Thursday, May 27, 2010

Ask Obama to stop offshore drilling


Stop New Oil Drilling in Fragile Arctic Ocean

oil rig on fire in gulf of mexico 
We can't let this take place in the fragile Arctic Ocean.     
     
Shell Oil says it will begin exploratory drilling in the Arctic Ocean in just a few weeks — even before we know what caused the disaster in the Gulf of Mexico. The Department of the Interior should officially withdraw approval of Shell's summer drilling plans and conduct a complete reassessment in light of the ongoing BP catastrophe.
Please call on President Obama to put a hold on Shell Oil's plans to drill in the Arctic Ocean until a thorough assessment is done on what a possible oil spill would mean for the fragile, icy Arctic ocean, and how a realistic clean up effort might take place should the unthinkable happen. Please send the sample letter below or edit it with your own words to explain why protecting the Arctic Ocean is important to YOU.


Sample Letter

Stop New Oil Drilling in the Fragile Arctic Ocean
Dear President Obama,



Sincerely,
[Your Name]
[Your Address]
[City, State ZIP]

Your Contact Information

*Required fields

Saturday, May 22, 2010

Haitian Farmers Commit to Burning Monsanto hybrid seeds



Haitian Farmers Commit to Burning Monsanto Hybrid Seeds

Tuesday 18 May 2010
by: Beverly Bell, t r u t h o u t | Report
photo
Jonas Deronzil from Verrettes has been farming since 1974. Like small producers throughout Haiti, his meager income from corn, rice and beans is threatened by new competition from Monsanto. (Photo: Beverly Bell)
"A new earthquake" is what peasant farmer leader Chavannes Jean-Baptiste of the Peasant Movement of Papay (MPP) called the news that Monsanto will be donating 60,000 seed sacks (475 tons) of hybrid corn seeds and vegetable seeds, some of them treated with highly toxic pesticides. The MPP has committed to burning Monsanto's seeds, and has called for a march to protest the corporation's presence in Haiti on June 4, for World Environment Day.

In an open letter sent May 14, Chavannes Jean-Baptiste, the executive director of MPP and the spokesperson for the National Peasant Movement of the Congress of Papay (MPNKP), called the entry of Monsanto seeds into Haiti "a very strong attack on small agriculture, on farmers, on biodiversity, on Creole seeds ... and on what is left our environment in Haiti."(1) Haitian social movements have been vocal in their opposition to agribusiness imports of seeds and food, which undermines local production with local seed stocks. They have expressed special concern about the import of genetically modified organisms (GMOs).

For now, without a law regulating the use of GMOs in Haiti, the Ministry of Agriculture rejected Monsanto's offer of Roundup Ready GMOs seeds. In an email exchange, a Monsanto representative assured the Ministry of Agriculture that the seeds being donated are not GMOs.

Elizabeth Vancil, Monsanto's director of development initiatives, called the news that the Haitian Ministry of Agriculture approved the donation "a fabulous Easter gift" in an April email.(2) Monsanto is known for aggressively pushing seeds, especially GMOs seeds, in both the global North and South, including through highly restrictive technology agreements with farmers who are not always made fully aware of what they are signing. According to interviews by this writer with representatives of Mexican small farmer organizations, they then find themselves forced to buy Monsanto seeds each year, under conditions they find onerous and at costs they sometimes cannot afford.

The hybrid corn seeds Monsanto has donated to Haiti are treated with the fungicide Maxim XO, and the calypso tomato seeds are treated with thiram.
(3) Thiram belongs to a highly toxic class of chemicals called ethylene bisdithiocarbamates (EBDCs). Results of tests of EBDCs on mice and rats caused concern to the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), which then ordered a special review. The EPA determined that EBDC-treated plants are so dangerous to agricultural workers that they must wear special protective clothing when handling them. 
Pesticides containing thiram must contain a special warning label, the EPA ruled. The EPA also barred marketing of the chemicals for many home garden products, because it assumes that most gardeners do not have adequately protective clothing.
(4) Monsanto's passing mention of thiram to Ministry of Agriculture officials in an email contained no explanation of the dangers, nor any offer of special clothing or training for those who will be farming with the toxic seeds.

Haitian social movements' concern is not just about the dangers of the chemicals and the possibility of future GMOs imports. They claim that the future of Haiti depends on local production with local food for local consumption, in what is called food sovereignty. Monsanto's arrival in Haiti, they say, is a further threat to this.
"People in the US need to help us produce, not give us food and seeds. They're ruining our chance to support ourselves," said farmer Jonas Deronzil of a peasant cooperative in the rural region of Verrettes.(5)

Monsanto's history has long drawn ire from environmentalists, health advocates and small farmers, going back to its production of Agent Orange during the Vietnam war. Exposure to Agent Orange has caused cancer in an untold number of US veterans, and the Vietnamese government claims that 400,000 Vietnamese people were killed or disabled by Agent Orange, and 500,000 children were born with birth defects as a result of their exposure.(6)

Monsanto's former motto, "Without chemicals, life itself would be impossible," has been replaced by "Imagine." Its web site home page claims it "help[s] farmers around the world produce more while conserving more. We help farmers grow yield sustainably so they can be successful, produce healthier foods ... while also reducing agriculture's impact on our environment."(7) The corporation's record does not support the claims.

Together with Syngenta, Dupont and Bayer, Monsanto controls more than half of the world's seeds.(8) The company holds almost 650 seed patents, most of them for cotton, corn and soy, and almost 30 percent of the share of all biotech research and development. Monsanto came to own such a vast supply by buying major seed companies to stifle competition, patenting genetic modifications to plant varieties and suing small farmers. Monsanto is also one of the leading manufacturers of GMOs.

As of 2007, Monsanto had filed 112 lawsuits against US farmers for alleged technology contract violations of GMOs patents, involving 372 farmers and 49 small agricultural businesses in 27 different states. From these, Monsanto has won more than $21.5 million in judgments. The multinational appears to investigate 500 farmers a year, in estimates based on Monsanto's own documents and media reports.(9)

"Farmers have been sued after their field was contaminated by pollen or seed from someone else's genetically engineered crop [or] when genetically engineered seed from a previous year's crop has sprouted, or 'volunteered,' in fields planted with non-genetically engineered varieties the following year," said Andrew Kimbrell and Joseph Mendelson of the Center for Food Safety.(10)

In Colombia, Monsanto has received upwards of $25 million from the US government for providing Roundup Ultra in the antidrug fumigation efforts of Plan Colombia. Roundup Ultra is a highly concentrated version of Monsanto's glyphosate herbicide, with additional ingredients to increase its lethality.
 Colombian communities and human rights organizations have charged that the herbicide has destroyed food crops, water sources and protected areas, and has led to increased incidents of birth defects and cancers.

Vía Campesina, the world's largest confederation of farmers with member organizations in more than 60 countries, has called Monsanto one of the "principal enemies of peasant sustainable agriculture and food sovereignty for all peoples."(11) They claim that as Monsanto and other multinationals control an ever larger share of land and agriculture, they force small farmers out of their land and jobs. They also claim that the agribusiness giants contribute to climate change and other environmental disasters, an outgrowth of industrial agriculture.(12)

The Vía Campesina coalition launched a global campaign against Monsanto last October 16, on International World Food Day, with protests, land occupations and hunger strikes in more than 20 countries. They carried out a second global day of action against Monsanto on April 17 of this year, in honor of Earth Day.

Nongovernmental organizations in the US are challenging Monsanto's practices, too. The Organic Consumers Association has spearheaded the campaign "Millions Against Monsanto," calling on the company to stop intimidating small family farmers, stop marketing untested and unlabeled genetically engineered foods to consumers and stop using billions of dollars of US taypayers' money to subsidize GMOs crops.(13)

The Center for Food Safety has led a four-year legal challenge to Monsanto that has just made it to the US Supreme Court. After successful litigation against Monsanto and the US Department of Agriculture for illegal promotion of Roundup Ready Alfalfa, the court heard the Center for Food Safety's case on April 27. A decision on this first-ever Supreme Court case about GMOs is now pending.(14)

"Fighting hybrid and GMO seeds is critical to save our diversity and our agriculture," Jean-Baptiste said in an interview in February. "We have the potential to make our lands produce enough to feed the whole population and even to export certain products. The policy we need for this to happen is food sovereignty, where the county has a right to define it own agricultural policies, to grow first for the family and then for local market, to grow healthy food in a way which respects the environment and Mother Earth."

Many thanks to Moira Birss for her assistance with research and writing.
1. Group email from Chavannes Jean-Baptiste, May 14, 2010.
2. Email from Elizabeth Vancil to Emmanuel Prophete, director of seeds at the Haitian Ministry of Agriculture, and others; released by the Haitian Ministry of Agriculture, date unavailable.
3. Ibid.
4. Extension Toxicology Network, Pesticide Information Project of the Cooperative Extension Offices of Cornell University, Michigan State University, Oregon State University and University of California at Davis.
5. Jonas Deronzil's comments are from an interview in April. He was not specifically discussing Monsanto.
6. "MSNBC," January 23, 2004. "Study Finds Link Between Agent Orange, Cancer." The Globe and Mail, June 12, 2008. "Last Ghost of the Vietnam War."
7. www.monsanto.com
8. La Vía Campesina, "La Vía Campesina carries out Global Day of Action against Monsanto," October 16, 2009.
9. Center for Food Safety, "Monsanto vs. US Farmers," November 2007.
10. Andrew Kimbrell and Joseph Mendelson, Center for Food Safety, "Monsanto vs. US Farmers," 2005.
11. La Vía Campesina, October 16, 2009, Op. Cit.
12. La Vía Campesina, "La Vía Campesina Call to Action 17 April 2010 - Join the International Day of Peasant Struggle," February 23, 2010.
13. Organic Consumers Association, "Taxpayers Forced to Fund Monsanto's Poisoning of Third World," Finland, Minnesota.
14. Center for Food Security, "Update: CFS Fighting Monsanto in the Supreme Court," May 11, 2010.

Friday, May 14, 2010

Another site for authoritative environmental news

If you aren't getting enough authoritative environmental news, please check link below and consider subscribing.

Greenwire Web site


Gulf Spill: An E&E ReportLife by the Drop: An E&E Report

1. GULF SPILL:
Angry Obama lambastes oil execs, drilling regulators

President Obama today slammed officials of oil companies involved in the massive Gulf of Mexico oil spill for a "ridiculous spectacle" of finger-pointing and blame-shifting this week. Speaking from the Rose Garden, Obama said he "did not appreciate" how officials from BP PLC, Halliburton Co. and Transocean Ltd. handled themselves during congressional hearings into the spill. "The American people could not have been impressed by that display, and I certainly wasn't," he said. "I will not tolerate more finger-pointing or irresponsibility." Saying that the system failed badly, Obama said all parties bear responsibility. "That includes, by the way, the federal government," he said.Go to story #1

AIR AND WATER

Advertisement

LATEST SELECTED HEADLINES

More HeadlinesMORE HEADLINESDaily_logo_lg

Friday, May 14, 2010 -- 07:56 AM

CLIMATE:Kerry-Lieberman bill uses 'fewer buckets' in giving out highly prized allowances

APPROPRIATIONS:Senate panel approves portion of White House request for oil spill funds

OFFSHORE DRILLING:Senate Dems try to fast-track liability cap increase

CLIMATE:Transportation community split over Kerry-Lieberman bill

More HeadlinesMORE HEADLINESEenewspm_logo_lg

Friday, May 14, 2010 -- 04:40 PM

OFFSHORE DRILLING:'Loophole' that let companies skirt NEPA reviews will be closed -- Obama

GULF SPILL:Officials shift containment strategies

CLIMATE:Rehberg, Herseth Sandlin aim to block feds from regulating GHGs

AIR POLLUTION:Appeals court denies industry petition for review of EPA lead rule

Browse All VideosGO TO E&ETV VIDEO GUIDELATEST E&ETV VIDEOS

OnPoint, 05/12/2010

GULF SPILL:Former NOAA general counsel Campbell discusses monetary damages, policy changes(05/12/2010)

OnPoint, 05/11/2010

NUCLEAR:NRC Chairman Jaczko discusses nuclear facility safety(05/11/2010)

OnPoint, 05/10/2010

GULF SPILL:E&E's Soraghan and Straub discuss political impacts of BP incident (05/10/2010)