The Root of All Evil: Quality Vs. Quantity in America

December 16, 2013 / esfein / Leave a comment

We have a number problems in this country: the national debt,the quantity of jobs available, the rocky relationship between Robert Pattinson and Kristen Stewart, all of which deserve our undivided focus and attention. There is another problem we face, one that comes close to equaling Rob and Kristen’s emotional rollercoaster. It is a problem that contributes to our social and economic conditions. Our society faces the problem of trying to find the delicate balance between the lack of quality and the excess of quantity that is found in multiple aspects of our culture. Simply put, Americans want more. And they want it to levels of excess that have become problematic and detrimental.

Today, we’ll first look at the causes behind our society’s issues with quality as it relates to quantity. Next, we’ll examine the effects of this epidemic, and finally, we’ll pin-point some solutions that will allow us to balance our growing need for more, with what we actually need, so that we can tip the scales in our favor.

Need money, feed me! hateandanger.wordpress.com

Tipping the scales back towards center may not be as easy as it seems. We are fighting against more than balancing our needs and wants; we are fighting against a way of thinking that has dominated our social understanding of quality versus quantity. In the 1987 movie Wallstreet, corrupt businessman Gordon Gekko tells us that,

Greed is good. Greed is right, greed works. Greed clarifies, cuts through, and captures the essence of the evolutionary spirit.

Unfortunately, what Mr. Gekko says is true. Greed is now what drives our wants and desires, and what pushes us to obtain what we want at any cost. We have entered a time where people pay less attention to what you have, and more attention to how much of it you have. We are blinded by the quantity of the things we own, rather than the quality of our possessions and our lives. According to physicist and computer scientist Carlos Roca in his article “Social Cohesion in a Society of Greedy, Mobile Individuals,” published in the Journal of the National Academy of Sciences,

Human wellbeing in modern societies relies on social cohesion, which can be characterized by high levels of cooperation and a large number of social ties. Both features, however, are frequently challenged by individual self-interest. The stability of social and economic systems can suddenly break down as the recent financial crisis illustrates.

Very, very dependable. http://bostonoccupier.com/

What this means is that our individual interests are actually breaking down our social structure. Our “me-first” attitude is what directly affects our need for quantity, instead of quality. If we are focused on getting as much as we can, as fast as we can, the quality of what we consume is going to be compromised.

There are many aspects of our society that have been affected by our focus on quantity at the expense of quality. In the business and entertainment sectors, we’ve seen politicians sent to jail for crimes motivated by greed, and celebrities and artists produce material that is at best of questionable quality. One need look no further than politicians like disgraced Illinois senator Rod Blagoivich, or companies like Johnson and Johnson, which in 2007 reported illegal activity to the government such as bribing government-paid doctors and health officials to promote sales of medical devices in Greece, Poland and Romania. According to Robert Khuzami, director of the Securities and Exchange Commission’s division of enforcement,

For years, the company tried to hide its illegal activities by using sham contracts and off-shore companies to cover its tracks. The Johnson & Johnson’s bribes might have harmed public health in several European countries.

The scariest effect of this mentality is the disregard for the public’s well-being. This side-effect manifests itself in the actions of companies like Johnson and Johnson, but also in what we are exposed to in our everyday lives.

OMG let’s go to the mall! http://www.ourbreathingplanet.com

Our country’s obesity rate, for example, is a calling card of society’s issue with quantity. A 2012 report published by the American Journal of Preventive Medicine found that by 2030, 42 percent of U.S. adults will be obese, adding $550 billion in obesity-related medical expenses to healthcare costs over that period, unless Americans change their ways. Our need for more money, more food, and more recognition is literally making us sick. If we don’t work to correct the imbalance between how much of everything we want, versus how much of it we need, we will find ourselves with a lot of stuff, but without the most important things we have – our physical and emotional health.

Back in 1997, Rapper The Notorious B.I.G. told us that,

The more money we come across, the more problems we see.

Fifteen years later, his words, like the rapper, have started to take on an even larger meaning. When it comes to getting our B.I.G. quantity issues under control, we need to change rappers. And by that I mean, change the rap lyrics our country has come to identify with. The iconic group Outkast tells us,

Don’t act impatiently. You’ll get where you need to be, in due time.

What this means is that we need to be patient and work for good things in our lives, instead of accepting the many mediocre things that come our way. Anthony Levine, CEO of the Nonprofit Finance Fund and author of Impact Investing: Transforming How We Make Money While Making a Difference, argues we need to approach solving our attitudes towards the need for excessive quantity from an economic angle. He says that,

When the market’s crashed in 2008, I think people realized just how much we need community. Not only did out of control money put us in a bad situation, but we realized that we can’t rely 100% on 401ks and the market to take care of us. Trying to make so much money so that you don’t need anyone is a ridiculous and lonely pursuit. We need to view our financial returns alongside the society we’re building. It keeps us connected.

Please sir, may I have some more? rashidaanurse.blogspot.com

As Mr. Levine says, we need to make sure we are focusing on what’s good for our society, not just what is good for us as individuals. We need to remember that greed only leads to excess, which does not translate into having items of quality in our lives, and also, a quality society. The only thing greed leads to is a huge quantity of stuff.

As the saying goes, the best things in life are worth waiting for. And that is what we need to keep in mind when we evaluate what we have in our lives. You may desire more in terms of your financial, social, or personal gains, but that isn’t the answer. The answer is to appreciate the quality of what you have and know that quantity never equals quality.

So, while we still have issues such as our nation’s debt and the job crisis, perhaps these words will reach the ears of the people who hold the fate of our country’s happiness and health in their hands, and it will teach them to love and be grateful for what they have. Here’s looking at you, Kristen and Rob.

Sources:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0094291/

http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2011/06/21/1101044108.abstract

http://star.worldbank.org/corruption-cases/node/20060

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rod_Blagojevich

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/09/business/09drug.html

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/09/18/us-obesity-us-idUSBRE88H0RA20120918

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xZ4tNmnuMgQ

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dg-0843U7zM

http://www.forbes.com/sites/elmirabayrasli/2011/09/06/greed-has-gone-good-social-capital-markets-2011/

Fracking Worse Than You Think: Delusional America and Special Interest Gangs

December 1, 2013 / esfein / Leave a comment

$fracking water$

Mam, your water’s just fine, a pungent gasoline smell is normal nowadays. news.nationalgeographic.com

A recent peer reviewed study has revealed that greenhouse gas emissions from drilling and fracking are 50% worse than previously thought. According to the Harvard study US fossil-fuel-industry methane leaks are dramatically higher than the official estimates have claimed. Not surprisingly, the coal seam gas industry in Australia (one of the largest in the world) has rejected the study outright.

The report, published in the US journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, directly challenges the EPA’s decision to cut its methane emission (produced from fossil fuel extraction) estimates by 25% for 1990 – 2011. The report states that:

We find that [methane] data from across North America instead indicates the need for a much larger adjustment of the opposite sign

Fracking is altering the climate far faster than we first thought. However, before we continue with fracking, let’s first understand the difference between Australia’s coal seam gas and America’s natural gas.

Coal Seam Gas Vs. Natural Gas:

As an end-use product, coal seam gas is the same as natural gas...The only difference between CSG and natural gas is in the way that it is formed by nature. CSG is composed predominantly of methane and small percentages of nitrogen and carbon dioxide. The coal seam is both the source and the reservoir, which is different from the sandstone reservoirs of conventional oil and shale gas. As coal forms over millions of years, large quantities of methane-rich gas are generated and trapped in coal seams by water and ground pressure. CSG is trapped in the coal in tiny fractures, or cleats, under hydrostatic pressure. CSG is extracted at low pressures from coal.

Shale gas is methane held within shale layers, rather than a coal seam. Shale is much harder than coal and always requires fracturing ('fracking') to allow the gas to flow.

$fracking graphic$

Seems pretty technical boys, just throw in all the chemicals you can’t pronounce. http://www.usatoday.com

While natural gas produces less CO2 than coal, the savings become irrelevant when considering the amount of methane that is sprayed into the atmosphere from methane leaks at well sites and while transporting the fuel. The reason for all the worry is that methane traps about 20 times more heat over a 100 year period compared to CO2, despite remaining in the atmosphere for less time.

Related Article: What is the Solution to Smog? A Vacuum!

A natural gas addiction has infected the U.S. with fracking spreading across the country like a viral epidemic. Fracking is the process of harvesting natural gas, or shale gas. It involves mixing dangerous chemicals with large quantities of water and sand and injecting the mixture into shale wells at extremely high pressure. It is for this reason that fracking is believed to be poisoning well water all across the U.S. and in other areas of the world. According to the NRDC (Natural Resources Defence Council):

Over the last decade, the industry has drilled thousands of new wells in the Rocky Mountain region and in the South. It is expanding operations in the eastern United States as well, setting its sights most recently on a 600-mile-long rock formation called the Marcellus Shale, which stretches from West Virginia to western New York. Fracking is a suspect in polluted drinking water in Arkansas, Colorado, Pennsylvania, Texas, Virginia, West Virginia and Wyoming, where residents have reported changes in water quality or quantity following fracturing operations.

$fracking U.S.$

The U.S. is ripe for the fracking! http://www.geomore.com

Immense wells of shale gas are spread across most of the U.S. mainland. These sites each undergo several fracking pumps. Although the media portrays natural gas as the new and improved, next-gen, problem free energy source, it couldn’t be further from the truth. Pipeline incidents and injuries abound and reports of polluted drinking water continue to pop up across the nation with greater frequency. Studies have directly linked shale gas fracking to:

The EPA still has not issued its report on the effect of fracking on drinking water. Despite all of the science pleading with us to reconsider our actions, fracking continues unimpeded.

Related Article: A Cheaper Alternative to Pollution

Fracking Denial and Delusions

By far the worst issue surrounding fracking is that as a whole, we still seem to have no clue that fracking is even taking place, let alone destroying the water supply and decimating the health of 1000’s of people as well as the land. I suppose this isn’t surprising though as many nations are just as clueless about climate change. Afterall, climate denial is a real thing, actively and directly supported by a large number of the 90 institutions that are responsible for climate change since the industrial revolution. So, why shouldn’t the natural gas and fracking industries involve the same type of nonsense?

$fracking climate$

Superhuman denial abilties…
http://www.frankejames.com/

The truth is that human beings, especially us good ol’ Americans, will buy into anything given the opportunity. People are often fooled into passionate belief, and the denial campaigns and propaganda of billion dollar industries do a great deal of fooling.

Related Article: Climate Change too Fast for Evolution

Let’s consider climate change again: Many Americans continue to believe that climate change is either a hoax or an over-dramatized issue. This ignorance is a wrench in the spokes of global progress, especially in light of increasingly volatile weather patterns; increasing extinctions in land and marine life; warnings from scientists across the globe; and the potential loss of trillions of dollars due to the costly effects of climate change. This is cognitive dissonance in its purest form: we know the facts, but we are refusing to change.

Crony Capitalism and Special Interest

Despite America’s lack of progress in reducing emissions, most Americans’ desire a green, renewable energy policy. This applies to fracking as well; a large number of Americans are completely against it. Unfortunately though, oil, coal, and gas companies are at the top of the special interest dole list.

Special interest comes in the form of better government subsidies, tax cuts, court rulings, and allowances. We all know it takes place, and it has been widely practiced and wildly accepted. It is called crony capitalism, and it has been an an ongoing, yet somehow overlooked problem in America.

Related Article: Team Red = Team Blue

$fracking george bush$

No. Well, for the entertainment value, yes. bigdanblogger.blogspot.com

When Bush appointed Dick Cheney to lead an energy task force to revolutionize America’s energy policy, Cheney quickly organized a private meeting with fossil fuel giants at the head of the fracking movement. Companies such as Exxon Mobil, Conoco, Shell Oil, BP America and Chevron made the top of the list. Today, these companies are still given billions of dollars in tax cuts and subsidies despite raking in hundreds of billions of dollars in private profit. According to PBS:

In 2005, Bush, who has received more from the oil and gas industry than any other politician, signed an energy bill from the Republican-controlled Congress that gave $14.5 billion in tax breaks for oil, gas, nuclear power and coal companies. The Energy Policy Act of 2005, which was based on recommendations by Cheney’s energy task force, also rolled back regulations the oil industry considered burdensome, including exemptions from some clean water laws. All of this transpired only one year after Congress passed a bill that included a tax cut for domestic manufacturing that was expected to save energy companies at least $3.6 billion over a decade.

During the time that Bush and Cheney, both of whom are former oil executives, have been in the White House, the oil and gas industry has spent $393.2 million on lobbying the federal government. This places the industry among the top nine in lobbying expenditures. The industry has also contributed a substantial $82.1 million to federal candidates, parties and political action committees, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. 80 percent of the industry’s contributions have gone to Republicans.

It is clear that special interest is taking place and is supporting companies in defiance of America’s health, wealth, and overall best interest. The truth is that a complete multi-industry infiltration of the U.S. government has taken place. Men and women with stake in the fracking, agriculture, pharmaceuticals and more are casting votes and making decisions that directly benefit the industries and leave citizens stripped of their money and power.

Monsanto the Usurper

The most obvious example of a corporation infiltrating the U.S. government is that of Monsanto. Monsanto, in case you didn’t know, is responsible for destroying thousands of local farms, using known harmful herbicides, pesticides, and fungicides, using chemicals responsible for colony collapse disorders in bees, and much more.

Related Article: The Senate is Useless and Should be Dismantled

Monsanto and Monsanto products are banned in several countries. Numerous petitions to cut government ties to Monsanto have circulated, yet to no avail. I wonder, why they didn’t succeed?

First, follow this link to view a list of 71 senators who voted against your right to know if what you are eating is GMO. Oh, and that’s despite 90% of the population saying they would be in favor of mandatory labeling.

$fracking monsanto us$

Whoa, there must be some huge cracks in the U.S. government for these people to slip through. https://www.facebook.com/GrowFoodNotLawns

Next, check out the following list of U.S. government/Monsanto ties and the answer will be obvious.

David Beier
MONSANTO POSITION: Head of Government Affairs for Genetech, (Now Monsanto)
FEDERAL POSITION: Chief Domestic Policy Advisor to Vice President Gore

William Conlon:
MONSANTO POSITION: Worked for Monsanto’s Legal Team
FEDERAL POSITION: Department of Justice

Sam Skinner:
MONSANTO POSITION: Worked on Monsanto’s Legal Team
FEDERAL POSITION: Department of Justice

Robert Fraley:
MONSANTO POSITION: Executive Vice President and Chief Technology Officer
FEDERAL POSITION: Serves as advisor in public agencies, including the USDA, among others

Michael A. Friedman:
MONSANTO POSITION: Senior Vice President for Clinical Affairs at G.D. Searle &Co. (Merged with Monsanto)
FEDERAL POSITION: Acting Commissioner of the FDA

Marcia Hale:
MONSANTO POSITION: Director of International Government Affairs
FEDERAL POSITION: Assistant to President Clinton and Director of Government Affairs

Arthur Hull Hayes:
MONSANTO POSITION: Consultant to Searle’s (merged with Monsanto) Public Relations Firm
FEDERAL POSITION: Previously was FDA Commissioner

John L. Henshaw:
MONSANTO POSITION: Director of ESH Quality & Compliance
FEDERAL POSITION: Senior Advisor to U.S. Secretary of Labor

Rob Horsch:
MONSANTO POSITION: Vice President of Product and Technology Cooperation
FEDERAL POSITION: Advisor to the National Science Foundation and the Department of Energy

Michael Kantor:
MONSANTO POSITION: Board of Directors, also represented Monsanto as a lawyer
FEDERAL POSITION: U.S. Secretary of Commerce

Gwendolyn S. King:
MONSANTO POSITION: Monsanto Board Member
FEDERAL POSITION: Commissioner of SSA 1989-1992

Richard J. Mahoney:
MONSANTO POSITION: CEO of Monsanto for 14 years
FEDERAL POSITION: Serves as Director of U.S. Soviet, Japanese and Korean Trade Councils, a Member of the U.S. Government Policy Committee

Margaret Miller:
MONSANTO POSITION: Oversaw the Approval of rBGH, was a top Monsanto scientist
FEDERAL POSITION: In, 1991, Margaret was appointed Deputy Director of the FDA

George Poste:
MONSANTO POSITION: Sits on Monsanto’s Board of Directors, previously a Monsanto Animal Specialist
FEDERAL POSITION: In 2002, Poste was appointed head of Bioterrorism division of Homeland Security

William D. Ruckelshaus:
MONSANTO POSITION: Member of the Monsanto Board of Directors
FEDERAL POSITION: In 1970, he was the first Chief Administrator for the EPA, later the acting director of the FBI, then Deputy U.S. Attorney General

Donald Rumsfeld:
MONSANTO POSITION: Previous CEO of Searle (merged with Monsanto), he successfully had ASPARTAME legalized while in that position.
FEDERAL POSITION: Appointed to Secretary of Defense in 1975, then appointed to Secretary of Defense again in 2002

Suzanne Sechen:
MONSANTO POSITION: Worked on Monsanto-funded rGBH in connection with her graduate work at Cornell University
FEDERAL POSITION: FDA Reviewer on Scientific Data

Robert B. Shapiro:
MONSANTO POSITION: Previously the President and CEO of Monsanto, Chairman and CEO of Nutrasweet, and Chairman and CEO of Monsanto
FEDERAL POSITION: Previously Served as President’s Advisory Committee on Trade Policy and on the White House Domestic Policy Review of Industrial Innovation

Islam Siddiqui:
MONSANTO POSITION: Former Vice President of CropLife America, which represented Monsanto
FEDERAL POSITION: Chief Agricultural Negotiator for the Office of the Trade Representative

Michael Taylor:
MONSANTO POSITION: Former Attorney for Monsanto for seven years, previous h Head of the Monsanto Washington D.C. Office
FEDERAL POSITION: Former FDA Deputy Commission for Policy. In 2010, appointed by the FDA as a senior advisor of the FDA Commissioner

Dr. Charles Thomas:
MONSANTO POSITION: Previous Monsanto Researcher in charge of the Manhattan Project, creating the atomic bomb. Later, became Monsanto’s Chairman of the board.
FEDERAL POSITION: Previously Served as a consultant to the National Security Council and as a U.S. Representative of the United Nations’ Atomic Energy Commission

Clarence Thomas:
MONSANTO POSITION: Former lawyer for Monsanto, a notorious chemical polluter. Thomas would later cast the decisive vote in 2000 on the Supreme Court, ratifying the stolen election that put George W. Bush Jr. into office
FEDERAL POSITION: In 1991, was appointed to the U.S. Supreme Court

Anne Veneman:
MONSANTO POSITION: Previously served on the Board of Directors of Calgene, a Monsanto Biotech subsidiary
FEDERAL POSITION: In 2001, was appointed Head of the USDA

Jack Watson:
MONSANTO POSITION: Former Staff Lawyer with Monsanto in Washington D.C.
FEDERAL POSITION: Chief of Staff to President Carter

Seth Waxman:
MONSANTO POSITION: Hired by Monsanto to prosecute two Farmers who fought against Monsanto’s Seed Policies in 2002
FEDERAL POSITION: Former U.S. Solicitor General

Dr. Virginia Weldon:
MONSANTO POSITION: Retired Senior Vice President for Public Policy at Monsanto
FEDERAL POSITION: Previously, was a member of the FDA’s Metabolism & Endocrine Advisory Committee

Rufus Yerxa:
MONSANTO POSITION: Former Chief Counsel at Monsanto
FEDERAL POSITION: In 1993, was nominated as U.S. Deputy to the World Trade Organization

Toby Moffett:
MONSANTO POSITION: Monsanto Consultant
FEDERAL POSITION: U.S. Congressman (D)

Dennis DeConcini:
MONSANTO POSITION: Monsanto Legal Counsel
FEDERAL POSITION: U.S. Senator (D)

Josh King:
MONSANTO POSITION: Director, International Government Affairs
FEDERAL POSITION: White House Communications (Clinton)

Carol Tucker-Forman:
MONSANTO POSITION: Monsanto Lobbyist
FEDERAL POSITION: White House Appointed Consumer Advisor (Clinton)

Linda Fisher:
MONSANTO POSITION: Vice President, Government & Public Affairs
FEDERAL POSITION: Deputy Administrator EPA (Clinton, Bush)

Lidia Watrud:
MONSANTO POSITION: Manger, New Technologies
FEDERAL POSITION: USDA, EPA (Clinton, Bush, Obama)

Hillary Clinton:
MONSANTO POSITION: Rose Law Firm, Monsanto Counsel
FEDERAL POSITION: U.S. Senator (D), Secretary of State (Obama)

Roger Beachy:
MONSANTO POSITION: Director, Monsanto Danforth Center
FEDERAL POSITION: Director USDA, NIFA (Obama)

How to Patch a Sinking Ship

It appears that industries spanning every sector, including fracking, agriculture, pharmaceuticals and more are playing a game with the U.S. government, swapping players each season for their own sake, not mine and yours. When congress, the congress of the people, stops acting in the people’s best interest we have a serious problem. Right now we are in the heart of the danger zone. What are we to do?

$permaculture fracking system$

So, let’s make this happen immediately. shadesofgreeninc.org

In a capitalistic society you are a consumer first and foremost. A capitalistic society feeds on your spending, and it feeds you with the sweet satisfaction of ‘things.’ You have power in your purchases; use your buying power to support sustainability-minded companies. If companies are getting away with infiltrating and orchestrating sections of the government, then why not make sure they are excellent companies willing to appease, not disease the masses.

Buy local, support the little guy. Sure, it may sometimes be more expensive, but try not spending your money on a few of your monthly non-essentials and you’d be surprised how quickly your savings add up.

Related Article: Income Inequality in America

Become more independent and deplete your dependence on ‘the system’ by making purchases with awareness. Find satisfaction in the little things and start wanting less. Become more aware of how each and every decision you make affects the rest of the world. Imagine that everyone else on planet Earth is you; what effect would you like to have on yourself?

Grow a garden, go foraging for food, or keep honeybees. Learn about permaculture and begin practicing a zero-waste lifestyle. It’s way easier than you think, and is actually really fun.

Arguably the most important thing you can do is vote. Contact your elected officials and tell them what you think. Demand that they act as your representative, not a rogue speaker. Help fight fracking by joining organizations that fight to stop it.

Educate yourself and spread awareness about issues that are important to you.

Consider. Constantly consider the effect you are causing.

Source:

http://www.smh.com.au/environment/climate-change/harvard-fracking-study-rings-methane-alarm-bells-in-australia-20131126-2y87s.html#ixzz2lu8UBq6R

http://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/2013/03/12/factbox-csg-australia

http://epa.gov/climatechange/ghgemissions/gases/ch4.html

http://www.dartgas.com/content/Document/Factsheets/What%20is%20CSG.pdf

http://www.nrdc.org/energy/gasdrilling/

http://www.nature.com/news/is-fracking-behind-contamination-in-wyoming-groundwater-1.11543

http://www.nicholas.duke.edu/news/radioactive-shale-gas-contaminants-found-at-wastewater-discharge-site

http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2012/04/fracking-could-cause-elevated-levels-of-air-pollutants-near-gas-wells/256158/

http://www.news.cornell.edu/stories/2012/03/reproductive-problems-death-animals-exposed-fracking

http://www.npr.org/2012/01/05/144694550/man-made-quakes-blame-fracking-and-drilling

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/blogpost/post/monsanto-petition-tells-obama-cease-fda-ties-to-monsanto/2012/01/30/gIQAA9dZcQ_blog.html

http://www.businessinsider.com/epa-data-links-groundwater-contamination-fracking-2012-10

http://www.dangersoffracking.com/

http://www2.epa.gov/hfstudy

http://www.fractracker.org/map/

http://www.climatecentral.org/news/americans-uninformed-about-fracking-says-new-study-16762

http://www.pewresearch.org/2006/02/28/both-reds-and-blues-go-green-on-energy/

http://www.pbs.org/now/shows/347/oil-politics.html

http://www.organicconsumers.org/gefood/countrieswithbans.cfm

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/blogpost/post/monsanto-petition-tells-obama-cease-fda-ties-to-monsanto/2012/01/30/gIQAA9dZcQ_blog.html

http://www.organicconsumers.org/articles/article_27635.cfm

http://justlabelit.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/Mellman-Survey-Results.pdf

http://www.monsanto.com/whoweare/pages/robert-fraley-bio.aspx

http://organicconsumers.org/monsanto/revolvedoor.cfm

http://www.rense.com/general33/legal.htm

http://www.aiard.org/meetings/2004forum/horsch.htm

http://www.monsanto.com/whoweare/pages/gwendolyn-king-bio.aspx

http://www.nytimes.com/1983/08/02/business/talking-business-with-mahoney-of-monsanto-farm-subsidy-complications.html

http://organicconsumers.org/monsanto/revolvedoor.cfm http://www.gao.gov/assets/200/196503.pdf

https://webapp4.asu.edu/directory/person/629659

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Rumsfeld#Career_in_government_.281962.E2.80.931977.29

http://www.gao.gov/assets/200/196503.pdf

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_B._Shapiro

http://www.gao.gov/assets/200/196503.pdf

http://www.nap.edu/booksearch.php?booksearch=1&record_id=4548&term=monsanto&chapter=338-353

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/07/supreme-court-monsanto-seeds_n_1946361.html

http://www.organicconsumers.org/corp/veneman.cfm

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/20/business/justices-signal-a-monsanto-edge-in-patent-case.html?_r=0

http://beckerexhibits.wustl.edu/mowihsp/bios/weldon.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rufus_Yerxa

http://www.organicconsumers.org/corp/foremancfa.cfm

http://one.gaslandthemovie.com/take-action/contact-elected-officials

https://wondergressive.com/news/90-companies-responsible-climate-change/

https://wondergressive.com/news/fooling-people-into-passionate-belief/

https://wondergressive.com/news/warning-weather-hazards-ahead/

https://wondergressive.com/news/unprecedented-changes-and-extinctions-occurring-in-marine-life/

https://wondergressive.com/news/climate-change-too-fast-for-evolution/

https://wondergressive.com/news/costly-climate-changes/

https://wondergressive.com/news/ask-an-astrobiologist-global-warming-and-what-to-expect/

https://wondergressive.com/news/indiana-blue-laws-exemplify-crony-capitalism-time-to-punish-politicians/

https://wondergressive.com/news/mystery-of-the-dyingdisappearing-honeybees-solved/

https://wondergressive.com/news/bowman-monsanto-court-case/

https://wondergressive.com/news/afraid-to-wake-up-conquering-fear-and-living-the-lives-we-want/

https://wondergressive.com/news/the-wonderful-healthier-life-changing-and-life-lengthening-world-of-fasting/

https://wondergressive.com/news/awareness-and-dealing-with-rejection/

https://wondergressive.com/news/edible-landscapes/

https://wondergressive.com/news/healthy-honey-bees/

Modern Languages May Share Common, Ancient Ancestor

May 10, 2013 / esfein / Leave a comment

http://stryder.com/staid/migration_of_anatomically_modern_humans_bldg_blog_2008.jpg

Reporting in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, researchers claim to have found 23 words that they believe date back as far as 15,000 years. The words are still reflected in seven linguistic families that span from Europe to Asia, and may support the idea of a “proto-Eurasiatic” language from which almost all modern languages derive.

Several mainstays of language predictably make the list, however, there are a couple of surprises. The whole list:

thou, I, not, that, we, to give, who, this, what, man/male, ye, old, mother, to hear, hand, fire, to pull, black, to flow, bark, ashes, to spit, worm

The seven language families studied were: Indo-European (European languages, Hindi, Urdu, Bengali, Punjabi); Altaic (Turkish, Uzbek, Mongolian); Chukchi-Kamchatkan (northeast Siberia); Dravidian (south Indian languages); Inuit-Yupik (Arctic languages); Kartvelian (Georgian) and Uralic (Finnish, Hungarian). In the map below, the different colors show the distribution of these families. These families, however, do not account for every language in the world, notably Chinese and Japanese. Several African families and the aboriginal languages of Australia and the Americas are also not represented.

The research was headed by Mark Pagel of the University of Reading’s School of Biological Sciences. He and his fellow researchers sifted through the modern lexicon and came up with 200 words that they agreed were shared by European and Asian languages. They eventually narrowed this list down into 23 root words that they found were fairly universal in sound and in meaning across modern languages.

Linguists have calculated the rate at which words are replaced in a language, in essence, how long words tend to exist before becoming extinct. By seeing what words are shared between the modern languages families and knowing roughly when those languages split, Pagel and his team worked backwards and estimated how long these proto-Eurasiatic words have existed.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/special/national/words-that-last/

The Washington Post has a really nifty tool where you can access audio readings of some of the root words and see how they sound alike…or not. Some take quite a bit of imagination to hear the link between them. It took me several listens to connect the dots, and in some instances it was difficult to imagine that there could possibly be any dots to connect at all.

Not everyone is convinced with the new study. Languages evolve and experience “weathering,” a sort of lingual erosion that constantly chips away old words as new ones are added to the vocabulary. Most researchers think that words can’t survive more than 9,000 years because of the effects of weathering. William Croft, a linguistics professor at the University of New Mexico says that the scientific community is “pessimistic” that these words could be 150 centuries old. He adds that “they basically think there’s too little evidence to even propose a [language] family like Eurasiatic.”

I am enamored with the idea that this research posits, that we can accurately trace the roots of modern languages to back before the advent of agriculture during the last Ice Age. However, I sadly think that it’s nothing more than an appealing narrative, a romantic notion of language and how we originated. Without any hard evidence it’s impossible to verify this theory, and none can possibly exist because written language wasn’t invented until some 10,000 years after the supposed genesis of these 23 words.

Like Pagel and his team, journalists have also become intoxicated with wishful thinking. Discovery News reports:

What this means is that if an Ice Age person from 15,000 years ago could hear you speak today, he or she could probably understand you, so long as you used these handful of words.

People in Britain are often incapable of understanding each other due to their different accents. And they speak the same language. On the same tiny island, in the same point in time. And yet a person from the Ice Age could probably understand me if I used only these mostly monosyllabic words? The conductor booms out “All aboard!” to the Bullshit Express.

I find this linguistic theory to be an interesting possibility, though one that is completely unfalsifiable and impossible to measure. Although I’m profoundly skeptical of its validity, I think Pagel’s conclusion makes for a supremely fun coffee table topic of conversation, but barring further breakthroughs I’m afraid that’s all this study can be.

Don’t Fear Anti-GM Hysteria (Nor the Reaper)!

March 28, 2013 / esfein / Leave a comment

http://www.forbes.com/sites/jonentine/2012/09/20/scientists-savage-study-purportedly-showing-health-dangers-of-monsantos-genetically-modified-corn/

A couple of weeks ago the New York Times published a short article on how all genetically modified (GM) products sold in Whole Foods Market would have to be labeled as such by 2018. I was pleasantly surprised to see that the editorial board both agreed that a private entity is free to require whatever labels it desires while also denouncing the need for expensive mandatory labeling in other stores throughout America.

The organic food movement, and the labels that go with it, has been surging in popularity for over the past decade. Although some of its tenets, like promoting local produce, are relatively benign and sensical, others are much more pernicious. The most dangerous of these is the completely unsubstantiated idea that GM foods are harmful for a variety of dubious reasons, like that they are less healthy than organic foods or that the pesticides and herbicides used to grow conventional crops are harming humans. The general vibe I get from more militant organic foodies is that GM food is inherently untrustworthy, cannot help feed a growing population, and that it is actively destroying the planet. The fervor I’ve witnessed for these beliefs borders on religious.

For all the vitriol and the-end-is-nigh rhetoric, the bad rap that GM foods gets is entirely a fabrication, the product of campaigns of misinformation by groups like Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth, and Navdanya.

In reality, GMOs are actually extremely beneficial for multiple reasons. For one, they cost less than organic products to the consumer. They also are genetically resistant to chemicals like glyphosate, an herbicide commercially sold as Round Up. This means that farmers no longer have to use other chemicals that are at least three times as toxic as Round Up and stay in the environment about twice as long. This lack of toxicity also helps reduce topsoil erosion by up to 90%. GM crops also allow for more food to be grown on any given acre of land, which helps reduce deforestation.

In September of last year, Stanford University released a meta-analysis of over 200 studies on the effects of conventional and organic foods to determine the nutritiousness and safety of GM products for humans.

“They concluded that fruits and vegetables labeled organic were, on average, no more nutritious than their conventional counterparts, which tend to be far less expensive. Nor were they any less likely to be contaminated by dangerous bacteria like E. coli.

The researchers also found no obvious health advantages to organic meats.

Conventional fruits and vegetables did have more pesticide residue, but the levels were almost always under the allowed safety limits, the scientists said. The Environmental Protection Agency sets the limits at levels that it says do not harm humans.”

These findings should come as no shock as they confirm what many other scientific bodies have already discovered. The National Academy of Sciences noted in a 2004 report that

“no adverse health effects attributed to genetic engineering have been documented in the human population.”

The World Health Organization reports that

“GM foods currently available on the international market have passed risk assessments and are not likely to present risks for human health. In addition, no effects on human health have been shown as a result of the consumption of such foods by the general population in the countries where they have been approved.”

In 2010 the European Commission finished a decade’s worth of research over the GM debate, concluding that

“there is, as of today, no scientific evidence associating GMOs with higher risks for the environment or for food and feed safety than conventional plants and organisms.”

Genetically modified food is simply not the boogeyman many want people to believe it is.

In response to the Stanford study, Roger Cohen penned an op-ed in the Times entitled The Organic Fable in which he gleefully celebrated its findings. His stance and exasperation with the organic movement directly mirrors my own:

“Organic has long since become an ideology, the romantic back-to-nature obsession of an upper middle class able to afford it and oblivious, in their affluent narcissism, to the challenge of feeding a planet whose population will surge to 9 billion before the middle of the century and whose poor will get a lot more nutrients from the two regular carrots they can buy for the price of one organic carrot.”

When groups like Greenpeace denigrate and demonize GM products, they are purposefully denying the incredible things GMOs have accomplished and how many millions of lives they have saved by instead greenwashing the issue with pro-organic propaganda.

http://www.agbioworld.org/biotech-info/topics/borlaug/

Norman Borlaug provides perhaps my favorite story about the astounding successes of genetically modifying crops. In 1968 Paul Ehrlich published his bestseller, The Population Bomb, in which he predicted that hundreds of millions of people in Southeast Asia would soon starve as the land simply couldn’t provide enough calories to maintain the growing multitudes. Borlaug and his team, however, were already hard at work developing and introducing a special type of high-yield dwarf wheat to the region. The crop was naturally resistant to many pests and diseases and allowed farmers to double or even triple their harvest. Later, a special high-yield variety of rice was developed, spreading the cornucopia across all of Asia.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norman_Borlaug

For all of his work, Borlaug was awarded the 1970 Nobel Peace Prize. A modern-day saint, he is credited with saving as many as one billion lives from famine and starvation.

In modern times, a GM crop named Golden Rice has been developed over the past 30 years to combat Vitamin A deficiency. This malady kills an estimated 650,000 children under the age of five every year. Despite Golden Rice’s potential to drastically alleviate this tragedy, groups like Greenpeace and Dr. Vandana of Navdanya have not only opposed, but have also consistently delayed the implementation of this breakthrough, maintaining that Golden Rice poses an unnecessary danger to human health and to local farmers through crop contamination.

I am not explicitly against organics or the local food movement; what people purchase and what they eat is none of my business. However, I am strongly opposed to the knee-jerk reactions of some people and organizations that not only classify all GM products as being harmful, but who also lobby to make them illegal for other people to use or benefit from.

People should be free to choose whatever food or technology that they see fit. No well-fed person should sit in their armchair and actively campaign against crops that could drastically improve, or even save the lives of people who might want to cultivate them.

Good on The New York Times for realizing that mandated GM labeling is an onerously expensive and pointless intrusion on private retailers who don’t desire to do so voluntarily. Hopefully supporters of both organic and conventional products can realize that making food more costly only exacerbates problems both at home and around the world.

Sadly, however, I fear that the anti-GM movement has a reflexive, animistic attitude towards food that they deem to be “impure.” For my desire to see billions of sated stomachs in the coming decades, I hope I’m wrong.

Sources:

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/15/opinion/why-label-genetically-engineered-food.html?_r=1&

http://www.greenpeace.org/international/en/

http://www.foe.co.uk/resource/press_releases/gm_crops_not_answer_to_food_challenges_03012013.html

http://www.navdanya.org/campaigns/gmo-free

http://www.agweb.com/assets/import/files/ao273f.pdf

http://annals.org/article.aspx?articleid=1355685

http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=10977

http://www.who.int/foodsafety/publications/biotech/20questions/en/

http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_IP-10-1688_en.htm

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/07/opinion/roger-cohen-the-organic-fable.html?_r=0

http://www.forbes.com/2009/09/14/norman-borlaug-green-revolution-opinions-contributors-ronald-bailey.html