Letter to The Guardian by Michael Meacher:
So the biotech industry is having another try. Having been defeated comprehensively in 2004 after the GM field-scale trials I set up, they have the gall to suggest(like the nuclear industry)that climate change might provide the way back in. Your report says an unnamed "senior government source" claims the tide will turn because, allegedly, GM crops are higher-yield and hardier to
help feed the world's increasing population and will help provide biofuels to limit climate change. These claims are bunkum.
The most authoritative study on crop yields - by Charles Benbrook, an independent US scientist - found that over a five-year period yields actually fell and pesticide use increased to deal with superweeds. The real answer to feeding a growing world population, in addition to more widespread family planning, is reversing the gross maldistribution of land in developing countries, phasing out the US and EU agricultural subsidies that wreck the market for
developing-world farmers, and ending the rich countries' discriminatory trade policies. Any role for GM is, by comparison, piffling.
The claim that GM will assist production of biofuels is equally mischievous. If it did this (which is unlikely),it would actually diminish the world's
food supply,given the competition for land. If government officials were genuinely concerned about combating climate change, they wouldn't be making Monsanto's case to raise biotech's profits by cornering the world's food supply;they would be increasing the use of renewable energy, not expanding airports,and signing up industry to much tighter annual CO2 reductions.
Michael Meacher MP
Former environment minister
Wednesday, 19 September 2007
*WHAT CAN HAPPEN WHEN YOU QUESTION 'LEADERS'
Florida Student Andrew Meyer Tazered - Footage Not Seen on TV
U of F student Andrew Meyer is tazed by police after being escorted away from the microphone at a campus forum.
http://www.evtv1.com/player.aspx?itemnum=9094
It's after the insurance ad on the clip. Look at it until the end.
U of F student Andrew Meyer is tazed by police after being escorted away from the microphone at a campus forum.
http://www.evtv1.com/player.aspx?itemnum=9094
It's after the insurance ad on the clip. Look at it until the end.
Wednesday, 12 September 2007
*AUCTION at Green Party Conference.
The Green Party Annual Conference takes place from to-morrow Sept. 13th until Sunday next at The Cornerstone building of Liverpool Hope University, at Haigh Street, Liverpool L3 8QB.
I am conducting a fundraising auction for our GLA election campaign.
The event takes place on Friday evening at 8pm.
Here are a few of the items for sale:
1) Have your housekeeping done by Darren Johnson, London Assembly Member.
2) Tea for three and a tour of the House of Lords plus seats for a debate. Donated by Lord Beaumont.
3) Tony Benn's pipe - autographed by him.
4) An original ballot paper from the first free elections in South Africa, 1994, features Nelson Mandela etc.
5) Self portrait sketch and autograph by David Baddiel.
6) A genuine ROMAN COIN of the Emperor Constantius 11 (337-361 a.d.)
I am now accepting bids on the above. Please ring me on 07961 44 1722 or reply to this e-mail up to Wednesday night.
I am conducting a fundraising auction for our GLA election campaign.
The event takes place on Friday evening at 8pm.
Here are a few of the items for sale:
1) Have your housekeeping done by Darren Johnson, London Assembly Member.
2) Tea for three and a tour of the House of Lords plus seats for a debate. Donated by Lord Beaumont.
3) Tony Benn's pipe - autographed by him.
4) An original ballot paper from the first free elections in South Africa, 1994, features Nelson Mandela etc.
5) Self portrait sketch and autograph by David Baddiel.
6) A genuine ROMAN COIN of the Emperor Constantius 11 (337-361 a.d.)
I am now accepting bids on the above. Please ring me on 07961 44 1722 or reply to this e-mail up to Wednesday night.
Tuesday, 11 September 2007
*Blogging goes Green – Blog Action Day.
Last week saw the launch of Blog Action Day, an international initiative aiming to unite thousands of blogging voices and have them talk about one specific issue on one specific day – with the aim being to further global awareness of that issue and so contribute to bringing about positive change.
The inaugural Blog Action Day is scheduled for October 15th 2007, and the issue that its organisers are asking bloggers from around the world to focus on is the environment.
As well as dedicating that day’s posts to reporting on issues relating to the environment, bloggers who make money from their sites are also being asked to donate the day’s earnings to environmental charities.
Add your voice to this innovative global initiative by adding your blog. As of to-day there are 4,597 blogs signed up.
http://blogactionday.org/
The inaugural Blog Action Day is scheduled for October 15th 2007, and the issue that its organisers are asking bloggers from around the world to focus on is the environment.
As well as dedicating that day’s posts to reporting on issues relating to the environment, bloggers who make money from their sites are also being asked to donate the day’s earnings to environmental charities.
Add your voice to this innovative global initiative by adding your blog. As of to-day there are 4,597 blogs signed up.
http://blogactionday.org/
Wednesday, 5 September 2007
*Plastic bags.
The Scottish Executive recently calculated that the oil used to manufacture eight plastic carrier bags would power an average car for a kilometre.
Monday, 3 September 2007
*PHILANTHROPY GATES-STYLE
The world's biggest philanthropic foundation is reaping huge profits investing in companies responsible for causing the problems it tries to solve. Its grant-giving is also doing more harm than good in undermining health and agricultural systems, distorting national and global priorities, and preventing the necessary paradigm change that could help secure the future of the planet, says an article for ISIS at
http://www.i-sis.org.uk/PhilanthropyGatesStyle.php
The Los Angeles Times reports: "... the Gates Foundation has holdings in many companies that have failed tests of social responsibility because of environmental lapses, employment discrimination, disregard for worker rights, or unethical practices." The Gates Foundation has spent at least US$75 million on biotech projects so far, many of which appear to involve genetic engineering. These include not only GM crops but GM mosquitoes, which are supposedly designed to fight malaria and dengue fever but which are an unproven approach.
http://www.gmwatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=8157
http://www.i-sis.org.uk/PhilanthropyGatesStyle.php
The Los Angeles Times reports: "... the Gates Foundation has holdings in many companies that have failed tests of social responsibility because of environmental lapses, employment discrimination, disregard for worker rights, or unethical practices." The Gates Foundation has spent at least US$75 million on biotech projects so far, many of which appear to involve genetic engineering. These include not only GM crops but GM mosquitoes, which are supposedly designed to fight malaria and dengue fever but which are an unproven approach.
http://www.gmwatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=8157
Sunday, 2 September 2007
*“WE ONLY WANT THE EARTH”
Song by James Connolly, Scots/Irish Socialist.
Executed by the British Army in 1916.
We only want the Earth.
Some men, faint hearted, ever seek
Our programme to retouch
And will insist, whene’er they speak
That we demand too much
‘Tis passing strange, yet I declare
Such statements give me mirth,
For our demands most moderate are
We only want THE EARTH
“Be moderate,” the trimmers cry,
Who dread the tyrants’ thunder.
“You ask too much, and people fly
From you aghast in wonder.”
‘Tis passing strange, for I declare
Such statements give me mirth,
For our demands most moderate are:
We only want THE EARTH.
Our masters all – a godly crew,
Whose hearts throb for the poor –
Their sympathies assure us too,
If our demands were fewer.
Most generous souls! But please observe,
What they enjoy from birth
Is all we ever had the nerve
To ask: that is, THE EARTH.
The “labour fakir,” full of guile,
Base doctrine ever preaches,
And while he bleeds the rank and file
Tame moderation teaches.
Yet, in this despite, we’ll see the day
When, with sword in its girth,
Labour shall march in war array
To seize it’s own, THE EARTH.
For labour long, with sighs and tears,
To it’s oppressors knelt,
But never yet, to aught save fears,
Did heart of tyrant melt.
We need not kneel, our cause no dearth
Of loyal soldiers needs,
And our victorious rallying cry
Shall be WE WANT THE EARTH.
“No revolutionary movement is complete without its poetical expression”
James Connolly.
Executed by the British Army in 1916.
We only want the Earth.
Some men, faint hearted, ever seek
Our programme to retouch
And will insist, whene’er they speak
That we demand too much
‘Tis passing strange, yet I declare
Such statements give me mirth,
For our demands most moderate are
We only want THE EARTH
“Be moderate,” the trimmers cry,
Who dread the tyrants’ thunder.
“You ask too much, and people fly
From you aghast in wonder.”
‘Tis passing strange, for I declare
Such statements give me mirth,
For our demands most moderate are:
We only want THE EARTH.
Our masters all – a godly crew,
Whose hearts throb for the poor –
Their sympathies assure us too,
If our demands were fewer.
Most generous souls! But please observe,
What they enjoy from birth
Is all we ever had the nerve
To ask: that is, THE EARTH.
The “labour fakir,” full of guile,
Base doctrine ever preaches,
And while he bleeds the rank and file
Tame moderation teaches.
Yet, in this despite, we’ll see the day
When, with sword in its girth,
Labour shall march in war array
To seize it’s own, THE EARTH.
For labour long, with sighs and tears,
To it’s oppressors knelt,
But never yet, to aught save fears,
Did heart of tyrant melt.
We need not kneel, our cause no dearth
Of loyal soldiers needs,
And our victorious rallying cry
Shall be WE WANT THE EARTH.
“No revolutionary movement is complete without its poetical expression”
James Connolly.
Thursday, 30 August 2007
*Plastic bag petition.
People in Britain use an average of 300 plastic bags every year. Each bag lasts up to 400 years, spending the vast majority of that time in a landfill site or strewn across the British countryside.
People are becoming increasingly aware that we need to reduce our use of plastic bags. In Ireland, a tax of 15cents per bag resulted in a 90% drop in plastic bag usage, and raised 3.5 million Euros which was spent on environmental projects. Bangladesh has banned polythene bags altogether while Taiwan and Singapore are taking steps to discourage their use.
Please take a moment to sign the petition at www.green-england.co.uk/plasticbagpetition to introduce a similar tax (to be spent on environmental projects) of 10p per bag in Britain.
People are becoming increasingly aware that we need to reduce our use of plastic bags. In Ireland, a tax of 15cents per bag resulted in a 90% drop in plastic bag usage, and raised 3.5 million Euros which was spent on environmental projects. Bangladesh has banned polythene bags altogether while Taiwan and Singapore are taking steps to discourage their use.
Please take a moment to sign the petition at www.green-england.co.uk/plasticbagpetition to introduce a similar tax (to be spent on environmental projects) of 10p per bag in Britain.
Wednesday, 29 August 2007
*PREDICTIONS.
Predictions of the Year 2000
from The Ladies Home Journal of December 1900
The Ladies Home Journal from December 1900, which contained a fascinating article by John Elfreth Watkins, Jr. “What May Happen in the Next Hundred Years”.
Mr. Watkins wrote: “These prophecies will seem strange, almost impossible. Yet, they have come from the most learned and conservative minds in America. To the wisest and most careful men in our greatest institutions of science and learning I have gone, asking each in his turn to forecast for me what, in his opinion, will have been wrought in his own field of investigation before the dawn of 2001 - a century from now. These opinions I have carefully transcribed.”
Prediction #1: There will probably be from 350,000,000 to 500,000,000 people in America and its possessions by the lapse of another century. Nicaragua will ask for admission to our Union after the completion of the great canal. Mexico will be next. Europe, seeking more territory to the south of us, will cause many of the South and Central American republics to be voted into the Union by their own people.”
Prediction #2: The American will be taller by from one to two inches. His increase of stature will result from better health, due to vast reforms in medicine, sanitation, food and athletics. He will live fifty years instead of thirty-five as at present – for he will reside in the suburbs. The city house will practically be no more. Building in blocks will be illegal. The trip from suburban home to office will require a few minutes only. A penny will pay the fare.
Prediction #3: Gymnastics will begin in the nursery, where toys and games will be designed to strengthen the muscles. Exercise will be compulsory in the schools. Every school, college and community will have a complete gymnasium. All cities will have public gymnasiums. A man or woman unable to walk ten miles at a stretch will be regarded as a weakling.
Prediction #4: There Will Be No Street Cars in Our Large Cities. All hurry traffic will be below or high above ground when brought within city limits. In most cities it will be confined to broad subways or tunnels, well lighted and well ventilated, or to high trestles with “moving-sidewalk” stairways leading to the top. These underground or overhead streets will teem with capacious automobile passenger coaches and freight with cushioned wheels. Subways or trestles will be reserved for express trains. Cities, therefore, will be free from all noises.
Prediction #5: Trains will run two miles a minute, normally; express trains one hundred and fifty miles an hour. To go from New York to San Francisco will take a day and a night by fast express. There will be cigar-shaped electric locomotives hauling long trains of cars. Cars will, like houses, be artificially cooled. Along the railroads there will be no smoke, no cinders, because coal will neither be carried nor burned. There will be no stops for water. Passengers will travel through hot or dusty country regions with windows down.
Prediction #6: Automobiles will be cheaper than horses are today. Farmers will own automobile hay-wagons, automobile truck-wagons, plows, harrows and hay-rakes. A one-pound motor in one of these vehicles will do the work of a pair of horses or more. Children will ride in automobile sleighs in winter. Automobiles will have been substituted for every horse vehicle now known. There will be, as already exist today, automobile hearses, automobile police patrols, automobile ambulances, automobile street sweepers. The horse in harness will be as scarce, if, indeed, not even scarcer, then as the yoked ox is today.
Prediction #7: There will be air-ships, but they will not successfully compete with surface cars and water vessels for passenger or freight traffic. They will be maintained as deadly war-vessels by all military nations. Some will transport men and goods. Others will be used by scientists making observations at great heights above the earth.
I will post the rest at a later date.
from The Ladies Home Journal of December 1900
The Ladies Home Journal from December 1900, which contained a fascinating article by John Elfreth Watkins, Jr. “What May Happen in the Next Hundred Years”.
Mr. Watkins wrote: “These prophecies will seem strange, almost impossible. Yet, they have come from the most learned and conservative minds in America. To the wisest and most careful men in our greatest institutions of science and learning I have gone, asking each in his turn to forecast for me what, in his opinion, will have been wrought in his own field of investigation before the dawn of 2001 - a century from now. These opinions I have carefully transcribed.”
Prediction #1: There will probably be from 350,000,000 to 500,000,000 people in America and its possessions by the lapse of another century. Nicaragua will ask for admission to our Union after the completion of the great canal. Mexico will be next. Europe, seeking more territory to the south of us, will cause many of the South and Central American republics to be voted into the Union by their own people.”
Prediction #2: The American will be taller by from one to two inches. His increase of stature will result from better health, due to vast reforms in medicine, sanitation, food and athletics. He will live fifty years instead of thirty-five as at present – for he will reside in the suburbs. The city house will practically be no more. Building in blocks will be illegal. The trip from suburban home to office will require a few minutes only. A penny will pay the fare.
Prediction #3: Gymnastics will begin in the nursery, where toys and games will be designed to strengthen the muscles. Exercise will be compulsory in the schools. Every school, college and community will have a complete gymnasium. All cities will have public gymnasiums. A man or woman unable to walk ten miles at a stretch will be regarded as a weakling.
Prediction #4: There Will Be No Street Cars in Our Large Cities. All hurry traffic will be below or high above ground when brought within city limits. In most cities it will be confined to broad subways or tunnels, well lighted and well ventilated, or to high trestles with “moving-sidewalk” stairways leading to the top. These underground or overhead streets will teem with capacious automobile passenger coaches and freight with cushioned wheels. Subways or trestles will be reserved for express trains. Cities, therefore, will be free from all noises.
Prediction #5: Trains will run two miles a minute, normally; express trains one hundred and fifty miles an hour. To go from New York to San Francisco will take a day and a night by fast express. There will be cigar-shaped electric locomotives hauling long trains of cars. Cars will, like houses, be artificially cooled. Along the railroads there will be no smoke, no cinders, because coal will neither be carried nor burned. There will be no stops for water. Passengers will travel through hot or dusty country regions with windows down.
Prediction #6: Automobiles will be cheaper than horses are today. Farmers will own automobile hay-wagons, automobile truck-wagons, plows, harrows and hay-rakes. A one-pound motor in one of these vehicles will do the work of a pair of horses or more. Children will ride in automobile sleighs in winter. Automobiles will have been substituted for every horse vehicle now known. There will be, as already exist today, automobile hearses, automobile police patrols, automobile ambulances, automobile street sweepers. The horse in harness will be as scarce, if, indeed, not even scarcer, then as the yoked ox is today.
Prediction #7: There will be air-ships, but they will not successfully compete with surface cars and water vessels for passenger or freight traffic. They will be maintained as deadly war-vessels by all military nations. Some will transport men and goods. Others will be used by scientists making observations at great heights above the earth.
I will post the rest at a later date.
Wednesday, 22 August 2007
*Government starts tracking blogs
Central Office of Information develops software to find out what
bloggers are saying about government policy
http://www.computerbuyer.co.uk/news/123088/
bloggers are saying about government policy
http://www.computerbuyer.co.uk/news/123088/
*GM CENSORSHIP AND THE ARTICLE THEY DID NOT WANT YOU TO READ
***The article they didn't want you to read***
[Go to the web page to see the damning photo of the "Would you eat wormy sweet corn?" sign]
The British Food Journal's Award for Excellence for Most Outstanding
Paper in 2004 went to research that should never have been published.
What the reviewers mistook for an impressive piece of scientific enquiry was a carefully crafted propaganda exercise that could only have one outcome. Both the award and the paper now need to be retracted.
***
Since this article was published a leading researcher into scientific ethics has called for the paper to be retracted.
New Scientist's repo_">http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=mg19025533.300&feedId=gm-food_
rss20
***
It was late September 1999. The scene was a news conference outside a Loblaws grocery store in downtown Toronto. Greenpeace and the Council of Canadians were launching a public awareness campaign urging customers to ask the chain to remove all genetically modified foods from their shelves.
"The food is safe," shouted someone on the edge of the crowd. Jeff
Wilson, who farms about 250 hectares northwest of Toronto, was part of a small group of hecklers. He had come to the store with Jim Fischer, the head of a lobby group called AgCare, which supports GM foods. Doug Powell, an assistant professor at the University of Guelph, was also there.
And they had come prepared. Holding aloft a bug-ravaged cabbage, Wilson demanded, "Would you buy that?" Wilson claimed the cabbage could have been saved by genetic engineering.
According to a report in the Toronto Star, Doug Powell ended up in a
shouting match with a shopper - 71-year old Evan John Evans, who told him, "I resent you putting stuff in my food I don't want."
A year later and Powell and Wilson's street theatrics had given way to a much more carefully choreographed exercise in persuading people that GM foods were what they wanted.
The scene this time was not Loblaws but Jeff Wilson's farm store, just outside the village of Hillsburgh. Here Powell and Wilson were running an experiment that had been conceived following the Loblaws encounter.
During summer 2000 Wilson grew both GM and conventional sweet corn on his farm. And following the first harvest in late August, both types of corn were put on sale amidst much publicity. The aim was to see which type would appeal most to Wilson's customers.
According to an award winning paper published in the British Food
Journal, a sizeable majority opted to buy the GM corn. In the paper,
authored by Wilson and Powell, and Powell's two research assistants -
Katija Blaine and Shane Morris, the choice appears simple - the bins
were "fully labeled" - either "genetically engineered Bt sweet corn" or
"Regular sweet-corn". The only other written information mentioned in
the paper that might have influenced the preference of customers was
lists of the chemicals used on each type of corn, and pamphlets "with
background information on the project."
What Powell and his co-authors failed to report was that the information on the chemicals came with a variation on the bug-eaten cabbage stunt
Wilson pulled outside Loblaws. There Wilson had demanded of shoppers
"Would you buy that?" In Wilson's store the sign above the non-GM corn bin asked, "Would You Eat Wormy Sweet Corn?" Above the Bt-corn bin,
by contrast, the equivalent sign was headed: "Here's What Went into
Producing Quality Sweet Corn".
Toronto Star reporter Stuart Laidlaw, who visited Wilson's farm several times during the research, says, "It is the only time I have seen a store label its own corn 'wormy'". In his book Secret Ingredients, Laidlaw includes a photograph of the "wormy" corn sign, and dryly notes,
"when one bin was marked 'wormy corn' and another 'quality sweet corn,'it was hardly surprising which sold more."
Laidlaw also notes that any mention of the corn being labelled as
"wormy" or "quality" was omitted in presentations and writings about the experiment. This is certainly the case with the paper in the British Food Journal. Yet the paper describes in some detail the care that the researchers took to avoid biasing consumer choice - by having, for example, both corn-bins kept filled to the same level throughout theday; and by selling the two different types of corn for exactly the same amount. We are even told the precise purchase price: Cnd$3.99/dozen.
The emotively worded signs are not the only instance of glaring
experimenter bias that went unmentioned in the award winning paper.
During his visits to the store, Laidlaw noted that an information table contained, as well as press releases and pamphlets on the experiments, a number of pro-GM fact sheets - some authored by industry lobby groups, but no balancing information from critics of genetic engineering.
And the bias didn't stop there. The lead researcher, Doug Powell,
actually demonstrated to the journalist his ability to influence
customer responses to questions about Bt corn and their future
purchasing preferences. Laidlaw describes how when a customer who'd
bought non-Bt corn was walking to his truck, "Powell talked to him
about Bt corn - describing how it did not need insecticides because it produced its own and that it had been approved as safe by the federal government. Powell then told me I should talk to the man again. I did,and he said he would buy GM corn the next time he was at the store. Powell stood nearby with his arms crossed and a smile on his face."
Outside Loblaws the previous Fall, Powell had ended up in an
unsuccessful slanging match. Now Powell and his associates had
engineered a setting in which customer responses could be influenced far more successfully. Seeing Powell in action convinced Laidlaw that the only conclusion which could safely be drawn from these "experiments" was that, "fed a lot of pro-biotech sales pitches, shoppers could be convinced to buy GM products."
But none of the "pro-biotech sales pitches" made their way into the
paper for which Powell and his associates were commended. Instead,
research that was little more than pro-GM propaganda was presented as providing a meticulous scientific evaluation of consumer purchasing preferences.
READ ON AT
http://www.gmwatch.org/p1temp.asp?pid=72&page=1
[Go to the web page to see the damning photo of the "Would you eat wormy sweet corn?" sign]
The British Food Journal's Award for Excellence for Most Outstanding
Paper in 2004 went to research that should never have been published.
What the reviewers mistook for an impressive piece of scientific enquiry was a carefully crafted propaganda exercise that could only have one outcome. Both the award and the paper now need to be retracted.
***
Since this article was published a leading researcher into scientific ethics has called for the paper to be retracted.
New Scientist's repo_">http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=mg19025533.300&feedId=gm-food_
rss20
***
It was late September 1999. The scene was a news conference outside a Loblaws grocery store in downtown Toronto. Greenpeace and the Council of Canadians were launching a public awareness campaign urging customers to ask the chain to remove all genetically modified foods from their shelves.
"The food is safe," shouted someone on the edge of the crowd. Jeff
Wilson, who farms about 250 hectares northwest of Toronto, was part of a small group of hecklers. He had come to the store with Jim Fischer, the head of a lobby group called AgCare, which supports GM foods. Doug Powell, an assistant professor at the University of Guelph, was also there.
And they had come prepared. Holding aloft a bug-ravaged cabbage, Wilson demanded, "Would you buy that?" Wilson claimed the cabbage could have been saved by genetic engineering.
According to a report in the Toronto Star, Doug Powell ended up in a
shouting match with a shopper - 71-year old Evan John Evans, who told him, "I resent you putting stuff in my food I don't want."
A year later and Powell and Wilson's street theatrics had given way to a much more carefully choreographed exercise in persuading people that GM foods were what they wanted.
The scene this time was not Loblaws but Jeff Wilson's farm store, just outside the village of Hillsburgh. Here Powell and Wilson were running an experiment that had been conceived following the Loblaws encounter.
During summer 2000 Wilson grew both GM and conventional sweet corn on his farm. And following the first harvest in late August, both types of corn were put on sale amidst much publicity. The aim was to see which type would appeal most to Wilson's customers.
According to an award winning paper published in the British Food
Journal, a sizeable majority opted to buy the GM corn. In the paper,
authored by Wilson and Powell, and Powell's two research assistants -
Katija Blaine and Shane Morris, the choice appears simple - the bins
were "fully labeled" - either "genetically engineered Bt sweet corn" or
"Regular sweet-corn". The only other written information mentioned in
the paper that might have influenced the preference of customers was
lists of the chemicals used on each type of corn, and pamphlets "with
background information on the project."
What Powell and his co-authors failed to report was that the information on the chemicals came with a variation on the bug-eaten cabbage stunt
Wilson pulled outside Loblaws. There Wilson had demanded of shoppers
"Would you buy that?" In Wilson's store the sign above the non-GM corn bin asked, "Would You Eat Wormy Sweet Corn?" Above the Bt-corn bin,
by contrast, the equivalent sign was headed: "Here's What Went into
Producing Quality Sweet Corn".
Toronto Star reporter Stuart Laidlaw, who visited Wilson's farm several times during the research, says, "It is the only time I have seen a store label its own corn 'wormy'". In his book Secret Ingredients, Laidlaw includes a photograph of the "wormy" corn sign, and dryly notes,
"when one bin was marked 'wormy corn' and another 'quality sweet corn,'it was hardly surprising which sold more."
Laidlaw also notes that any mention of the corn being labelled as
"wormy" or "quality" was omitted in presentations and writings about the experiment. This is certainly the case with the paper in the British Food Journal. Yet the paper describes in some detail the care that the researchers took to avoid biasing consumer choice - by having, for example, both corn-bins kept filled to the same level throughout theday; and by selling the two different types of corn for exactly the same amount. We are even told the precise purchase price: Cnd$3.99/dozen.
The emotively worded signs are not the only instance of glaring
experimenter bias that went unmentioned in the award winning paper.
During his visits to the store, Laidlaw noted that an information table contained, as well as press releases and pamphlets on the experiments, a number of pro-GM fact sheets - some authored by industry lobby groups, but no balancing information from critics of genetic engineering.
And the bias didn't stop there. The lead researcher, Doug Powell,
actually demonstrated to the journalist his ability to influence
customer responses to questions about Bt corn and their future
purchasing preferences. Laidlaw describes how when a customer who'd
bought non-Bt corn was walking to his truck, "Powell talked to him
about Bt corn - describing how it did not need insecticides because it produced its own and that it had been approved as safe by the federal government. Powell then told me I should talk to the man again. I did,and he said he would buy GM corn the next time he was at the store. Powell stood nearby with his arms crossed and a smile on his face."
Outside Loblaws the previous Fall, Powell had ended up in an
unsuccessful slanging match. Now Powell and his associates had
engineered a setting in which customer responses could be influenced far more successfully. Seeing Powell in action convinced Laidlaw that the only conclusion which could safely be drawn from these "experiments" was that, "fed a lot of pro-biotech sales pitches, shoppers could be convinced to buy GM products."
But none of the "pro-biotech sales pitches" made their way into the
paper for which Powell and his associates were commended. Instead,
research that was little more than pro-GM propaganda was presented as providing a meticulous scientific evaluation of consumer purchasing preferences.
READ ON AT
http://www.gmwatch.org/p1temp.asp?pid=72&page=1
Thursday, 16 August 2007
*Dumped!
A Channel 4 documentary called Dumped has filmed participants living on a landfill site and surviving on what they can scavenge from it.
The programme, due to start in September, aims to show viewers the extent of what is thrown away and trailers for the programme are already giving a taster of what it could be like to live next to piles of rubbish. Ten people lived on the dump for three weeks, only eating, wearing, sheltering in or using other people's rubbish.
The programme makers have called it 'the ultimate TV recycling challenge' and said: "Dumped aims to highlight the huge amount of food, clothing and other goods needlessly thrown away in the UK. "Many people have never given a second thought to what they chuck out before and the project will bring them face to face with the reality of Britain's rubbish mountains."
Dumped was filmed at Viridor's Beddington Lane recycling and landfill plant near Croydon in June 2007. Participants health and safety was carefully monitored throughout the project, and they were free to leave at any point.
The programme, due to start in September, aims to show viewers the extent of what is thrown away and trailers for the programme are already giving a taster of what it could be like to live next to piles of rubbish. Ten people lived on the dump for three weeks, only eating, wearing, sheltering in or using other people's rubbish.
The programme makers have called it 'the ultimate TV recycling challenge' and said: "Dumped aims to highlight the huge amount of food, clothing and other goods needlessly thrown away in the UK. "Many people have never given a second thought to what they chuck out before and the project will bring them face to face with the reality of Britain's rubbish mountains."
Dumped was filmed at Viridor's Beddington Lane recycling and landfill plant near Croydon in June 2007. Participants health and safety was carefully monitored throughout the project, and they were free to leave at any point.
Wednesday, 15 August 2007
*KARMA
Shambo the sacred bullock was taken away and slaughtered after he had tested positive for TB. A great fight had been put up by the monks of the Skanda Vale Hindu community in Wales.
After Shambo had been driven away Brother Alex said the community was satisfied it had done all it could to save the animal. "We are all very saddened by this act of desecration for which the government would not seem to understand the consequences."
Asked what he meant by that, he replied: "Karma. Every action has a cycle of reactions. When you break into a temple to kill an animal there will be a significant reaction to that at some point in the future."
Well, it seems Karma did not wait around. Days later there was the Foot & Mouth outbreak!
Sunday, 12 August 2007
*RECENT ARRIVALS.
Here are a few of the interesting items that have arrived in the Green Room:
· Page from an old book printed in 1478 – you won’t get much earlier than that in printed material.
· Celtic football flag.
· Roman coins of Constantine, Constantius, Constans and Tetricus 11.
· Set of Beatles plastic figures.
· Tibetan Prayer Wheel.
· Fob with Queen Victoria as a young girl.
· Silver spoons including one Georgian one – ideal for christening presents.
· Art Deco Cocktail Shaker.
· Early Daguerreotype photo.
· Collection of old Meerschaum pipes.
· Miniature of Lady Hamilton.
· A few pieces of Dinosaur Manure.
· A collection of interesting ephemera from the 1930’s.
· Early Victorian Celery Vase.
· Old crossbow.
· Album of 1920’s photos from Palestine.
· Dozens of interesting books also just in.
We open seven days per week – 10am – 6pm and sometimes later.
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