EcoRadio

Category: News

Add your news
You can add news from your networks or groups through the website by becoming an author. Simply register as a member of the Generator, and then email Giovanni asking to become an author. He will then work with you to integrate your content into the site as effectively as possible.
Listen to the Generator News online

 
The Generator news service publishes articles on sustainable development, agriculture and energy as well as observations on current affairs. The news service is used on the weekly radio show, The Generator, as well as by a number of monthly and quarterly magazines. A podcast of the Generator news is also available.
As well as Giovanni’s articles it picks up the most pertinent articles from a range of other news services. You can publish the news feed on your website using RSS, free of charge.
 

  • US outlaws 4000 year old seed in Iraq

    A few examples of the 100 Orders are illuminating:

    • Order 39 allows for the tax-free remittance of all corporate profits.
    • Order 17 grants foreign contractors, including private security firms, immunity from Iraq’s laws.
    • Orders 57 and 77 ensure the implementation of the orders by placing U.S.-appointed auditors and inspector general in every government ministry, with five-year terms and with sweeping authority over contracts, programs, employees and regulations. (1)

    Back to one of the most blatant orders of all: Order 81. Under this mandate, Iraq’s commercial farmers must now buy “registered seeds.” These are normally imported by Monsanto, Cargill and the World Wide Wheat Company. Unfortunately, these registered seeds are “terminator” seeds, meaning “sterile.” Imagine if all human men were infertile, and in order to reproduce women needed to buy sperm cells at a sperm bank. In agricultural terms, terminator seeds represent the same kind of sterility.

    Terminator seeds have no agricultural value other than creating corporate monopolies. The Sierra Club, more of a mainstream “conservation” organization than a radical “environmentalist” one, makes the exact same case:

    “This technology would protect the intellectual property interests of the seed company by making the seeds from a genetically engineered crop plant sterile, unable to germinate. Terminator would make it impossible for farmers to save seed from a crop for planting the next year, and would force them to buy seed from the supplier. In the third world, this inability to save seed could be a major, perhaps fatal, burden on poor farmers.” (2)

    What makes this Order 81 even more outrageous is that Iraqi farmers have been saving wheat and barley seeds since at least 4000 BC, when irrigated agriculture first emerged, and probably even to about 8000 BC, when wheat was first domesticated. Mesopotamia’s farmers have now been trumped by white-smocked, corporate bio-engineers from Florida who strive to replace hundreds of natural varieties with a handful of genetically scrambled hybrids.

    Where does such hubris come from? It comes from the entire mission surrounding the invasion of Iraq, which, upon closer inspection, had been planned years in advance by a faction of “neo-cons” who adopted Leon Trotsky’s glorification of the state, his theory “permanent revolution,” and his goal of exporting revolution worldwide. The neo-con revolution aims to alter the economic, political and cultural foundations of nations on the other side of the planet (rejecting old-fashioned notions of self-determination, popular sovereignty and even the nation-state system). This mission includes the transformation of agriculture and the establishment of “food control” over local populations.

    Order 81 fits into this revolutionary program, and it is quite diabolical upon closer inspection. First, it forces Iraq’s commercial farmers to use registered terminator seeds (the “protected variety”). Then it defines natural seeds as illegal (the “infringing variety”), in a classic Orwellian turn of language.

    This is so incredible that it must be re-stated: the exotic genetically scrambled seeds are the “protected variety” and the indigenous seeds are the “infringing variety.”

    As Jeffrey Smith explains, author of Order 81: Re-Engineering Iraqi Agriculture:

    “To qualify for PVP [Plant Variety Protection], seeds have to meet the following criteria: they must be ‘new, distinct, uniform and stable’… it is impossible for the seeds developed by the people of Iraq to meet these criteria. Their seeds are not ‘new’ as they are the product of millennia of development. Nor are they ‘distinct’. The free exchange of seeds practiced for centuries ensures that characteristics are spread and shared across local varieties. And they are the opposite of ‘uniform’ and ‘stable’ by the very nature of their biodiversity.” (3)

    Order 81 comes with the Orwellian title of “Plant Variety Protection.” Any self-respecting scientist knows, however, that imposing biological standardization accomplishes the exact opposite: It reduces biodiversity and threatens species. So Order 81 comes with an Orwellian title and consists of Orwellian provisions.

    Jeffrey Smith peels away the layers of mischief behind Order 81, finding it nonsensical that six varieties of wheat have been developed for Iraq:

    “Three will be used for farmers to grow wheat that is made into pasta; three seed strains will be for ‘breadmaking.’

    Pasta? According to the 2001 World Food Programme report on Iraq, ‘Dietary habits and preferences included consumption of large quantities and varieties of meat, as well as chicken, pulses, grains, vegetables, fruits and dairy products.’ No mention of lasagna. Likewise, a quick check of the Middle Eastern cookbook on my kitchen shelves, while not exclusively Iraqi, reveals a grand total of no pasta dishes listed within it.

    There can be only two reasons why 50 per cent of the grains being developed are for pasta. One, the US intends to have so many American soldiers and businessmen in Iraq that it is orienting the country’s agriculture around feeding not ‘Starving Iraqis’ but ‘Overfed Americans’. Or, and more likely, because the food was never meant to be eaten inside Iraq at all…” (4)

    Just in case Iraqi farmer can’t read, Order 81 enforces the new monopoly on seeds with the jackboot. Order 81 makes this clear in its own text, buried at the bottom of the document, as is most screw-you fine print:

    “The court may order the confiscation of the infringing variety as well as the materials and tools substantially used in the infringement of the protected variety. The court may also decide to destroy the infringing variety as well as the materials and tools or to dispose of them in any noncommercial purpose.” (5)

    Order 81 is about power and profit, but it disguises itself as humanitarian legislation.

    Topping it all off, the entire document puts on rather magisterial airs. It was signed by L. Paul Bremer himself, with his own hand, and presumably with his own pen:

    “Pursuant to my authority as Administrator of the Coalition Provisional Authority…”

    Like the Roman Proconsuls, Paul Bremer also spent a year in the provinces, governing the so-called barbarians…

    -The above is an excerpt from Andrew Bosworth’s new book: Biotech Empire: The Untold Future of Food, Pills, and Sex, available at Amazon.

    -Andrew Bosworth, Ph.D. is an assistant professor of Government at the University of Texas at Brownsville.

  • Cuba joins big league oil nations

    If confirmed, it puts Cuba’s reserves on par with those of the US and into the world’s top 20. Drilling is expected to start next year by Cuba’s state oil company Cubapetroleo, or Cupet.

    “It would change their whole equation. The government would have more money and no longer be dependent on foreign oil,” said Kirby Jones, founder of the Washington-based US-Cuba Trade Association. “It could join the club of oil exporting nations.”

    “We have more data. I’m almost certain that if they ask for all the data we have, (their estimate) is going to grow considerably,” said Cupet’s exploration manager, Rafael Tenreyro Perez.

    Havana based its dramatically higher estimate mainly on comparisons with oil output from similar geological structures off the coasts of Mexico and the US. Cuba’s undersea geology was “very similar” to Mexico’s giant Cantarell oil field in the Bay of Campeche, said Tenreyro.

    A consortium of companies led by Spain’s Repsol had tested wells and were expected to begin drilling the first production well in mid-2009, and possibly several more later in the year, he said.

    Cuba currently produces about 60,000 barrels of oil daily, covering almost half of its needs, and imports the rest from Venezuela in return for Cuban doctors and sports instructors. Even that barter system puts a strain on an impoverished economy in which Cubans earn an average monthly salary of $20.

    Subsidised grocery staples, health care and education help make ends meet but an old joke – that the three biggest failings of the revolution are breakfast, lunch and dinner – still does the rounds. Last month hardships were compounded by tropical storms that shredded crops and devastated coastal towns.

    “This news about the oil reserves could not have come at a better time for the regime,” said Jonathan Benjamin-Alvarado, a Cuba energy specialist at the University of Nebraska.

    However there is little prospect of Cuba becoming a communist version of Kuwait. Its oil is more than a mile deep under the ocean and difficult and expensive to extract. The four-decade-old US economic embargo prevents several of Cuba’s potential oil partners – notably Brazil, Norway and Spain – from using valuable first-generation technology.

    “You’re looking at three to five years minimum before any meaningful returns,” said Benjamin-Alvarado.

    Even so, Cuba is a master at stretching resources. President Raul Castro, who took over from brother Fidel, has promised to deliver improvements to daily life to shore up the legitimacy of the revolution as it approaches its 50th anniversary.

    Cuba’s unexpected arrival into the big oil league could increase pressure on the next administration to loosen the embargo to let US oil companies participate in the bonanza and reduce US dependency on the middle east, said Jones. “Up until now the embargo did not really impact on us in a substantive, strategic way. Oil is different. It’s something we need and want.”

  • Gore urges civil disobedience to stop coal

    By Michelle Nichols from Reuters

    Gore urges civil disobedienceNEW YORK (Reuters) – Nobel Peace Prize winner and environmental crusader Al Gore urged young people on Wednesday to engage in civil disobedience to stop the construction of coal plants without the ability to store carbon.

    The former U.S. vice president, whose climate change documentary “An Inconvenient Truth” won an Academy Award, told a philanthropic meeting in New York City that “the world has lost ground to the climate crisis.”

    “If you’re a young person looking at the future of this planet and looking at what is being done right now, and not done, I believe we have reached the stage where it is time for civil disobedience to prevent the construction of new coal plants that do not have carbon capture and sequestration,” Gore told the Clinton Global Initiative gathering to loud applause.

    “I believe for a carbon company to spend money convincing the stock-buying public that the risk from the global climate crisis is not that great represents a form of stock fraud because they are misrepresenting a material fact,” he said. “I hope these state attorney generals around the country will take some action on that.”

    The government says about 28 coal plants are under construction in the United States. Another 20 projects have permits or are near the start of construction.

    Scientists say carbon gases from burning fossil fuel for power and transport are a key factor in global warming.

    Carbon capture and storage could give coal power an extended lease on life by keeping power plants’ greenhouse gas emissions out of the atmosphere and easing climate change.

    But no commercial-scale project exists anywhere to demonstrate the technology, partly because it is expected to increase up-front capital costs by an additional 50 percent.

    So-called geo-sequestration of carbon sees carbon dioxide liquefied and pumped into underground rock layers for long term storage.

  • Aphid plague hits southern NSW

    NSW Department of Primary Industries (DPI) district agronomist at Cowra, Jan Edwards, said for some reason the aphids were particularly attracted to drought-stressed crops.

    She said typically the aphids could strike crops at any time during the growing season but this year they had made their presence when canola was at the grain-fill stage.

    “There seems to be more aphids about this year; and we don’t see them every year,” she said.

    “We have definitely got some aphid numbers in this district and right across the region.”

    Ms Edwards said the aphids could wreak havoc on moisture-stressed crops by sucking the sap from the stems.

    “It results in a fair bit of damage,” she said.

    Landmark Temora, agronomist Craig Warren said it was the worst outbreak of aphids he had witnessed in his 13-year career.

  • Kangaroos affected by climate change

    The kangaroo population could be devastated by climate change, putting a cloud over suggestions roo should replace beef and lamb as the nation’s favourite meat, new research shows.

    A temperature rise of 2 degrees, which is likely by the second half of this century, would reduce the range of most kangaroo and wallaby species by half, the James Cook University study found.

    A 6-degree increase, which is at the extreme end of possible temperature rises predicted for 2070, would lead to the territory where kangaroos can survive reducing by 96pc – a level that would cause large-scale marsupial extinctions.

    “The area where kangaroos and wallabies are able to survive is probably going to get smaller, so you would have to expect the populations to drop quite significantly,” said Dr Euan Ritchie, who drove 150,000 kilometres around northern Australia compiling data for an epic, three-year study.

    “Although rainfall in northern Australia may increase as the climate changes, the temperature will also be going up, so you might see a net loss of water through evaporation.”

    Dr Ritchie said the study findings did not rule out the expansion of kangaroo farming

  • Labor refuses water reform

    It would have committed the Government to holding an independent inquiry into the affects of long-wall mining on groundwater on the Liverpool Plains and other areas that form part of the Murray-Darling Basin catchment.

    “The Federal Government has a mandate and responsibility to override the interests of State Governments to ensure the security of the nation’s water supply,” Mr Windsor said.

    “The issue goes beyond the Liverpool Plains and the Murray-Darling Basin catchment.

    “It extends to all rivers and catchment systems as part of a national water management strategy.”

    Mr Windsor moved that: “Prior to exploration licences being granted for subsidence mining operations on alluvial floodplains that have underlying groundwater systems forming part of the Murray-Darling system inflows, an independent study must be undertaken into the impacts of such mining on those systems.”

    The Government opposed Mr Windsor’s amendment saying that the Bill already allowed for the Minister or the Murray-Darling Basin Authority to cause such a study to happen.

    Mr Windsor argued that whilst this may be the case, it does not compel the Minister or Authority to order such a study to be done.

    “The people of the Liverpool Plains farming community continue to seek an independent study into the impact of long wall mining under the Liverpool Plains before it commences,” he said.