SchwartzReport: Growing Global Challenge to Monsanto GMO Greed

01 Poverty, 03 Environmental Degradation, 07 Other Atrocities, Commerce, Corruption, Earth Intelligence, Government

schwartz reportI take this to be good news about bad news. Finally, the reality of Monsanto is beginning to be understood. There is nothing new here; it will all be familiar to regular SR readers. (See: The Great Experiment: Genetically Modified Organisms, Scientific Integrity, and National Wellness.   But this essay puts it all into one package and, I think, you will be able to see why I believe Monsanto is an evil corporation.

The common problem we face is the power of concentrated wealth and monopolistic corporate interests. This has created a crony capitalist economy that uses government to further enrich the wealthy at the expense of the people, often threatening our basic necessities for life.  A clear example of this is found in the behavior of the chemical and seed corporation, Monsanto.Monsanto threatens the world's food supply; this is a major challenge of our era. This struggle is central to the global ecosystem, economy and energy crises. Monsanto also pushes poisonous chemicals into the environment and promotes agricultural practices that exacerbate climate change.

Monsanto's actions truly affect each of us. They put their profits over the need for healthy foods, diverse seed supplies and the stability of the agricultural economy. They employ a variety of tools to control access to seeds and aggressively push genetically modified organisms (GMOs) and toxic chemicals despite serious safety concerns about them. And they accomplish this with great help from the US government.

When President Obama appointed a Monsanto lobbyist, Michael Taylor, as the “food czar” (officially the deputy commissioner for foods) – avoiding the Senate confirmation process, which would have brought public attention to the appointment – it was one more example of how corrupted both parties have become by corporate influence.

A global grassroots movement is building to challenge Monsanto as more people realize that we are in a struggle for our survival. May 25 is a global day of action against Monsanto taking place in hundreds of cities and 41 countries. Monsanto must be stopped before its unfettered greed destroys our health and environment. We urge you to join the effort to stop Monsanto.

Monsanto: A Threat to Public Health and the Environment
Continue reading “SchwartzReport: Growing Global Challenge to Monsanto GMO Greed”

Koko: Crazy Ants Displace Fire Ants — Are Humans Ready for Crazy Animals & Plants They Have Created?

03 Environmental Degradation
Koko
Koko

The first real sign of predatory “crazy” life that “crazy” humans have created.

‘Crazy' ants driving out fire ants in southeast

Invasive fire ants have been a thorn in the sides of Southerners for years. But another invasive species, the so-called “crazy” ant that many describe as being worse has arrived and is displacing fire ants in several places.

“When you talk to folks who live in the invaded areas, they tell you they want their fire ants back,” said Edward LeBrun, a researcher at the University of Texas at Austin, in a statement from the school. “Fire ants are in many ways very polite. They live in your yard. They form mounds and stay there, and they only interact with you if you step on their mound.”

Click on Image to Enlarge
Click on Image to Enlarge

Crazy ants, on the other hand, “go everywhere,” invading homes and nesting in walls and crawlspaces, even damaging electrical equipment by swarming inside appliances. [Image Gallery: Ants of the World]

A study published in the April issue of the journal Biological Invasions found that in areas infested with crazy ants, few to no fire ants were present. Exactly how they are able to outcompete fire ants is so far unknown. In areas with crazy ants, the researchers also found greatly diminished numbers of native ant species, according to the study.

Read full article.

SchwartzReport: Scientists Fighting Corporate Subversion or “The War on Science”

01 Poverty, 02 Infectious Disease, 03 Economy, 03 Environmental Degradation, 05 Energy, 07 Health, 07 Other Atrocities, 09 Justice, 11 Society, Academia, Commerce, Earth Intelligence, Ethics, IO Impotency

schwartz reportThe attack on science by the Theocratic Right and the corporate interests destroying the earth have done great damage, but finally science is pushing back. We'll see.

Corporations Are Manufacturing Uncertainty About Scientific Findings. Now Scientists Are Fighting Back.
BILL MOYERS & COMPANY – The Raw Story

Penguin: Marines Poison Their Own for Decades

03 Environmental Degradation, 12 Water, DoD, Earth Intelligence, Ineptitude, Military
Who, Me?
Who, Me?

Force protection?  Not at Camp Lejuene.

Victims: Marines failed to safeguard water supply

May 18, 8:24 PM (ET)

By ALLEN G. BREED, MICHAEL BIESECKER and MARTHA WAGGONER

CAMP LEJEUNE, N.C. (AP) – A simple test could have alerted officials that the drinking water at Camp Lejeune was contaminated, long before authorities determined that as many as a million Marines and their families were exposed to a witch's brew of cancer-causing chemicals.

But no one responsible for the lab at the base can recall that the procedure – mandated by the Navy – was ever conducted.

The U.S. Marine Corps maintains that the carbon chloroform extract (CCE) test would not have uncovered the carcinogens that fouled the southeastern North Carolina base's water system from at least the mid-1950s until wells were capped in the mid-1980s. But experts say even this “relatively primitive” test – required by Navy health directives as early as 1963 – would have told officials that something was terribly wrong beneath Lejeune's sandy soil.

A just-released study from the federal Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry cited a February 1985 level for trichloroethylene of 18,900 parts per billion in one Lejeune drinking water well – nearly 4,000 times today's maximum allowed limit of 5 ppb. Given those kinds of numbers, environmental engineer Marco Kaltofen said even a testing method as inadequate as CCE should have raised some red flags with a “careful analyst.”

“That's knock-your-socks-off level – even back then,” said Kaltofen, who worked on the infamous Love Canal case in upstate New York, where drums of buried chemical waste leaked toxins into a local water system. “You could have smelled it.”

Biochemist Michael Hargett agrees that CCE, while imperfect, would have been enough to prompt more specific testing in what is now recognized as the worst documented case of drinking-water contamination in the nation's history

Read full article with photos.

SchwartzReport: Army Goes Green (20 Years After It Was Told To…)

03 Economy, 03 Environmental Degradation, 05 Energy, 07 Health, 11 Society, DoD, Earth Intelligence, Ethics, Military, Officers Call

schwartz reportThis is good news. The military, perhaps because it is a centralized command structure, often adopts progressive positions before general society. The military integrated long before the rest of America. It became a gender, race, and religion neutral meritocracy — an evolution in which I played a role — well before this was the norm. So the military's adaptation of noncarbon energy is the latest in a line of accomplishments.

The Army Goes Off the Grid
Jim Hightower – Nation of Change

Continue reading “SchwartzReport: Army Goes Green (20 Years After It Was Told To…)”

Neal Rauhauser: Drowning IndoChina

03 Environmental Degradation, Geospatial
Neal Rauhauser
Neal Rauhauser

Drowning Indochina

Yesterday’s Visualizing 400ppm Carbon Dioxide showed before/after coastline maps of what we can expect given the carbon we have already put into the atmosphere. All of Delaware and Maryland’s eastern shore disappear, Florida south of Gainesville goes for a swim, and the San Francisco Bay reaches Sacramento.

The effects in Indochina and neighboring Bangladesh are even more profound. Yangon, Myanmar (4.4M), Bangkok, Thailand (8.3M), Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam (7.5M), and Phnom Penh, Cambodia (2.3M) will all be submerged if the increase is only 20M and historically we should expect more like 25M at that level of CO2.

Read full post and see maps.

Neal Rauhauser: Visualizing 400ppm Carbon Dioxide = 20 to 30 Meter Rise in Sea Level?

03 Environmental Degradation
Neal Rauhauser
Neal Rauhauser

Visualizing 400ppm Carbon Dioxide

If we don’t do it this year we will surely reach 400ppm of atmospheric carbon dioxide by 2014. The last 650,000 years this number has been between 180ppm and 280ppm. The world hasn’t had 400ppm since the Pliocene.

Here are maps of Florida, Delaware, and California with toady’s shoreline, 20 meter rise maps, and 30 meter rise maps. Geological records from the Pliocene indicate seas were 25 meters higher than today. I use the Geology.com sea level map tool to produce this.

Florida is gone south of Orlando with 20m, south of Gainesville if its closer to 30m.

Read full post see other graphics.

Click on Image to Enlarge
Click on Image to Enlarge