Truthout: 

For years, biotech agriculture opponents have accused regulators of working too closely with big biotech firms when deregulating genetically engineered (GE) crops. Now, their worst fears could be coming true: under a new two-year pilot program at the USDA, regulators are training the world’s biggest biotech firms, including Monsanto, BASF and Syngenta, to conduct environmental reviews of their own transgenic seed products as part of the government’s deregulation process.

This would eliminate a critical level of oversight for the production of GE crops. Regulators are also testing new cost-sharing agreements that allow biotech firms to help pay private contractors to prepare mandatory environmental statements on GE plants the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) is considering deregulating.

The USDA launched the pilot project in April and, in November, the USDA announced vague plans to “streamline” the deregulation petition process for GE organisms. A USDA spokesperson said the streamlining effort is not part of the pilot project, but both efforts appear to address a backlog of pending GE crop deregulation petitions that has angered big biotech firms seeking to rollout new products.

Documents obtained by Truthout under a Freedom Of Information Act (FOIA) request reveal that biotech companies, lawmakers and industry groups have put mounting pressure on the USDA in recent years to speed up the petition process, limit environmental impact assessments and approve more GE crops. One group went as far as sending USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack a timeline of GE soybean development that reads like a deregulation wish list. [Clickhere and here to download and read some of the documents released to Truthout.]

The pilot program is named the NEPA Pilot Project, after the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), which mandates that agencies prepare statements on the potential environmental impacts of proposed actions by the federal government, such as deregulating transgenic plants. On July 14, USDA officials held a training workshop to help representatives from biotech firms (see a full list here) to understand the NEPA process and prepare Environmental Reports on biotech products they have petitioned the USDA to deregulate.

Regulators can now independently review the Environmental Reports and can use them to prepare their own legally mandated reviews, instead of simply reviewing the company’s petitions for deregulation. The pilot project aims to speed up the deregulation process by allowing petitioning companies to do some of the legwork and help pay contractors to prepare regulatory documents and, for its part, the USDA has kept the pilot fairly transparent. Alist of 22 biotech seeds that could be reviewed under the pilot program includes Monsanto drought-tolerant corn, a “non-browning” apple, freeze tolerant eucalyptus trees and several crops engineered to tolerate the controversial herbicides glyphosate and 2,4 D.

Activists say biotech firms like Monsanto are concerned only with profit and routinely supply regulators with one-sided information on the risks their GE seeds – and the pesticides sprayed on and produced by them – pose to consumers, animals and the agricultural environment. (The Natural Society recently declared Monsanto the worst company of 2011.) Bill Freese, a policy expert with the Center for Food Safety (CFS), told Truthout that the NEPA pilot gives already powerful biotech companies too much influence over the review process.

“It’s the equivalent of letting BP do their own Environmental Assessment of a new rig,” Freese said.

Monsanto Goes to Court

Freese and the Center for Food Safety have been on the frontlines of the battle to reform the USDA’s regulatory approval process for GE crops. The group was a plaintiff in recent lawsuits challenging the deregulation – which basically means approval for planting without oversight – of Monsanto’s patented alfalfa and sugar beets that are genetically engineered to tolerate glyphosate-based Roundup herbicide. Farmers can spray entire fields of Monsanto’s “Roundup Ready” crops with Roundup to kill unwanted weeds while sparing the GE crops, but in recent years, some weeds have developed a tolerance to glyphosate, Roundup’s active ingredient. The cases kept the crops out of America’s fields for years and prompted biotech companies to put heavy pressure on top USDA officials to streamline and speed up the deregulation process, practically setting the stage for the NEPA pilot underway today.

Under NEPA, agencies like the USDA must prepare an Environmental Assessment (EA) to determine if the proposed action, such as deregulating a transgenic organism, would have an impact on the environment. If some type of significant impact is likely, the agency must then prepare a more in-depth Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) to explore potential impacts and alternative actions. NEPA requires an EIS for actions “significantly affecting the quality of the human environment.” Preparing a full impact statement for a biotech plant implies the government does not think GE crops are safe and the biotech industry has routinely butted heads with environmentalists while attempting to convince regulators and consumers otherwise. In the Monsanto beets and alfalfa cases, the CFS and other plaintiffs argued that the USDA should have prepared an EIS, not just a simple EA, before deregulating both Monsanto crops.

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In the alfalfa case, the CFS and its co-plaintiffs claimed the crop could have significant impacts by crossbreeding and contaminating conventional and organic alfalfa with transgenes. They also argued the crop would increase the use of herbicides and promote the spread of herbicide-tolerant weeds known as “super weeds.” A federal district court agreed and vacated the USDA’s original approval, halting plantings across the country. Monsanto challenged the decision and the alfalfa case landed in the Supreme Court in 2010.  The high court overturned an injunction preventing farmers from planting the alfalfa, but also ordered the USDA to prepare an EIS and issue another deregulation decision. The sugar beet case ended in similar fashion and the USDA recently released a draft EIS on the crop, which is expected to be deregulated in early 2012.

Monsanto won the right to sell its GE alfalfa seed in February 2011, but the lengthy and expensive legal battle captured the attention of food lovers and agriculturalists across the country. Americans debated the potential dangers of GE crops and the merits of the regulatory system that is supposed to protect farmers and consumers. As documents unearthed by a Truthout FOIA request reveal, the biotech industry did not sit idly by as activists challenged the regulatory status quo.

Mounting Pressure

The Biotechnology Industry Organization (BIO) is a powerful group that represents dozens of biotech companies such as Monsanto, BASF and Bayer, and has spent more than $67 million lobbying Congress since 2000. In April 2010, BIO sent a letter to USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack as the Monsanto alfalfa case made its way through the courts. BIO warned Vilsack that the American biotech agriculture industry could be crippled if the legal precedents required the USDA to prepare an EIS for every GE crop up for deregulation:

With 19 deregulation petitions pending with more on the way, requiring an EIS for each product would amount to a de facto moratorium on commercialization and would send an unprecedented message that USDA believes that these products do have an environmental impact, when in fact most do not. Any suggestion by USDA that biotechnology plants as a category are likely to cause significant adverse effects on the quality of the human environment (i.e., require an EIS) would make approvals by other trading partners virtually impossible …

BIO claimed that such a policy would be an “over-reaction to the current judicial decisions” and would threaten America’s economic dominance in the agricultural biotechnology market. Such a policy, BIO representatives stated, would send a message to European countries that American regulators believe GE crops impact the environment, making approvals of GE crops by the European Union “virtually impossible” and allowing “Brazil and China to surpass the United States as world leaders in biotechnology.” BIO also claimed that more rigorous assessments would “undercut” positions consistently take by the Obama and Bush administrations on the safety of biotech agriculture.

Vilsack received similar letters requesting the USDA continue relying on EAs instead of EISs to deregulate GE crops from the Americas Soybean Association and the American Seed Trade Association. Both groups worried that an increase in oversight – precipitated by the more in-depth impact evaluation – could back up approvals for years. The soybean association included in its letter a pipeline chart of 25 GE soybean varieties it “expected” to be approved for commercialization within a decade.

A policy requiring an EIS for every GE seed is exactly what critics of Monsanto and the rest of the industry have spent years fighting for. Unlike the industry, they believe the herbicides that blanket GE crops and the potential for transgenic contamination are potential threats to the agricultural environment and human health.

Vilsack wrote a steady-handed reply to each trade group, reassuring them that the NEPA policy would not change and the USDA would continue preparing an EA for new GE seeds and an EIS only when necessary. Vilsack also wrote that he was “pleased” to recently meet with biotech industry representatives and “discuss improving the efficiency of the biotechnology regulatory process.” Such improvements, he wrote, are “directly related” to the USDA’s “objective of ensuring the United State leads the world in sustainable crop production and biotech crop exports.” He took the opportunity to announce that the USDA would reorganize the Biotechnology Regulatory Services agency and create a new NEPA team “dedicated to creating high quality and defensible documents to better inform our regulatory decisions.” This new NEPA team would go on to develop the NEPA Pilot Project and begin streamlining the approval process.

To Freese, it appears that Vilsack used to the word “defensible” in reference to legal challenges like the ones his group made to Monsanto alfalfa and sugar beets. “Their whole focus is on ‘defensible’ Environmental Assessments,” Freese said after reading the letters. “From our perspective, that’s the wrong goal … it presumes the crop is going to be approved.”

Freese said the correspondence between Vilsack and the industry groups highlights the need for a culture change at the USDA. Regulators should be concerned about the safety of new GE products, not ensuring American exports compete with Brazil and China.

“It should be all about doing good assessments and making sure the crops that are approved are safe,” Freese said.

A USDA spokesperson declined to comment when asked if the agency would like to respond to criticisms of the NEPA Pilot Project and said updates on the project will be made available online.

Watchdogs like Freese know that regulators already work closely with the industry and the NEPA Pilot Project could simply make their work more efficient. Regulators already rely heavily on data provided by private contractors and by biotech companies to prepare EAs. During the Monsanto alfalfa case, internal emails between regulators and Monsanto officials surfaced and revealed the company worked closely with regulators to edit its original petition to deregulate the alfalfa. One regulator even accepted Monsanto’s help in conducting the USDA’s original EA of the GE alfalfa before it was initially approved in 2005.

Genetically engineered and modified crops continue to cause controversy across the globe, but in America they are a fact of life. The Obama and Bush administrations have actively promoted biotech agriculture both at home and abroad. Countries like China, Argentina and Brazil have also embraced biotech agriculture. Regulators in European countries – including crucial trade partners like France and Spain – have been much more cautious and, in some cases, even hostile toward the industry. GE crops are banned in Hungary and Peru, and earlier this year officials in Hungary destroyed 1,000 acres of corn containing Monsanto transgenes. The US, however, continues to allow big biotech companies to cultivate considerable power and influence and, as the letters uncovered by FOIA reveal, top regulators are ready to meet their demands.

“The USDA regards its own regulatory system as a rubber stamp,” Freese said after reading the letters. “At least at the upper levels, there’s always been this presumption that [GE crops] must be approved.”

Obama White House Has Weakened More Lobbyist-Opposed Health, Public Safety Regulations Than Bush Administration

Oldspeak:”A new report shows that despite a campaign pledge to get lobbyists out of Washington, the Obama White House has weakened regulation in favor of corporate interests more than the Bush administration. The report deals with issues that are of concern to every American; smog in our cities, collapsing mine shafts that kill workers in West Virginia, the Deepwater Horizon spill in the Gulf of Mexico, salmonella in peanut paste, a whole variety of public health threats that agencies of the government were set up to avoid. Unfortunately, although we expected a bright new future with President Obama, he has disappointed us in this area to a large extent, inserting politics and pandering to special interests rather than letting science and technology reign.”-RENA STEINZOR. Yet another campaign promise gone unfulfilled. Sadly, due to the frightfully inept and unelectable presidential alternatives offered by Republicans, it’s not likely Obama will be held accountable to the long list of changes for the worse he’s presided over. Moral of the story? The Corporatocracy rules, no matter who you ‘vote’ for. More change I can’t believe in.

Related Story:

“Behind Closed Doors at the White House: How Politics Trumps Protection of Public Health, Worker Safety and the Environment”

By Amy Goodman @ Democracy Now:

A new report shows that despite a campaign pledge to get lobbyists out of Washington, the Obama White House has weakened regulation in favor of corporate interests more than the Bush administration. The study, “Behind Closed Doors at the White House: How Politics Trumps Protection of Public Health, Worker Safety, and the Environment,” examines more than a thousand meetings that took place over a decade between lobbyists and a little known regulatory office, then checks to see how proposed rules were weakened to accommodate industry requests. It found the Obama White House changed rules 76 percent of the time, while Bush changed them just 64 percent of the time. EPArules were changed at a significantly higher rate — 84 percent. We speak to the report’s lead author, Rena Steinzor, professor at the University of Maryland Carey School of Law and President of the Center for Progressive Reform.

AMY GOODMAN: As we end on a new report that shows despite President Obama’s campaign pledge to get lobbyists out of Washington, the White House has weakened regulation in favor of corporate interests even more than the Bush administration. The study examines more that 1,000 meetings that took place over a decade between lobbyists and a little known regulatory office, then checks to see how proposed rules were weakened to accommodate industry requests. It found the Obama White House changed rules 76% of the time while the Bush administration changed them just 64% of the time. EPA rules were changed a significantly higher rate, 84%.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: Much of this is due to the man Obama appointed to the head of House of Information and Regulatory Affairs, through which all proposed regulation must pass. Cass Sunstein is know for his academic work on the risks of overregulation. Well, for more we’re joined from Washington, D.C. by Rena Steinzor, Professor at the University of Maryland Carey School of Law and President of the Center for Progressive Reform. She’s the lead author of this exhaustive report, “Behind Closed Doors at the White House: How Politics Trumps Protection of Public Health, Worker Safety, and the Environment.” Rena, welcome to Democracy Now!. Can you talk about this report?

RENA STEINZOR: The report deals with issues that are familiar and of concern to every American; smog in our cities, collapsing mine shafts that kill workers in West Virginia, the Deepwater Horizon spill in the Gulf of Mexico, salmonella in peanut paste, a whole variety of public health threats that agencies of the government were set up to avoid. Unfortunately, although we expected a bright new future with President Obama, he has disappointed us in this area to a large extent, inserting politics and pandering to special interests rather than letting science and technology reign.

AMY GOODMAN: Rena Steinzor, the issue of the smog regulations that so blindsided the Administrator of the EPA, Lisa Jackson.

RENA STEINZOR: Yes, Lisa Jackson, was—-when she was appointed there was tremendous relief and joy in the community of public health experts and environmentalists who watch EPA. And she immediately stepped in to try and get a lot of these rules, which were mandated by Congress, back on track and promised to repair the damage that was left by George W. Bush. But, this small office in the White House, which panders to special interests, stepped in and was the president’s point person, point agency to destroy her efforts to strengthen these protections. And anyone who lives in a major American city knows Code Red days when children are not allowed to play outside because the air pollution is so bad.

AMY GOODMAN: We have 15 seconds, if you can summarize what happened.

RENA STEINZOR: Really, it is remarkable that an effort to clean up smog in American cities should be killed by an office at the White House that caters to special interests.

AMY GOODMAN: Rena Steinzor, we will link to your report, Professor at the University of Maryland Carey School of Law, President of The Center for Progressive Reform, lead author in this report, “Behind Closed Doors at the White House: How Politics Trumps Protection of Public Health, Worker Safety, and the Environment.”

 

Over 160 Arrested In Ongoing Civil Disobedience At White House Against Keystone XL Tar Sands Oil Pipeline

Oldspeak“Can you imagine if one of those earthquakes happened near an oil pipeline?!  The oil giant Transcanada wants to build a massive 1,700 mile extension to their network of pipelines crossing 6 states. It would threaten a large fresh water aquifer, fragile ecosystems and farmland with contamination from the dirtiest form of oil on earth; Bitumen. In Canada alone, up to 10 million barrels of freshwater A DAY is used to refine it. Obama has the power to stop it. On the campaign trail he said when he got elected, he were going to begin to heal the planet, that he were going to put policies in place to heal the planet. This is a prime opportunity to keep a promise that will affect the lives and heath of millions of Americans. But alas, given his documented support for and from dirty energy producers of  oil, ‘clean coal’, and nuclear, I won’t hold my breath. It would be a beautiful thing though if he actually listened to the people screaming outside his office window. Yet another serious issue ignored by corporate press.”

By Amy Goodman @ Democracy Now:

Fifty-two environmental activists were arrested Monday in front of the White House as part of an ongoing protest calling on the Obama administration to reject a permit for the 1,700-mile Keystone XL pipeline project, which would deliver Canada tar sands oil to refineries in Texas, and rather focus on developing clean energy. An estimated 2,000 people have signed up to hold sit-ins and commit other acts of civil disobedience outside the White House every day for the next two weeks — 162 have already been arrested since Saturday. Also joining the protest are indigenous First Nations communities in Canada and landowners along the Keystone XL pipeline’s planned route. An editorial in Sunday’s New York Times joined in calling on the State Department to reject the pipeline, noting that the extraction of petroleum from the tar sands creates far more greenhouse emissions than conventional production. Meanwhile, oil industry backers of the project emphasize what they say are the economic benefits of the $7 billion proposal. As the Obama administration remains undecided whether to approve the Keystone XL pipeline, we speak with Bill McKibben, who joins us from Washington, D.C., where he was released Monday after spending two nights in jail. He is part of Tar Sands Action, a group of environmentalists, indigenous communities, labor unions and scientific experts calling for action to stop the project. “This is the first real civil disobedience of this scale in the environmental movement in ages,” McKibben says.

Guest:

Bill McKibben, part of Tar Sands Action and founder of the grassroots climate campaign 350.org. He is the author of many books, including his most recent, Eaarth: Making a Life on a Tough New Planet.

Related stories

• A Debate: Should the U.S. Approve TransCanada’s Massive Keystone XL Tar Sands Oil Pipeline?

Related Links

• 350.org
• Tar Sands Action

AMY GOODMAN: Fifty-two environmental activists were arrested Monday in front of the White House as part of an ongoing protest now underway being called—it’s calling on the Obama administration to reject the Keystone XL pipeline. The proposed 1,500-mile pipeline would deliver tar sands oil 1,700 miles from Canada to refineries in Texas. Demonstrators are calling on Obama to reject a permit for the pipeline and instead focus on developing clean energy.

An estimated 2,000 people have signed up to hold sit-ins and commit other acts of civil disobedience outside the White House every day for the next two weeks. More than 162 people have been arrested since Saturday. Among those arrested was prominent environmental activist Bill McKibben. He and 65 others were released Monday after spending 48 hours in jail. Dr. Sydney Parker of Maryland was arrested Sunday.

DR. SYDNEY PARKER: We are here because this is not just an environmental issue, it’s also a very big health issue. And that’s why we’ve come out today, and that’s why we’re so committed. So, personally, I have never been arrested before. I’m not—you know, I don’t do this for fun. I’m here because I think it is such an important issue that it really demands this kind of action, and it demands that level of commitment from myself.

AMY GOODMAN: Also headed to Washington to join the protest are indigenous First Nations communities in Canada and landowners along the Keystone XL pipeline’s planned six-state route from Alberta to the Gulf Coast.

An editorial in Sunday’s New York Times joined in calling on the State Department to reject the pipeline. It noted the extraction of petroleum from the tar sands creates far more greenhouse emissions than conventional production.

Meanwhile, oil industry backers of the project are emphasizing what they say are the economic benefits of the $7 billion proposal. Republican Congress Member Ted Poe, whose home state of Texas hosts the refineries that would receive the tar sands oil, urged President Obama to back the pipeline.

REP. TED POE: To me, an easy choice for this administration: either they can force Americans to continue to rely on unfriendly foreign countries for our energy, like Venezuela and the Middle Eastern dictators, by depriving Americans of a reliable source of oil at a time when gas prices are around $4, or they can work with our friends in the north to supply over 1.4 million barrels of oil per day. Pipelines are the proven and safe, efficient source of energy. Best of all, this project creates thousands of jobs at a time when unemployment in this country is 9.2 percent.

AMY GOODMAN: As the Obama administration remains undecided on the Keystone XL pipeline, we turn now to one of the leading environmentalists opposed to its construction, Bill McKibben, from Washington, D.C., just released from jail after spending two nights there along with others as they kicked off the pipeline protests, founder of the grassroots climate campaign 350.org. His latest book is Eaarth: Making a Life on a Tough New Planet.

Bill, welcome to Democracy Now! Explain why you were arrested.

BILL McKIBBEN: Well, we really felt like this was the issue, Amy, the best chance for the President to make the statement he hasn’t really made so far in his administration about the fact that we’ve got to get off oil, that we don’t need one more huge source of oil pouring in, instead we need to make the tough decision that we’re going to try and power our lives in new ways. And so, there are people flooding into D.C. from all 50 states and Puerto Rico, lining up to get arrested over the next couple of weeks. It’s pretty powerful to see.

AMY GOODMAN: Bill, last week I asked Cindy Schild of the American Petroleum Institute why her group and TransCanada are pushing so hard for the pipeline. She denied having any financial interests in having the project approved, saying API is looking out for the country’s “energy security.” This is an excerpt of what she had to say.

CINDY SCHILD: API doesn’t have a financial interest in the pipeline. I mean, we’re looking out for, again, energy security, national security. We also see supply flexibility and reliability benefits to being able to bring the third-largest resource base from Canada, and our number one trading partner, down to our largest refining center in the Gulf.

AMY GOODMAN: That’s the spokesperson for American Petroleum Institute. Bill McKibben, who stands to benefit from this project?

BILL McKIBBEN: Well, they may not have any—they may not have—you know, the institute, whatever it is, may not have a financial interest, but the oil industry sure does. There’s a couple of trillion dollars worth of sludge sitting up there that they desperately want to sell. That’s why they’re lobbying like crazy to get Washington to approve this thing. But, you know, I mean, let’s be serious. This is the second-largest pool of carbon on earth. America’s foremost climatologist and NASA scientist, Jim Hansen, said a few weeks ago, if we begin tapping into this, it’s—and I quote— “essentially game over for the climate,” unquote. I don’t know what more one more needs to say about security than that. I’m not quite sure what kind of world, you know, what kind of security they’re talking about, once we push global warming past whatever tipping points remain.

AMY GOODMAN: Explain what you feel are the problems with the tar sands, and exactly what route this will take, where it will go, the pipeline.

BILL McKIBBEN: So, the problems fall into two categories, really. One is along the pipeline. Start in Alberta, where it’s an environmental debacle. They’ve scraped off huge—I mean, when I say “huge,” I mean huge; this tar sands covers an area the size of the United Kingdom—scraped off huge amounts of boreal forest, wrecked native lands and native lives, which is why indigenous people have been at the core of this organizing effort. Now they’re proposing to stick it in a pipeline and send it 1,700 miles to Texas. The 1,700 miles goes through some of the most sensitive and beautiful and important agricultural land in this country. It crosses the Ogalalla Aquifer, a source of water for 20 million people, one of the great pools of fresh water on the planet.

You know, I mean, the precursor, small precursor pipeline of this thing has had 12 leaks in a year. You know, part of our job here is to prevent a terrestrial BP spill, OK? But even if all that oil makes it safely to Texas, OK, every drop of it that didn’t spill into the land or water is going to spill into the atmosphere. If we burn that oil, we increase dramatically the amount of global warming gases in the atmosphere. And after a year that’s just seen the highest temperatures ever recorded on this planet, after a year we’ve seen incredible weather extremes of all kinds, that’s just folly. You listen to the senator from Texas, and you want to say to the guy, “Have you noticed that your state is in the worst drought—worse than the Dust Bowl—the worst drought ever recorded? Get real!”

And that’s why—it’s why it’s so great that there are people just showing up at the White House, saying, “President Obama, you can actually block this thing. You don’t have to ask Congress a thing. It’s up to you. You can simply say, ‘No, we’re not going to give the permit for this dog of a project. We’re, for once, really going to stand up.’”

AMY GOODMAN: Speaking of Texas politicians, Bill McKibben, I wanted to play a comment of Texas Governor and Republican presidential candidate Rick Perry, who recently claimed global warming is a hoax. This is what Perry said at a news conference in New Hampshire.

GOV. RICK PERRY: The issue of global warming has been politicized. I think that there are a substantial number of scientists who have manipulated data so that they will have dollars rolling into their projects. And I think we’re seeing it almost weekly or even daily, scientists who are coming forward and questioning the original idea that man-made global warming is what is causing the climate to change. And I don’t think, from my perspective, that I want America to be engaged in spending that much money on still a scientific theory that has not been proven and, from my perspective, is more and more being put into question.

AMY GOODMAN: That was presidential candidate Perry, the governor of Texas. Bill McKibben?

BILL McKIBBEN: Rick Perry’s response to the drought so far has been to have a statewide day of prayer. Now, I’m a Methodist Sunday school teacher, so I’m completely down with prayer. That’s good. But in most theologies, prayer works a little better if you aren’t at the same time trying to think of every policy you can do to make matters worse. It’s astonishing that someone is able to make George Bush look relatively smart about scientific things. The Governor is completely wrong, of course, about the science. It’s not only strong, it grows stronger with every passing heat wave and every year of record temperature. There’s no scientific doubt.

The only reason that anybody is even considering building this pipeline is because it’s going to make a few big corporations an immense amount of money. And that’s why those corporations and the Koch brothers and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce are lobbying like crazy for it. We don’t have the money to compete with those guys. All we have, the only alternative currency we have, is our bodies. And that’s what we’re using.

It was interesting to be in jail this weekend and reflect—listen to some of the people on the cell block reflecting on the fact that the last time they were, you know, lying on the ground like this was in some church basement while they were out campaigning for Barack Obama in that fevered fall of 2008. We’re incredibly hopeful that if the President does the right thing here, it will remind a lot of us why we were so enthusiastic about him and send a real jolt of electricity through people that are a little, frankly, discouraged at the moment.

AMY GOODMAN: Bill, you have been an environmentalist for decades and acted on that, but now you’re getting arrested. Why have you chosen to participate in the civil disobedience? And also, why in front of the White House now, when President Obama is on vacation?

BILL McKIBBEN: Well, we’ll be here when he gets back, too. We’re staying for two weeks, every day. This is the first real civil disobedience of this scale in the environmental movement in ages—I mean, as long as I can recall. And even before he gets back, I’m virtually certain they’ve established a phone connection between the White House and Martha’s Vineyard. I’m pretty sure he knows we’re there, because everybody else seems to. When we came out of jail, they handed me that New York Times editorial, one of the strongest editorials I’ve ever seen in the paper, just saying, “Mr. President, block this pipeline.” I think the message is getting through.

And I think the message needs to get through, because this is one place where President Obama has no obstacles to acting. Congress isn’t in the way. He has no obstacles to acting and no excuse for not acting. It will be the biggest test for him, environmentally, between now and the next election. It’s emerged as the single, premier environmental issue right now, that people from every organization and every group are coming to Washington to help with. And the good news is that after trying to treat us pretty harshly in order to deter this protest from happening, the police are now backing off under orders from a judge, and so the subsequent three waves of arrestees have been treated much more civilly than we were. And so, I think that it’s going to only grow.

AMY GOODMAN: Very quickly, the alliance of environmentalists and labor unions that is growing right now, can you talk about the significance of this?

BILL McKIBBEN: Absolutely.

AMY GOODMAN: Naomi Klein just tweeted, “This is a major breakthrough in green+labour alliance: 2 big unions oppose.”

BILL McKIBBEN: She was talking about the fact that two of the big unions, last week, came out against this pipeline, even though the argument for it, theoretically, is that it’s going to create jobs. It will create a few. You can’t build a pipeline this big without, but at nowhere near the number that the proponents have been claiming, as it turns out. More to the point, by continuing our addiction to oil, it will send billions of dollars a day north into Canada and not give us the incentive that we need to put people to—far, far, far more people to work doing the wind and solar work that will actually repower our lives. That’s where the jobs are, and those jobs won’t be wrecking the future.

AMY GOODMAN: We have just 15 seconds, but, Bill McKibben, you’re right there in front of the White House. You and a number of students waged a campaign to get solar panels put back on the White House roof, that President Reagan had taken down. Then there was a big announcement of the victory, that President Obama had agreed. But they haven’t been put up.

BILL McKIBBEN: No, we were looking closely, as we were being arrested, and there’s no sign of them up there on the roof. But you know what? President Obama, right now that’s job number two. Job number one is blocking this incredible pipeline. Let’s get the nation’s house in order, and then it would be good if you’d go to work on your own, too.

AMY GOODMAN: Bill McKibben, thanks so much for being with us, spokesperson for TarSandsAction.org.

BILL McKIBBEN: Thank you so much.

AMY GOODMAN: Just came out of jail after two days, nonviolently protesting the Keystone XL pipeline. He is the founder of 350.org.

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Happy World Population Day! Celebrate By Not Having Babies!

Oldspeak: What’s THE best way to save the Earth? Stop having babies. Baby-Free Living is the ultimate means to Go Green! Seriously. “A study by statisticians at Oregon State University concluded that in the U.S., the carbon legacy and greenhouse gas impact of an extra child is almost 20 times more important than some of the other environmentally sensitive practices people might employ their entire lives – things like driving a high mileage car, recycling, or using energy-efficient appliances and light bulbs.” To all my childless folks out there; good job, keep up the good work!  And to all the parents; wrap it up today for a better tomorrow. The reality that no one wants to talk about is the world we are living on has a finite amount of resources to support life. We are currently taxing many of those resources to their limits. The earth was not meant to support 6 BILLION (and counting) humans, and certainly not 6 billion humans who generate as much environmentally toxic waste and pollution as we do. When humans lived naturally in harmony with the planet and didn’t artificially extend lifespan, it was cool to be baby factories. But with the advent of the Industrial Revolution ‘Modern Medicine’ and other life saving and extending technology, human population exploded to the detriment of many of our fellow earth dwellers and hasn’t let up since.  At some point we have to make serious efforts as a species to curb our biological imperative to procreate because at this point it’s not helping. It’s hurting. If we continue our current unfettered path, with billions already starving as I type,  expect to see more and more widespread food, water and resource shortages.

By Lisa Hymas @ Grist:

Happy World Population Day! You could solemnly mark the occasion by reading commentary and watching videos from the U.N. Population Fund and then writing a letter to the editor calling for improved global access to voluntary family planning.

Or you could watch comedian Doug Stanhope’s lewd, crude, misanthropic take on the issue. Did I mention it’s NSFW?

(He wasn’t making it up about the Oregon State University research; here’s the study [PDF] and a press release about it.)

Another Oil Spill As ExxonMobil Fouls Montana’s Pristine Yellowstone River

Oldspeak:”ExxonMobil spends alotta money trying to convince you that they’re doing good things for you, America and the environment with their feel good commercial/campaign ads where they support  minority education and fighting infectious diseases. Reducing dependence on foreign oil, engineering “cleaner” more environmentally friendly extraction techniques. It’s all bullshit. They deal in death. Their business is extracting the extremely toxic fossilized remains of dead animals and plants. And in the wake of their latest environmentally devastating accident, they’re going to the old reliable disaster response playbook: downplay the amount released, downplay environmental and health effects while feigning vigorous clean up efforts so as to minimize exposure to resulting legal action and amounts of recompense. The EPA, one of the energy industry’s captured ‘regulators’ is even in on the snow job claiming air and water quality have not been affected in the face of reports of oil covered wildlife and people hospitalized from exposure to oil fumes. Alas pictures like the one above tell you all you need to know. Extraction and production of oil and natural gas are inherently dangerous and toxic to the environment and everything living in it. People around the world are being killed, displaced and poisoned so Big Oil can get at their lethal lifeblood. Truly clean (not ‘natural’ gas, not nuclear, not ‘clean’ coal) and renewable energy is the only safe and sustainable way forward.

Related Stories:

Yellowstone River Suffers Oil Spill

 

Crews Mop Up Oil On Yellowstone River

 

Oil Leak Not Sealed As Quickly as Exxon Claimed

By Tara Thean @ Time Ecocentric:

Amid the fireworks, parades, and hot dogs of this past Fourth of July weekend was that sinking feeling of déjà vu when news broke that yet another oil spill was oozing across once-clean waters. This time, it wasn’t the Gulf of Mexico, it was Montana; and it wasn’t BP, it was ExxonMobil. On Friday, 1,000 barrels of crude oil (42,000 gal.) spilled into Yellowstone River after an ExxonMobil pipeline under the riverbed ruptured. The pipeline has been shut down, but not yet repaired.

ExxonMobil is “making progress” in cleaning up the oil, according to, well ExxonMobil. Company president, Gary Pruessing says that the oil giant is conducting daily reconnaissance tests to see the impact the leak is having in the areas around the riverbanks. At this point, Pruessing says, the cleanup team has yet to find areas affected by the spill beyond 25 miles of where the pipeline ruptured, and the oil found along the shoreline is “in really small patches.”

More from TIME: A Timeline of the BP Oil Spill

“I don’t want to infer in any way that we’ve completed [the tests],” Pruessing said. “If we have citizens with additional information that would conflict that, we encourage them to contact us.”

If ExxonMobil’s tests on air and water quality so far are anything to go by, residents should have no reason to panic. Though citizens of Yellowstone county raised concerns that benzene, a chemical naturally present in crude oil, might be fouling the air in the wake of the spill, air monitoring conducted so far has not found “measurable amounts that would cause problems from a health standpoint,” according to Pruessing. The same goes for water quality: the Environmental Protection Agency has conducted sampling throughout the river but has yet to pick up anything harmful.

“All the monitoring has indicated that we don’t have any air issues…and we have not had any reports about water quality,” Pruessing said, adding that the Environmental Protection Agency conducted more sampling on Monday and will make the results available in the next day or two. “We believe [the latest sampling] will confirm earlier reports that we do not have any issues on the water.”

But Alexis Bonogofsky, who lives on the Yellowstone River, said she feels strongly that ExxonMobil has downplayed the impact of the oil spill and is withholding information from residents of Yellowstone County. “It’s almost like they’re reading out of a playbook,” she said. “First they downplay the amount, then they downplay the effect – and then you see reports that it’s bigger and more damaging than they thought.” Bonogofsky added that Yellowstone County residents were not allowed to record Pruessing’s responses to their queries during a meeting with Pruessing on Sunday.

“They’re just spewing talking points,” she said. “It’s really frustrating – I think right now people are nervous and scared; they don’t know what’s going on.”

Photos from TIME: Victims of the BP Oil Spill 

But even if it is frustrating, this response shouldn’t be surprising, according to Ryan Salmon, Energy Policy Advisor for the National Wildlife Federation‘s Climate and Energy Program. “I think industry in every case has downplayed the impacts and I don’t anticipate this will be any different,” he said. Those impacts could be pretty significant: the toxic chemicals released into the river would be a problem for aquatic wildlife, Salmon said, and NWF Global Warming Solutions Program Executive Director Tim Warman noted that pipeline oil spills tend to adversely affect the health of rivers and the ecosystems surrounding them.

“It’s literally impossible that there are not going to be those impacts,” Bonogofsky said, adding that the residents of Yellowstone County haven’t been provided with enough information from ExxonMobil about the consequences of the oil spill.

Faced with these claims, Yellowstone County commissioner Bill Kennedy noted that he had provided ExxonMobil with a list of all the landowners along the riverbank and asked the company to talk face-to-face with them. “They spent four hours with one couple who had a lot of oil on their property,” he said. “We’re working on trying to have a public meeting to update everyone.” Pruessing also emphasized that a community hotline has been set up for homeowners to raise concerns about water quality or the affects of the oil spill on their land.

But Kennedy, Pruessing and ExxonMobil have a lot of convincing to do yet. Bonogofsky, for one, feels that many of the company’s statements and actions are merely for publicity. “I feel like now the cleanup crew is here and there are cameras everywhere…but only in the public places. Landowners don’t have cleanup crews in their place,” she said. “We haven’t had anyone call us and say ‘Hey, Exxon is taking care of you.’”

Photos from TIME: Protesting BP

Apples Top Most Pesticide Contaminated List; Onions Are Least Contaminated.

Oldspeak:“In this age of preservative/pesticide – laden industrialized food production, an apple a day could give you cancer. A recent Environmental Working Group report found that 92% of apples contained two or more pesticides. Even after washing and peeling apples are found to have a high amount of pesticide residue. ‘Pesticides are known to be toxic to the nervous system, cause cancer, disrupt hormones and cause brain damage in children. Pregnant women are advised to avoid foods containing pesticides’ -Janice Lloyd. Yet another vast uncontrolled experiment being conducted on hundreds of millions of unwitting and unconsenting subjects… Unfortunate that very few resources are being devoted to determining the long term effects of these poisons in the human body. But hey, at least Big Pharma and the HMOs will be happy with all the new their new revenue streams- err… patients… to “care” for.

By Janice Lloyd @ USA Today:

Apples are at the top of the list of produce most contaminated with pesticides in a report published today by the Environmental Working Group (EWG), a public health advocacy group.

Its seventh annual report analyzed government data on 53 fruits and vegetables, identifying which have the most and least pesticides after washing and peeling. For produce found to be highest in pesticides, the group recommends buying organic.

Apples moved up three spots from last year, replacing celery at the top of the most-contaminated list; 92% of apples contained two or more pesticides.

“We think what’s happening to apples is more pesticides and fungicides are being applied after the harvest so the fruit can have a longer shelf life,” says EWG analyst Sonya Lunder. “Pesticides might be in small amounts, but we don’t know what the subtle, long-term effects of many of these pesticides are yet.”

The worst offenders also include strawberries (No. 3) and imported grapes (No. 7). Onions top the “clean” list, found to be lowest in pesticides.

By choosing five servings of fruit and vegetables a day from the clean list, most people can lower the volume of pesticides they consume daily by 92%, the report says.

The Dirty Dozen

1. Apples
2. Celery
3. Strawberries
4. Peaches
5. Spinach
6. Nectarines (imported)
7. Grapes (imported)
8. Sweet bell peppers
9. Potatoes
10. Blueberries
11. Lettuce
12. Kale/collard greens

“Consumers don’t want pesticides on their foods,” says EWG president Ken Cook. “We eat plenty of apples in our house, but we buy organic when we can.”

Rankings reflect the amounts of chemicals present on food when it is eaten. Most samples were washed and peeled before testing. Washing with a “produce wash” is unlikely to help remove pesticides because they’re taken up by the entire plant and reside on more than just the skin, the report says.

For shoppers who cannot afford organic food, which often is more expensive, Cook says the lists offer alternatives. Can’t find organic apples? Buy pineapples, the top fruit on the clean list, or avocados or mangoes.

Fewer than 10% of pineapple, mango and avocado samples showed pesticides. For vegetables, asparagus, corn and onions had no detectable residue on 90% or more of samples.

The Clean 15

1. Onions
2. Corn
3. Pineapples
4. Avocado
5. Asparagus
6. Sweet peas
7. Mangoes
8. Eggplant
9. Cantaloupe (domestic)
10. Kiwi
11. Cabbage
12. Watermelon
13. Sweet potatoes
14. Grapefruit
15. Mushrooms

Pesticides are known to be toxic to the nervous system, cause cancer, disrupt hormones and cause brain damage in children. Pregnant women are advised to avoid foods containing pesticides.

A study by Harvard School of Public Health found children exposed to pesticides had a higher risk of developing attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.

Lunder says pesticides were measured in six different ways to calculate overall scores:

•percentage of samples tested with detectable pesticides.

•percentage of samples with two or more pesticides.

•Average number of pesticides found on a single sample.

•Average amount (level in parts per million) of all pesticides found.

•Maximum number of pesticides found on a single sample.

•Total number of pesticides found on the commodity.

Eating five servings of fruits and vegetables from the “dirty dozen” list would mean you’d get an average of 14 different pesticides. By choosing five from the clean list, you’d consumer fewer than two pesticides.

“With the increased emphasis on eating more fruits and vegetables, we need to be vigilant about the food we’re producing and serving,” Lunder says.

When Food Kills

Oldspeak: “Behold! The Fruits of Corporatization of Food… Food-born illness kills more people than AIDS.  But thanks to Big Ag’s Legion of Lobbyists and the Supreme Court’s Citizens United Decision, very little is being done to ensure the safety of our food supply.” ‘Every year in the United States, 325,000 people are hospitalized because of food-borne illnesses and 5,000 die, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That’s right: food kills one person every two hours.Yet while the terrorist attacks of 2001 led us to transform the way we approach national security, the deaths of almost twice as many people annually have still not generated basic food-safety initiatives. We have an industrial farming system that is a marvel for producing cheap food, but its lobbyists block initiatives to make food safer.’ -Nicolas D. Kristoff

By Nicolas D. Kristoff @ The New York Times:

The deaths of 31 people in Europe from a little-known strain of E. coli have raised alarms worldwide, but we shouldn’t be surprised. Our food often betrays us.

Just a few days ago, a 2-year-old girl in Dryden, Va., died in a hospital after suffering bloody diarrhea linked to another strain of E. coli. Her brother was also hospitalized but survived.

Every year in the United States, 325,000 people are hospitalized because of food-borne illnesses and 5,000 die, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That’s right: food kills one person every two hours.

Yet while the terrorist attacks of 2001 led us to transform the way we approach national security, the deaths of almost twice as many people annually have still not generated basic food-safety initiatives. We have an industrial farming system that is a marvel for producing cheap food, but its lobbyists block initiatives to make food safer.

Perhaps the most disgraceful aspect of our agricultural system — I say this as an Oregon farmboy who once raised sheep, cattle and hogs — is the way antibiotics are recklessly stuffed into healthy animals to make them grow faster.

The Food and Drug Administration reported recently that 80 percent of antibiotics in the United States go to livestock, not humans. And 90 percent of the livestock antibiotics are administered in their food or water, typically to healthy animals to keep them from getting sick when they are confined in squalid and crowded conditions.

The single state of North Carolina uses more antibiotics for livestock than the entire United States uses for humans.

This cavalier use of low-level antibiotics creates a perfect breeding ground for antibiotic-resistant pathogens. The upshot is that ailments can become pretty much untreatable.

The Infectious Diseases Society of America, a professional organization of doctors, cites the case of Josh Nahum, a 27-year-old skydiving instructor in Colorado. He developed a fever from bacteria that would not respond to medication. The infection spread and caused tremendous pressure in his skull.

Some of his brain was pushed into his spinal column, paralyzing him. He became a quadriplegic depending on a ventilator to breathe. Then, a couple of weeks later, he died.

There’s no reason to link Nahum’s case specifically to agricultural overuse, for antibiotic resistance has multiple causes that are difficult to unravel. Doctors overprescribe them. Patients misuse them. But looking at numbers, by far the biggest element of overuse is agriculture.

We would never think of trying to keep our children healthy by adding antibiotics to school water fountains, because we know this would breed antibiotic-resistant bacteria. It’s unconscionable that Big Ag does something similar for livestock.

Louise Slaughter, the only microbiologist in the United States House of Representatives, has been fighting a lonely battle to curb this practice — but industrial agricultural interests have always blocked her legislation.

“These statistics tell the tale of an industry that is rampantly misusing antibiotics in an attempt to cover up filthy, unsanitary living conditions among animals,” Slaughter said. “As they feed antibiotics to animals to keep them healthy, they are making our families sicker by spreading these deadly strains of bacteria.”

Vegetarians may think that they’re immune, but they’re not. E. coli originates in animals but can spill into water used to irrigate vegetables, contaminating them. The European E. coli outbreak apparently arose from bean sprouts grown on an organic farm in Germany.

One of the most common antibiotic-resistant pathogens is MRSA, which now kills more Americans annually than AIDS and adds hugely to America’s medical costs. MRSA has many variants, and one of the more benign forms now is widespread in hog barns and among people who deal with hogs. An article this year in a journal called Applied and Environmental Microbiology reported that MRSA was found in 70 percent of hogs on one farm.

Another scholarly journal reported that MRSA was found in 45 percent of employees working at hog farms. And the Centers for Disease Control reported this April that this strain of bacteria has now been found in a worker at a day care center in Iowa.

Other countries are moving to ban the feeding of antibiotics to livestock. But in the United States, the agribusiness lobby still has a hold on Congress.

The European outbreak should shake people up. “It points to the whole broken system,” notes Robert Martin of the Pew Environment Group.

We need more comprehensive inspections in the food system, more testing for additional strains of E. coli, and more public education (always wash your hands after touching raw meat, and don’t use the same cutting board for meat and vegetables). A great place to start reforms would be by banning the feeding of antibiotics to healthy livestock.

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