GM Tweets
Wednesday, 30 September 2009 10:50
Below is a feed of the latest items going out via Twitter.
Follow GMWatch on Twitter for all the breaking news, alerts on important stories, lots of interesting tit bits, and links to articles, sources and further information.
For much more news just click here.
Gates and the millions funding geoengineering
Thursday, 09 February 2012 13:50
NOTE: At first glance this may appear to have nothing to do with genetic engineering but in fact it provides another good example of Bill Gates' ideological commitment to top-down high tech "solutions". Rather than promoting technological solutions which tackle the fundamentals of climate change, Gates promotes high tech approaches which claim to smash aside the problem while allowing "business as usual". There appears to be no awareness of possible ecological or social consequences by Gates, who favours approaches that rely on centralized control imposed on a large-scale, rather than the more democratic decentralized approaches of green energy like solar and wind.
---
---
The Millions Funding Geoengineering
Common Dreams, February 6 2012
https://www.commondreams.org/headline/2012/02/06
*Bill Gates among wealthy funding large-scale geoengineering
As scientists search for a plan to deal with climate change, some have pushed for a controversial approach known as geoengineering, a technological fix for climate change that involves efforts such as reflecting solar energy back into space or fertilizing the oceans.
The billionaire philanthropist Bill Gates is backing a group of climate scientists lobbying for geoengineering experiments.
Bill Gates is among other wealthy individuals financially backing scientists to lobby governments to push geoengineering, raising concerns that this small group may have a large impact on further decisions on geoengineering.
The Guardian reports:
Bill Gates backs climate scientists lobbying for large-scale geoengineering
Other wealthy individuals have also funded a series of reports into the future use of technologies to geoengineer the climate
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/feb/06/bill-gates-climate-scientists-geoengineering
Concern is now growing that the small but influential group of scientists, and their backers, may have a disproportionate effect on major decisions about geoengineering research and policy.
"We will need to protect ourselves from vested interests [and] be sure that choices are not influenced by parties who might make significant amounts of money through a choice to modify climate, especially using proprietary intellectual property," said Jane Long, director at large for the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in the US, in a paper delivered to a recent geoengineering conference on ethics.
"The stakes are very high and scientists are not the best people to deal with the social, ethical or political issues that geoengineering raises," said Doug Parr, chief scientist at Greenpeace. "The idea that a self-selected group should have so much influence is bizarre."
Pressure to find a quick technological fix to climate change is growing as politicians fail to reach an agreement to significantly reduce emissions. In 2009-2010, the US government received requests for over $2bn(GBP1.2bn) of grants for geoengineering research, but spent around $100m.
As well as Gates, other wealthy individuals including Sir Richard Branson, tar sands magnate Murray Edwards and the co-founder of Skype, Niklas Zennström, have funded a series of official reports into future use of the technology. Branson, who has frequently called for geoengineering to combat climate change, helped fund the Royal Society's inquiry into solar radiation management last year through his Carbon War Room charity. It is not known how much he contributed.
Professors David Keith, of Harvard University, and Ken Caldeira of Stanford, are the world's two leading advocates of major research into geoengineering the upper atmosphere to provide earth with a reflective shield. They have so far received over $4.6m from Gates to run the Fund for Innovative Climate and Energy Research (Ficer). Nearly half Ficer's money, which comes directly from Gates's personal funds, has so far been used for their own research, but the rest is disbursed by them to fund the work of other advocates of large-scale interventions.
According to statements of financial interests, Keith receives an undisclosed sum from Bill Gates each year, and is the president and majority owner of the geoengineering company Carbon Engineering, in which both Gates and Edwards have major stakes – believed to be together worth over $10m.
Another Edwards company, Canadian Natural Resources, has plans to spend $25bn to turn the bitumen-bearing sand found in northern Alberta into barrels of crude oil. Caldeira says he receives $375,000 a year from Gates, holds a carbon capture patent and works for Intellectual Ventures, a private geoegineering research company part-owned by Gates and run by Nathan Myhrvold, former head of technology at Microsoft.
According to the latest Ficer accounts, the two scientists have so far given $300,000 of Gates money to part-fund three prominent reviews and assessments of geoengineering – the UK Royal Society report on Solar Radiation Management, the US Taskforce on Geoengineering and a 2009 report by Novin a science thinktank based in Santa Barbara, California. Keith and Caldeira either sat on the panels that produced the reports or contributed evidence. All three reports strongly recommended more research into solar radiation management.
The fund also gave $600,000 to Phil Rasch, chief climate scientist for the Pacific Northwest national laboratory, one of 10 research institutions funded by the US energy department.
Rasch gave evidence at the first Royal Society report on geoengineering 2009 and was a panel member on the 2011 report. He has testified to the US Congress about the need for government funding of large-scale geoengineering and, according to a financial statement he gave the Royal Society, also works for Intellectual Ventures. In addition, Caldeira and Keith gave a further $240,000 to geoengineering advocates to travel and attend workshops and meetings and $100,000 to Jay Apt, a prominent advocate of geoengineering as a last resort, and professor of engineering at Carnegie Mellon University. Apt worked with Keith and Aurora Flight Sciences, a US company that develops drone aircraft technology for the US military, to study the costs of sending 1m tonnes of sulphate particles into the upper atmosphere a year.
Analysis of the eight major national and international inquiries into geoengineering over the past three years shows that Keith and Caldeira, Rasch and Prof Granger Morgan the head of department of engineering and public policy at Carnegie Mellon University where Keith works, have sat on seven panels, including one set up by the UN. Three other strong advocates of solar radiation geoengineering, including Rasch, have sat on national inquiries part-funded by Ficer.
"There are clear conflicts of interest between many of the people involved in the debate," said Diana Bronson, a researcher with Montreal-based geoengineering watchdog ETC.
"What is really worrying is that the same small group working on high-risk technologies that will geoengineer the planet is also trying to engineer the discussion around international rules and regulations. We cannot put the fox in charge of the chicken coop."
"The eco-clique are lobbying for a huge injection of public funds into geoengineering research. They dominate virtually every inquiry into geoengineering. They are present in almost all of the expert deliberations. They have been the leading advisers to parliamentary and congressional inquiries and their views will, in all likelihood, dominate the deliberations of the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) as it grapples for the first time with the scientific and ethical tangle that is climate engineering," said Clive Hamilton, professor of Public Ethics at the Australian National University, in a Guardian blog.
* * *
In a 2010 debate on geoengineering on Democracy Now!, scientist and environmentalist Vandana Shiva cautioned against this method to deal with climate change:
...it is the idea of being able to engineer our lives on this very fragile and complex and interrelated and interconnected planet that’s created the mess we are in. It’s an engineering paradigm that created the fossil fuel age, that gave us climate change. And Einstein warned us and said you can’t solve problems with the same mindset that created them. Geoengineering is trying to solve the problems with the same old mindset of controlling nature. And the phrase that was used, of cheating — let’s cheat — you can’t cheat nature. That’s something people should recognize by now. There is no cheating possible. Eventually, the laws of Gaia determine the final outcome.
* * *
In a 2008 issue of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Alan Robock outlined (pdf) 20 reasons why geoengineering could be a bad idea, including possible military use of the technology and the risk of unintended consequences.
http://www.thebulletin.org/files/064002006_0.pdf
GM toxic soy is not responsible!
Wednesday, 08 February 2012 16:28
Over 25,000 people tell Ahold: stop misleading consumers
Genetically Modified toxic soy is not responsible!
Food & Water Europe, 8 February 2012
PRESS BRIEFING
Photo opportunity: Public demonstration and petition handover
When: Thursday 9 Feb 2012, 12.30-13.30
Where: Amsterdam, Ahold CSR office, Piet Heinkade 167-173
On Thursday 9 February multinational food retailer Ahold will receive the signatures of 26,000 people across Europe demanding an end to greenwash projects like the Round Table for Responsible Soy (RTRS). Hugo Byrnes, director of product integrity at Ahold and the company's representative in the soy roundtable, is invited to accept the signatures at 13.00 in front of his office.
The petition was kicked off in six countries in 2011 and targeted supermarket chains and food companies around Europe like Ahold, Aldi, Arla, Carrefour, Colruyt, Coop, Delhaize, Marks & Spencer and Unilever. International environmental groups including Friends of the Earth International, Action Aid, Global Forest Coalition and Food & Water Europe supported the action.[1]
Tjerk Dalhuisen of campaign group Toxicsoy.org says: "Europe imports 34 million tons of genetically modified (GM) soy every year, mainly to feed factory farmed animals. This system can never be called responsible and does not deserve a green label.
"The criteria proposed by the Round Table on Responsible Soy (RTRS) do not guarantee any level of 'responsibility'. Soy plantations can still expand at the expense of forests and small farms; large scale pesticide spraying on soy farms will continue to poison people and the environment."[2]
Eve Mitchell of Food & Water Europe added, "Food & Water Europe is concerned that the EU continues to rely far too heavily on imported soya from highly GM damaging monocultures, including to fuel factory farming. We cannot continue to export our environmental and social damage in this way, and consumers have a right to see on food labels where this imported GM soya is being used as animal feed."
The RTRS is an initiative of the World Wildlife Fund and the soy industry and companies with a vested interest in soy expansion such as the agribusiness and oil giants Monsanto, Syngenta, Cargill, BP and Shell. The Dutch food and animal feed industry are actively supporting the RTRS, and the Dutch government is providing financial support to the scheme in particular via the Sustainable Trade Initiative (IDH).
The soy roundtable has faced strong opposition from civil society for years. Hundreds of organisations from Europe and South America have signed declarations against the RTRS.[3] WWF and the Dutch NGOs involved in the RTRS have been criticised by nine Belgian NGOs.[4] In April 2011 the German platform of environmental organisations DNR (Deutsche Naturschutzring) sent a letter to WWF and asked them to withdraw from the RTRS stating, "DNR cannot accept that WWF protects a failed system of agriculture and secures the profits of companies like Monsanto and BP."[5]
The soy that is being certified by the RTRS is mostly Monsanto's RoundupReady GM soy, made resistant to Monsanto's own herbicide Roundup based on glyphosate, which has been increasingly linked to serious health impacts on humans and wildlife.[6] Mixtures of pesticides are sprayed over large surfaces by airplane or large machines, causing severe health problems for the local population, pollution of water and damage to crops.
Hugo Byrnes on behalf of Ahold wrote in response to the petition that there are at present too few alternatives to soy imports. However, retailers like Ahold drive the use of soy by promoting cheap meat products. Instead, soy animal feed should be replaced by locally grown animal feed, and factory farming should be banned.
He also claimed that Ahold "does not intend to communicate the use of certified soy to consumers via packaging", which shows once more that certified "responsible" soy has already failed as a brand.
Meike Vierstra (ASEED Europe) says: "Supermarkets that participate in this greenwash are making a big mistake. Consumers will understand that this label is misleading. We say to these companies: Don't sell the lie."
For more information:
Eve Mitchell, Food & Water Europe
Phone: +44 (0)1381 610 740 email:
This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
Tjerk Dalhuisen, Toxicsoy.org,
Mobile: +31 6 14699126, email:
This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
Nina Holland, Corporate Europe Observatory
Mobile: +31-6 30285042, email:
This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
Meike Vierstra, ASEED Europe
Mobile: +31-6-5248 1471, e-mail:
This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
Notes to the editor:
[1] Petition text: http://www.toxicsoy.org/toxicsoy/Action/action.html.
Support letter:http://www.toxicsoy.org/toxicsoy/news/Artikelen/2011/3/8_Letter_to_supermarkets__responsible_soy_is_misleading_consumers_files/Please%20reject%20RTRS-certified%20soy%20letter-1.pdf
[2] More critical analysis on the RTRS criteria: Certified Responsible? GM Watch, CEO and Friends of the Earth, March 2011. http://www.gmwatch.eu/images/pdf/rtrsbackgrounderfinal.pdf
[3] Open Letter: Growing Opposition to Round Table on Responsible Soy. June 2010.http://www.gmfreeze.org/page.asp?ID=431&iType=1079
[4] Letter from Belgian NGOs:http://www.gifsoja.nl/Gifsoja/nieuws/Artikelen/2011/2/4_Artikel_1_files/11%2002%2004%20%20brief%20NL%20organisaties%20RTRS.pdf
[5] Letter Deutsche Naturschutzring to WWF: https://www.regenwald.org/pdf/WWF_RTRS.pdf
[6] Antoniou, M., Brack, P., Carrasco, A., Fagan, J., Habib, M., Kageyama, P., Leifert, C., Nodari, R., Pengue, W. 2010. GM Soy: Sustainable? Responsible? http://www.gmwatch.org/files/GMsoy_SustainableResponsible_Sept2010_Summary.pdf
Food & Water Europe is a program of Food & Water Watch, Inc., a non-profit consumer NGO based in Washington, D.C., working to ensure clean water and safe food in Europe and around the world. We challenge the corporate control and abuse of our food and water resources by empowering people to take action and transforming the public consciousness about what we eat and drink.
Modified crops tap a wellspring of protest
Wednesday, 08 February 2012 15:06
Modified Crops Tap a Wellspring of ProtestOzier Muhammad
The New York Times, February 7 2012
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/08/dining/a-suit-airs-debate-on-organic-vs-modified-crops.html?_r=1&src=tp
[image caption: A rally in Foley Square in Manhattan in support of a suit by farmers who say they cannot keep genetically modified crops from their fields.]
SILENT in flannel shirts and ponytails, farmers from Saskatchewan and South Dakota, Mississippi and Massachusetts lined the walls of a packed federal courtroom in Manhattan last week, as their lawyers told a judge that they were no longer able to keep genetically modified crops from their fields.
The hearing is part of a debate that is coming to life around the country, in courtrooms and Occupy sites, in boardrooms and online, with new petitions, ballot initiatives and lawsuits from California to Maine.
Last year, according to the Department of Agriculture, about 90 percent of all soybeans, corn, canola and sugar beets raised in the United States were grown from what scientists now call transgenic seed. Most processed foods (staples like breakfast cereal, granola bars, chicken nuggets and salad dressing) contain one or more transgenic ingredients, according to estimates from the Grocery Manufacturers Association, though the labels don't reveal that. (Some, like tortilla chips, can contain dozens.)
Common ingredients like corn, vegetable oil, maltodextrin, soy protein, lecithin, monosodium glutamate, cornstarch, yeast extract, sugar and corn syrup are almost always produced from transgenic crops.
No known health risks are associated with eating transgenic foods (though many scientists say it is too soon to assess the effects), and the Food and Drug Administration classifies them as safe.
But consumer resistance to transgenic food remains high. In a nationwide telephone poll conducted in October 2010 by Thomson Reuters and National Public Radio, 93 percent said if a food has been genetically engineered or has genetically engineered ingredients, it should say so on its label — a number that has been consistent since genetically modified crops were introduced. F.D.A. guidelines say that food that contains genetically modified organisms, or G.M.O.s, don't have to say so and can still be labeled "all natural."
In California, voters in November will decide on a ballot initiative requiring the labeling of such foods. In October, an online campaign called Just Label It began collecting signatures and comments on a petition to the F.D.A., requesting rules similar to those in the European Union, Japan, China, India and Australia, stating what transgenic food is in the package. (For example, an ingredients list might say "genetically engineered corn" instead of just "corn.") Six hundred thousand Americans have commented, according to the group.
"You don't have to be a technophobe or think corporations are evil to not want G.M.O.s in your food," said Ashley Russell, a college student who attended a rally sponsored by Food Democracy Now after the Manhattan court hearing.
In traditional plant breeding, plants are bred with related organisms to encourage certain naturally occurring traits. In transgenic breeding, genetic material from unrelated organisms can be introduced to create new traits, like resistance to drought, herbicides or pests. For the most part, the spread of transgenic seeds into the American food supply has been purposeful, carried out by farmers and scientists who see enormous advantages in hardier plants.
In January, Bill Gates devoted most of his annual letter on agriculture from the Gates Foundation to the need for advanced technology. He later said that most people who object to transgenic agriculture live in rich nations, responsible for climate change that he believes has caused malnutrition for the poor.
For many in the food industry, including big players like Whole Foods, the dairy collective Organic Valley and Stonyfield Farm, the inevitability of transgenic food was cemented last year, when the Agriculture Department deregulated a new alfalfa created by Monsanto, the largest producer of genetically modified seed in the United States, despite furious lobbying by the organic industry. Alfalfa, which has a strong tendency to drift from one field to another, is grown as feed for millions of dairy cows, making it one of the country’s largest crops. Transgenic alfalfa cannot be used to feed cows that produce organic milk.
"We have understood for a long time that there is potential for contamination of organic food through pollen drift," said A. C. Gallo, co-president and chief operating officer of Whole Foods. After the "disappointing" alfalfa decision, he said, the company decided to focus more efforts on labeling transgenic food, rather than trying to stop or slow its arrival into the food supply.
The company, along with others like Nature's Path, Eden Foods and Lundberg Family Farms, is a major funder (and customer) of the Non-GMO Project, a nonprofit verification service that does lab testing and provides certification for food producers. Organic farmers are responsible for testing their own crops for contamination, and for keeping transgenic pollen and seeds off their land. The Agriculture Department recommends that organic farmers leave a "buffer zone" between their crops and neighboring farms, but that can prove expensive and ineffective.
"Pollen and DNA do not play by the U.S.D.A.'s rules," said Elizabeth Archerd, a director of a Minneapolis food co-op, the Wedge, that supports labeling of transgenic food.
That is why farmers like Bryce Stephens of Jennings, Kan., made the trip to New York last week.
"I don't raise corn anymore," he said, because the prevailing wind on his farm had contaminated his crop with transgenic seed. Without the resources to devote land to a buffer zone, he said that the alfalfa he grows to feed his herd of organic bison would soon be contaminated by his neighbors’ crops.
Like Mr. Stephens, most of the farmers in the Manhattan courtroom were plaintiffs in a class-action lawsuit filed last year by the Organic Seed Growers and Trade Association against Monsanto. The plaintiffs, none of whom use Monsanto seeds, say that they are afraid that the company will take legal action against them if its patented products appear in their fields. (Monsanto has asserted its agricultural patents in hundreds of lawsuits, most of which have been settled.)
But the real issue here is not patent law; it's contamination. The point made by the suit is that, according to the regulations that govern American agriculture, it's these unwilling farmers who must prevent Monsanto's products from trespassing onto their land.
The company has moved to dismiss the suit, claiming that the plaintiffs lack standing because Monsanto has taken no action against them. The judge, Naomi R. Buchwald, said she would rule on the motion to dismiss by March 31.
Increasingly, though, organic and transgenic seeds are coexisting on American farmland. Last year, the Agriculture Department said crops would not lose organic status as long as the transgenic content remained at or below 0.9 percent (the threshold the European Union uses for imported crops).
For consumers, this means that transgenic ingredients are often present in the organic staples they pay a premium for.
"That's absolutely not what organic buyers want, and not what they are paying for," Ms. Archerd said.
Monsanto wants glyphosate residues in food to rise
Wednesday, 08 February 2012 15:01
Food Herbicide Residues Set to Rise As Much As 150 TimesGM Freeze, 8 February 2012
http://www.gmfreeze.org/news-releases/180/
*Proposed new level already breached 100 times over
Monsanto has applied to increase the EU’s permitted Maximum Residue Level (MRL) for its best-selling herbicide glyphosate in lentils. Proposals before the EU would mean increasing the current legal residue level by 100-150 times. [1] The chemical is widely used on GM crops and elsewhere for weed control and to dry crops prior to harvest.
The current EU MRL for glyphosate in lentils is 0.1 mg/kg. The proposal aims to raise this level to 10 mg/kg, or even 15mg/kg. [1] Rather than being based exclusively on safety grounds, the proposed new MRL appears to be partly based on levels already likely to be found in lentils as a result of the weedkiller being used close to harvest.
The proposed new level was recently breached by a shipment of Canadian lentils for human consumption. The Czech Republic withdrew the cargo from the market when it discovered glyphosate residues exceeding both EU and Canadian MRLs (tested at 10.5 mg/kg [2], more than 100 times the EU MRL; the current Canadian MRL for lentils is 4 mg/kg [3]).
Monsanto wants to “modify the existing MRL” to accommodate Canadian and US lentil farmers who use glyphosate as a desiccant to dry their crops 7-14 days before harvest. [1] Any rise in the EU MRL will ensure glyphosate sales to North American lentil growers can increase without jeopardising export sales. [3]
The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) issued a “reasoned opinion” in January 2012 supporting Monsanto’s request to raise the MRL in lentils and recommended a level of 10 or even 15 mg/kg (a potential 150-fold increase on the current MRL). [1] MRLs for other crops on which glyphosate is routinely applied while growing, such as wheat and GM soya, have already been granted similarly elevated MRLs by the EU. [1]
Glyphosate is coming under increased scrutiny by independent scientists because of concerns about its impact on human health including:
*Possible links to birth defects, hormone disruption and non-Hodgkins lymphoma
*Residues monitoring in humans has found glyphosate breakdown products in blood serum [7] and has been reported in the urine of German city dwellers [8]
*Growing evidence that glyphosate can pass into foetuses via the placenta [9]
The weedkiller also damages the environment, including aquatic wildlife like frogs, fish, invertebrates and algae. [4] Recent reports from the US [5] and Spain [6] indicate glyphosate’s frequent presence in both surface and groundwater respectively.
GM crops, such as maize and soya, are frequently sprayed directly with glyphosate. Most of these crops are fed to animals, and residues in meat and milk may result. No regular monitoring of glyphosate residues in animal products has taken place in the EU in recent years.
Commenting Pete Riley of GM Freeze said:
"If Monsanto gets its way the EU it will again increase the glyphosate exposure people get from their diets without anyone realising it is happening. It seems clear this is part of Monsanto's ongoing attempts to prop up chemical sales at the expense of human health and the environment.
"EU regulators must reject the application. Permissible residue levels must protect public health, not to facilitate glyphosate use to suit Monsanto's sales strategy, and they need to be rigorously enforced since cargos continue to breach permissible residue levels endangering the health of unwitting consumers.
"Glyphosate is used very widely, so even unborn children can be exposed to the weedkiller in many different ways. It is far from clear the accumulation from all these sources is safe. We need to ensure glyphosate does not result in long-term public health problems by reviewing the growing body of scientific evidence on its safety and regulating accordingly. People have a right to expect protection from Monsanto's weedkiller in their food and water."
Calls to: Pete Riley 07903 341 065
Notes
[1] European Food Safety Authority, 2012. Reasoned opinion – Modification of the existing MRL for glyphosate in lentils
[2] EU Rapid Alert System for Food and Feed (RASFF) search results
[3] Government of Alberta, Agriculture and Rural Development Department, 15 August 2011. “Lentil Producers Unable to Use Glyphosate for Pre-harvest Weed Control”
[4] GM Freeze and Greenpeace International, 30 June 2011. Herbicide Tolerance and GM Crops - Why the world should be ready to round up glyphosate
[5] Coupe RH, Kalkhoff SK, Capel PD and Gregoire C, 2011. “Fate and transport of glyphosate and aminomethylphosphonic acid in surface waters of agricultural basin”. Pesticide Management Science, 67, doi: 10.1002/ps.2212
[6] Sanchis J, et al, 2011. "Determination of glyphosate in groundwater samples using an ultrasensitive immunoassay and confirmation by on-line solid-phase extraction followed by liquid chromatography coupled to tandem mass spectrometry". Analytical and Bioanalytical Chemistry (ref DOI 10.1007/s00216-011-5541-y)
[7] Aziz A and Leblanc S, 2010. “Maternal and fetal exposure to pesticides associated to genetically modified foods in Eastern Townships of Quebec, Canada”. Reproductive Toxicology
[8] von Dirk Brändli und Sandra Reinacher, 2012. “Herbizide im Urin”. Ithaka Journal
[9] Poulsen, M. S, et al, 2009. "Modeling placental transport: Correlation of in vitro BeWo cell permeability and ex vivo human placental perfusion." Toxicology In Vitro 23: 1380–1386
More Articles...
Page 1 of 2421
