I’m currently in Madison, WI (on the way to Cedar Rapids and Des Moines) and I saw a feature in the Sunday paper about what else could go wrong, for example, an environmental disaster in the Great Lakes. It’s good to see this kind of discussion, though on one level it’s about 50 years late, and on another, it’s never too late to stop the next problem before it happens.
It seems like the oil gusher has fallen off of page one, after an astounding run of about 60 days (minus a week at the beginning and the past week when the World Cup started to take over. From what I am reading, there is a chance — I would put it at 50/50 — that BP will not be able to cap its well: that it will become a permanent feature on the Earth. There are currently two relief wells in progress, each of which has a chance of stopping the flow from the bottom by some time around August. (We have a good article about this in the queue by Heather Fae Speaker, one of the Book of Blue models, a talented writer who wanted to help out with some journalism — I just need to edit it, and I’ll get that to you soon.)
If you’re worried what else can go wrong in the world, I suggest you focus your mind on the following: dioxin and genetically modified foods. Nuclear power is a big problem, still, though at the moment it’s fairly well contained: but we will have to come back to it. The people who are responsible for this stuff have no clue what they are doing. I know from reading their corporate memos, and I know from asking my father what he knows about nuclear power. He has spent many years of his life in the nuclear industry and he doesn’t know that much — but he trains the guys at power plants to (shall we say) ‘talk to’ the press if something goes wrong. But the limits on his technical and biological knowledge are frightening, and remind me of Tony Hayward sitting there in front of Congress saying sorry he has no clue about this, that or the other thing.
Since the well blowout in April, I’ve had this song going through my mind. Good thing for You Tube — I haven’t seen a copy of The Dream of the Blue Turtles since the dawn of time.
PS, if you’re in Cedar Rapids and would like to have lunch, drop me an email at dreams – at – planetwaves.net. I won’t be there long, but I thought I would drop in and put a face with the name.
Sweet Plastic Baby Jesus, it did sound like I was defending Monsanto. Let me be clear: Monsanto is an evil multi-national corporation, and I mean that in the big-picture, these-fuckers-are-liars sense. The people who work for Monsanto are not necessarily evil, and yet the people running it? Gods help us.
I dunno, Eric. It sounds to me like you’re angling for redneckus honorarius status. By all the power vested in me by parts of myself that still disturb me, thou art so dubbed.
awordedgewise, thank you…
xo
Patricia moonrose
Hi Moonrose 69,
I’m responding again not so much as to continue the thread of conversation as much as to observe how distorted information or thoughts can become – especially I suppose, when we have only words on a page to go by (I recollect Eric discussing this very idea in article/s past.)
That as preface, I find it interesting then that you observe from my post that you understand me to mean that I consider Monsanto as one-being, one entity, an “it” vs a “they””.
Hm. Well, I am well aware of individual parts (aka my Walmart example) and I am also well aware that corporations tend to function as “one being”.
The “it” vs “they” – key word is “versus” – is not in my thinking and deserves a point:
I believe we have outlived the “versus” theme – perhaps this part of the outmoded paradigm that is changing around us.
(and I believe the “versus” theme is an outdated business model that is still being perpetrated by both the giver and the receiver for example, “if we convince THEM to buy, then WE will profit”)
I sum up my personal perspective in this:
There is no “They” – There R Only Us.
xo
aword, you are right, there does seem to be a disconnect. I’m not implying that anything you wrote had anything to do with punishment, but I do understand you to mean that you consider Monsanto as one-being, one entity, an “it” vs a “they” sort of thing. My comments were made more to define my point of perspective rather than to question or challenge yours. I don’t like to find myself thinking of monsanto as one-being when it’s a collection of so many, and that is the same line of thinking, for me, regarding mass punishment: I don’t believe in punishing a/the whole for the sum of its parts. That’s how punishment fit in, not necessarily in relation to anything you specifically wrote or expressed.
:0)
moonrose
Hm…69:
Calling a Spade a Spade does not mean I’ll toss in the whole deck.
On the other hand, just because some good people work for WalMart does not mean I will shop there.
Nor do I mean that I will stop eating because Monsanto has poisoned my food chain.
(Using) Reason is a given (in my world). Monsanto as a company continues to not abide by Life Giving Reason.
Again, I call a spade a spade. But I ask you, who (in my posts) talked about punishment? I feel there’s an assumption being made that Calling Something What it has Become (not healthy breeding of plants as in past generations, but rather not-healthy forms of marketing often called Frankenfood for quick reference and alternately named Monsanto) is somehow the same as something you reference as “punishment”? I’m on disconnect there. I think we’re rowing in the same boat (not that it matters if we are) or at least heave-hoe-ing up the same river.
“Punishment” is a different discussion and you would have to give me your frame of reference. Resolving issues related to our continued life on this plant is what I was discussing. Monsanto has a clear record of being in the same boat with BP – which is NOT a boat I’m interested in sharing.
xo
Eric, yes of course you are correct. I have been endeavoring to live that way long before I ever heard the term. What I meant was it has never been applied culturally.
Applying it individually can be translated, IMO, to the very simple but difficult concept we all hear so frequently: We are all One.
aword, I get where you’re coming from but I still don’t like to toss the baby out with the bathwater. I don’t like all-inclusive theories because there are always exceptions within. I don’t like the theory of mass punishment, or the practice of.
But, with monsanto in particular, and likely because the company comes up in my food resources circles so I see it a lot, I find it difficult to remain objective all the time.
For me, it’s the personal accounts of wrong-doing that get my attention most. Like the farmer (and surely many others) that monsanto harms, the fisherwoman story we read here, Enceno’s story too. I think this is the way to get people’s attention – not big picture stories, but small and personal, in the neighborhood stories. Thank goodness for more and more documentaries that are doing this very thing.
On NPR yesterday it was also brought up about the lack of the cautionary principle in our search and need for oil. Mentioned was how in Norway a relief well must be in place first before the main well can be turned on. Smart smart smart.
moonrose
Kyla,
The precautionary principle can be applied by individuals and it must be. That principle would say, when you arrive at SUNY New Paltz and you discover that the dorm your kid is about to move into had a PCB explosion, you don’t take the risk – even if some suits are telling you how great it is.
It’s about avoiding unnecessary products; it’s about understanding that you don’t microwave in plastic and that is not a joke. It’s about spending your money on organic food instead of inflated price, unwholesome restaurant food. In short it’s about individual awareness put into action. As this is taken up by communities, the organizations we have to help this situation creatively (such as food coops) will gradually strengthen and the institutions that strive to poison everyone can do what they want.
e
Hmmm, Clara….. I am not sure quite where this is going, but wanted to say only that my rather hurried statement was meant to suggest that IF the precautionary principle were ever really applied, which I don’t believe it has ever been, then within its context certain things might become less a horror than they are now, or might even be shown to have beneficial application….. But of course you are correct! on both counts; it is not meant to justify use of processes that are inherently harmful (if I am reading you correctly?) and could not be so used if truly applied! — and also, yes, for sure, it is a recent understanding that invention can be harmful, technology can be harmful…. I believe it is actually all a huge learning curve for the human race but the cards have been stacked against sanity by exploiting forces, define those forces how you will.
OH, sorry Huge apologies, I meant that last post as response to Memory Echoes post.
Kyla, Your take on this was so utterly profound. Yes, there are two sides of the story and the whole idea of peace and solution is the meeting of the two : the dialogue. x
69,
With love and in agreement h/e I am compelled to add this: that I have no problem whatsoever considering Monsanto as the Evil Empire.
A friend of mine aptly pointed out that there often comes a time when it is important to stop making excuses for those who done wrong – excuses in the form of not pointing the finger directly and with meaning.
Perhaps this example seems disconnected, but not for me —
I first learned this lesson of calling a spade a spade as it regards the “stuff” that tends to collect at home. You know, those little piles of unread mail that one day take up the counter top, that old craft project yet undone that is now most likely breeding dust mites. “Treat it like the enemy” my friend said. “If you do not, it will just keep on growing and IT will be in charge of your life, not you”.
I think we can say the same for Monsanto and many of the lives it has touched – which may well be everyone on the planet and generations of those yet to come.
xo
update on Monsanto (and this is a gem!)….It was widely reported this morning across the media that Monsanto just won a big Supreme Court case regarding genetically modified crops.
The horrible, hilarious thing is that Monsanto actually LOST the court case, but put its spinmeisters to work toot sweet and convinced the reporters to write the story WRONG.
The Center for Food Safety, which was a party to the case, put out this statement explaining what happened:
Despite what Monsanto is claiming—and what many mainstream media outlets reported earlier this morning—today’s ruling isn’t even close to the victory they were hoping for. Generally speaking, Monsanto asked the Supreme Court to rule on three main issues: (1) to lift the injunction on GMO alfalfa; (2) to allow the planting and sale of GMO alfalfa; (3) to rule that contamination from GMO crops not be considered irreparable harm.
In fact, the court only ruled on the first request which it did affirm by stating that the injunction was overly broad and should be overturned. However, the Court ruled in CFS’s favor on the other two issues, which in many ways are more important as the fact remains that the planting and sale of GMO alfalfa remains illegal.
The Supreme Court ruled that an injunction against planting was simply unnecessary since, under lower courts’ rulings, Roundup Ready Alfalfa became a regulated item and illegal to plant. In other words, the injunction was “overkill’ because our victory in lower federal court determined that USDA violated the National Environmental Protection Act and other environmental laws when it approved Roundup Ready alfalfa. The court felt that voiding the USDA’s decision to make the crop legally available for sale was enough.
The Center is victorious in this case in several other ways: most importantly, the High Court did not rule on several arguments presented by Monsanto about the application of federal environmental law.
As a result, the Court did not make any ruling that could have been hurtful to National Environmental Policy Act or any other environmental laws. In addition, the Court opinion supported the Center’s argument that gene flow is a serious environmental and economic threat. This means that genetic contamination from GMOs can still be considered harm under the law, both from an environmental and economic perspective, another huge victory for CFS.
http://truefoodnow.org/?CFID=24092774&CFTOKEN=81270794
Apparently, he was interviewed on NPR’s Science Friday too:
“The natural gas industry says hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking,” could supply the U.S. with domestic energy for almost 100 years. But environmentalists are worried it may not be safe. Josh Fox, the director of the new documentary Gasland, talks about the potential dangers of fracking.”
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=127932770
MoonRose
Another environmental shame and toxic coverup: Natural Gas and Fracking (hydraulic fracturing).
It was a subject on the Diane Rehm show today and most always a great interview:
http://thedianerehmshow.org/shows/2010-06-21/shale-oil-drilling-and-environment
She interviewed Josh Fox, Director of the film “Gasland” premiering on HBO tonight (I don’t have a tv or cable darn it). The film was a special jury award winner at the Sundance Film Festival this year.
Apparently the NY Governor is very concerned about NYC’s water supply because of this. Ewwwww.
MoonRose
The film Food, Inc did a good job at showing just how well Monsanto treats the little guys, to include taking farmers to court because their GMO corn has ended up in their fields due to pollination and winds. One man, I’m not sure the title but his job is to collect and sell seeds from year to year, was taken to court for frivolous things that amounted to nothing except to bankrupt the man out of business. Despicable.
I don’t like using Monsanto in terms of a collective evil empire, but the stories you hear about it and the evidence that exists are pretty damning and disturbing. Anyone heard of monsatan?
Greed run amok.
MoonRose
I too can imagine a use of certain technologies I normally abhor, under circumstances of application of the precautionary principle. Problem is, the precautionary principle and capitalism do not seem to be able to find a way peaceably to co-exist.
One of my favorite Monsanto stories seems to belong here. Farmers in India, who grow eggplant as a cash crop, have been opposing the introduction by Monsanto, of an engineered eggplant called Bt brinjal. I am not actually following this story in all its ins and outs, and this item showed up in February but I did just check the link and it is still there…….
http://indiatoday.intoday.in/site/Story/83093/Monsanto%20%27faked%27%20data%20for%20approvals%20claims%20its%20ex-chief.html
(excerpts)
…….
“Former managing director of Monsanto India, Tiruvadi Jagadisan, is the latest to join the critics of Bt brinjal, perhaps the first industry insider to do so.
Jagadisan, who worked with Monsanto for nearly two decades, including eight years as the managing director of India operations, spoke against the new variety during the public consultation held in Bangalore on Saturday.
On Monday, he elaborated by saying the company “used to fake scientific data” submitted to government regulatory agencies to get commercial approvals for its products in India.
The former Monsanto boss said government regulatory agencies with which the company used to deal with in the 1980s simply depended on data supplied by the company while giving approvals to herbicides.
“The Central Insecticide Board was supposed to give these approvals based on the location and crop-specific data from India. But it simply accepted foreign data supplied by Monsanto. They did not even have a test tube to validate the data and, at times, the data itself was faked,” Jagadisan said.
“I retired from the company as I felt the management of Monsanto, USA, was exploiting our country,” Jagadisan, 84, said from his home in Bangalore.”
……
Guys, I know extremely little about farming, about which I have said very little; though I know a lot about Monsanto. I am not giving an opinion on farming as much as I am on that one company. I have fewer issues with the theoretical use of genetic engineering than I do with whose hands it’s in. The metaphoric equivalent is, “Shall we give Charles Manson an Uzi?”
And someone says, Yes! It’s such a beautiful Uzi! Look at how the metal shines. The smooth precision of the…oh and Manson didn’t shoot people, he stabbed them…no wait, he didn’t stab them personally, he had others do it. What a beautiful Uzi…
The technology has been turned loose on the planet in an uncontrolled experiment, and is continuing to be turned loose; in wave after wave. I may be an ass, but I’m advocating the precautionary principle, and based on that alone, if this is an argument, I win: unless we’re gambling over agribusiness profits with the Earth as ante. Nobody knows the actual effect this will have; there’s not a second Earth to test on in a laboratory.
I am not here to preach the gospel of progress or to debate the fine points of GMO, and I am certainly not here to defend a company with a safety record that makes BP look good. Though of course we don’t know what BP has done in its own labs. We don’t know if there’s an “oiled pelican lab” or how much oil/dispersant snot they have fed their “volunteers” or how many fake studies they’ve put out into the medical literature; maybe none. But I can tell you a lot about what Monsanto did with its dioxin and fake studies about its safety; and if you read that stuff, and you trust them, it’s at your own peril.
Before you call me a city boy you may want to check my address in the phone book. I live in the middle of farm country and I came here in 1989. And Carol is a 68 year old hillbilly who lives in the styx of Oregon and has an outhouse and fetches her water and chops her own wood and throws firecrackers at bears when they try to eat her apples. The ones that grow in TREES and don’t come in by Fed Ex, like mine do. So there!
But that’s an insult too: who is to say that someone dwelling in a large town has no knowledge of these matters? This isn’t a country-city thing, since we all eat, and those Monsanto guys ain’t what you would call farm boys either; though all the farmers I know who don’t use GMO are doing pretty well, and the ones I’ve talk to and have heard about who have used GMO (not local to me) are struggling with the yield/cost issue. I personally don’t need to be a farmer to know, or to have heard of that in the past.
Having worked in Monsanto’s fields during two summers (North Liberty, south of Cedar Rapids) to help put myself through college, I can vouch that Charles understands how plants are selected for their various traits and bred. If memory serves, corn strains were self-pollinated for seven generations before cross-pollination was facilitated. I helped put diseases and various parasites on corn, thinned out the test plots where the research was being conducted, and helped the corn self-pollinate (which isn’t nearly as interesting as it sounds), among other bizarre duties. I’m wondering if you, Charles, are affiliated with the North Liberty site?
You both raise valid points. Eric, it’s not all spin. It does get tiresome listening to city folks lecture country folks about things they think they know more about. Charles, Eric is not living in darkness. He is also correct about some things. If you would both listen above the sound of your own bombastic point of view, you might both learn something.
I respect where you are both coming from. As a former farm girl, now a city dweller, who also resented the smell of General Mills (that’s the plant, right?), who has worked for Monsanto and an organic vegetable farm, whose own father was Products Development Engineer for Monsanto, I hear you both. Can you hear each other? Propaganda exists on both sides. So does truth. So does denial.
Here a cool organization that not many people know about: Seed Savers Exchange is a non-profit, member supported organization that saves and shares the heirloom seeds of our garden heritage, forming a living legacy that can be passed down through generations. http://seedsavers.org
I’m reminded of a song by Dar Williams, who sings a lovely song titled “Iowa.” These lyrics are from “The Christians and the Pagans”: “So the Christians and the Pagans sat together at the table/finding faith and common ground the best that they were able.”
Clearly, I am a heretic. The hippies don’t want me and the yuppies can’t stand me. 😉
(Too bad you didn’t get to make a stop in Iowa City, Eric. I think you’d enjoy the vibe of that place. I sure used to.)
Thanks for clarifying Clara, I didn’t mean to put words in your mouth. Interesting point.
Also good point about using white vinegar and baking soda wordedgewise. I have always wanted to mention that I like your handle, it’s clever. 😉
Amazing, Eric about TriCoSan. I remember PhisoHex, do they still make it? I’m the same generation you are (maybe a couple years older). I always wanted to buy PhisoHex but it was expensive, I remember I couldn’t afford it when I was a teenager.
But it’s a good story that you got the TriCoSan out of the product.
As much as chemical crap as there is in the world, I actually think we could get most of it cleaned up in a matter of 10 or 20 years, if we just decided to do it. Get it out of the consumer products and out of our air and water.
Same with oil dependency. We could absolutely get this country off of its oil dependency. Heck we lived through the Great Depression, nobody had anything, we all got by.
We lived thorugh the Civil War. We got by. We could absolutely live through a transition to clean energy.
It’s just a matter of getting people focused on it. I’m sure this sounds naive but think of all the smart, frustrated people out there! Most of them WANT to be doing something that matters.
A philosopher is born.
Well it is always edifying to have a city dweller like Eric teach a farm boy about farming. But you should check your own internalized propaganda. Oh how many times have I heard the old BS about “blending a tomato with a fish” or some similar rubbish, I am sure this came straight out of some anti-GMO handbook, since I’ve heard that phrase verbatim many times. To use your own words, you are providing pure spin.
There is no difference whatsoever between recombinant DNA genetic modifications and hybridization, except that recombinant techniques can achieve instantly what would take hundreds of generations of hybrids to achieve. If you don’t understand this, then you haven’t done your basic research. Hybridization relies on finding beneficial mutations and breeding them into the strain. It might take hundreds or thousands of generations to combine separate mutations into a DNA sequence that could just as easily been inserted artificially. But the result would be no different.
BTW, your friend is sadly behind the times, DNA sequences are no longer taken from other organisms, they are synthesized directly from chemicals. She is also incorrect about first generation modified plants being put directly into food production. These strains go through years of testing, the initial testing is usually done in isolation indoors, mostly to protect the new strain from contamination, like cross-fertilization from outside strains, to keep it pure for testing purposes and to keep it pure for eventual use.
I’m not even going to get into her ludicrous statements about nuclear power. Suffice to say that the local nuclear plant has been operating safely for decades, and had its lifetime extended with just minor upgrades, and has long since paid back its construction and operations cost. And storing the waste rods takes zero carbon emissions, I just don’t know what she is thinking. But here’s how I think of it: local methanol plants are using nuclear power to process the grain and make methanol for automotive fuel. Methanol is a net energy loss, it is far less efficient than nuclear power. If methanol was truly efficient, they could use methanol to power the methanol plants.
@clara: no, GM foods are not causing the loss of biodiversity in farming. Just to give you an example, 99.9% of all commercially grown broccoli is from seed from a single farm in Japan. It is a natural species, hybridized yes, but not modified with recombinant DNA. It is so widely grown, a broccoli monoculture, because it grows so well and is most accepted by consumers above all other strains. If you have eaten broccoli, YOU were part of the cause of the lack of biodiversity.
Well, I can’t get into correcting all the misinformation in this thread. I try to interject a few facts about farming about what I learned when I grew up on a farm, and everyone thinks they know more about it than me. But let me explain it with a true story, a propaganda parable, perhaps.
When I lived in San Francisco, a militant vegan heard about how I grew up on a farm and insisted I look at the pictures in the book “Diet for a Small Planet.” He gleefully pointed out pictures of a sick calf in a confinement pen with runny waste pouring down its legs and through a concrete gutter. The captions said this was an example of how confinement causes cows to become ill. But it was exactly the opposite. This isn’t a time for disgusting veterinary lessons, but many cows become sick in the fields from various things, like common bacterial diseases, or even eating bad forage plants. In this case, the calf was put in the confinement pen to keep it from spreading its illness to other cows, and so it could be given medication and special foods, and monitored closely while it was nursed back to health. So the propagandists saw an innocent calf being tortured. But I had seen this on farms, and I knew it was a poor sick calf receiving the best care possible. It all depends on what you are predisposed to see.
Ultimately, it comes down to one thing: all life on earth feeds off death. Even if you’re a vegan, you can’t live without killing plants to eat. We can either celebrate the fact that plants and animals have given their lives to sustain us, or mourn that we are evil because we kill to live. The hysteria over GMO foods is a symptom of that self-loathing sense of evil. I refuse to play that game. I am grateful to the entire ecosystem that sustains all life up the food chain, and to the sun, from which all earthly energy originated. If you feel otherwise, you are living in darkness.
That CNN article is disturbing, and I’ve read this shit for decades. Fortunately it is possible to reduce the number of products we use, and to get ones that have less garbage in them. And individuals can make a difference.
Here’s a little story. About 10 years ago I had a girlfriend who worked at Kiss My Face, which produces all kinds of groovy stuff. Their “antibacterial” soaps and shaving products had TriCloSan in them — that’s Tri (three) Clo (chlorine molecules) San (Monsanto). Yes, Monstanto was once again spiking products with a chlorine based “antibacterial.” Like all Monsanto products, the stuff backfires, and it doesn’t do its job, and it’s full of chlorine, which we need a lot less of in the world. And I am always concerned that these chlorine products will have traces of dioxin in them.
That happened in the Sixties: something called hexachlorophene was used in a very popular disinfectant soap called PhisoHex. This stuff was everywhere: grandma’s bathroom and doctor’s offices and hospitals and you name it.
What the Wiki page leaves out is the involvement of Monsanto and the referenced suspicion of cancer coming from dioxin contamination. That is referenced in The Kemner Brief, which I link to in a comment below. Along with many other products, hexachorophene coming out of Monsanto’s factory was contaminated with dioxin. Dioxin is a byproduct of chemical processes that rely on chlorine as an ingredient; it’s production is almost inevitable and all you need to do is distill the resulting chemical to get it out — but then you have all this dioxin on your hands. And nearly all chemicals made with chlorine are hormonally active.
Anyway, I relayed a message through my friend to the president of Kiss My Face and told him that I thought he should get the TriCloSan out of his products — Monsanto is not trustworthy and it diminished his brand: anyone who knew what the stuff was would decide that Kiss My Face was bullshit for containing the stuff.
And lo, he did it. TriCoSan is — to my knowledge — no longer an ingredient in Kiss My Face products, and it doesn’t belong on the market anywhere.
GG:
I agree wholeheartedly with finding alternatives choices – including what I/we purchase and where.
When in doubt regarding formaldehyde content in your purchases (it is used in cheap furniture too, that is, particle board – you can be exposed in the hardware store) – wrap up the item with white vinegar – a chemical reaction defuses the formaldehyde.
I set out dishes of white vinegar everywhere when moving into a new apartment or such as I believe it is also used in carpet manufacturing and who know what all else.
But then, I use white vinegar for most of my cleaning too – so double purpose!
And I’ve always got a mental list of laundry room alternatives for the folks who pour bottles of chlorine bleach into their wash thinking its a fix for anything. (Like throw in some baking soda instead or more of that white vinegar! 🙂
I’m no scientist, but better safer than sorrier.
Good stuff thx.
Also — this is somewhat off-topic, but in the broader scheme of things fits the discussion:
A CNN report (below) lists 5 toxic substances that are likely cancer-causing agents and that we are all exposed to pretty much all the time.
CNN is not your radical news outlet, so if they are reporting this you can imagine how much worse the real truth is about these chemicals.
I will give the link here and just add a few personal reflections: formaldehyde, which is one of the 5 toxics, is on pretty much all new clothing that you buy in stores. Old Navy and the Gap use it as a preservative to keep moths and worms out of the clothing when it is shipped from the sweatshops in Asia and Africa to the U.S.
The journey that the clothing makes usuallly takes place in ocean-going freighters and takes several weeks, which is enough time for bugs to get into the cotton cloth and eat away at it.
So they treat the clothes with formaldehyde to keep the bugs out. So far as I can tell, pretty much all clothing you buy in chain stores is coated with formaldehyde.
They refer to it as “garment wash,” and it has a very distinctive smell. Once you know what it is you will start to recognize it in many clothing stores when you walk in the door, especially Old Navy.
I happen to be sensitive to this stuff. It caused me to have an asthma attack the last time I tried on clothes at Old Navy, which was a couple of years ago. I didn’t know what it was at the time and came home and did some internet research.
It’s pretty widely known. There have been some class action lawsuits but I don’t the outcome. A big one was brought by customers of Victoria’s Secret.
If you have kids and you want to buy clothes for them at these chain stores I suggest you wash the clothing several times after you buy it, and don’t let the kids put it on till all those washings.
If you are like me and have sensitivity to these chemicals you should also wash all new clothes and other fabrics before wearing or using them, and whenever possible try to buy organic clothing. I know it is more expensive and not necessarily what you want to wear but if it keeps some formaldehyde out of your bloodstream then it is probably worth it.
Also I stopped buying plastic shower curtains which really release a lot of gas when you take them out of the package, that gas is not something you don’t want to be breathing. Fabric shower curtains work just fine.
Other stuff not mentioned in the story: pthalates (one of the 5 toxics) are in virtually all brands of in nail polish. Women who do their nails are exposing themselves to fairly high levels of pthatlates with some frequency. You can buy nail polish that does not contain these chemicals at organic stores.
Also for cosmetics that don’t have this kind of stuff you can check out the saffrom rouge website. But read the ingredients labels and don’t buy anything with parabens or “fragrance” as the CNN story says.
Here is the CNN story:
http://www.cnn.com/2010/HEALTH/05/31/chemical.dangers/index.html
From Carol van Strum, author of A Bitter Fog: Herbicides and Human Rights, also my environmental journalism mentor [specifically, my document analysis mentor, principally Monsanto, GE and Westinghouse; she is also a specialist in the documents and history of Dow Chemical]. I requested her assessment of Charles’ comment, below.
And we haven’t got to the part about how they don’t work for farmers. The seed is expensive, then you need to buy Roundup, but the yields are lower and the crops not as hardy. This is typical Monsanto hucksterism. If they sell it, it’s bullshit. And it’s always dangerous.
Here is an article from 1999 called The Kemner Brief, that looks at Monsanto.
Many things about genetically modified foods are problematic.
For one, GM foods are creating super-breeds of insects that cannot be killed by any of the pesticides we have in our chemical arsenal. Certain GM strains of corn and wheat were bred to repel insects, and they did so….for awhile.
But over time Nature hit back with insects that could overcome the “natural” repellant qualities of the corn.
So now the farmers that got stuck with planting the GM crops now only have to pay more money for the GM varieties but also have to pay for pesticidies which only barely work.
Plus, the super-insects can now attack other types of crops much more successfully than in the past, and destroy much more of the crops than in the past.
These are “franken-bugs” that we have created through genetic engineering.
There are other problems. GM crops tend to blow around in the wind; they don’t stay just in the fields where they are planted. When they blow into other fields they tend to displace the plant species that were there before; this is the damage to biodiversity that Clara talked about.
Finally, certain GM crops with built-in insectiicides tend to kill all manner of creatures, not just bugs that harm the crops. This is responsible in large part for the dramatic decline in Monarch butterflies, which are now an endangered species. They have been nearly killed off by genetically engineered corn that was intended to kill weevils.
More frankenstein stuff.
The problem with genetic engineering is that it happens in the broader eco-sphere, where it has all kinds of unintended consequences that we can neither foresee nor manage.
And I haven’t even gotten to the part about what GM crops may be doing to humans.
Charles, to clarify, certain ideas usually come attached to certain ideals.
Often those ideals become, well, modified.
Perhaps Eric’s reply was more comprehensible.
Charles, your assessment of nuclear power sounds like my dad’s — straight out of the PR department. Okay it has less of a carbon footprint than methanol. That does not cover all the other issues. Basically, it is splitting the atom to boil water. This is not efficient; the plants are not designed to last long enough to make a profit; and the risks are incredible.
As for GMO, it sounds like you’re conflating hybridization (such as breeding a fluffier poodle) with genetic engineering (blending a tomato with a fish, or making a plant ‘resistant’ to an herbicide).
I don’t think I’m going to change your mind about much, but I would caution my readers that this is precisely the kind of PR stuff to watch out for. Basically, pure spin.
My point was that genetic modification of the food supply is an uncontrolled experiment on the population, being conducted by a company (Monsanto) that makes I.G. Farben look like nice guys.
Linda, your response is incomprehensible. Do you mean to say that a man who won the Nobel Peace Prize for saving several hundred million lives, has no integrity? Or perhaps you meant that his genetically altered wheat “lacks integrity” and should not have been used to keep several hundred million people from starving to death?
Charles,
You say,
“There is nothing inherently wrong with genetic modification of food.
Let me give you an example. Norman Borlaug (an Iowan) won the Nobel Peace Prize for hybridizing new strains of wheat that grew more efficiently in Mexico, Pakistan, and India, which were suffering from drought and famine. Back in the 1960s, they called these genetically modified wheat strains “The Green Revolution.” Nowadays, fringe nutcases call them Frankenfoods.”
I think it is prudent to consider that all things have a time and place and that all things change. As yet do not think Einstein nor the people who remain shocked by certain nuclear developments from his initial ideas are aptly considered “Fringe Nutcases”.
No more then those who now discover and offer new information regarding the integrety or lack of it behind genetic modifications. We know more – both on the side of corporate greed – and propensity to lie – as well the side of our fundamental health and wellbeing.
Linda
I felt like pointing out a couple of things.
First, keep your eyes open on the landing approach, perhaps you’ll see the Duane Arnold nuclear energy plant.
Second, Cedar Rapids is the world center of breakfast cereal production. It uses grain from across Iowa and the midwest to make about half the world’s breakfast cereal. But a lot of that production is now going towards methanol production, in a shortsighted, ill-conceived, energy-wasteful process. If you get into town, away from the airport, take a deep breath and smell the sickening stench of boiled grains.
I mention these two things to you to point out a few inconvenient facts.
1. Nuclear power is cheaper, much more efficient and less polluting than methanol production. Methanol production has a huge carbon footprint, nuclear has virtually none.
2. Everything you eat is “genetically modified.” While modern recombinant DNA techniques have lead to modern strains like Roundup-ready soybeans, that is just the tip of the iceberg. Let me repeat: EVERY food you eat is genetically modified. Except in the olden days, they called it “animal husbandry” and “plant hybridization.” The best strains of any species, plant or animal, are bred with other superior strains, to find a genetic line with the best traits for a specific condition. There are no plant or animal strains in modern agriculture that are not the result of decades of intensive genetic research. Any recombinant DNA strain could be achieved through regular hybridization techniques, it would just take a lot longer, maybe hundreds of generations, even centuries. There is nothing inherently wrong with genetic modification of food.
Let me give you an example. Norman Borlaug (an Iowan) won the Nobel Peace Prize for hybridizing new strains of wheat that grew more efficiently in Mexico, Pakistan, and India, which were suffering from drought and famine. Back in the 1960s, they called these genetically modified wheat strains “The Green Revolution.” Nowadays, fringe nutcases call them Frankenfoods. But call them what you like, just know that Borlaug, through his efforts to genetically modify wheat, is commonly said to have saved more lives than any other single man in history.
Yes, I live about 15 miles from Cedar Rapids. But you couldn’t get me to to into that town for any reason, the air is too polluted. The closest I ever go is the airport, which is still too close to the high-pollution cereal/methanol factories.
ya. that we would find out about dioxin in buffalo milk imported to italy for manufacture of “italian” cheese through a story of mozzarella turning blue. Oh give me some lead to sweeten my wine, please!
Where oh where! did Orcus spring from today? I turned on my computer and suddenly I’m referencing and researching the other god of the underworld and I have no idea whatsoever how that started.
Must be a reason – and if I’m begining to learn anything about this astrology stuff. transiting Orcus is um, sextile natal pluto – two peas in a pod? and opposing natal sun. It’d take a computer to track the schematics of the transits for today’s planetary aspects. 🙂
Len, just looking at Neptune as you recommended well let’s say again “ya” – lots going on there. I know, ‘one step at a time’ – that’s the hard part. Another 🙂 here.
Happy Father’s Day to those Happy Fathers at PW and
My best for safe and sane travels, Eric.
xo