Quotulatiousness

August 30, 2012

Exaggerating your points to make them seem more important than they are

Filed under: Economics, Environment, Food, Media — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 11:05

Geoff Chambers does a bit of Google searching to track down a few of the claims made in Stephen Emmot’s critically acclaimed one-man show “Ten Billion”:

The reviews were full of superlatives. The Times’ critic calls it “utterly gripping, terrifyingly lucid”; Time Out: “monumentally sobering”; Billington in the Guardian: “one of the most disturbing evenings I have ever spent in a theatre”; the Financial Times: “one of the most disturbing shows I have seen on a stage”; the Mail on Sunday “certainly the most scary show in London”. Almost all of them cite Emmott’s conclusion: “We’re f*cked”.

Here are some of the key “facts” (or “f*cts”) cited by Emmott and picked up by critics. (It is of course impossible to check whether the critics have quoted Emmott correctly, since no record of what he says exists):

1) A google search uses as much electricity as boiling a kettle.

2) It takes 3,000 litres of water to make a hamburger, (that’s 10 trillion litres of water annually to sustain the UK’s burger industry).

3) It takes 27,000 litres of water to make a bar of chocolate

4) Animal species are currently going extinct at a rate 1,000 times their natural level.

5) Bangladesh will be under water by the end of the century.

TL;DR for those who don’t feel up to reading the whole thing: 1) false, by a factor of 100. 2) true-ish, but massively misleading. 3) false, or Emmott eats humongous chocolate bars. 4) false, even though Wikipedia thinks it’s true. 5) false, the land area of Bangladesh has actually grown over the last 50 years thanks to land reclamation projects.

August 25, 2012

Yet another factor in obesity

Filed under: Food, Health, Science — Tags: , — Nicholas @ 00:09

“I want to say one word to you. Just one word.” Antibiotics.

We aren’t single individuals, but colonies of trillions. Our bodies, and our guts in particular, are home to vast swarms of bacteria and other microbes. This “microbiota” helps us to harvest energy from our food by breaking down the complex molecules that our own cells cannot cope with. They build vitamins that we cannot manufacture. They ‘talk to’ our immune system to ensure that it develops correctly, and they prevent invasions from other more harmful microbes. They’re our partners in life.

What happens when we kill them?

Farmers have been doing that experiment in animals for more than 50 years. By feeding low doses of antibiotics to healthy farm animals, they’ve found that they could fatten up their livestock by as much as 15 percent. You can put the antibiotics in their feed or in their water. You can give the drugs to cows, sheep, pigs or chickens. You can try penicillins, or tetracyclines, or many other classes of antibiotics. The effect is the same: more weight.

It seems reasonable to assume that this effect is also true for humans. And we dose ourselves with antibiotics far more than we should (often for things that do not respond to antibiotics at all … a twist on the placebo effect). In addition, many of the animals we raise for meat are regularly dosed with antibiotics.

For now, two things are clear. First, antibiotics have done a huge amount of good in treating bacterial infections and if we’re even talking about reducing their use, it’s because we have the luxury of health that they have provided. Second, they are clearly overused: prescribed for illnesses that they have no power over, and used to fatten livestock that aren’t sick. Currently, on average, every American child gets a course of antibiotics ever year.

The overuse of antibiotics has fuelled the rise of antibiotic-resistant bacteria, but their impact on our beneficial bacteria could be equally detrimental. Blaser has been vociferously banging on this drum for years. As he wrote in a comment piece for Nature, “Antibiotics kill the bacteria we do want, as well as those we don’t… Overuse of antibiotics could be fuelling the dramatic increase in conditions such as obesity, type 1 diabetes, inflammatory bowel disease, allergies and asthma… We must make use of the available technology to protect and study our bacterial benefactors before it is too late.”

August 24, 2012

The new Malthusian miserabilism

Filed under: Britain, Environment, Food, History — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 10:18

Brendan O’Neill on the once-again popular theories of Reverend Thomas Malthus:

Malthusianism is back in vogue. Not only in theatres in Sloane Square, but across the opinion-forming spectrum. Last year, the human population hit seven billion, giving rise to a boom in handwringing commentary. BBC reporters tell us that ‘uncontrolled population growth threatens to undermine efforts to save the planet’. The Guardian’s environment reporters are forever warning of the dangers of our ‘rapidly growing global population’. Then there’s much-loved celebs like David Attenborough, who recently signed up to the population-panic group the Optimum Population Trust (OPT) and frequently declares: ‘I’ve never seen a problem that wouldn’t be easier to solve with fewer people.’

The New Malthusians are getting cockier. At the UN Rio+20 Earth summit earlier this year, 105 respectable institutions, including Britain’s increasingly Malthusian Royal Society, urged the international powers-that-be to look beyond the ‘ethical sensitivities’ around the population issue and ‘confront rising global population’. All those wailing babies mean we are now ‘living beyond the planet’s means’, they declared. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is pumping millions of dollars into the distribution of birth-control tools in the developing world. Well-off westerners can now even offset their carbon emissions by helping to prevent the birth of babies in less fortunate places. A website called Pop Offsets, launched by the OPT, allows you to work out how much carbon you emit in your daily life and then tells you how many births you must help to prevent in order to offset that carbon. You make a financial contribution to a reproductive charity; that charity encourages a woman somewhere not to have more kids; and, hey presto, your personal emissions are cancelled out by your contribution to the non-creation of resource-demanding babies. The Guardian’s report on this initiative was illustrated with a photo of babies, 12 of them, just lying there like the problematic drains on nature.

Malthusianism is so ingrained in the outlook of greens and other trendies that people can fantasise about loads of human beings dying off without anyone batting an eyelid. Population panic-merchants often claim that the ‘carrying capacity’ of the planet is two billion human beings, so at least five billion less than at present. In a discussion on Radio 3’s super-respectable Nightwaves a couple of years ago, the psychologist and writer Sue Blackmore declared: ‘For the planet’s sake, I hope we have bird flu or some other thing that will reduce the population, because otherwise we’re doomed.’ There were no complaints to the BBC: the idea that humans are a problem in need of a solution is widespread in respectable ­circles.

August 23, 2012

The historical “locavore” diet: seasonal gruel and mush

Filed under: Environment, Food, Health, History, Media — Tags: , — Nicholas @ 09:40

sp!ked has an article by authors Pierre Desrochers and Hiroko Shimizu, on the disadvantages of the true locavore diet:

Perhaps the most ludicrous claim made by some ‘locavores’ — activists who argue that food produced near final consumers is superior in a myriad of ways to distant imports — is that the globalised food-supply chain is guilty of crimes against seasonality. Limiting our intake of fresh produce to whatever can be obtained locally at certain times of the year (and preserving the surplus for the remainder), we are told, will not only help atone for agri-business’ fossil fuel-driven ways and constrain us to live within regional ecological limits, but it will also make fresh local food more enjoyable when it is available. As one locavore puts it, ‘deprivation leads to greater appreciation’.

The emphasis on local seasonality by food activists, however, is problematic on several counts. For instance, why do militant locavores limit themselves to local seasonality when they could further insist on truly ‘native’ produce and livestock? Seen in this light, North American agriculture should be essentially limited to turkeys, farmed salmon and a few other fish and shellfish, sunflowers, blueberries, cranberries, Jerusalem artichokes and some varieties of squashes. (Though the really hardcore North American locavore could go even further by reverting to problematic native crops such as sumpweed, goosefoot, knotweed, maygrass and little barley that were replaced about one thousand years ago by Mexican imports such as corn and beans.)

Basic logic aside, limiting our food intake to local productions is a one-way ticket to chronic famines and malnutrition. Having in most cases no direct experience with massive crop failures, locavores typically ignore the historical and contemporary toll taken by factors ranging from droughts, floods, heavy rains and frost to hail, windstorms, earthquakes and tsunamis, to say nothing of insect pests, rodents, soil erosion and plant and animal diseases. Yet, the historical evidence on the issue is unequivocal. It was only the development of cost-effective long-distance transportation (primarily the railroad and the steamship) that finally eradicated famines through the large-scale movement of foodstuff from regions that had experienced good harvests to those that had struggled with mediocre ones.

August 22, 2012

“The good old days” were actually pretty crappy for most

Filed under: Books, Economics, Environment, Food, Health, History, Media — Tags: — Nicholas @ 09:22

An excerpt from The Locavore’s Dilemma by Pierre Desrochers and Hiroko Shimizu in the National Post:

To a locavore, food in the future should be created pretty much like it was in the not-so-distant past: produce and animals raised lovingly in urban backyards, turning domestic waste into hearty dishes. Farmers’ markets in every small town and city neighbourhood, where people rediscover the joys of real food and get reacquainted with one another. The rebuilding of small-scale slaughterhouses and canning factories to serve area producers and foster the preservation of local food items for consumption in the off-season.

Ideally, this local system would also be built on seeds saved from the previous harvest rather than purchased from giant corporate seed producers; ancient “heirloom” cultivars developed before synthetic fertilizers and pesticides became available and that, as a result, are better able to seek nutrients in the soil, don’t require any chemicals and are naturally resilient to drought and pests (“If it’s old seed, it’s good seed!”); and “heritage” animal breeds better able to withstand diseases and harsh environments and grow fat and happy on pastureland alone. Pest control would be achieved through traditional “natural” products based on plants and minerals; manual labour, such as crushing or picking bugs and larvae off foliage or removing weeds by hands; and biological control methods, such as introducing exotic animals, insects and bacteria that feed on invasive pests. Finally, factory-made fertilizers would be replaced by animal manure and rotating fodder crops, such as clover and alfalfa.

[. . .]

Isn’t it possible that crushing bugs and removing weeds by hands were neither very effective nor the most productive use of one’s time? That seeds purchased from commercial suppliers offered access to superior genetic material, were not mixed up with unwanted material and were readily available when needed? That “natural” manure has always been dirty, smelly, chock-full of pathogens and requires several months of composting? That the “slow release” of nutrients from green manures and organic compost could never be as adequately controlled to match crop demands with nutrient supply as is now possible with synthetic fertilizers? Further, that old mineral (including arsenic) and plant-based pesticides were less harmful to plant pests (and thereby more likely to promote insect resistance) and more problematic to human health than more recent offerings? That introducing nonnative insects, mammals and bacteria in a new ecosystem often had unintended, broader and longer-lasting negative consequences for nontargeted species? And that, unlike chemical pesticides that typically do not persist in an ecosystem once application has ceased, exotic insects who have successfully adapted to a new environment are practically impossible to eradicate and do not remain confined to one geographical location? In the end, why are modern agricultural producers willing to purchase costly synthetic inputs, hormonal growth promoters, antibiotics and genetically modified seeds when the methods agri-intellectuals prefer are either completely free (such as giving up on the use of these inputs and on equipment such as poultry housing) or seemingly much cheaper (such as feeding cattle entirely on pastureland and saving one’s seeds instead of relying on those marketed by specialized producers)?

Ontario’s ban on a large number of pesticides and herbicides for domestic use is re-acquainting many home owners with the joys of hand-weeding their lawns. It’s getting to the point that Ontario’s provincial flower might as well be the dandelion, as they’re everywhere. There’s a reason your ancestors couldn’t wait to get off the farm…

August 14, 2012

Ethanol: starving the third world, by government policy

Filed under: Economics, Environment, Food, Government, USA — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 08:47

Jeffrey Tucker on the absurd and cruel implications of a government mandate:

Corn prices are officially through the roof, spiking to record highs. It’s been headed this way through six years of crazy volatility. Now the spike is undeniable. At the same time, crop yields are lower they have been since 1995.

Everyone blames the drought, as if the market can’t normally handle a supply change. The real problem is that the corn market is fundamentally misshaped by government interventions that have made a mess of this and many more markets. The distortions are never contained, but spread and spread.

[. . .]

“Corn is the single most important commodity for retail food,” Richard Volpe, an economist for the USDA told the Los Angeles Times. “Corn is either directly or indirectly in about three-quarters of all food consumers buy.”

Fine, then, answer me this, Mr. Government Economist Man: Why is 40% of the corn crop being burned up in our gas tanks? The answer is a Soviet-like, fascist-like, stupid-like government mandate. It is actually relatively new. It came about in 2005 and 2007. It mixes nearly all the gas we can buy with a sticky product now in rather short supply.

Of all the government regulations I’ve looked at in detail over the last 10 years, the ethanol mandate is, by far, the worst. There are no grounds on which it is defensible. None!

Like so many government initiatives, this was supposed to do something good: reduce the consumption of fossil fuel for gasoline production by substituting a proportion of ethanol. While gas was expensive and ethanol was cheap this might make sense — but when ethanol becomes more expensive, and the raw material used to produce the ethanol would be far better used for food and feedstock, the whole policy becomes an act in the theatre of the absurd.

August 5, 2012

Tolerance Is Different From Approval

Filed under: Business, Food, Law, Liberty, USA — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 00:09

In his Forbes column, Tim Worstall explains his puzzlement over the ongoing Chick-Fil-A uproar in the US and why tolerance is not the same as approval:

As to the basic point about gay marriage I can only offer my personal opinion: all for it. On the grounds that everyone’s going to understand the miserableness of us middle aged heteros a great deal better after 20 odd years of societally enforced monogamy. Slightly more seriously gay marriage or not gay marriage has little to do with a business column.

What does have to do with a business column is that this whole idea of a market means that we don’t have to care about the personal beliefs of either those who supply us or whom we supply. It’s the very impersonality of market exchange that means that it just doesn’t matter a darn what anyone’s sexual (or indeed any other) preference is. We get to care only about whether it’s a good chicken sandwich or whether the customer has enough money for one.

[. . .]

The other point that occurs to me is that we seem to be separating tolerance from approval in a way that some in the US are not.

Just as background, in the country I live in, Portugal, there is as far as a legal marriage ceremony goes, only civil marriage. Any two consenting adults, in whatever mixture of genders and sexes makes sense to those two individuals, can be married by the State. Religion doesn’t even get a look in.

If you do want a religious marriage, according to the rites of a church, then off you go after your civil marriage and have one. That marriage will be limited by whatever that church decides the limitations upon marriage are. It has no legal effect at all.

At which point everyone tolerates gay marriage but no one demands approval of it. For the two are different. Tolerance being the necessary requirement for a free and liberal society: that you get to do what you want to do as long as everyone else is also given the same freedom to follow their path from cradle to grave. Approval is something else again. I, to take a very trivial example, certainly tolerate the existence of Simon Cowell and his shows but that doesn’t mean that anyone can demand that I approve of them.

July 20, 2012

Reason.tv: How the Government Makes You Fat: Gary Taubes on Obesity, Carbs, and Bad Science

Filed under: Food, Health, Science, USA — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 00:09

“The government can come along and, with all the best intentions, cause enormous problems” says Gary Taubes, a science writer and author most recently of Why We Get Fat And What To Do About It.

Reason.tv’s Zach Weissmueller talked with Taubes about his controversial work in the world of nutrition and epidemiology, including Taubes’ hypothesis that carbohydrates, not dietary fat, overeating, or lack of physcial activity, are the primary factor causing obesity. Other topics include the inability of governments and large informational institutions such as the American Heart Association to adapt to new information, the mess of bad legislation and bad science that Taubes believes led to America’s obesity problem, and why many libertarians seem to love the Paleo Diet.

Taubes’ work has unsurprisingly invited criticism from scientists, government officials and journalists, even in the pages of Reason Magazine, where he went back and forth with Reason contributor Michael Fumento.

July 17, 2012

Ending supply management

Filed under: Business, Cancon, Economics, Food, Government — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 09:00

In the Globe and Mail Economy Lab, David Bond explores equitable ways to compensate farmers who will lose out if-and-when the federal government abandons the supply management system:

The quota was originally given out for free, therefore farmers or their direct successors still in the business would receive nothing for their original allocation and then 90 per cent of whatever they paid at the time they acquired additional amounts of quota.

Why only 90 per cent? Well having quota allowed the holders to earn returns on their investment well in excess of the returns that could have been earned in alternative forms of farming. Having enjoyed for more than 40 years these superior returns thanks to their ability to persuade government to protect them from competition it’s time they “enjoyed” some of the costs they foisted upon Canadian consumers.

While the potential beneficiaries of this compensation may complain of shoddy treatment they evidenced little sympathy on the costs they passed on to the consumers much less the harmful impact they had on potential exports of other agricultural and non-agricultural exports because government refused to modify supply management during trade negotiations.

July 16, 2012

Toronto edges cautiously toward allowing wider range of “street food”

Filed under: Bureaucracy, Business, Cancon, Food, Government, Health — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 13:14

Matt Gurney in the National Post on Toronto’s inch-by-glacial-inch move toward allowing a bit more variety in the foods street vendors can sell:

Last week, Toronto City Council approved hot dog vendors to sell an expanded variety of foods. The expanded list is still far from expansive. Veggie sticks, fruit salads and bagels with individually packaged butters are about the extent of the street food revolution in Toronto. Even these baby steps are progress, though — they follow the total failure of Toronto’s A La Cart program, which tried to expand the city’s food options to include more “ethnic” fare. The program, which should go down in history as the most botched effort the city has ever made, is Prosecution Exhibit A for those who believe that governments only exist to screw up things that really aren’t all that complicated.

But the city’s concern about street food, though overwrought and frankly embarrassing, at least comes from an honest place — concerns about spoiled food or improper preparation hurting public health. But Toronto has always missed the point. The public is protected when governments monitor outcomes and harshly punish failures, not seek to control process. Health inspections are an entirely reasonable part of the government’s job, with street food as much as any industry. And it seems that Toronto, while fretting about what food vendors might be doing wrong, hasn’t exactly been doing a bang-up job of its own responsibilities.

Hard though it is to imagine, other cities — even other Canadian cities — somehow manage to have all sorts of tasty treats for sale by food trucks, carts, and temporary kiosks without civilization crumbling.

July 13, 2012

A more accurate title would have been The Locavore Delusion

Filed under: Environment, Food, Health, Media — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 08:58

Rob Lyons reviews the new book by Pierre Desrochers and Hiroko Shimizu:

The fundamental question underpinning both those earlier papers and The Locavore’s Dilemma is this: if local food is so great, why did a globalised food system develop at all? The answer, as Desrochers and Shimizu argue, is that the creation of a worldwide trade in food reduced prices, increased variety and improved security of supply. If there is a problem with this world market in food, they argue, it is that it is not open or far-reaching enough.

The online eco-magazine Grist ran an interview with Desrochers earlier this month. In a follow-up piece, readers came up with responses to the interview. One of these responses provides such a neat summary of the arguments in favour of local food that it is worth repeating in full.

‘I am a local-food advocate for many reasons: Taste: An heirloom tomato picked that morning runs circles around a hybridised tomato picked two weeks ago in Florida and gassed so it turns red en route; Quality: the better the soil and the farmer, the better the food; Nutrition: food sheds nutrients after it is picked. The longer it takes to get to market, the less nutritional value it has, comparatively; Transparency: I like knowing how my food is grown and harvested. I visit my meat producer; try that at a CAFO [concentrated animal feeding operation]; Environmental: A minimisation of the use of chemicals that wash into waterways, creating algae blooms, choking out life, or killing beneficial insects, including honey bees; Sane stewardship: I like to support farmers who create more naturally fertile soil, which is better able to resist pests, floods, and droughts; Pleasure: I buy local food at my farmers’ market because it’s more pleasant to do so than going into an air-conditioned grocery store. I see neighbours, chat with farmers, taste before I buy. Economic: I want my food dollars to support my local economy; Humanity: Animals and humans are treated better on the small farms I know than they are on the large ones; I value green open spaces: Supporting local farms with my money encourages those farmers to maintain those green open spaces rather than selling off to developers.’

As Desrochers and Shimizu explain, these ideas are either not necessarily true, are matters of personal taste or, more often, are completely wrong. Instead, the authors argue, ‘the available evidence convincingly demonstrates that long-distance trade and modern technologies have resulted in much greater food availability, lower prices, improved health and reduced environmental damage than if they had never materialised. Indeed, more trade and ever-improving technologies remain to this day the only proven ways to lift large numbers of people out of rural poverty and malnutrition.’

Let’s take those arguments for local food, one by one, using (though not exclusively) the arguments in The Locavore’s Dilemma.

July 5, 2012

Between loopholes and exemptions, Bloomberg’s soda rules fail to address real problem

Filed under: Food, Government, Health, USA — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 10:35

Jacob Sullum has a modest proposal to fix NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s ineffectual soda rule:

At a Board of Health meeting last month, several members zeroed in on the most obvious problem with Mayor Bloomberg’s plan to shrink New Yorkers’ waistlines by shrinking their soft drink servings: It does not go far enough.

One member questioned the exception for milk-based beverages such as shakes, which “have monstrous amounts of calories.” Another noted that the carveout for convenience stores, supermarkets and vending machines (which are not regulated by the city’s Health Department) means 7-Eleven’s Big Gulp — the epitome of effervescent excess — will remain available. There also was murmuring about the continued legality of free refills, which will let people drink as much soda as they want, provided they do it 16 ounces at a time.

But one glaring gap in Bloomberg’s big beverage ban went unprobed: Why limit the limit to soft drinks? What about the hard stuff?

[. . .]

With all that in mind, think about eggnog, which is doubly exempt from Bloomberg’s drink order, since it is milk-based and alcoholic. This drink is a horror measured by calories alone, clocking in at 50 or so an ounce, more than four times the count for sugar-sweetened soda. Yet this lurking threat to thinness and sobriety is untouched by Bloomberg’s pitiful pint-size pop prescription.

Beer, also exempt from Bloomberg’s serving ceiling, can contain as many as 28 calories an ounce — more than twice as many as soda. Why do you think they call it stout?

Some sensible regulation in this area could head off many incipient beer bellies and lots of loutish behavior at Yankee games. Instead of the mayor’s arbitrary 16-ounce limit, why not simply decree that all beer orders from now on will be light beer orders? Taste is a small sacrifice to make for public health.

July 2, 2012

What value do speculators offer?

Filed under: Economics, Food, Liberty, Media — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 10:17

In most newspapers, you don’t need to wait long to read some journalist beating up on evil speculators for the “damage” they do and the claimed “uselessness” of their activities. Tim Worstall points out that speculators are actually essential to smooth operation of free markets:

What is it that the speculator in food manages to achieve? They move prices through time. At the moment, there’s a drought, and so we think there will be less corn available for consumption next year, so its price goes up.

What would we like to happen? Should prices stay stable? We would all carry on using the amount of corn that we originally thought we’d get. And we’d run out — there may even be a famine. People tend to die in famines.

So what we’d actually like to happen is for people to prepare by consuming a bit less corn this year.

Some of this should come from substitution: farmers will feed wheat to animals not corn. Consumers might move from grits to weetabix for breakfast. Perhaps the fools putting corn into cars will move over to sugar cane to make ethanol from.

We would also like a supply effect: those who are currently growing corn might add a bit more fertiliser, take more care in harvesting, make sure less gets spoiled or lost in transport.

Rising prices causes both of those pretty neatly. Put up the price and people will use less, while suppliers will make more. And what is it that the speculators on the futures markets have done in response to this report of drought? They have raised prices.

June 30, 2012

Thai farm workers arrested for “causing global warming”

Filed under: Asia, Environment, Food, Government — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 10:29

A weird little story from Thailand:

PHETCHABUN – Early one Thursday morning, a gun was pointed at Ms. Kwanla Saikhumtung, a 34-year-old mother, because she was farming.

The man who pointed the gun was one of ten armed officers from Phu Pha Daeng, the local wildlife sanctuary in Lomsak district. After observing the villagers for three days, the officers finally informed Ms. Kwanla and twelve fellow villagers from Huay Kontha that they were trespassing on wildlife sanctuary land. They demanded that the villagers come to the police station to talk with them.

They refused. The villager that hired them paid taxes on the plot, leading the villagers to believe they had a right to work the land, and they worried about finishing their work.

[. . .]

This incident was the beginning of a seven-year-long legal battle, pitting Ms. Kwanla against the Thai government. She and the other twelve villagers — the youngest only sixteen at the time — were first charged with trespassing.

The real shock, however, came when they were slapped with a 470,000 baht fine for contributing to global warming under the charge of causing environmental damage.

[. . .]

The Royal Forestry Department (RFD) fined the villagers for cutting down trees and farming, drawing from the 1992 National Environmental Quality Act which forbids “destruction, loss, or damage to natural resources owned by the State.” Their fine was determined according to a formula used to calculate environmental damage. The formula measures the increase in temperature caused by cutting down trees. Any increase in the land temperature shows ‘global warming’. In essence, cutting down trees to farm corn leads to global warming.

The Huay Kontha villagers have a running joke, “Because we pick the corn, the world gets hotter.”

The charges that Ms. Kwanla and the other villagers face shed light on an emerging trend in Thailand. Land dispute issues are becoming increasingly common. According to Pramote Pholpinyo, coordinator of the Northeast Land Reform Network (LRN), there are currently 35-40 “global warming” cases against villagers in Thailand, with charges amounting to almost 33 million baht.

H/T to Anthony Watts for the link.

June 27, 2012

California primed to make bad decision for “good” reasons

Filed under: Environment, Food, Government, Health, Science, USA — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 00:05

California’s already bad economic situation could be made even worse by mandating that genetically modified foods be labelled to call attention to themselves:

The American Medical Association resolved this week that “there is no scientific justification for special labeling of bioengineered foods.”

The association has long-held that nothing about the process of recombinant DNA makes genetically engineered (GE) crop plants inherently more dangerous to the environment or to human health than the traditional crop plants that have been deliberately but slowly bred for human purposes for millennia. It is a view shared by the National Academy of Sciences, the World Health Organization, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the U.N., the European Commission, and countless other national science academies and non-governmental organizations.

And yet Californians will consider on their November ballots a law that mandates cigarette-like labeling of food derived from GE plants. Proponents claim to promote opportunities for consumers to make informed choices about the foods they eat. But to build support for the measure, they have played on consumer fears about a promising technology that is nevertheless prone to “Frankenfoods” demagoguery. If successful, they may well imperil the ability of Californians, and consumers around the world, to choose a technology that scientists contend could end hunger and malnutrition, lift hundreds of millions from poverty, and reduce the environmental impact of feeding an evermore populous world.

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