Judge Rules GMOs Violate Environmental Law

For those of us wondering how bad the untested genetically modified food experiment is going to get before it gets any better, a ray of hope was just offered. A San Francisco judge, the very honorable, Judge Jeffrey White just ruled that the U.S. Department of Agriculture`s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service violated environmental law because of inadequate environmental testing of genetically modified sugar beets. He ruled that the agency failed to see if the genetically altered beets would eventually share their funky pesticide proof genes with other crops. Judge White noted that pollen from sugar beets can be blown long distances and pollinate other crops, including table beets and chard.

White wrote, “The potential elimination of farmers` choice to grow nongenetically engineered crops, or consumers` choice to eat nongenetically engineered food … has a significant effect on the human environment.”

The judge ordered the federal agency to produce an environmental impact statement after taking a hard look at the issue. A lesser look by the agency found that the sharing of genetically altered pollen was no cause for concern.

This is the second blow for Monsanto and according the Associated Press, a “similar ruling in 2007 forced a ban on planting Roundup Ready alfalfa until a re-examination was done.” That environmental impact statement has yet to be completed, so it effectively halted the growth and sale of GMO alfalfa.

About half of the sugar beets used in the United States are currently Monsanto`s genetically modified variety and the judge didn`t rule about the harvest of the current crop.

If you haven`t been already, it`s wise to avoid sugar for a while to make sure you`re not consuming genetically modified sugar beets.

Genetically modified foods have been linked to smaller, less developed brains, livers and testicles. GMOs have been found to enlarge other tissues, including the pancreas and intestines. They`ve been known to atrophy the liver, while causing structural changes in the stomach and intestines. GMOs have additionally been linked to infertility and allergies. Here`s more: http://www.saynotogmos.org/paper.pdf.

All of the health problems associated with consuming genetically modified foods made the news in Europe years ago, when genetically modified crops were new. The citizens of Europe rebelled, which is why genetically altered foods are currently banned, or mostly labeled, in Europe.

In the U.S., the news wasn`t covered by mainstream outlets. As a consequence genetically modified foods are not labeled and consumers remain largely unaware. Genetically modified ingredients are available in the large majority of processed foods, and in the U.S. it`s actually illegal for manufacturers to label GMO products, as GMO products.

U.S. officials have been cited as saying that such labeling would “confuse consumers,” and it`s widely known that the large majority of consumers don`t want to eat genetically modified foods. Their logic has been: if consumers knew which foods were genetically modified, they would avoid them and thereby make the wrong choice. The official said to have explained the government’s logic at an international Codex meeting later denied doing so.

Organic farmers, food safety advocates and conservation groups brought the lawsuit. According to Earthjustice attorney Paul Achitoff, on Oct. 30 they will ask the judge for an injunction to ban new plantings until the environmental impact statement is complete.

An American Sugar Beet Growers Association spokesman said the association is going to fight for the right to grow genetically modified sugar beets. It wasn`t disclosed if, or how much, funding the association receives from Monsanto.

Genetically modified sugar beets are currently grown in eleven states and on 1.1 million acres.

http://www.naturalnews.com/027177_food_GMOs_GMO.html

Adapting to water woes

The southwestern United States is moving headlong toward an environmental catastrophe of apocalyptic proportions.

The already drought-prone region is almost entirely dependent on a shrinking snowpack and sparse rain in the Colorado River Basin. As the planet’s climate changes, an already overtaxed and volatile water supply is expected to get even more unstable.

“A lot of people say that in global warming there will be winners and losers. In the Southwest, we’ll be in the losers’ category,” University of Arizona climatologist Jonathan Overpeck said at a symposium on global warming’s effect on the Southwest.

Overpeck discussed the latest scientific consensus on climate change at the Feb. 19 symposium, hosted by the Urban Land Institute at the Palms.

He was joined by Southern Nevada Water Authority General Manager Pat Mulroy, who discussed what can be done on a local, national and international scale to head off disaster.

The problem of climate change in the Southwest is fairly complex, but can be summed up in one word: water.

The Southwest is the most persistent hot spot on the globe and has a history of severe drought.

As a region, we depend almost entirely on the Colorado River Basin for our water, and all climate change projections estimate that the basin will be among the most heavily hit by drought as the world warms. Most projections say the region will warm by about 7 degrees by 2050 and 10 degrees by the end of the century.

There is a 10 percent chance the warming in this region could be double that — about 20 degrees warmer by 2100.

At the same time, the region will experience its typical drought pattern. That means it will be hotter and dryer from the mountaintops to the valley floors and we’ll have a lot less water available to deal with it.

The most up-to-date climate models available show that if humans reduce carbon emissions significantly starting now, water flow in the Colorado River Basin will be reduced by 5 percent to 40 percent over the next few decades.

If we do nothing, it will be worse, Overpeck said.

“We’ve had low rain and low snow for many years; there’s no doubt we’re already in a drought,” he said. “The thing is, with climate change, we may never come out of the drought.”

The global scientific community agrees that climate change is occurring and is caused by the activities of humans, mostly from deforestation and growing greenhouse gas emissions.

“We need to adapt to drought and climate change because whether we cause it through global warming or Mother Nature causes it or both, we’re still going to suffer,” Overpeck said.

Much of the responsibility for reversing the emission trend falls on Americans, who create about 25 percent of the carbon being spewed into the atmosphere each year.

“The United States is a voracious consumer of natural resources,” Mulroy said. “Those days are over. We can’t afford to use natural resources at the rate we’re currently using them.”

Much also must be done to halt growing production of polluting fossil fuel-fired power plants in China and India and to fund retrofits or replacement of polluting power plants in poorer nations around the world.

That change has to start at home, Mulroy stressed.

“We need to be part of the solution,” she said. “We can’t be in the eye of the storm and not look at our carbon footprint and energy sources.”

To start, she suggests massive regionwide management and conservation of water resources. This includes regulation of the agriculture industry, indicating what crops can be grown in drought-prone areas, decreases in water consumption by residents and industry, widespread wastewater recycling and more efficient management of snowmelt and rainfall through underground catchment basins.

She also said it’s essential to tap into alternative water sources for urban areas such as Las Vegas.

“The most daunting thing is adaptation, and adaptation has to happen at all levels from large institutional changes to individual behavioral levels,” Mulroy said.

That includes urban and suburban developers.

Mulroy said tomorrow’s neighborhoods need to be more condensed, more sustainable and more community oriented. That means smaller or no yards and no more brick walls, but shared recreation areas are necessary.

Not only would such a design be more efficient, it would also help rebuild a sense of community in places such as Las Vegas.

“We’ve built a community of people who share borders — that’s it,” she said.

She also urged Nevada builders and architects to put pressure on the Green Building Counsel to take a more regional approach to Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design certifications.

Specifically, she wants to see the end of LEED points for gray-water systems in Las Vegas to be replaced by points for sending the water down the drain, where 100 percent of it is recycled and sent back to Lake Mead.

This could encourage other municipalities to recycle wastewater as well.

“Gray-water systems won’t generate a single drop of new water,” she said. “You’re simply replacing a municipal water recycling program with an individual water recycling program.”

The region also needs to take advantage of the opportunity to turn renewable resources into electricity, both speakers

said.

If fossil fuel-fired power plants were reduced and renewable energy were dedicated to charging electric cars, the country could significantly reduce its carbon footprint and slow climate change.

The key is to start working on these solutions now, Mulroy and Overpeck said.

“The Southwest needs a plan to adapt,” Overpeck said. “The longer we wait, the worse it will be and for a very long time.”

http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2009/feb/27/adapting-water-woes/

Arctic air temperatures hit record highs

Autumn air temperatures have climbed to record levels in the Arctic due to major losses of sea ice as the region suffers more effects from a warming trend dating back decades, according to a new report.

The annual report issued by researchers at the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and other experts is the latest to paint a dire picture of the impact of climate change in the Arctic.

It found that autumn air temperatures are at a record 5 °C above normal in the Arctic because of the major loss of sea ice in recent years, which allows more solar heating of the ocean.

That warming of the air and ocean impacts land and marine life and cuts the amount of winter sea ice that lasts into the following summer, says the report.

The report adds that surface ice is melting in Greenland and that wild reindeer, or caribou, herds appear to be declining in numbers.
Domino effect

“Changes in the Arctic show a domino effect from multiple causes more clearly than in other regions,” says James Overland, an oceanographer at NOAA’s Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory in Seattle and one of the authors of the report.

“It’s a sensitive system and often reflects changes in relatively fast and dramatic ways,” he says.

Researchers at the National Snow and Ice Data Center, part of the University of Colorado, recently reported that, this summer, Arctic sea ice melted to its second-lowest level ever.

The 2008 season, those researchers said, strongly reinforces a 30-year downward trend in Arctic ice extent – 34% below the long-term average from 1979 to 2000, but 9% above the record low set in 2007.

Last year was the warmest on record in the Arctic, continuing a region-wide warming trend dating to the mid-1960s. Most experts blame climate change on human activities spewing greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.

http://environment.newscientist.com/article/dn14976-arctic-air-temperatures-hit-record-highs.html?DCMP=ILC-hmts&nsref=news6_head_dn14976

Catastrophic fall in numbers reveals bird populations in crisis throughout the world

The birds of the world are in serious trouble, and common species are in now decline all over the globe, a comprehensive new review suggests today.

From the turtle doves of Europe to the vultures of India, from the bobwhite quails of the US to the yellow cardinals of Argentina, from the eagles of Africa to the albatrosses of the Southern Ocean, the numbers of once-familiar birds are tumbling everywhere, according to the study from the conservation partnership BirdLife International.

Their falling populations are compelling evidence of a rapid deterioration in the global environment that is affecting all life on earth – including human life, BirdLife says in its report, State of The World’s Birds.

The report, released today with an accompanying website at the BirdLife World Conservation Conference in Buenos Aires, Argentina, identifies many key global threats, including the intensification of industrial-scale agriculture and fishing, the spread of invasive species, logging, and the replacement of natural forest with monocultural plantations.

It goes on to suggest that in the long term, human-induced climate change may be the most serious stress.

Based in Cambridge, BirdLife International is a global alliance of conservation organisations working in more than 100 countries and territories which is now the leading authority on the status of birds, their habitats and the issues and problems affecting them.

When brought together, as in its new report, the regional pictures of bird declines combine to present a startling picture of a whole class of living things on a steep downward slope.

A remarkable 45 per cent of common European birds are declining, with the familiar European turtle dove, for example, having lost 62 per cent of its population in the last 25 years, while on the other side of the globe, resident Australian wading birds have seen population losses of 81 per cent in the same period.

Twenty common North American birds have more than halved in number in the last four decades, while in Asia, the millions of white-rumped vultures which once filled the skies have crashed by 99.9 per cent and the species is now critically endangered.

“Many of these birds have been a familiar part of our everyday lives, and people who would not necessarily have noticed other environmental indicators have seen their numbers slipping away, and are wondering why,” said Dr Mike Rands, BirdLife’s chief executive.

All the world’s governments have committed themselves to slowing or halting the loss of biodiversity by 2010, but reluctance to commit what are often trivial sums in terms of national budgets means that this target is almost certain to be missed, according to the report.

“Birds provide an accurate and easy-to-read environmental barometer, allowing us to see clearly the pressures our current way of life are putting on the world’s biodiversity,” Dr Rands said.

“Because these creatures are found almost everywhere on earth, they can act as our eyes and ears, and what they are telling us is that the deterioration in biodiversity and the environment is accelerating, not slowing.

“Effective biodiversity conservation is easily affordable, requiring relatively trivial sums at the scale of the global economy. For example, to maintain the protected area network which would safeguard 90 percent of Africa’s biodiversity would cost less than $1bn a year. Yet in a typical year, the global community provides about $300m.

“The world is failing in its 2010 pledge. The challenge is to harness international biodiversity commitments and ensure that concrete actions are taken now.”

http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/nature/catastrophic-fall-in-numbers-reveals-bird-populations-in-crisis-throughout-the-world-937573.html

Mysterious Honey Bee Disorder Buzzes into Court

WASHINGTON, DC, August 19, 2008 (ENS) – The nonprofit Natural Resources Defense Council filed a lawsuit Monday in federal court in Washington DC to force the federal government to disclose studies on the effect of a new pesticide on honey bees.

Studies on the pesticide, clothianidin, were ordered by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency from the pesticide’s manufacturer, Bayer CropScience, in 2003 when the federal agency granted the company a registration for the chemical.

An NRDC bee researcher and the organization’s attorneys believe that the EPA has evidence of connections between pesticides and the mysterious honey bee die-offs reported across the country called “colony collapse disorder,” or CCD, that it has not made public.

The connection is important because commercial honey bees pollinate about 90 of the country’s crops, valued at $15 billion. Apples, peaches, pears, pumpkins, squash, cucumbers, cherries, berries, peppers, squash, soybeans, almonds, cashews, and sunflowers all require or benefit from honey bee pollination.

The EPA has failed to respond to the NRDC’s Freedom of Information Act request for agency records concerning the toxicity of pesticides to bees, prompting Monday’s legal action.

“Recently approved pesticides have been implicated in massive bee die-offs and are the focus of increasing scientific scrutiny,” said NRDC attorney Aaron Colangelo. “EPA should be evaluating the risks to bees before approving new pesticides, but now refuses to tell the public what it knows.”

“Pesticide restrictions might be at the heart of the solution to this growing crisis, so why hide the information they should be using to make those decisions?” Calangelo asked.

http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/aug2008/2008-08-19-092.asp