-Caveat Lector- [HardGreenHerald] # 11 "Unless someone like you cares a whole lot, nothing is going to get better. It's not." --Dr. Seuss, 'The Lorax' --A RadTimes production-- ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Contents: --------------- --History shows possible doom for megacities --Sabotage to save the Earth generates backlash --Eating elephants and apes: the bushmeat trade --Global Warming: Early Warning Signs --The GNW Interview: Patrick Moore --Increase in greenhouse gases seen from space --Europe Spooked by Bushs U-Turn on CO2 Limits --Stop the Experiment: Transgenic Salmon --At Last, Americans Swallow the Truth About Their Burgers =================================================================== History shows possible doom for megacities http://www.freep.com/news/nw/city15_20010315.htm SAN FRANCISCO -- Historians and archaeologists who study the downfall of ancient civilizations are warning that parts of the modern world may be heading the way of history's fallen empires.Researchers say the overcrowded cities, water shortages and electricity brownouts in 21st-Century California, India and Brazil are ominous reminders of the fate of Rome, Babylon and the Mayan empire. Modern cities certainly enjoy more advanced technologies than ancient metropolises. But the problems of crowding, pollution, crime and sanitation that overwhelmed populous societies in the past threaten to do so again. The Mayas, who dominated Central America in the Ninth Century, built elaborate irrigation systems to support their booming population. But they "suffered from problems that are startlingly similar to those today," said Vernon Scarborough, an archaeologist at the University of Cincinnati." Overpopulation was a major factor in making the Maya vulnerable to failure," Scarborough said at a conference on "The Collapse of Complex Societies" in San Francisco last month. "The trigger event of the collapse appears to have been a long drought beginning about 840."Although many factors, such as war and disease, contributed to the calamities of antiquity, speakers at the conference singled out two causes: too many people and too little fresh water. This one-two punch can become lethal, they said, when environmental problems such as a prolonged drought put too much stress on a society. The movement of people into big cities such as Rome and Tikal, the Mayan capital, created great wealth, cultural richness and complex bureaucracies that ultimately proved to be unsustainable. "Complex societies have been collapsing for 12,000 years -- as long as they have existed," said Joseph Tainter, an expert on prehistoric American Indians at the Rocky Mountain Research Station in Albuquerque, N.M.In his talk, Tainter pointed to California's electricity crisis and never-ending quest for water as today's version of the pressures that wrecked early societies. The Akkadian empire in Mesopotamia, the Old Kingdom of Egypt, the Indus Valley civilization in India and early societies in Palestine, Greece and Crete all collapsed in a catastrophic drought and cooling of the atmosphere between 2300 and 2200 B.C.Now the world faces an increasingly serious shortage of fresh water. Although water covers three-quarters of our planet, 95 percent of it is saltwater and 70 percent of the rest is locked up in ice.A billion people lack adequate clean water, said Peter Gleick, director of the Pacific Institute for Studies in Development, Environment and Security in Oakland, Calif. Waterborne diseases kill 10,000 to 20,000 children every day, said Gleick, author of a report "The World's Water, 2000-2001.""Half the world's population has water service inferior to the ancient Greeks and Romans," Gleick said. People all over the globe are abandoning small towns and villages and jamming into metropolitan areas, especially in poorer countries. By 2015, population experts predict, there will be 28 "megacities," each with more than 10 million people. The Tokyo region is already home to more than 26 million people. Bombay, India, is expected to grow from 18.1 million to 26.1 million; Los Angeles from 13.1 million to 14.1 million; New York City from 16.6 million to 17.4 million. Cities in less fortunate parts of the world are especially likely to suffer. "The lessons from history, or prehistory, are usually inconvenient and painful to deal with and easy to ignore," Scarborough said. =================================================================== Sabotage to save the Earth generates backlash <http://www.eugeneweekly.com/special/pielc/04.html> by Alan Pittman [March 2001] Extreme threats require extreme defenses, says Craig Rosebraugh, spokesman for the Earth Liberation Front (ELF). "Life on this Earth is being threatened. This is an issue of self defense." "What we need now is direct action in the form of economic sabotage to try and take the profit motive out of these various entities that are hell-bent on environmental destruction regardless of the cost," Rosebraugh says. Since 1997, Rosebraugh has been the Portland-based spokesman for ELF and Animal Liberation Front acts of sabotage throughout the nation. His website (www.earthliberationfront.com) lists 34 separate acts of sabotage for which underground ELF activists have laid claim. The incidents range from up to $26 million in damage from burning down a ski resort in Vail, Colo., in 1998 to $400,000 in damages from burning down the Superior Lumber Co. offices in Glendale, Ore., this past January. He and other panelists spoke to several hundred audience members at a session on "Direct Action" and another on "State Repression" at the PIELC last weekend. Rosebraugh says direct action is needed because capitalism has corrupted democracy and made "state sanctioned" means of social change ineffective. "The popular environmental movement has not been able to achieve the type of change that will prevent our Earth from being killed." Erin Fullmer of Cascadia Forest Defenders has been part of a three-year tree sit near Fall Creek. She says she understands the frustration. The non-violent action hasn't involved sabotage and has succeeded in protecting a grove of trees so far, educating the public and buying time for the Forest Service to survey for the voles that provide food for spotted owls. But Fullmer says such a long action "is a very intensive tactic, it's very expensive." She says such tree sits often just protect a "patchwork" of old-growth with clear-cuts all around. Whether such prolonged tree sits are the best tactic is "an open question," Fullmer says. "I really resonate with what Craig [Rosebraugh] is saying. Does it really have to be all gone before we do anything direct about it?" Rosebraugh says sabotage "will force the economic entities to think twice about what they are doing." The actions also create huge amounts of publicity, says Rosebraugh, citing the "hundreds if not thousands" of news stories generated by ELF actions. The Vail resort was rebuilt even bigger, Rosebraugh admits, but the arson drew national and international attention to the negative impact of ski resorts on the environment. Fullmer agrees, "Vail lives on and on; it's kind of a hallmark for many people." "Every single action generates a lot of publicity," Rosebraugh says. But with that publicity has come a powerful backlash. The FBI has formed "Joint Terrorism Task Forces" with local police around the nation (including Eugene and Portland) to investigate ELF actions. State legislatures (including in Oregon) are crafting tough new anti-terrorism laws targeting ecological sabotage with stiff penalties. "As this direct action continues to go on with very few people getting caught and with increasing monetary damage, the state repression is increasing," Rosebraugh says. Rosebraugh says the movement should take on a "security culture" and use software encryption and vigilance against infiltrators to foil FBI efforts to subvert environmentalists. Rosebraugh points to a long history of FBI "COINTELPRO" actions in infiltrating the early U.S. labor, civil rights and peace movements. "This isn't something you get off 'X-Files,' this is something that has gone on throughout history to all different social movements." "COINTELPRO is basically still happening, just not by that name" Fullmer says. Alicia Littletree, an Earth First! activist from northern California, told of how the FBI has repeatedly used provocateurs, infiltrators, pepper spray, beatings, pain holds, and false arrests against members of her group. At the same time, the FBI and other law enforcement have refused to investigate threats of violence against environmentalists from right-wing groups and bring charges when activists are seriously injured or killed. For example, activist Judi Bari was severely injured by a car bomb in 1990 and activist David Chain was killed when a logger "intentionally" fell a tree on him in 1998, Littletree says. Littletree warned environmentalists not to ever talk to the FBI without an attorney present. "This is a political police force and they're not trying to solve crimes, they're out to neutralize our movement." Geneva Johnson of the Free and Critter Legal Defense Committee describes how the law has come down hard on two Eugene activists accused of an arson at a local car dealership last year. Craig (Critter) Marshall pled guilty and faces five and a half years in prison. A promise of boot camp reducing the sentence to one and a half years that was part of the plea agreement appears to have fallen through, Johnson says. Jeff (Free) Luers is still in the county jail awaiting a retrial after his lawyer died. He's in a maximum security 9-foot by 6-foot cell where he stays 22 hours a day, Johnson says. Littletree says after an ELF action, the FBI often comes after the more visible mainstream environmental groups with threats of arrest and harassment. Even if there's no evidence of involvement, the FBI may "fabricate the evidence" to win a conviction, she says. That backlash from law enforcement and sometimes public opinion after an ELF action has lead some mainstream environmental groups to say sabotage actions actually backfire and sabotage environmental causes. Rosebraugh bristles at other environmental groups that publicly denounce ELF. "There is no excuse for anyone to condemn the actions they don't agree with tactically." Fullmer says ELF actions can create heat for more mainstream groups, but also attract media attention to causes. "If we get a little burnt by that [heat] I would say, personally, that I welcome the burn." Fullmer says when a reporter calls an environmental group after an ELF action, "use that occasion to talk about the issues rather than disavowing what happened." Marshall Kirkpatrick of the Eugene Anarchist Action Collective says ELF activists should, nevertheless, use their judgment in picking their targets and "not be totally alienating to everyone out there." Sometimes, not very often, ELF actions, "make me cringe," the anarchist says. ELF has redefined what it is to be radical, Rosebraugh says. "Years ago a group called the Sierra Club used to be very, very radical, but now, they're seen as mainstream," Rosebraugh says. "ELF, I see out on this arrow bringing these other mainstream [environmental] groups along." =================================================================== Eating elephants and apes: the bushmeat trade <http://enn.com/news/enn-stories/2001/03/03162001/bushmeat_42518.asp> Friday, March 16, 2001 Whole populations of gorillas, chimpanzees, bonobos, antelopes and elephants are being eaten up. These endangered and threatened animals are disappearing quickly, and forest communities that have traditionally depended on them for food are caught in what international authorities are calling a bushmeat crisis. Meat from wild animals that was traditionally eaten by forest dwellers is now being marketed for sale in urban centers, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization warned this week. FAO wildlife expert Douglas Williamson said that shrinking populations of large forest animals could result in a long-term change in forest ecology. Many plants that depend on animals for pollination, seed dispersal or seed germination may eventually disappear as primates and elephants go extinct. Population needs, the use of automatic weapons and the temporary encroachment of large numbers of people displaced by conflicts are pressuring the wild animals and the people that depended on them for food. Williamson said that bushmeat traditionally made an important contribution to human nutrition in 61 countries, where rural people obtained at least 20 percent of their animal protein from wild animals. The FAO is working on two projects aimed at enhancing the sustainability of wild meat use as part of the organization's commitment to improving food security and protecting biological diversity, said assistant director general for forestry Hosny El Lakany. Unsustainable trade in wild meat is a particular problem in the Congo Basin because at least a decade of armed conflict has disrupted normal economic activity and forced people to turn to wild meat as a source of income. The complex bushmeat problem is being addressed by a working group of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species, of which FAO is a member. The group held its first meeting in Douala, Cameroon, in late January. Delegates from Cameroon, Equatorial Guinea, the Republic of the Congo and Gabon were present. Delegates from the Central Africa Republic and the Democratic Republic of the Congo did not attend. Chad attended as an observer. Representatives of the CITES Secretariat, the International Tropical Timber Organization, the UK and the United States were present. They were joined by representatives of international and national non-governmental organizations such as the California-based Bushmeat Project. Anthony Rose, director of the Bushmeat Project, wrote after a trip to the Central African nation of Cameroon late last year that "a ragged, far-flung army of 2,000 bushmeat hunters supported by the timber industry infrastructure will illegally shoot and butcher over 3,000 gorillas and 4,000 chimpanzees this year ... People pay a premium to eat more great apes each year than are now kept in all the zoos and laboratories of the world." The FAO and other organizations are concentrating on ways to enforce existing laws and regulations, effective protection and management of existing national parks and game reserves, and expanding protected-area systems. Long-term measures might include educating hunters and traders about species that cannot sustain intensive hunting. Authorities are working on effective regulation of bushmeat markets and trade as well as identifying and promoting alternative protein sources and alternative sources of income. Wildlife management may in the future be included in the terms for logging permits. =================================================================== Global Warming: Early Warning Signs http://www.climatehotmap.org/ Created by a host of organizations (Environmental Defense Fund, Natural Resources Defense Council, Sierra Club, Union of Concerned Scientists, US Public Interest Research Group, World Resources Institute, and World Wildlife Fund), this site seeks to provide evidence of the "fingerprints" and "harbingers" of global warming. A clickable map of the world enables users to take a closer look at geographic regions, at specific examples of "fingerprints" (e.g., heat waves, sea level rise, melting glaciers, and Arctic and Antarctic warming) and "harbingers" (spreading disease, earlier arrival of spring, range shifts and population declines in plants and animals, bleaching of coral reefs, extreme weather events, and fires). =================================================================== The GNW Interview: Patrick Moore The founding director of Greenpeace says eco-activists are killing biotech with junk science. Patrick Moore is a man environmental activists love to hate. An ecologist who co-founded Greenpeace in the early 1970s, the perceived political and social shifts of the organization led Moore to part ways in 1986. He has become one of the most vocal critics of Greenpeace and other environmental groups that are influencing public policy with "pagan beliefs and junk science." An independent thinker, Moore takes sides that might be unexpected from an ecologist, such as rational logging and the use of genetic modification in agricultural technology. His views have made him a lightning rod for outrage from environmentalists, who have created anti-Moore web sites in an attempt to drown out his views. GNW: Where did things go wrong with the environmental movement? Moore: They went wrong for several reasons. At an evolutionary level, by the mid- to late-80s mainstream society was already adopting the reasonable items in the environmental movement's agenda. The only way to remain in an adversarial position was to adopt more extreme demands. And this is why science and logic were gradually abandoned. Environmental groups have been toying with this sort of anti-science, anti-intellectual stuff for a while now. First they drifted into extremism because all their reasonable positions were adopted. They decided that rather than joining the sustainable development consensus, the multi-stakeholder process to find solutions, that they were going to remain more or less on the other side, be a watchdog, be in a confrontational and adversarial position. Much of the rest of the environmental movement has followed suit. Secondly, following the falling of the Berlin wall, and the end of the peace movement, and the end of radical socialist politics in the labor and women's movement, an awful lot of those people drifted into environmentalism. It's been highjacked by political and social activists who are using environmental rhetoric to cloak agendas that have more to do with anti-corporate and class warfare than they do with ecology or saving the environment. The World Trade Organization riot in Seattle was the culmination of that phenomenon, where environmentalism is seen as one and the same with anti-globalization. I grew up with an environmental movement where Barbara Ward, who wrote Spaceship Earth, was our hero. And she believed that there is one world and there should be one human family. To me, free trade and globalization is part of the expression of one world family. I don't see how anti-globalization fits in with ecology. GNW: Why is golden rice shaping up to be a litmus test for biotech? It seems that both sides have chosen this as the line in the sand. Moore: The biotech sector has chosen it as the issue on which they will stand or die because it so clearly goes beyond the purely financial, corporate profit-type argument, and has a very powerful moral dimension. The reason Greenpeace has decided to come out in full force and attack it is because they have painted themselves into such a corner on this issue -- zero biotech, basically -- that if they were to admit that there is one good agricultural biotech product, they have to then admit that there might be others. Then they would be reduced to a rational discussion along with the rest of us about which is good and which is not. So they're taking a fundamentalist view to, in the case of golden rice, what could be a brilliant innovation that is aimed at a quarter of a billion consumers who have Vitamin A deficiency. GNW: Is Greenpeace having an effect on stifling GMO (genetically modified organism) technology? Moore: Most certainly. GNW: Is the StarLink episode an object lesson for American industry, or was it just a tempest in a teapot? Moore: Well, it is a tempest in a teapot, but I think it's more of an object lesson for American regulators. They never should have allowed a biotech crop to be grown that was not licensed for human consumption. It's certainly a lesson for Aventis. They did not, or were not able to, comply. Read the full interview at http://www.GenomicsNews.com =================================================================== Increase in greenhouse gases seen from space <http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm?newsid=10095> March 15, 2001 Story by Patricia Reaney REUTERS NEWS SERVICE LONDON - Scientists dispelled any lingering doubts about the increase of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere yesterday with new evidence from satellites orbiting the Earth. Until now researchers have depended on ground-based measurements and theoretical models to gauge the change in greenhouse gases, believed by scientists to be the cause of global warming and major climate disruption. New sets of data taken 27 years apart from two satellites orbiting the Earth have now provided the first observational evidence from space of a rise in greenhouse gases. "We've seen greenhouse gas increases that we can link to a change in outgoing long-wave radiation, which is believed to force the climate response," said Dr Helen Brindley, an atmospheric physicist at Imperial College in London. By comparing the two sets of data, Brindley and her colleagues have shown a change in greenhouse gas emissions from Earth over 27 years which is consistent with ground-based measurements. REAL DIFFERENCES OVER 27 YEARS The comparison of the data, reported in the science journal Nature, shows real differences over 27 years in the outgoing long-wave radiation which can only be due to greenhouse gases. The scientists compared data for a region over the Pacific Ocean and the entire globe to calculate the differences in the levels of atmospheric methane, carbon dioxide (CO2), ozone and chlorofluorocarbons. "Because we know where in the spectrum certain greenhouse gases are observed, when we look at the changes between the two periods we can say that change is due to changes in CO2 or methane," Brindley said in a telephone interview. "There has been quite a significant change over the past 30 years, particularly in methane." One of the most powerful greenhouse gases, methane, is emitted from landfill sites and disused mines. The scientists took into account the influence of clouds and seasonal variations, so the changes they observed could only be explained by long-term changes in greenhouses gases, they said. "It's the first time that we have seen observationally that these changes are really having an effect on the radiative forcing of the climate," said Brindley. Radiative forcing is the measure of the climate effects of greenhouse gases. "Since these are the models used to predict future climate and influence policy decisions, it is imperative that they can accurately simulate measurements of what is considered to be the driving mechanism behind climate change," said Professor John Harries, the first author of the Nature study. Without significant reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, scientists estimate the Earth's temperature and sea levels will rise, leading to increased flooding and drastic climate changes. Industrialised nations agreed to cut their emissions of greenhouse gases under a plan agreed in Kyoto, Japan in 1997 but talks in the Hague in November to finalise details broke down. =================================================================== Europe Spooked by Bush's U-Turn on CO2 Limits <http://ens-news.com/ens/mar2001/2001L-03-16-01.html> COPENHAGEN, Denmark, March 16, 2001 (ENS) - U.S. President George W. Bush has spread gloom through Europe's climate change community by abandoning an election campaign promise to limit the carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from fossil fueled utilities and reiterating his opposition to the United Nations Kyoto Protocol. The President's change of heart on power plants and CO2 is revealed in a letter this week to four congressmen. Carbon dioxide should not be controlled under a draft law aimed at cutting emissions of sulphur dioxide, nitrogen oxides and mercury, Bush writes, because it is not defined as a pollutant under the U.S. Clean Air Act. Furthermore, Bush writes, utilities would increase prices "at a time of rising energy prices and a serious energy shortage." "Without U.S. leadership, effective global action on climate change may not be possible," said Klaus Toepfer, executive director of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) on Thursday. "The United States of America has much to gain from leading the way into the new low emissions economy of the 21st century," he said. Toepfer, a former German environment minister, was speaking in Copenhagen after discussing climate change issues with Svend Auken, Denmark's minister of the environment, who shares the concern of UNEP over the lack of U.S. leadership. Toepfer is in Denmark to celebrate the 10th anniversary of UNEP's collaborating center on energy and the environment. Talks on the Kyoto Protocol, an international agreement that would limit emissions of CO2 and five other greenhouse gases linked to global warming, broke down in November, in the last months of the administration of U.S. President Bill Clinton. The Clinton administration had been working with the international community to find ways of cutting emissions without damaging industrial productivity such as development of renewable energy technologies. President Bush, a former oilman, took office January 20, promising to reassess all of the Clinton administration's climate policies. Under the Kyoto Protocol, 39 industrialized nations agreed to cut their emissions of six greenhouse gases linked to global warming. They must reduce emissions to an average of 5.2 percent below 1990 levels during the five year period 2008 to 2012. The emissions of developing nations will be controlled by subsequent negotiations under the climate treaty. The Kyoto Protocol has been signed by the United States and most other nations, but it will not take effect until it is ratified by 55 percent of the nations emitting at least 55 percent of the six greenhouse gases. Since the United States emits roughly one-quarter of all greenhouse gases released into the atmosphere, ratification by the United States is considered essential to entry into force of the protocol. International negotiations on the Kyoto Protocol as scheduled to resume in July in Bonn, Germany. Toepfer said, "We know that the U.S. is the world's largest emitter of greenhouse gases and is therefore an important part of the problem. But the U.S. is also our best hope for a solution. Simply put, the U.S. is the world's most technologically innovative country. Its industries are most likely to develop the climate friendly products and services that must one day soon set the world onto a clean energy path," he said. The European Union's Swedish Presidency expressed "deep concern" over Bush's stated "doubts about the Kyoto protocol." It welcomed the president's commitment stated in his letter to the congressmen to "work with friends and allies" to "address climate change." But the Swedish presidency said the European Union wished to "underline very strongly that cooperation ... must be based on a legally binding document." Three reports issued by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) this year and adopted by representatives of 100 governments have confirmed that global warming is occurring more rapidly than previously predicted with consequences such as extreme weather events, sea level rise, coastal flooding and spread of tropical diseases to temperate latitudes that will affect the entire world, including the United States. A study released Thursday by a team of physicists from the Imperial College, London, confirms the reality of global warming by comparing satellite data over a 27 year period. "While developing countries are at greatest risk," Toepfer said, "climate change will also pose challenges for rich countries such as Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States. In North America, the IPCC projects increasing frequency, severity and duration of weather disasters including floods, droughts, storms and landslides." "In all sectors," Toepfer warned, "water, health, food, energy, insurance, governments and human settlements, the risk exists that impacts of climate change will overstress existing institutional structures and engineered systems designed for a more stable world. =================================================================== Published on Friday, March 16, 2001 in the Toronto Globe & Mail Stop the Experiment: Transgenic Salmon Could Be in Our Waters Before We Know It <http://www.commondreams.org/views01/0316-04.htm> by Jo Dufay Genetically modified fish present poorly understood but potentially devastating risks to the environment and the livelihoods of fishermen. Their development should be halted while society assesses whether the possible benefits outweigh the risks. The recent announcement that up to 100,000 farmed salmon had escaped near the Bay of Fundy slipped by with surprisingly little comment. Undoubtedly, this release will threaten North America's remaining wild stock of Atlantic salmon, which has declined by about 65 per cent since the early '80s and now numbers around 250,000. Farm-bred salmon tend to be larger, out-competing their wild counterparts for both food and mates. And things could get worse. Now under development, fish may be the first genetically modified animal species for which commercial approval is sought in Canada. Foreign genetic material has been inserted into Atlantic, coho and chinook salmon, rainbow trout and tilapia to increase their size, growth rates and resistance to cold temperatures. These traits may appear economically attractive in the short term, but could constitute a grave danger both to the environment and to wild fish populations. The Royal Society of Canada -- a federally appointed, independent scientific body -- recently recommended "a moratorium on the rearing of GM fish in aquatic facilities." The American Society of Ichthyologists also strongly favours a moratorium on GM salmon. The federal Department of Fisheries and Oceans has responded with equivocation and delay. The risks of GM fish to the environment are not fully understood, and this lack of predictive science is in itself a problem. At this point, there are three main areas of concern. First of all, because they grow so quickly, GM fish are voracious feeders. They are likely to out-compete native stocks and pose a risk to the aquatic environment with their massive food demands. Secondly, most -- but not all -- GM fish will be sterile. This is industry's attempt to limit damage from escapes. But in the case of large-scale releases, sterile fish mating with normal stocks will result in large-scale unproductive mating. Sterile mosquitoes are released in some parts of the world to achieve exactly this effect and limit mosquito populations. Finally, there is an effect known as "the Trojan gene." GM fish grow rapidly, but in nature there is always a trade-off. While these fish have enhanced growth, they are prone to other defects -- such as deformities or reduced mobility. These genetic traits spread, significantly reducing the health of wild populations as they pass from generation to generation. Computer modelling done by Purdue University in Indiana estimates that 60 fertile GM fish introduced into a natural population of 60,000 could decimate the stock in a span of 40 generations. Last year, a U.S. company called A/F Protein applied for U.S. Food and Drug Administration approval to commercialize a species of GM salmon. GM salmon are being developed at A/F Protein's Canadian subsidiary -- Aqua Bounty Farms -- with facilities in PEI and Newfoundland. It is not known for certain whether any company has applied to bring GM fish to market in Canada. Because of our secretive review and approval process, a company could ask for the go-ahead to market GM fish and the first thing Canadians would know about it is when the okay is given. People whose lives and livelihoods may be affected have no say in the matter. The DFO began developing a policy on the research and rearing of GM fish that has been stalled in the draft stage since 1992. Traditional fishermen are rightly worried about the impact of GM fish on fish stocks. The B.C. Salmon Farmers Association has voiced flat-out opposition to the notion. And while other Canadian fish growers have expressed little or no interest in GM farming, they will be under enormous economic pressure to adopt the fast-growing GM fish if they reach the market. There seem to be few compelling reasons for companies such as Aqua Bounty Farms to continue their research. GM fish will not "feed the world." It takes about four pounds of fish meal and oil feed to produce one pound of farmed salmon. But GM fish could be coming soon. Either swimming across the border from escapes in the Unites States (that 100,000 release came from a Maine facility), from slips at Canadian production facilities or through an approval for commercialization that takes us by surprise. At the same time, scientists admit they have no idea what might happen when GM fish escape, and Canada still has no formal mechanism in place to receive input from fishermen, coastal communities or consumers. Scary thought. Time to stop the experiment while we figure out what to do. ------------- Jo Dufay is campaign director for Greenpeace Canada. =================================================================== At Last, Americans Swallow the Truth About Their Burgers <http://commondreams.org/views01/0312-04.htm> by Andrew Gumbel Published on Monday, March 12, 2001 in the Independent / UK America has no Mad Cow scare, or at least not yet. It has no foot-and-mouth epidemic. Beef consumption is as high as ever, thanks to large part to the ubiquity of fast-food burger chains. In fact, to stop any of the innumerable freeway off-ramps or suburban mini-malls across the country where fast food proliferates as inevitably as mould in a petri dish, you'd never guess anything could possibly be wrong. On any given day, one American in four stops off at a fast-food joint. Burgers and fries have become so ubiquitous that they are the meal of choice three times a week on average - the majority of them eaten at McDonald's, Burger King, or one of the other big chains. Last year, Americans spent a staggering $110bn feeding this habit. Mad Cow? Most fast-food customers haven't even heard of it. Does that mean a burger eaten across the Atlantic is a burger eaten risk-free? If you read Eric Schlosser's startling new book Fast Food Nation, just out in the States and already a best-seller, you certainly won't think so. In fact, like the author himself - formerly an unapologetic, unsuspecting hamburger fan - once you reach the end of the book, the chances are you'll never want to eat hamburgers or any other form of industrial minced beef again. Schlosser describes in horrific detail how the ever more mechanised cattle and meat-packing industry is exposed to risk of infection by virulent pathogens including listeria, salmonella and a real nasty called E. coli 0157:H7 that can lead to kidney failure, anaemia, internal bleeding and the destruction of vital organs. Some of his findings will be familiar from recent exposes in Europe. Cattle are fed the processed waste of dead animals, including pigs, horses and poultry, as well as myriad animal plant by-products such as sawdust and old newspapers. (They were also fed dead cattle, dogs and cats until the British BSE scare prompted a modest change in regulations in 1997.) Fecal material regularly spills into the meat, either because it falls off improperly cleaned hides as they are pulled off or because the minimum-wage workers who pull out the intestines accidentally dribble some of their contents. At some meat-packing plants, federal inspectors have found cattle being slaughtered that are infected with measles and tapeworms. Aside from fecal material, shipments of raw meat can also include anything from insects and metal shavings to urine and vomit. What compounds these problems is the extraordinary consolidation of beef production in the United States, largely under the influence of giant fast-food chains who want every one of their patties to look and taste exactly the same. Just 13 meat-packing companies control the industry, and their considerable lobbying sway in Washington - particularly with the Republican Party that has controlled either Congress or the White House for 18 of the last 20 years - has virtually allowed them to dictate their own industry regulations. As Schlosser writes: "Today the US government can demand the nationwide recall of defective softball bats, sneakers, stuffed animals and foam-rubber toy cows. But it cannot order a meat-packing company to remove contaminated, potentially lethal ground beef from fast-food kitchens and supermarket shelves." There have been two major public health scares in the past 10 years, both involving E.coli 0157:H7. The first, in 1993, affected more than 700 customers of the Jack in the Box chain, which almost went bankrupt as a result. More than 200 people were rushed to hospital, and four died after suffering heart attacks, strokes, kidney failure and rapid decomposition of their brains. The second, in 1997, led to the largest food recall in US history, some 35 million pounds of beef produced at a Hudson Foods plant in Nebraska. The recall was virtually useless because, by the time announced, two-thirds of the meat had already been consumed. Food industry experts grimly expect some kind of public health disaster if the system continues unchecked in its present form. It does not help that government-funded school meals include beef bought in bulk from the cheapest, least health-conscious supplies; several dozen children have fallen ill from meat supplied by companies with a track record of processing diseased or dead cattle and whose plants have been found to be infested with rats and cockroaches. The fast-food industry has not reacted to Fast Food Nation - whose stir has been caused largely among America's chattering classes, who abhor fast food anyway - but it has made some modest moves away from beef and "diversified". McDonald's has bought into chicken, pizza and Mexican food chains. A century ago, when hamburgers were not yet identified as the quintessential American meal, one food critic likened the minced beef patty to "getting your meat out of a garbage can". It's a truth consumers worldwide had better wake up to before it makes them, literally, sick. =================================================================== "Treat the Earth well. It was not given to you by your parents. It was loaned to you by your children." -Kenyan Proverb ====================================================== "We cannot solve the problems that we have created with the same thinking that created them." -Albert Einstein ====================================================== "The idea of wilderness needs no defense, it only needs defenders." -Edward Abbey ______________________________________________________________ To subscribe/unsubscribe, send appropriate email to <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>. ______________________________________________________________ <A HREF="http://www.ctrl.org/">www.ctrl.org</A> DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion & informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. Substance—not soap-boxing—please! 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