“Catastrophic Global Warming”, Ecological Brainwashing and World Government

Global Research | Dec 10, 2009

by Olga Chetverikova

After an annual meeting of the Bilderberg Club in May 2009, the establishment of the global management system of institutions seemed to have been given a boost, repeating the plots of American apocalypitc blockbusters.

As soon as the financial top had opted for a lingering crisis, global managers were instructed to work in two major ways: first, to invent a myth about the danger of swine flu pandemic (in order to take control of the national healthcare systems and reorganize the World Health Organization (WHO) into a global healthcare ministry) and impose a threat of global warming to gain control of world natural resources and introduce a unified ‘green’ tax (alongside with creation of a new sub-national managing body- an international ministry of ecology).

Both tasks aim to intimidate the population and thus substantiate any policies undertaken by international organziations. Chairman of the Board of Governors ‘British Petroluem’, Peter Suterlan, once frankly admitted that he would like to impose fear of global warming in order to increase taxes and make people revise their lifestyle.

The implementation of the first scenario suggested by the Bilderberg Club is currently underway.

After the WHO announced the A/H1N1 pandemic on July 11, 2009, a real hysteria was launched in mass media worldwide, and people were told to get prepared for the pandemic in November and undergo vaccination (in 2005 the WHO added an amendment to its Charter which says that duirng a pandemic the organization does not recommend but gives instructions and orders, and the number of vaccines should be no less than 4.6 billion). The operation reached its peak when in late September Barack Obama signed a decree to impose ‘a flu pandemic sanitary emergency’, which means that the citizens could be vaccinated against their will and kept in special quarantine zones. Amid panic, Americans and West Europeans were involved in mass immunization, which unveiled that the pandemic had been paid in order to let pharmaceutical companies thrive on it, and also as a weapon against ‘unwanted’ population (and now we all know what a swine flu vaccine is). It was also used as a so-called ‘innovative’ mechanism of handling political processes- which was so actively used in Ukraine. In view of this, the WHO gained extra powers and strengthened its status.

Now we are witnessing another show titled “The UN Copenhagen climate change conference”, currently held in the Danish capital (it will run through December 18) and aiming to work out a document to limit global emissions and replace the Kyoto Protocol which expires in 2012. Thirty thousand participants, including 60 heads of states and prime mnisters, have arrived there on December,7.

The EU, being one of the major organizers of the summit, had elected its first President, who was immediately described in the media as a creature of the Bilderberg club: on November, 15, a few days before his appointment, Herman Van Rompuy met with the club`s top managers at Val Duchesse castle outside Brussels, where he spoke about the need to revise the mechanism of the EU`s financing and suggested a unified ‘green’ tax which would go directly to Brussels. The fact that the issue was covered in the media proves that members of the Bilderberg Club are no longer going to conceal that they are the real bosses in Europe.

Such confidence annoyed some of the European Parliament members. One of them, an Italian Mario Borghezio, said: “All three candidates (for the role of the EU president) often attended meeting at the Bilderberg club, and I think that they should explain whether they are honest candidates representing their native country or just members of secret groups which had been organized to discuss pressing social and other kinds of issues”. Another MP, an Englishman Nigel Farage criticized Rompuy`s appointment and called him a ‘puppet-leader’ in the hands of Barroso. He even dared to say that the EU is an authoritarian dictatorship ruled by bureaucracy which is not elected by anybody. Commenting on the Lisbon Treaty, Farage told the delegates: “It took you 8,5 years of intimidation, lying and disrespect towards democratic referendums to lobby this deal!”

Immediately after his appointment as the EU President, Van Rompuy (known in Europe as ‘master of compromising’) assured his patrons that he perfectly understood all the tasks he was facing. Speaking at a press-conference, Herman Van Rompuy said that 2009 has become the ‘first year of global management’ (he meant the G20), while the Climate Summit in Copenhagen is a next step in this direction’.

The Danish government carried out a reshuffle and appointed Lykke Friis, pro-dean at the Copenhagen University, as Climate Minister to replace Connie Hedegaard, a member of the Bilderberg Club. The latter swapped her title to First Commissioner on the EU Climate, which was introduced in October 2009 especially in order to control the reduction of CO2 emissions by 20% by the year 2020. Hedegaard is a member of numerous committees and organizations, including the Danish Atlantic Treaty Association led by Robert Gunther.

What goals are being pursued in Copenhagen this time?

Lord Christopher Monckton, former adviser to Margaret Thatcher, explained: “When I read this treaty I see that the authors are talking about the establishment of ‘one world Marxist government’. The second purpose is the transfer of wealth from the countries of the West to third world countries, in satisfaction of what is called, coyly, ‘climate debt’ – because we’ve been burning CO2 and they haven’t. We’ve been screwing up the climate and they haven’t. And the third purpose of this new entity, this government, is enforcement,” Monckton warned. He then noted that the new treaty would be supported by most of the third world countries ‘as they think they will receive money for it’. And the US President will sign it without expecting two thirds of the Senate and the Congress to ratify it.

And the ‘world government’, which would be empowered to interfere in other countries` economic and ecological policies, and the ‘enforcement’- these all are just mechanisms to ‘transfer resources’ which actually means reforming economies of the non-western countries with the use of progressive technologies in order to gain control these resources within that level of consumption permitted in the West that would guarantee a drop in the planet`s population.

It is no secret that the 1992 UN Framework Convention on Climate Change was adopted after the idea of global warming resulting from anthropogenic factors had been promoted among scientists. In 1997 the Kyoto Protocol was prtensented as an international agreement linked to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. The Protocol sets binding targets for 37 industrialized countries and the European community for reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions .These amount to an average of five per cent against 1990 levels over the five-year period 2008-2012. The US, being the world`s biggest emitter of greenhouse gases, has not ratified the Protocol. The EU (now comprising the Baltic States and the countries of Eastern Europe) took the burden of the responsibility to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 8%, Japan and Canada- by 6%. The Protocol limits emission in Russia and Ukraine to a percentage increase or decrease from their 1990 levels. The developing countries, including China and India were not included in numerical limitation of the Kyoto Protocol.

However, the implementation of the Kyoto deal failed to help in resolving environmental problems but added a new commodity to the international market: quota on GHG. It turned into a pure speculation and let the financial capital grasp onto a vital energy sector in the developing countries. Due to their imperfect industrial policies, the developed states could not succeed in modernization and GHG reducing. That is why they found another means to fulfill their obligations: a developed state helps a developing one to reduce emissions and then counts the limited tons of GHG as if those were reduce on its territory. Very soon hundreds of companies and foundations joined this ‘green’ quota games hoping to thrive on it. In the long run, the international environmental market received the strongest expansion ever, and it originally there were only three purchasers: the World Bank, the governments of the Netherlands and Japan, now their number has increased sharply, and professional speculators now make up to 40% of the participants in hydrocarbon exchanges.

Having accepted the conditions, Russia later faced an ambiguous situation: the country has large stocks of free greenhouse gases but this is because in 1990s its industry was in severe crisis, and all emissions then even fell below 30%.

The international community plans to introduce new emission quotas to restrict industrial development and impose western environmental standards that require implementation of very costly projects (and these expenses will never be compensated by the sums earned on ‘green’ quotas trading). And taking into consideration that climate in Russia requires constant expenditures on energy, the country will hardly be able to restore its industrial power.

A group of developed nations have prepared a brand new document especially for the Copenhagen summit. The document says that the divison into developed and developing nations has long become outdated, while today all the states should be obliged to cut GHG emissions and provide assisstance to the poorest countries. The treaty is expected to be legally binding as well so that the states approved new rules at the governmental level. But the differences between the participants were so great that they only managed to agree on a road map plan without discussing the figures.

However, high promises of financial and investment assisstance proved to be more effective than legal mechanisms, and ahead of the summit the leading developing nations followed in the West`s footsteps and pledged GHG emissions cuts by 2020. The EU announced a 20% reduction from the 1990 level, while the US said it will reduce its emissions by 17% from the 2005 level (in accordance with a draft law approved by the House of Representatives). India claimed it wil reduce 20-25%, whiel South Korea and China announced the figures of 30% and 40-45% respectively.

Russian WWF, Greenpeace and Ecoprotection activists said ‘Russia should play the leading role at the talks. We can and should remain at the 1990 level of 30%. And then we shoud proceed with further reduction”. At the Russa-EU summit in November, Dmitry Medvedev said the country would try to reduce its GHG emissions up to 25% by 2020, and added that by 2050 Russia will be ready to cut emission by no less than 50% in comparison to the 1990 level.

This kind of unanimity hides the real differences between the participants of the summit and the gravity of environmental problems and adds fuel to the fire caused by the idea of ‘catastrophic global warming’. Recently, the Prince of Wales Charles has delivered a report in which he said that ‘nations have less than 100 months to act to save the planet from irreversible damage due to climate change.

Global management does everything to hide the real state of affairs. It ignores information and scientific research from alternative sources, especially if the threat of global warming and its anthropogenic factors are being argued (mind the recent leakage of e-mails from the University of East Anglia`s Climatic Research, the so-called ‘climate gate’).

In the past 20 years a powerful system of ecological ‘brainwashing’ has been created which serves the participants in ‘green’ business who can thus control the Earth`s natural resources. But in their attempts to keep the world`s population deluded, global speculators and their servants among politicians have long surpassed reasonable limits.

I remember an old Russian proverb: the devil is scary when you cannot see him but when you do he makes you laugh.

Study: Increased carbon dioxide benefits aspen trees

Star Tribune | Dec 4, 2009

By TOM MEERSMAN

MINNEAPOLIS — Aspen trees, the backbone of Minnesota’s paper industry, are liking the extra carbon dioxide in the air linked to global warming.

New research published Friday found that aspen growth rates increased by 53 percent during the past half-century, as carbon dioxide in the atmosphere increased about 20 percent.

“Trees eat carbon dioxide for a living,” said Don Waller, study author and University of Wisconsin-Madison botany professor.

As carbon dioxide increases in the air, he said, plants can extract more of it and convert it to sugar through photosynthesis. That speeds up their growth.

The results could be especially important for Minnesota and Wisconsin, where aspen is the dominant species on about 7.3 million acres of timberland.

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“It’s the most abundant and the most used species by the forest products industry,” said Tim O’Hara, vice president of forest policy at Minnesota Forest Industries. It is the main species used for paper and certain construction board, he said, and is also used for pallets and other products.

The Wisconsin research is one of the first to study aspen and outdoor carbon dioxide levels in their native forest environment.

Waller and other scientists chose 919 aspen trees, ranging from five to 76 years old, from three regions of Wisconsin. They took core samples from each and analyzed their growth rings. Even accounting for different ages of the trees and rainfall rates over the decades, Waller said, carbon dioxide was the major cause of boosted growth rates.

The study included researchers at the University of Minnesota-Morris, and was published Friday in Global Change Biology, a national journal.

Waller said that the findings do not mean that aspen will continue to grow at ever-faster rates. The species may already be reaching a saturation point on the limits of how much carbon dioxide it can absorb.

“Aspen may have a relative growth edge right now because of this carbon dioxide fertilization effect,” he said. “But that doesn’t mean necessarily that they’re going to continue growing better forever.”

What happens in the woods will be much more complicated and unpredictable, Waller said. Rapid aspen growth and expansion could trigger an insect infestation or sets off a plant disease. It could also reduce the number of other tree species, he said, and change wildlife habitat.

Previous studies by other researchers have found correlations between carbon dioxide and tree growth, but have used growth chambers or greenhouses that piped in elevated concentrations of the gas. Other scientists studying oak and pine have not observed faster growth rates.

Waller said that carbon dioxide is a more powerful influence on growth than he expected.

Still, he said, nothing can counteract drought, which is killing millions of aspen in Canadian prairie provinces, northern plains states and parts of the West. Colorado alone has lost half a million acres of aspen in this decade – a phenomenon known as “sudden aspen decline” – in large part because of acute drought and increased vulnerability to insects.

“The big lesson here is that there are surprises in nature, and that global climate change isn’t just about temperature,” Waller said. “It would be very difficult and unwise to predict all the ecological consequences of this one research result.”

Chemicals used in plastics feminise the brains of little boys ’so that they avoid rough and tumble games’

Study: Chemicals used in plastics can affect babies in the womb

Daily Mail | Nov 16, 2009

By David Derbyshire

Chemicals used in plastics are ‘feminising’ the brains of baby boys, a disturbing study shows.

Those exposed to high doses in the womb are less likely to play with ‘male’ toys such as cars. They are also less willing to join ‘rough and tumble’ games.

The research adds to growing evidence that hormone-disrupting chemicals in thousands of household-products are interfering with the development of children.

Environmental campaigners called the study ‘extremely worrying’ and called for a crackdown.

The study looked at phthalates, chemicals which can mimic the female sex hormone oestrogen.

Some experts believe they are partly to blame for the increase in genital defects in boys and lower sperm counts in men over recent decades.

But the new research is the first to link hormone-mimicking chemicals to behaviour.

There are fears of further effects as the young children in the study grow up.

Although the plastics industry insists phthalates are safe, the EU has banned many of them from cosmetics, teething rings and children’s toys.

But pregnant women are still exposed to phthalates, which are used to soften plastics in household items such as plastic furniture, shoes, PVC flooring and shower curtains.

They can also be transferred to food and drink from plastic packaging. The new study, published in the International Journal of Andrology, was led by Dr Shanna Swan, professor of obstetrics and gynaecology at the University of Rochester in New York State.

Her team tested urine samples from mothers in the 28th week of pregnancy for traces of phthalates.

The women, who gave birth to 74 boys and 71 girls, were contacted again when their children were aged four to seven and asked about the toys the youngsters played with, the activities they liked and their personalities.

The researchers found that higher concentrations of two types of common phthalate – DEHP and DBP – were strongly linked with more feminine play in the boys but had no impact on girls.

The higher-phthalate boys were less likely than other boys to play with cars, trains and guns or engage in rough-and-tumble games such as playfighting.

Professor Swan believes the chemicals reduce levels of the male sex hormone testosterone in unborn babies during a critical window of development between the eighth and 24th week of pregnancy.

This alters the development of the brain as well as male genitals.

She said last night: ‘If replicated, these findings would be of serious concern because they indicate that these common chemicals can significantly alter the development of the male brain.’

A previous study by Dr Swan found that boys whose mothers had the highest phthalate levels were more likely to have undescended testicles and smaller genitals than other baby boys.

In animal studies, males with similar genital changes had lower sperm counts.

Elizabeth Salter-Green, director of the chemicals campaign group CHEM Trust, said last night: ‘These results are extremely worrying. We now know that phthalates, to which we are all constantly exposed, are extremely worrying from a health perspective, leading to disruption-of male reproduction health and, it appears, male behaviour too.

‘This feminising capacity of phthalates makes them true “gender benders”. Clearly the boys who have been studied are still young, but reduced masculine play at this age may lead to other ” feminised development” in later life.

‘This cannot be good news for their long term health and development, or that of our society in general.’

But Tim Edgar of the European Council for Plasticisers and Intermediates said: ‘We need to get some scientific experts to look at this study in more detail before we can make a proper judgment.

‘However, given the simple approach of the research and the relatively small sample of children, I think these results need to be treated with extreme caution. I don’t think anyone should jump to such conclusions without some much more sophisticated research being carried out.’

Al Gore’s Inconvenient Truth sequel program recruits world religions for holy war on changing climate

Al Gore. Photograph by Graeme Robertson

“I’ve done a Christian [-based] training program; I have a Muslim training program and a Jewish training program coming up, also a Hindu program coming up. I trained 200 Christian ministers and lay leaders here in Nashville in a version of the slide show that is filled with scriptural references. It’s probably my favourite version, but I don’t use it very often because it can come off as proselytising.”

Nobel winner adapts fact-based message to reach those who believe they have a moral duty to protect the planet in Our Choice: A Plan to Solve the Climate Crisis

guardian.co.uk | Nov 2, 2009

Al Gore’s Inconvenient Truth sequel stresses spiritual argument on climate

by Suzanne Goldenberg

Al’s Gore’s much-anticipated sequel to An Inconvenent Truth is published today, with an admission that facts alone will not persuade Americans to act on global warming and that appealing to their spiritual side is the way forward.

In his latest book, Our Choice: A Plan to Solve the Climate Crisis, the man who won a Nobel prize in 2007 for his touring slideshow on disappearing polar ice and other consequences of climate change, concludes: “Simply laying out the facts won’t work.”

Instead, Gore tells Newsweek magazine in a pre-publication interview, that he has been adapting his fact-based message – now put out by hundreds of volunteers – to appeal to those who believe there is a moral or religious duty to protect the planet.

“I’ve done a Christian [-based] training program; I have a Muslim training program and a Jewish training program coming up, also a Hindu program coming up. I trained 200 Christian ministers and lay leaders here in Nashville in a version of the slide show that is filled with scriptural references. It’s probably my favourite version, but I don’t use it very often because it can come off as proselytising,” Gore tells Newsweek.

Gore’s book arrives at a time of intense international scrutiny of America’s moves on the environment ahead of an international meeting on global warming at Copenhagen, now just more than a month away.

It draws on the scholarly approach Gore developed for Inconvenient Truth. Since 2007, the former vice-president has been calling experts together from fields ranging from agriculture to neuroscience to discuss possible solutions to climate change.

The book draws on 30 such “solutions summits”, as well as Gore’s countless telephone conversations with scientists at America’s best institutions. According to the book’s press release, “Among the most unique approaches Gore takes in the book is showing readers how our own minds can be an impediment to change.”

New polling last month showed a steep decline in the numbers of Americans who share Gore’s sense of urgency in acting on climate change.

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The book aims to reach those Americans by familiarising readers with emerging alternative energy sources, such as geothermal, biomass and wind power, as well as the possibilities of making cleaner coal power plants, and developing a more efficient and responsive “smart” electrical grid.

Gore also explores how deforestation, soil erosion, and the rising world population are multiplying the effects of rising greenhouse gas emissions.

Much of the material was developed through the series of brainstorming sessions organised by Gore. Since 2007, the former vice-president has been calling experts together to discuss possible solutions to climate change. He has also held countless telephone conversations with scientists at America’s best institutions.

“He is one of the only politicians that takes the time to actually talk to scientists who are producing the cutting-edge stuff and he comes in with questions. He doesn’t ask us how our results impinge on a particular policy he actually asks about science,” said Gavin Schmidt, a climatologist at Nasa’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, who spoke to Gore along with colleagues four or five times for the book. “Nobody that we have dealt with has ever taken as much time to understand the subtlety of the science and all the different complications and what it all means as Al Gore.”

Those conversations led Gore to politically inconvenient conclusions in this new book. In his conversations with Schmidt and other colleagues at the beginning of the year, Gore explored new studies – published only last week – that show methane and black carbon or soot had a far greater impact on global warming than previously thought. Carbon dioxide – while the focus of the politics of climate change – produces around 40% of the actual warming.

Gore acknowledged to Newsweek that the findings could complicate efforts to build a political consensus around the need to limit carbon emissions.

“Over the years I have been among those who focused most of all on CO2, and I think that’s still justified,” he told the magazine. “But a comprehensive plan to solve the climate crisis has to widen the focus to encompass strategies for all” of the greenhouse culprits identified in the Nasa study.

The former vice-president has been working behind the scenes to try to nudge the White House and Congress to move forward on a 920-page proposed law to cut America’s greenhouse gas emissions and encourage its use of clean energy sources like solar and wind power.

On Saturday, he told the German newspaper, Der Spiegel, he was “almost certain” Obama would attend the negotiations. The White House has so far refused to make a commitment.

But Gore has also been confronted with almost daily fresh reminders of the difficulties of prodding Americans to action.

The proposed legislation has set off a ferocious debate about the costs of dealing with climate change – with conservative Democrats and Republicans saying reducing America’s use of oil will deepen unemployment and hurt average American families.

Republicans in the Senate have threatened to boycott a session today that had been called to move forward a draft of a 920-page proposed law to deal with climate change.

Progress on the bill is seen as crucial to getting a binding deal at Copenhagen. Barbara Boxer, the chair of the Senate’s environment and public works committee, said yesterday she was ready to move ahead without any Republican participation.

__________
Glenn Beck-Lord Monckton Debate Global Warming

Zero tolerance for GM foods in Europe

For Europeans, genetic engineering of plant life is ‘sinful’

thehindubusinessline.com | Nov 2, 2009

by Mohan Murti

Food is to European culture what free speech is to American culture. There may not always be a good scientific reason for concern, but to consider eating something that has resulted from some laboratory manoeuvring is felt by many Europeans as a kind of refutation of the true self.

Whether judiciously or not, most Europeans are frightened to death of genetically modified food. And, this is not entirely a matter of Europeans’ falling victim to protectionist propaganda or frenzy. Trying to force genetically modified food down European throats is the surest way to guarantee that they swallow neither the potatoes nor a lot of the tactics to dump GM foods.

More than ever today, Europeans are talking about where their food comes from. Food scares push people towards farmers’ markets and more home-cooked fare made with fresh ingredients.

The Atharva Veda 12:1:62, says

O Mother Earth,

Let thy bosom be free

From sickness and decay

May we through long life

Be active and vigilant

And serve thee with devotion

In most of Europe, this Atharva Veda concept of manipulation-free, local-food movement has been gaining momentum in recent years.

Right Decision

Europeans applaud the recent Indian Government’s pronouncement to postpone its decision on the approval of genetically modified Bt aubergines. There are compelling reasons, Europeans feel, why India cannot afford to ignore the environmental and health risks of genetically modified organisms (GMOs).

In Europe, regulations are being imposed in the Parliament, individual European nations, and some stores themselves have all imposed restrictions on GM foods.

There is virtually no market for GM foods in Europe as consumers and farmers have overwhelmingly rejected them. EU labelling and traceability regulations also give consumers better information to decide.

Several European retailers have a policy of not selling, under their own brand name, any product requiring a GM label in their markets. Most have put this policy in place years ago, and all have quality-control tests and audit systems to exclude GM ingredients. Countries that have planted GM crops on a large scale have seen their exports to Europe crash.

European Scenario

European farmers are rejecting GM crops and turning to ecological farming. They do not want to be at the mercy of bullying multinationals which are threatening to take control of food.

Most of the 27 EU nations are opposed to GMOs because of risks to the environment and the kind of cross-pollination, of which the Spanish farmers and others have complained. They have been calling for the EU’s agreement on authorising such crops, and the evaluation methods used by the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) to be beefed up, notably to put more emphasis on the risks of cross-pollination.

Only a handful of GMOs have been approved for cultivation in the EU; of them, only Monsanto’s MON810 maize, approved in 1998, is so far being grown.

The MON810 case has become a source of transatlantic friction. The US has warned Europe against using environmental issues as an excuse for protectionism.

In Germany, the federal states are responsible for official food surveillance. Each of the 16 states has established at least one laboratory for analysing foods for their content of GMOs and, thereby, for their compliance with labelling regulations. Each year, thousands of foods are tested.

The individual results vary from state to state and year to year, but there is a clear trend.

Foods derived from unauthorised GM crops are usually picked up by the European Rapid Alert System for Food and Feed (RASFF) and turned back at the borders. This system prevents unauthorised products from reaching the European market.

GMO-free label

Since May 2008, it has been possible in Germany to apply the label “without gene technology” to food products. Its primary application is in the identification of foods such as milk or meat, derived from animals for which no genetically modified plants such as maize or soy were used in feed.

The criteria are stricter for other foodstuffs: Neither the application of additives obtained through genetic modification nor the accidental admixture of genetically modified plants is allowed.

The standardised logo is making it easier for consumers to choose food products without gene technology in an informed manner.

No more soy shipments are reaching European shores from the US. After several ships were turned away due to traces of Bt maize MON88017 and MIR604 being found in the cargo, all importers are shying away from the risk of such imports.

Europeans are convinced that contamination of the food-chain with GM ingredients and GMOs would create serious and possibly irreversible economic impacts on farmers.

The resulting economic losses — together with patent infringement lawsuits by the biotechnology companies — are likely to lead to a veritable Pandora’s box of legal actions.

Genie in the Bottle

For Europeans, genetic engineering of plant life is ‘sinful’

Europeans believe that the science of genetic engineering is unpredictable and that this ‘Golden Goose’ of industry is laying some stale, mouldy, rotten eggs.

The author is former Europe Director, CII, and lives in Cologne, Germany.

Uproar as GM canola ‘contaminates’ beehive

A Greenpeace activist takes samples in a genetically modified canola field near Teesdale, east of Geelong. Photo: Jason Souith

The Age | Oct 2, 2009

by ADAM MORTON

GENETICALLY modified canola has jumped containment lines and “contaminated” a commercial beehive in western Victoria, prompting claims that people are not being told enough about what they eat.

Scientific testing on behalf of Greenpeace Australia found Monsanto’s “Roundup Ready” canola strain, which is resistant to some herbicides, had contaminated hives near Bannockburn owned by Edmonds Honey.

Victoria lifted a moratorium on growing GM canola in November 2007 after being advised it could be kept separate from non-GM crops.

Greenpeace spokeswoman Louise Sales said the contamination meant people were being denied choice: anyone buying honey from the affected hive could be eating GM food without knowing it.

She said it showed GM canola was “uncontrollable”. “We’re calling on the Federal Government to keep its election promise — basically not to release GM canola into the environment unless it was produced safe ‘beyond reasonable doubt’. We don’t believe it stands up to that test,” Ms Sales said.

The health effects of GM canola remains contentious, though it is regarded as safe for consumption by the Commonwealth Office of the Gene Technology Regulator and the Australian Academy of Science.

Local farmers and Melbourne restaurateur Dure Dara joined a protest against the spread of GM material into neighbouring crops. The beekeeper affected by the contamination, John Edmonds, was less worried. He was concerned it could affect sales and said labelling should be improved. But he said beekeepers had been using GM cotton for years without negative health impacts.

A spokeswoman for the Federal Government said the health risks of GM canola had been extensively investigated and found not to differ from non-GM canola. GM labelling standards were being reviewed, with a report due mid-next year.

The State Government said the potential impact of GM canola on bee-keepers was considered in a review before the state moratorium was lifted.

Mr Edmonds said he would report the campaigners to police for removing and testing his honey frames.

Mafia ‘was paid to sink ships carrying radioactive cargo’

London Times | Sep 17, 2009

Richard Owen in Rome

About 30 ships containing radioactive and other poisonous refuse may have been scuttled off the Italian coast in an illegal Mafia operation to dispose of dangerous substances at sea.

Italy’s political opposition yesterday demanded an investigation after the wreck of a cargo vessel containing 120 barrels of potentially radioactive waste was found in waters off the southern province of Calabria. Environmental campaigners said that many more ships containing toxic and radioactive rubbish were believed to lie near by.

The discovery of the Cunsky, sunk in 1992, came after her location was revealed to anti-Mafia investigators by Francesco Fonti, a former member of the ’Ndrangheta, or Calabrian Mafia, who has become an informant. Mr Fonti claimed that the Cunsky contained radioactive material.

Mr Fonti has told police that he had used explosives to sink her and two other waste ships. The introduction of tighter European Union environmental legislation in the 1980s made illegal waste disposal a lucrative business for organised crime.

Investigators using a robot submersible filmed the Cunsky lying in 1,600ft of water nearly 20 miles off the coast. They said that the ship’s name was not visible, but it tallies with Mr Fonti’s information. The submersible recorded images of containers marked “toxic”.

Silvestro Greco, head of Calabria’s environment agency, said: “Even without taking into account investigations that suggest over 20 ships were sunk, the government must at least find these two other ships.” He said the presence of toxins and heavy metals in the Mediterranean was a matter of international concern.

Sebastiano Venneri, of the environmental group Legambiente, said that several former ’Ndrangheta members had confirmed that it had been paid to sink ships with radioactive material “over the past 20 years”.

Male bass in many US rivers feminized, study finds

AP | Sep 14, 2009

by Seth Borenstein

WASHINGTON – Government scientists figure that one out of five male black bass in American river basins have egg cells growing inside their sexual organs, a sign of how widespread fish feminizing has become.

The findings come from the U.S. Geological Survey in its first comprehensive examination of intersex fish in America, a problem linked to women’s birth control pills and other hormone treatments that seep into rivers. Sporadic reports of feminized fish have been reported for a few years.

The agency looked at past data from nine river basins — covering about two-thirds of the country — and found that about 6 percent of the nearly 1,500 male fish had a bit of female in them. The study looked at 16 different species, with most not affected.

But the fish most feminized are two of the most sought-after freshwater sportfish: the largemouth and smallmouth, which are part of the black bass family. Those two species were also the most examined with nearly 500 black bass tallied.

“It’s widespread,” said USGS biologist Jo Ellen Hinck. She is the lead author of the study, published online this month in Aquatic Toxicology. She said 44 percent of the sites where black bass were tested had at least one male with egg cells growing inside.

Past studies have linked the problem to endocrine-disrupting hormones, such as estrogen from women’s medicines. While the fish can still reproduce, studies have shown they don’t reproduce as well, Hinck said.

Intersex fish are also seen as a general warning about what some experts see as a wider problem of endocrine disruptors in the environment.

The egg cells growing in the male fish’s gonads can only be seen with a microscope after the fish has been caught and dissected.

The study used data from 1995 to 2004, when the government stopped funding the research. The only river basin examined that didn’t show any problems was Alaska’s Yukon River Basin.

The Southeast, especially the Pee Dee River Basin in North and South Carolina, had the highest rates of feminization. In Bucksport, S.C., 10 of 11 largemouth bass examined were intersex. In parts of the Mississippi River in Minnesota and the Yampa River in Colorado, 70 percent of the smallmouth bass had female signs.

Hinck said black bass seem to be more prone to the problem, but researchers don’t know why. She also found one common carp that was female with bits of male testes growing inside.

China uses fear to hush up poisoned children

Many children have had to be treated for lead poisoning from the Dongling plant

Officials have now ordered doctors to restrict the blood tests for lead poisoning as part of a campaign to stanch the protests.

London Times | Sep 13, 2009

by Michael Sheridan in Changqing, China

At first the villagers could not understand why their bouncing babies turned into small children who refused their food and complained of feeling ill all the time, agitated one moment but listless the next.

Then, early this summer, so many of the youngsters began to sicken after playing in fields of corn around a giant lead smelter, that the puzzlement turned to foreboding.

“We took the children to local hospitals but every time the doctors told us there was no problem,” said one mother.

Eventually, one father became so worried by his son’s convulsions that he telephoned a relative in Xi’an, the capital of Shaanxi province in the centre of China, which has first-class medical facilities.

The family boarded a bus and made the 100-mile journey to Xijing hospital, where tests established that their baby had severe lead poisoning. When they returned, panic spread through the villages.

It was the start of a scandal that would explode onto the front pages of Chinese newspapers, only to vanish because of censorship, intimidation and a local cover-up that has now extended to restricting tests for the children.

The affair highlights the environmental price paid by many ordinary people for economic growth in a state that often ignores their interests.

A total of 851 children in seven villages were found to have excessive levels of lead in their blood. Some had 10 times the limit that China considers safe for children — 100mg per litre of blood. More than 170 were so seriously ill they had to be kept in hospital.

Lead poisoning damages the nervous and reproductive systems. It leads to high blood pressure, anaemia and memory loss. It is especially dangerous to toddlers, pregnant women and unborn children. The damage is usually irreversible.

On August 15, hundreds of farmers went to Fengxiang, the seat of local government, to ask for help. They sat outside its offices for two days but officials took no notice.

The Chinese countryside is supposed to be a place of placid toil but there have been occasions down the ages when it has exploded into violent revolt — and this was one of them.

On August 17, the farmers massed in their hundreds around the walls of the Dongling Lead and Zinc Smelting Company, a huge industrial complex looming above the rolling Shaanxi wheatfields.

They tore down part of a wall, broke into offices, wrecked computers, smashed cars, stoned the coal delivery lorries, blocked the factory’s railway tracks and sabotaged machinery. The managers fled.

The authorities sent thousands of police and plain-clothes security men to cordon off the villages. Running battles broke out along the rural roads and in muddy yards. “Hundreds of young men ran away to escape arrest,” said a villager.

The next day Dai Zhengshe, the mayor of Baoji, the nearest city, came to plead for calm.

China’s rulers were on the alert for trouble ahead of a grand celebration of 60 years of Communist party rule on October 1, so they did not want to take chances. Dai ordered the closure of the smelter.

That was the end of the story, as far as the Chinese media were concerned. It became an example of benevolent government intervention. As for the international media, police and plain-clothes toughs harassed reporters and threatened local people with dire consequences if they talked.

Then similar protests broke out in three other provinces, where horrified parents living near smelters of lead, copper and aluminium also learnt that their children had been poisoned — 1,300 of them in one city alone.

The spotlight moved on, local officials breathed sighs of relief and the young fathers stayed in hiding, all too aware of the state’s sly habit of concession followed by revenge.

The air still reeks in Changqing, the township that includes the plant and the tiny villages clustered around it. The corn has wilted and green vegetables planted in rows up to the smelter’s walls look pallid. The police cars and unmarked SUVs that kept reporters out are still there but in the soft rain of a central Chinese summer, the functionaries of the law prefer to stay dry.

By hiding in the back seat of a rural taxi, it was possible to slip past the roadblocks and enter the villages, where families eyed strange vehicles with suspicion. A few children played in the farmyards.

“You can see my house is only 50 metres from the lead factory,” said Zhang Mintian, a farmer. “On sunny days I couldn’t see the sun. On summer evenings I couldn’t open the windows, even though it was terribly hot. My nose and my ears were full of lead dust and smoke.”

Most of the 3,000 inhabitants of Madaokou, previously a thriving market crossroads, have gone. Of the seven villages that rose in revolt, this is the closest to the plant, right next to the walls.

“Why did our young people run away? They’re afraid of being arrested because it was they who tore down the wall,” said a man in his sixties.

“Who’d stay here?” asked an old lady, Bai Xiuying. “If you’re a man, how will you find a wife who wants to come and live in a poisoned village? If you’re a girl, who’s going to marry you if you come from here?”

Bai Xiyun, the oldest villager, added: “As an old man of 82 I feel guilty that I’m still living in this world when 800 babies have got lead poisoning. I know children mean the future. I wish I could change places with them.”

Children are doubly precious in the Chinese countryside because of the nation’s birth control policy. Most families in Changqing are allowed to have a second child if their first is a girl but they must wait four years between births. Families still prize a male child who will carry on the clan name.

So when a little boy falls sick it is a dreadful omen to the traditionally minded farmers, who keep Taoist altars in their homes and adorn their gateposts with auspicious sayings in characters of red and gold.

Cradling her one-year-old grandson, a woman in the village of Sunjianantou told how his family had slept by his bed for a fortnight in the bleak local hospital. The level of lead in his blood had been three times normal until he was treated.

Inquiries made last week have revealed that officials have now ordered doctors to restrict the blood tests for lead poisoning as part of a campaign to stanch the protests.

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Swiss company mislead public on dangerous chemical in water bottles

Anger With Swiss Bottle Company Grows Into Backlash

KTVU | Sep 10, 2009

SAN FRANCISCO — A backlash is growing against the Swiss makers of a certain type of metal water bottle as some consumers accused the company of misleading the public about whether a possibly dangerous compound was used in the process of making the bottles.

Popular with outdoors enthusiasts and hikers, Sigg brand metal water bottles have long been a badge of the environmental awareness for those aiming to avoid the waste of drinking water sold in plastic bottles.

It started three years ago when studies suggested the organic compound Bisphenol A — commonly referred to as BPA — found in many plastics might disrupt hormones. Sales of plastic water bottles tanked while sales of Sigg’s lined aluminum took off.

The company’s green-marketing campaign carefully avoided saying whether BPA was in its products. As it turns out, the bottle liners did contain the compound.

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BPA: Low Doses Are Poisonous, Too

Some people are saying they will never buy from the company again.

“I bought the Sigg bottles thinking they didn’t have it in there, but they did in fact have it,” said San Francisco resident Mai Mai Wythes. “I feel cheated and lied to.”

At the Sports Basement in San Francisco Thursday, Wythes exchanged an old Sigg bottle for a free new one that she plans to donate. She said that she won’t buy any more Sigg products.

Oakland mother of two and environmental activist Julie Silas was concerned about Bisphenol A. She emailed Sigg with direct questions and got what she described as “wishy-washy answers.” She dumped her Sigg bottles in disgust.

“[I’m] absolutely outraged with Sigg,” said Silas. “It was misleading, it was green-washing in every way.”

Oakland’s Environmental Working Group first reported BPA was in Sigg’s bottle linings 2 years ago.

“We were surprised and really disappointed,” said the organization’s Renee Sharp.

The Swiss company emailed threats of a lawsuit, demanding retractions. The activists refused, but deleted references to Sigg in its report.

Now Sigg has released a statement admitting BPA was in its bottles all along until a change in production just 13 months ago. The company now apologizes for its “lack of clarity.”

“Just like you learned in kindergarten, tell the truth. Because the lies will get you in deeper,” said Sharp.