Groups Against GMO Labeling: ‘Science Wins’
Organic Lifestyle Comments Off on Groups Against GMO Labeling: ‘Science Wins’
The good citizens of Colorado have voted to keep themselves free of the knowledge of whether their food contains genetic modifications, and it looks like the good citizens of Oregon are following suit, although Prop 92—the ballot measure requiring such labeling–is trailing by a very slim margin in balloting that is, at this writing, still too close to call.
Funny—but in preliminary polling before the vote, the measure to label GMO food was leading by 30 percentage points. My, how tens of millions of dollars in propaganda money from Monsanto, Coke, Pepsi, et al, can turn a race around. What must they have told the folks in Oregon to make that poll lead evaporate? Let me guess.
How about, “Labeling GMOs will make your food cost more!” It’s an outright lie, of course. All Prop 92 required is a little more ink on the already-existing label.
Some sources are calling the defeat of the measures a win for science, as if the measures were a confrontation between “science” and…what? Sorcery? Witchcraft? Druidism?
The confrontation wasn’t between those things at all. The confrontation was between huge corporations that have found diabolically clever ways to sell toxic herbicides and plants modified to produce pesticides in every bite, and folks who want to avoid these things.
“Diabolically clever?” Isn’t that hyperbole, Jeff? No. The Environmental Protection Agency just declared that the neonicotinoid pesticides used to coat GMO seeds—pesticides that kill honeybees and cause declining bird numbers (see story later in this blog)—do not increase yields or save farmers money. Despite this, Monsanto has announced that it will continue to sell neonic-treated seeds. That’s diabolical, if not clever.
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USDA APPROVES GMO POTATO
A potato genetically engineered to eliminate a potentially harmful ingredient that emerges in the high heat required for French fries and potato chips has been approved for commercial planting, the Department of Agriculture has announced, according to Andrew Pollack writing in The New York Times.
The potato’s DNA has been altered so that less of a chemical called acrylamide is produced when the potato is fried. Acrylamide has been shown to cause cancer in rodents and is a suspected human carcinogen. The newly designed potato also resists bruising.
The potato was developed by the J. R. Simplot Company, based in Boise, Idaho, one of the nation’s largest potato producers and a major supplier of frozen French fries to McDonald’s. The resistance to bruising is a characteristic long sought by commercial users of potatoes because the damage — which usually occurs during storage and shipment — makes them unusable.
Simplot is also applying for approval of another genetically modified potato that is resistant to late blight, the cause of the Irish potato famine. The U.S.D.A. is considering that application.
The approval applies only to growers in the United States. Other nations have their own rules — some of them much more stringent — on the growing of genetically modified foods. The European Union, for example, has been much more reluctant to approve the modified crops.
Potatoes are the latest genetically engineered crop to get approval in the United States. Others include corn, soybeans, alfalfa, canola, sugar beets, certain types of yellow squash and zucchini.
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CLIMATE CHANGE DENIER TO LEAD ENVIRONMENT COMMITTEE
Rebecca Leber, writing in The New Republic, points out that in handing Republicans control of the Senate, Americans effectively voted for the party’s hostile plans against President Barack Obama’s environmental legacy. Their votes also put the Senate’s environment and climate policy into the hands of the worst science-denier in national politics: Oklahoma Senator James Inhofe, who is almost certainly the next chair of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee.
Inhofe claimed in 2003 that global warming might help humanity. “It’s also important to question whether global warming is even a problem for human existence. Thus far no one has seriously demonstrated any scientific proof that increased global temperatures would lead to the catastrophes predicted by alarmists. In fact, it appears that just the opposite is true: that increases in global temperatures may have a beneficial effect on how we live our lives.”
Inhofe refuted climate change science in 2012 by citing the Bible. “[T]he Genesis 8:22 that I use in there is that ‘as long as the earth remains there will be seed time and harvest, cold and heat, winter and summer, day and night.’ My point is, God’s still up there. The arrogance of people to think that we, human beings, would be able to change what He is doing in the climate is to me outrageous.”
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ORGANIC FARMING SUPPORTS BIODIVERSITY
A recent meta-analysis published in the Journal of Applied Ecology compared biodiversity under organic and conventional farming methods by studying the findings from 94 studies, according to The Organic Center.
After confounding factors were accounted for, the results showed that organic farms had 30 percent more species than conventional farms, and this trend was seen consistently across literature published over the past 30 years. The majority of research comparing conventional and organic farming systems has taken place in developed countries, particularly Europe and North America, leaving a large gap in our knowledge and a need for more research on the effects of organic farming on diversity in tropical and sub-tropical areas.
“This analysis affirms that organic farming usually has large positive effects on average species richness compared with conventional farming. Given the large areas of land currently under agricultural production, organic methods could undoubtedly play a major role in halting the continued loss of diversity from industrialized nations,” the authors conclude.
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NEONICOTINOID USE LINKED TO DECLINING BIRD POPULATIONS
Research has demonstrated that exposure to neonicotinoid pesticides is harmful to non-pest insects such as bees. Now, a new study published in the journal Nature demonstrates that the negative effects of these unintended exposures may reach much further up the food chain than scientists previously suspected.
Researchers from Radboud University in the Netherlands demonstrated that bird populations declined in areas where surface water contained concentrations of the neonicotinoid pesticide imidacloprid at 20 nanograms per liter. These declines were observed even when habitat destruction due to changing land use was accounted for.
The study also demonstrates insectivorous bird populations did not begin declining until the mid-1990s, when farmers in the region began using imidacloprid. The authors suggest that bird populations are not likely to be declining due to direct toxicity of the pesticide but in response to their declining food source—namely insects particularly sensitive to the chemical. Future pesticide regulation should take into account that more wildlife is at risk due to neonicotinoid use in conventional agriculture than was previously anticipated.
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LOOK FOR CASCADE ICE SUGARLESS THIRST QUENCHER
A company in Washington State is marketing a product it calls Cascade Ice, and it carries the USDA Organic seal. It is water from a municipal water supply—actually a lake—in the foothills of the Cascade mountains, that is filtered and given a tiny drop of organic fruit essential oil for flavoring and a charge of carbon dioxide to make it bubbly. No sugar. No artificial sweetener. No high fructose corn syrup. Just water and that drop of organic essential fruit oil. It’s what you want to quench your thirst rather than a can of something bad for you from Coke or Pepsi.
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