BREAKING: Glyphosate is “probable human carcinogen” – WHO’s cancer agency IARC’s verdict comes as glyphosate "RoundUp" is set to be re-approved in Europe this year | |
The
World Health Organisation’s cancer agency has declared the world’s most
widely used weedkiller a “probable human carcinogen” in a move that
will alarm the agrochemical industry and amateur gardeners.
The assessment by the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) of glyphosate, which is used in herbicides with estimated annual sales of $6bn, will be of special concern to Monsanto, the company that brought glyphosate to market under the trade name Roundup in the 1970s. Over 80% of GM crops worldwide are engineered to be grown with the herbicide. The IARC has no regulatory role and its decisions do not automatically lead to bans or restrictions, but campaigners are expected to use them to put pressure on regulators. The IARC reached its decision based on the view of 17 experts from 11 countries, who met in Lyon, France, to assess the carcinogenicity of 5 organophosphate pesticides. The IARC’s assessment of the 5 pesticides is published in the latest issue of The Lancet Oncology. Europe is set to re-approve glyphosate this year. The IARC assessment is here (register to gain free access): http://www.thelancet.com/ Financial Times article behind paywall: http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/ The response by the pesticide industry association, the Glyphosate Task Force, is here: http://www.wmcactionnews5.com/
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Friday, March 20, 2015
WHO REPORT: "ROUNDUP" - GLYPHOSATE A LIKELY HUMAN CARCINOGEN
Tuesday, March 17, 2015
CONGRESS ALERTS OBAMA: 90% EXTINCTION OF MONARCHs DUE TO GMOs
52 House Democrats tell Obama the chief cause of decline of monarch butterflies is GMO crops | |
|
52
Democrat Members of the US Congress have written to President Obama
telling him that the chief cause of the 90% decline in monarch butterfly
populations is GM herbicide-tolerant crops. Glyphosate herbicides
sprayed on the GM crops have wiped out the monarchs’ food, milkweed.
The letter says, “With the advent of herbicide-resistant genetically engineered crops, the use of herbicides like glyphosate has increased from less than 20 million pounds per year in 1992 to over 250 million pounds per year in 2011. “As a result, researchers now estimate that more than half of milkweed has been wiped out in the Midwestern Farm Belt since 1999, and more than 98% of milkweed has been wiped out from corn and soybean areas in Iowa due to the widespread overuse of glyphosate.” The Members of Congress say that they appreciate efforts by farmers and others to plant milkweed, but warn that “without a sea-change in how the federal government address the use of herbicides, especially as applied to herbicide-resistant crops, vital monarch habitats will simply continue to disappear.” The letter recommends bringing monarchs – which were plentiful before GM herbicide-tolerant crops were widely planted – under the protection of the Endangered Species Act. This would give legal muscle to attempts to protect the monarchs and enable sanctions against those who kill or endanger them. It’s hard to imagine that anything short of a phase-out of herbicide-tolerant crops will save the monarch. The letter is available here: http://gmwatch.us6.list-
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GMOS - WHO OWNS THE STORY AROUND THE PLANET
The Geopolitics of GMOs
Seeds of Power
Genetically modified organisms (GMOs) are not essential for feeding the world (see this and this),
but if by some massive stretch of the imagination they were to lead to
increased productivity, did not harm the environment and did not
negatively impact biodiversity and human health, would we be wise to
embrace them anyhow?
The fact is that GMO technology would still be owned and controlled by certain very powerful interests. In their hands, this technology is first and foremost an instrument of corporate power, a tool to ensure profit. Beyond that, it is intended to serve US global geopolitical interests. Indeed, agriculture has for a long time been central to US foreign policy.
In his book ‘Seeds of Destruction’, William Engdahl traces how the oil-rich Rockefeller family translated its massive wealth into political clout and set out to capture agriculture in the US and then globally via the ‘green revolution’. Along with its big-dam, water-intensive infrastructure requirements, this form of agriculture made farmers dependent on corporate-controlled petroproducts and entrapped them and nations into dollar dependency and debt. GMOs represent more of the same due to the patenting and the increasing monopolization of seeds by a handful of mainly US companies, such as Monsanto, DuPont and Bayer.
In India, Monsanto has sucked millions from agriculture in recent years via royalties, and farmers have been compelled to spend beyond their means to purchase seeds and chemical inputs. A combination of debt, economic liberalization and ashift to (GMO) cash crops (cotton) has caused hundreds of thousands of farmers to experience economic distress, while corporations have extracted huge profits. Over 270,000 farmers in India have committed suicide since the mid to late nineties.
In SouthAmerica, there are similar stories of farmers and indigenous peoples being forced from their lands and experiencing violent repression as GMOs and industrial-scale farming take hold. It is similar in Africa, where Monsanto and The Gates Foundation are seeking to further transform small-scale farming into a corporate controlled model. They call it ‘investing’ in agriculture as if this were an act of benevolence.
Agriculture is the bedrock of many societies, yet it is being recast for the benefit of rich agritech, retail and food processing concerns. Small farms are under immense pressure and food security is being undermined, not least because the small farm produces most of the world’s food. Whether through land grabs and takeovers, the production of (non-food) cash crops for export, greater chemical inputs or seed patenting and the eradication of seed sharing among farmers, profits are guaranteed for agritech corporations and institutional land investors.
The recasting of agriculture in the image of big agribusiness continues across the globe despite researchers saying that this chemical-intensive, high-energy consuming model means Britain only has 100 harvests left because of soil degradation. In Punjab, the ‘green revolution’ model of industrial scale, corporate dominated agriculture has led to a crisis in terms of severe water shortages, increasing human cancers and falling productivity. There is a global agrarian crisis. The increasingly dominant corporate-driven model is unsustainable.
More ecological forms of agriculture are being called for that, through intelligent crop management and decreased use of chemical inputs, would be able to not only feed the world but also work sustainably with the natural environment. Numerous official reports and scientific studies have suggested that such policies would be more appropriate, especially for poorer countries (see this, this and this).
When on occasion the chemical-industrial model indicates that it does deliver better yields than more traditional methods (a generalization and often overstated), even this is a misrepresentation. Better yields but only with massive chemical inputs from corporations and huge damage to health and the environment as well as ever more resource-driven conflicts to grab the oil that fuels this model. Like the erroneous belief that economic ‘growth’ (GDP) is stimulated just because there becomes greater levels of cash flows in an economy (and corporate profits are boosted), the notion of improved agricultural ‘productivity’ also stems from a set of narrowly defined criteria.
The dominant notions that underpin economic ‘growth’, modern agriculture and ‘development’ are based on a series of assumption that betray a mindset steeped in arrogance and contempt: the planet should be cast in an urban-centic, ethnocentric model whereby the rural is to be looked down on, nature must be dominated, farmers are a problem to be removed from the land and traditional ways are backward and in need of remedy.
It is interesting (and disturbing) to note that ‘developing’ nations account for more than 80% of world population, but consume only about a third of the world’s energy. US citizens constitute 5% of the world’s population, but consume 24% of the world’s energy. On average, one American consumes as much energy as two Japanese, six Mexicans, 13 Chinese, 31 Indians, 128 Bangladeshis, 307 Tanzanians and 370 Ethiopians.
Despite the environmental and social devastation caused, the outcome is regarded as successful just because business interests that benefit from this point to a growth in GDP. Chopping down an entire forest that people had made a living sustainably from for centuries and selling the timber, selling more poisons to spray on soil or selling pharmaceuticals to address the health impacts of the petrochemical food production model would indeed increase GDP, wouldn’t it? It’s all good for business. And what is good for business is good for everyone else, or so the lie goes.
Biotechnological innovations have always had a role to play in improving agriculture, but the post-1945 model of agriculture has been driven by powerful corporations like Monsanto, which are firmly linked to Pentagon and Wall Street interests. Motivated by self-interest but wrapped up in trendy PR about ‘feeding the world’ or imposing austerity to ensure prosperity, the publicly stated intentions of the US state-corporate cabal should never be taken at face value.
In India, Monsanto and Walmart had a major role in drawing up the Knowledge Initiative on Agriculture. Monsanto now funds research in public institutions and its presence and influence compromises what should in fact be independent decision and policy making bodies. Monsanto is a driving force behind what could eventually lead to the restructuring and subjugation of India by the US. The IMF and Monsanto are also working to ensure Ukraine’s subservience to US geopolitical aims via the capture of land and agriculture. The capture of agriculture (and societies) by rich interests is a global phenomenon.
Only the completely naive would believe that rich institutional investors in land and big agribusiness and its backers in the US State Department have humanity’s interests at heart. At the very least, their collective aim is profit. Beyond that and to facilitate it, the need to secure US global hegemony is paramount.
The science surrounding GMOs is becoming increasingly politicized and bogged down in detailed arguments about whose methodologies, results, conclusions and science show what and why. The bigger picture however is often in danger of being overlooked. GMO is not just about ‘science’. As an issue, GMO and the chemical-industrial model it is linked to is ultimately a geopolitical one driven by power and profit.
Colin Todhunter is an extensively published independent writer and former social policy researcher based in the UK and India.
Source: http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/03/13/the-geopolitics-of-gmos/
The fact is that GMO technology would still be owned and controlled by certain very powerful interests. In their hands, this technology is first and foremost an instrument of corporate power, a tool to ensure profit. Beyond that, it is intended to serve US global geopolitical interests. Indeed, agriculture has for a long time been central to US foreign policy.
“American foreign policy has almost always been based on agricultural exports, not on industrial exports as people might think. It’s by agriculture and control of the food supply that American diplomacy has been able to control most of the Third World. The World Bank’s geopolitical lending strategy has been to turn countries into food deficit areas by convincing them to grow cash crops – plantation export crops – not to feed themselves with their own food crops.” Professor Michael Hudson.The Project for a New American Century and the Wolfowitz Doctrine show that US foreign policy is about power, control and ensuring global supremacy at any cost. Part of the plan for attaining world domination rests on the US controlling agriculture and hijacking food sovereignty and nations’ food security.
In his book ‘Seeds of Destruction’, William Engdahl traces how the oil-rich Rockefeller family translated its massive wealth into political clout and set out to capture agriculture in the US and then globally via the ‘green revolution’. Along with its big-dam, water-intensive infrastructure requirements, this form of agriculture made farmers dependent on corporate-controlled petroproducts and entrapped them and nations into dollar dependency and debt. GMOs represent more of the same due to the patenting and the increasing monopolization of seeds by a handful of mainly US companies, such as Monsanto, DuPont and Bayer.
In India, Monsanto has sucked millions from agriculture in recent years via royalties, and farmers have been compelled to spend beyond their means to purchase seeds and chemical inputs. A combination of debt, economic liberalization and ashift to (GMO) cash crops (cotton) has caused hundreds of thousands of farmers to experience economic distress, while corporations have extracted huge profits. Over 270,000 farmers in India have committed suicide since the mid to late nineties.
In SouthAmerica, there are similar stories of farmers and indigenous peoples being forced from their lands and experiencing violent repression as GMOs and industrial-scale farming take hold. It is similar in Africa, where Monsanto and The Gates Foundation are seeking to further transform small-scale farming into a corporate controlled model. They call it ‘investing’ in agriculture as if this were an act of benevolence.
Agriculture is the bedrock of many societies, yet it is being recast for the benefit of rich agritech, retail and food processing concerns. Small farms are under immense pressure and food security is being undermined, not least because the small farm produces most of the world’s food. Whether through land grabs and takeovers, the production of (non-food) cash crops for export, greater chemical inputs or seed patenting and the eradication of seed sharing among farmers, profits are guaranteed for agritech corporations and institutional land investors.
The recasting of agriculture in the image of big agribusiness continues across the globe despite researchers saying that this chemical-intensive, high-energy consuming model means Britain only has 100 harvests left because of soil degradation. In Punjab, the ‘green revolution’ model of industrial scale, corporate dominated agriculture has led to a crisis in terms of severe water shortages, increasing human cancers and falling productivity. There is a global agrarian crisis. The increasingly dominant corporate-driven model is unsustainable.
More ecological forms of agriculture are being called for that, through intelligent crop management and decreased use of chemical inputs, would be able to not only feed the world but also work sustainably with the natural environment. Numerous official reports and scientific studies have suggested that such policies would be more appropriate, especially for poorer countries (see this, this and this).
When on occasion the chemical-industrial model indicates that it does deliver better yields than more traditional methods (a generalization and often overstated), even this is a misrepresentation. Better yields but only with massive chemical inputs from corporations and huge damage to health and the environment as well as ever more resource-driven conflicts to grab the oil that fuels this model. Like the erroneous belief that economic ‘growth’ (GDP) is stimulated just because there becomes greater levels of cash flows in an economy (and corporate profits are boosted), the notion of improved agricultural ‘productivity’ also stems from a set of narrowly defined criteria.
The dominant notions that underpin economic ‘growth’, modern agriculture and ‘development’ are based on a series of assumption that betray a mindset steeped in arrogance and contempt: the planet should be cast in an urban-centic, ethnocentric model whereby the rural is to be looked down on, nature must be dominated, farmers are a problem to be removed from the land and traditional ways are backward and in need of remedy.
“People are perceived as ‘poor’ if they eat food they have grown rather than commercially distributed junk foods sold by global agri-business. They are seen as poor if they live in self-built housing made from ecologically well-adapted materials like bamboo and mud rather than in cinder block or cement houses. They are seen as poor if they wear garments manufactured from handmade natural fibres rather than synthetics.” Vandana ShivaWestern corporations are to implement the remedy by determining policies at the World Trade Organization, IMF and World Bank (with help from compliant politicians and officials) in order to depopulate rural areas and drive folk to live in cities to then strive for a totally unsustainable, undeliverable, environment-destroying, conflict-driving, consumerist version of the ‘American Dream’.
It is interesting (and disturbing) to note that ‘developing’ nations account for more than 80% of world population, but consume only about a third of the world’s energy. US citizens constitute 5% of the world’s population, but consume 24% of the world’s energy. On average, one American consumes as much energy as two Japanese, six Mexicans, 13 Chinese, 31 Indians, 128 Bangladeshis, 307 Tanzanians and 370 Ethiopians.
Despite the environmental and social devastation caused, the outcome is regarded as successful just because business interests that benefit from this point to a growth in GDP. Chopping down an entire forest that people had made a living sustainably from for centuries and selling the timber, selling more poisons to spray on soil or selling pharmaceuticals to address the health impacts of the petrochemical food production model would indeed increase GDP, wouldn’t it? It’s all good for business. And what is good for business is good for everyone else, or so the lie goes.
“Corporations as the dominant institution shaped by capitalist patriarchy thrive on eco-apartheid. They thrive on the Cartesian legacy of dualism which puts nature against humans. It defines nature as female and passively subjugated. Corporatocentrism is thus also androcentric – a patriarchal construction. The false universalism of man as conqueror and owner of the Earth has led to the technological hubris of geo-engineering, genetic engineering, and nuclear energy. It has led to the ethical outrage of owning life forms through patents, water through privatization, the air through carbon trading. It is leading to appropriation of the biodiversity that serves the poor.” Vandana ShivaThe ‘green revolution’ and now GMOs are ultimately not concerned with feeding the world, securing well-rounded nutritious diets or ensuring health and environmental safety. (In fact, India now imports foods that it used to grow but no longer does; in Africa too, local diets are becoming less diverse and less healthy). Such notions are based on propaganda or stem from well-meaning sentiments that have been pressed into the service of corporate interests.
Biotechnological innovations have always had a role to play in improving agriculture, but the post-1945 model of agriculture has been driven by powerful corporations like Monsanto, which are firmly linked to Pentagon and Wall Street interests. Motivated by self-interest but wrapped up in trendy PR about ‘feeding the world’ or imposing austerity to ensure prosperity, the publicly stated intentions of the US state-corporate cabal should never be taken at face value.
In India, Monsanto and Walmart had a major role in drawing up the Knowledge Initiative on Agriculture. Monsanto now funds research in public institutions and its presence and influence compromises what should in fact be independent decision and policy making bodies. Monsanto is a driving force behind what could eventually lead to the restructuring and subjugation of India by the US. The IMF and Monsanto are also working to ensure Ukraine’s subservience to US geopolitical aims via the capture of land and agriculture. The capture of agriculture (and societies) by rich interests is a global phenomenon.
Only the completely naive would believe that rich institutional investors in land and big agribusiness and its backers in the US State Department have humanity’s interests at heart. At the very least, their collective aim is profit. Beyond that and to facilitate it, the need to secure US global hegemony is paramount.
The science surrounding GMOs is becoming increasingly politicized and bogged down in detailed arguments about whose methodologies, results, conclusions and science show what and why. The bigger picture however is often in danger of being overlooked. GMO is not just about ‘science’. As an issue, GMO and the chemical-industrial model it is linked to is ultimately a geopolitical one driven by power and profit.
Colin Todhunter is an extensively published independent writer and former social policy researcher based in the UK and India.
Source: http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/03/13/the-geopolitics-of-gmos/
New Database: Big Business TAX EVADING WELFARE QUEENS Dominate Federal Subsidies
New Database Shows Big Business Dominates Federal Subsidies
Contact: Philip Mattera (202) 232-1616 ext. 212; pmattera@goodjobsfirst.org
Federal "Corporate Welfare" Database Now Online
Study: Large Corporations Dominate Federal Subsidy Awards; Banks, Foreign-Owned Energy Firms and Federal Contractors Among the Biggest Recipients
Study: Large Corporations Dominate Federal Subsidy Awards; Banks, Foreign-Owned Energy Firms and Federal Contractors Among the Biggest Recipients
Washington, DC, March 17, 2015--Two-thirds
of the $68 billion in business grants and special tax credits awarded
by the federal government over the past 15 years have gone to large
corporations. During the same period, federal agencies have given the
private sector hundreds of billions of dollars in loans, loan guarantees
and bailout assistance, with the largest share going to major U.S. and
foreign banks.
These are key findings of Uncle Sam's Favorite Corporations,
a study with accompanying database released today by Good Jobs First, a
non-profit and non-partisan research center on economic development
accountability based in Washington, DC. They derive from the first
comprehensive compilation of company-specific federal subsidy data. The
study and database are available at www.goodjobsfirst.org.
The
database, which collects more than 160,000 awards from 137 programs,
expands Good Jobs First's Subsidy Tracker, which since 2010 has posted
economic development data from states and localities. The federal data
was enhanced with Good Jobs First's proprietary subsidiary-parent
matching system, enabling users to see individual entries linked to more
than 1,800 corporate parents, along with each parent's total subsidies.
"For
more than 20 years, so-called corporate welfare has been debated widely
with little awareness of which companies were receiving most of the
federal assistance," said Good Jobs First Executive Director Greg LeRoy.
"We
now see that big business dominates federal subsidy spending the way it
does state and local programs," said Philip Mattera, principal author
of the study and creator of Subsidy Tracker. "Our hope is that the new Subsidy Tracker will serve as a resource in the ongoing debates over federal assistance to business," Mattera added.
Other key findings:
- Six parent companies have received $1 billion or more in federal grants and allocated tax credits
(those awarded to specific companies) since 2000; 21 have received $500
million or more; and 98 have received $100 million or more. Just 582
large companies account for 67 percent of the $68 billion total.
- The
largest recipient of grants and allocated tax credits is the Spanish
energy company Iberdrola, which acquired them by investing heavily in
U.S. power generation facilities, including wind farms that have made
use of a renewable energy provision of the 2009 Recovery Act.
Iberdrola's subsidy total is $2.2 billion. Other top grant/allocated tax
credit recipients include NextEra Energy (parent of Florida Power &
Light), NRG Energy, Southern Company, Summit Power and SCS Energy, each
with more than $1 billion. The results exclude the numerous corporate
tax breaks that cannot be attributed to individual companies.
- Mainly
driven by the massive programs launched by the Federal Reserve in 2008
to buy up toxic securities and provide liquidity in the wake of the
financial meltdown, the total face value of loans, loan guarantees and bailout assistance
run into the trillions of dollars. These include numerous short-term
rollover loans, so the actual amounts outstanding at any given time,
which are not reported, were lower but likely amounted to hundreds of
billions of dollars. Since most of these loans were repaid, and in some
cases the government made a profit on the lending, we tally the loan and
bailout amounts separately from grants and allocated tax credits.
- The
biggest aggregate bailout recipient is Bank of America, whose gross
borrowing (excluding repayments) is just under $3.5 trillion (including
the amounts for its Merrill Lynch and Countrywide Financial
acquisitions). Three other banks are in the trillion-dollar club:
Citigroup ($2.6 trillion), Morgan Stanley ($2.1 trillion) and JPMorgan
Chase ($1.3 trillion, including Bear Stearns and Washington Mutual). A
dozen U.S. and foreign banks account for 78 percent of total face value
of loans, loan guarantees and bailout assistance.
- A
small number of companies have obtained large subsidies at all levels
of government. Eleven parent companies among the 50 largest recipients
of federal grants and allocated tax credits are also among the top 50
recipients of state and local subsidies. Six of the 50 largest
recipients of federal loans, loan guarantees and bailout assistance are
also on that state/local list. Five companies appear on both federal
lists and the state/local list: Boeing, Ford Motor, General Electric,
General Motors and JPMorgan Chase.
- Foreign direct investment accounts for a substantial portion of subsidies. Ten of the 50 parent companies receiving the most in federal grants and allocated tax credits are foreign-based; most of their subsidies were linked to their energy facilities in the United States.
- The
Federal Reserve aided a large number of foreign companies in its
efforts to stabilize banks that had acquired toxic securities
originating mainly in the United States. Thanks largely to those
programs, 27 of the 50 biggest recipients of federal loans, loan
guarantees and bailout assistance were foreign banks and other financial
companies, including Barclays with $943 billion, Royal Bank of Scotland
with $652 billion and Credit Suisse with $532 billion. In all cases
these amounts involve rollover loans and exclude repayments.
- A
significant share of companies that sell goods and services to the U.S.
government also get subsidized by it. Of the 100 largest for-profit
federal contractors in FY2014 (excluding joint ventures), 49 have
received federal grants or allocated tax credits and 30 have received
loans, loan guarantees or bailout assistance. Two dozen have received
both forms of assistance. The federal contractor with the most grants
and allocated tax credits is General Electric, with $836 million, mostly
from the Energy and Defense Departments; the one with the most loans
and loan guarantees is Boeing, with $64 billion in assistance from the
Export-Import Bank.
- There
is also a link to the current debate over so-called tax "inversions."
Federal subsidies have gone to several companies that have
reincorporated abroad to avoid U.S. taxes. For example, power equipment
producer Eaton (reincorporated in Ireland but actually based in Ohio)
has received $32 million in grants and allocated tax credits as well as
$7 million in loans and loan guarantees from the Export-Import Bank and
other agencies. Oilfield services company Ensco (reincorporated in
Britain but really based in Texas) has received $1 billion in support
from the Export-Import Bank.
- Finally, some highly subsidized banks have been involved in cases of misconduct. In the years since receiving their bailouts, several at the top of the recipient list for loans, loan guarantees and bailout assistance have paid hundreds of millions, or billions of dollars to U.S. and European regulators to settle allegations such as investor deception, interest rate manipulation, foreign exchange market manipulation, facilitation of tax evasion by clients, and sanctions violations.
-30-
|
Thank you for your interest.
Sincerely,
|
Greg LeRoy, Good Jobs First
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