Environment Archives - Page 87 of 107

Extreme weather, more extreme greenhouse gas emissions beckon urgent activism

Patrick Bond; Source: Climate Connections

The northern hemisphere summer has just peaked and though the torrid heat is now ebbing, it is evident the climate crisis is far more severe than most scientists had anticipated. The latest report of the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change – a notoriously conservative research agency – will be debated in Stockholm next month, but no one can deny its projections: “widespread melting of land ice, extreme heat waves, difficulty growing food and massive changes in plant and animal life, probably including a wave of extinctions.”

Even worse is coming, for a giant Arctic Ocean “belch” of 50 billion tonnes of methane is inexorably escaping from seabed permafrost, according to scientists writing in the journal Nature. North Pole ice is now, at maximum summer heat, only 40 per cent as thick as it was just 40 years ago, a crisis only partially represented in the vivid image of a temporary “lake” that submerged the pole area last month.

The damage that will unfold after the burp, according to leading researchers from Cambridge and Erasmus Universities, could cost $60 trillion, about a year’s world economic output. Global warming will speed up by 15-35 years as a result.

With these revelations, it is impossible to mask the self-destructive greed of fossil-fuel firms and their carbon-addicted customers. The ruling crew in the United States, Russia and Canada will enthusiastically let oil companies exploit the soon-to-be ice-free Arctic summers with intensified drilling, joined by unprecedented bunker-fuel-burning in the newly opening shipping lanes.

Heat blowback in the US, China and Durban

But the extreme weather that necessarily results has just hit China, whose world-record CO2 emissions – mainly a result of producing junk purchased by wealthier countries which have outsourced their industrial emissions to East Asia – generate as a byproduct not only thick layers of smog in the main cities. There were also scores of heat-related deaths earlier this month. Shanghai suffered 10 straight days above 38C, with temperatures in some places high enough to use a sidewalk to fry eggs and prawns.

In the second-biggest greenhouse gas emitter (and biggest historically), the western United States is suffering a brutal drought, so severe that 86 per cent of New Mexico’s water supply evaporated, extreme wildfires broke out – this week, for example, scorching Yosemite Park’s legendary redwoods and threatening San Francisco’s water supply – while California’s Death Valley temperatures soared to 50C.

The effects are highly uneven, with environmental-justice research now proving that as climate change hits US cities, the wealthy turn up the air conditioner while the poor – and especially black and Latino people – suffer in “heat islands”. Likewise, poor people in the Himalayan mountains died in their thousands as a result of last month’s floods.

In Alaska, a source of enormous oil extraction, record temperatures in the 30s left thousands of fish dead. The effect of global warming on the oceans is to push marine life towards the poles by seven kilometres each year, as numerous species attempt to find cooler waters.

The impact here in South Africa, from East London to Durban, was a disaster for the local fishing industry last month, as billions of sardines which annually swim to shore stayed away due to warmer waters.

Can shipping survive the climate chaos it causes?

And here along the Indian Ocean, more local climate damage comes from – and is also visited upon – the shipping industry. In the world’s largest coal export site, South Africa’s Richards Bay harbour, an idiot captain of the China-bound MV Smart (sic) tried to exit the port in 10-metre swells on August 20 with a load of nearly 150,000 tonnes of coal and 1700 tonnes of oil. He promptly split the huge ship in half on a sandbank.

This followed by hours the strategic offshore sinking of a Nigeria-bound cargo ship, Kiani Satu, which had run aground a week earlier, further down the coast, close to a nature reserve and marine protected area. As plans were made to extract 300 tonnes of oil from the boat, more than 15 tonnes spilled, requiring the cleaning of more than 200 oil-coated seabirds.

The maniacs whose ships now rest at the bottom of the Indian Ocean can identify with the fly-by-night owners of the MT Phoenix, after that ship’s willful self-destruction off the Durban north coast holiday resorts exactly two years ago. Taxpayers spent $4 million pumping out 400 tonnes of oil and then towing the Phoenix out deeper to sink. A few weeks ago, that salvage operation’s contested audit resulted in the implosion of the South African Maritime Safety Authority.

These are just some surface-level indications that our shipping industry is utterly ill prepared for the rise of both overall sea levels and the “monster waves” which accompany climate change. The Columbia University Earth Institute now projects “sea-level rise of as much as six feet globally instead of two to three feet” by 2100, with higher amounts (three metres) possible if further ice sheets crack from their foundations.

As Susan Casey, wrote in her book, The Wave: In Pursuit of the Rogues, Freaks, and Giants of the Ocean, “Given that 60 per cent of the world’s population lives within 30 miles of a coastline, wave science is suddenly vital science, and the experts are keenly aware that there are levees, oil rigs, shorelines, ships and millions of lives at stake.”

Her experts need to visit South Africa, because ours are apparently asleep at the wheel, as they now plan an extreme makeover of Durban’s harbour. The shipping mania that made China such a successful exporter – and wiped out so much of South Africa’s manufacturing industry – has generated vessels that can carry more than 10,000 containers (which in turn require 5800 trucks to unload), known as “super post-Panamax”. They are so named because the Panama Canal’s current limits allow only half that load, hence a $5.25 billion dig will deepen and widen the canal by 2015, with a $40 billion Chinese-funded competitor canal being considered in nearby Nicaragua.

Most ports around the world are following suit, including here where $25 billion is anticipated from national, provincial and municipal subsidies and loans for South Durban’s port/petrochemical complex – the origin of our status as the most polluted African suburb south of Nigeria. The project is mainly managed by Transnet, a huge (but hot-to-privatise) transport state-owned agency, and is the second main priority in the the African National Congress government’s National Development Plan, which claims that from handling 2.5 million containers in 2012, Durban’s productivity will soar to 20 million containers annually by 2040 – though these figures certainly don’t jell with the industry’s much more conservative projections of demand.

More examples of state planning hubris: Transnet’s $2.3 billion doubling of the Durban-Johannesburg oil pipeline is still not complete, but already massive corruption is suspected in the collusion-suffused construction industry, given that early costings were half the price. And notwithstanding their “aerotropolis” fantasies, Durban’s King Shaka International Airport and the speedy Johannesburg-Pretoria-airport Gautrain are both operating at a tiny fraction of the capacity that had been anticipated by state planners. The 2010 Soccer World Cup sports stadiums are such blatant white elephants that even arrogant local soccer boss Danny Jordaan felt compelled to apologise.

Climate denialists from Durban to Deutschland

One reason they breed is that climate is not being factored into any of these carbon-intensive white elephants, as I have learned by fruitlessly offering formal Environmental Impact Analysis objections. As a result of a critique I offered last November, Transnet’s consultants finally considered prospects that sea-level rise and intense storms might disrupt the Durban port’s new berth expansion.

But Transnet’s study on sea-level rise by Christopher Everatt and John Zietsman of ZAA Engineering Projects in Cape Town is as climate-denialist as the consultancy report last year by the South African Council on Scientific and Industrial Research’s Roy Van Ballegooyen. I do understand that – like the dreaded AIDS-denialism of a decade ago – the allegation of climate-denialism is a strong insult these days. But what else would you call a November 2012 report (mainly by Everatt) that cites five studies to claim we will suffer only a maximum 0.6 metre maximum sea-level rise this century, but based on data from 1997, 2004, 2006 and 2008 reports. Five years old information is, in this field, ridiculously outdated.

In South Africa, de facto climate denialists are now led by a South African Communist Party leader: minister of trade and industry Rob Davies. Last week, Davies pushed through cabinet approval to build yet another coal-fired power plant plus permission to frack the extremely water-sensitive Karoo, “Land of the Great Thirst” in the original inhabitants’ San language.

Awful precedents Davies tactfully avoided mentioning include the massive environmental damage and the corruption, labour-relations and socio-ecological crises at South Africa’s main coal-fired powerplant construction site, Eskom’s $10 billion Medupi generator which at 4800 megawatts will be the world’s third largest. Medupi was meant to be generating power in 2011, but due to ongoing conflict, may finally be finished only in mid-2014.

Eskom’s main beneficiary, also unmentioned by Davies, is BHP Billiton, the world’s largest mining house, a firm at the centre of South Africa’s crony-capitalist nexus dating to apartheid days. Eskom now subsidises this Australian company with $1.1 billion annually by gifting it the world’s cheapest electricity.

Another de facto climate denialist is the German development aid minister, Dirk Niebel, an opponent of Ecuadoran civil society’s plan to save the Yasuni National Park from oil exploitation. According toNiebel, “Refraining from oil drilling alone is not going to help in forest preservation.” Of course not, but it could have been a vital step for Germany to make a downpayment on its huge climate debt to the victims of extreme weather.

The Yasuni campaign to “leave the oil under the soil” is excellent, and while there, deep in the Amazon on the Peruvian border two years ago, I witnessed the Oilwatch network mobilising to expand the idea(even to Durban where oil prospecting recently began offshore). Oilwatch generated a “Yasunization” strategy for other fossil fuels, also promoted by the Environmental Justice Organisations, Liabilities and Trade scholar-activist network based in Barcelona. Network leaders Joan Martinez-Alier and Nnimmo Bassey are also heartbroken at Yasuni’s apparent demise.

The government of Rafael Correa – trained in the US as an economist – always had the intention to sell Yasuni into the global carbon markets, a self-defeating strategy given the markets’ tendency to both fraud and regular crashing; carbon prices today only about a quarter of what they were two years ago.

So now, because the erratic Correa doesn’t have his hands on the cash yet, in part because he failed to address world civil society to put pressure on governments, Ecuador’s PetroAmazonas and China’s PetroOriental will go ahead and drill. A fresh campaign has been launched to halt the extraction, starting with one letter after another from Accion Ecologica, the eco-feminist lobby that initiated the project, joined by the eloquent leader of the Confederación de Nacionalidades Indígenas del Ecuador, Carlos Perez Guartambel.

Climate activist counter-power gathers

Yasuni is a critical place to draw the line, for it is probably the world’s most biodiverse site. But there are other vulnerable points of counter-power, too, as across the world, many more defenders of nature come forward against rapacious fossil-fuel industry attacks.

South Africa has not been particularly climate-conscious, because the thousands of recent social protests are mainly directed against a state and capitalists which deny immediate needs, from municipal services to wages. Still, in Johannesburg, the Anglo American Corporation and Vedanta coal-fired power plant witnessed a protest of 1000 community and environmental activists last month.

Surprisingly, a Pew Research Centre poll found that 48 per cent of South Africans worry “global climate change” is a “major threat”, followed by “China’s power and influence” (40 per cent) and “international financial instability” (34 per cent). Across the world, 54 per cent of people Pew asked cited climate change as a major threat, the highest of any answer (in second place, 52 per cent said “international financial stability”). Only 40 per cent of the US populace agreed, putting it at seventh place.

Yet even in the belly of the beast, more people seem to be mobilising, and there are growing connectivities in the spirit that what happens in Yasuni is terribly important to the First Nations activists of western Canada (one of the finest blog sites to make these links is http://climate-connections.org/).

For example, fossil fuel projects have been fought hard in recent weeks by forces as diverse as Idaho’sNez Perce Native Americans, Idle No More and Wild Idaho Rising Tide; by Nebraska farmers; by activists from the filthy oil city of Houston who are contesting a new coal terminal; and in Utah where not only have conservationists sued to halt drilling of an 800,000-acre tar sands field stretching into Colorado and Wyoming, but 50 activists physically blocked tar sand mining and construction at two sites last month.

350.org’s Bill McKibben recently mentioned the “Summerheat” rebirth of US climate activism, “from the shores of Lake Huron and Lake Michigan, where a tar-sands pipeline is proposed, to the Columbia River at Vancouver, Washington, where a big oil port is planned, from Utah’s Colorado Plateau, where the first US tar-sands mine has been proposed, to the coal-fired power plant at Brayton Point on the Massachusetts coast and the fracking wells of rural Ohio”.

The growing movement has had results, says McKibben, in part through civil disobedience: “In the last few years, it has blocked the construction of dozens of coal-fired power plants, fought the oil industry to a draw on the Keystone pipeline, convinced a wide swath of US institutions to divest themselves of their fossil fuel stocks, and challenged practices like mountaintop-removal coal mining and fracking for natural gas.”

This is encouraging partly because summertime is a lull when it comes to challenging power in many parts of the world. Meanwhile, our political winter was mostly spent wondering whether the crucial Congress of South African Trade Unions would remain aligned to the government or split in half. The more enlightened wing would logically move towards environmental, community and social struggles, leaving behind the likes of Rob Davies, just as US progressives (should) have shed any last illusions about slick Barack Obama.

But not far from Durban, 100 years ago next month, Mahatma Gandhi began preparing a non-violent mass assault on a white-owned coal mine in support of both Indian women’s right to cross a regional border and workers’ wage demands. The idea known as satyagraha (truth force) went from theory to practice, as militant passive defiance gained concessions that, 80 years later, helped free South Africa from apartheid. This time, there’s no 80-year window; we all have to rise to the challenge as fast as do the thermometer and the greenhouse gas emissions.

Freezing Your Asterisk Off: Farmers’ Almanac Predicts Cold, Cold Winter

Source: Indian Country Today Media Network

With yet another heat wave set to descend before summer releases its grip, the last things we may want to think about are puffy coats and long johns.

But that is what’s in store for winter 2013–14, according to predictions from the Farmers’ Almanac released officially on Monday August 26.

“The ‘Days of Shivery’ are back!” proclaimed a statement from the Farmers’ Almanac (not to be confused with The Old Farmer’s Almanac). “For 2013–2014, we are forecasting a winter that will experience below average temperatures for about two-thirds of the nation. A large area of below-normal temperatures will predominate from roughly east of the Continental Divide to the Appalachians, north and east through New England. Coldest temperatures will be over the Northern Plains on east into the Great Lakes. Only for the Far West and the Southeast will there be a semblance of winter temperatures averaging close to normal, but only a few areas will enjoy many days where temperatures will average above normal.”

Further, the Southern Plains, Midwest and Southeast will have more precipitation than normal, the Almanac’s prognosticators said. This means a plethora of snow for the Midwest, Great Lakes and parts of New England. There will be mixes of rain and/or snow just south of that, in southern New England, southeastern New York, New Jersey and the Mid-Atlantic region, the statement said. Uncharacteristically, the Pacific Northwest may be drier than usual.

“Significant snowfalls are forecast for parts of every zone,” the Almanac said, predicting especially heavy winter weather during the first 10 days of February 2014—meaning that the Superbowl, scheduled to be played outdoors at the MetLife Stadium in the Meadowlands in New Jersey, may be more of a “Storm Bowl,” as Almanac managing editor Sandi Duncan told the Associated Press.

“This particular part of the winter season will be particularly volatile and especially turbulent,” the statement said.

As it has since 1818, the Almanac makes predictions by triangulating the positions of the planets, sunspot activity and cycles of the moon.

Study launched to examine declining salmon runs

Bill Sheets, The Herald

Millions of dollars have been spent to restore fish habitat in Western Washington.

Property owners pay taxes to local governments to control stormwater runoff.

State government and tribal fisheries have put huge investments into hatcheries.

“While all that has been going on, we’ve seen a precipitous decline in the survival rate of both hatchery fish as well as wild fish,” said Phil Anderson, director of the state Department of Fish and Wildlife.

That’s why the department, along with the Tulalip Tribes and 25 other organizations, are beginning a five-year study to determine why some species of salmon and trout are having trouble surviving their saltwater voyages.

The Salish Sea Marine Survival Project, as it’s called, is an international effort. Canadian groups are agreeing to pay half of the estimated, eventual $20 million cost of the study.

The decline has been seen in fish runs both in Washington and British Columbia.

“The fish don’t know there’s a border,” said Mike Crewson, fisheries enhancement biologist for the Tulalip Tribes.

The marine survival rate for many stocks of Chinook and coho salmon, along with steelhead, has dropped more than 90 percent over the past 30 years, according to Long Live the Kings, a Seattle-based non-profit group formed around fish preservation.

Numbers for sockeye, chum, and pink salmon have varied widely over the same time period.

For some reason, many of these anadromous fish — those that spawn in fresh water and spend most of their lives at sea — are not doing well in saltwater, particularly in the inland waters of Western Washington.

The Snohomish and Skagit river systems have been hit particularly hard, Crewson said.

While there’s a solid understanding of the factors affecting salmon survival in fresh water, according to Long Live the Kings, the issues in the marine environment are more complex.

From what is known so far, the survival problem has been traced to a combination of factors. Pollution, climate change, loss of habitat and increased consumption of salmon by seals and sea lions are all playing a part, Tulalip tribal officials have said.

Tribes and government agencies have been collecting information on their own, but it hasn’t yet been put together into context, Crewson said.

That will be one benefit of the new study — synthesizing the work done so far, he said. More research will be done as well.

The Tulalips, for example, have two smolt traps they use to catch young fish to track their progress and survival rates. The tribe already spends about $500,000 per year on fish survival programs and will increase their sampling efforts as part of this study, Crewson said.

Other studies more focused on certain areas, such as a joint effort between the Tulalips and the Nisqually tribe focusing on the Snohomish and Nisqually river systems, will be folded into the larger effort, Crewson said.

“The survival’s especially poor in Puget Sound (as opposed to the open ocean),” he said. “We’re trying to figure out what’s different in Puget Sound.”

The state recently appropriated nearly $800,000 toward the new study. The Pacific Salmon Foundation, a Canadian group, has raised $750,000 to support project activities north of the border. That group is serving as the organizer for efforts there, as is Long Live the Kings on the American side.

The Pacific Salmon Commission, a joint Canadian-American organization formed to implement treaty agreements, is putting in $175,000.

The rest of the money will be raised as the study progresses, officials said. A report and action plan is expected after five years.

Is climate change humanity’s greatest-ever risk management failure?

By Dana Nuccitelli, Grist

Humans are generally very risk-averse. We buy insurance to protect our investments in homes and cars. For those of us who don’t have universal healthcare, most purchase health insurance. We don’t like taking the chance — however remote — that we could be left unprepared in the event that something bad happens to our homes, cars, or health.

Climate change seems to be a major exception to this rule. Managing the risks posed by climate change is not a high priority for the public as a whole, despite the fact that a climate catastrophe this century is a very real possibility, and that such an event would have adverse impacts on all of us.

For example, in my job as an environmental risk assessor, if a contaminated site poses a cancer risk to humans of more than 1-in-10,000 to 1-in-1 million, that added risk is deemed unacceptably high and must be reduced. This despite the fact that an American man has a nearly 1-in-2 chance of developing and 1-in-4 chance of dying from cancer (1-in-3 and 1-in-5 for an American woman, respectively).

To that 42 percent chance of an average American developing cancer in his or her lifetime, we’re unwilling to add another 0.001 percent. The reason is simple — we really, really don’t want cancer, and thus consider even a small added risk unacceptable.

Yet we don’t share that aversion to the risks posed by human-caused climate change. These risks include more than half of global species potentially being at risk of extinction, extreme weather like heat waves becoming more commonplace, global food supplies put at risk by this more frequent extreme weather, glaciers and their associated water resources for millions of people disappearing, rising sea levels inundating coastlines, and so forth.

This isn’t some slim 1-in-a-million risk; we’re looking at seriously damaging climate consequences in the most likely, business-as-usual scenario. The forthcoming fifth IPCC report is likely to state with 95 percent confidence that humans are the main drivers of climate change over the past 60 years, and the scientific basis behind this confidence is quite sound. It’s the result of virtually every study that has investigated the causes of global warming.

The percentage contribution to global warming over the past 50-65 years is shown in two categories, human causes (left) and natural causes (right), from various peer-reviewed studies (colors).

Yet in a recent interview with NPR, climate scientist Judith Curry, who has a reputation for exaggerating climate science uncertainties, claimed that based on those uncertainties, “I can’t say myself that [doing nothing] isn’t the best solution.”

This argument, made frequently by climate contrarians, displays a lack of understanding about risk management. I’m uncertain if I’ll ever be in a car accident, or if my house will catch fire, or if I’ll become seriously ill or injured within the next few years. That uncertainty won’t stop me from buying auto, home, and health insurance. It’s just a matter of prudent risk management, making sure we’re prepared if something bad happens to something we value. That principle should certainly apply to the global climate.

Uncertainty simply isn’t our friend when it comes to risk. If uncertainty is large, it means that a bad event might not happen, but it also means that we can’t rule out the possibility of a catastrophic event happening. Inaction is only justifiable if we’re certain that the bad outcome won’t happen.

Curry is essentially arguing that she’s not convinced we should take action to avoid what she believes is a very possible climate catastrophe. That’s a failure of risk management. I wonder if she would also advise her children not to buy home or auto or health insurance. Maybe they’ll be a wasted expense, or maybe they’ll prevent financial ruin in the event of a catastrophe.

Climate change presents an enormous global risk, not in an improbable 1-in-a-million case, but rather in the most likely scenario. From a risk management perspective, our choice could not be clearer. We should be taking serious steps to reduce our impact on the climate via fossil fuel consumption and associated greenhouse gas emissions. But we’re not. This is in large part due to a lack of public comprehension of the magnitude of the risk we face; a perception problem that social scientists are trying to determine how to overcome.

At the moment, climate change looks like humanity’s greatest-ever risk management failure. Hopefully we’ll remedy that failure before we commit ourselves to catastrophic climate consequences that we’re unprepared to face.

On voters’ plates: genetically engineered crops

JUAN MABROMATA / AFP/Getty Images, 2012Transgenic soy plants are seen in an Argentina farm field. — JUAN MABROMATA / AFP/Getty Images, 2012
Transgenic soy plants are seen in an Argentina farm field.

Washington voters will decide whether to label food that contains genetically engineered ingredients, a debate that’s roiling the food industry nationally.

By Melissa Allison, Seattle Times

Get ready for a food fight.

When Washington voters decide Initiative 522 this fall, they will do more than determine whether to label food that contains genetically engineered ingredients.

They also will take sides in a national battle that has raged for two decades about the benefits and safety of manipulating the DNA of food — something many people view suspiciously but do not really understand.

“There’s a lot of uneasiness among consumers on the topic,” said Amy Sousa, managing consultant at the consumer research firm Hartman Group in Bellevue. “They don’t like the sound of it but have a difficult time articulating exactly why.”

GMO stands for genetically modified organism. Technically, any plant or animal that has been bred for particular characteristics is genetically modified. The difference with so-called GMOs is that their DNA is directly manipulated by inserting or modifying particular genes. Some call such targeted work “genetic engineering.”

The first genetically engineered food to appear on grocery shelves was a tomato that failed because consumers didn’t buy it. By contrast, the handful of genetically engineered crops that have been widely adopted by American agriculture — corn, sugar beets, soybeans, canola — are designed to appeal to growers by withstanding certain herbicides or creating their own internal pesticides.

Many of these genetically engineered seeds are owned by chemical companies such as Monsanto and Bayer — which has fueled some people’s mistrust.

GMO advocates, however, also include powerful non-business players, such as the Gates Foundation, that say the technology can be used to enhance nutrition and other qualities desired by consumers.

To Neal Carter, founder of a British Columbia company seeking regulatory approval for genetically engineered apples that don’t brown, GMOs conceived to appeal to consumers constitute a “second wave.”

“We’re going to see the next generation of biotechnology,” he said.

What he calls his “arctic” apples are a start. Carter grows them at test sites in Washington and New York states but will not disclose specific locations for fear anti-GMO activists could disrupt the work.

“It’s a huge investment, and we can’t afford to let folks know where we’re doing this because of that kind of risk,” he said. He wants to avoid the type of GMO crop sabotage that appears to have happened this summer in Oregon, where 6,500 genetically engineered sugar beets were uprooted.

Monsanto has said it also suspects sabotage in the discovery of genetically engineered wheat in Oregon during the spring, which prompted Japan to stop buying a popular Northwest wheat for two months. GMO wheat is not approved for commercial use, and it was found miles from where the company tested genetically engineered wheat almost a decade ago.

But the real war over GMOs is happening in the political arena.

Airing the arguments

The most recent skirmish took place last year in California, where the biotech industry and others spent $44 million to fight a labeling measure similar to I-522. Labeling supporters spent about $10 million.

The measure lost, but the idea of labeling GMOs appears to be gaining traction.

Maine and Connecticut recently passed labeling laws, although they are contingent upon other states participating. The grocery chain Trader Joe’s said in December that its private-label products contain no GMOs, and Whole Foods said earlier this year that within five years it will require suppliers to label products with genetically engineered ingredients.

The Hartman Group advises clients, which regularly include major food companies such as Kraft Foods, General Mills, ConAgra Foods and Kellogg’s, to discuss the matter openly.

“Trying to suppress labeling and skirt around the issue is not a sustainable approach, especially as more and more food retailers get on board with crafting their own position,” Sousa said.

People who oppose GMOs want labeling because they say genetically engineered crops have not been studied or regulated enough to know whether they are harmful.

They also argue it would be hard to return to non-engineered crops if damage is discovered later. And they point to dozens of other countries, including Japan and those of the European Union, that ban or label genetically engineered food.

“We already have the right to know as Americans what the sugar and fat content is, whether flavors are artificial or natural, whether fish is wild or farmed, what country our fruit comes from — and we have a right to know whether our food is genetically engineered,” said Trudy Bialic, director of public affairs for PCC Natural Markets, which helped write I-522 and led signature-gathering for the measure. It garnered about 100,000 more signatures than were required.

Other authors were Washington wheat farmer Tom Stahl and lawyers from the nonprofit Center for Food Safety and a Washington, D.C., law firm that helped write the California measure.

GMO proponents say the changes made to food using genetic-engineering techniques are not that different from changes that occur when plants and animals are bred conventionally.

They also point out that every independent science group to look into the issue, including the National Academy of Sciences, has found no evidence of ill health effects. And, they add, millions of people have eaten genetically engineered food for 20 years.

“It’s fine for people from rich, well-fed nations with productive farms to decline the use of GMOs. But they should not be allowed to impose their preferences on Africa,” Bill Gates said in a 2011 speech.

Processed-food manufacturers oppose labeling because labels could hurt sales, said Dave Zepponi, president of the Northwest Food Processors Association.

Removing all genetically engineered ingredients to avoid labeling would create enormous expenses, both in tracking down GMO-free ingredients and in segregating GMO and GMO-free ingredients, he said.

“Most of our companies are or attempt to be GMO free, but the risk of having a small amount of genetically engineered material in the product is too great. They would have to put a label on it, which is probably going to hurt their sales,” Zepponi said.

Although most food in the produce section is not genetically engineered, several major U.S. crops are — along with many processed foods.

More than 90 percent of soybeans, field corn and canola grown in the United States is genetically engineered. So is more than 80 percent of the sugar beets.

Those crops are turned into dozens of ingredients — cornstarch, soy lecithin, non-cane sugar — that are in processed foods.

But that is not how the GMO industry began.

The first genetically engineered food, which appeared in supermarkets in the early ’90s, was the Flavr Savr tomato. It was designed to last longer than regular tomatoes, but it flopped in the market.

“The tomato variety they worked with wasn’t that well suited for fresh use; it was more of a processing variety,” said Carter, the orchardist developing the non-browning apple. “It was remarkably ignorant or naive, and it goes to show how technology by itself isn’t the be all, end all.”

The market has not seen more products like the Flavr Savr, with traits that appeal directly to consumers, in part because it costs so much to develop GMOs.

“It’s very hard to get a payoff,” said Daniel Charles, author of the 2001 book “Lords of the Harvest: Biotech, Big Money, and The Future of Food.”

“If you come up with, say, a soybean with maybe healthier oil content, how are you going to make money on that? You have to first convince the consumer they want to pay more for that.”

Making a better apple

While the focus has been on growers, other GMOs are in the pipeline that have functions unrelated to herbicides and pesticides.

One is a genetically engineered salmon that grows to maturity more quickly. Another is rice with higher levels of vitamin A, known as “golden rice”; it has been a project of the Gates Foundation and others for years.

Then there are Carter’s non-browning “arctic” apples from British Columbia.

He said apple consumption has been in decline for years, and one reason restaurants and industrial kitchens don’t want to use them is that they brown.

So Carter, a former agricultural engineer, set up a research facility to create apples that do not brown. His company of seven employees is awaiting regulatory approval in Canada and the U.S. for arctic apples.

Like the Flavr Savr tomato, his genetically engineered apple turns off a gene rather than inserting one. But unlike the Flavr Savr, Carter said, his apples are derived from popular varieties — Granny Smith and Golden Delicious, to start.

Carter plans to label them as arctic apples, not specifically GMO. But information about their GMO origin will be available on the company’s website and elsewhere.

“We’re pretty confident by the time it hits stores, people will know exactly what it is,” he said.

Melissa Allison: 206-464-3312 or mallison@seattletimes.com. Twitter @AllisonSeattle.

Seattle Times science reporter Sandi Doughton contributed to this report.

The united resistance of Fearless Summer — a conversation with Mathew Louis-Rosenberg

Bryan Farrell, Waging Non-Violence

This has been a busy summer for climate activists — with actions against the fossil fuel industry taking place on a near daily basis around the country. But busy is not the word they are using. They prefer to describe their efforts this summer as fearless. And why not? They are, after all, facing off against the largest, most profitable industry in the history of the world.

Nevertheless, this fearless action is not without strategy. In fact, the term Fearless Summer is being used to unite climate campaigns across the country that are working to stop fossil fuel extraction and protect communities on the frontlines. By coordinating collective action under the same banner, the aim is to speak as one voice against the fossil fuel industry.

To better understand how Fearless Summer came to be and what it’s accomplishing, I spoke with one of its coordinators, Mathew Louis-Rosenberg, who works in southern West Virginia fighting strip-mining — both with the community organization Coal River Mountain Watch and the direct action campaign Radical Action for Mountains and Peoples Survival.

How did the idea for the Fearless Summer come about?

Fearless Summer grew out of a discussion at the first Extreme Energy Extraction Summit held last February in upstate New York. The summit brought together an incredibly diverse group of 70 activists from across the country fighting against coal, gas, oil, tar sands, uranium and industrial biomass to create a more unified movement against energy extraction. We created shared languages, fostered relationships across the diverse spectrum of groups working on the issues and provided space for dialogue that allows innovative collaborations to form. Fearless Summer was one such collaboration.

Who are the principle organizers and groups involved? And how do you coordinate between one another?

Fearless Summer is an open-ended organizing framework and a call-to-action. So it’s difficult to say who the “principle organizers” are. There has been a core group of folks helping to coordinate and create infrastructure that includes organizers across a wide spectrum of groups, such as Radical Action for Mountains and Peoples Survival, Missourians Organizing for Reform and Empowerment, Peaceful Uprising, Food and Water Watch, Green Memes, Tar Sands Blockade, the student divestment movement and others. Coordination work has primarily been done through a listserv and open, weekly conference calls. There is no formal organizing or decision-making structure.

How does this build on last year’s Summer of Solidarity initiative and the actions that have happened since? Do you see it as an escalation?

Fearless Summer was explicitly conceived of as a next step beyond last year’s Summer of Solidarity. I think the intention and scale of Fearless Summer is the escalation. Summer of Solidarity arose out of the organizers of several large actions — the Mountain Mobilization, Coal Export Action, Tar Sands Blockade and Stop the Frack Attack — recognizing that we were all planning big things in a similar timeframe and by working together, primarily through social media, we could amplify each other’s messages rather than compete for attention. The hashtag #ClimateSOS took off and had a life of its own, but coordination never went beyond that core group. Fearless Summer was explicitly launched as an open framework intended to draw in as many groups and actions as possible and came with a clear statement of purpose. This time we engaged a much much wider spectrum of groups and actions under clear principles of unity and escalation. Fearless Summer has gone beyond social media coordination to really create some national dialogue between grassroots groups on presenting a united front on energy issues.

How does Fearless Summer compliment or differ from the many other summer initiatives going on, such as 350.org’s Summer Heat and indigenous peoples’ Sovereignty Summer? Did you coordinate with those organizers?

We see these efforts as highly complementary. We are probably most similar to Sovereignty Summer in how we are organized. Many current indigenous sovereignty struggles are deeply connected to struggles against energy industry attacks on native lands and we have been promoting many such struggles through Fearless Summer. We have also been talking extensively with 350.org organizers about the connections with Summer Heat, which is obviously different due to the central coordination through 350.org and a much more focused timeframe. Fearless Summer is an open framework for action through the summer, so any other similar organizing efforts strengthen the goals of Fearless Summer regardless of how coordinated they are with us.

How many actions have taken place under the Fearless Summer banner so far?

It’s really difficult to say. The trouble with an unstaffed, unfunded, open collaboration is that it’s hard to keep up with where people are taking things. Our kickoff week of action in June had at least 28 actions in six days and there have been dozens more outside of that. At least 50-60.

What actions are coming up?

To be honest, I don’t know. There’s still a lot going on. We’re hosting an action camp in West Virginia and I’ve heard whispers of big plans in other parts of the country, but at this point people are just taking the framework and running with it as we intended.

What are the plans for the fall and beyond?

Those conversations are happening right now. I think people want to see coordination move to the next level of acting together nationally on some common targets more and there’s also a lot of talk about connecting more with other social justice issues and talking about root causes. The second Extreme Energy Extraction Summit is coming up September 6-10 and a lot of discussion will happen there.

Are you feeling optimistic about the larger climate justice movement at the moment?

I am feeling optimistic about the movement. We see more and more communities getting active. It’s getting harder and harder for the energy industry to find anywhere to operate without resistance. And it’s having an impact. The president’s speech and climate plan, despite its deep flaws, speak to the impact we are having. Four years ago, Obama was telling student leaders that he couldn’t do anything without a large scale public pressure movement. We have that now. I think we have a long way to go still. A lot of work still needs to be done to engage a wider base, connect with other struggles around justice and root causes of climate change, and articulate a policy platform that solves the climate crisis in a just and honest way. On the action front, we are still a long way from where the nuclear freeze movement was — with thousands occupying power plants and test sites — doing jail solidarity and really creating a concrete problem for the industry beyond public relations.

If momentum continues to build in the next year, where do you see it coming from? And what might the work of activists look like next summer?

I’m not sure what the big catalyst could be. So far the growth of the movement has mostly been in a proliferation of local campaigns. I think it’s going to take a lot of national dialogue to knit those into collective action for collective wins. My hope is that by next year we will be seeing mass direct action that truly challenges the ability of legal systems to respond and corporations to operate. We need more people acting like their children’s lives are on the line. Because they are.

Meet the activists who humiliated Monsanto

Meet the Activists Who Just Humiliated Monsanto© AP — Meet the Activists Who Just Humiliated Monsanto
© AP

Alex Cline, PolicyMic

Last Thursday, an intriguing press release from “Monsanto Global” was sent out to to the email inboxes of media organizations all over the world. According to the press release, Monsanto had received approval from Mexico’s SAGARPA (Secretariat of Agriculture) to plant a quarter of a million hectares of GMO corn in Chihuahua, Coahuila, and Durango. This was coupled with the announcement of two new Monsanto-funded institutions: a seed bank preserving Mexico’s 246 native strains of corn, and a museum of Mexican culture, to be established such that “[n]ever again will the wealth of this region’s culture be lost as social conditions change.”

This was certainly interesting, and indeed, the SAGARPA was in fact considering a permit to allow Monsanto to plant the corn. Still, it seemed fishy, and totally unlike Monsanto to admit (even obliquely) that their corporate practices could possibly change Mexican culture and wipe out indigenous corn strains.

Within hours, the domain name linked to in the press release (monsantoglobal.com) was no longer available, and a second Monsanto-branded press release denouncing the earlier announcement went out. This one, sent from an email at a different domain name (monsanto-media.com), claimed that the Monsanto Global press release was the work of an activist group called Sin Maíz No Hay Vida.

The highlights of the strongly-worded message included the following:

“The action of the group is fundamentally misleading,” said Janet M. Holloway, Chief of Community Relations for Monsanto. “The initiatives they put forth are unfeasible, and their list of demands is peppered with hyperbolic buzzwords like ‘sustainability,’ ‘culture,’ and ‘biodiversity.’”

“Only ecologists prioritize biodiversity over real-world concerns,” said Dr. Robert T. Fraley, who oversees Monsanto’s integrated crop and seed agribusiness technology and research worldwide. “Commercial farmers know that biodiversity means having to battle weeds and insects. That means human labor, and human labor means costs and time that could be spent otherwise.”

Here is a mirror of both press releases.

Later that day, a post on Monsanto’s blog denied that they had sent a press release about Mexico of any kind that day, stating that “Information on this hoax web site and its related communication properties has been turned over to the appropriate authorities to further investigate the matter.”

I reached out to a spokesperson for Sin Maíz No Hay Vida to find out more about the motivations behind the hoax.

PolicyMic (PM): Can you tell me about Sin Maíz No Hay Vida, who they are, and what their mission is?

SM: Sin Maíz No Hay Vida (Without Corn, there is No Life) is a coalition of activists, students, and artists from Mexico, the United States, Brazil, Canada, Colombia, Uganda, Venezuela, Spain, and Argentina.We are fighting to preserve biological and cultural diversity in Mesoamerica and around the world.

PM: What was the goal of the fake press release?

SM: We wanted to demonstrate the importance of corn (in terms of biodiversity, sustainability, and cultures in Mexico) and to show what is at stake if companies like Monsanto manage to privatize this staple crop. It’s not an exaggeration to say that in Mexico and around the world, there is no life without corn.

We also hoped to raise consciousness about Monsanto’s current application to seed genetically modified corn on a commercial scale in three states in Mexico, a huge expansion of their current projects in Mexico. We wanted remind the Mexican officials at SAGARPA, who have the power to make this decision, that activists are paying attention. We urge them not to grant Monsanto the permit to seed commercially. Finally, we hoped to work in solidarity with other activist groups fighting Monsanto.

PM: What do you believe should be the alternative to growing GMO corn?

SM: I think that question “What’s the alternative to growing GM corn?” assumes that genetically modified corn is a necessity, and it’s not. Monsanto and other producers of GMOs want us to believe that these crops are necessary to sustain a growing population, but in fact, Monsanto is just trying to grow their bottom line by privatizing staple crops around the world. This hurts all of us: farmers, the environment, and just about everyone who eats food. To paraphrase Irina Dunn and Gloria Steinem, we need GM corn like a fish needs a bicycle, and a rusty, blood-thirsty bicycle at that. Have you ever ridden a blood-thirsty bicycle? It’s a terrible experience.

PM: Do you have any info on the website coming down?

SM: Unfortunately, I don’t have any information about why monsantoglobal.com was taken down. We’re working to get it back up. In the meantime, you can visit our website for more information about the action.

PM: What do you think of Monsanto’s response?

SM: It’s interesting that Monsanto was frightened enough by activists paying attention to their actions that they quickly denounced us online and on social media. I think I’d be happier, though, if they had withdrawn their petition to seed commercially in Mexico. I expect them to do so any minute now.

PM: What are some resources you can recommend for everyone reading who wants to get involved?

SM: We’re compiling resources for activists on our blog, especially links to activist groups in Mexico and the United States who are have been fighting Monsanto. If you want to help mobilize against Monsanto or to suggest a group that we should link to, please visit our blog.

Coal port faces huge obstacle in Lummi opposition

The totem pole Jewell James is carving to protest coal exports. Photo: Paul K. Anderson, Chuckanut Conservancy.

Cultural concerns and treaty rights to protect fish loom large for a shipping terminal near Bellingham.

Floyd McKay, CrossCut

Lummi Master Carver Jewell James at work. Photo: Paul K. Anderson, Chuckanut Conservancy.

Lummi master carver Jewell James is taking another ceremonial totem pole on a long trip, but this time it won’t be going as a healing pole — like those he carved for the three 9-11 sites — this pole is a political and cultural statement aimed at the export of coal from ports in the Pacific Northwest.

The pole is taking shape only a few miles from the proposed site of the largest coal terminal in the region, at Cherry Point north of Bellingham on Georgia Strait.

It’s a site that James and other Lummis regard as sacred; their ancestors lived, fished and died at Cherry Point through the centuries before white men discovered the area, imposed treaties on the natives and pushed them onto reservations.

The reservations are still there, as are the natives, and pressure continues to bring industry with its economic development, jobs, shipping, railroads, pollution, threats to native fishing areas and trampling of ancient grounds. Over the last two centuries, Cherry Point has seen two oil refineries, an aluminum plant and now plans for yet another giant industry.

Now, the Lummis appear to be well-positioned to play a key, perhaps the most critical role, in determining the fate of a huge proposal to export coal to China from Cherry Point. If the tribe’s objections to the port hold and their treaty rights under federal law withstand any legal questions, the path to approval of the port planned by SSA Marine of Seattle faces a giant obstacle. Company officials, for their part, say they believe the plan can win support from the tribe.

SSA Marine wants to export 48 million tons annually of Powder River Basin coal, and this time the Lummis are deeply dug in. Their line was first drawn a year ago when Lummi elders burned a ceremonial million-dollar check on the beach at Cherry Point and declared no compromise or financial offer would change their opposition to the Gateway Pacific Terminal (GPT).

Lummi speakers were forceful at seven public meetings last year hosted by public agencies charged with reviewing the proposal. Tribal leaders have hosted public events in Whatcom County, where the fate of two key permits will be decided. They even wrote a play, “But What About Those Promises?” to dramatize exploitation of their ancestors.

Up next is the totem pole, which begins its journey about Sept. 19 at the Powder River Basin coalfield in Wyoming and follows by truck the long and winding rail route to Cherry Point. Ceremonies and rallies along the way will reach Seattle and Cherry Point about Sept. 27 to 29.

The Lummis, with regional tribal support, are mounting a two-pronged attack on GPT: the cultural side, headed by James and associates in the Lummi Sovereignty and Treaty Protection Office; and a resource side, relying on key federal court decisions protecting “Usual and Accustomed” fishing rights granted in treaties dating to 1855.

Lummi Nation then-Chair Cliff Cultee (left) and Hereditary Chair Bill James with the check they will burn at Cherry Point. Photo: Floyd McKay

Lummis are quick to say the two items are inseparable because salmon is integral to every aspect of their — and all Salish tribes’ — life. Scholars support that claim and note that Salish tribes have never deviated from their relationship with salmon.

“Prior to and following the arrival of Euro‐Americans, the shorelines of Cherry Point were used as fishing villages and the tidelands and waters of Georgia Strait were used to harvest fin‐ and shellfish for commercial, subsistence, and ceremonial purposes,” Lummi chairman Tim Ballew II said in a 24-page letter to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in January. “Although the Lummi Nation still fishes the waters of Georgia Strait, the resources have been degraded by human activities and shoreline development has precluded the use of traditional hunting, fishing, and gathering sites along the shorelines.”

The Corps has jurisdiction over wetlands and piers and it must deal directly with the 5,000-member tribe in a “government to government” manner honoring tribal sovereignty.

7 adorable animals imperiled by the Keystone XL pipeline

Tim McDonnell, Grist

In its deliberations over the Keystone XL pipeline, the State Department is taking flak not just from picket-sign-wielding environmentalists, but also from within the ranks of the Obama administration. This spring the EPA slammed an environmental review as “insufficient” and called for major revisions. And Monday, ThinkProgress uncovered a letter [PDF] from the Interior Department, dated from April, that outlines the many and varied ways in which the pipeline could wreak havoc on plants and animals (not to mention dinosaurs) along its proposed route.

The letter calls particular attention to a line in the State Department’s most recent environmental impact assessment [PDF] that claims “the majority of the potential effects to wildlife resources are indirect, short term or negligible, limited in geographic extent, and associated with the construction phase of the proposed Project only.”

“This statement is inaccurate and should be revised,” states the letter, which is signed by Interior’s Director of Environmental Policy and Compliance, Willie Taylor. “Given that the project includes not only constructing a pipeline but also related infrastructure … impacts to wildlife are not just related to project construction. Impacts to wildlife from this infrastructure will occur throughout the life of the project.”

Which wildlife? The letter raises concerns that potential oil spills, drained water supplies, and bustling construction workers could cause a general disturbance, but identifies the critters below, some of which are endangered, for special attention:

The Ross’ goose depends on Nebraska’s Rainwater Basin, which the pipeline would pass through, as a key migratory stopover. A spill in the basin could “severely impact critical habitat,” the letter says.

Black-footed ferret. — Wikimedia Commons

Although the letter praises State Department plans to protect these endangered ferrets, it nonetheless raises concerns about the potential for infectious diseases from domestic pets at construction camps and worksites in Montana and South Dakota to spread to this population of 1,000 or less left in the wild.

Like the Ross’ goose, the Sandhill crane depends on Nebraska’s Rainwater Basin, which, according to the letter, could be severely impacted by an oil spill.

Least tern and chick. — Wikimedia Commons

Already endangered, least terns depend for nesting on a plot of protected federal land just 40 miles downstream from where the pipeline will cross Nebraska’s Niobrara River. Nests could fail, the letter warns, if construction activities cause fluctuations in the river’s water level.

Also endangered, the piping plover depends on the same nesting site as the least tern and faces the same threats.

In 2010 the Fish & Wildlife Service found the tiny Sprague’s pipit qualified for endangered status, but hasn’t yet been able to officially list it because of higher-priority species. But the pipit breeds in Montana’s North Valley Grassland, which the pipeline would pass through, raising concerns about impact from a spill.

While not exactly the cutest on this list, pallid sturgeons are also endangered; the letter raises concern that as water is withdrawn from the Platte River during the construction process, the fish and their eggs could suffocate. An assertion by the State Department that no plan is needed to mitigate damage to sturgeons, the letter says, “seems unsupported and requires further documentation.”

This story was produced as part of the Climate Desk collaboration.

Tim McDonnell is a Climate Desk associate producer. Read more of his stories here or follow him on Twitter.

Nez Perce Tribe’s Resistance to Keystone XL Pipeline is Nothing New

Renée Holt, Native News Network, Guest Commentary

As I enjoy the last day of summer break, before I return back to school, I have been thinking about the recent media publicity my tribal community has received regarding the Keystone XL pipeline.

As an enrolled member of the Nez Perce Tribe, and a mother to three beautiful children, a couple weeks ago, our community, the Nimiipuu (aka the Real People) stood in solidarity with our First Nations brothers and sisters in Canada who oppose the Keystone XL pipeline.

Our community has been protesting the Megaloads for well over two years.

Although regional media has highlighted the Nez Perce tribal council arrests and members of our community for their Indigenous activism, what media has failed to see is that our community has been protesting the Megaloads for well over two years. It just happens to be that we held our first town hall meeting in March 2011 and Winona La Duke shared information on the negative effects of the Keystone XL and the importance of a protest.

In collaboration with the grassroots organizations Friends of the Clearwater and Wild Idaho Rising Tide (who have worked tirelessly on this environmental issue) our tribal council made an informed decision with the intention of making it known the Nimiipuu oppose the Keystone XL pipeline and the transportation of the Megaloads through our ancestral homelands.

From the ancestral homelands of the Nimiipuu people, located in North Central Idaho, I am writing this to members of society, both Indigenous AND non Indigenous, to do more than question and challenge this global climate issue, but to also help fight the battle against the Keystone XL pipeline.

It has been shown in studies from the Environmental Protection Agency and grassroots organizations such as the Rainforest Action Network that gas emissions were toxic and communities located near these sites have higher rates of cancer and contamination of water resources. Not only do the Indigenous communities that are located near these sites suffer, but so do the plants and wild life. If there is one common thread we share as citizens of the global community, it is this, water is necessary to live. Once water is poisoned, we’re all poisoned.

We need to educate and inform citizens and look respectively at Indigenous governments who are protecting their homelands.

Whether in the United States or Canada, Indigenous lands and surrounding areas are continually being devastated by oil pipelines. The lives of people, wildlife and plants suffer and the Megaloads protest ought to remind us, as human beings, the value and sacredness of life is a responsibility. Whether Indigenous or non Indigenous, as humans, to oppose and protest the Keystone XL Megaloads being transported through ancestral homelands is rooted in a responsibility to community and Mother Earth. At this time, due to frustrations with the US Forest Service, the Nimiipuu community and grassroots efforts have filed a lawsuit.

If they are not stopped, the Keystone XL pipeline devastation will continue and the health and well being of those who live near these environmental hazardous areas, regardless of racial ethnicity, will be negatively affected. As an Indigenous woman, I am writing this to share with non Indigenous readers a little bit of who we are as people. Because we often make our homes where our ancestors made their homes, we also live on reserves/reservations that were at one time unwanted land. Today, the unwanted land is now sought by big oil corporations where environmental hazards have disrupted and devastated the ecosystem.

I also believe it is important to mention that the Keystone XL pipeline is an international issue. The responsibility is that of Secretary of State John Kerry to oversee international issues as appointed by President Obama.