The report says that although there can be beneficial results from releasing gene-edited species into the wild, “this work poses major trade-offs that require the public’s consideration.”
Posts published in “Environment”
Editor’s note: We just found this write-up linking to this video on Facebook. This doesn’t surprise us, of course. Monsanto seems to own our government now. That’s the only thing that would explain how our government employees seem to work for Monsanto. Those of us who lived through the 1960s understand clearly that our government was never ours. Now, our government isn’t even pretending to be.
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gqXCboEL-7k
An Illinois beekeeper who spent the last 15 years researching the effects of Monsanto’s Roundup on bees, and compiling extensive evidence documenting that Roundup kills bees, came home one afternoon to find that someone had stolen the queen bee and hive he’d been using to conduct his research.
Many of you already have a pretty good idea to what ends Monsanto will go to spread their poisonous genetically modified crops. The company is playing hardball and they plan to win at any cost. Unless we bring them down soon, they’ll pose a larger threat to human life than global warming, world overpopulation and all forms of pollution combined. What Monsanto wants is nothing short of complete control of agribusiness on a global scale, through their patented genetically modified seeds combined with their chemical herbicides and pesticides.
Exactly how far will they go? Ask Percy Schmeiser, he’ll tell you.
There’s a video that’s been making the rounds, David Versus Monsanto, that tells the story of Schmeiser, a 70 year old farmer growing canola, or rapeseed, in Saskatchewan in the Canadian Midwest. In 1997, he found that some of the canola growing on his farm, from seeds he’d been developing for decades, had taken on the properties of Monsanto’s patented Roundup resistant variety of canola due to cross pollination from nearby farms.
We found this ad posted on Other98. It’s an interesting pull-no-punches ad, evidently crowdfunded and scheduled to be aired nationwide this past Tuesday night until it was pulled–according to Other98:
The following 30-second climate change ad has already aired in three major media markets across the United States, to great acclaim as the first nationally crowdfunded climate change PSA. It was scheduled to play during Fox’s State of the Union coverage this past Tuesday. Then Exxon sent a single email, and it was unilaterally taken off the air. Here’s the ad you weren’t allowed to see:
httpv://youtu.be/uXV6FW9Vg0I
People in the government are now telling us we’ll be perfectly safe taking our meals using radioactive silverware.
You think I’m joking, right? Wish that I were, but I’m not. The folks who think we have no right to choose whether our food’s been genetically modified, are now trying to sneak a move behind our back that will end up unleashing tons of radioactive metal into the scrap market. Over the years the government has accumulated thousands of tons of the stuff that was used in various types of nuclear tests and even in warfare. Now the Department of Energy (DOE) would like to lift legal restrictions on the recycling of nuclear contaminated scrap, so the stuff can be melted down into consumer goods.
Will a radioactive spoon heat our soup for us? Or will a glowing radioactive zipper mean fewer awkward moments getting undressed in the dark after things get hot an heavy?
We’re being lied to all the time and have been for at least all my life. Most of these lies are harmful to us. The fact that we accept them, knowing them to be lies, hurts us even more.
This morning I ran across another of those graphics that makes a political statement on Facebook. This one contained a quote by Ronnie Cummins with the Organic Consumers Association that said:
“GMOs aren’t meant to feed the world… they’re designed to sell Monsanto’s herbicide Roundup.”
1. Walmart has more full-time employees — 2.1 million — than seven times the population of Iceland.
My first thought when I read this was about the irony of comparing any aspect of Iceland with Walmart.
Iceland was hit hard by the so-called “great recession” of 2007–2008. Prices on their local stock market dropped by 90 percent, inflation rose 18%, while unemployment increased by a factor of nine. Oh, at the same time all of the country’s biggest banks failed. However, Iceland has recovered nicely, not by bailing out the banks and leaving their private citizens to sink or swim. Instead, they concentrated their efforts on helping people get out from under crippling mortgages and prosecuted the bankers.
Guess what? It worked. According to Bloomberg their economy is now a shining example for the rest of us:
Back when I was growing up in the 1950s and 60s we knew about pollution, we just didn’t yet understand how pervasive it was. In those days, it was thought that the only thing needed to escape the ravages of industrial pollution was to get out into the countryside, away from bad city air and water. Smog and polluted water were seen as urban problems that didn’t exist in the country. Soil pollution wasn’t even on the radar yet for most of us.
httpv://youtu.be/Rj6UlN6nhYQ
We now know that there is no place to go to get away from chemical pollutants. Even arctic ice thousands of miles away from any source of pollution is infused with man-made chemicals. There are new types of pollution, as well. Yesterday we published a link to a very scary video on biological pollutants, crops that have had their genetics artificially “enhanced” by companies like Monsanto, and that are now cross pollinating with non GMO crops, threatening to wipe out whole varieties of plants that have been on this planet for as long as their have been humans.
We haven’t always been a nation of consumers.
I remember when Americans were customers. We bought things because we wanted them or needed them. We would have laughed in the face of anyone with the audacity to suggest that it was our patriotic duty to consume, as Bush did after 9/11. If we were faithful to a brand, that faithfulness was brought about by value or product superiority. Companies worked hard to persuade us to become their customers, and they knew better than to insult us by assuming we were forced to use their products no matter what.
Editor’s Note: This video makes a well told powerful statement of truth. Although this video has been avaliable on YouTube since 2009, we feel it…