TUESDAY JANUARY 6, 2009 :: Last modified: Thursday, January 1, 2009 6:05 PM MST
Idaho miners won't have to restore groundwater; Site is near Wyoming border
By JOHN MILLER
Associated Press writer
BOISE, Idaho -- Monsanto Co., Agrium Inc., and J.R. Simplot Co. will be able to mine phosphate without being forced to restore groundwater beneath their operations to its natural condition, according to a new rule awaiting approval by the 2009 Legislature.
The rule is backed by industry but opposed by environmentalists including the Greater Yellowstone Coalition and Idaho Conservation League, who say it gives mining companies near the Idaho-Wyoming border license to pollute forever.
It stops short of a 2007 draft proposal developed by the Idaho Department of Environmental Quality but never formalized. That would have required companies to clean up groundwater below their mines within eight years of ceasing activities.
According to the new rule, mining companies could pollute groundwater below their extraction, reclamation and tailing activities with high concentrations of naturally occurring elements such as selenium. They would be required to monitor groundwater at so-called "points of compliance" as close as possible to the mining area, to make sure the pollution stayed put.
Jack Lyman, a lobbyist with the Idaho Mining Association, said the new rule would protect groundwater outside mining areas without saddling companies aiming to build new mines or expand existing ones with onerous, unrealistic cleanup mandates.
"We have never asked for the right to mess up someone else's beneficial use of the groundwater," Lyman told The Associated Press this week. "The department came up with a rule they think is workable, without putting our industry into a difficult situation where we'd be unable to comply."
Efforts to revise Idaho's 16-year-old Groundwater Quality Plan began in 2007 after the Department of Environmental Quality, the mining industry and environmentalists agreed the exemption allowing mines to pollute groundwater in some instances was ambiguous. Mining companies feared uncertainty over cleanup requirements could stifle new projects; environmentalists said vagueness made it easier for companies to pollute.
After more than a year of wrangling, the proposed rule was approved by the Department of Environmental Quality Board earlier this year. It will be taken up by the 2009 Legislature when the session starts Jan. 12. Such rules are rarely rejected, especially after securing board support.
Justin Hayes, with the Idaho Conservation League, contends the state agency "caved in" to industry pressure. Environmental groups are fearful of mining pollution in eastern Idaho, especially after at least four horses and hundreds of sheep died in the late 1990s after drinking selenium-contaminated water from defunct phosphate mines and their waste piles near Soda Springs.
"By its very nature, groundwater doesn't stay in one place," Hayes said. "An aquifer is recharged by rain and snow water, then it moves somewhere else. Aquifers are in motion. Eventually, the contamination is going to move off site."
Lyman insists environmentalists are exaggerating the danger that mining pollution will migrate. He drew a comparison between the septic tank at his home near Caldwell and open-pit phosphate mines.
"I've never worried about anything I put in my sink showing up a quarter of a mile away on my neighbor's property," Lyman said, adding that just because groundwater below a mine is polluted "does not mean that's going to flow down into Soda Springs, Idaho."
Showing posts with label Science. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Science. Show all posts
Tuesday, January 06, 2009
Monday, August 11, 2008
SKY ALERT! TUESDAY SPECTACLE
Perseid meteor shower set to dazzle
- David Shiga
A Perseid meteor streaks through auroras above Colorado in 2000 (Image: Jimmy Westlake)
Tuesday morning will provide one of the year's best opportunities to see some "shooting stars", with the peak of the annual Perseid meteor display.
Meteors are bits of dust or rock that plunge into Earth's atmosphere at high speed, producing a glowing trail when they excite gas particles. On any clear night, a handful of meteors can be seen per hour, but that rises to dozens per hour during a meteor shower.
The Perseid meteor shower is one of the best annual displays and is best seen from the northern hemisphere.
From a dark site, far from city lights, viewers should be able to catch around 60 meteors per hour at the peak. For observers at most locations, the peak will arrive in the early morning hours on Tuesday, local time, before dawn breaks.
Smaller numbers of meteors will be visible on Monday evening, since light from a nearly full Moon will wash out fainter meteors. The number of meteors visible will increase when the Moon sets at around 0130 local time on Tuesday for observers at mid-northern latitudes.
The meteors will appear all over the sky, so the best strategy is to lie down and stare at as large a patch of sky as possible – away from the Moon, if it is still up. Tracing the paths of the meteors backwards will lead to a point in the constellation Perseus, which gives the yearly display its name (scroll down for image).
Perseid meteors are bits of debris shed by comet Swift-Tuttle, which takes 133 years to orbit the Sun and last passed through the inner solar system in 1992.
Its fragments hit the atmosphere at an average speed of 59 kilometres per second, causing most to disintegrate far above Earth, at altitudes of 80 to 120 kilometres – around the edge of space at 100 km.
A typical meteor barrelling through the thin atmosphere at this height is just the size of a grain of sand or a small pebble. But it creates a column of glowing gas tens of kilometres long and hundreds of metres wide.
Earth accumulates an estimated 1000 to 10,000 tonnes of material from meteorites each day.
Comets and Asteroids – Learn more in our special report.
Related Articles
- Burned-up meteors add to Martian atmosphere
- http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn8264
- 03 November 2005
- Falling stars may cause rainy days
- http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=mg18725145.000
- 25 August 2005
- How to catch a falling star
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Weblinks
Friday, July 04, 2008
EXTINCTION 100 TIMES MORE LIKELY NOW
Yahoo! News
Back to Story - Help
Extinction risks vastly underestimated: study
Wed Jul 2, 1:41 PM ET
Some endangered species may face an extinction risk that is up to a hundred times greater than previously thought, according to a study released Wednesday.
By overlooking random differences between individuals in a given population, researchers may have badly underestimated the perils confronting threatened wildlife, it said.
"Many larger populations previously considered relatively safe would actually be at risk," Brett Melbourne, a professor at the University of Colorado and the study's lead author, told AFP.
There are more than 16,000 species worldwide threatened with extinction, according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).
One in four mammals, one in eight birds and one in three amphibians are on the IUCN's endangered species "Red List".
In a study released on Wednesday by the journal Nature, Melbourne said the current models used draw up such lists typically look only at two risk factors.
One is the individual deaths within a small population, such as Indian tigers or rare whales.
When a species dwindles beyond a certain point, even the loss of a handful of individuals can have devastating long-term consequences, Melbourne explained.
There are less than 400 specimens of several species of whale, for example, and probably no more than 4,000 tigers roaming in the wild.
The second commonly-used factor is environmental conditions that can influence birth and death rates, such as habitat destruction, or fluctuations in temperature or rainfall, both of which can be linked to climate change.
Melbourne and co-author Alan Hastings from the University of California at Davis argue that these factors must be widened in order to give a fuller picture of extinction risk.
They say that two other determinants must be taken into account: male-to-female ratios in a species, and a wider definition of randomness in individual births and deaths.
These complex variables can determine whether a fragile population can overcome a sudden decline in numbers, such as through habitat loss, or whether it will be wiped out.
"This seems subtle and technical, but it turns out to be important," Melbourne said in an email. "Population sizes might need to be much larger for species to be relatively safe from extinction."
The new mathematical tool will be most useful for biologists who want to assess the survival prospects of species such as marine fish whose numbers can suddenly fluctuate and for which data is limited, the authors say.
Copyright © 2008 Agence France Presse. All rights reserved. The information contained in the AFP News report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the prior written authority of Agence France Presse.
Copyright © 2008 Yahoo! Inc. All rights reserved.
Questions or Comments
Privacy Policy -Terms of Service - Copyright/IP Policy
Back to Story - Help
Extinction risks vastly underestimated: study
Wed Jul 2, 1:41 PM ET
Some endangered species may face an extinction risk that is up to a hundred times greater than previously thought, according to a study released Wednesday.
By overlooking random differences between individuals in a given population, researchers may have badly underestimated the perils confronting threatened wildlife, it said.
"Many larger populations previously considered relatively safe would actually be at risk," Brett Melbourne, a professor at the University of Colorado and the study's lead author, told AFP.
There are more than 16,000 species worldwide threatened with extinction, according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).
One in four mammals, one in eight birds and one in three amphibians are on the IUCN's endangered species "Red List".
In a study released on Wednesday by the journal Nature, Melbourne said the current models used draw up such lists typically look only at two risk factors.
One is the individual deaths within a small population, such as Indian tigers or rare whales.
When a species dwindles beyond a certain point, even the loss of a handful of individuals can have devastating long-term consequences, Melbourne explained.
There are less than 400 specimens of several species of whale, for example, and probably no more than 4,000 tigers roaming in the wild.
The second commonly-used factor is environmental conditions that can influence birth and death rates, such as habitat destruction, or fluctuations in temperature or rainfall, both of which can be linked to climate change.
Melbourne and co-author Alan Hastings from the University of California at Davis argue that these factors must be widened in order to give a fuller picture of extinction risk.
They say that two other determinants must be taken into account: male-to-female ratios in a species, and a wider definition of randomness in individual births and deaths.
These complex variables can determine whether a fragile population can overcome a sudden decline in numbers, such as through habitat loss, or whether it will be wiped out.
"This seems subtle and technical, but it turns out to be important," Melbourne said in an email. "Population sizes might need to be much larger for species to be relatively safe from extinction."
The new mathematical tool will be most useful for biologists who want to assess the survival prospects of species such as marine fish whose numbers can suddenly fluctuate and for which data is limited, the authors say.
Copyright © 2008 Agence France Presse. All rights reserved. The information contained in the AFP News report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the prior written authority of Agence France Presse.
Copyright © 2008 Yahoo! Inc. All rights reserved.
Questions or Comments
Privacy Policy -Terms of Service - Copyright/IP Policy
Friday, June 06, 2008
EAT DIRT!
Bats Eat Dirt to Stay Healthy
Charles Q. Choi
Special to LiveScience
LiveScience.comWed Jun 4, 9:10 AM ET
Special to LiveScience
LiveScience.comWed Jun 4, 9:10 AM ET
The strange act of eating dirt - known as "geophagy" - is actually common in the animal kingdom. Not only do our closest living relatives the chimpanzees do it - in order to help fight malaria - but so occasionally do humans all over the world.
Researchers suspect geophagy could help animals get key minerals they need for nutrition, much as they might from a salt lick. But hitting the dirt might also help them fight off poisons.
Chemical combat
When eating, people cut the green off potatoes because it is bad for you. Many fruits, leaves and things animals munch on naturally contain molecules that are toxic or could trigger cancer or birth defects. The minerals in the dirt animals eat could bind to electrically charged portions of the poisonous compounds and neutralize them.
Each night, tropical fruit-eating bats devour large amounts of such poisonous chemicals with their food. These molecules could prove especially dangerous to young bats, both those as yet unborn and ones still nursing from their mothers.
To see why bats might eat dirt, a team of researchers spent a month lurking around six mineral licks in the Amazonian rainforest at night.
"It is quite astonishing to see all the paths that lead to the mineral licks that were created by generations of tapirs and wild pigs," said researcher Christian Voigt, a behavioral ecologist at the Berlin Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research in Germany. "Indians hunted at these sites as well. Mineral licks are hot spots of mammalian activity."
The scientists captured bats with nets, briefly took some tissue samples, and released the creatures. They also sampled the clay they ate and the mineral-rich water they drank.
"At first glance it seemed that bats visit these sites for the same purpose as other animals such as large tapirs or birds - that is, to meet their daily mineral requirements," Voigt said.
Detox
But the researchers found the bats that stopped most often at mineral licks were fruit-eaters, not insect-eaters. And fruits are rich in minerals already.
Instead, Voigt and his colleagues suspect the bats eat dirt to detoxify themselves. The bats that stop at mineral licks are often pregnant or nursing mothers, so this geophagy may help them protect their young.
"Bats are doing the same as humans, especially Indian tribes in the Amazon," Voigt explained. Some tribes are known to eat dirt while pregnant or nursing. "Somehow the bats have found the same solution for the problem of toxic compounds in fruits."
The scientists now hope to investigate how specifically the minerals work, research that could lead to novel therapies.
"It is astonishing that eating mud is so widespread in mammals," Voigt told LiveScience. "Possibly, we should reconsider our assumptions regarding clay consumption. Maybe it is good stuff."
Voigt and his colleagues detailed their findings online on April 23 in the journal PLoS ONE.
Video: How Bats Fly Video: Smoking Out Secrets of Bat Flight Bat's Wrinkly Face Improves Sonar Original Story: Bats Eat Dirt to Stay Healthy
Visit LiveScience.com for more daily news, views and scientific inquiry with an original, provocative point of view. LiveScience reports amazing, real world breakthroughs, made simple and stimulating for people on the go. Check out our collection of Science, Animal and Dinosaur Pictures, Science Videos, Hot Topics, Trivia, Top 10s, Voting, Amazing Images, Reader Favorites, and more. Get cool gadgets at the new LiveScience Store, sign up for our free daily email newsletter and check out our RSS feeds today!
Note: My grandmother used to say a baby needed to eat a peck of dirt to start life well. I guess she knew much more than I knew! She was from Poland and had visions which were later coaberated. A wise woman. Cockroaches and earthworms eat dirt, too. There are many micro-nutients in soil.
Monday, June 02, 2008
TROJAN HORSE
Bush seeks $770M in food help during crisis
Kareem Elgazzar
Issue date: 6/2/08 Section: News
The Bush administration is seeking congressional approval of a $770 million food package in an effort to ease the world food crisis. If approved, the U.S. Agency for International Development would spend $150 million on development farming, which would include the use of genetically modified crops.
Genetically modified crops are produced from crops whose genetic makeup have been altered through a process called recombinant DNA, or gene splicing, to give the plant a desirable trait, according to a 2003 report in the U.S. Food and Drug Administration's FDA Consumer.
Using the tools of genetic engineering allows the transfer of useful genes from one organism to a totally unrelated organism. Plants can be used, for example, to produce human proteins, such as insulin and antibodies, according to "Plants and Society," a textbook co-authored by Estelle Levetin and Karen McMahon.
"The building blocks for DNA and proteins are largely universal across organisms," said Susan Dunford, associate professor of biological sciences and instructor of a plants and people course. "As with any technology, the potential benefits, which are considerable, need to be weighed against the potential risks."
As the value or detriment of genetically modified, or bioengineered, food is ambiguous to researchers in the U.S. and Europe, the Ohio Department of Agriculture has done little research or development into the issue.
© 2008 The News Record
Poor farmers world wide can't take advantage of genetically modified crops since the modifications are meant to save time and man-power ONLY in large agri-businesses. In addition, the seeds produced by GM crops are engineered to prevent normal reproduction of the plant. That means that today's poor farmer using GM crops will have to BUY seed for next year's crops instead of simply harvesting seed as is done normally. Including GM crops in any package of food aid is like sending in a Trojan Horse filled with future hunger and/or dependence on the supplier of the GM seed (most likely, Monsanto) to those markets not currently under the control of the GM crop patent holder. Instead of helping people, the addition of a GM crops provision will actually harm them! It's time for Congress to take a long hard look at future damages that could result from this sneaky maneuver.
Thursday, May 29, 2008
JUST ANOTHER NAIL-BITER
Runaway Global Warming 635 Million Years Ago
LiveScience Staff
LiveScience.comWed May 28, 4:16 PM ET
A sudden and extreme case of runaway global warming 635 million years ago was caused by an abrupt release of methane, a powerful greenhouse gas, scientists said today.
The methane seeped from ice sheets that covered much of the planet toward the end of a frigid era called Snowball Earth. The gas escaped gradually at first and then very quickly from clathrates, or methane ice that forms and stabilizes beneath water ice sheets. As the water ice melted, pressure was relieved on the clathrates and they began to de-gas.
The transition represents one of the earliest known cases of what scientists now call a climatic tipping-point.
The big question scientists are now pondering: Could it happen again?
"Our findings document an abrupt and catastrophic global warming that led from a very cold, seemingly stable climate state to a very warm, also stable, climate state - with no pause in between," said geologist Martin Kennedy of the University of California at Riverside, who led the research team.
"What we now need to know is the sensitivity of the trigger," Kennedy said. "How much forcing does it take to move from one stable state to the other - and are we approaching something like that today with current carbon dioxide warming?"
Also called marsh gas, methane is a colorless, odorless gas. As a greenhouse gas, it is about 30 times more potent than carbon dioxide.
Methane clathrates still exist in Arctic permafrost and beneath the oceans at continental margins. Kennedy said it's possible that very little warming could unleash this trapped methane, potentially warming the planet by tens of degrees.
Kennedy and colleagues collected hundreds of marine sediment samples in South Australia for stable isotope analysis, an important tool used in climate reconstruction. They found the broadest range of oxygen isotopic variation ever reported from marine sediments, which they attribute to melting waters in ice sheets as well as destabilization of clathrates by glacial meltwater.
"Today we're conducting a global-scale experiment with Earth's climate system," Kennedy said, "and witnessing an unprecedented rate of warming, all with little or no knowledge of what instabilities lurk in the climate system and how they can influence life on Earth."
He said Nature did a similar experiment 635 million years ago, "and the outcome is preserved in the geologic record. We see that strong forcing on the climate, not unlike the current carbon dioxide forcing, results in the activation of latent controls in the climate system that, once initiated, change climate to a completely different state."
The research, detailed in the May 29 issue of the journal Nature, was supported by the National Science Foundation and NASA's Exobiology Program.
Top 10 Ways to Destroy Earth Global Melt: Sea Ice Seen From Orbit How Lowly Bacteria Froze Earth Solid Original Story: Runaway Global Warming 635 Million Years AgoVisit LiveScience.com for more daily news, views and scientific inquiry with an original, provocative point of view. LiveScience reports amazing, real world breakthroughs, made simple and stimulating for people on the go. Check out our collection of Science, Animal and Dinosaur Pictures, Science Videos, Hot Topics, Trivia, Top 10s, Voting, Amazing Images, Reader Favorites, and more. Get cool gadgets at the new LiveScience Store, sign up for our free daily email newsletter and check out our RSS feeds today!
Wednesday, March 26, 2008
Citizens’ group wants a law to ban genetically engineered crops.
Printed from the Monterey County Weekly website: http://www.montereycountyweekly.com/archives/2008/2008-Mar-06/20-citizens-group-wants-a-law-to-ban-genetically-engineered-crops
Ag Advisory Committee considers GMOs
Citizens’ group wants a law to ban genetically engineered crops.
Posted March 06, 2008
By Zachary Stahl
Leading the Charge
Lorna Moffat (front) wants a countywide ban on genetically modified crops.
Several years ago seed giant Monsanto offered Salinas Valley growers a genetic solution to their weed problem with spring mix. Monsanto was developing a lettuce variety resistant to Roundup, the company’s leading herbicide. Farmers could have killed weeds with Roundup without harming the genetically engineered spring mix. But the industry shied away.
“It was dropped very quickly,” says Jim Manassero, chairman of the Monterey County Agricultural Advisory Committee. “Number one, the industry didn’t want it.” Manassero says a state law would have had to change to allow the vegetables to be harvested after being doused with Roundup. Plus, consumers would have balked at the prospect.
“It becomes very easy for that type of science to get blown out of proportion by the media and to make it all lettuce is poisoned or could be,” Manassero says.
The genetically modified seeds never reached the valley floor. While Monsanto has taken over the corn and soybean seed market, Monterey County ag officials maintain that no genetically engineered crops have been grown in the county. Some local organic farmers and environmentalists want to keep it this way.
On Feb. 28 a group of small farmers and Monterey Peninsula residents asked the Agricultural Advisory Committee to recommend a county ban on GE crops. Lorna Moffat, who is spearheading the effort, proposed the moratorium in response to a November speech by Dr. Henry Daniell of the University of Florida about producing insulin from genetically modified lettuce.
Moffat told the committee that federal agencies do a poor job monitoring GE crops, and no long-term studies have been done to monitor their health impacts. “Few regulations to protect public health and our environment are in place,” Moffat said, warning that GE crops could cross-pollinate other produce.
Alex Sancen is an organic farmer who grows on less than five acres at the Agricultural & Land-Based Training Association outside Salinas. Sancen told the committee that his farmers market customers are concerned about GE crops tainting their produce. “They are speaking of buying vegetables from Santa Cruz County if you guys don’t do anything,” Sancen said.
Sancen and dozens of other ALBA farmers want the Monterey County Board of Supervisors to adopt an ordinance similar to one that exists in Santa Cruz County. In 2006 Santa Cruz supervisors banned growing genetically engineered crops. The county code makes exemptions for GE pharmaceuticals grown in state or federally licensed, indoor labs.
Santa Cruz is the most recent California county to prohibit GM crops. In 2004, Mendocino County became the first in the U.S. to ban GMOs, followed by Trinity and Marin counties. While a handful of liberal, coastal counties have outlawed the crops, anti-GMO ballot initiatives in Butte, Humboldt, San Luis Obispo and Sonoma counties have failed at the polls.
In addition, at least 12 counties, mostly in the conservative and agriculturally-rich Central Valley, have passed resolutions supporting ag biotechnology.
The only related thing that Monterey County has on the books is a code regulating the experimental release of GE microorganisms. The county crafted the code in the ‘70s in response to a bacteria intended to prevent frost on strawberries, says Bob Roach, assistant agricultural commissioner.
Pesticide-resistant crops, GE plants and pharmaceuticals fall under the purview of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Department of Agriculture and Food and Drug Administration, respectively, Roach says. County ordinances “are largely symbolic because no one really wanted to grow these crops in these counties,” he adds.
The same goes for Monterey County. “I don’t think they are on our door step,” Roach says. “I don’t think they are even coming up the walk yet.”
But Salinas Mayor Dennis Donohue and some ag officials want to leave the door open for GE research. Donohue hopes to usher in higher-paying jobs by attracting pharmaceutical, biotechnology and alternative energy firms. He says he will oppose any regulations restricting biotechnology. “The reality is our scientists want to be free to do business,” he says.
Donohue says just because Daniell spoke in Salinas about insulin-producing lettuce doesn’t mean that research is moving forward. “This is all speculative,” he says. “He gave a speech. Nobody is making plans. Nobody is advocating GMO crops.”
Manassero says the Ag Advisory Committee will schedule a presentation from a UC Davis professor about the benefits of genetic engineering. The committee will then recommend a course of action to county supervisors. But it’s clear the committee chairman doesn’t think a ban is necessary.
“Why pass an ordinance that would close a potential scientific and high-tech solution to a problem that we don’t know about yet?” Manassero asks.
Manassero dismisses the concerns of GMO opponents. Since vegetables are harvested when they are immature, he says they don’t pollinate. Therefore, Manassero says, the crops wouldn’t cross-pollinate. As for organic farmers losing business, Manassero calls it a “scare tactic that is being used to push the GMO ordinance in Monterey County.”
If Monterey County sides with GE crops, Sancen says it could hurt the county’s farming reputation. Sancen points to the drawbacks of GE crops, including increased food allergies, damage to beneficial insects and the creation of “superweeds.” “It’s not just for small farmers,” he says. “It’s for the whole ag industry.”
Indeed, fruit and vegetable crops are one of the last stands in an ag industry increasingly dominated by GE crops. Since their introduction in 1996 GE crops have ballooned to make up more than 80 percent of soybean production and more than 60 percent of cotton acreage. Sancen calls on the county to rein in GMOs before they spread locally. “We have to regulate this,” he says.
Ag Advisory Committee considers GMOs
Citizens’ group wants a law to ban genetically engineered crops.
Posted March 06, 2008
By Zachary Stahl
Leading the Charge
Lorna Moffat (front) wants a countywide ban on genetically modified crops.
Several years ago seed giant Monsanto offered Salinas Valley growers a genetic solution to their weed problem with spring mix. Monsanto was developing a lettuce variety resistant to Roundup, the company’s leading herbicide. Farmers could have killed weeds with Roundup without harming the genetically engineered spring mix. But the industry shied away.
“It was dropped very quickly,” says Jim Manassero, chairman of the Monterey County Agricultural Advisory Committee. “Number one, the industry didn’t want it.” Manassero says a state law would have had to change to allow the vegetables to be harvested after being doused with Roundup. Plus, consumers would have balked at the prospect.
“It becomes very easy for that type of science to get blown out of proportion by the media and to make it all lettuce is poisoned or could be,” Manassero says.
The genetically modified seeds never reached the valley floor. While Monsanto has taken over the corn and soybean seed market, Monterey County ag officials maintain that no genetically engineered crops have been grown in the county. Some local organic farmers and environmentalists want to keep it this way.
On Feb. 28 a group of small farmers and Monterey Peninsula residents asked the Agricultural Advisory Committee to recommend a county ban on GE crops. Lorna Moffat, who is spearheading the effort, proposed the moratorium in response to a November speech by Dr. Henry Daniell of the University of Florida about producing insulin from genetically modified lettuce.
Moffat told the committee that federal agencies do a poor job monitoring GE crops, and no long-term studies have been done to monitor their health impacts. “Few regulations to protect public health and our environment are in place,” Moffat said, warning that GE crops could cross-pollinate other produce.
Alex Sancen is an organic farmer who grows on less than five acres at the Agricultural & Land-Based Training Association outside Salinas. Sancen told the committee that his farmers market customers are concerned about GE crops tainting their produce. “They are speaking of buying vegetables from Santa Cruz County if you guys don’t do anything,” Sancen said.
Sancen and dozens of other ALBA farmers want the Monterey County Board of Supervisors to adopt an ordinance similar to one that exists in Santa Cruz County. In 2006 Santa Cruz supervisors banned growing genetically engineered crops. The county code makes exemptions for GE pharmaceuticals grown in state or federally licensed, indoor labs.
Santa Cruz is the most recent California county to prohibit GM crops. In 2004, Mendocino County became the first in the U.S. to ban GMOs, followed by Trinity and Marin counties. While a handful of liberal, coastal counties have outlawed the crops, anti-GMO ballot initiatives in Butte, Humboldt, San Luis Obispo and Sonoma counties have failed at the polls.
In addition, at least 12 counties, mostly in the conservative and agriculturally-rich Central Valley, have passed resolutions supporting ag biotechnology.
The only related thing that Monterey County has on the books is a code regulating the experimental release of GE microorganisms. The county crafted the code in the ‘70s in response to a bacteria intended to prevent frost on strawberries, says Bob Roach, assistant agricultural commissioner.
Pesticide-resistant crops, GE plants and pharmaceuticals fall under the purview of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Department of Agriculture and Food and Drug Administration, respectively, Roach says. County ordinances “are largely symbolic because no one really wanted to grow these crops in these counties,” he adds.
The same goes for Monterey County. “I don’t think they are on our door step,” Roach says. “I don’t think they are even coming up the walk yet.”
But Salinas Mayor Dennis Donohue and some ag officials want to leave the door open for GE research. Donohue hopes to usher in higher-paying jobs by attracting pharmaceutical, biotechnology and alternative energy firms. He says he will oppose any regulations restricting biotechnology. “The reality is our scientists want to be free to do business,” he says.
Donohue says just because Daniell spoke in Salinas about insulin-producing lettuce doesn’t mean that research is moving forward. “This is all speculative,” he says. “He gave a speech. Nobody is making plans. Nobody is advocating GMO crops.”
Manassero says the Ag Advisory Committee will schedule a presentation from a UC Davis professor about the benefits of genetic engineering. The committee will then recommend a course of action to county supervisors. But it’s clear the committee chairman doesn’t think a ban is necessary.
“Why pass an ordinance that would close a potential scientific and high-tech solution to a problem that we don’t know about yet?” Manassero asks.
Manassero dismisses the concerns of GMO opponents. Since vegetables are harvested when they are immature, he says they don’t pollinate. Therefore, Manassero says, the crops wouldn’t cross-pollinate. As for organic farmers losing business, Manassero calls it a “scare tactic that is being used to push the GMO ordinance in Monterey County.”
If Monterey County sides with GE crops, Sancen says it could hurt the county’s farming reputation. Sancen points to the drawbacks of GE crops, including increased food allergies, damage to beneficial insects and the creation of “superweeds.” “It’s not just for small farmers,” he says. “It’s for the whole ag industry.”
Indeed, fruit and vegetable crops are one of the last stands in an ag industry increasingly dominated by GE crops. Since their introduction in 1996 GE crops have ballooned to make up more than 80 percent of soybean production and more than 60 percent of cotton acreage. Sancen calls on the county to rein in GMOs before they spread locally. “We have to regulate this,” he says.
Thursday, March 13, 2008
More "News for Nerds"
Paul Krugman's 1978 Theory of Interstellar Trade
(Posted by kdawson on Wednesday March 12, @02:52AM
from the world's-pre-eminent-stand-up-economist dept.
It's funny. Laugh. Space)
jerryasher recommends Paul Krugman's blog at the NYTimes, where he introduces a paper he wrote, The Theory of Interstellar Trade, with tongue very much in cheek. Some packrat academician was kind enough to send him a scan, because "back then academics did their work with typewriters, abacuses, and stone axes." Abstract: This paper extends interplanetary trade theory to an interstellar setting. It is chiefly concerned with the following question: how should interest rates on goods in transit be computed when the goods travel at close to the speed of light? This is a problem because the time taken in transit will appear less to an observer traveling with the goods than to a stationary observer. A solution is derived from economic theory, and two useless but true theorems are proved... This paper, then, is a serious analysis of a ridiculous subject, which is of course the opposite of what is usual in economics."
(Posted by kdawson on Wednesday March 12, @02:52AM
from the world's-pre-eminent-stand-up-economist dept.
It's funny. Laugh. Space)
jerryasher recommends Paul Krugman's blog at the NYTimes, where he introduces a paper he wrote, The Theory of Interstellar Trade, with tongue very much in cheek. Some packrat academician was kind enough to send him a scan, because "back then academics did their work with typewriters, abacuses, and stone axes." Abstract: This paper extends interplanetary trade theory to an interstellar setting. It is chiefly concerned with the following question: how should interest rates on goods in transit be computed when the goods travel at close to the speed of light? This is a problem because the time taken in transit will appear less to an observer traveling with the goods than to a stationary observer. A solution is derived from economic theory, and two useless but true theorems are proved... This paper, then, is a serious analysis of a ridiculous subject, which is of course the opposite of what is usual in economics."
Monday, February 25, 2008
No More Windshield Wipers?
From Slashdot.com comes yet another link to a story about using nanotechnology to keep windshields clean. This comes during an online debate I have been having with an engineer friend about the possible uses of rain drop power with both nanotechnology and shape recalling deformable substrates that could produce tiny amounts of electric current with each deformation. Hmmm!
Nanotechnology-Powered Wiper-Less Windshield
Posted by ScuttleMonkey on Friday February 22, @09:28PM
from the plenty-of-room-at-the-bottom dept.
Technology Science
fab writes "Italian car designer Leonardo Fioravanti (who worked for Pininfarina for a number of years) has developed a car prototype without windshield wipers. This amazing technological feat is made possible thanks to the use of 4 layers of glass modified using nanotechnology. The first layer filters the sun and repels the water. The second layer, using 'nano-dust' is able to push dirt to the side. The third layer acts as a sensor that activates the second layer when it detects dirt, while the fourth layer is a conductor of electricity to power this complex mechanism. I haven't been able to find an English article, but there is always a google powered translation of the Italian article."
Nanotechnology-Powered Wiper-Less Windshield
Posted by ScuttleMonkey on Friday February 22, @09:28PM
from the plenty-of-room-at-the-bottom dept.
Technology Science
fab writes "Italian car designer Leonardo Fioravanti (who worked for Pininfarina for a number of years) has developed a car prototype without windshield wipers. This amazing technological feat is made possible thanks to the use of 4 layers of glass modified using nanotechnology. The first layer filters the sun and repels the water. The second layer, using 'nano-dust' is able to push dirt to the side. The third layer acts as a sensor that activates the second layer when it detects dirt, while the fourth layer is a conductor of electricity to power this complex mechanism. I haven't been able to find an English article, but there is always a google powered translation of the Italian article."
Monday, February 18, 2008
Bill of Rights for Federal Scientists
A Bill of Rights for Scientists
The Union of Concerned Scientists wants Congress to pass a Scientists' Bill of Rights to protect federal researchers from political pressure and intrusion. Steve Mirsky reports. For more information, go to http://www.ucsusa.org/scientificfreedom.
On February 14th, the Union of Concerned Scientists issued a call for the protection of federal scientists. The UCS press conference took place in space made available by the American Association for the Advancement of Science, whose annual meeting is taking place in Boston. Francesca Grifo is the director of the UCS’s scientific integrity program: “As we transition to the next administration, regardless of who we vote to place at its helm, we must ensure that the falsifying of data; the fabricating of results; the selective editing; the intimidation, censoring and suppression of scientists; the corruption of advisory panels; and the tampering with scientific procedures all stop.”
To that end, the UCS wants Congress to pass a scientists’ bill of rights. Kurt Gottfriend is professor of physics emeritus at Cornell University and a cofounder of the UCS: “We therefore call on the next president and Congress to codify the basic freedoms that federal scientists must have if they are to produce the scientific knowledge that is needed by a government dedicated to the public good.”
—Steve Mirsky, at the AAAS conference in Boston
60-Second Science is a daily podcast. Subscribe to this Podcast: RSS | iTunes
The Union of Concerned Scientists wants Congress to pass a Scientists' Bill of Rights to protect federal researchers from political pressure and intrusion. Steve Mirsky reports. For more information, go to http://www.ucsusa.org/scientificfreedom.
On February 14th, the Union of Concerned Scientists issued a call for the protection of federal scientists. The UCS press conference took place in space made available by the American Association for the Advancement of Science, whose annual meeting is taking place in Boston. Francesca Grifo is the director of the UCS’s scientific integrity program: “As we transition to the next administration, regardless of who we vote to place at its helm, we must ensure that the falsifying of data; the fabricating of results; the selective editing; the intimidation, censoring and suppression of scientists; the corruption of advisory panels; and the tampering with scientific procedures all stop.”
To that end, the UCS wants Congress to pass a scientists’ bill of rights. Kurt Gottfriend is professor of physics emeritus at Cornell University and a cofounder of the UCS: “We therefore call on the next president and Congress to codify the basic freedoms that federal scientists must have if they are to produce the scientific knowledge that is needed by a government dedicated to the public good.”
—Steve Mirsky, at the AAAS conference in Boston
60-Second Science is a daily podcast. Subscribe to this Podcast: RSS | iTunes
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About Me
- Chi
- I live on the Pacific slopes of the Talamanca mountain range in southern Costa Rica. My adult children live in the United States. I have a Masters Degree in Gerontology but have worked as a migrant laborer, chicken egg collector, radio broadcaster, secretary, social worker, research director, bureaucrat, writer, editor, political organizer, publicist, telephone operator, and more. My hobby of photography has garnered some awards.
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