http://www.communicationagents.com/sepp/environment.htm en-us sepp@lastrega.com Fri, 18 Jan 2013 19:36:54 GMT http://www.communicationagents.com/sepp/2013/01/18/european_union_seeks_consumer_input_on_organic_agriculture.htm The European Union on Tuesday took the debate about genetically modified crops to the public with a survey asking citizens to share their thoughts on organic farming, reports Phys.org in a recent article titled EU asks citizens to join debate on GM food Image credit: americanoverkill.com The article continues ... The bloc's 500 million consumers are invited to complete an anonymous online questionnaire on the European Commission's Agriculture and Rural Development website (ec.europa.eu/agriculture/consultations/organic/2013_en.htm). The consultation, which ends on April 10, is part of a review of European policy on organic agriculture. The survey is available in all official EU languages. English is the one linked here, but other languages are available from a drop-down menu at the top of the page. The Phys.org article, putting emphasis on the GM angle, goes on to say...... Environment Sepp Hasslberger Fri, 18 Jan 2013 19:36:54 GMT http://www.communicationagents.com/sepp/2012/11/23/a_seed_for_change_greek_film_maker_says_we_can_grow_our_way_out_of_the_crisis.htm Many thanks g to Cristina in Greece for her report on this - originally published on her justiceforgreece blog as A seed For Change a documentary project by Alex Ikonomidis and the declaration on seed freedom Alex Ikonomidis is a Greek film maker who lived, studied and worked in Lebanon. After returning to his native Greece and serving his time in the military, he took up his profession there and was happily going along, producing in the world of media and advertising when, suddenly, the economic crisis hit. Through the crisis, Ikonomidis recognized that when money becomes more and more scarce, it is important to be where food is grown. This brought him to embark on a documentary project. A Seed for Change is his soon-to-be-released feature length film documenting why agriculture must start with seed freedom. Chemical inputs are often toxic and are disruptive to human health and the environment. "Standardized" seeds, as imposed by the agro-chemical conglomerates through legislation pushed through in much of the civilized world, are destroying our heritage of biological diversity, created by nature and harnessed by farmers for producing our food over thousands of years.... Environment Sepp Hasslberger Fri, 23 Nov 2012 15:54:11 GMT http://www.communicationagents.com/sepp/2008/09/23/enzymes_non_toxic_biopesticides.htm The chemical companies will tell us that to kill pests we must poison them. The drawback is that after some time, the poison instals itself in the environment and even if we do not directly come in contact with it while trying to wipe out insects, we find traces of it in our food and drinking water, or drifting over from that neighboring field planted with soy beans that has just been sprayed to eliminate the bugs attacking the crop. Soybean Pod Borer - Image credit: Maine.gov. There are about 50 to 60 million insect species on Earth - mankind has named only about 1 million and of those, only about 1 thousand are considered "pest" species, and of these, already over 50% of these insects have become resistant to synthetic chemical pesticide poisons. Each year mankind loses about 25,000 to 100,000 species of insects, plants and animals due to man's "ecological footprint. But, after poisoning the planet and contaminating every living thing for the last 60 years with these dangerous and ineffective pesticide poisons, man still has not successfully eliminated, or much less controlled, even one species of insect considered to be pests! And still, mankind continues to use more and more pesticides to try to "keep up"! Even with all of this expensive pollution - we continue to lose more and more crops and human lives each year to the use of pesticides. Steve Tvedten (The Ideal Pesticide) is a former pesticide applicator - I think that is what you call the people that come to exterminate the ants or cockroaches in your back yard. He is a reformed pesticide applicator, since he got sick from being in contact with the chemical poisons. But he hasn't just stopped working with pesticides - he invented and patented a non-toxic form of pest control - using enzymes. Here is an explanation of how he does it.... Health Sepp Hasslberger Tue, 23 Sep 2008 11:25:32 GMT http://www.communicationagents.com/sepp/2008/06/19/seeds_of_destruction_.htm William Engdahl's book Seeds of Destruction takes on the hot theme of what is behind the development of genetically altered plants and their imposition by what seems sheer force, on the earth's population. The motives he finds are not something everyone will be comfortable with, but since we are the guinea pigs and the eventual target of the foods so produced, we better start looking. Seeds of Destruction - Global Research You may have heard of Arpad Pusztai, a scientist of Hungarian origin who, working in the UK, discovered that genetically modified potatoes, when fed to laboratory animals, caused pathological changes of their organs. The head of the Rowett Institute, which had employed Pusztai, terminated his contract and ruined his career, one indication that there are dark forces at work that will attempt to prevent any damaging information about GMOs to reach the wider public. Rats fed GM soy developed sick offspring, and the Russian researcher blowing the whistle on that has been similarly vilified and her career ended. In India, sheep grazing on cotton plants modified to manufacture BT toxin, died in large numbers indicating that the toxin is not, as we are told, harmless to vertebrates. William Engdahl has put these and other instances of damage and suppression of science together with historical information on the promoters of 'scientific agriculture' and his conclusions are disquieting. Arun Shrivastava has reviewed Engdahl's book:... Health Sepp Hasslberger Thu, 19 Jun 2008 12:02:57 GMT http://www.communicationagents.com/sepp/2008/02/15/creating_reality_from_consciousness_and_free_will_to_three_dimensional_networking.htm How often have we been told that we create our own reality. That all we need to do is envision, with positive thought, what we want and it will surely come about. Actually, a whole industry has sprung up around that meme, from life coaches to do-it-yourself success books. Perhaps the most recent and arguably one of the most widely known examples of this is The Secret, an inspirational film and a book that promote what is called the law of attraction. The object seems to be to obtain what you most wish for. In our society, that normally turns out to be financial success, but it is not necessarily limited to that. Now how does this really work. How do we create reality in a world where everyone seems to have a different agenda, where political forces are overwhelmingly seen as a violent driving force for the accumulation of power that is in contrast with the deepest and most cherished wishes of the majority of thinking individuals. Creating Reality Claus Janew has examined the question in some depth in the book "The Creation of Reality" which is only available in German. An abridged version, translated into English, is available from Janew's site as a PDF file. The title is How Consciousness Creates Reality. If you are interested at all about the deeper questions of our existence, I recommend you download and print that 36-page essay. Janew says he "wrote the book out of a desire to examine the structure of our reality from a standpoint unbiased by established teachings, be they academic-scientific, popular-esoteric, or religious in nature. The solution to the classical problem of free will," he continues, "constitutes the gist of the concepts revealed." No need to bring previous philosophical knowledge to the reading of the text, simply an interest in fundamental interconnections, a certain openness and the willingness to think along. A second, shorter paper, which has been published in the German Magazin 2000 and titled Omnipresent Consciousness and Free Will might serve as an introduction to those of you who don't want to invest the time necessary to read the whole 36-page essay. And then - you can always choose to go on from there. I should like to thank Mike Emery for having pointed me in the direction of Janus and his essays. And in case neither The Secret nor Consciousness and Free Will hold much attraction for you at this time and yet you want to change the reality in which we live, I have another tip for you. One more way of creating the reality we want is simply to link up with other people and start networking. You can do that either on the internet or in person - starting right in your own neighborhood...... Human Potential Sepp Hasslberger Fri, 15 Feb 2008 17:26:40 GMT http://www.communicationagents.com/sepp/2008/02/01/world_health_organization_paralyzed_by_nuclear_lobby.htm A study by the World Health Organization's senior radiation advisor Dr Keith Baverstock, completed in 2001, suggested that the use of uranium weapons in Iraq could pose a unique health hazard to the civilian population. The publication of the study was suppressed by the World Health Organization's hierarchy and only in February 2004 the UK Sunday Herald broke that story. Dr Baverstock was quoted as saying: “I believe our study was censored and suppressed by the WHO because they didn’t like its conclusions. Previous experience suggests that WHO officials were bowing to pressure from the IAEA, whose remit is to promote nuclear power. That is more than unfortunate, as publishing the study would have helped forewarn the authorities of the risks of using DU weapons in Iraq.” At the time, the WHO's Dr Repacholi, a corrupt scientist known for his role in hiding any damaging effects of mobile phone radiation on humans and animals, denied that there had been any interference with the report, saying “The IAEA role was very minor,” but the study titled Radiological toxicity of DU which could have saved countless lives in the Middle East, had indeed never been published. And of course the damage that is being done by depleted uranium munitions and missiles coated with the radioactive metal can hardly be overlooked any more: Use of "Depleted" Uranium Munitions Daytona Beach News-Journal Special DEPLETED URANIUM BURNING: AN E T E R N A L MEDICAL DISASTER Fast forward to December 2007: Health professionals are CALLING FOR INDEPENDENCE OF THE WORLD HEALTH ORGANIZATION. Their letter to Madam Chan, Director-General of the WHO, makes reference to another case of suppression of scientific data, nuclear contamination after the disastrous accident at the Chernobyl reactor, and the consequent endangerment of human life without adequate intervention. The appeal spells out what is wrong and asks that the World Health Organization rescind its link with the International Atomic Energy Agency and fulfill its stated purpose of protecting human health:... Environment Sepp Hasslberger Fri, 1 Feb 2008 18:46:11 GMT http://www.communicationagents.com/sepp/2007/05/29/bird_flu_and_microwaves_are_we_killing_birds_with_radiation.htm Are we killing our feathered friends with radiation? The question might seem far fetched, but it really is not a big stretch of the imagination. Microwaves do cause heating and other, more subtle changes of biological tissues. Dr. Mae-Wan Ho of ISIS says: "Birds near mobile phone base stations do not breed well" in a recent article titled Mobile Phones & Vanishing Birds - Where did all the sparrows go? In addition to birds, bees have been getting sick and disoriented, and whole hives are being deserted - we even have a new name for the phenomenon: Colony Collapse Disorder or Vanishing Bee Syndrome. The mysterious illness has decimated the honeybee population in several nations. There are some links to pesticides, genetically modified crops producing poisons are a hypothesis, but also microwave radiation as used in communications equipment has been implicated. In a case of disappearance of bee hives documented in Germany a few years ago, the bees disappeared from hives where they were exposed to the microwaves from nearby cell phone relay towers, while other hives, situated behind sheet aluminium shielding, stayed put. Apart from birds getting disoriented and dying in the vicinity of cell phone towers, could the radiation be responsible for the persistence of what we call the bird flu? The illness has been killing chickens and other fowl and is officially attributed to a common virus with the designation H5N1. Former Royal Canadian Navy officer Larry Blackhall thinks there may be a connection. Apart from the appalling and very stressful conditions of the birds caged in huge factory farms, there may be another factor that has not been considered enough. In a paper he submitted to the Canadian Parliament's Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food, Blackhall says that the avian virus catastrophe may well be the undesired result of the interaction of two related technologies: A. Modern technological poultry production factory systems introducing the application of chemicals, medicines, biological agents and Electromagnetic radiation techniques, and; B. Cumulative background electromagnetic radiation.... Environment Sepp Hasslberger Tue, 29 May 2007 17:40:31 GMT http://www.communicationagents.com/sepp/2007/05/09/confined_animal_feeding_operations_spearhead_corporate_food_monopoly.htm Factory farms or CAFOs, Confined Animal Feeding Operations, not only provide most of the foods that are eaten in "developed" countries the world over, they are a spearhead for establishing a food monopoly of giant biotech corporations and Big Food multinationals. That is the gist of an urgent call to action issued by Eileen Dannemann, the former director of the National Coalition of Organized Women, on the Progressive Convergence site: The sudden overwhelming proliferation of Confined Animal Feeding Operations; the FDA approval of cloned meat and milk from cloned cows unlabeled at the consumer level; the Monsanto patents pending on GMO hog breeds; and the National Animal Identification System (NAIS) are all synchronized elements of the covert roll out of Monsanto's "GMO livestock conversion plan". Image credit: Greenpeace Dannemann adds that the purpose for the build-up of CAFOs is to establish a seamless infrastructure for converting our supply of meat to genetically engineered animals, just like Monsanto’s “acreage conversion plan” for GMO grains brought us GMO corn, soybeans and rice. The animal feeding operations are part of a grand plan to take agriculture out of the hands of farmers and put food production squarely under the control of corporations, controlled by patents and new "food safety rules" that control everything "from farm to fork" but are really designed to edge out small family farms in favor of corporate operations.... Environment Sepp Hasslberger Wed, 9 May 2007 17:11:34 GMT http://www.communicationagents.com/sepp/2007/03/06/millions_of_bees_die_are_electromagnetic_signals_to_blame.htm Bees in the US are dying of some unknown cause - millions of them are leaving their hives and do not come back. What is happening? The problem has got a name - colony collapse disorder - but no apparent cause. Bee hive Some years back, France and other European countries had a similar, if less severe die-off of honey bees. At the time Gaucho, a poisonous seed treatment chemical produced by Bayer, was blamed, the die-off has continued in Europe, although at a comparatively slower pace. The situation in the US seems even more severe than what happened in Europe, and certainly the onset is more sudden. According to The Independent, millions of honey bees are abandoning their hives and flying off to die, leaving beekeepers facing ruin and US agriculture under threat. "Across the country, from the Atlantic coast to the Pacific, honey bee colonies have started to die off, abruptly and decisively. Millions of bees are abandoning their hives and flying off to die (they cannot survive as a colony without the queen, who is always left behind). Some beekeepers, especially those with big portable apiaries, or bee farms, which are used for large-scale pollination of fruit and vegetable crops, are facing commercial ruin - and there is a growing threat that America's agriculture may be struck a mortal blow by the loss of the pollinators. Yet scientists investigating the problem have no idea what is causing it." On one of my weekly news grabs, I linked an article on the mysterious die-off of honey bees, and a reader commented, suggesting that emissions of GWEN, the Ground Wave Emergency Network, might be to blame. Here is what he had to say: After reading several articles on the disappearance of the honeybee, the thought occurred that this appears to be happening only in the US. A Google search turned up nothing on this phenomenon in any other country, including Canada and Mexico. Why only the US? Also, why are nonsensical excuses being offered up by the pseudo-scientific community for the demise of the bee? Researchers have dubbed the syndrome the "colony collapse disorder." They say the bees presumably are dying in the fields, perhaps becoming exhausted or disoriented and eventually dying from exposure to the cold. Or, it could just be that the bees are stressed out. Give me a break! Tired bees? Dying from weather exposure? Stressed out bees? Disoriented? Just imagine a tired bee for a moment. When’s the last time you saw a tired bee? Dying from weather exposure? Weather cold enough to kill bees in their hives would also decimate other insect populations. No report on that, huh? Stressed out bees? What, all of a sudden bees get stressed out? What about bees in other countries? They don’t seem to be having a problem at all. Disoriented bees? Ah, well this is a possibility. But what would make them disoriented? Perhaps it is the 250 HZ signals being pumped out of GWEN stations all over America. This signal makes people angry, so that they support the administrations idea of going after Iran and violence in general. It works great for mass manipulation of opinion. Unfortunately, the same signal will induce a misdirection of up to 10 degrees in the navigation ability of the honeybee. They go away from the hive and never come back because they can no longer find it. That’s why it’s only happening in the US. Perhaps the most puzzling aspect of this is that US media has never ventured to question why it is only happening here. Somebody must have told them to clam up on this issue or the current crop of US reporters got their degrees in journalism out of a Cracker Jack box. Now what the hell are GWEN stations, you might want to ask, and what could they have to do with the catastrophic die-off of honey bees...... Environment Sepp Hasslberger Tue, 6 Mar 2007 23:10:03 GMT http://www.communicationagents.com/sepp/2006/12/14/biofuels_hard_choice_want_food_or_fuel.htm It's been just over two year ago that Georges Monbiot warned us of the dark side of an apparently good idea: replacing petroleum based fuels with others based on bio-mass. My article reporting on this drew some critical comments, but the initial fears seem to be borne out now as we are getting closer to implementing the biofuel option. In May 2005, US president Bush urged widespread adoption of both biodiesel and ethanol production from agricultural products, as part of a strategy to reduce US dependence on oil imports. What he apparently didn't consider were the knock-on effects of such a strategy on food prices and ultimately on the ability of agriculture to assure a supply of plentiful, affordable food for all. Mae-Wan Ho of the Institute for Science in Society warns in a recent article titled Biofuels: Biodevastation, Hunger & False Carbon Credits that Europe’s thirst for biofuels is fuelling deforestation and food price hikes, exacerbated by a false accounting system that awards carbon credits to the carbon profligate nations. She adds that "a mandatory certification scheme for biofuels is needed to protect the earth’s most sensitive forest ecosystems, to stabilise climate and to safeguard our food security." Tom Philpott, in an article published by Grist magazine takes the discussion further, showing that a relatively small move towards biofuels in the US has been doubling the price of corn in the space of a year, as the grain becomes a sought-after raw material for ethanol to be added to gasoline. What the concerns expressed on both sides of the Atlantic show is that biofuels may be far from the magic solution to our energy problems we are looking for. We should direct our attention and support to real new energy inventions. These new technologies under development by an army of private inventors and tinkerers are without public funding and there is little interest in real breakthroughs. Yes, there are some potentially disruptive technologies out there waiting for their day. They could easily upset the billion-dollar fossil fuel energy interests as they are coming into play. But come they will, with or without public funding. In addition to the more conventional alternatives such as solar, wind and tidal power, there are promising developments on fuelless technologies that tap the energy potential provided by magnets as well as unconventional chemical and nuclear reactions. If you're interested in following developments in these emerging energy technologies, there is a great site to bookmark and keep track of by getting their "Daily FE_Updates". There is also a Free energy Wiki which allows anyone to contribute with the accumulation and sorting of information about new energy developments. But perhaps you want to first get a whiff of the pitfalls of using agricultural biomass for fuel production, which Tom Philpott has exposed in his article Feeding the Beast:... Environment Sepp Hasslberger Thu, 14 Dec 2006 12:28:38 GMT