Better Living through Chemicals?
Weather report: El Nino is drying up the island of Hawaii. Hilo, the "wettest city in America," typically has 15 inches of rain by now but instead has barely half an inch. A state of emergency has been declared and the situation is described as "like a slow death."
The rapidly accelerating study of climate illustrates "that climate change 'is emerging as a new and powerful causal agent' in the evolution of civilization." The Akkadian Empire (2300 BC) encompassed the Persian Gulf in present-day Iraq to the Euphrates River headwaters in Turkey. It may have been brought down by a centuries-long drought that also toppled civilizations of early Greece, Egypt and the Indus Valley in Pakistan.
Archeologists mostly consider only political and social events around historical change but the "evidence is overwhelming that we've got something going on here." (Science, Vol 279, Jan. 16, 1998)
Americans receive on average 100 pounds of catalogs per year. With 100 million families that makes 10 billion pounds or 5 million tons of paper per year. That's a lot of trees. Evidence now shows that every ten years the calculated sustainable cutting rate (long term wood yield) for forests has gone down. Also the growth rate of biomass in the Hubbard Brook Watershed (New Hampshire) has slowed nearly to zero. No one knows for sure why. Pollution is suspected. (Los Angeles Times)
A major automaker has run ads suggesting that to prepare for El Nino we 1) chop firewood 2) install weather stripping 3) buy their sport utility vehicle. This same multinational corporation was boycotted several years ago by environmental groups for being responsible for major tropical forest destruction in southeast Asia. Now they suggest more tree cutting (chop firewood) and more fuel usage (SUVs get poor gas mileage).
Forest destruction and fossil fuel use are both known to contribute to climate change. The corner of the ad pictures a vehicle buried deeply in snow. Hmmm. Current ecosystem models which assume that trees compete with one another for resources have been challenged by new findings that trees share carbon taken from the atmosphere, even with other species of trees. The link is underground fungi which share carbon (as sugars) with trees growing in carbon-starving shade. The fungi form a network between trees and "even out" the carbon supply. "Perhaps cooperation increases the fitness of the community." (Science News, Vol 152)
A lesson for humans here?
"Are common chemicals scrambling your hormones?" "Hormone disruption has emerged as one of our top research priorities over the past couple of years."- EPA. Many of these chemicals originate in pesticides, plastics and industrial pollutants and disrupt the endocrine gland's signals which tell cells what to do. They are suspected in sperm count decreases, early female puberty and dramatic increases in newborn penile defects.
The Chemical Manufacturers Association says "... research has not turned up significant problems." Suggestions: 1) change diet: limit meat and dairy or at least use low-fat versions 2) buy organic 3) avoid vinyl- particularly for children 4) do not use pesticide-based insect repellents 5) choose hair care products without "octoxynol" or "nonoxynol" 6) avoid polystyrene foam. (USA Weekend)
Buy organic! (Wink, wink-the USDA) New USDA standards proposed for "organic" would allow: l)irradiated foods 2) foods grown with human sewage sludge (concentrates toxins and heavy metals) 3) foods containing bio-engineered (genetically manufactured) organisms 4)factory animal farming: intensive confinement, use of antibiotics and drugs, synthetic amino acids in feed and feeding diseased and rendered animal body parts and blood to farm animals 5) state and local governments may not have higher organic standards than the Feds without USDA approval 6) farming and food processing can include toxins derived from genetically-modified bacteria, piperonyl butoxide, antibiotics used as pesticides, synthetic drugs and genetically-modified food additives and processing aids 7) syn-thetic chemical treatment of seeds for food crops.
Gordon Watkins, president of Ozark Organic Growers Association, “ . . the USDA's proposal as written is a travesty and will completely undermine the meaning and integrity of organic foods." Steve Gillman, CSA Farm Network,"... almost any farming, processing or handling operation could rather easily qualify for being labeled 'organic' by USDA... maybe that's the point." The proposed law "represents a kind of 'unfriendly take-over' of organic foods by agribusiness and chemical-biotech corporations."
Send written comments by March 16, 1998 to: USDA-National Organic Standards, USDA-AMS-TM-NOP, Room 4007-So., Ag Stop 0275, PO Box 96456, Washington, DC 20090-6456 or call Agricultural Secretary Dan Glickman at 202/720-7030 (9-5 EST) (Ozark Cooperative Warehouse Market News, March 1998)
Poultry producers want a better chicken. Today's bird is not up to the task. (?) "We have metabolic disorders, we've got heart failure. We've got leg disorders." "The chicken of 10 years from now will be balanced for survival." (AP) But will we?