If we just trust Monsanto and ADM, we can eat and drive to our heart’s content 20

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1. 
   • justlou 1768
   • 27 Jul 2008 8:40pm 1217216421 1217245221

   "Green" Fuel WashingWhy certainly, the future holds great promise for both corn fuel and food production.  There is a long waiting list for new green machines from Deere.  Monsanto is raking it in with protection from "brown baggers".  Lots of coal trains rolling into ADM ethanol plants.  The future could not be brighter!  I'll call my representative today and tell him that we need to increase the mandates for corn ethanol.  
   

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2. 
   • amazingdrx 1744
   • 27 Jul 2008 10:29pm 1217222960 1217251760

   On the bright sideBushland will burn up first.  And be hit by huge hurricanes and floods, alternating with drought.  How do you modify corn to grow under flood waters?  Cross it with seaweed of course, hehey.
   This is all on track and probably unstoppable anyway.  Anyone who has been across this hell on earth, red state, bible belt of christian jihadists, hummer lovers, chemical ag, golf courses, malls, tree farms, and parking lots knows it is not worth trying to reclaim.
   Too bad about California, they set the trend for the nation, but even they were too late.  Latest 26,000 acre fire by Yosemite started by "target practice".  No neglience involved.
   So shoot 'em if you got 'em.  Yikes.
   
   http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin   ...read more

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3. 
   • Jon Rynn 1623
   • 27 Jul 2008 11:39pm 1217227178 1217255978

   "Iceberg"...as in their "this is just the tip of the iceberg" line, might be the wrong metaphor to use...onaccounta the entire industrial agricultural model might be about to sink.

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4. 
   • wiscidea 1747
   • 28 Jul 2008 2:22am 1217236939 1217265739

   Don't Worry" He served as national spokesman and chief communications strategist for the '08 Edwards presidential campaign, after serving a similar role on John Kerry's 2004 run."
   If someone on the inside can sink industrial ag, Kornblau's the man who can do it.

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5. 
   • justlou 1768
   • 28 Jul 2008 3:19am 1217240360 1217269160

   From PRWatch.OrgEthanol Lobby's "Alliance for Abundant Food and Energy" Seeks to Gorge on Tax Subsidies
   Source: Washington Post, July 25, 2008
   "Monsanto, Dupont, Archer Daniels Midland and the PR giant Burson-Marsteller are some of the corporations behind the Alliance for Abundant Food and Energy. No doubt feel-good ads from this front group will soon fill the airwaves, especially in Washington DC. The Washington Post reports, "A group of the world's biggest agribusiness companies announced it will use lobbyists on Capitol Hill and national ads to build the case for fuels such as ethanol and biodiesel, even as grain prices climb worldwide. The biofuels industry has blossomed under federal mandates requiring the United States to increase alternative fuel usage by 2009. The mandates are under attack from groups who blame the new industry for rising food prices that have sparked riots and hoarding in several countries. ... The alliance has a budget of several million dollars for the campaign, but it did not disclose the exact amount."
   
   http://www.prwatch.org/node/7590
   And a rundown on Burson-Marsteller:
   
   http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Burson-Marstel ...
   
   hmmm... Mark Penn and Hillary Clinton  
   When Washington goes bipartisan you can bet some big money interests are involved.  And when the truth is getting too close to those interests, put the PR industry to work on altering the image of that reality.  Funny how close this PR industry is to the workings of DC.  So, get ready to gag on the PR ads from this group.  We hear enough of it already from their benefactors and voices in DC.
       ...read more

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6. 
   • Jonas 1766
   • 28 Jul 2008 6:52am 1217253164 1217281964

   Sadly there's no alternativeIt's always sad to see that, when economic reason is used as the guiding light, the big ugly monocropping multinationals win hands down.
   There are hundreds of millions of Indian, Chinese and other people from the developing world craving for mobility and a car - the ultimate symbol of economic success and of modernity.
   The Tata Nano nightmare.
   We can try to convince these hundreds of millions of people not to follow our historic example and our modernity. We could do so by showing the right way forward: use electric cars and mass transit. But then you bump into the economics of these alternatives - and they look very very bad.
   So there's very few things we can do:
   -a priority for the EU and the US could be to develop a hyper-efficient, ultra-low cost electric car for the developing world; transfer the technology; and then invest billions in a modern electricity grid powered by renewables, in these countries, so that the car actually works. All this while we do the same in our own countries.
   This option will cost the tax payer in the EU and the US a lot of money (say 10 to 15% of the average middle class citizen's income. Very few people are willing to spend that much, especially not if the money goes straight to a developing country).
   -the alternative is liquid biofuels, used in flex-fuel Tata Nano cars. If we choose this option, we should be investing billions in research into cellulosic biofuels (including FT-fuels), which are at least a tad more sustainable, and share the technology with the South. We are not doing that either.
   -still another option is to try to "convince" and "persuade" the hundreds of millions of the fact that our concept of "modernity" (and mobility) is dumb and not worth aiming for. But I suspect that we won't succeed here. Modernity is way too attractive. It's an unstoppable monster that drags all people on the planet towards itself (the only ones escaping are non-existing tribes in the Amazon, and post-modern bourgeois green citizens who live the least efficient lives on the planet).
   -so the big ugly monocropping evil GM-pushing megamultinationals have us cornered from all sides. In theory, they are right: there is enough land available to feed either 40 billion people, or to feed and fuel all people and cars by 2050. That's not the problem. The problem is that first generation liquid biofuels are not an efficient technology route, but definitely an economically sound one.
   What can we do? Convince Indians and Chinese people not to own cars? Won't work. Invest billions into their renewables that are up to 20 times more expensive than ICE-cars powered with liquid biofuels? No option either.
   I'm pessimistic. Economic rationality is cruel, and good intentions are no threat to it.   ...read more

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7. 
   • Jonas 1766
   • 28 Jul 2008 7:07am 1217254022 1217282822

   Pssssssttt...This just in: scientists in the U.K. want to keep all future field trials with GM crops secret.
   Environmental "zealots" routinely destroy these plots, making it impossible for the scientists to do their work, they say ("making better bananas to feed the hungry in the third world", etc.)
   A french case currently before the European Court of Justice could provide some backbone for the scientists to get policy makers to agree with their call for secrecy.
   BBC: GM crop als 'should be secret'
   If they continue this way, they're going to lose still a bit more of the little support they have left.
   In any case, my only fear is that the developing countries, whose populations don't have the luxury to ponder the pros and cons of GM crops, will continue to be forced to accept these crops.
   In South America and India there's very little real resistance to GM plants. Africa may soon follow and fall too.
   Even in the U.S. resistance is marginal compared with Europe. So will the Euros ever succeed in winning the fight against the big bad Frankenstein? Since they are becoming ever more irrelevant on the world stage, I fear they won't.   ...read more

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8. 
   • Jon Rynn 1623
   • 28 Jul 2008 7:20am 1217254815 1217283615

   Jonas, I like idea number one,the one about cheap electric cars, fund massive renewable energy projects -- a carrot for the developed countries would be if at least initially, the wind/solar farms used developed country equipment, but they'd have to set up factories so that the developing countries could manufacture their own.
   There are actually lots of slow, low-range electric cars, commonly called neighborhood electric vehicles...but I know, everyone wants an American lifestyle.

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9. 
   • Biodiversivist 1550
   • 28 Jul 2008 2:01pm 1217278915 1217307715

   It feels kinda weird beating up on Democratslike this. I find myself doing it a lot, but what the hell can you do, vote Republican?
   
   In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world

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10. 
    • Wolverine 1751
    • 28 Jul 2008 2:21pm 1217280089 1217308889

    What Can You Do?Vote Green!

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