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Tag: News

  • Consumers influence officials and corporate execs toward pro-health and pro-sustainability actions and attitudes

    Enjoy listening to Beethoven’s 9th Symphony while reading.

    International response for glyphosate is moving along providing credence to those who are against the international trade deals. In May India decided to tightened rules for the sale of genetically-modified cotton seeds in a move that will cap royalties. Since Glyphosate kills all variety of plants, except for those that are artificially and genetically modified the crops in India now comprise 90% of all crops. After local farmers, regions and states complained about the financially abusive pricing by Monsanto, the world’s largest supplier of both Glyphosate Weedkillers and Weedkiller resistant seeds the government finally acted. From now on the seed prices are held at 800 rupees ($11.87) for a packet of 450 grams nearly one pound. In a country where you can hire a full time maid for an entire week for three dollars this new price is still quite expensive. This high price of $11.87 per slightly less than a pound will be held for a period of five years and then it will decrease by 10% per year thereafter. Once a GM seeds variety looses their traits or its effectiveness it will not be eligible for royalties.  The seeds typically loose those traits as the use of weed killers has starkly increased because of new weed killer resistant crops, GM traits are expected to have a limited period of efficacy.   More

    The order also aims to break up the Monsanto monopoly without naming the company by adding that any local seed company seeking licenses for selling any new Bt cotton variety shall get the license within 30 days of requesting the licensor.

    Monsanto is successfully battling attacks on their corporate ethics successfully on many fronts.  However in April 2016
    U.S. District Judge Vince Chhabria disagreed Monsanto’s request to dismiss a lawsuit by Edward Hardeman, because simply having an EPA-approved label “does not prevent a jury from finding that that same label violates FIFRA.” The judge also said FIFRA requires “adequate” warnings about the potential risks of herbicides. In an order (PDF) denying the motion to dismiss, Judge Chhabria wrote:

    “In this light, it’s hard to see how Hardeman’s failure-to-warn claims could ‘be construed more broadly than’ FIFRA. Indeed, Hardeman’s complaint explicitly bases his California-law failure-to-warn claims on Monsanto’s alleged violation of FIFRA.”

    Europe Delegates decided in March to delay their vote to extend the permits to market Glyphosate products through-out Europe based on opposition from Germany and France.  They decided to await the results of a study that will definitely determine whether or not Glyphosate causes cancer. Currently Glyphosate has a 2A – maybe and maybe not – rating.

    Greenpeace EU food policy director Franziska Achterberg said: “Rushing to grant a new license now, without waiting for an evaluation by Europe’s chemical agency, would be like skydiving without checking your equipment first. As long as there is conflicting scientific advice, glyphosate should not be approved for use in the EU. And countries would be better advised to do without it.”

    Monsanto is the largest manufacturer of Glyphosate based products while Chinese Companies hold approximately 50% of the market.  Other companies involved are Adama, Albaugh/Atanor, Bayer, Cheminova, Dow, Excel, Nufarm, Phytereup, Sinon, and Syngenta.

    The Guardian reported:

    Meanwhile officials who wish to vote on the issues are uncovered to be completely biased and in many instances are working for organizations who receive large “donations” from Monsanto and similar firms. In 2012, the ILSI group took a $500,000 (£344,234) donation from Monsanto and a $528,500 donation from the industry group Croplife International, which represents Monsanto, Dow, Syngenta and others, according to documents obtained by the US right to know campaign.

    The Green MEP Bart Staes said: “The timing of the release of this report by the FAO/WHO could be described as cynical, if it weren’t such a blatantly political and ham-fisted attempt to influence the EU decision later this week on the approval of glyphosate.” More

    Meanwhile in the US  ISP reports:  “The department must recognize the harm that is already being done to organic and non-GMO farmers and put the responsibility squarely where it belongs – with the biotech companies … Now USDA can no longer claim ignorance about this problem.”

    Even as contamination reports continue to grow, the U.S. government’s most recent response, drawn from the AC21 recommendations, has been to encourage “good stewardship” practices and communication between neighbouring farmers. Yet non-GM farmers say that, in practice, this has meant substantial outlays of both time and money in order to safeguard their crops – and virtually no corresponding responsibility on the part of farmers using genetically modified crops.

    Glyphosates are a big deal and GMO crops may end up causing much harm, despite the fact that as survey conducted in 2013 showed that 93% of the US populations wishes to have GMO ingredients clearly labelled.

    Consumers cannot rely on the regulatory bodies to care for their health.  The regulatory bodies are influenced by their funding, their goals in the defense industry, their corporate bottom line and their duties to share holders.  However, as consumers become more aware perhaps consumer demand will dictate a more health oriented stance by governments and industry alike.

  • David Mort’s latest book Voodoo Child now available on Kindle

    David Mort’s latest book “Voodoo Child” is available now from the Kindle Book Store. You may be interested in it as it covers the evolution of the blues and rock.

    One of rock music’s more iconic images is that of Jimi Hendrix onstage at the Monterey Pop Festival in ’67, kneeling over the remains of his burning guitar after his performance of “Wild Thing.” He was beckoning the flames to rise as if summoning up demons and dragons from hell, which is what several fans described as witnessing after ingesting “Monterey Purple,” a strain of LSD concocted especially for the event.

    Thirty years earlier, a bluesman by the name of Robert Johnson supposedly made a pact with the Devil at the crossroads in return for becoming an Ace” on the guitar. So perhaps Jimi had made a similar pact as both their souls were claimed at the age of 27. And before Robert there was another “Ace” named Charlie Patton who, like Jimi, could play the guitar behind his back, above his head and with his teeth. And before Jimi there was T Bone Walker who performed in a similar fashion. And as these three musicians were African Americans with Cherokee ancestors, perhaps they’d inherited an added spiritual dimension.

    By the time Robert Johnson made his supposed pact however, the myth was already as old as the hills. The fact is that most blues musicians were itinerants who’d chosen a life on the road over a mundane, family or domestic existence, leading loved ones to conclude they were dancing to the devil’s tune.

    For the purposes of my story, which traces the evolution of blues, r n b, soul and rock n roll from the Mississippi flood of ’27 to the deaths of Hendrix, Janis Joplin and Jim Morrison, all such talented musicians, those deemed “Aces” “Kings” or “Queens,” had made similar pacts with the devil. Artists such as Buddy Holly, Bessie Smith, Eddie Cochran, Billie Holiday, Sam Cooke and Otis Redding, who when their respective souls passed over, often after meeting a violent death at an early age, could be claimed to play for the “ARKestra Paradiso.”

    This “ARKestra,” so called because it boasts two players per instrument, performs in a room whose walls are made of a membrane fashioned from tightly stretched goat skin or vellum. Therefore, it can pick up on sound waves travelling through air and water. This room is situated in an old slave ship named “the Paradiso” which floats on a giant underground lake, so can detect vibrations through its wood, taut ropes or sheets, and surroundings. This lake is in a giant cavern known as the Orpheus chamber, situated deep inside a mountain, home to stalactites, stalagmites and crystalline, flower like structures named anthodites, which also pick up on vibrations passing through rock. Consequently, these musicians are performing in a closed environment that resonates like a gigantic bell, thereby creating a wall of sound.

    The “ARKestra” is composed of pairs of those musicians deemed “Aces,” “Kings” or “Queens,” plucked from the flood of misery that segregation created to help change the New World for the better. They mentor and sympathetically resonate with musicians still alive, and working through their performances and recordings, seek to create a new vibe called the “big beat,” woven from different strands of music.

    The old slave ship, “Paradiso,” is also home to the largest record repository in the world. Known as the “ARKhive,” it comprises two copies of all the recordings ever made in the New World, arranged year by year in the aisles of the original slave hold.

    David Mort