Comments Karen Lee Orr has made

SUSPS

Mr. Schneider,

JeffB, the second person to comment on this article, wrote that the Sierra Club doesn't address the issue of U.S. immigration rates and the effect on the environment.

As an explanation for why the Sierra Club doesn't address immigration, I posted excerpts from the Sierrans for U.S. Population Stabilization website.  It was stated that these were excerpts from the SUSPS website and the link to their site was provided.

SUSPS: http://www.susps.org/

According the SUSPS website, the SUSPS vision for environmentalism doen't stop at the U.S borders. It includes educating women worldwide to achieve lower birth rates, lowering consumption levels in industrialized and developing nations, and protecting national parks and the world's remaining wild spaces from exploitation and development.

You can learn more about the Sierrans for U.S. Population Stabilization at their website: http://www.susps.org/

Regarding Grist's David Roberts' name calling ~

Name calling on blogs is unfortunate.  It's unacceptable behavior in any case, particularly when the person doing the name calling is a staff member of the host organization On Carl Pope stepping down from helm of the Sierra Club posted 10 months ago 24 Responses

How the West Was Eaten

How the West Was Eaten by Jeffrey St. Clair
http://www.counterpunch.org/stclair02102007.html

Welfare Ranching: The Subsidized Destruction of the American West
http://www.publiclandsranching.org/book.htmOn In case you'd forgotten, industrial meat is a friggin' nightmare posted 1 year, 10 months ago 46 Responses

Flyin' without my wings again

Sharla June refers to "When You're Dead" as a cheerful environmental ballad.

When You're Dead
http://www.folkalley.com/openmic/song.php?id=3372

"When You're Dead" is from Sharla June's "Flyin' without My Wings Again" CD

You can listen to more from the "Flyin' Without My Wings Again" CD and read about Sharla June here ~
http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.view ...

Sharla June and the Mayhaws here ~
http://www.myspace.com/themayhaws

Grant Peeples' "New State of Florida Song" shouldn't be missed
http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.view ...

All four Florida songs at Grant's MySpace site are terrific.

More from Grant Peeples and the Baker Act here ~
http://www.grantpeeples.com/music.html

Sharla June and Grant are from Tallahassee, down in F-L-A.On 'Church', from Songs of Shiloh, shows some love for the planet posted 1 year, 10 months ago 8 Responses

Agrofuel Moratorium Petition

Dear all,  

Here's the URL for the online agrofuel moratorium petition
http://ga3.org/campaign/agrofuelsmoratorium

Please sign and pass along.

Regards,  
Karen Orr
----------------------

Call for an Immediate Moratorium on U.S. incentives for agrofuels, U.S. agroenergy monocultures and global trade in agrofuels

The undersigned call for an immediate moratorium on U.S. incentives for agrofuels and agroenergy from large-scale monocultures and a moratorium on global trade of such agrofuels. This includes the immediate suspension of all congressionally mandated targets and incentives such as tax breaks, tariffs and subsidies that benefit and promote agrofuels from large-scale industrial monocultures, including financing through carbon trading mechanisms, international development aid or loans from international finance organizations.

This call responds to the rapid concentration of the agrofuel industry in the U.S., driven largely by U.S. and E.U. renewable fuels targets, and to the growing number of calls from the global south against the expansion of agrofuel monocultures. Agrofuels refer to large-scale industrial monoculture production of crops such as soy, oil palm, sugar cane, jatropha, canola etc. for fuels and do not include small scale, sustainably grown fuel crops that benefit local communities, do not employ genetically engineered (GE) varieties, and can be accurately referred to as "biofuels".
Agrofuels cause deforestation and environmental damage

Industrial monoculture production has numerous negative impacts on the environment, climate and on people. These include soil depletion and erosion, contamination and depletion of waterways, increased use of nitrogen fertilizers and toxic agrichemicals and an increasing reliance on a small number of GE varieties at the expense of diverse and sustainable agriculture systems. Monocultures of soy and sugar cane in Latin America and palm oil in Indonesia and Malaysia have led to massive deforestation and the loss of invaluable biodiversity.

Agrofuels will worsen global warming

Agrofuels are promoted as a solution to global warming, but more accurate life-cycle assessments suggests that they increase carbon emissions by increasing deforestation and degradation of peatlands and soils, while also creating more nitrous oxide emissions from fertilizer use. Crop irrigation and refineries deplete already dwindling fresh water resources.

Agrofuels seriously threaten food and land rights of indigenous people and the rural poor.

Promoted as a benefit to the rural poor, agrofuels are instead causing the displacement, often violent, of indigenous people and the diversion of lands formerly used to produce food for local consumption into production of agrofuels for export to wealthy northern countries. Workers are subjected to poor conditions, chemical exposures, and other abuses.

Certification will not provide adequate protections

Certification systems cannot control macro-level impacts such as the displacement of other land uses, cannot be adequately monitored and implemented in many countries, have thus far failed to ensure full participation of affected communities, could conflict with WTO agreements, and cannot be designed and implemented fast enough to keep pace with current development.

The International Energy Agency estimates that over the next 23 years, the world could produce as much as 147 million tons of agro-fuel. This fuel will barely offset the yearly increase in global oil demand, now standing at 136 million tons a year without offsetting any of the existing demand. Is this worth it?

Urgent and effective measures other than agrofuels are available

The undersigned support urgent cuts in greenhouse gas emissions, based on climate science assessments, which involve a drastic overall reduction in energy use in industrialized countries, strict energy efficiency standards, and support for truly renewable forms of energy, such as sustainable wind and solar energy and promotion of land use patterns that preserve 'carbon sinks'.

Members of the working group:

Rainforest Action Network
Global Justice Ecology Project
Food First
Grassroots International
Family Farm Defenders
Student Trade Justice Campaign

Please sign the petition here:
http://ga3.org/campaign/agrofuelsmoratoriumOn Unlike the U.S., European governments are cutting back on agrofuel goodies posted 1 year, 11 months ago 2 Responses

CORRECTION re Big Green Groups: Follow the Money

I mistakenly wrote that Big Green groups receive grants from The Department of Energy.  I don't know about that.  What I meant to write was that Big Green groups receive grants from The Energy Foundation.

The Energy Foundation  was launched in 1991 by The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, The Pew Charitable Trusts, and The Rockefeller Foundation.

The foundation makes grants to nonprofit organizations. The foundation's geographic focus is the United States and China.

The Energy Foundation, in partnership with the McKnight Foundation, has launched a grants program to promote policies that encourage the move to "advanced" biofuels such as cellulosic ethanol.

See:  http://www.ef.org/documents/symposium_full_coverage.pdf

The Energy Foundation's new biofuels program is an expansion of The McKnight Foundation-Energy Foundation Upper Midwest Clean Energy Initiative.

Funded by The McKnight Foundation of Minneapolis, Minnesota, the biofuels program is focused on helping the U.S., and especially the Midwest, become the world leader in technologies for producing biofuels - liquid fuels from crops and agricultural "waste."

Current Energy Foundation partners are: Cinco Hermanos, The Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, Randi and Robert Fisher, The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, The McKnight Foundation, The Mertz Gilmore Foundation, The David and Lucile Packard Foundation, The Pew Charitable Trusts, The Schmidt Family Foundation, The Simons Foundation, Nat Simons and Laura Baxter-Simons, and The TOSA Foundation.

The Energy Foundation
http://www.ef.org/home.cfmOn Once in place, the RFS will be nigh impossible to eliminate posted 1 year, 11 months ago 35 Responses

Big Green Groups: Follow the Money

Big Green groups are big because they receive large grants from industry backed foundations.  The U.S. Department of Energy also gives grants to Big Green groups.

Often industry backed foundation grants come with strings attached.  The Big Greens might be muzzled on certain environmental issues.  If you wonder why certain Big Greens don't oppose an environmentally destructive project, it might be because their industry funders don't allow it.

In other cases, such as the energy bill, Big Greens likely received industry foundation money to promote or ignore some of the worst elements of the bill.  The disastrous ethanol subsidies are an example.

What funders contributed to the work of Big Greens on the energy bill?  It would be interesting to know.On Once in place, the RFS will be nigh impossible to eliminate posted 1 year, 11 months ago 35 Responses

David Roberts' questions

Dear David,

I'm not sure whether your questions regarding Mike Ewall's Energy Justice Network action alert are rhetorical or you'd like a reply.

If you'd like a reply, Mike Ewall can be reached at catalyst@actionpa.org.

The EJN energy bill page has much good information with links to more important information.  Have a look here:
http://www.energyjustice.net/energybill/

Karen Orr
Gainesville, FloridaOn Greed versus green on the energy bill posted 1 year, 11 months ago 5 Responses

Bali Blog: Why biofuels are not a solution

Gemma Taylor has a good article at New Consumer, "The UK's hottest ethical lifestyle magazine."

Bali Blog: Why biofuels are not a solution
http://www.newconsumer.com/news/item/3252/On Grassroots mobilizes over the weekend at int'l climate conference posted 1 year, 11 months ago 3 Responses

The Myth of "Clean Coal" from EJN

The Myth of 'Clean Coal'

Here are two IGCC fact sheets from the excellent Energy Justice Network:
http://www.energyjustice.net/coal/igcc/ On Why clean coal is so darn appealing posted 1 year, 11 months ago 37 Responses

5 reasons why agrofuels undermine climate justice

"Five reasons why agrofuels undermine climate justice" is excerpted from "Biofuels - A new threat to climate and climate justice," a flyer created for the Bali talks by  World Rainforest Movement, Grupo de Reflexion Rural Argentina, Biofuelwatch,  Walhi Jambi (Friends of the Earth Jambi) and Watch Indonesia.

More papers produced for the Bali climate talks can be accessed at the Biofuelwatch website:
http://www.biofuelwatch.org.uk/background.php

Biofuelwatch campaigns against the use of bioenergy from unsustainable sources, i.e. biofuels linked to accelerated climate change, deforestation, bio-diversity losses, human rights abuses, including the impoverishment and dispossession of local populations, water and soil degradation, loss of food sovereignty and food security.
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Five reasons why agrofuels undermine climate justice:

The South fuels the North. Most agrofuel expansion is planned in the global South, but most
of the demand comes from the global North. Tens and perhaps hundreds of millions of
hectares in Asia, Latin America and Africa are to be converted to monocultures, largely to
grow fuel for car drivers in the North.

Harming food security and food sovereignty. The UN Special Rapporteur for the Right to
Food has called biofuel production a `crime against humanity' because it displaces food
production, drives up food prices and threatens the food security of large numbers of poor
people.

Land grab and refugees. The Chair of the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues has
warned that up to 60 million indigenous peoples are at risk of becoming `biofuel refugees'.

Policies imposed by Northern governments. The agrofuel market is being driven by
government targets and obligations in the US, Europe and elsewhere, which have been
imposed without taking account of the views of communities in the global South, including
indigenous peoples, who are being directly affected by those decisions. Now, `standards' and
`certification' are being discussed in a similar undemocratic and unrepresentative way.

Ecological devastation. Large-scale agrofuels mean faster global warming, more
deforestation, freshwater depletion, biodiversity losses and soil degradation. They also mean
more poisoning from agro-chemicals. Communities in the global South and indigenous
peoples are the first to bear the brunt of climate change and environmental destruction.

We need real and just solutions to climate change - deep cuts in fossil fuel burning
and in the consumption of energy, forest products and agricultural commodities in the
global North. Economies based on economic growth are unsustainable. We also need
large-scale transfer of funding from unsustainable energy sources like fossil fuels and
agrofuels to truly sustainable ones such as solar and wind power.

Read "Biofuels - A new threat to climate and climate justice" in its entirety here:
http://www.biofuelwatch.org.uk/docs/bali_leaflet.pdfOn The neverending debate on corn ethanol continues posted 1 year, 11 months ago 20 Responses

CAFO manure ethanol plant explodes, shuts,

and files for bankruptcy.

E3 Biofuels-Mead LLC, a startup that used cow manure to power its ethanol plant in Nebraska, filed for bankruptcy in Kansas after a boiler explosion.

E3  made ethanol from corn and fed the crop "waste" to 28,000 cows on site. Then it made a biogas from the manure, of which it had large supply.

E3 Plant Craps Out
http://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/e3-plant-craps-out ...

The Motley Fools say "Ethanol is Running Out of Gas."  Read the business article here:
http://www.fool.com/investing/dividends-income/2007/12/05 ...On Use of distiller grains in livestock rations has exploded posted 1 year, 11 months ago 4 Responses

The USA: Ethanol Supermarket to the World?

Ray Wallace touches upon the topic of a cows diet in U.S. feedlots in "The USA: Ethanol Supermarket to the World?"

See the April 2007 issue of Energy Tribune Magazine, Houston, Texas:
              http://www.energytribune.com/articles.cfm?aid=439On Feeding ethanol waste to cows posted 1 year, 11 months ago 18 Responses

Cows fed chicken manure

The January 2007 report below is by December McSherry, Florida farmer, Florida Chapter of the Sierra Club Agriculture Chairwoman and National Sierra Club Agriculture Committee member.

More information on this topic can be read here:
http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2007/2/1/8320/72156

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The ethanol craze has doubled grain prices at local country elevators.
Corn has hit decade highs - around $4 a bushel.

High grain prices also mean increased feeding costs, making it more
expensive to fatten livestock like cattle.

The livestock industry, strained by rising grain prices, has turned to the
poultry industry for a new feed source -  chicken manure.

Cows may be wintered on a mixture of 89% chicken manure and 20% ground corn

Guidelines for Feeding Broiler Litter to Beef Cattle
http://www.bae.ncsu.edu/programs/extension/publicat/wqwm/ ...

Tyson Foods, Inc. (NYSE: TSN), the world's largest poultry producer,
gave an Environmental Award at their Annual Shareholders Meeting to
Dennis and Ginger Stoneburner who raise 150,000 chickens at their Glen Hill
Farm in the Shenandoah Valley in Virginia and feed 200 tons of chicken manure
to their 300 head of stocker cattle. They mix the remaining 630 tons of manure
with corn and sell it as bagged cattle feed.

Poultry farms in Arkansas produce 5,100 tons of manure each day.

Arkansas cattle producers looking at emergency feed options - News - August 2006
http://www.uaex.edu/news/august2006/0825litr.htm

Dr. Stephen Sundlof, FDA's director for the Center for Veterinary Medicine,
acknowledges, "adding chicken litter to cattle feed is one of the primary
methods of waste disposal for the chicken growers" in the Southeast.

FDA  is still struggling  to safeguard us against mad cow disease.

Just thought you would like to know about the symbiotic relationship
within Industrial Agriculture.  And disclose a cow's diet.On Feeding ethanol waste to cows posted 1 year, 11 months ago 18 Responses

Come on down to the Sunshine State

Activists protest Burger King in Miami

The Coalition of Immokalee Workers kicked off the protest Friday morning outside the downtown Miami headquarters of Goldman Sachs, one of the private equity firms that own a stake in Burger King. The group then headed north on Biscayne Boulevard. At the peak of the daylong march, which stretched nine miles, there were about 600 people marching through the streets of Miami.

Coalition of Immokalee Workers
http://www.ciw-online.org/2007_BK_March/index.html

The migrant workers who couldn't come to Miami on Friday because they feared losing their jobs sent their worn shoes which lined the median across from Burger King's Miami corporate headquarters next to a sign, ``Doubt our poverty. Walk in Our Shoes.''

The shoes were just one visual symbol in the protest and rally organized by the Coalition of Immokalee Workers. The aim is to expose  the unfair wages and working conditions in the fields where Burger King's tomatoes are picked by migrant workers.

Read the Palm Beach Post special report on babies who were born disfigured to mothers and fathers who work in Florida's pesticide laden fields ~
http://www.palmbeachpost.com/localnews/content/news/speci ...

The "Exploitation King" protest brought together union members, student activists, religious groups, migrant workers and others.

The newly revived Gainesville Students for a Democratic Society organized two vans to join the protest on the streets of Miami.  

Gainesville SDS is doing a good job.   On October 23rd in Gainesville, in honor of the national day of action "No War No Warming," Gainesville SDS marched to the steps of Tigert Hall (UF Administration Building) to demand the University of Florida stop funding war profiteering and environmentally destructive corporations.

After the UF event, Gville SDS and community members marched down W. University Avenue to City Hall to protest Gainesville Regional Utilities' proposed  biomass plant, the approval process for which was unanimously approved by the  City Commission on October 8th.

The marching students carried a stretcher that held a small block of ice, which symbolized the last remaining ice sheet in the Arctic. Other students carried a coffin symbolizing the end of our forests.

Former Gainesville Mayor Tom Bussing and I drove behind the line of protesters.  From the steps of City Hall, Tom spoke in opposition to the proposed wood and garbage burner and in favor of conservation, efficiency and solar.

It was a fun event.  We were delighted that UF students were involved in local political environmental matters, the first I've seen in all my years in Gainesville.

You can read a little more about the Gville SDS event here ~

UF students march for change
http://www.gainesvillesun.com/article/20071023/NEWS/71023 ...

Read about the Miami "Exploitation King" protest and see the slide show here ~
http://www.miamiherald.com/103/story/327600.html

The plight of South Florida sugarcane workers is similar to those toiling in the toxic tomato fields.

The video, 'The Hidden Story of Big Sugar" takes the position that, other than gold, no single substance has had a bigger hand in shaping the history of the western hemisphere than sugar. The video shows the dark history and modern power of the world's reigning sugar cartels.

The Fanjuls, the Fanjul sugarcane operations in Florida and the Dominican Republic, Bill Clinton and Carl Hiaasen are featured in the film.  

The Hidden Story of Sugar can be viewed here ~
http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2007/1 ...

Also read about THE PRICE OF SUGAR, narrated by Paul Newman ~
http://www.thepriceofsugar.com/press.shtml

and

The Sugar Babies
http://www.sugarbabiesfilm.com/cgi-local/content.cgi?p=10 ...

And finally, you've got to hear our "New State of Florida Song" by Grant Peeples.

Grant has four terrific Florida songs on this MySpace link
http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.view ...

Grant's website is ~
http://www.grantpeeples.com

Karen Orr
Gainesville, FloridaOn How corporate control of produce markets squeezes workers, farmers, and consumers posted 1 year, 12 months ago 5 Responses

Prairie Godfather

Grist published two interesting interviews with Jarid Manos, "Prairie Godfather."

Aches on a Plain
Jarid Manos, CEO of the Great Plains Restoration Council, answers Grist's questions

http://www.grist.org/comments/interactivist/2007/07/16/ma ...

Prairie Godfather
Jarid Manos, CEO of the Great Plains Restoration Council, answers readers' questions

http://www.grist.org/comments/interactivist/2007/07/16/ma ...On On PETA's latest campaign posted 2 years, 1 month ago 256 Responses

'Meet Your Meat'

http://www.meat.org/

Please distributeOn From Population to PETA posted 2 years, 2 months ago 101 Responses

Re:vegetarianism surely expresses environmentalism

Thank you for your excellent post, Ridgerunner.

In the last week or so, Grist has had seven threads (that I know of) on the topics of diet and  environmentalism, and PETA.

Here are the links to them ~

Nuggets and Hummers and fish sticks, oh my!
PETA VP argues vegetariansim is the best way to help the planet
http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2007/9/17/16200/7809

PETA's dogma is all bark and no bite: Animal rights group makes
the stupid claim that enviros must be vegetarians
http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2007/9/12/9262/63548

Vegetarianism and Environmentalism: PETA's latest campaign
http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2007/9/16/174625/254

Can't we all just...........be vegans?
http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2007/9/16/161924/884

The subjects of PETA and vegetarianism
http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2007/9/14/1698/31472

Not so fast....on meat eating and global warming
http://www.grist.org/advice/ask/2007/09/17/index.html

From Population to PETA
http://www.grist.org/etc/gristlist/2007/09/21/index.htmlOn Animal-rights group makes the stupid claim that enviros must be vegetarians posted 2 years, 2 months ago 208 Responses

PETA ~ Alicia Silverstone too hot for Houston

PETA's new PSA, featuring Alicia Silverstone has been covered by dozens of leading papers and countless media outlets but it was banned from Texas TV by Comcast cable

See the Los Angeles Times story and PETA ad here: http://tinyurl.com/2yt4l5

You can also see the ad at the PETA website: http://www.peta.org/feat/alicia_psa/index.asp.

The page includes testimonial from Alicia about her love of animals and the health benefits of her vegan diet.

I learned about this from Dawnwatch, an animal advocacy media watch that looks at animal issues in the media and facilitates one-click responses to the relevant media outlets. You can learn more about it, and sign up for alerts at http://www.DawnWatch.com. On Animal-rights group makes the stupid claim that enviros must be vegetarians posted 2 years, 2 months ago 208 Responses

The Myth of 'Clean Coal': IGCC Fact Sheets

The Myth of 'Clean Coal': Energy Justice Network IGCC Fact Sheets in downloadable PDF versions:
http://www.energyjustice.net/coal/igcc/

Energy Justice Network:
http://www.energyjustice.netOn Coal industry asks for still more handouts, and Washington lends an ear posted 2 years, 2 months ago 6 Responses

Re: Strange Question

Tom Philpott's column, Hog Furtures, addresses ethanol and meat prices.

Excerpt:

When corn prices spiked last fall, things looked dire for industrial meat processors.

These enormous companies thrive by confining (or contracting with farmers to confine) livestock into tightly packed quarters and stuffing them with corn. Pricier corn -- in this case, pushed up by the government-backed surge in ethanol production -- seemed to translate to lower profits for the industrial meat giants. On cue, Big Meat executives like Tyson's Richard Bond complained bitterly about the end of cheap corn.

I, for one, looked forward to a slowdown in one of the globe's most environmentally destructive industries. (As the U.N.'s Food and Agriculture Organization pointed out last fall, feedlot meat production spews more greenhouse gases even than automobile use.)

If nothing else useful came out of the ethanol boom, I thought to myself, at least industrial meat would take a hard hit. But a funny thing has happened on the way to my industrial-meat schadenfreude: the meat titans are shaking off higher corn prices and thriving. And now I'm the one complaining bitterly.

Full article:

Hog Futures
How the meat industry thrives, even as costs rise
http://grist.org/comments/food/2007/09/13/index.htmlOn On PETA's latest campaign posted 2 years, 2 months ago 256 Responses

Soldiering On: An Interview With Ingrid Newkirk

The important part of this discussion is animal suffering and the destructive effects of animal agriculture on the environment.

Some don't care for PETA's methods and PETA's syle but PETA's activities gave us the opportunity to put forward some good information, like 'em or not.  

Below is an interview with Ingrid Newkirk that might be of interest to those who have a variety of  views on the PETA methods.

Soldiering On: The Satya Interview With Ingrid Newkirk
Part I: PETA at 20 Years
http://www.satyamag.com/novdec00/newkirk.html

In the Hot Seat
The Satya Interview With Ingrid Newkirk: Part II: Activism and Controversy
http://www.satyamag.com/jan01/newkirk.html

And here are several other articles about PETA:

Alec Baldwin Narrates PETA's Meet Your Meat: A Vegetarian's Most Powerful Advocacy Tool Just Got Even Better
Film Review by Paul Shapiro
http://www.satyamag.com/aug03/shapiro.html

PETA: Whatever It Takes
By Jan Frel, AlterNet
http://www.alternet.org/story/26094/

PETA's Agent 007: A James Bond for the Animal Rights Movement

The following is an excerpt from chapter 9 of Committed: A Rabble Rouser's Memoir" by Dan Matthews.  Matthews, a long-time activist for PETA, took to sneaking into media attended events and stealing the headlines with his animal rights message. This episode has Matthews telling the story of how he dressed up like a Catholic priest to sneak into a fashion show in Zurich.
http://www.alternet.org/story/50933/
On Animal-rights group makes the stupid claim that enviros must be vegetarians posted 2 years, 2 months ago 208 Responses

Links not working

Hello,

I just discovered that many of the links to articles, studies and websites I posted to this discussion didn't make it in working order to Grist.  

If you'd like to receive these links, just drop me a line at thibeau48@bellsouth.net.  I'll be happy to send them to you.On Animal-rights group makes the stupid claim that enviros must be vegetarians posted 2 years, 2 months ago 208 Responses

Livestock's Long Shadow: The U.N. Report

Hello John,

Here's the link to the U.N. report, "Livestock's Long Shadow:"

http://www.virtualcentre.org/en/library/key_pub/longshad/ ...

Best,

Karen

Summary: This report aims to assess the full impact of the livestock sector on environmental problems, along with potential technical and policy approaches to mitigation. The assessment is based on the most recent and complete data available, taking into account direct impacts, along with the impacts of feed crop agriculture required for livestock production.

The livestock sector emerges as one of the top two or three most significant contributors to the most serious environmental problems, at every scale from local to global. The findings of this report suggest that it should be a major policy focus when dealing with problems of land degradation, climate change and air pollution, water shortage and water pollution, and loss of biodiversity.

Livestock's contribution to environmental problems is on a massive scale and its potential contribution to their solution is equally large. The impact is so significant that it needs to be addressed with urgency. Major reductions in impact could be achieved at reasonable cost.On Animal-rights group makes the stupid claim that enviros must be vegetarians posted 2 years, 2 months ago 208 Responses

The Global Meat Culture and the Environment

Links to studies
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Diet, Energy and Global Warming - University of Chicago report:
http://geosci.uchicago.edu/~gidon/papers/nutri/nutriEI.pd ... ...

Sustainability of meat-based and plant-based diets and the environment
by David Pimentel and Marcia Pimentel
http://www.ajcn.org/cgi/content/full/78/3/660S#FN2

Livestock's Long Shadow - U.N. report
http://www.virtualcentre.org/en/library/key_pub/longshad/ ... ...

The far ranging environmental impacts of global meat consumption -
WorldWatch Institute report
http://www.worldwatch.org/node/1670

World Wildlife Fund: Environmental Impact of Beef

Facts About Beef Inputs & Protein Outputs - Cornell report
http://www.news.cornell.edu/releases/Aug97/livestock.hrs. ...

EarthSave Report: A New Global Warming Strategy:
How Environmentalists are Overlooking Vegetarianism as
the Most Effective Tool Against Climate Change in Our
Lifetimes by Noam Mohr
http://www.earthsave.org/globalwarming.htm

Humans' beef with livestock: a warmer planet
American meat eaters are responsible for 1.5 more tons of carbon dioxide per person than vegetarians every year
By Brad Knickerbocker, staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor
from the February 20, 2007 edition - http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/0220/p03s01-ussc.htm

Full HTML version of this story which may include photos, graphics, and related links

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Links to websites and articles

Eco-Eating: Eating As If the World Matters:
http://www.brook.com/veg/

The Poor Get Stuffed by George Monbiot
We cannot feed the world's livestock and the world's people:
http://www.monbiot.com/archives/2002/12/24/the-poor-get-s ... ...

Meet Your Meat (Narrated by Alec Baldwin)
http://www.meat.org/

Rainforest Destruction: What's Meat Got to Do With It? by Steven Best:
http://www.drstevebest.org/papers/vegenvani/rainforest.ph ... ...

Beyond Beef
http://www.mcspotlight.org/media/reports/beyond.html

Save the World With Your Fork
http://www.celsias.com/2006/11/22/save-the-world-with-you ... ...

Global Warming and Meat Overconsumption:   A Few More
Inconvenient Truths by Kathy Freston
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/kathy-freston/a-few-more-in ... ...

The Coming Crisis:  Environmental Disaster, The Global Meat Culture,
And Your Health by Steven Best:
http://www.drstevebest.org/papers/vegenvani/crisis.php

The Case Against Meat: Evidence Shows that Our Meat-Based Diet is
Bad for the Environment, Aggravates Global Hunger, Brutalizes Animals
and Compromises Our Health by Jim Motavalli, E Magazine
http://extreme.trailfire.com/espressoemily/marks/52446

Meat is a Global Warming Issue by Dan Brook, E Magazine
http://www.alternet.org/story/40639/

Warrior for a Healthy Planet by James Faber
http://www.consciouschoice.com/1995-98/cc116/howardlyman. ...

Boss Hog: Rolling Stone report on Smithfield and the pig factory industry
http://www.treehugger.com/files/2006/12/boss_hog_rollin_1 ... ...

Energy Justice Network: Toxic Hazards Posed by Poultry Litter Incineration
http://www.energyjustice.net/fibrowatch/toxics.html

Veganism in a Nutshell - Bruce Friedrich:
http://www.drstevebest.org/papers/book_reviews/vegannutsh ... ...

Q: Who is behind the rapid extermination of the Amazon forest?
A: American agrobusiness giants, ADM, Bunge, and Cargill are.  See
http://petroleum.berkeley.edu/patzek/BiofuelQA/Materials/ ... ...

The True Cost of Food:
http://www.truecostoffood.org/leaders.asp

So You're an Environmentalist; Why Are You Still Eating Meat?
Short version by Jim Motavalli, E Magazine
http://www.creationsmagazine.com/articles/C84/Motavalli.h ... ...

So You're an Environmentalist; Why Are You Still Eating Meat?
Full version by Jim Motavalli, E Magazine
http://www.alternet.org/story/12162/

The Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine on Vegan & Vegetarian Diets:
http://www.pcrm.org/health/veginfo/

The China Study by T. Colin Campbell and Thomas M. Campbell, II:
http://www.thechinastudy.com/about.html

Mad Cowboy: Plain Truth From the Cattle Rancher Who Won't Eat Meat:
http://www.madcowboy.com/

The Global Leather Trade and the Environment:
http://getactive.peta.org/campaign/US_indian_leather?sour ...

Diet for a Small Planet by Frances Moore Lappe'
http://www.smallplanetinstitute.org/On Animal-rights group makes the stupid claim that enviros must be vegetarians posted 2 years, 2 months ago 208 Responses

Taxpayer financed cellulosic plant in Everglades

The University of Florida will build a taxpayer financed cellulosic ethanol plant in the Everglades

In a unanimous vote on August 22nd, a UF site selection committee unanimously chose West Palm Beach-based Florida Crystals (Fanjul family) from a list that included five other contenders to construct an ethanol-from-cellulose plant.

The $20 million project is being financed through a state grant to encourage the development of alternative energy resources.

December McSherry, an Alachua County farmer who serves as chairwoman of the Sierra Club's state agriculture committee and who sits on the organization's national agriculture committee, said the Okeelanta site next to the Everglades is inappropriate.

It poses a threat to the ecosystem from pollution, water withdrawal and soil depletion, she said.

"This is a foot in the door to a huge industrial complex right in the middle of the Everglades. Our land should be used for growing food for people, not cars," said McSherry, who attended Tuesday's meeting but was not allowed to speak.

"This whole ethanol thing will fail," she said. "There is not enough water to go around...The Everglades is an international biosphere reserve and a world heritage site. It is a wetland of international importance."

Florida Crystals also partnered with Florida International University earlier this year to do additional cellulosic ethanol research.

Palm Beach Post article:

http://www.palmbeachpost.com/business/content/business/ep ...On In related news, the '07 corn harvest will break records posted 2 years, 2 months ago 16 Responses

See Rainforest Portal

Friends of the Rainforest and Ecological Internet have launched an Internet based international protest campaign to stop Ocean City, NJ from using ipê, an ancient rainforest wood, for their boardwalk.

For background on Ocean City's use of tropical forests for boardwalk material, click here:
http://www.rainforestportal.org/alerts/send.asp?id=jersey ...On Certification-driven deforestation posted 2 years, 2 months ago 6 Responses

Fish not a healthy choice.......

according to the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine ~
http://www.pcrm.org/news/commentary061024.html

Fish does not protect the heart, researchers say:
http://www.pcrm.org/cgi-bin/lists/mail.cgi?flavor=archive ... ...

10 Questions for Captain Paul Watson, Founder and President of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society
http://www.emagazine.com/view/?3747

Sea Shepherd Conservation Society ~
http://www.seashepherd.org
On Turning the seas into sterile wastelands posted 2 years, 3 months ago 11 Responses

Add agrofuels to the mix

Sugar production is also damaging the Everglades now.  
We can expect a lot more pollution by Big Sugar and we get to
pay for it.

Florida International University and  Florida Crystals Corporation,
the largest U.S. sugar producer, will receive $1 million for ethanol
research from the state of Florida.

The Florida Department of Environmental Protection will award FIU's
Applied Research Center and Florida Crystals a $1-million grant to
develop cellulosic ethanol technology under the Florida Renewable
Energy Technologies Grant Program.
http://www.agprofessional.com/show_story.php?id=45601

The University of Florida's Institute for Food and Agricultural Sciences
is deliberating over where to put their "test" plant for a designer
cellulosic ethanol bug.  Will it be at the polluting Buckeye pulp mill
in rural Taylor County or the Fanjul's Florida Crystal's
plant in South Florida?  

Big Pulp vs. Big Sugar

See Florida Farm to Fuel ~
http://www.floridafarmtofuel.com/

What's astounding, even in today's agrofuel crazed world, is the proposal
to plant 15,000 acres of invasive species Arundo donax in the Everglades
headwaters for electric power and possibly transportation fuel.

"The Sierra Club, as well as Florida agencies that deal with exotic
plants, have concerns about the giant reed, which can grow up to 30 feet
tall, said Dan Hendrickson, legal chairman of the state Sierra Club.

"Biomass Investment Group Inc. of Gulf Breeze plans to plant 15,000
acres of a grass known as Arundo donax -- which it has renamed "E-Grass" --
north of Lake Okeechobee [FL]....

"'They changed the name to deceive the public,' Hendrickson said. 'It
is a deliberate ploy to get away from the bad reputation of Arundo
donax.'...

"Matt King, Palm Beach County's environmental program supervisor,
agrees Arundo donax is a problem in California, where a multimillion-dollar
effort to rid the state of it is under way."

The U.S. Department of Agriculture identifies the non-native plant as
invasive. See:  http://www.invasive.org/eastern/srs/GR.html

Arrundo donax appears on State Noxious Weed Lists for 45 States by state
agriculture and natural resource departments. Also see "Invasive Plants of
the Thirteen Southern States" at :http://www.invasive.org/seweeds.cfm

More about this plant's California invasion is at this Team Arundo del Norte
site: http://ceres.ca.gov/tadn/

"We cannot let an invasion of this invasive noxious giant
water-drinking reed into central Florida headwaters of the Everglades
wetland system. It will kill the Everglades by choking it to death. It is
impossible to get rid of....

"The roots go three feet deep.

"There is a $9 billion restoration of the Everglades in place that
would be put at risk.

 "Arundo donax crowds out native plants, reduces habitat for wildlife,
chokes riversides, stream channels and wetlands. Arundo donax can quickly
invade new areas and form pure stands at the expense of other species. Once
established, giant reed has the ability to outcompete and completely
suppress native vegetation."

-- From December McSherry's comments being circulated via
E-mail.   A farmer near Gainesville, FL,.  McSherry is chair of
the Florida Chapter Sierra Club Agriculture Committee"

At the University of Florida, Philip Busey is cautious. Biomass
wants to plant essentially 12.5 square miles of Arundo, far more than
anywhere in  the state. "'Anything of this scale, there's a danger that
there would be a lot of miles of border edge where things could get
 loose,' he said."

Complete articles

SCIENTISTS WARN AGAINST EXOTIC GRASS
http://www.sptimes.com/2003/08/10/State/Scientists_warn_a ...

PLAN TO USE GRASS FOR POWER WORRIES SIERRA CLUB
http://www.palmbeachpost.com/search/content/business/epap ..._
pg3egrass_0904.html

ARUNDO DONAX:  'LIKE RABBITS ON SPEED'
http://www.tcpalm.com/tcp/editorials/article/0,2821,TCP_2 ...On Pombo's old hack buddy, still at it posted 2 years, 3 months ago 7 Responses

Ewards in Ethanol-land

This is what "carbon neutral" looks like?

John Edwards' "5 star" rated 28,200 square foot house:
http://carolinajournal.com/exclusives/display_exclusive.h ...

Ron Steenblik's report on John Edwards' energy plan ~
Alice in Ethanol-land:
http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2007/3/21/81939/7746On An interview with John Edwards about his presidential platform on energy and the environment posted 2 years, 3 months ago 15 Responses

Poison CAFO Manure on 'Organic' Vegetable Fields?

In her April 'Rural Routes' column in The Progressive Populist, Margot Ford McMillen wrote:

"In the spring, it (CAFO manure) is spread on corn and soybean fields, or composted for use in organic industrial vegetable operations. Remember that next time you're buying something labeled "organic" in a super store."

Complete article:
http://www.populist.com/07.6.mcmillen.html

Is it true that poison CAFO manure is (legally) spread on vegetable fields, the vegetables from which will be labeled 'organic' in stores?On On the difficulties of going veggie posted 2 years, 4 months ago 65 Responses

Committed: A Rabble Rouser's Memoir

The following is an excerpt from chapter 9 of Committed: A Rabble Rouser's Memoir" by Dan Matthews. Matthews, a long-time activist for PETA, took to sneaking into media attended events and stealing the headlines with his animal rights message. This episode has Mathews telling the story of how he dressed up like a Catholic priest to sneak into a fashion show in Milan

The Café Odeon is a bustling Art Nouveau hangout around the corner from where the narrow Limmat River flows into Lake Zurich, in the shadow of the Alps. It hasn't changed much since it opened in 1911. The curved wooden bar with brass coat hooks underneath is surrounded by a few tightly arranged rows of polished marble tables around which the efficient servers twist and bend while holding aloft trays of drinks that never seem to spill.

Like most structures in Switzerland, there's a lot going on within a very small space. Lenin, Trotsky and Mussolini drank within these ornate walls, as did Mata Hari, the stripper who made exotic dancing socially acceptable in Paris before she was put on trial for espionage during World War I. "Harlot, yes, but traitor, never," she said before being riddled with bullets by the firing squad. During World War II, all sorts of spies met in neutral Switzerland at the famed Odeon to exchange information. Loving a theme, this is where I arranged my Sunday morning rendezvous with the prolific undercover agent behind many of PETA's intercontinental exposés.

Complete article
http://www.alternet.org/story/50933/

Here are links to the most recent press on A Rabble Rouser's Memoir -- from Atlanta,
Nashville and the Hipster book club:
http://southernvoice.com/2007/7-20/arts/feature/7240.cfm
http://tinyurl.com/27dq9y
http://www.hipsterbookclub.com/reviews/copy/committed_dan ...On On the difficulties of going veggie posted 2 years, 4 months ago 65 Responses

India's obesity epidemic

Rascism, Wiscedia?  Isn't that a bit far out?

The tone of this discussion was set by the stunningly callous second sentence in the original post, "Sure, meat is murder and all that....."

Regarding India's recent obesity epidemic, Indians are becoming fatter for most of the same reasons Americans are - a horrible junk food diet and sitting around.

Here are several articles on India's new obesity problem ~

India's Newly Rich Battle With Obesity
http://www.indiaresource.org/news/2005/2063.html

Asia Grapples with obesity epidemic
http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/326/7388/515/a

UNC Study: Obesity found to be new, growing health threat among Indian women
http://www.unc.edu/news/archives/sep01/brantley100101.htm ...

And here's information from the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine:
http://www.pcrm.org

The PCRM on vegetarian diets for children
http://www.pcrm.org/health/veginfo/vegetarian_kids.htmlOn On the difficulties of going veggie posted 2 years, 4 months ago 65 Responses

Absolute rubbish

Why does Grist regularly feature ignorant and clueless celebrities who promote agrofuel destruction?

Who are the Grist staffers who compile the People Magazine level lists of "green" celebrities?

There seems to be a giant chasm between the environmental perspectives of the Grist writers and the clueless celebrities Grist features as "green."

I think promoting most of these celebrities as "green" is misleading and harmful.

Is there any way to determine if the sorts of readers who are attracted by Grist's  clueless celebrity lists also read the often excellent Grist articles?

What is the benefit of promoting celebrity agrofuel promoters as "green"?  On Watch six episodes of 'Project Phin' posted 2 years, 4 months ago 18 Responses

Disgusting

Gainesville Sun, 2005: http://www.gainesville.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/200 ...

Article published Mar 1, 2005
Get animal factories added to act, regulations

The Bush administration's Environmental Protection Agency let the factory farm industry draft its own air pollution rules that would shield them from government lawsuits, enforcement of the Clean Air Act and immunity from federal Superfund and environmental right-to-know laws.

Under EPA's proposal, for a small fee, animal factories can volunteer to monitor their own air pollution, thus poisoning thousands of communities.

Over the last decade, the meat, dairy and egg industries have boomed and consolidated, creating gigantic animal factories where thousands of chickens, pigs and heifers are densely packed in unspeakable conditions.

Industrial animal facilities generate an estimated 575 billions pounds of manure each year and collect it in vast lagoons of concentrated animal waste.

Animal factory manure wastes also contain dust, molds, bacterial endotoxins and up to 400 separate volatile compounds, many of which are known irritants, allergens and respiratory hazards.

Scientific studies show that manure lakes emit toxic airborne chemicals that cause headaches, sore throats, excessive coughing, diarrhea, burning eyes, childhood asthma and immediate and long-term respiratory disease.

No wonder talks between EPA and animal factory officials took place in Washington behind closed doors, far from the stench, sickness and misery.

The EPA is accepting comments until Wednesday. Please e-mail to oppose exempting animal factories from the Clean Air Act and Superfund regulations.

Place Docket ID No. OAR-2004-0237 in the subject line and e-mail them at a-and-r-docket@epa.gov

Karen Orr,
Waters and Wetland chair,
Florida Chapter, Sierra Club,
GainesvilleOn Swine By Us posted 2 years, 4 months ago 1 Response

LED bulbs?

Dear Umbra,

Have you done research on LED light bulbs which reportedly contain no mercury?  

Below are two articles from News Target and an advertisement from a LED maker.

" Compact fluorescent light bulbs contaminate the environment with 30,000 pounds of mercury each year"
http://www.newstarget.com/021907.html

"Breaking a compact fluorescent light bulb could cost you $2,000 in toxic mercury cleanup"
http://www.newstarget.com/021916.html

LED advertisement
http://www.betterlifegoods.com/SearchResults.asp?Cat=1On Umbra on mercury in CFLs posted 2 years, 4 months ago 17 Responses

Boniatodiesel

There really seems to be no end to these biofuel schemes.  

I haven't run across it on the internet but I was recently told by a Miamian that there was a proposal in South Florida for biofuel from the tropical tuber boniato.

http://www.nuevo-latino.com/glossary.html
On Japan experiments with seaweed as biofuel posted 2 years, 4 months ago 4 Responses

The China Study

The Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine website has a great deal of excellent and interesting information, plus access to studies of nutrician:

http://www.pcrm.org/

For those interested in studies on fish and shellfish, just search on "fish."

Here is a 2004 PCRM report on fish and shellfish:

http://www.pcrm.org/health/reports/fish_report.html

The China Study also has much important information on diet and its' effect on health ~
http://www.thechinastudy.com/about.htmlOn All you need for summer seafood splendor posted 2 years, 4 months ago 22 Responses

Mercury in CFLs

Arob,

The article you're thinking of might be about LED bulbs that reportedly contain no mercury.

Below is a link to an advertisement for a company that produces LEDs.

http://www.betterlifegoods.com/ProductDetails.asp?Product ...

More info on mercury in CFLs here:

Breaking a compact fluorescent light bulb could cost you $2,000 in toxic mercury cleanup
While large-scale marketing efforts tout cost savings of compact fluorescent light bulbs (CFLs), few are explaining the real cost -- to the environment and to individuals -- of broken or discarded CFLs. One consumer has learned that accidentally breaking...

http://www.newstarget.com/021916.htmlOn A Grist correspondent sweats her way through Live Earth posted 2 years, 4 months ago 12 Responses

Burning the planet for rock tours

Regarding entertainers who still tout burning the planet to fill their tour bus fuel tanks with agrofuel.....

There is no good excuse for being this ignorant at this point.  On A Grist correspondent sweats her way through Live Earth posted 2 years, 4 months ago 12 Responses

No to the agrofuels craze

New from GRAIN
http://www.grain.org/nfg/?id=502

GRAIN has just published a special issue of Seedling which focuses on biofuels, or as we like to call them, agrofuels - over 30,000 words of in-depth analysis from around the world.

In the process of gathering material from colleagues and social movements around the world, we have discovered that the stampede into agrofuels is causing enormous environmental and social damage, much more than we realised earlier. Precious ecosystems are being destroyed and hundreds of thousands of indigenous and peasant communities are being thrown off their land.

Worse lies ahead: the Indian government is committed to planting 14 million hectares of land with jatropha (an exotic bush from which biodiesel can be manufactured), the Inter-American Development Bank says that Brazil has 120 million hectares available for biofuels, and lobbyists in Europe are speaking of almost 400 million hectares being available for biofuels in 15 African countries. We are talking about expropriation on an unprecedented scale.

GRAIN's special issue of Seedling with over 30,000 words of in-depth analysis from around the world, plus other resources on agrofuels are available from this page:
http://www.grain.org/go/agrofuels.

SPECIAL ISSUE OF SEEDLING (JULY 2007)
http://www.grain.org/seedling/?type=68 On Predicts rabbit out of hat in three years, too posted 2 years, 4 months ago 32 Responses

Sad, but not surprising

Al Gore's Nose Is Glowing:  How to Tell Big Lies to Congress
by Russell Hoffman
http://www.counterpunch.org/hoffman03232007.html

Kyoto, Gore and the Atomic Lobby: Nuclear Saviors?
by Jeffrey St. Clair
http://www.counterpunch.org/stclair03242007.html

Mr. Green Goes to Washington: Another Oscar Performance from Al Gore
By Michael Donnelly
http://www.counterpunch.org/donnelly03222007.html

The Green Impostor: When Al Gore Was Veep
by Jeffrey St. Clair
http://www.counterpunch.org/stclair03172007.html

Glory Boy and the Snail Darter: Al Gore, the Origins of a Hypocrite
by Jeffrey St. Clair
http://www.counterpunch.org/stclair03032007.htmlOn Predicts rabbit out of hat in three years, too posted 2 years, 5 months ago 32 Responses

Foundation Grants, NRDC & Coal

Power and Money: IGCC and the myths about "clean coal"

By Matt Reitman

September 13th, 2006

The Joyce Foundation has awarded 3 million dollars to promote "clean coal" integrated gasification combined cycle (IGCC) coal-burning technology. IGCC is touted as the cleanest option for coal-fired power plants, but it is a new problem, not a solution. The awards are going to mainstream "environmental" organizations such as Clean Air Task Force, Clean Wisconsin, the Natural Resources Defense Council, and the Izaak Walton League, to get them to promote the technology. 3 million dollars is a serious amount of money - we could run the entire Campus Climate Challenge on that kind of funding. So, what's the real story here?

President Bush brags about his commitment to the "$1 billion, 10-year demonstration project" called FutureGen, leading the way for IGCC and now targeted at either Illinois or Texas. But there's a problem with IGCC: it does not help us to minimize global warming, and it relies on untested and even improbable science.

IGCC is supposed to be a savior technology. It is often discussed in tandem with a related carbon-storing technique called "sequestration," which involves injecting CO2 into geologic formations or the ocean, to hold the gas for long periods of time. But there is no proof or requirement that this technique will ever work or become implemented.

IGCC plants may also be less inefficient, especially with the addition of sequestration. Many companies are now promising IGCC plants and promoting carbon sequestration without any intention of actually doing it. Do not be fooled, any plant sited on a geologic formation near fault lines, wells, mines, or other potential instabilities (just about everywhere!) is not suitable for large-scale carbon sequestration.Joyce's money is promoting coal-burning without any explicit intention of mitigating the associated greenhouse gases. Even if sequestration does become a reality, no geologic formation is capable of holding CO2 forever, just as no landfill is capable of preventing toxics from escaping into the water, soil, and air (oh and by the way, IGCC's "cleaner" air emissions equals more toxic sludge). And global warming, last I knew, is sticking around for a while.

So, I checked the Joyce website out of curiosity, and they are not forthcoming about their sources of funding. Who is paying Joyce this money? Why are they so confident that it is money well spent? How much does Joyce's money affect the platform and autonomy of constituent organizations? Etc. etc.

The industry is using this as a strategy to divide and conquer environmental groups. There is nothing redeeming or sustainable about IGCC "clean coal" technologies.  Imagine if we had an economy based on clean renewables - what kind of "environmental" group would support a fossil fuel-burning industry? We need to stop letting corporations rule the frame and the rhetoric. It isn't "cleaner," it's "less filthy/deadly."

Also, we are running full speed ahead towards peak coal! And coal-burning is invariably poisoning our air and water, and adding to serious and immediate global warming problems. The money and resources being directed towards "clean coal" are squandered.

If we hope to really slow global warming, we have got to get these (dare I say it) anti-youth folks to get their heads around solutions: conservation, efficiency, and wind and solar. Otherwise, what a waste of valuable time and money!
There is no clean, safe way to mine coal.

There is no clean, safe way to burn coal

There is no clean coal.

There is only filthy coal, and filthier coal.
As a mountaintop removal community activist said last week - "even if rose petals come out of the smokestacks, we still pay with our blood."

Anybody disagree?
-----------------
At this site of It's Getting Hot in Here:
http://itsgettinghotinhere.org/478
------------------
Matt Reitman is an organizer with the Energy Justice Network
http://www.energyjustice.net
----------------------------
How NRDC Sold Out to Help Enron
By Sharon Beder
http://www.prwatch.org/prwissues/2003Q3/enviros.html  
----------------------------
NRDC "Clean Coal" Mythology ~
http://www.nrdc.org/onearth/05fal/coal1.asp?r=n On Coal exec whines about regulations on his ability to destroy the earth and his workers posted 2 years, 5 months ago 11 Responses

Biofuels - It's Getting Annoying Now

Thank you, Craig.  You've put together a great list.  

Grist readers who haven't seen the Celsias list of agrofuel articles, here's the link ~

Biofuels - It's Getting Annoying Now:
http://www.celsias.com/blog/2007/03/28/biofuels-its-getti ...

The student 'Stop BP-Berkeley' website also has a useful list of agrofuel articles and up to date news on what's happening with the BP-Berkeley deal
http://www.stopbp-berkeley.org/media.html

"Stop GE Trees" contains articles about Arbor Gens plans for GE tree fuel plantations in the Southeast U.S.
http://www.stopgetrees.org/

Tad Patzek's biofuel studies are on his website and he also puts up information not seen elsewhere.  

Such as this: Sugarcane Workers in Brazil speak ~
http://petroleum.berkeley.edu/patzek/BiofuelQA/Materials/ ...
And this:
http://petroleum.berkeley.edu/patzek/BiofuelQA/Brazil/bra ...

The Tad Patzek website:
http://petroleum.berkeley.edu/patzek/index.htm

Back to Celsias website - Craig Mackintosh has an excellent series on animal agriculture and its' effect on the environment.

"Save the World With Your Fork."
http://www.celsias.com/blog/2006/11/22/save-the-world-wit ...On A nifty video posted 2 years, 5 months ago 12 Responses

Farm Bill-Ask Congress to support healthy changes

Ask Congress to support healthy changes to the Farm Bill

The following is from the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine

http://www.pcrm.org/

Congress is revising the Farm Bill, which will directly affect the health of all Americans--and we need your help to implement federal policy changes that will support healthy foods.

The Farm Bill helps determine what foods are available in schools, nutrition programs, and the entire food economy. There is a direct link between America's growing rates of chronic disease and our access to cheap and unhealthy food products that are high in fat and cholesterol. That's why we must encourage Congress to support healthy foods and stop heavily subsidizing animal agriculture.

Here's how you can help:

1. Call your representative and senators today and ask them to reduce or eliminate subsidies for meat, dairy, and feed crops through the Farm Bill. Phone calls are an extremely effective way to communicate with Congress. After you've made your calls, send a follow-up e-mail.
2. If you belong to an organization that works on health and nutrition issues or cutting health care costs, please let that organization know that you want agricultural policy to be high on its agenda.
3. Consider e-mailing a special group of members of Congress who may be instrumental in supporting healthy changes to the Farm Bill. Learn more about this group and send them an e-mail.

Producers of feed crops (including corn, soy, and wheat), meat, and dairy products receive 73 percent of direct subsidies for food production. Fruit and vegetable farmers receive less than 1 percent. The government purchases surplus food commodities, most of which are high in fat, cholesterol, and sugar, for distribution to food assistance programs, including our children's schools. The government is not required to purchase nutritious foods.

With your help, we can change the Farm Bill. Please forward this information to your friends and family and ask them to take action. Encouraging Congress to make healthy changes to the Farm Bill will help lower the rates of obesity, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and cancer. Thank you so much for your support, and feel free to contact Kyle Ash at kash@pcrm.org if you have any questions.

For further information and links within the message above, click here:

https://secure2.convio.net/pcrm/site/Advocacy ...

India's environmentally destructive leather trade

Every year, the global leather industry slaughters more than a billion animals. Most of the leather in the U.S. and Europe comes from India, China, and other countries that either have no animal welfare laws or have laws that go largely or completely unenforced. The animals are grotesquely abused in ways that shock the conscience of all kind people.

As India's own animal protection laws are blatantly ignored, unsanitary slaughterhouses continue to pollute the environment; unlicensed, illegal slaughterhouses remain in operation; and the widespread abuse of animals persists. In direct violation of the Constitution of India are marched for days without food or water. Those who collapse from exhaustion have their eyes smeared with chili peppers and tobacco and their tails broken in an effort to keep them moving. Crammed into extremely crowded illegal transport trucks for the long journey to slaughter, many are trampled or gored during the ride.

Because India's animal transport and slaughter laws are not enforced, many of the animals used for leather are so sick and injured by the time they arrive at the slaughterhouse that they must be dragged inside. Once inside, their throats are cut open--often with dirty, blunt knives--on floors that are covered with feces, blood, guts, and urine. Some animals are skinned and dismembered while they are still conscious.

Raising animals whose skins are eventually made into leather creates waste and pollution and consumes huge amounts of fossil fuels. Most leather around the world is tanned using chromium and other hazardous waste. Among the disastrous consequences of using this noxious waste is the threat to human health from the highly elevated levels of lead, cyanide, and formaldehyde in the groundwater near tanneries.

Most of the millions of animals slaughtered for their skin endure the horrors of factory farming before being shipped to slaughter. Buying leather directly contributes to factory farms and slaughterhouses since skin is the most economically important byproduct of the meat-packing industry. Leather shares all the environmental destruction of the meat industry, in addition to the toxins used in tanning.

Here is the link to an important video on the Indian leather trade.  I think most viewers will forget who the narrator is after a few minutes.
http://getactive.peta.org/campaign/US_indian_leather?sour ...

For more information see Bruce Friedrich's "Leather: Dead Skin, Environmental Nightmare" on Common Dreams:
http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/04/30/863/
On What a nice idea posted 2 years, 5 months ago 45 Responses

Noise Pollution Drives Sprawl

Noise Pollution Drives Sprawl

One of the most frequently heard reasons for moving from the city or dense development to the suburbs or countryside is noise.

Those seeking relief from intrusive noise pollution are often disappointed when their new suburban house is more miserably noisy than the city apartment they left behind.

Powerful amplification equipment (stereos, televisions, radios, etc.) in the hands of abusive or thoughtless people is often blasted at volumes so loud that the noise travels for great distances and intrudes upon the lives of others day and night.  

A new horror of suburban life is the 'outdoor entertainment' equipment pushed by the amplification industry in the form of outdoor loudspeakers, etc.

There are many kinds of abusive and  unnecessary suburban noises that send people further into the hinterlands in an attempt to escape it.

Noise pollution is a serious health hazard. The damaging effects of  noise exposure are considered to be an increasingly important public health problem.

Noise poses a serious threat to children's hearing, health, learning and behavior.  It negatively impacts their cognitive development, blood pressure, sleep, digestion and stress-related disorders.  Dr. Luther Terry, a former US Surgeon General, states that excessive noise exposure during pregnancy can influence embryonic development.

Stress hormones released during prolonged noise exposure can impair the immune system.  People whose immune systems are already impaired by disease can be particularly adversely affected.  

Prolonged or excessive exposure to noise can cause permanent medical conditions, such as hypertension, ischaemic heart disease and deafness.  Noise can lead to headaches, tinnitus, impaired concentration, memory loss, poor job performance and test scores.  

People damaged by unwanted noise can experience rapid heartbeat, stomach cramps, diarrhea, uncontrollable trembling and anger at the onset of noise.  Stress from noise can trigger depression, fatigue, hostility, aggression, violence and even murder and suicide.  

It can also lead to sexual dysfunction.

About Noise, Noise Pollution from the Noise Pollution Clearing House ~

The word "noise" is derived from the Latin word "nausea," meaning seasickness. Noise is among the most pervasive pollutants today. Noise from road traffic, jet planes, jet skis, garbage trucks, construction equipment, manufacturing processes, lawn mowers, leaf blowers, and boom boxes, to name a few, are among the audible litter that are routinely broadcast into the air.

Noise negatively affects human health and well-being. Problems related to noise include hearing loss, stress, high blood pressure, sleep loss, distraction and lost productivity, and a general reduction in the quality of life and opportunities for tranquillity.

We experience noise in a number of ways. On some occasions, we can be both the cause and the victim of noise, such as when we are operating noisy appliances or equipment. There are also instances when we experience noise generated by others just as people experience second-hand smoke. While in both instances, noises are equally damaging, second-hand noise is more troubling because it has negative impacts on us but is put into the environment by others, without our consent.

The air into which second-hand noise is emitted and on which it travels is a "commons," a public good. It belongs to no one person or group, but to everyone. People, businesses, and organizations, therefore, do not have unlimited rights to broadcast noise as they please, as if the effects of noise were limited only to their private property. On the contrary, they have an obligation to use the commons in ways that are compatible with or do not detract from other uses.

People, businesses, and organizations that disregard the obligation to not interfere with others' use and enjoyment of the commons by producing noise pollution are, in many ways, acting like a bully in a school yard. Although perhaps unknowingly, they nevertheless disregard the rights of others and claim for themselves rights that are not theirs.

----------------------------------------------

We must

    * Raise awareness about noise pollution
    * Strengthen laws and governmental efforts to control noise pollution
    * Establish networks among environmental, professional, medical, governmental, and activist groups working on noise pollution issues
    * Assist activists working against noise pollution
    * Create more civil cities and more natural rural and wilderness areas by reducing noise pollution at the source.

And always remember that "Good Neighbors Keep Their Noise to Themselves."

You can read more about the devastating affects of noise on health from Dr. Thomas Fay's  "Noise and Health" and from the organizations below.

-------------------------------------

The Noise Pollution Clearinghouse
http://www.nonoise.org

Noise Free America
http://www.noisefree.org/

The Right to Quiet Society
http://www.quiet.org/goals.htm

NoiseWatch
http://noisewatch.netfirms.com/

League of the Hard of Hearing
http://www.lhh.org/noise

The World Health Organization's Guide for Community Noise
http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs258/en/

Pipedown International
The Campaign for Freedom from Piped Music
http://www.pipedown.info/

Hearing Education & Awareness for Rockers
http://www.hearnet.com

Victims of Airboat Noise United (VAN)
http://www.noairboatnoise.com/

Noise: Illinois Chapter of the Sierra Club
http://illinois.sierraclub.org/conservation/ATV/index.htm ...

Noise and Marine Mammals
http://www.sierraclub.org/committees/marine/mammals/state ...

Patsy?

According to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, a patsy is a person who is easily manipulated or victimized:
http://www.m-w.com/dictionary/patsy

There is nothing to suggest that Tad Patzek falls into that category.On Global warming, agriculture, and fossil fuels posted 2 years, 5 months ago 47 Responses

The Energy Justice Network on Animal Factory Waste

http://www.energyjustice.net/biomass/#cafoOn Great idea or load of crap? posted 2 years, 5 months ago 7 Responses

The Energy Justice Network

The Energy Justice Network is a great source of information on myriad energy matters.

http://www.energyjustice.net/On Global warming, agriculture, and fossil fuels posted 2 years, 5 months ago 47 Responses

Peak Soil

 "The nation that destroys its soil destroys itself." - President Franklin D. Roosevelt

Peak Soil: Why cellulosic ethanol, biofuels are unsustainable and a threat to America's National Security

By Alice Friedemann  

 Part 1. The Dirt on Dirt.
 Part 2. The Poop on Ethanol: Energy Returned on Energy Invested (EROEI)
 Part 3. Biofuel is a Grim Reaper.
 Part 4. Biodiesel: Can we eat enough French Fries?
 Part 5. If we can't drink and drive, then burn baby burn. - Energy Crop Combustion
 Part 6. The problems with Cellulosic Ethanol could drive you to drink.
 Part 7. Where do we go from here?

Editor's note:

There are many serious problems with biofuels, especially on a massive scale, and it appears from this report that they cannot be surmounted. So let the truth of Alice Friedemann's meticulous and incisive diligence wash over you and rid you of any confusion or false hopes. The absurdity and destructiveness of large scale biofuels are a chance for people to eventually even reject the internal combustion engine and energy waste in general.

The author looks ahead to post-petroleum living with considered conclusions: "Biofuels have yet to be proven viable, and mechanization may not be a great strategy in a world of declining energy." And, "...only a small amount of biomass (is) unspoken for" by today's essential economic and ecological activities.

Alice Friedemann points out, "Crop production is reduced when residues are removed from the soil. Why would farmers want to sell their residues?"

She also notes, "As prices of fertilizer inexorably rise due to natural gas depletion, it will be cheaper to return residues to the soil than to buy fertilizer."

Peak Soil: Why cellulosic ethanol, biofuels are unsustainable and a threat to America's National Security:
http://www.culturechange.org/cms/index.phpOn Global warming, agriculture, and fossil fuels posted 2 years, 5 months ago 47 Responses

Chenoweth and the Endangered Salmon Bake

These items appeared during a brief internet search for  information on Helen Chenoweth and the endangered  species dinners.
--------------------------------------------

Representative Helen Chenoweth, who famously hosted an endangered-sockeye-salmon bake in her district and once donned a T-shirt that read "Earth First!" on the front and "We'll log the other planets later" on the back.

Outside Magazine
http://outside.away.com/outside/magazine/0998/9809disppol ...

Among the most memorable moments in her wretched fanatical career: she famously groused that "It's the white Anglo-Saxon male that's endangered," making her point by serving endangered species of salmon for dinner. She wasn't exactly a conservationist, calling environmentalists "Marxists." And she was calling for selling off the National Parks even before Dirty Dick Pombo. As far as I know, she was the first congressperson to complain about mysterious black government helicopters bothering people.

Down With Tyranny blog
http://downwithtyranny.blogspot.com/2006/10/helen-chenowe ...

She ran for Congress against incumbent Democrat Larry LaRocco and gained national attention when she held "endangered salmon bakes," serving canned salmon and ridiculing the listing of Idaho salmon as an endangered species during fundraisers.

Spokesman Review
http://www.spokesmanreview.com/breaking/story.asp?ID=7556 ...
On Visit exotic travel spots before we obliterate them! posted 2 years, 5 months ago 13 Responses

Frankenfood and Poor-washing

Is Bill Gates trying to hijack Africa's food supply?

Below is an excerpt from Bruce Dixon's article for the Black Agenda Report ~

Genetically altered crops will rescue Africa from endemic shortfalls in food production, claim corporate foundations that have announced a $150 million "gift" to spark a "Green Revolution" in agriculture on the continent.

Of course, U.S.-based agribusiness holds the patents to these wondercrops, and can exercise their proprietary "rights" at will. Are corporate foundations really out to feed the hungry, or are they hypocritical Trojan Horses on a mission to hijack the world's food supply - to create the most complete and ultimate state of dependency.

"Poor-washing" is the common public relations tactic of concealing bitterly unfair and predatory trade policies that create and deepen hunger and poverty with clouds of hypocritical noise about feeding the hungry and alleviating poverty.  It's hard to imagine a better case of media poor-washing than the hype around the recently announced $150 million "gifts" of the Gates and Rockerfeller Foundations to the cause of reforming African agriculture, feeding that continent's impoverished millions and sparking an African "Green Revolution"

For ADM, Cargill, Monsanto and other agribusiness giants farming as humans have practiced it the last ten thousand years is a big problem.

The problem is that when farmers plant and harvest crops, setting a little aside for next year's seed, people eat, but corporations don't get paid.  That problem has been so thoroughly solved in US food production that chemical fertilizers and pesticides create a biological dead zone of hundreds of square miles in the Gulf of Mexico where the Mississippi, draining much of the continent's richest farmland, empties into it.  U.S. law requires the registration all crop varieties, and makes it extraordinarily difficult for farmers to save and plant their own seed year to year without paying royalties to corporations who "own" the genetic code of those crops.

'Poor-Washing, the Gates Foundation & the "Green Revolution" in Africa' can be read at this link:
http://www.blackagendareport.com/index.php?option=com_con ...

The report is also available on Alternet:
http://www.alternet.org/environment/52785/
On Pesticide efficacy is decreasing posted 2 years, 5 months ago 22 Responses

The False Hope of a Biofuel Free Lunch

Mark W. Anderson, coordinator of the Ecology and Environmental Sciences Program at the University of Maine, has a good op-ed in the Bangor Daily News.

Here's a portion ~

Some analysts see corn-based ethanol as just a transition to "cellulosic" ethanol, but many of the same problems exist here. Most fundamentally, the flow of energy through plant systems is simply not large enough to replace fossil fuels. Additionally, any increased reliance on biofuels means that we divert precious farmland away from food production for the human population that continues to grow at a rate of nearly 80 million people a year. And whether it be for fuel or food, human use of more of the globe landscape for domesticated plants means we will see accelerating threats to other plant and animal species. Energy for food or fuels consumed by humans is not available for our nonhuman companions on this planet.

Why does government policy encourage such a flawed approach to energy policy with direct subsidies and massive spending on research and development programs? Why did we not learn from the failed synthetic fuels programs of the 1970s? There are three reasons, two of which come from what economists call "rent seeking behavior." Rent seeking is when individuals and firms use the public-policy process to generate direct benefits, such as large direct subsidies. First, the most obvious beneficiaries of the ethanol craze are corn farmers and large agribusiness firms that buy and sell corn and other agricultural products. The subsidies have worked and there is an explosion of new ethanol factories in the Midwest. Whether or not this is good energy policy, it certainly has been good for corn farmers, giving new meaning to the phrase "corn-fed pork."

Second, Midwestern universities and other research institutes have also prospered in this biofuels frenzy as the federal government pours millions of dollars into research and development programs. Careers are made, campuses grow, whether or not energy policy improves -- more rent seeking behaviors.

Third, you and I are equally to blame. Americans want to believe that our energy challenges can be solved without any change in our habits or lifestyles. As long as the government tells us that there is a "renewable energy" source, we believe can continue to consume energy with abandon. We can drive ever bigger vehicles, ever more miles. We can heat and cool larger houses and live wherever we choose. This is the false hope of a free lunch from biofuels.

No matter how technologically capable we are, we cannot overcome the laws of nature. Biofuels are not a renewable energy source that will replace our dependence on fossil fuels. Believing so only continues to distract us from the real work at hand. If we were to put just a fraction of attention, creativity and funding into energy conservation that is going into biofuels, we would move much more quickly to address the energy problems at hand.

Complete article:
http://bangordailynews.com/news/t/viewpoints.aspx?article ...On World grain supplies tanking posted 2 years, 6 months ago 5 Responses

Greenwash/Greenscam/Greenspeak

International Encyclopedia of Environmental Politics:
http://homepage.mac.com/herinst/sbeder/greenwash.html

Greenwashing, Greenscamming and Greenspeak are all different terms for public relations efforts to portray an organisation, activity or product as environmentally friendly.

Greenwash derives from the term whitewash and indicates that organisations using greenwash are trying to cover up environmentally and/or socially damaging activities, sometimes just with rhetoric, sometimes with minor or superficial environmental reforms. Similarly Greenscamming indicates an element of fraud and deception and refers to the practice of using environmental names for groups or products that are not environmentally friendly. Greenspeak is a more neutral term meaning environmental language, jargon and terms. It is sometimes used to indicate environmental language that lacks substance, is not genuine or is merely empty rhetoric. Greenspeak is also used by anti-environmental groups to derogatively refer to arguments made by environmentalists.

Environmental public relations, or greenwash, has been a response to the rise of environmental concern, particularly in the late 1980s. Many firms responded with green marketing campaigns in an effort to portray their products as environmentally friendly and capitalise on new markets created by rising environmental consciousness.

The attempt to provide a `green' and caring image for a corporation is a public relations strategy aimed at promising reform and heading off demands for more substantial and fundamental changes and government intervention. Public relations experts advise how to counter the negative perceptions of business, caused in most cases by their poor environmental performance. Rather than substantially change business practices so as to earn a better reputation many firms are turning to PR professionals to create one for them. This is cheaper and easier than making the substantial changes required to become more environmentally friendly.

One of the ways PR experts enhance the image of their clients and show that they care is by emphasising their positive actions, no matter how trivial, and down playing any negative aspects, no matter how significant. Some companies make the most out of measures they have been forced to take by the government, making it seem that they have undertaken the improvements because they care about the environment. Companies that have poor environmental records can also improve their image and increase their sales merely by using recycled paper in their products or making similar token adjustments.

Another way for corporations to show they care about the environment, even if they don't care enough to make major changes to their business practices, is to donate money to an environmental group or to sponsor an environmental project. Such donations can also have the additional benefit of coopting and corrupting environmentalists. Consultancies and perks for individual environmentalists also work wonders for getting a favourable hearing.

As well as funding genuine environmental groups, these corporations also set up anti-environmental front groups that pose as environmental groups adopting environmental names, sometimes with the similar acronyms or logos as their environmental foes to add to the deliberately fostered confusion.

To read  'Greenwash' by Sharon Beder in its' entirety click link below ~

International Encyclopedia of Environmental Politics:
http://homepage.mac.com/herinst/sbeder/greenwash.html

Also see Sharon Beder's

Corporate Assault on Democracy
http://homepage.mac.com/herinst/sbeder/talk.html

The Intellectual Sorcery of Think Tanks
http://homepage.mac.com/herinst/sbeder/tanks.html

From Green Warriors to Greenwashers
http://www.prwatch.org/prwissues/1999Q3/g2g.html

Through the Revolving Door: From Greenpeace to Big Business
http://www.prwatch.org/prwissues/1999Q3/greenpeace.html

Best Coverage Money Can Buy
http://homepage.mac.com/herinst/sbeder/media.html

Corporate Hijacking of the Greenhouse Debate
http://homepage.mac.com/herinst/sbeder/ecologist2.html
On Not always, but green branding has potential to connect consumers to their 'inner green' posted 2 years, 6 months ago 20 Responses

Biofuels and the poor

This is from Professor Tad Patzek's website:
http://petroleum.berkeley.edu/patzek/index.htm

Q: Is sugarcane agriculture good for the workers?
A: They think not... See  http://petroleum.berkeley.edu/patzek/BiofuelQA/Materials/ ...

Q: Is sugarcane agriculture good for poor people?
A: Not really, see http://petroleum.berkeley.edu/patzek/BiofuelQA/Brazil/bra ...

Q: Where is Lucas' interview with Father Tiago from Brazil?
A:  It is here
http://petroleum.berkeley.edu/patzek/BiofuelQA/Materials/ ...On The former: Not good for the latter posted 2 years, 6 months ago 26 Responses

Agrofuel: More on California's Proposition 87

During the Proposition 87 campaign, Tad Patzek had this to say ~

If we go along with Proposition 87 as it is formulated now, we will continue destroying the Earth ecosystems in real time to feed our greedy cars and lifestyles. We will trick ourselves into believing that we are saving California and the planet. This monumental waste of time and public money will not move California toward energy independence.

Proposition 87 is centered on several biofuel delusions that must be confronted and debunked. For starters, we really need to stop driving the gas-guzzling Chevy Tahoes and Hummers. We also need to understand that feeding monstrous SUVs with E85 or biodiesel is bad for the Earth.

More:
http://www.venturebeat.com/2006/10/31/why-is-proposition- ...

And Robert Rapier said this ~

http://i-r-squared.blogspot.com/2006/08/more-on-californi ...On Where are low-income and minority greens in the media? posted 2 years, 6 months ago 21 Responses

Weather and Fuel Farming

In regions where droughts occur, eucalyptus are known to be at high risk of catching fire.

The southeast U.S. is currently in the midst of such a drought.

Florida is burning NOW.

Eucalyptus plantations have been documented to deplete ground water and cause or exacerbate drought situations.

Nevertheless ArborGen is laying the groundwork for massive plantations of non-native eucalyptus trees genetically engineered to be cold tolerant for biofuels and paper pulp.

These eucalyptus trees have been engineered for other traits which ArborGen refuses to reveal.  News articles and reports indicate these traits likely include reduced lignin content and the ability to kill insects.

ArborGen seeks approval from the USDA to allow their genetically engineered eucalyptus trees to flower and produce seeds.  There has been no consideration as to what happens if these seeds escape into native ecosystems.  

This is an area heavily impacted by severe storms, including tornadoes and hurricanes--seeds from these trees could travel for hundreds of miles.

Once this GE tree flowering and seed production is allowed, it will be easier for APHIS to approve outdoor field trial releases of other GE trees, such as poplars and pines for flowering and seed production.  This could spell disaster for our native forests

APHIS is accepting comments on ArborGen's proposal until May 21.

You can find how to write APHIS and learn more about this insane proposal here:

National Effort Launched to Stop Genetically Engineered Eucalyptus Plantations in US Southeast
http://www.organicconsumers.org/articles/article_5120.cfm ...

Also on this issue: The Center for Food Safety ~
http://ga3.org/campaign/GE_Trees/ide6573ro3e8wb7?
ge=20040818162316710On The weather will matter more and more posted 2 years, 6 months ago 13 Responses

Less manure is the solution

Digesters are not a sustainable solution for factory farm waste, but rather a mechanism for perpetuating the production of excess manure...

Oppose CAFOs.

See anaerobic digesters and methane digesters at Energy Justice Network:
http://www.energyjustice.net/digesters/On A bill to subsidize making biogas from cow manure posted 2 years, 6 months ago 26 Responses

Visit the Beyond Beef site

The reference to some feedlot cattle being fed cement dust, cardboard, paper, and industrial oils and wastes is from the Beyond Beef report.

The Beyond Beef report can be read at this link:
       http://www.mcspotlight.org/media/reports/beyond.html
- - -
See what's in fish, chicken and pork according to this Washington Post report ~

     The tainted Chinese ingredient that was incorporated into U.S. pet food
     and later made its way into chicken and pig feed was neither wheat
     gluten nor rice protein as advertised, but was seriously contaminated
     wheat flour, government investigators said yesterday....

     Officials said, some of that contaminated flour, mislabeled as gluten,
     was mixed into fish food in Canada and exported to the United States,
     where it was fed to fish raised for human consumption.

     Accordingly, some American fish may be laced with melamine, the
     industrial toxin whose spread has revealed in startling detail the many
     ways in which the food chains for pets, farm animals and humans are
     internationally intertwined....

     "Our food-safety system is broken," said Rep. Rosa L. DeLauro
     (D-Conn.), who chairs the subcommittee that funds the Food and Drug
     Administration and the Department of Agriculture.

          -- From "Farm-Raised Fish Given Tainted Food," by Rick Weiss, at
              this May 9, 2007 site of the Washington Post, Washington,
              D.C.:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007 ...
060.htmlOn Educate yourself before going vegan posted 2 years, 6 months ago 39 Responses

Cattle fed animal, industrial wastes

On the subject of animal factories ~

Some cattle are fed agricultural by-products such as corn stalks,
that are inedible by humans, as well as manure scrapings from hog and
chicken intensive confinement "factory" farms.

Some feedlots have begun experimenting feeding cattle cement dust,
cardboard, paper, and industrial oils and wastes.

From this current site of Beyond Beef, Washington, D.C.:
          http://www.mcspotlight.org/media/reports/beyond.html

Beyond Beef is an excellent report addressing resource depletion, global warming, human disease, animal suffering and other compelling reasons to eat less beef.

Also read about The China Study

The research project culminated in a 20-year partnership of Cornell University, Oxford University, and the Chinese Academy of Preventive Medicine, a survey of diseases and lifestyle factors in rural China and Taiwan. More commonly known as the China Study, "this project eventually produced more than 8000 statistically significant associations between various dietary factors and disease."

The findings? "People who ate the most animal-based foods got the most chronic disease ... People who ate the most plant-based foods were the healthiest and tended to avoid chronic disease.

From the introduction to The China Study:
http://www.thechinastudy.com/about.htmlOn Educate yourself before going vegan posted 2 years, 6 months ago 39 Responses

Meat is a global warming issue

Beef consumption plays a major role in the development of heart disease, strokes, and cancer. The over-consumption of beef is also a major cause of global warming, human hunger and poverty, deforestation, spreading deserts, water pollution, water scarcity, species extinction, and animal suffering.

We in the United States are a big part or the problem. Americans consume almost a quarter of all the beef produced in the world.

A growing awareness of the hidden environmental and health costs of beef consumption is leading more Americans adopt a plant based diet.

Beyond Beef prepared a briefing kit about rainforest destruction, resource depletion, global warming, world hunger, human disease, animal suffering and other compelling reasons why more Americans are eating less beef.

Here's the Beyond Beef report:
http://www.mcspotlight.org/media/reports/beyond.htmlOn It ain't pretty posted 2 years, 6 months ago 24 Responses

Hog Hell

The following is excerpted from the Treehugger review of Jeff Tietz's excellent Rolling Stone article,"Boss Hog: Welcome to the Dark Side of the Other White Meat."

The Treehugger link will take you to the Jeff Tietz article:
http://www.treehugger.com/files/2006/12/boss_hog_rollin_1 ...

 "America's top pork producer churns out a sea of waste that has destroyed rivers, killed millions of fish and generated one of the largest fines in EPA history" It is a dire and frightening tale. The first paragraph has perhaps the year's longest run-on sentence, designed to convey the scale of the industry and the analogy to human beings is stunningly effective.

"Smithfield Foods, the largest and most profitable pork processor in the world, killed 27 million hogs last year. That's a number worth considering. A slaughter-weight hog is fifty percent heavier than a person. The logistical challenge of processing that many pigs each year is roughly equivalent to butchering and boxing the entire human populations of New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Houston, Philadelphia, Phoenix, San Antonio, San Diego, Dallas, San Jose, Detroit, Indianapolis, Jacksonville, San Francisco, Columbus, Austin, Memphis, Baltimore, Fort Worth, Charlotte, El Paso, Milwaukee, Seattle, Boston, Denver, Louisville, Washington, D.C., Nashville, Las Vegas, Portland, Oklahoma City and Tucson."

The article continues in that style, hitting you with statistics and similes. "A lot of pig shit is one thing; a lot of highly toxic pig shit is another. The excrement of Smithfield hogs is hardly even pig shit: On a continuum of pollutants, it is probably closer to radioactive waste than to organic manure. " and 26 million tons of it are discharged each year. Into holding ponds, sprayed on fields, leaking into rivers.

The article is primarily about shit. It briefly touches on animal welfare- "Smithfield's pigs live by the hundreds or thousands in warehouse-like barns, in rows of wall-to-wall pens. Sows are artificially inseminated and fed and delivered of their piglets in cages so small they cannot turn around. Forty fully grown 250-pound male hogs often occupy a pen the size of a tiny apartment. They trample each other to death. There is no sunlight, straw, fresh air or earth." Which doesn't get much of a response from Smithfield Chairman Joseph Luter : "The animal-rights people," he once said, "want to impose a vegetarian's society on the U.S. Most vegetarians I know are neurotic."

It then goes back to looking at what is in pigshit, how it is dealt with, where it goes and how it gets into the environment.

People become vegetarians for various reasons; personal health and concern for animal welfare are big ones. It is likely that environmental concerns are becoming a major cause.  The carbon footprint of a hamburger and the water footprint of a pound of meat. Learning about the shit footprint of a pound of pork has put me over the edge. I know what my New Year's resolution is: no more factory farmed meat.

Full Treehugger review and link to "Boss Hog:"
http://www.treehugger.com/files/2006/12/boss_hog_rollin_1 ...On How food processing got into the hands of a few giant companies posted 2 years, 6 months ago 16 Responses

BP Project Impractical & Dangerous

Stop BP-Berkeley has expanded their website:
http://www.stopbp-berkeley.org/media.html

Questions of scientific feasibility and environmental responsibility dominated a Thursday night teach-in called by critics of UC Berkeley's $500 million biofuels pact with a British oil company.

BP and Berkeley are currently hammering out the details of a contract that will create the Energy Biosciences Institution, which the school and the former British Petroleum plan to market as "the world's premier energy research institute."

But UC Berkeley Professor of Geoengineering Tadeusz Patzek and Professor of Ecosystem Sciences and Energy and Resources John Harte raised questions about the science and claims made for the project--the largest corporate funding package in American university history.

Complete Berkeley Daily Planet article:
http://www.berkeleydaily.org/text/article.cfm?issue=05-01 ...
On All abruptly posted 2 years, 6 months ago 4 Responses

Ethanol Biorefineries - Magnets for CAFOs

Hello Ron, Tom and all,

In the November 2006 Muskegon Chronicle article "New ethanol plants spark concerns of factory farms," Michigan Sierra Club legislative director Gayle Miller states that building corn-based ethanol plants in Michigan could trigger a boom in CAFOs and increase water pollution.

Ethanol plants attract dairy CAFOs because a byproduct of distilling corn can be used as a feed supplement for cattle.

Michigan already has about 200 dairy, pig and poultry CAFOs that collectively generate more than 4 billion pounds of liquid manure annually, nearly all of which is spread untreated on farm fields, according to government data.

Four ethanol plants have broken ground in Michigan since 2003, quadrupling the state's production of corn-based fuel, according to state officials. The state also has joined with General Motors, Meijer, and CleanFUEL USA to make ethanol available at more gas stations.

In a July press release, Gov. Jennifer Granholm called the construction of more ethanol refineries and availability of the alternative fuel at more gas stations "important steps to fulfilling Michigan's next great destiny -- making our state and our nation independent of foreign oil."

Gayle Miller said the number of dairy CAFOs increased in Iowa after corn-based ethanol plants sprouted there.

Michigan's largest farm group, the Michigan Farm Bureau, actively promotes CAFOs. Farm Bureau officials claim CAFOs help farmers remain profitable by producing more food products at lower cost; the group also claims CAFOs cause less harm to the environment than smaller farms, according to the article.

All Michigan farms are exempt from the state's air pollution control law, even though huge manure storage lagoons at CAFOs emit ammonia, methane and potentially deadly hydrogen sulfide gas.

The Muskegon Chronicle article is no longer online but these issues are also raised by K. Myers of Wheatfield, Indiana.  

Shortly after the Myers family moved next to a wildlife reserve the picture changed with the discovery that a large hog CAFO  was moving adjacent to the reserve and less than 2500 feet from their home.

Myers writes about this in her blog post "The Ethanol CAFO Connection:"
http://wahmdiary.blogspot.com/2006/11/ethanol-cafo-connec ...

I stumbled upon that article on the excellent Energy Justice Network website:  http://www.energyjustice.net

Y'all might have read the AP report on Tyson, ConocoPhillips teaming up on diesel fuel made from animal fat

The Tyson-Conoco CAFOdiesel project will produce "the next generation of renewable diesel fuel."

"A new biofuel project will mean what's for dinner may also be what goes in the fuel tank with ConocoPhillips and Tyson Foods joining forces to make diesel fuel from animal byproducts

The alliance plans to use beef, pork and poultry by-product fat to create a transportation fuel.

"This fuel will contribute to America's energy security and help to address climate change concerns," the Tyson-Conoco statement said.
http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/business/article ...

Karen Orr
Gainesville, Florida
On How food processing got into the hands of a few giant companies posted 2 years, 7 months ago 16 Responses

Desperate to save the motoring culture they lie

Hello all,

Pangolin recommends Alice Friedemann's excellent Culture Change report titled "Peak Soil: Why Cellulosic ethanol and other Biofuels and are a Threat to America's National Security.  It's a long paper but I hope y'all have time to read and distribute it.  http://preview.tinyurl.com/2jvzoe.

"Peak Soil" is especially timely now that many journalists have run out of gas on their corn ethanol promos and have transferred their enthusiasm to destruction by cellulosic ethanol.

I also recommend James Howard Kunstler's April 16th  column "Blowing Green Smoke."  The column addresses  the "Happy Motoring Utopia" in general and the ineptitude of New York Times columnist Tom Friedman in particular.

Tom Friedmann should have reached the top of his career at The Gainesville Sun.

Here are the first paragraphs of the Kunstler piece with the link to it below them:

"Tom Friedman, celebrated New York Times columnist and author of The World is Flat, riffed on (or around) the issues of climate change and energy in that newspaper's Sunday Magazine this week ("The Power of Green"), and managed, in the process, to misunderstand just about every implication these conjoined problems present. Friedman's specious thinking is symptomatic of exactly what is wrong with our public discussion of these matters generally, and their presentation in mainstream media in particular.

I'm fond of saying that if America could harness the power it wastes blowing smoke up its own ass, we could magically escape our energy-and-climate-change predicament. I say this repeatedly to counter the increasing volume of lies we tell ourselves in order to maintain the illusion that we can continue living the way we do. Like so many other commentators suffering from cranial-rectosis, Friedman believes that we can keep on running our Happy Motoring utopia if we just switch fuels."

Kunstler's Commentary on the Flux of Events:
http://www.kunstler.com/mags_diary21.html

Karen Orr
Gainesville, Florida
On This is what we've come to posted 2 years, 7 months ago 19 Responses

Peak Soil: Cellulosic Ethanol is NOT Sustainable

"The nation that destroys its soil destroys itself." - President Franklin D. Roosevelt

Alice Friedmann has a long paper on Culture Change titled "Peak Soil: Why Cellulosic Ethanol and Other Biofuels are Not Sustainable and a Threat to America's National Security."  It's worth a read.  

Culture Change
http://www.culturechange.org/cms/index.php

Karen OrrOn Where is it written that there's an easy out to replace oil? posted 2 years, 7 months ago 9 Responses

Too many people, not enough earth

"The three most important ecological laws are diversity, interdependence, and finite resources. Diversity of species on this planet and the interdependence of these species is essential to the survival of all species, including our own. There are limits to growth and for human populations to increase means we must steal the resources and thus carrying capacity of the environment from other species. They must be removed to increase our numbers. This will result in less diversity and less interdependence and ultimately it will have grave consequences for humanity," Captain Watson said

"I don't say what it is popular to say. I don't hold right or left political values. I speak from an ecological perspective. Being concerned about population growth  in the United States is an ecologically-correct position. There is nothing political about it."

Captain Paul Watson, founder and president of Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, commentary on population:
http://www.seashepherd.org/editorials/editorial_060518_1. ....

In May 2006, the US Census Bureau reported that many immigrant women have more children when they move to the United States than they would have had in their home countries.

Over the past 60 to 70 years, US population doubled to nearly 300 million. If current birth and immigration rates remain unchanged for another 60 to 70 years, US population again would double to some 600 million people - the equivalent of adding another state the size of California every decade.

Read more in this Christian Science Monitor article:
http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0512/p01s04-ussc.html

Also see ~

TOO MANY PEOPLE, NOT ENOUGH EARTH
Scientists debate how much population the world can sustain
http://www.dispatch.com/dispatch/contentbe/dispatch/2007/ ...

U.S. POPULATION REACHES 300 MILLION, HEADING FOR 400 MILLION
No Cause for Celebration
http://www.earth-policy.org/Updates/2006/Update59.htm

The U.S. Population Clock:
http://www.census.gov/population/www/popclockus.htmlOn Quit talking about it already posted 2 years, 7 months ago 92 Responses

agriculture, politics, environment, academia

I regularly check ~

GM Watch
http://www.gmwatch.org
CounterPunch
http://www.counterpunch.org
Organic Consumers Association
http://www.organicconsumers.org/
George Monbiot
http://www.monbiot.com

I also check academic sites.  In addition to the class
materials, these professors post articles and research.

Professor Tad W. Patzek
http://petroleum.berkeley.edu/patzek/index.htm

Professor Patzek is probably best known for his biofuel
publications and statements - and more recently, his opposition
to the BP/Berkeley deal - but he has many interests.  Here
are recent examples:
http://petroleum.berkeley.edu/patzek/Harmful/archive2007. ...

Once in a while I check Dr. Steven Best's website.

Steve Best is Associate Professor of Humanities and Philosophy at
the University of Texas, El Paso. He focuses on philosophy,
social and political theory, cultural studies, science and technology studies,
animal rights, and environmentalism

Professor Steven Best
http://www.drstevebest.org/

I don't know what to make of the hundreds of snapshots of himself Steve
Best has on his site but some of the articles are interesting and informative.
On Where to find green news posted 2 years, 8 months ago 9 Responses