Global Warming – Idling Cars Add to Air Pollution

Millions of people do it everyday. Sitting at a traffic light. Warming up in the drive way. Waiting for your order at a fast food restaurant. Idling cars add tons of pollution to the air we breathe.

About 30 states and dozens of municipalities have measures in place to limit the amount a vehicle can be left idling, typically around three to five minutes.

New York City has had a three-minute law in place citywide since 1971, but advocates say it is rarely enforced or advertised.

A new measure signed into law this month cuts the allowed idling time from three minutes to one minute around schools, and gives more city agencies the power to issue violations. It also requires an annual violations report so officials can track enforcement.

A new report by the Environmental Defense Fund estimates that idling cars and trucks produce 130,000 tons of heat-trapping carbon dioxide each year in New York City, contributing to global warming. The group believes the one-minute idling limit next to schools is the toughest such law in the United States.

This is one of many ‘little’ thoughtless action’s we do everyday that if halted could prevent tons of smog-forming nitrogen oxides from entering the atmosphere, not to mention the millions of gallons of gasoline we could collectively save.

Food Safety: How Serious Are We?

Part of being green involves how our food is grown. Agricultural practices are being increasingly scrutinized. How food is processed, what additional ingredients are involved for preserving and coloring are of great concern. Also, the marketing of food, especially to children, has come under fire.

The single most powerful force to express consumers concern over these matters comes from consumers themselves.

The Food and Drug Administration and the US Department of Agriculture are tasked with protecting Americas food supply through inspections but are over burdened with the sheer amount of food to be inspected. There simply are not enough inspectors to do an adequate job. So, when salmonella or E. Coli are discovered it is usually by hospital personnel after the consumer has been sickened and widespread notifications typically only reach the nation’s consumers after deaths have been reported.

This mode of operation may be acceptable to bureaucrats who don’t want to budget money for more inspectors but it is not acceptable to the families of those people who died because some product inspections fell through the cracks of an overburdened system.

It is problematic to have food producers inspect themselves. One would think that reputation alone would be enough to prevent these companies from selling tainted products. But, as evidenced in the recent Peanut Corporation of America case, some companies appear to be more concerned with protecting their near-term bottom-line than the safety of the customers or the future of their business. This fact alone should disqualify them from having the final say as to whether or not their own processes and products are safe for the consumer.

Our current inspection system in America is broken and not enough is being done to correct it. Having a complex set of laws to govern food safety, as with everything else, is just ridiculously burdensome. But, since conscience is obviously not a powerful enough incentive for some corporate heads to protect consumers, we are forced to spend even more tax payer dollars to regulate and inspect them.

The problem is not limited to American grown and processed food. More than130 countries ship food to the United States. According to the FDA, the volume of food imports has been growing steadily – about 15 percent on average per year since 1991. Imported food now makes up more than 10 percent of the food Americans consume, according to the USDA.

The FDA was able to inspect only 0.7 percent of all imported food products in 2007, down from 1.1 percent the previous year. In 2006, that means the FDA inspected just 20,662 shipments out of more than 8.9 million that arrived in US ports – employing about 1,750 food inspectors for ports and domestic food-production plants.

The Safe Food Act, reintroduced by Rep. Rosa De Lauro (D) of Connecticut and Sen. Richard Durbin (D) of Illinois, calls for a single food safety agency and standardized procedures to govern American food safety. The bill requests $650 million more in appropriations for the FDA's food inspection program.

The bottom line is that we can continue to write laws, but all that does is make Congress feel they are needed. What the consumer needs is for corporate America to give a damn about the health of the very people who keep them in business, the consumer. Short of placing the full attention to and protection of food safety above profit we need more inspectors. Inspectors with the ability to immediately shutdown production, inspectors that will not be paid off for favorable reports, inspectors with the integrity and attention to their duties in order to regain consumers faith in the food that we buy.

Do we need something on the scale of an “amber alert system” for food warnings? If more food could be inspected then we would not need to rely on hospital staff or mass media to warn the general public of food contamination.

A new national food safety and labeling poll conducted by Consumer Reports National Research Center reveals that, by a huge margin, consumers are concerned about food safety, and they want the government to inspect the food supply more frequently and to publicly disclose where food safety problems arise.

While 73% polled currently regard the overall food supply as safe, nearly half (48%) said their confidence in the safety of the nation’s food supply has decreased. A bare majority of Americans feel the government is doing all it can to ensure food safety (54%). Eighty-three percent of respondents are concerned with harmful bacteria or chemicals in food and 81% are concerned with the safety of imported food.

It is clear, something needs to change. We cannot force people to adopt healthier eating habits, and short of forcing people to stay abreast of current events we cannot warn people quickly enough about tainted food to prevent more illnesses and death. We can however beef up our inspection system.

Our very lives could depend on it.

Further Reading:
Food Safety.gov
Food Safety and Inspection Service
Preparing food safely in your home
Food Recalls, Market Withdrawals and Safety Alerts

Vilsack Laying Groundwork for USDA Reform

In his speech this week before National Association of Wheat Growers, Tom Vilsack, U.S. Department of Agriculture chief, told farmers to start developing other sources of income because the era of crop subsidies may be nearing an end.

Part of his plans for the new USDA Office of Ecosystem Services and Markets (USDA-OESM) is to promote a far more diversified income base for the farm sector while at the same time promoting more agriculturally-sustainable practices. This could mean that windmills and biofuels will eventually be a part of their income. Also, he alluded to organic agriculture playing an increasing role.

I am all for any plan that would promote food- and fiber-producing activities that are more climate-friendly. OESM Head Sally Collins says, "Where we go from here will alter the discussion of how the country thinks about natural resources."

As an indication that his plan is in the works, the USDA just announced a pilot project that will let wheat, corn and soy farmers who receive subsidies to plant vegetables on their so-called "base acreage," a practice that is currently illegal -- to set the stage for this kind of transition.

Tom Vilsack is a strong proponent of renewable energy and developing the nation’s alternative fuel industry, particularly ethanol and other bio-fuels as a way to reduce the nation’s reliance on foreign oil. He is also a staunch supporter of rural growth.

It seems this re-direction of the USDA just may be the answer we are looking for.

Monsanto, You Are Striping Away Our Roots

Monsanto is in the process of cleansing rural America of non-corporate farming. But they are not alone. Corporate livestock production is doing their share to purge rural families of their livelihoods and funnel any remaining pennies into their multi-national coffers. Through the leverage of big money, rural people are losing control of their local public institutions as corporations gain influence over local economies and local governments.

I would really like to believe that these over-zealous and blindly self-serving corporate interests do not realize the effect their corporate creep is having on rural America, but I suspect I would be wrong.

The imposition of corporate control over these precious irreplaceable rural resources, including rural people and rural culture, has but one purpose, and that is to feed the wealth of corporate investors. Investors, by reducing rural America to an accounting balance sheet, has created several irrefutable side-effects: we are losing our diversity and our independence.

This phenomena is not unique to America. It is taking place around the world. Outside investment, badly needed in many parts of the world, is the enticement that allows corporations to buy their way into a community promising to stimulate the local economy and expand the tax base. Then slowly, like a cancer, guts it out, sucking the local economy dry by sending all the profits back to a corporate headquarters.

Corporations like to boil things down to its lowest common denominator making their product more easily manageable. For Monsanto’s part in ‘bringing the rural farmer into the fold’ is to use genetic engineering of food crops to create seeds that will guarantee better results while making the seed immune to their own herbicidal formula. In order to buy this seed, farmers are required to sign a contract that states no seed from this years crop can be collected and used for next years crop. This ‘intellectual property rights’ contract ensures Monsanto will sell the farmer more seed next year.

They are serious enough to take farmers to court. One farmer in Covington, Tennessee is believed to be the first farmer to have gone to jail for saving and replanting Monsanto's Roundup Ready soy seed in 1998. Ralph spent four months behind bars and must also pay the company 1.8 million dollars in penalties.

In total, U.S. courts have awarded Monsanto more than 15 million dollars, according to a new report by the Washington-based Centre for Food Safety (CFS) called "Monsanto vs. U.S. Farmers".

According to the report, court awards are just a fraction of the money the company has extracted from farmers. Hundreds of farmers are believed to have been coerced into secret settlements over the past eight years to avoid going to court.

In 2004, nearly 85 percent of all soy and canola were GE varieties. Three-quarters of U.S. cotton and nearly half of corn is also GE. Monsanto controls roughly 90 percent of GE soy, cotton and canola seed markets and has a large piece of the corn seed market.

So why don't farmers just buy non-GE seed? North Dakota farmer Rodney Nelson says there is actually very little conventional seed left to buy anymore because seed dealers don't make nearly as much money from them.

Monsanto sued Nelson and his family in 1999 for patent infringement, charging they had saved Roundup Ready soybean seeds on their 8,000-acre farm. Two years of legal hell ensued, Nelson said. The matter ended with an out of court settlement that he is forbidden to talk about. "We won, but we feel forever tainted."

The report contains a number of similar individual stories that often end in bankruptcy for the farmer. Even if a farmer decides to stop using Monsanto seeds, the GE plants self-seed and some will spring up of their own accord the following year. These unwanted "volunteers" can keep popping up for five or more years after a farmer stops using the patented seeds. Under U.S. patent law, a farmer commits an offense even if they unknowingly plant Monsanto's seeds without purchasing them from the company. Other countries have similar laws.

In the well-known case of Canadian farmer Percy Schmeiser, pollen from a neighbor's GE canola fields and seeds that blew off trucks on their way to a processing plant ended up contaminating his fields with Monsanto's genetics. The trial court ruled that no matter how the GE plants got there, Schmeiser had infringed on Monsanto's legal rights when he harvested and sold his crop. After a six-year legal battle, Canada's Supreme Court ruled that while Schmeiser had technically infringed on Monsanto's patent, he did not have to pay any penalties. Schmeiser, who spoke at last year's World Social Forum in India, says it cost 400,000 dollars to defend himself.

Another North Dakota farmer, Tom Wiley, explains the situation this way: "Farmers are being sued for having GMOs on their property that they did not buy, do not want, will not use and cannot sell."

"It's a corporation out of control," says Andrew Kimbrell, the executive director of CFS. Unfortunately, he adds, there will be no help for farmers from the U.S. Department of Agriculture or the Food and Drug Administration as key positions are occupied by former Monsanto employees and the company has a powerful lobby in Washington.

In a 2007 report, the Center for Food Safety, in Washington, D.C., documented 112 such lawsuits, in 27 states. Even more significant, in the Center's opinion, are the numbers of farmers who settle because they don't have the money or the time to fight Monsanto.

In the latest phase in Monsanto’s grand plan to control the use of seed, police officers in Illinois, on January 9, 2009, served notices to several farmers on behalf of Monsanto citing that they were illegally saving seeds that belonged to Monsanto. One of those cited is Steve Hixon. Mr. Hixon provides a seed cleaning service to surrounding farmers. His equipment takes plant material and separates the seed to save for the next years crop.

Monsanto got its start making saccharin. In 1948, the company started making a powerful herbicide; a by-product of the process was the creation of a chemical that would later be known as dioxin. On March 8, 1949, a massive explosion rocked a Monsanto herbicide plant. Court records indicate that 226 plant workers fell ill. In the 1960s, the factory manufactured Agent Orange, which later became the focus of lawsuits by Vietnam veterans contending that they had been harmed by exposure.

During the 1990s, Monsanto alone spent nearly $8 billion acquiring leading commercial seed suppliers in the United States and internationally; DuPont and others quickly followed suit, leading to today's widespread proliferation of genetically engineered food crops."


Monsanto's pledge is "We want to make the world a better place for future generations. As an agricultural company, Monsanto can do this best by providing value through the products and systems we offer to farmers. With the growth of modern agricultural practices and crops that generate ever-increasing yields, we are helping farmers around the world to create a better future for human beings, the environment, and local economies."

I doubt that many farmers would agree.

Do they know the effect they are having on our farming heritage? I think they know and I also think they don’t have any regrets.


Further reading:
Monsanto’s Seed Police Keep Harassing U.S. Farmers

Building a World Free of Monsanto

Genetically Modified crops reach 9% of global crop production

Global Warming is Real, Mr. Klaus

The annual world economic forum of global leaders was held in Davos, Switzerland this past week, and Czech President Vaclav Klaus used this forum to verbally attack Al Gore over his stance on global warming.

"I don't think that there is any global warming," said the 67-year-old liberal, whose country holds the rotating presidency of the European Union. "I don't see the statistical data for that."

Referring to the former US vice president, who attended Davos this year, he added: "I'm very sorry that some people like Al Gore are not ready to listen to the competing theories. I do listen to them.

"Environmentalism and the global warming alarmism is challenging our freedom. Al Gore is an important person in this movement."

Speaking on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum, he said that he was more worried about the reaction to the perceived dangers than the consequences.

"I'm afraid that the current crisis will be misused for radically constraining the functioning of the markets and market economy all around the world," he said.

"I'm more afraid of the consequences of the crisis than the crisis itself."

I agree that people tend to become alarmed over perceived dangers, that is after all what warnings are meant to do, if they are taken seriously. This climate threat has been perceived by climatologists for many years and those early predictions are beginning to take shape. The non-scientific community needs only observe the changes in weather patterns and the resulting destruction of wildlife habitat to see this is true.

You cannot dismiss the fact that polar ice sheets are melting at a record pace. You cannot ignore the fact that navigable routes have opened through the arctic, about 30 years ahead of predictions.

Nor can you ignore the fact that the planets surface is warming up.

The greatest debate over causal factors is whether these changes are the result of a natural cycle or are they man-made.

The burning of fossil fuels has certainly taken its toll, not only on human health but also on the health of the atmosphere as a result of excavating earths resources, burning those resources and releasing the resulting gases into the atmosphere. The resultant greenhouse gases increase the planets temperature. Not alarmist theory, scientific fact.

Earth’s climate is a closed system. Everything that exists in this system stays in this system. The melting of polar ice caps produces evaporation and the increased atmospheric moisture results in increased rainfall which then leads to increased severity of hurricanes. A side effect of this increased hurricane intensity is the associated low pressure sucks more moisture away from the drier climates of the world creating more severe droughts. As a result, agricultural patterns worldwide are being affected.

Polar ice cap melt also increases sea levels which could result in future category 2 and 3 storms causing much more severe flooding than anticipated otherwise, in low-lying coastal areas.

As the planet grows ever warmer, and former cold zones give way to rising temperatures, plant and animal species are loosing their habitat and dying off thereby decreasing biodiversity. This does not bode well for planets inhabitants, for man and beast.

Are these the ramblings of ‘alarmists’ for the purpose of “radically constraining the functioning of the markets and market economy”? It seems Mr. Klaus, and by association, all other naysayers, is more concerned with the health of the market system than with the health of our planet. And this perfectly illustrates the very reason why we are in this mess today.

We dismiss scientific findings at our own peril. This has proven itself many times throughout history. Taking heed of this lesson is of the utmost importance to prevent a predicted global calamity.

It is a widespread fact that species and their habitats are on the decrease while chances for ecosystems to adapt naturally are diminishing. This cannot be merely brushed aside as ‘alarmist’.


Sources:
Science Daily, Sep 22, 2005

Global Issues, Jan 1, 2009

Climate Change Weather Patterns