Our Alarming Food Future, Explained in 7 Charts

Lightspring/Shutterstock

Mother Jones | May 7, 2014 | Tom Philpott

Earlier this year, President Obama signed a bill into law that will essentially preserve the status quo of US agriculture for the next half decade. Known as the farm bill, the once-every-five-years legislation (among other things it does) shapes the basic incentive structure for the farmers who specialize in the big commodity crops: corn, soybeans, wheat, and rice. This year's model, like the several before it, provides generous subsidies (mostly through cut-rate insurance) for all-out production of these crops (especially corn and soy), while also slashing already-underfunded programs that encourage farmers to protect soil and water.

As I put it in a post at the time, the legislation was simply not ready for climate change. How not ready? A just-released, wide-ranging new federal report called the National Climate Assessment has answers. A collaborative project led by 13 federal agencies and five years in the making, the assessment is available for browsing on a very user-friendly website. Here's what I gleaned on the challenges to agriculture posed by climate change:

Iowa is hemorrhaging soil. A while back, I wrote about Iowa's quiet soil crisis. When heavy rains strike bare corn and soy fields in the spring, huge amounts of topsoil wash away. Known as "gully erosion," this kind of soil loss currently isn't counted in the US Department of Agriculture's rosy erosion numbers, which hold that Iowa's soils are holding steady. But Richard Cruse, an agronomist and the director of Iowa State University's Iowa Water Center, has found Iowa's soils are currently disappearing at a rate as much as 16 times faster than the natural regeneration. According to the National Assessment, days of heavy rain have increased steadily in Iowa over the past two decades, and will continue doing so.

National Climate Assessment

But dry spells are on the rise, too. In spring 2013, Iowa experienced its wettest spring ever, with storms that washed away titanic amounts of topsoil. The previous summer, it underwent its most severe drought in generations. Such gyrations can be expected to continue. This map shows the predicted increase in the maximum number of consecutive dry days, comparing the 1971-2000 period to projections for 2070-90. The worst-hit regions will be in the West—more on that below—but key corn-growing states like Illinois and Indiana take their lumps, too.

National Climate Assessment

Crop yields will decline. All the carbon we've been spewing into the atmosphere over the past century and a half has so far probably helped crop yields—plants need freely available carbon dioxide, after all. But as the climate warms, that effect gets increasingly drowned out by heat stress, drought, and flood. And now, the Midwest is expected to see sharply higher average temperatures as well as days above 95 degrees Fahrenheit. This chart compares the region's average temps in the 1971-2000 period to those expected between 2041 and 2070.

And higher temperatures correlate to reduced crop yields—as this chart, comparing yields and maximum temperature data in Illinois and Indiana between 1980 and 2007, shows.

National Climate Assessment

California, our vegetable basket, will be strapped for irrigation water. California is locked in a severe drought. I recently noted that farmers in the state's main growing region, the Central Valley, are responding by rapidly drawing down underground water stores to keep their crops irrigated. The main driver: Farmers count on snow melt from the Sierra Nevada mountains to supply the state's vast irrigation networks—and this year, the snows barely came. According to the report, as the weather warms up, they—and other farms in the Southwest—can expect much less snow going forward.

National Climate Assessment

And even if they can get enough water, heat stress and other climate effects will likely knock down yields of some crops. Different crops respond to higher temperatures in different ways. This chart projects yields for Central Valley crops under two scenarios—one in which greenhouse gas emissions continue rising, the other if we manage to reduce emissions. Crucially, these projections are based on the assumption that "adequate water supplies (soil moisture)" will be maintained—a precarious assumption.

National Climate Assessment

Wine grapes, nuts, and other perennial California crops will be hard-hit. In order to thrive, crops like fruit and nuts need a certain number of chilling hours each winter—that is, periods when temperatures range between 32°F and 50°F. Bad news: A warming climate means fewer cold snaps. The maps below show changes in chilling hours in the Central Valley in 1950, 2000, and a prediction for 2050 if current trends hold (the greener, the more chilling

National Climate Assessment

Overall, the report states, "the number of chilling hours is projected to decline by 30 percent to 60 percent by 2050 and by up to 80 percent by 2100." Worse, the "area capable of consistently producing grapes required for the highest-quality wines is projected to decline by more than 50 percent by late this century." It's enough to make you want to uncork a bottle, while you still have a chance.

Reality of GMO and Petro-chemical Agriculture: Allergies, Toxins, New Diseases

© Courtesy Food Freedom News

Food Freedom News | May 5, 2014 | Colin Todhunter \ Global Research

British Environment Secretary Owen Paterson is a staunch supporter of the GMO sector. Despite mounting evidence pointing to the deleterious health, social, ecological and environmental impacts of GMOs, Paterson has a blind spot that lets him ignore reality and allows him to lend unconditional support to the biotech conglomerates, the very concerns that regard Europe as a massive potential cash cow from which their GM crops have till now mostly been barred or restricted.

Paterson recently told the Oxford Farming Conference that Europe is likely to become “the museum of world farming” because of its failure to embrace genetically modified crops. He went on to state that the longer Europe continues to close its doors to GM crops, the greater the risk that the rest of the world will bypass us altogether:

“Europe risks becoming the museum of world farming as innovative companies make decisions to invest and develop new technologies in other markets.”

Paterson said there was “compelling evidence” that GM crops could benefit farmers, consumers, the environment and the economy.

Nearly 50 countries around the world have either banned GM crop production outright, or have put in place extremely tight restrictions on the production and use of GM products. However, EU member states will soon vote on whether to allow cultivation of a variety of maize that has been made insect-resistant through genetic engineering. If licensed, it would be the first GM food crop authorised for planting by the EU in 15 years.

Paterson said any decisions must be based on scientific evidence, in contrast to “politically motivated” delays and blocks to GM crops in the past.

He stated:

“I will continue to make the case for a regime that allows fair market access for products once they have passed Europe’s rigorous, independent scientific assessment.”

Paterson has previously indicated that he wants to relax British regulations on the cultivation of GM crops, and has said they have “environmental benefits”.

Owen Paterson has a track record of lending blind support to the GM sector with his factually incorrect statements. In 2013, he called concerns over the use of GM foods “complete nonsense” in an attack on public concerns about GMOs (1):

“I’m very clear it (GM) would be a good thing… The trouble is all this stuff about Frankenstein foods and putting poisons in foods. There are real benefits, and what you’ve got to do is sell the real environmental benefits. Those benefits include a reduction in the use of pesticides because some GM crops are pest-resistant.”

 Paterson also said that consumers were already unwittingly eating GM food on a regular basis, so concerns about human health are misplaced and based on “nonsense” and “humbug.”


In another 2013 speech, Paterson stated that “seven million children” had gone blind or died over the past 

15 years because “every attempt” to introduce a GM-rice fortified with sight-saving vitamin A had “been thwarted.”


Owen Paterson vs the reality of GMOs and petro-chemical agriculture


Paterson talks emotive, simplistic sound-bite stuff about dead children that might play well to sections of a wider misinformed public. It conveniently overlooks broader, more complex issues related to global poverty, the international system of finance, the ‘structural adjustment’ of local systems of agriculture that have destroyed indigenous food production, world trade policies and the corporate hijack of much of global farming by the West for its agribusiness industry (2).

Paterson’s stance typifies how powerful interests (or their mouthpieces) distort reality when faced with a situation that curtails their interests and profits. It is in their view their opponents who are ideologically or politically motivated and who engage in emotive scare-mongering, while it is they, the immensely rich and politically well connected, who have humanity’s interests at heart and are driven by science and altruism.

If the likes of Paterson are all too dismissive of those anti-GM/anti-MNC “disgusting enemies of the poor,” “ignoramuses” and “scientific jokers” (eg, Professor Seralni in France and Pushpa Bhargava in India) who supposedly engage in “lies,”, “nonsense” and “deceit” to counter scientific facts and the “safe frontier technology” of GMOs (3), perhaps they might be inclined to pay more heed to millionaire MP Zac Goldsmith, who is a member of the Conservative Party to which Paterson also belongs.

Hardly a dyed in the wool, anti-MNC leftie, Goldsmith last year claimed that Paterson is a puppet of the biotech industry and does not understand the dangers genetically modified crops pose to the ecosystem.

Speaking to The Independent newspaper on 3 July 2013, Goldsmith declared:

“He’s swallowed the industry line hook, line and sinker without talking to anyone with a different view. When designing policy that’s a dangerous thing, and I’m concerned big business is framing the debate for the government… The story so far suggests that GM is predominantly about the industry getting greater control over the food chain, rather than alleviating poverty or environmental concerns.” (4)

 Paterson displays blatant disregard for the political hijack of food and agriculture and its regulatory bodies by powerful agribusiness and the consequent lax regulations governing its activities. His stance indicates he is probably part of that very problem. His claim about the reduced levels of pesticides is but one instance of his ignorance. This can be placed alongside his range of ignorance on the actual documented lack of agricultural benefits derived from GMOs and their deleterious health impacts (5,6,7,8,9).

His outbursts persist regardless of the destruction of indigenous, traditional patterns of agriculture whose productivity is often far better than any petro-chemical based and/or GMO-based ’green revolution’. If he wants to talk about “museums” then he may like to look at historical evidence pertaining to traditional farming in India and its much better levels of productivity compared with modern methods (9).

It is such a travesty that a senior politician, a ‘public servant’, seems content to become part of the problem by kowtowing to the massive well-documented GMO industry pressures and its global PR machine, which receives full and active support from the US State Department (10,11).

And whether the public wanted them or not in the US, GM crops are prevalent there, despite there having been significant concern from scientists at the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) prior to the FDA allowing GM products into the food chain. The concerns of the scientists were ignored, and by the time the public became aware, the GM products were firmly embedded into the US food production chain (12).

FDA scientists had continually warned regulators that GM crops could create unpredictable and hard to detect side effects, including allergies, toxin production, nutritional problems, and new diseases. They recommended that long-term studies were needed to fully assess the effect of GM foods on other crops, the ecosystem, and animal and human health, but these warnings were ignored.

William F Engdahl has written on this and both he and the watchdog body Corporate European Observatory have raised serious concerns about deep-seated conflicts of interests within the European Food Safety Agency as well pertaining to the biotech sector and major food conglomerates (13,14).

As the GM food sector continues to push at India’s door, we should look to what the GM cotton sector has already ‘achieved’ there. The continued use of GM modified cotton has reduced yields, and the cotton bollworm has developed a resistance to the GM crops which contain the Bt (Bacillus thuringiensis) toxin (15). This is resulting in an ever increasing barrage of profitable ‘innovations’ from the biotech sector. ‘Innovations’ and ‘R&D’ being trendy terms for attempting to keep on top of the damage being done to agriculture as each new ‘frontier’ product fails the farmer. More destined to fail technology replaces the older destined to fail products under the banner of ‘cutting edge’ developments (16).

The original ‘green revolution’ is now displaying its devastating long-term health and environmental impacts in Punjab (17). What price its potential ‘second coming’ in the form of GM food crops some years down the line? To answer that question, all we need to do is look elsewhere at the emerging outcomes referenced elsewhere in this article, not least five paragraphs further down through a recent article by Helen Paul on the impacts of GMOs in the Americas.

Paterson’s claims that the use of GM crops reduce the use of pesticides do not hold up. Research by a WashingtonState University team found that the use of herbicides and insecticides has increased dramatically since GM crops were introduced in the US in 1996 (18). And researchers at the University of Arizona found that multi-toxin GM crops (which are the most technologically advanced crops in use) quickly lose their ability to fend off pests, which is likely to lead to a complete failure of the GMO (19).

Moreover, there has been no proper research or monitoring by the companies producing GM crops of the effects on humans consuming products made with GM crops. Scientists like Dr Arpad Pusztai in the UK and Professor Seralini in France, who have published findings critical of GM crops and food, suffered a wave attacks designed to undermine their work (or careers) by supporters of the technology.

Minister Patterson’s pro-GM attitudes come as little surprise, though. The cosy relationship between governments and the biotech companies is well known, especially in the US (20), where there has been legislation passed that allows biotech companies to be totally free of any legal ramifications if their products cause harm (21).

Perhaps Owen Paterson should take heed of mounting concerns about the terrible health impacts of glyphosate and how GMOs drive the sales of this weedkiller and the deleterious impacts of GMOs on plants and humans (22). He could also take note at the provincial government of Chaco province in Argentina issuance of a report on health statistics from the town La Leonesa, which showed that from 2000 to 2009, following the expansion of genetically-modified soy and rice crops in the region (and the use of glyphosate), the childhood cancer rate tripled in La Leonesa and the rate of birth defects increased nearly fourfold over the entire province (23).

Or maybe he should read Helen Paul’s recent piece in The Ecologist (24). She discusses the unfolding social, health, environmental and ecological disasters of GM agriculture/petro-chemical agriculture on a country by country basis in the Americas and argues that a powerful message should be sent to the EU (and Paterson) that GMOs are not wanted there and that Europe should stop buying and importing the products of GM-driven genocide and ecocide in the Americas. She reveals how repression and displacement, often violent, of remaining rural populations, illness, falling local food production have all featured in this picture. Yet, she argues, we currently face a desperate, almost farcical push for GM crops in the UK and Europe, characterised by hyperbolic and inaccurate claims of which the frequent claims by Paterson no doubt typify.

Far from being a “museum of world farming” as Paterson, likes to claim, Europe could show the way to a rich and varied GM free, organic-based agriculture that provides nutritious, healthy food and jobs. At the same time, Paul argues, we should address the profound degradation of soils and accelerating biodiversity loss, caused to a great extent by the industrial model of agriculture to which genetically engineered crops belong.

Maybe politicians such as Owen Paterson are (unwittingly) content to be fodder for the wider political and economic that GMOs (and big dam, debt-inducing, dollar supporting, oil-dependent chemical agriculture) are tied to. It’s an agenda encompassing an integrated strategy that involves the (near) monopoly ownership and control and ultimate weaponisation of all water, seeds, food and food retail, land and energy, which in turn both fuels and is fuelled by militarism, conflict, debt and dependency (25,26,27,28). Across the planet, we see this agenda being played out via violent conflict, ‘free’ trade agreements (29,30) and the shaping of political agendas (31).

Notes

1) http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/9733589/Food-minister-Owen-Paterson-backs-GM-crops.html

) http://www.huffingtonpost.com/vandana-shiva/from-seeds-of-suicide-to_b_192419.html

3) http://www.countercurrents.org/todhunter301212.htm

3) http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=573

4) http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/tory-mp-says-progm-environment-secretary-owen-paterson-is-industry-puppet-8686133.html

5) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LJ9vAULNFzc

6) http://www.greenmedinfo.com/blog/new-study-confirms-wheat-autism-link-0

7) http://www.greenmedinfo.com/blog/it-time-acknowledge-roundup-herbicide-contraceptive

8) http://www.responsibletechnology.org/gmo-dangers

9) http://vidarbhatimes.blogspot.co.uk/2012/11/maharashtra-reports-btcotton-failure-in.html?m=1

9) http://www.globalresearch.ca/india-genetically-modified-seeds-agricultural-productivity-and-political-fraud/5328227

10) http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2013/may/15/diplomatic-cables-gm-lobbying-us

11) http://documents.foodandwaterwatch.org/doc/Biotech_Report_US.pdf

12)  http://www.nongmoreport.com/articles/october2011/FDAignoredscientistswarningsGMfoods.php

13) http://www.shiftfrequency.com/f-william-engdahl-cancer-of-corruption-seeds-of-destruction-the-monsanto-gmo-whitewash/

14)  http://corporateeurope.org/efsa/2013/10/unhappy-meal-european-food-safety-authoritys-independence-problem

15) http://www.globalresearch.ca/harvest-of-hypocrisy-farmers-being-blamed-for-gmo-crop-failures/5322807

16) http://www.globalresearch.ca/gmo-agribusiness-and-the-destructive-nature-of-global-capitalism/5323232

17) http://www.deccanherald.com/content/309654/punjab-transformation-food-bowl-cancer.html

18) http://www.motherjones.com/tom-philpott/2012/10/how-gmos-ramped-us-pesticide-use

19) http://www.naturalnews.com/040120_gm_crops_monsanto_chemical_resistance.html

20) http://www.globalresearch.ca/monsanto-controls-both-the-white-house-and-the-us-congress/5336422

21) http://www.globalresearch.ca/monsanto-protection-act-signed-by-obama-gmo-bill-written-by-monsanto-signed-into-law/5329388

22) http://www.globalresearch.ca/monsanto-roundup-glyphosate-weedkiller-in-our-food-and-water/5339244

23) http://www.pagina12.com.ar/diario/elpais/1-147561-2010-06-14.html

24)http://www.theecologist.org/News/news_analysis/2267255/gm_crops_are_driving_genocide_and_ecocide_keep_them_out_of_the_eu.html

25) http://www.outlookindia.com/article.aspx?280234

26) http://www.globalresearch.ca/sowing-the-seeds-of-famine-in-ethiopia/366

27) http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-eu-india-free-trade-agreement-india-up-for-sale-to-western-corporate-capital/5332214

28) http://www.globalresearch.ca/genetic-engineering-and-the-gmo-industry-corporate-hijacking-of-food-and-agriiculture/5317339

29) http://www.globalresearch.ca/us-eu-free-trade-agreement-a-corporate-stitch-up-by-any-other-name/5339789

30) http://www.globalresearch.ca/us-eu-free-trade-agreement-a-corporate-stitch-up-by-any-other-name/5339789

31) http://www.countercurrents.org/todhunter100213.htm

Block-long sinkhole swallows cars in Baltimore, Maryland

The Extinction Protocol | May 2, 2014

MARYLAND - A block-long sinkhole opened up in a residential neighborhood in rain-soaked Baltimore on Wednesday, devouring cars and forcing the evacuation of several houses. The sinkhole opened next to railroad tracks used by CSX in the first block of 26th Street in northeast Baltimore, the Mayor’s Office of Emergency Management said. A photo uploaded to the Twitter account showed several cars swallowed in the pit. CSX said an embankment collapsed onto the railroad tracks. It said rail traffic in the area has been suspended. Residents in the rowhouses on the block were being evacuated and a building inspector was called to the scene, the fire department said. Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake said there were no injuries or fatalities. Cars sit on the edge of a sinkhole in the Charles Village neighborhood of Baltimore, April 30, as heavy rain moved through the region. –NBC News
 

Nuclear Fuel Fragment from Fukushima Found In EUROPE

Washington's Blog | May 6, 2014

The Nuclear Core Has Finally Been Found … Scattered All Over the World 

Fukushima did not just suffer meltdowns, or even melt-throughs …

It suffered melt-OUTS … where the nuclear core of at least one reactor was spread all over Japan.
In addition, the Environmental Research Department, SRI Center for Physical Sciences and Technology in Vilnius, Lithuania reported in the Journal of Environmental Radioactivity:

Analyses of (131)I, (137)Cs and (134)Cs in airborne aerosols were carried out in daily samples in Vilnius, Lithuania after the Fukushima accident during the period of March-April, 2011.

***

The activity ratio of (238)Pu/(239,240)Pu in the aerosol sample was 1.2, indicating a presence of the spent fuel of different origin than that of the Chernobyl accident.

(“Pu” is short for plutonium.)   Fukushima is 4,988 miles from Vilnius, Lithuania. So the plutonium traveled quite a distance.

Today, EneNews reports that a fuel fragment from Fukushima has been found in Norway:

Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics Discussions, Atmospheric removal times of the aerosol-bound radionuclides 137Cs and 131I during the months after the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant accident – a constraint for air quality and climate models, May 2012: Hot particles (particles that carry very high radioactivity, e.g., fragments of the nuclear fuel) were present in the FD-NPP plume.

Read more..

How Fracking Is Exposing People to Radioactive Waste

© Alternet.org

Alternet.org | May 2, 2014 | Tara Lohan

There isn’t a lot of good news about fracking lately. Another train with volatile fracked crude oil from North Dakota’s Bakken Shale exploded in Lynchburg, Virginia igniting a ball of fire on the surface of the James River. Accidents involving these “ bomb trains” are becoming commonplace. So are recent  studies indicating serious health risks  from fracking and reports linking fracking to earthquakes.

With all that press you may have missed another cause for alarm: radiation risks. The oil and gas-drilling boom, aided by the practice of fracking, has unleashed some potentially scary radioactive stuff into our environment. 

Fracking involves injecting large quantities (sometimes millions of gallons) of water, sand, and chemicals at high pressure deep underground to break apart shale and release trapped hydrocarbons like oil and gas. But the process can also bring to the surface water that is laced with naturally-occurring radioactive materials that were underground. In small, dispersed quantities low-level radiation is not life threatening, but what happens when those quantities start increasing in the environment, and getting into the water we drink, the fish we eat, and the soil in which our food grows?

Scientists are trying to figure that out. But it’s a difficult process to track since fracking isn’t regulated under most federal environmental laws like the Safe Drinking Water Act and the Clean Water Act. That means industry is charge of policing itself a lot of the time.

Another problem is that it’s really hard to keep track of all the stuff that may become tainted by radioactive materials in the drilling process. Millions of gallons of soupy wastewater that flow back from wells after drilling and fracking can end up in a number of places. Sometimes the wastewater is simply left in lined or unlined pits to either evaporate or sink back into the ground. Other times it is sent to water treatment plants and eventually released back into rivers and streams. At times it is simply spilled or illegally dumped. It also ends up contaminating drilling mud (a more solid waste from the process), storage tanks, and equipment.

“Radionuclides in these wastes are primarily radium-226, radium-228, and radon gas,” reports the Environmental Protection Agency. “The radon is released to the atmosphere, while the produced water and mud containing radium are placed in ponds or pits for evaporation, reuse, or recovery.”

The fact that drilling for oil or gas increases radiation is not news. Avner Vengosh, a professor of geochemistry at Duke University told Bloomberg News that we’ve know that since the 1970s, but the pace and intensity of drilling now, combined with the huge amount of wastewater, is taking the issue to a new level of concern. “We are actually building up a legacy of radioactivity in hundreds of points where people have had leaks or spills around the country,” he said.

Vengosh was part of team of researchers that turned up some troubling findings in Pennsylvania, ground zero for hydraulic fracturing in the Marcellus Shale. Their study, published in the peer-reviewed journal Environmental Science & Technology, took samples over a two-year period from Blacklick Creek just below the discharge from the Josephine Brine Treatment Facility, which accepted water from drilling operations. They found that radium levels of wastewater from fracking operations had been reduced in treatment by about 90 percent, but what was coming out of the plant still exceeded upstream levels by 200 times.

“Such elevated levels of radioactivity are above regulated levels and would normally be seen at licensed radioactive disposal facilities, according to the scientists at Duke University's Nicholas school of the environment in North Carolina,” reported Felicity Carus for the Guardian. 

The biggest threat is the bioaccumulation of radium. Small quantities can build up in the environment, eventually posing a health hazard (especially if it ends up in food we eat).

It also means that even if you don’t have a drilling rig in your backyard or even your neighborhood, you may still face some risks. As Carus wrote:

From January to June 2013, the 4,197 unconventional gas wells in Pennsylvania reported 3.5m barrels of fluid waste and 10.7m barrels of "produced" fluid. Most of that waste is disposed of within Pennsylvania, but some of it is also went to other states, such as Ohio and New York despite its moratorium on shale gas exploration. In July, a treatment company in New York state pleaded guilty to falsifying more than 3,000 water tests.

The Duke study came just two years after the New York Times did an exhaustive search of thousands of government and industry documents to try and assess how risky radioactive wastewater from fracking may be.

“The documents reveal that the wastewater, which is sometimes hauled to sewage plants not designed to treat it and then discharged into rivers that supply drinking water, contains radioactivity at levels higher than previously known, and far higher than the level that federal regulators say is safe for these treatment plants to handle,” Ian Urbina wrote for the Times.

“The Times also found never-reported studies by the EPA and a confidential study by the drilling industry that all concluded that radioactivity in drilling waste cannot be fully diluted in rivers and other waterways.” They found that 116 wells produced wastewater with levels more than 100 times higher than safe drinking water standards, and 15 wells were more than 1,000 times above the limit.

“The radioactivity in the wastewater is not necessarily dangerous to people who are near it. It can be blocked by thin barriers, including skin, so exposure is generally harmless,” wrote Urbina. “Rather, E.P.A. and industry researchers say, the bigger danger of radioactive wastewater is its potential to contaminate drinking water or enter the food chain through fish or farming. Once radium enters a person’s body, by eating, drinking or breathing, it can cause cancer and other health problems, many federal studies show.”

The Duke study and the Times’ research both focused on Pennsylvania, but the Marcellus region is not the only experiencing problems with radioactive waste. In February, an abandoned building in Noonan, North Dakota was found to contain bags of illegally dumped “filter socks” which are used by the industry to filter liquids during oil production. The radiation level from the material wasn’t high enough to be a health hazard unless people ventured into the building but it signals a growing problem for boomtowns, the likes of which have emerged across North Dakota’s Bakken shale. It’s not the first time this kind of waste has been dumped -- and the booming Bakken is producing around 27 tons of filter socks a day, by one estimate.

And the problem persists across the country.

“While it’s unclear how much drilling waste is produced nationally, state totals are rising. West Virginia landfills accepted 721,000 tons of drilling debris in 2013, a figure that doesn’t include loads rejected because they topped radiation limits,” wrote Alex Nussbaum for Bloomberg. “The per-month tonnage more than tripled from July 2012, when records were first kept, through last December. In Pennsylvania, epicenter of the Marcellus boom, the oil and gas industry sent 1.3 million tons to landfills last year.” Are those facilities equipped to monitor and handle radioactive waste?

North Dakota is attempting to cope with the problem by creating new regulations requiring industry to store these contaminated filter socks on site in special containers until they can be moved to a “certified dump.” But, Rebecca Leber writes for Think Progress, “North Dakota has no facilities to process this level of radioactive waste. According to the Wall Street Journal, the closest facilities are hundreds of miles away in states like Idaho, Colorado, Utah, and Montana.”

So the problem is not solved, it’s simply passed from one state to the next -- increasing the area that may be affected and the number of people. Meanwhile the grand experiment of fracking’s effects on human health continues.

Tara Lohan is a freelance writer and former senior editor at AlterNet. She is the editor of two books on the global water crisis, including Water Matters: Why We Need to Act Now to Save Our Most Critical Resource. Follow her on Twitter @TaraLohan or visit her website, taralohan.com.

Oklahoma Earthquake Rate Breaking Records, and Fracking Could Be to Blame

Image: USGS

Common Dreams | May 6, 2014 | Andrea Germanos

USGS: Increased seismic activity not due to typical, random fluctuations, but to oil, gas injection wells 

Fracking-related injection wells are likely behind the "remarkable" increase in earthquakes in Oklahoma, scientists with the U.S. Geological Survey have said.

The USGS and the Oklahoma Geological Survey on Friday issued a joint statement warning that the surging seismicity — up roughly 50 percent since October 2013 — means that central Oklahoma is at a significantly increased risk of a 5.5 or greater quake.

Since just the start of this year, 145 earthquakes of magnitude 3.0 or greater have struck the state, breaking the record 109 set last year.

Those numbers are a far cry from the two 3.0 magnitude or larger earthquakes per year that occurred between 1978 and 2008.

The USGS stated that the changes "do not seem to be due to typical, random fluctuations in natural seismicity rates."

Rather, the USGS analysis points to wastewater injection wells from the oil and gas industry as a likely culprit. Fracking operations use these Class 2 wells to inject the mystery mix of waste fluids into the earth. A 2010 EPA analysis showed that Oklahoma had over 10,000 such wells.

A recent study by the USGS also points to wastewater injection as the likely cause of the November 2011 5.0 magnitude earthquake that struck Prague, Oklahoma, and proceeded to cause a series of "thousands of aftershocks."

The USGS has previously remarked on the surge in earthquakes nationwide, with over 100 per year on average from 2010 - 2013, in contrast to the average rate of 20 earthquakes per year from 1970-2000, noting that some of the areas of increased seismicity coincide with injection wells.

The USGS states: "As the use of injection for disposal of wastewater increases, the importance of knowing the associated risks also grows. To meet these challenges, the USGS hopes to increase research efforts to understand the causes and effects of injection-induced earthquakes."

Homeland Security Dept. Cancels BioWatch Technology after Spending $1 Billion on Program

Jeh Johnson
© ALLGOV

ALLGOV | May 5, 2014 | Steve Straehley

Secretary of Homeland Security Jeh Johnson has decided to pull the plug on the much-heralded, but very expensive and unsuccessful, Generation 3 BioWatch technology.

BioWatch is a national system that is supposed to guard against an attack with biological agents. The Generation 3 version was supposed to operate autonomously, save money and guard against a large-scale outdoor biological attack. But in 2013, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) revised its thinking on such attacks, saying they were more likely to be on a smaller, yet still deadly, scale. The BioWatch system is not able to consistently guard against such incidents.

DHS has already spent $1.1 billion on BioWatch and had told prospective contractors that it would spend up to $3.1 billion on the Generation 3 technology over five years, according to the Los Angeles Times. DHS spokesman S.Y. Lee said the cancellation reflected a commitment to “cost-effective acquisition without compromising our security.”

According to a 2012 report from the Government Accountability Office (GAO), “DHS approved the Gen-3 acquisition in October 2009 without fully developing critical knowledge that would help ensure sound investment decision making, pursuit of optimal solutions, and reliable performance, cost, and schedule information.” In other words, the report said, DHS went ahead with the project before determining if there was a need for it.

The entire BioWatch system, which has been deployed in 30 U.S. cities and at major sporting events and political conventions, has been fraught with problems. A prototype installed in the New York City subway system produced many false readings. A later prototype placed in Chicago was unable to operate without being serviced at least once a week.

Smart Meter Documentary "Take Back Your Power" Wins Humanitarian Award

Activist Post | May 5, 2014

Smart Meter Investigative Documentary Take Back Your Power Wins Indie Fest Annual Humanitarian Award, The Second Award For This Film

Josh del Sol and his documentary, Take Back Your Power, have been named this year’s winner of the Indie Fest Annual Humanitarian Award.

Take Back Your Power follows filmmaker del Sol as he investigates the use of so-named “smart” meter technology, being deployed by utilities and governments to harvest data from within private homes and introduce new pricing schemes.  With compelling insight from whistleblowers, government agents, lawyers, environmentalists and doctors, the documentary “exposes corporate corruption and the erosion of human rights in the name of ‘going green’.”

The Indie Fest is a top-tier international awards competition designed to recognize independent creators of fresh, standout films, television programs, compelling documentaries and new media.  One film is selected each year for the Humanitarian Award based on its dedication to social justice, humanitarian causes, or environmental issues.

Director and producer del Sol spoke of the award helping to expand the reach of the controversial issue. “The subject matter affects everyone, and the conversation deserves to be squarely in the mainstream,” said del Sol. “Should individual rights take a back seat to the collective?  Should energy be an unaffordable privilege, instead of a basic affordable right?  And how can corrupt corporatized government systems be held accountable? These are some of the most profound questions of our time.”

About this year’s winner, Indie Fest Coordinator Thomas Baker, PhD stated, “Take Back Your Power takes on the daunting yet important task of educating people worldwide about the surveillance, hacking, health, home safety, and consumer cost concerns linked to so-called ‘smart’ utility meters.  It was selected out of hundreds of films for our Annual Humanitarian award because it delves into the heart of what is possibly the main problem in our world today: corporations taking over without conscience, and causing extreme levels of harm in the process.”

This is the second major independent award for the boat-rocking film, which was named AwareGuide Transformational Film of the Year in February.  The updated 2nd edition of Take Back Your Power will premiere at the Berkeshire International Film Festival, May 31-June 1 (www.biffma.org).

Take Back Your Power was released online on September 5, 2013.

Theatrical and community screenings are available at www.takebackyourpower.net, where the documentary can also be streamed and is available on DVD.

Glyphosate is a disaster for human health

Roundup Ultra destroys down to the roots.
That's not to mention what glyphosate,
the main active ingredient of
Roundup, does to our health.
Photo: David Reverchon via Flickr.com

The Ecologist | Apr 30, 2014 | Dr Mae Wan Ho

Extensive, long running evidence for the cancer-causing effects of glyphosate, and other toxic impacts, have been ignored by regulators. Indeed as the evidence has built up, permitted levels in food have been hugely increased, writes Dr Mae Wan Ho. 


New research shows that the low levels of glyphosate found in human urine can promote the growth of human breast cancer cells, confirming the carcinogenic potential of the herbicide known since the 1980s.

The findings follow the unsettling results of the Séralini study - which almost certainly lie behind its notorious retraction by the journal editor a year after it was published (see Retracting Seralini Study Violates Science & Ethics, SiS 61) - are cancers in rats fed GM maize and / or exposed to Roundup.

Although the word 'cancer' was never used by the authors, they recorded three 'metastases' (cancers by another name) - two in females and one in a male.

They also recorded two kidney Wilm's tumours in male rats, which had to be euthanized a year early because the cancerous tumours grew to more than 25 % of body size.

Five cancers - on top of other pathologies

This makes a total of at least 5 cancers in the treatment groups, in addition to the excess of grotesquely large tumours, premature deaths, pituitary, kidney, liver, and other pathologies compared with the controls.
The cancer cases certainly should not be ignored, and to make sure this important paper is not erased from public record, it is now freely available and permanently registered on thesparc.net - a floating knowledge archive for the survival of people and planet.

The findings are especially important in the light of new research and indeed, previous research on the carcinogenic potential of glyphosate (and GM food).

Glyphosate promotes growth of human breast cancer cells at minute concentrations

A research team in Thailand led by Jutamaad Satayavivad at the Center of Excellence on Environmental Health and Toxicology, Ministry of Education, and The Chulabhorn Graduate Institute in Bangkok, published a paper in the very same Journal - Food and Chemical Toxicology - from which the Séralini study was retracted.

They found that glyphosate at minute concentrations enhanced the proliferation of human hormone-dependent breast cancer T47D cells, but not hormone-independent breast cancer MDA-MB231 cells.

Their detailed experiments showed that glyphosate mimics the action of estrogen, and uses the same molecular pathways as the natural hormone to promote proliferation of the cancer cells.

They also found that glyphosate had synergistic effects in enhancing breast cancer cell growth in combination with genistein, a common phytestrogen in soybean.

Potent estrogenic effects

[Note: this section is technical and not easy reading. It can be summarised as stating that glyphosate acts as an estrogen, and operates via the same hormonal pathways as natural estrogen.]

Glyphosate at concentrations between 10^-12 and 10^-6 M (0.169 ng/L to 0.169 mg/L) boosted the proliferation of T47D cells by 15% to 30%, about half as effectively as the most potent estrogen, 17 b-estradiol (E2).

The same low concentrations of glyphosate induced the activation of estrogen response element (ERE) - a specific DNA sequence promoting gene expression with high affinity for the estrogen receptor (ER) that binds estrogen - thereby activating gene expression in response to estrogen.

Furthermore, this activation was inhibited by an estrogen antagonist, ICI 182780, indicating that the estrogenic activity of glyphosate was mediated via ERs.

The highest estrogen mimicking effect was at 10^-9M or 0.169 mg/L and the effect was half that of estrogen, the most potent growth-promoter in hormone-dependent breast cancer cells.

ICI 182780, a specific inhibitor of estrogen at 1 nM reduced the proliferative effects of both glyphosate and E2. At 10 nM it completely inhibited the growth enhancing effects of glyphosate, suggesting that glyphosate acts via the estrogen receptor ER.

T47D-KBluc cells, with stably transfected triplet estrogen response element (ERE) promoter-luciferase reporter gene construct, when treated with glyphosate at the concentration range of 10^-12 to 10^-6 M, proliferated at 5-13 fold of the controls without glyphosate or E2, less than half that induced by estrogen.

Additive effect of glyphosate with soy phyto-estrogens

[Note: this section is technical and not easy reading. It can be summarised as stating that glyphosate acts, at very low concentrations indeed, to enhance the estrogenic effects of estrogen-like compounds that occur naturally in soy.]

That is not all. Glyphosate-based herbicides are widely used for soybean cultivation (especially for Roundup Ready GM soybean). And the researchers also found an additive estrogenic effect between glyphosate and genistein, a soybean phytestrogen.

Genistein phytestrogen is a major isoflavone in soybean. With a structure similar to E2, it acts like estrogen via the ER pathways. At concentrations ranging between 10^-9 and 10^-4M, genistein produced concentration-dependent proliferation effects in T47D cells (104 to 170 % of controls).

Genistein also stimulated ERE-gene transcription activity at the concentration range of 10^-11 to 10^-6M, to 5-25 fold the activity of controls.

The concentration ranges of glyphosate and genistein inducing ERE activity more than 10 fold of control are individually 10^-11 to 10^-9M and 10^-7 to 10^-5M respectively.

Glyphosate residues in soybean were found in the range of 0.1-5.6mg/g, while genistein were in the range of 0.01-1.2 mg/g. As mentioned earlier, glyphosate concentrations in human urine could be 1.8 x 10^-8 to 1.4 x10^-6 M.

Using these concentrations as a guide, the interaction range between the two estrogenic mimics were set at genistein 10^-7 to 10^-5 M, and glyphosate 10^-11 to 10^-9; the concentrations were varied with a fixed ratio of both compounds.

The results showed significant enhancement of ERE activation in the combination of 10^-10 glyphosate with 10^-6M genistein and 10^-9 M glyphosate with 10^-5M genistein. At 10^-7M genistein and 10^-9M glyphosate, cell proliferation was increased to 169 % of control, where individually, the promotion was 145 %.

The important new finding is that glyphosate mimics estrogen activity at minute concentrations; it may be inhibitory for estrogen at high conentrations - however other toxicities also come into effect.
Note that such non-linear concentration dependence is characteristic of environmental pollutants with endocrine disrupting effects (see the Seralini paper).

Glyphosate in humans and animals are within the range with carcinogenic potential

The lab findings indicate that low, environmentally relevant concentrations of glyphosate have estrogen-like activity.

Glyphosate concentrations between 1.8 x 10^-8 to 1.4 x10^-6 M were found in human urine in the United States. Analysis of urine samples of 182 subjects from 18 European countries found that 80 (43.9 %) have glyphosate, with a mean of 0.21 mg/L (> 10^-12M) and a maximum of 1.82 mg/L (10^-11M).

AMPA (aminomethylphosphonic acid), the main metabolite of glyphosate, was present in 65 (35.71 %), with a mean of 0.18 mg/L and a maximum of 2.63mg/L.

Malta, Latvia and UK have the highest values of glyphosate, Croatia, Belgium and Malta have the highest levels of AMPA. Glyphosate and AMPA do not correlate very well, probably dependent on the precise amounts of glyphosate and residue in people's diet.

A new study led by Monika Krüger at University of Leipzig finds glyphosate residues in livestock, wild life and humans in Germany and Denmark at average concentrations of 9-5.4 mg/L in urine, and 35 mg/kg cow tissues, including intestine, liver, muscles spleen and kidney.

Human urine samples average 5.4 + 11.5 mg/L (range 0.01 to 40 mg/L); those on predominantly organic food have significantly lower levels compared to those on conventional foods, and individuals with chronic diseases have significantly higher levels than healthy individuals.

Cow urine samples average 35 + 50mg/L (range 0 to 164 mg/L). Germany cow urine samples have significantly lower values than those of Danish cows, and cows from GM-Free areas also have significantly lower concentrations of glyphosate than cows under conventional husbandry.

The tissues of cows from slaughter houses have average glyphosate concentrations of 20 + 26 mg/kg (range 4.7 to 108 mg/kg). Rabbit urine samples average 12.5 + 12.1 mg/L (range 3.17 to 42 mg/L); significantly higher than in those of hares.

Carcinogenic potential of glyphosate known since the 1980s

The carcinogenic potential of glyphosate has been known since the 1980s. An excellent review on glyphosate toxicity written by Caroline Cox of Northwest Coalition for Alternatives to Pesticides, Eugene, Oregon in the US published in 1995 showed that most if not all the toxic effects of glyphosate had already been demonstrated in laboratory studies.

Glyphosate was not only acutely toxic to animals and human beings; subchronic studies showed that feeding glyphosate to animals for three months caused "reduced weight gain, diarrhea, and salivary gland lesion."

Lifetime feeding caused "excess growth and death of liver cells, cataracts and lens degeneration, and increase in the frequency of thyroid, pancreas and liver tumors." Also documented were effects on fertility: reduced sperm counts in males and lengthening of the oestrus cycle in females.

But the public were kept in the dark through a litany of outright fraud committed by testing companies working for the corporations, deception, and half-truths.

On carcinogenicity, Cox wrote: "The potential of glyphosate to cause cancer has been a controversial subject since the first lifetime feeding studies were analyzed in the early 1980s.

"The first study (1979-1981) found an increase in testicular interstitial tumors in male rats at the highest dose tested (30 mg/kg of body weight per day), as well as an increase in the frequency of a thyroid cancer in females.

"The second study (completed in 1983) found dose-related increases in the frequency of a rare kidney tumor in male mice. The most recent study (1988-1990) found an increase in the number of pancreas and liver tumors in male rats together with an increase of the same thyroid cancer found in the 1983 study in females."

US-EPA dismisses all the findings

But the US Environment Protection Agency (EPA) explained all that away. Cox continued: "All of these increases in tumor incidence are "not considered compound-related", according to EPA.

In each case, different reasons are given for this conclusion: (Comments between square brackets added)

• For the testicular tumors, EPA accepted the interpretation of an industry pathologist who said that the incidence in treated groups (12%) was similar to those observed in other control (not glyphosate-fed) rat feeding studies (4.5%). [This is a blatant, illicit use of controls].
• For the thyroid cancer, EPA stated that it was not possible to consistently distinguish between cancers and tumors of this type, so that the incidences of the two should be considered together [a questionable manipulation of data]. The combined data are not statistically significant.
• For the kidney tumors, the registrants reexamined slides of kidney tissue, finding an additional tumor in untreated mice so that statistical significance was lost. This was despite a memo from EPA's pathologist stating that the lesion in question was not really a tumor [and hence amounts to a falsification of data].
• For the pancreatic tumors, EPA stated that there was no dose-related trend and no progression to malignancy [this is frequently the case in endocrine disrupting chemicals].
• For the liver tumors and the thyroid tumors, EPA stated that pairwise comparisons between treated and untreated animals were not statistically significant and there was no progression to malignancy.

So this is 'evidence for non-carcinogenicity'

EPA concluded that glyphosate should be classified as Group E,"evidence of non-carcinogenicity for humans".

They added that this classification "is based on the available evidence at the time of evaluation and should not be interpreted as a definitive conclusion that the agent will not be a carcinogen under any circumstances."

The EPA authorities went against the advice of their own scientists, as Cox revealed. An EPA statistician wrote in a memo concerning one of the carcinogenicity studies:

"Viewpoint is a key issue. Our viewpoint is one of protecting the public health when we see suspicious data."

Unfortunately, EPA has not taken that viewpoint in its assessment of glyphosate's cancer-causing potential.

Epidemiological evidence that pesticides are associated with cancer risks

Studies dating back to the 1980s have indicated that despite the low overall mortality rate from heart disease, cancers of the lung, oesophagus, bladder and colon, farmers in many countries appear to have higher rates for Hodgkin's disease, leukaemia, multiple myeloma, non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, and cancers of the lip, stomach, prostate, skin, brain, and connectives tissue compared with the general population.

The strongest links of cancers in agricultural workers are to herbicides. In 1993, the National Cancer Institute Bethesda Maryland in the US launched a large prospective cohort study in North Carolina and Iowa on people most likely to be exposed to pesticides - farmers and pesticide applicators - identified when they applied for a pesticide applicator license and undergo training and testing.

The 10-year Agricultural Health Study (1993-2003) was recently summarized to the press as the EPA proposes new safety rules for farm pesticide use:

"Current medical research suggests that while farmers are generally healthier than the general U.S. population, they may have higher rates of some cancers, including leukemia, myeloma, non-Hodgkin lymphoma, and cancers of the lip, stomach, skin, brain, and prostate." This finding is no different from when the Study began.

Yet permitted levels of glyphosate are hugely increased

The supreme irony is that the EPA has set new standards that drastically increase the amounts of glyphosate allowed:

• in oilseed crops such as flax, soybeans and canola, it is doubled from 20 ppm to 40 ppm;
• in food crops, it is multiplied 30-fold, from 200 ppm to 6 000 ppm.

So although pesticides as a group is acknowledged to be carcinogenic, glyphosate is still considered a non-carcinogen by the EPA, the same as in 1985.

But since 1994, the first year that GM crops were commercially grown, the use of glyphosate herbicides has gone up enormously, with regulatory authorities putting up the allowable levels to track the upward trajectory.

Now it's the world's number one herbicide

By 2007, glyphosate is the most commonly used pesticide in the agricultural sector, and second most commonly used in homes and garden as well as industry / commercial / government sectors.

In other words, its use has become pervasive; and everyone in whatever sector will be exposed to it, through air, water and food as recent measurements in Europe confirms (see above).

Not surprisingly, it has proven difficult to link individual pesticides with specific cancers in the Agricultural Health Study, least of all to glyphosate, given that dozens of pesticides are typically used, and the general population probably as much exposed to glyphosate-herbicides and herbicide residues as farmers and agricultural workers.

A review published in 2012 (ahead of EPA's decision to increase allowable glyphosate levels) "found no consistent pattern of positive associations indicating a causal relationship between total cancer (in adults or children) or any site-specific cancer and exposure to glyphosate."

The lead author of the review has served as a paid consultant to Monsanto Company, and the research was supported by the Monsanto Company.

Unhelpful studies explained away

Actually, there have been studies aimed at glyphosate in particular that found increased risks to specific cancers, which were explained away in the review.

A Swedish study of 910 cancer cases and 1016 controls found a significant excess of non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL) associated with the phenoxy herbicide 2-methyl-4-chlorphenoxyactice acid (MCPA) OR (odds ratio) 2.1, and with glyphosate OR 2.02.

This confirmed the team's earlier pooled analysis of two case control studies - one on NHL and another on hairy cell leukemia, a rare subtype of NHL - consisting of 515 cases and 1141 controls.

Increased risks were found for subjects exposed to herbicides OR 1.75, insecticides OR1.43, fungicides OR 3.11, impregnating agents OR 1.48. Among herbicides, significant associations were found for glyphosate OR 3.04, and 4-chloro-2-methyl phenoxyacetic acid (MCPA) OR 2.62.

In another study, associations between glyphosate exposure and cancer incidence was examined in a prospective cohort of 57,311 licensed pesticide applicators - mostly male middle-aged - in Iowa and North Carolina, as part of the Agricultural Health Study.

There was no association with all cancers, but there was increased risk for melanoma (OR 1.8) adjusted for age, which decreased to OR 1.6 adjusted for age, demographic and lifestyle factors, and other pesticides.

Adjusted risk estimates for colon, rectum kidney and bladder cancers were elevated by 30% to 60% - but not statistically significant. However, there was more than 2-fold risk of multiple myeloma (OR 2.1) associated with ever-use of glyphosate.

The public health problem is real

The situation is best summed up in a 2013 review with lead author Michael Alavanja who also led the Agricultural Health Study:

"A growing number of well-designed epidemiological and molecular studies provide substantial evidence that the pesticides used in agricultural, commercial, and home and garden applications are associated with excess cancer risk ... The literature does strongly suggest that the public health problem is real."

They strongly recommend reducing the use of pesticides as the best measure to counteract the problem, a recommendation that some countries in Europe such as Sweden and Denmark have already adopted since the late 1990s.

But instead of reducing pesticide use, the US EPA has increased allowable glyphosate limits yet again - by 30-fold.

The case for a glyphosate ban

The carcinogenicity of glyphosate is among the latest avalanche of damning evidence that makes a ban on glyphosate all the more compelling. Sri Lanka is the second country in the world to ban glyphosate after El Salvador.

Having rejected GMOs back in 2003, it has now banned glyphosate on the strength of a study by Sri Lanka's own scientists implicating glyphosate in an epidemic of deadly chronic kidney disease that has struck Sri Lanka and other poor farming countries (see Sri Lanka Bans Glyphosate for Deadly Kidney Disease Epidemic, SiS 62).

Glyphosate is already implicated in the marked deterioration of the health status of the US population. The incidence of numerous diseases and adverse conditions has gone up in parallel with the increase in GM crops and the use of glyphosate herbicide since 1994 - the first year of commercialization of GM crops.

A range of serious adverse impacts

These health problems include thyroid cancer, liver and bile duct cancer, obesity, high blood pressure, hospitalizations for acute kidney injury, diabetes, and end stage renal disease.

The herbicide is also a prime suspect in the rise of human male infertility worldwide (Glyphosate/Roundup and Human Male Infertility, SiS 62), and implicated in coeliac sprue, an autoimmune gluten intolerance bowel disease.

A recent test on 31 samples of GM glyphosate-tolerant soybean found average glyphosate level of 3.26mg/kg and average AMPA level of 5.74mg/kg, at the high end of estrogenic concentrations reported here, which could easily account for the levels present in human urine.

Environmental toxicity

Glyphosate is well-known for its toxicities to cells and animals including livestock, crops and soil, and lethality to amphibians. It is also harmful to other wildlife (see Ban GMOs Now, ISIS special report).
The full extent of glyphosate's eco-toxicity has emerged in new experiments. At concentrations of several parts per million, Roundup is lethal to the neotropical fish Piaractus mesopotamicus, a native to Brazil and Paraguay of considerable ecological and commercial value.

Exposure of the freshwater fish Channa punctatus to similar concentrations of Roundup caused oxidative stress, lipid peroxidation and DNA damage in blood and gill cells.

As the retracted Séralini study and other research cited here make clear, the toxicities of glyphosate/Roundup are independent of and in addition to the toxicities of the GMOs, which is why a ban on both GMOs and glyphosate is in order.

---

Dr Mae Wan Ho is the director of the Institute of Science in Society (ISIS), which campaigns against unethical uses of biotechnology.

A fully referenced version of this article is posted on ISIS members website and otherwise available for download here

See other articles concerning glyphosate on The Ecologist.

Please circulate widely and repost, but you must give the URL of the original and preserve all the links back to articles on our website. If you find this report useful, please support ISIS by subscribing to our magazine Science in Society, and encourage your friends to do so. Or have a look at the ISIS bookstore for other publications.

Warped Space Time for Warped Minds

The Crab Nebula pulsar, a hypothetical neutron star.
Credit: NASA/CXC/ASU/J. Hester et al.

Thunderbolts.info | Apr 30, 2014 | Stephen Smith

May 01, 2014

A University of Michigan press release announces “warped space-time” around a so-called “neutron star”. Could electricity provide a better explanation?

The smeared lines of an iron spectrum have given NASA and University of Michigan astronomers another mystery to solve when it comes to explaining the universe. Using the XMM-Newton and the JAXA/NASA X-ray observatories, high-velocity particles in orbit around Serpens X-1 seem to indicate relativistic effects. According to Sudip Bhattacharyya of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center:

“This is fundamental physics. There could be exotic kinds of particles or states of matter, such as quark matter, in the centers of neutron stars, but it’s impossible to create them in the lab. The only way to find out is to understand neutron stars.”

Part of what they are trying to understand is the observation of spectral lines from “hot iron atoms” that appear to be orbiting close in to the surface of the neutron star. As interpreted by conventional theory, the spectra indicate that some of the material is moving at over 40 percent light-speed. Since iron atoms glow at certain optical frequencies when heated to their incandescent state, there should be dark lines within the specular distribution of the color bands. Called Fraunhofer lines, they mark places within the spectrum of any material where the emission energy is absorbed, leaving a dark line within the band of color generated by a prism.

Because Fraunhofer lines are supposed to occur at specific frequencies identified in the spectrum by the kind of element that is being absorbed, if they are in a different location, then they have been Doppler-shifted because of their acceleration. This forms the backbone of galactic-scale distance calculations and the supposed speed of recession that the galaxies display.

Using this system of “redshift” some galaxies are measured to be moving away from Earth at an unbelievable 90 percent of light-speed. The velocity assumption is derived from a gravity-only version of the cosmos. A supermassive object composed of tightly packed neutrons is the only mechanism that could provide the gravitational strength needed for the iron ions to achieve such fast orbits.

In a previous Picture of the Day, an analysis of neutron stars revealed that the science behind their hypothetical existence does not support the very idea of such objects. As previously written, a foundational concept in nuclear physics is the “island of stability”.

Plotting the number of neutrons against the number of protons in the nuclei of all elements demonstrates that the ratio is about one-to-one for light elements and one-point-five-to-one for the heavy ones. An atomic nucleus outside the range will spontaneously decay so that it reaches a stable configuration and remains in equilibrium. If there are too few neutrons, the atom will emit protons in order to stabilize and vise-versa. A nucleus – or star – composed of neutrons alone would be completely unstable and would immediately decay.

The hot iron that has been found around the Serpens X-1 stellar phenomenon is most likely the result of electrical discharge action on and around the star. Stars exist as anodes in a galactic circuit that causes the majority of them to blaze in arc mode. No “millions of continuous H-bomb explosions” are taking place at the core and the observational data leads to the conclusion that they are actually giant balls of plasma. The information gleaned from the Hinode spacecraft and other science experiments observing the sun has confirmed that understanding.

If ad hoc conjectures must be invented to save theories that do not directly explain new observations, then discovering the true nature of the Universe will be hampered.

Stephen Smith

CLICK HERE FOR THE 2013-11-14 SPANISH TRANSLATION