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Plight of the penguins Neville Gillmore Already threatened by global warming, harvesting krill to supply omega-3 oil means danger for Antarctica’s penguins. Gerry Leape guardian.co.uk, Thursday 16 April 2009 19.30 BST Article history Fifty years ago, delegates from 12 nations – including the United States, Norway and Japan – gathered in Washington Continue Reading →
Hundreds of millions will be hurt by climate change, Oxfam warns. April 21, 2009 Neville Gillmore Article from: Agence France-Presse HUNDREDS of millions of people will become victims of climate change-related disasters over the next six years, Oxfam said today, urging governments to change the way they respond to such events. The British-based Continue Reading →
From France 24
The gospel of high-tech genetically modified (GM) crops is not sounding quite so sweet in the land of the converted. A new pest, the evil pigweed, is hitting headlines and chomping its way across Sun Belt states, threatening to transform cotton and soybean plots into weed battlefields.
In late 2004, “superweeds” that resisted Monsanto’s iconic “Roundup” herbicide, popped up in GM crops in the county of Macon, Georgia. Monsanto, the US multinational biotech corporation, is the world’s leading producer of Roundup, as well as genetically engineered seeds. Company figures show that nine out of 10 US farmers produce Roundup Ready seeds for their soybean crops.
Superweeds have since alarmingly appeared in other parts of Georgia, as well as South Carolina, North Carolina, Arkansas, Tennessee, Kentucky and Missouri, according to media reports. Roundup contains the active ingredient glyphosate, which is the most used herbicide in the USA.
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In his new book, Heaven and Earth: Climate change – the real science, Prof Plimer, from the School of Earth and Environmental Sciences at the University of Adelaide, notes that climatic change is ‘the norm’, sea levels rise and fall all the time, and that climate cycles are driven by massive forces completely unrelated to carbon emissions. He says:
“Climate changes in the past have been far greater and far more rapid than anything measured in the present. Not one previous climate change has ever been driven by carbon dioxide. To talk of carbon pollution shows an appalling ignorance of basic school science. Carbon dioxide is plant food, without it humans could not exist.”
Another 1500 Indian farmers commited suicide last year as a result of crop failure and mounting debt. Debts have risen as water tables have fallen in the region of Chattisgar, once famous for rice and traditional pulses.
Bharatendu Prakash, from the Organic Farming Association of India, said: “Farmers’ suicides are increasing due to a vicious circle created by money lenders. They lure farmers to take money but when the crops fail, they are left with no option other than death.”
In 1998 the World Bank forced the government to open its agribusiness sector to international seed companies. Since then suicide rates have skyrocketed. Vandana Shiva has been leading a Ghandi style revolution to encourage farmers to save seed and build an independent seed supply that can maintain food security and freedom from international finance.
The soot from hundreds of millions of open fires in poor households could be responsible for as much as one fifth of the global warming impact produced by humanity each year. Dr Veerabhadran Ramanathan said that while the poorest people on earth produce almost no carbon dioxide emissions, the black carbon from their cooking fires is a major pollutant that has not been discussed to any significant extent. The soot is estimated to kill 1.6 million people directly each year through respiratory disease as well as causing blindness. Significant efforts are being made by aid agencies to replace open cooking fires with fuel efficient stoves.