| Tuesday, August 9, 2005 |  |
| Why Great Minds Can't Grasp Consciousness | 0 comments |
| 9 Aug 2005 @ 06:24 Why Great Minds Can't Grasp Consciousness Ker Than LiveScience Staff Writer LiveScience.com Mon Aug 8, 2:23 PM ET At a physics meeting last October, Nobel laureate David Gross outlined 25 questions in science that he thought physics might help answer. Nestled among queries about black holes and the nature of dark matter and dark energy were questions that wandered beyond the traditional bounds of physics to venture into areas typically associated with the life sciences. One of the Gross's questions involved human consciousness. He wondered whether scientists would ever be able to measure the onset consciousness in infants and speculated that consciousness might be similar to what physicists call a "phase transition," an abrupt and sudden large-scale transformation resulting from several microscopic changes. The emergence of superconductivity in certain metals when cooled below a critical temperature is an example of a phase transition. In a recent email interview, Gross said he figures there are probably many different levels of consciousness, but he believes that language is a crucial factor distinguishing the human variety from that of animals. Gross isn't the only physicist with ideas about consciousness. Beyond the mystics Roger Penrose, a mathematical physicist at Oxford University, believes that if a "theory of everything" is ever developed in physics to explain all the known phenomena in the universe, it should at least partially account for consciousness. Penrose also believes that quantum mechanics, the rules governing the physical world at the subatomic level, might play an important role in consciousness. It wasn't that long ago that the study of consciousness was considered to be too abstract, too subjective or too difficult to study scientifically. But in recent years, it has emerged as one of the hottest new fields in biology, similar to string theory in physics or the search for extraterrestrial life in astronomy. No longer the sole purview of philosophers and mystics, consciousness is now attracting the attention of scientists from across a variety of different fields, each, it seems, with their own theories about what consciousness is and how it arises from the brain. In many religions, consciousness is closely tied to the ancient notion of the soul, the idea that in each of us, there exists an immaterial essence that survives death and perhaps even predates birth. It was believed that the soul was what allowed us to think and feel, remember and reason. Our personality, our individuality and our humanity were all believed to originate from the soul. Nowadays, these things are generally attributed to physical processes in the brain, but exactly how chemical and electrical signals between trillions of brain cells called neurons are transformed into thoughts, emotions and a sense of self is still unknown. "Almost everyone agrees that there will be very strong correlations between what's in the brain and consciousness," says David Chalmers, a philosophy professor and Director of the Center for Consciousness at the Australian National University. "The question is what kind of explanation that will give you. We want more than correlation, we want explanation -- how and why do brain process give rise to consciousness? That's the big mystery." Just accept it Chalmers is best known for distinguishing between the 'easy' problems of consciousness and the 'hard' problem. The easy problems are those that deal with functions and behaviors associated with consciousness and include questions such as these: How does perception occur? How does the brain bind different kinds of sensory information together to produce the illusion of a seamless experience? "Those are what I call the easy problems, not because they're trivial, but because they fall within the standard methods of the cognitive sciences," Chalmers says. The hard problem for Chalmers is that of subjective experience. "You have a different kind of experience -- a different quality of experience -- when you see red, when you see green, when you hear middle C, when you taste chocolate," Chalmers told LiveScience. "Whenever you're conscious, whenever you have a subjective experience, it feels like something." According to Chalmers, the subjective nature of consciousness prevents it from being explained in terms of simpler components, a method used to great success in other areas of science. He believes that unlike most of the physical world, which can be broken down into individual atoms, or organisms, which can be understood in terms of cells, consciousness is an irreducible aspect of the universe, like space and time and mass. "Those things in a way didn't need to evolve," said Chalmers. "They were part of the fundamental furniture of the world all along." Instead of trying to reduce consciousness to something else, Chalmers believes consciousness should simply be taken for granted, the way that space and time and mass are in physics. According to this view, a theory of consciousness would not explain what consciousness is or how it arose; instead, it would try to explain the relationship between consciousness and everything else in the world. Not everyone is enthusiastic about this idea, however. 'Not very helpful' "It's not very helpful," said Susan Greenfield, a professor of pharmacology at Oxford University. "You can't do very much with it," Greenfield points out. "It's the last resort, because what can you possibly do with that idea? You can't prove it or disprove it, and you can't test it. It doesn't offer an explanation, or any enlightenment, or any answers about why people feel the way they feel." Greenfield's own theory of consciousness is influenced by her experience working with drugs and mental diseases. Unlike some other scientists -- most notably the late Francis Crick, co-discoverer of the structure of DNA, and his colleague David Koch, a professor of computation and neural systems at Caltech -- who believed that different aspects of consciousness like visual awareness are encoded by specific neurons, Greenfield thinks that consciousness involves large groups of nonspecialized neurons scattered throughout the brain. Important for Greenfield's theory is a distinction between 'consciousness' and 'mind,' terms that she says many of her colleagues use interchangeably, but which she believes are two entirely different concepts. "You talk about losing your mind or blowing your mind or being out of your mind, but those things don't necessarily entail a loss of consciousness," Greenfield said in a telephone interview. "Similarly, when you lose your consciousness, when you go to sleep at night or when you're anesthetized, you don't really think that you're really going to be losing your mind." Like the wetness of water According to Greenfield, the mind is made up of the physical connections between neurons. These connections evolve slowly and are influenced by our past experiences and therefore, everyone's brain is unique. But whereas the mind is rooted in the physical connections between neurons, Greenfield believes that consciousness is an emergent property of the brain, similar to the 'wetness' of water or the 'transparency' of glass, both of which are properties that are the result of -- that is, they emerge from -- the actions of individual molecules. For Greenfield, a conscious experience occurs when a stimulus -- either external, like a sensation, or internal, like a thought or a memory -- triggers a chain reaction within the brain. Like in an earthquake, each conscious experience has an epicenter, and ripples from that epicenter travels across the brain, recruiting neurons as they go. Mind and consciousness are connected in Greenfield's theory because the strength of a conscious experience is determined by the mind and the strength of its existing neuronal connections -- connections forged from past experiences. Part of the mystery and excitement about consciousness is that scientists don't know what form the final answer will take. "If I said to you I'd solved the hard problem, you wouldn't be able to guess whether it would be a formula, a model, a sensation, or a drug," said Greenfield. "What would I be giving you?" |
| Alaskan people tell of climate change | 1 comment |
| 9 Aug 2005 @ 06:21 Alaskan people tell of climate change By Kate Bissell BBC Radio 4 For the past 20 years climatologists and ice and atmosphere scientists have been working in Alaska studying climate change. Now they have discovered a rich new source of records extending their knowledge back by decades through the oral history of native Alaskans. Barrow is the most northerly town in the United States, lying 300 miles inside the Arctic Circle. And 92-year-old Bertha Leavitt is its oldest inhabitant. "When I was a child", she says, "it was so much colder and the winds in winter used to be fierce." She remembers her elders telling in their stories that the weather was going to change. And since her childhood she believes this has come true. Frozen land In a land where not just the rivers but also the sea freezes over, it is impossible not to be aware of the seasons. Barrow whaling captain Percy Nusunginya has particular reason to be alert to change. Each autumn and spring his crew ventures out on the ice to fish at air holes. He says that working out on the Arctic Sea has become very dangerous. "Nowadays ice conditions are thinner than in the 1970s and 80s. The ice used to be 20 to 30 feet thick but now it is more like 10 feet thick. But what can we do? Sometimes I feel sad but we just have to go with what we have got. "Up here in the Arctic we are definitely warming up, the polar pack ice has all but gone." Percy says Western nations need to have scientific proof that the climate is warming rather than believing the word of the native people but he adds: "The white man, the climatologists are just learning what we knew was going on." Richard Glenn is a native Alaskan and a member of the Inupiat people, as well as an ice scientist. He is also president of the Barrow Arctic Science Consortium which is helping to combine the rich environmental knowledge of the local people with the scientific study of climate change. There is a real camaraderie, a real sharing, he says, between the local people and the visiting experts. One of the first to realise the value of local knowledge was Mike Spindler, a US fish and wildlife refuge manager from the Koyukuk and Nowitna National Wildlife Refuge several hundred miles away in the interior of Alaska. He first began collecting environmental observations from elders when he found that there had been no scientific research carried out in the area before 1980, when the Wildlife Refuge was created. He says elders have been providing a wealth of information about their environment which needed documenting. Crazy changes Benedict Jones is an elder who still maintains a subsistence lifestyle. "I used to have glaciers up at my camp on the Koyukuk River, where the salmon berries used to grow. But the glaciers have all melted and the ground is drying up so there are no more salmon berries." Further research projects to tap into elders' knowledge concerning climate change are under way at the University of Alaska's International Arctic Research Centre. And the recordings gathered are available to scientists. "In many of the interviews elders make reference to the 1970s as the time that they began to notice changes in the climate," says Mike. An area near Mike's base is referred to as a "drunken forest". He explains that the spruce trees are falling over because of thawing permafrost. This could be due to changing climate, he says, or natural succession. But in the interviews elders have spoken of what they describe as crazy changes in the climate. Margie Attla, an elder from the village of Galena, says "The last couple of years has been really crazy. It is kind of scary when the wind comes up at the wrong time and we have rain in the winter, the change is really there and I am not very comfortable with it." More > |
| Plenty of Food--Yet the Poor Are Starving | 2 comments |
| 9 Aug 2005 @ 06:13 Plenty of Food--Yet the Poor Are Starving From Published on Monday, August 1, 2005 by the Guardian (UK) Plenty of Food - Yet the Poor are Starving by Jeevan Vasagar TAHOUA, Niger -- In Tahoua market, there is no sign that times are hard. Instead, there are piles of red onions, bundles of glistening spinach, and pumpkins sliced into orange shards. There are plastic bags of rice, pasta and manioc flour, and the sound of butchers' knives whistling as they are sharpened before hacking apart joints of goat and beef. A few minutes' drive from the market, along muddy streets filled with puddles of rainwater, there is the more familiar face of Niger. Under canvas tents, aid workers coax babies with spidery limbs to take sips of milk, or the smallest dabs of high-protein paste. Wasted infants are wrapped in gold foil to keep them warm. There is the sound of children wailing, or coughing in machine-gun bursts. "I cannot afford to buy millet in the market, so I have no food, and there is no milk to give my baby," says Fatou, a mother cradling her son Alhassan. Though he is 12 months old he weighs just 3.3kg (around 7lbs). Fatou, a slender, childlike young woman in a blue shawl, ate weeds to survive before her baby was admitted to a treatment centre run by the medical charity MSF. This is the strange reality of Niger's hunger crisis. There is plenty of food, but children are dying because their parents cannot afford to buy it. The starvation in Niger is not the inevitable consequence of poverty, or simply the fault of locusts or drought. It is also the result of a belief that the free market can solve the problems of one of the world's poorest countries. The price of grain has skyrocketed; a 100kg bag of millet, the staple grain, costs around 8,000 to 12,000 West African francs (around £13) last year but now costs more than 22,000 francs (£25). According to Washington-based analysts the Famine Early Warning System Network (Fewsnet), drought and pests have only had a "modest impact" on grain production in Niger. The last harvest was only 11% below the five-yearly average. Prices have been rising also because traders in Niger have been exporting grain to wealthier neighbouring countries, including Nigeria and Ghana. Niger, the second-poorest country in the world, relies heavily on donors such as the EU and France, which favour free-market solutions to African poverty. So the Niger government declined to hand out free food to the starving. Instead, it offered millet at subsidised prices. But the poorest could still not afford to buy. At Tahoua market the traders are reluctant to talk about the hunger crisis affecting their countrymen as they spread their wares under thatched verandas jutting out from mud buildings. Snatches of the Qur'an from tinny tape players compete with Bollywood songs and the growl of lorries bringing sacks of rice and flour. One man opens his left palm to display half a dozen tiny scorpions, a living advert for the herbal scorpion antidote he is selling in his other hand. Omar Mahmoud, 18, who helps sell rice at his father's shop, blames the famine on drought: "I know there is hunger. It is because there wasn't enough rain. The price of millet has gone up because there wasn't enough rain last year." Last month around 2,000 protesters marched through the streets of the capital, Niamey, demanding free food. The government refused. The same month, G8 finance ministers agreed to write off the country's $2bn (£1.3bn) debt. "The appropriate response would have been to do free food distributions in the worst-affected areas," said Johanne Sekkenes, head of MSF's mission in Niger. "We are not speaking about free distribution to everybody, but to the most affected areas and the most vulnerable people." The UN, whose World Food Programme distributes emergency supplies in other hunger-stricken parts of Africa, also declined to distribute free food. The reason given was that interfering with the free market could disrupt Niger's development out of poverty. "I think an emergency response should have started much earlier," says Ms Sekkenes. "Now we find ourselves in this serious nutritional crisis, with children under five who are suffering." Three weeks ago the Niger government, its foreign donor countries and the UN did a volte-face, jointly agreeing to allow the distribution of free food. Aid is now being flown in from Europe and trucked from neighbouring countries. A total of 3.6 million people live in the regions of Niger affected by the food crisis. According to the most reliable estimate, some 874,000 people now need free food to survive. The food aid will arrive as children weakened by hunger face a new battle against disease. It is the rainy season in Niger, and the water helps spread diseases such as malaria and diarrhoea. In the MSF treatment centre, a three-year-old girl called Aminata is suffering from a grotesque eye condition. Her eyeball is so swollen with fluid that it has popped out of her skull and bulges from her face. The doctors call it a retinal blastoma, the result of an untreated eye infection. "The thing in her eye started off very small," said Aminata's mother, Nisbou. "I did not have money for hospital, so I treated it with herbs, traditional medicine." The hunger crisis has struck communities which depend on a mix of subsistence farming and herding for their livelihoods. The stories told by the women in the treatment centre show that their plight began when locusts ate their crop and cattle fodder, but spiralled when the prices of food in the market shot out of reach. In desperate times, adults can get by on the poorest of foods, weeds and the stubble of their crops, but mothers cannot make breastmilk on this diet and infants cannot eat weeds. Amid the anxiety, there are unexpected moments of gaiety in the feeding centre. Asked her age, Nisbou, who is probably about 20, replied: "I am 100 years old." She burst out laughing at her own joke, then looked weary again, and tucked her baby's deformed face under a lace shawl. © 2005 Guardian Newspapers Ltd. More > |
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| 9 Aug 2005 @ 06:12 Factory Style Dairies in Southern California Emit Tremendous Amounts of Greenhouse Gases From Grist Magazine www.grist.org Heifer Madness Thanks to booming dairy biz, cows out-pollute cars in California valley In California's San Joaquin Valley, air-quality regulators are squaring off against the area's lucrative dairy industry over cow gas: Each dairy cow in the valley emits nearly 20 pounds of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) a year, according to official estimates. (Sadly, more of the gas comes from burps than flatulence, sharply lowering humor emissions.) VOCs combine with other pollutants to cause ground-level ozone, and with 2.5 million bovines and counting in the valley, that makes cows -- not cars, trucks, or pesticides -- the leading cause of smog. Officials may require emission-control measures at feedlots and waste lagoons, and are considering regulating cow chow to control the animals' gassiness. Noting the area's high rates of childhood asthma, one eco-justice advocate calls the situation "a public health crisis." And community activist Tom Frantz says regulations can't come fast enough: "Our lungs will not become an agricultural subsidy." straight to the source: Los Angeles Times, Miguel Bustillo, 02 Aug 2005 [link],0,5709626.story?coll=la-home-headlines San Joaquin Valley, Cows Pass Cars as Polluters Air district says bovines on the region's booming dairy farms are the biggest single source of smog-forming gases. The industry takes issue. By Miguel Bustillo, Times Staff Writer Got smog? California's San Joaquin Valley for some time has had the dirtiest air in the country. Monday, officials said gases from ruminating dairy cows, not exhaust from cars, are the region's biggest single source of a chief smog-forming pollutant. Every year, the average dairy cow produces 19.3 pounds of gases, called volatile organic compounds, the San Joaquin Valley Air Pollution Control District said. Those gases react with other pollutants to form ground-level ozone, or smog. With 2.5 million dairy cows < roughly one of every five in the country < emissions of almost 20 pounds per cow mean that cattle in the San Joaquin Valley produce more organic compounds than are generated by either cars or trucks or pesticides, the air district said. The finding will serve as the basis for strict air-quality regulations on the region's booming dairy industry. The San Joaquin Valley, Houston and Los Angeles have the three worst air-pollution problems in America. Their relative rank varies from year to year depending in part on weather conditions. Over the last six years, however, the San Joaquin Valley has violated the federal limit on ozone smog over an eight-hour period more than any other region. That "eight-hour standard" is the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's main barometer for the severity of smog. The dairy industry will be forced to invest millions of dollars in expensive pollution-control technology in feedlots and waste lagoons, and may even have to consider altering animals' diets to meet the region's planned air-quality regulations. Not surprisingly, industry officials challenged the estimate as scientifically unsound. "Science is supposed to guide this regulation, not fairy dust," said Michael Marsh, chief executive officer of Western United Dairymen, a lobbying group that said it was considering a lawsuit to block regulations based on the new finding. "It's impossible to capture emissions that scientists can't even detect." Air-quality regulators defended their estimate as a conservative one based on the best available research. But it was criticized by some scientists < including one whose work was used by the district to arrive at the figure. "If you closed all the dairies in California tomorrow, you would not see much of an impact on ozone formation," said the scientist, Frank Mitloehner of UC Davis, who was hired by air-quality officials to study cow emissions and now contends his findings were misconstrued. "We really don't have the science to back this number up," he said. Five members of Congress and 12 state legislators had demanded that the district reconsider a similar draft estimate, calling it absurdly high. Environmentalists and some community groups, meanwhile, called the same figure too low. The entire exercise of estimating cow emissions has been lampooned on talk radio as "fart science" run amok front end of the cow. CLICK TO READ More > |
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| 9 Aug 2005 @ 06:11 Factory Style Dairies in Southern California Emit Tremendous Amounts of Greenhouse Gases From Grist Magazine www.grist.org Heifer Madness Thanks to booming dairy biz, cows out-pollute cars in California valley In California's San Joaquin Valley, air-quality regulators are squaring off against the area's lucrative dairy industry over cow gas: Each dairy cow in the valley emits nearly 20 pounds of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) a year, according to official estimates. (Sadly, more of the gas comes from burps than flatulence, sharply lowering humor emissions.) VOCs combine with other pollutants to cause ground-level ozone, and with 2.5 million bovines and counting in the valley, that makes cows -- not cars, trucks, or pesticides -- the leading cause of smog. Officials may require emission-control measures at feedlots and waste lagoons, and are considering regulating cow chow to control the animals' gassiness. Noting the area's high rates of childhood asthma, one eco-justice advocate calls the situation "a public health crisis." And community activist Tom Frantz says regulations can't come fast enough: "Our lungs will not become an agricultural subsidy." straight to the source: Los Angeles Times, Miguel Bustillo, 02 Aug 2005 [link],0,5709626.story?coll=la-home-headlines San Joaquin Valley, Cows Pass Cars as Polluters Air district says bovines on the region's booming dairy farms are the biggest single source of smog-forming gases. The industry takes issue. By Miguel Bustillo, Times Staff Writer Got smog? California's San Joaquin Valley for some time has had the dirtiest air in the country. Monday, officials said gases from ruminating dairy cows, not exhaust from cars, are the region's biggest single source of a chief smog-forming pollutant. Every year, the average dairy cow produces 19.3 pounds of gases, called volatile organic compounds, the San Joaquin Valley Air Pollution Control District said. Those gases react with other pollutants to form ground-level ozone, or smog. With 2.5 million dairy cows < roughly one of every five in the country < emissions of almost 20 pounds per cow mean that cattle in the San Joaquin Valley produce more organic compounds than are generated by either cars or trucks or pesticides, the air district said. The finding will serve as the basis for strict air-quality regulations on the region's booming dairy industry. The San Joaquin Valley, Houston and Los Angeles have the three worst air-pollution problems in America. Their relative rank varies from year to year depending in part on weather conditions. Over the last six years, however, the San Joaquin Valley has violated the federal limit on ozone smog over an eight-hour period more than any other region. That "eight-hour standard" is the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's main barometer for the severity of smog. The dairy industry will be forced to invest millions of dollars in expensive pollution-control technology in feedlots and waste lagoons, and may even have to consider altering animals' diets to meet the region's planned air-quality regulations. Not surprisingly, industry officials challenged the estimate as scientifically unsound. "Science is supposed to guide this regulation, not fairy dust," said Michael Marsh, chief executive officer of Western United Dairymen, a lobbying group that said it was considering a lawsuit to block regulations based on the new finding. "It's impossible to capture emissions that scientists can't even detect." Air-quality regulators defended their estimate as a conservative one based on the best available research. But it was criticized by some scientists < including one whose work was used by the district to arrive at the figure. "If you closed all the dairies in California tomorrow, you would not see much of an impact on ozone formation," said the scientist, Frank Mitloehner of UC Davis, who was hired by air-quality officials to study cow emissions and now contends his findings were misconstrued. "We really don't have the science to back this number up," he said. Five members of Congress and 12 state legislators had demanded that the district reconsider a similar draft estimate, calling it absurdly high. Environmentalists and some community groups, meanwhile, called the same figure too low. The entire exercise of estimating cow emissions has been lampooned on talk radio as "fart science" run amok front end of the cow. CLICK TO READ More > |
| Greenpeace Exposes Monsanto's Attempt to Patent Pigs | 0 comments |
| 9 Aug 2005 @ 06:09 Greenpeace Exposes Monsanto's Attempt to Patent Pigs & Their Offspring Worldwide Source: Greenpeace International Posted by: Greenpeace International Aug 2, 2005 [link] Greenpeace reveals Biotech giant Monsanto application for global pig patent Amsterdam/New Delhi, 2 August 2005 -- Greenpeace researchers have uncovered patent application from the biotech giant Monsanto which, if granted, would give the company world-wide control over breeding of pigs and their off spring. Greenpeace warns that Monsanto's aggressive patent practices covering genetically modified (GM) crops and normal seeds threaten biodiversity, endanger world food security and ruin the livelihoods of farmers and calls for the patent applications to be withdrawn. Speaking at an international conference on Biodiversity, Biopiracy and Patents (1), being held in New Delhi, Eric Gall of Greenpeace International said: "Monsanto is once again trying to control the food we grow. This is patenting life. This is abuse of patent laws and it is an outright offence to farmers world-wide." Filed at the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) in Geneva (2) the patent application stakes a claim on pig rights in more than 160 countries, including the UK, Germany, the US, Russia, Brazil, Australia, China and India. If granted, US-based Monsanto will be in a position to prevent breeders and farmers from breeding pigs with certain characteristics or methods of breeding, or force them to pay royalties. The patents cover methods of conventional breeding and also the screening for naturally occurring genetic conditions that can make pigs grow faster. Monsanto wants to enter a growing market with an increasing consumer demand for meat products globally. The Monsanto patents pretend to speed up breeding for higher economical profit. The hitch is that these pigs and their descendants would all be patented - and royalties would have to be paid to Monsanto. Monsanto is already infamous for its aggressive marketing of GM crops such as GM soy and GM maize, as well as for its far-reaching monopolies on all kind of seeds (3). Greenpeace wants Monsanto to drop patent applications on farm animals and seeds, and stop the abuse of patent law, bio-piracy, animal patents and seed monopolies. Greenpeace also launched a cyberaction against Monsanto today. "If this patent gets granted, Monsanto could control the normal breeding of pigs to a large extent, without any real invention behind it. The experience farmers have with this company so far (4) let them expect a further shocking exercise of squeezing royalties and suing farmers on global scale," warned Gall. "This patent application is so absurd we wonder what Monsanto will come up with next?" For more information Eric Gall, Greenpeace European Unit GMO policy adviser, mobile +91 98 116 82601 (in India) and +32 (0)496 161 582 Christoph Then, GE campaigner, Greenpeace International, mobile +49 171 878 0832 Judit L. Kalovits, media officer, Greenpeace International, mobile +31 621 296 914 Notes to Editors (1) "EU - India Dialogue cum Strategy Session on Biodiversity, Indigenous Knowledge and Intellectual Property Rights" conference between the European Union and India is held in New Delhi, India on the 1-2 August 2005. (2) Patent applications WO 2005/017204 and WO 2005/015989 were filed in February 2005 at the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) in Geneva. There are more than 160 countries mentioned where the patent should be granted, such as in Europe, Russian Federation, Asia (India, China, Philippines) America (USA, Brazil, Mexico), Australia and New Zealand. The WIPO itself can only receive applications, but does not grant any patents; it will forward the applications to regional patent offices in the US, Europe or elsewhere. At this stage the patent are not granted yet, but they could be accepted for example under European and US Regulation. For the full document see: [link] 256+4+20872+BASICHTML-ENG+1+1+1+25+SEP-0/HITNUM,B,,SCORE+2005015989 (3) The company has spent about 10 billions US $ over the last ten years to buy a large range of companies involved in seed and agricultural production. According to Greenpeace, such patents and monopolies lead to a decrease of biodiversity in agriculture, endanger global food security and put pressure on farmers' livelihoods worldwide. For more on patents at [link] (4) The way Monsanto tries to control its genetically manipulated seeds such as herbicide resistant soybeans by taking farmers to court has already led to worldwide controversies and protests. Recently it was made public that Monsanto even tries to get additional royalties for harvests from Argentinean soybean farmers exported to Europe by filing court cases in Denmark, claiming the cargo of shipments was their intellectual property. Take Action against Monsanto at [link] |
| What Will We Eat as the Oil Runs Out? | 0 comments |
| 9 Aug 2005 @ 06:07 What Will We Eat as the Oil Runs Out? From: [link] No. 159 - July 2005 by Richard Heinberg Threats of Peak Oil to the Global Food Supply A paper presented at the FEASTA Conference, "What Will We Eat as the Oil Runs Out?", June 23-25, 2005, Dublin, Ireland Food is energy. And it takes energy to get food. These two facts, taken together, have always established the biological limits to the human population and always will. The same is true for every other species: food must yield more energy to the eater than is needed in order to acquire the food. Woe to the fox who expends more energy chasing rabbits than he can get from eating the rabbits he catches. If this energy balance remains negative for too long, death results; for an entire species, the outcome is a die-off event, perhaps leading even to extinction. Humans have become champions at developing new strategies for increasing the amount of energy - and food - they capture from the environment. The harnessing of fire, the domestication of plants and animals, the adoption of ards and plows, the deployment of irrigation networks, and the harnessing of traction animals - developments that occurred over tens of thousands of years - all served this end. The process was gradual and time-consuming. Not only were new tools developed, but, over centuries, small inventions and tiny modifications of existing tools - from scythes to horse-collars - enabled human and animal muscle power to be leveraged more effectively. This entire exercise took place within a framework of natural limits. The yearly input of solar radiation to the planet was always immense relative to human needs (and still is), but it was finite nevertheless, and while humans directly appropriated only a tiny proportion of this abundance the vast majority of that radiation served functions that indirectly supported human existence - giving rise to air currents by warming the surface of the planet, and maintaining the lives of countless other kinds of creatures in the oceans and on land. The amount of available human muscle power was limited by the number of humans, who, of course, had to be fed. Draft animals (bred for their muscle-power) also entailed energy costs, as they likewise needed to eat but also had to be cared for in various ways. Therefore, even with clever refinements in tools and techniques, in crops development and animal breeding, it was inevitable that humans would reach a point of diminishing returns in their ability to continue increasing their energy harvest, and therefore the size of their population. By the nineteenth century these limits were beginning to become apparent. Famine and hunger had long been common throughout even the wealthiest regions of the planet. But, for Europeans, the migration of surplus populations to other nations, crop rotation, and the application of manures and composts were gradually making those events less frequent and severe. European farmers, realizing the need for a new nitrogen source in order to continue feeding burgeoning and increasingly urbanized populations, began employing guano imported from islands off the coasts of Chile and Peru. The results were gratifying. However, after only a few decades, these guano deposits were being depleted. By this time, in the late 1890s, the world's population was nearly twice what it had been at the beginning of the century. A crisis was again in view. But again crisis was narrowly averted, this time due to fossil fuels. In 1909, two German chemists named Fritz Haber and Carl Bosch invented a process to synthesize ammonia from atmospheric nitrogen and the hydrogen in fossil fuels. The process initially used coal as a feedstock, though later it was adapted to use natural gas. After the end of the Great War, nation after nation began building Haber-Bosch plants; today the process produces 150 million tons of ammonia-based fertilizer per year, equaling the total amount of available nitrogen introduced annually by all natural sources combined. Fossil fuels went on to offer still other ways of extending natural limits to the human carrying capacity of the planet. Early steam-driven tractors came into limited use in 19th century; but, after World War I, the size and effectiveness of powered farm machinery expanded dramatically, and the scale of use exploded, especially in North America, Europe, and Australia from the 1920s through the '50s. In the 1890s, roughly one quarter of US cropland had to be set aside for the growing of grain to feed horses - most of which worked on farms. The internal combustion engine provided a new kind of horsepower not dependent on horses at all, and thereby increased the amount of arable land available to feed humans. Chemists developed synthetic pesticides and herbicides in increasing varieties after WWII, using knowledge pioneered in laboratories that had worked to perfect explosives and other chemical warfare agents. Pesticides not only increased crop yields in North America, Europe, and Australia, but also reduced the prevalence of insect-borne diseases like malaria. The world began to enjoy the benefits of "better living through chemistry," though the environmental costs, in terms of water and soil pollution and damage to vulnerable species, would only later become widely apparent. In the 1960s, industrial-chemical agricultural practices began to be exported to what by that time was being called the Third World: this was glowingly dubbed the Green Revolution, and it enabled a tripling of food production during the ensuing half-century. At the same time, the scale and speed of distribution of food increased. This also constituted a means of increasing carrying capacity, though in a more subtle way. The trading of food goes back to Paleolithic times; but, with advances in transport, the quantities and distances involved gradually increased. Here again, fossil fuels were responsible for a dramatic discontinuity in the previously slow pace of growth. First by rail and steamship, then by truck and airplane, immense amounts of grain and ever-larger quantities of meat, vegetables, and specialty foods began to flow from countryside to city, from region to region, and from continent to continent. William Catton, in his classic book Overshoot, terms the trade of essential life-support commodities "scope expansion."1 Carrying capacity is always limited by whatever necessity is in least supply, as Justus von Liebig realized nearly a century-and-a-half ago. If one region can grow food but has no exploitable metal deposits, its carrying capacity is limited by the lack of metals for the production of farm tools. Another region may have metals but insufficient topsoil or rain; there, carrying capacity is limited by the lack of food. If a way can be found to make up for local scarcity by taking advantage of distant abundance (as by exporting metal ores or finished tools from region A to help with food production in region B, and then exporting food from B to A), the total carrying capacity of the two regions combined can be increased substantially. We can put this into a crude formula: CC of A+B (CC of A) + (CC of B) From an ecological as well as an economic point of view, this is why people trade. But trade has historically been limited by the amount of energy that could be applied to the transport of materials. Fossil fuels temporarily but enormously expanded that limit. The end result of chemical fertilizers, plus powered farm machinery, plus increased scope of transportation and trade, was not just a three-fold leap in crop yields, but a similar explosion of human population, which has grown five-fold since dawn of industrial revolution. CLICK TO READ More > |
| Birds, Bats, & Wild Plants Thriving on Organic Farms | 0 comments |
| 9 Aug 2005 @ 06:05 Birds, Bats, & Wild Plants Thriving on Organic Farms Birds, plants thrive on UK organic farms -study Aug 3, 9:46 AM ET LONDON (Reuters) - Birds and bats and wild plants are thriving on Britain's organic farms, a study by the British Trust for Ornithology (BTO) said on Wednesday. On organic farms, there are 109 percent more wild plants and 85 percent more plant species than on non-organic farms. Organic farms support 32 percent more birds and 35 percent more bats than non-organic farms, the BTO, a charity carrying out independent research on birds, said. There are also 5 percent more bird species on organic farms, according to the study which was funded by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. Smaller fields and thicker hedges on organic farms and the fact that these farms don't use agrochemicals are all contributory factors, the study found. "Organic farms clearly have positive biodiversity effects for wild flowers. However if they are to provide benefits on the same scale for species that need more space, like birds, we either need the farms to be larger or for neighboring farms to be organic too," Dr Rob Fuller, director of Habitat Research for the BTO said. Just three percent of English farmland is organic, he added. The Soil Association, which promotes organic farming, also welcomed the study. "A greater area of organically-managed land in the UK would help restore the farmland wildlife that has been lost from our countryside in recent decades with intensive farming," Soil Association policy manager Gundula Azeez said. The data was collected from 160 farms. |
| Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney Reopens Hearings on 9/11 | 0 comments |
| 9 Aug 2005 @ 06:04 Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney Reopens Hearings on 9/11--What Really Happened? From McKinney Reopens 9/11 - Conspiracy theories implicating president aired at 8-hour hearing By Bob Kemper The Atlanta Journal-Constitution 07/23/05 McKinney's entire hearing is being archived for viewing on her website - [link] - and videos of all the DC Emergency Truth Convergence events will also be available online by August 10th. We will post links here as segments are posted. - Ed. Rep. Cynthia McKinney chairs Friday's hearing, reopening the issue that brought her criticism and her 2002 ouster. Photo: Rick McKay/AJC Washington < Revisiting the issue that helped spur her ouster from Congress three years ago, Rep. Cynthia McKinney led a Capitol Hill hearing Friday on whether the Bush administration was involved in the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. The eight-hour hearing, timed to mark the first anniversary of the release of the Sept. 11 commission's report on the attacks, drew dozens of contrarians and conspiracy theorists who suggest President Bush purposely ignored warnings or may even have had a hand in the attack < claims participants said the commission ignored. "The commission's report was not a rush to judgment, it was a rush to exoneration," said John Judge, a member of McKinney's staff and a representative of a Web site dedicated to raising questions about the Sept. 11 commission's report. The White House and the commission have dismissed such questions as unfounded conspiracy theories. McKinney first raised questions about Bush's involvement shortly after the attacks in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania, generating a furious response from fellow Democrats in Washington and voters in Georgia, who ousted her in 2002. "What we are doing is asking the unanswered questions of the 9/11 families," McKinney, a DeKalb County Democrat who won back her seat in 2004, said during the proceedings. She rebuffed a reporter's repeated attempts to ask her why she would so boldly embrace the same claims that led to her downfall. "Congresswoman McKinney is viewed as a contrarian," panelist Melvin Goodman, a former CIA official, said. "And I hope someday her views will be considered conventional wisdom." Though she left the testimony and questioning of panelists to others, McKinney was the main attraction, presiding over more than two dozen participants, including the author of a book that claims the U.S. government had advance knowledge of the Pearl Harbor attack and allowed it to happen, and Peter Dale Scott, who wrote three books on President John F. Kennedy's assassination. Georgia peanuts, Cokes and coffee were available to more than 50 attendees, whose casual dress was a decided change from the gangs of blue-suited lobbyists who usually crowd Capitol Hill hearings. McKinney herself offered witnesses bottled water and found additional trash cans to place around the room. Nearly a dozen 9/11 enthusiasts lined one side of the room, camcorders at the ready, broadcasting the hearing live over the Internet or recording it for later release. C-SPAN cameras documented the hearing, and a DVD recording of the proceedings will soon be available. Ten people sat in a section reserved for family members of 9/11 victims. "Nine-eleven could have been prevented," said Marilyn Rosenthal, a University of Michigan professor who lost a son in the attacks, echoing the premise of the hearing. Panelists maintained that Bush ignored numerous warnings from the CIA, the Federal Aviation Administration, foreign governments and others who told him before 9/11 that Osama bin Laden was planning to attack the United States and that terrorists were likely to use hijacked airliners as weapons. But why would the president or his administration want the 9/11 attacks to occur? Power, the panelists agreed. In the wake of the attacks, the administration was able to greatly expand the president's power and the reach of the federal government, they said, but whistle-blowers and other potential witnesses who could have testified to the Sept. 11 commission about such things were either prevented from speaking or ignored in the commission's final report. Panelists called the commission's report "a cover-up." "The American people have been seriously misled," said Scott. |
| Stumbling into The Twilight Era of Petroleum | 0 comments |
| 9 Aug 2005 @ 06:03 Stumbling into The Twilight Era of Petroleum From: Several recent developments -- persistently high gasoline prices, unprecedented warnings from the Secretary of Energy and the major oil companies, China's brief pursuit of the American Unocal Corporation -- suggest that we are just about to enter the Twilight Era of Petroleum, a time of chronic energy shortages and economic stagnation as well as recurring crisis and conflict. Petroleum will not exactly disappear during this period -- it will still be available at the neighborhood gas pump, for those who can afford it -- but it will not be cheap and abundant, as it has been for the past 30 years. The culture and lifestyles we associate with the heyday of the Petroleum Age - large, gas-guzzling cars and SUVs, low-density suburban sprawl, strip malls and mega-malls, cross-country driving vacations, and so on -- will give way to more constrained patterns of living based on a tight gasoline diet. While Americans will still consume the lion's share of global petroleum stocks on a daily basis, we will have to compete far more vigorously with consumers from other countries, including China and India, for access to an ever-diminishing pool of supply. The concept of a "twilight" of petroleum derives from what is known about the global supply and demand equation. Energy experts have long acknowledged that the global production of oil will someday reach a moment of maximum (or "peak") daily output, followed by an increasingly sharp drop in supply. But while the basic concept of peak oil has gained substantial worldwide acceptance, there is still much confusion about its actual character. Many people who express familiarity with the concept tend to view peak oil as a sharp pinnacle, with global output rising to the summit one month and dropping sharply the next; and looking back from a hundred years hence, things might actually appear this way. But for those of us embedded in this moment of time, peak oil will be experienced as something more like a rocky plateau -- an extended period of time, perhaps several decades in length, during which global oil production will remain at or near current levels but will fail to achieve the elevated output deemed necessary to satisfy future world demand. The result will be perennially high prices, intense international competition for available supplies, and periodic shortages caused by political and social unrest in the producing countries. The Era of Easy Oil Is Over The Twilight Era of oil, as I term it, is likely to be characterized by the growing politicization of oil policy and the recurring use of military force to gain control over valuable supplies. This is so because oil, alone among all major trading commodities, is viewed as a strategic material; something so vital to a nation's economic well-being, that is, as to justify the use of force in assuring its availability. That nations are prepared to go to war over petroleum is not exactly a new phenomenon. The pursuit of foreign oil was a significant factor in World War II and the 1991 Gulf War, to offer only two examples; but it is likely to become ever more a part of our everyday world in a period of increased competition and diminishing supplies. This new era will not begin with a single, clearly defined incident, but rather with a series of events suggesting the transition from a period of relative abundance to a time of persistent scarcity. These events will take both economic and political form: on the one hand, rising energy prices and contracting supplies; on the other, more diplomatic crises and military assertiveness. Recently, we have witnessed significant examples of both. CLICK TO READ More > |