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Politics : Rat's Nest - Chronicles of Collapse -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Wharf Rat who wrote (11606)	12/23/2010 12:13:10 PM
From: Mannie	Respond to of 24216

US threatened ‘retaliation’ to bully EU into accepting biotech crops, cable shows By David Edwards and Stephen Webster Monday, December 20th, 2010 -- 6:59 pm Reacting to a French pledge to represent the "common interest" in considering biotech foods, a former US ambassador recommended publishing a "retaliation list" of European locations where genetically modified organisms (GMOs) were being grown in hopes that activists would destroy them and "cause some pain" for officials, a leaked diplomatic cable shows. In a confidential communication dated Dec. 14, 2007 and released by WikiLeaks on Sunday, then-US Ambassador to France Craig Roberts Stapleton recommended creating the list if France and the EU continued to ban biotech seeds. "Mission Paris recommends that that the [United States government] reinforce our negotiating position with the EU on agricultural biotechnology by publishing a retaliation list when the extend 'Reasonable Time Period' expires," Stapleton wrote. "Europe is moving backwards not forwards on this issue with France playing a leading role, along with Austria, Italy and even the [European] Commission." Stapelton added that the US should create a list "that causes some pain across the EU, since this is a collective responsibility, but that also focuses in part on the worst culprits." He continued: "The list should be measured rather than vicious and must be sustainable over the long term, since we should not expect an early victory." The former US official added that France's "High Authority" on agricultural biotech was particularly offensive because it sought to "roll back established science-based decision making." He added that a bill considered by the French National Assembly should be rebuked by the publication "of a registry identifying the cultivation of GMOs at the parcel levels" ... "given the propensity for activists to destroy GMO crops in the field." The document would appear to expose a high-ranking US official advocating a selective leak of otherwise confidential information to achieve a European political objective on behalf of US private industry. The law that was considered in France would have made farmers and biotech firms liable for pollen drift of their modified crops -- a move that "could make any biotech planting impossible in practical terms," the Stapleton wrote. It was essentially the same principle the US employs for environmental pollution: the polluter must pay. GMO firms, however, are given exception to those regulations in North America. The spread of modified genes into the wild is of particular concern to critics of biotech food crops, who cite studies linking GM seeds to organ damage and infertility in animals. Most Monsanto seeds are modified to resist pesticides such as Roundup, which has been shown to cause cancer and genetic mutations in humans. It is still unclear whether genetically modified foods pose health risks, but they have been adopted in soaring quantities in the United States. "Soybeans and cotton genetically engineered with herbicide-tolerant traits have been the most widely and rapidly adopted GE crops in the U.S., followed by insect-resistant cotton and corn," according to the US Department of Agriculture (USDA). Researchers at the University of Arkansas found in August that canola, a modified rapeseed used mainly for oil, had managed to sustain itself in the wilds of North Dakota. Up to 80 percent of the plants they tested had genes that were modified to resist herbicide. It was the first time modified crops had been discovered growing in the wild, the BBC noted. Monsanto's genetically modified corn, currently banned across the EU, was also found growing in Ireland, the Irish Department of Agriculture said. Stapleton was appointed Ambassador to France in 2005 by President George W. Bush. His wife is a cousin of President George H.W. Bush. Stapelton was replaced as ambassador in July 2009, when President Barack Obama named Charles Rivkin to the post. Europe continues biotech resistance It's not clear from the release if the US went ahead with its plan for the "retaliation list," but Stapelton was certainly right on whether the US should expect an early victory in European public opinion. In December, more than one million Europeans signed a petition demanding the EU halt the approval of new genetically modified crops. The petition was later dismissed by the EU Commission on procedural grounds. In the last 12 years only two organisms have been licensed for seeding across Europe, and one of them was a potato that triggered the recent mass petition against the crops. The number one multinational biotech firm in the world, Monsanto, isn't happy about that. But like other US business interests, Monsanto hasn't been sitting around whining about policy backlash foreign or domestic. The Nation's Jeremy Scahill revealed in September that the world's top producer of genetically modified seeds hired US security contractor Blackwater to "infiltrate activist groups organizing against the multinational biotech firm." The leaked cable makes no mention of Blackwater mercenaries operating in Europe. Other cables released in recent days showed that, behind the scenes, Spain has been a key ally of the US in defending genetically modified crops. Spanish Secretary of State and Deputy Minister Josep Puxeu contacted US officials to ask for support after his country came under pressure to ban their Monsanto-developed MON810 corn crop, a cable revealed. "He asked that the USG maintain pressure on Brussels to keep agricultural biotechnology an option for Member States and requested that the USG work together with Spain in this endeavor." Another cable sent to the Vatican on Nov. 19, 2009 indicated that Pope Benedict XVI also supports genetically modified crops, but will not admit it in public. "Vatican officials remain largely supportive of genetically modified crops as a vehicle for protecting the environment while feeding the hungry, but -- at least for now -- are unwilling to challenge bishops who disagree," it explained. rawstory.com

To: Wharf Rat who wrote (11606)	12/23/2010 10:12:20 PM
From: Wharf Rat	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 24216

The peak oil crisis: the time of the demagogues by Tom Whipple The transition from 200 years of cheap and plentiful fossil fuels to an era without will go through many phases as it gradually dawns on the body politic what is happening. A few weeks ago Virginia's U.S. Senator Mark Warner noted that the global warming debate was not so much a scientific one as it was religious. On one side were the apostles of science and on the other was the "American way of life." When Election Day came, it was no contest - the American way of life won hands down and numerous veteran politicians were sent packing. In state after state, "cap and trade" was widely perceived as the implacable enemy of all Americans hold dear - prosperity and economic growth. Now it shouldn't take long for one to figure out that the good times we have enjoyed for the last 200 years or so were based on cheap energy. If one takes some and eventfully much of the energy out of the equation, then the coming decades are simply not going to be prosperous in the conventional sense. The bottom line is that most of us will be making do with much less stuff and certainly a lot less fossil fuel powered mobility in coming years. The trouble, of course, is that most of us don't want to hear this and many will embrace any prophet that will say drastic changes are not in store and that we can return to the life as we have always known it. Reality of course is that, unless you are among the handful that are still hunting and gathering up a remote Amazon tributary, you are going to be hurting soon. For many this has already happened. In America, and many other places for that matter, in the last 100 or so years we managed to move much of our rapidly increasing population into cities and suburbs and find some means for them to earn a living there. This transition was underwritten by prodigious amounts of cheap fossil energy that supported people in increasing abstract occupations such as law, finance, analysis or government. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- History is replete with large numbers of people willing to follow prophets to disaster. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Without the cheap fossil fuels, there will simply not be enough energy to maintain the jobs and lifestyles for many, many millions of us. Nearly half of all Americans report that they are already hurting in some fashion from what they believe is a recession, but in reality is the beginning of the transition from one age to another less prosperous one. Give the large numbers already hurting financially, there is little wonder that so many are willing to follow voices saying they can make life better. A simple example is the American attitude toward global warming. A few years ago most of us were willing to accept the abstruse science that concluded that not only was global warming caused by man-made emissions, but mankind had also started along the path to wiping itself out. The general acceptance of the idea that we had better do something to control emissions was widespread until there arose the demagogues preaching that the science was false, global warming was a natural phenomenon, the consequences of temperature rises were far in the future, and that efforts to control emissions could cost you your job or the hopes of ever getting one. Given arguments like that, concerns for the as yet unborn great -grandchildren quickly melted and a majority of Americans now believe that controlling emissions is not a priority when compared to creating jobs. History, unfortunately, is replete with large numbers of people willing to follow prophets to disaster. The last millennium or two has abounded in holy wars that resulted in the death of millions and the demise of many civilizations. In our lifetime the German people followed a prophet of prosperity that resulted in the destruction of much of the civilized world. Closer to home we only have to go back 150 years to a time when hundreds of thousands died fighting for a belief that their economic well-being depended on the indefinite continuation of slavery. At present America is abounding with demagogues professing an answer to the current economic difficulties and a restoration of the jobs and prosperity that is the American birth right. Restoring "prosperity" in the conventional sense of acquiring more and fancier things and ever increasing real incomes will, of course, be impossible as liquid fuels become more and more expensive. As this fact of life in the 21st century is not yet widely recognized, the demagogy will continue for a while and many will be elected to public office on platforms that are simply impossible to fulfill. The heart of the problem is that there are no simple and painless solutions to transferring mankind from an abundance of cheap energy to scarcity. So long as the false prophets of prosperity are in the political ascendency, rational efforts to prepare life in the decades ahead will be impossible. Although the path ahead is far from clear, serious and possibly expensive efforts to make substantial reductions in energy consumption before we are forced to do so by a combination of cost and scarcity would seem an unlikely course. As long as enough people are willing to believe that free enterprise and market forces will bring us through the coming transition through substitution of other forms of energy nothing is likely to happen until unprecedented economic pain sets in. Then perhaps we as a nation will stop trying to return to the good old days and will focus on real solutions to the pain we are all about to suffer. energybulletin.net