Pacific Spirit Marine Institute
Monday, July 14, 2008
No, you don’t have to love Oklahoma, in fact it’s one of my least favorite states.
I judge a state by the tenor of the representatives they elect. James Inhofe (R-Oklahoma) thinks the EPA has hatched an “economically destructive scheme” which he calls “ironic”. That’s the pot calling the kettle black!
Inhofe also said, “Big Brother is alive and well in the career ranks at the EPA.” Apparently irony is one thing the U.S. isn’t running short on.
Irony is a renewable resource.
This coming from the party that never met a wiretap it didn’t like. Big brother is alive and well, but he isn’t living at the EPA. Warrantless wiretaps, and immunity for those engaged in the massive illegal wiretapping for the past 7 years has all the odor of ‘big brother’.
There are actual scientists working at the EPA. Career scientists. Hard to imagine. Inhofe is a career politician who has been running for some kind of office since 1978.
The economic destruction severed up, in heaping portions, isn’t coming from the EPA’s lunch lady’s ladle either. The next president will inherit, at best, a $400 Billion dollar Bush legacy deficit. This administration had to burn through the huge, $127 Billion dollar surplus the Clinton was kind enough to leave. Now there’s a piece of real irony.
The EPA couldn’t spend enough money to clean-up the amount of trace metals lurking in certain portions of the career politicians anatomy. They certainly wouldn’t have to waste any money looking for brass balls.
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Meanwhile…
Brad Miller (D-NC) says, “The White House has effectively blocked the EPA from posting new health assessments of hazardous chemicals…” Miller is chairman of the House Committee on Science and Technology’s subcommittee on Investigation and Oversight.
The EPA maintains a data base called the IRIS, Integrated Risk Information System. This data base is critical tool for individuals, private companies, local and state authorities to respond quickly to toxic chemicals found in air, water or soil.
The pipe has dried up on the flow of crucial facts that should be flowing into the IRIS. The White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) are not required to disclose details of meetings that take place with industry lobbyists.
What do they lobby for? Pardon me; for what do they lobby?
The OMB ‘reviews’. The OMB prevents agency rules from ‘going final’ before it has approved them.
Trichloroethylene (TCE) will have been waiting for an assessment some 21 years after the EPA began its assessment. Miller is asking if “getting the science right” has less to do with protecting the public health than “a pretext for obstruction…”.
The Government Accountability Office has testified that the new ‘review process’ revealed by the OMB provides for even more secrecy and delay.
Before 2004 there were 10 steps a chemical needed to pass through before it was entered into the IRIS data base. The new review process would take a toxic chemical on a meandering 25 step path before it might be handed off to the EPA to post the final assessment on the IRIS database. Keep in mind, this step follows the OMB giving it’s ‘REVISED ASSESSMENT’
Miller states the obvious, “People will have been exposed to a known toxic substance for decades, for a generation, while the government engages in study after study…”
IRIS is just the first step in protecting the public. The real work begins after a toxin reaches the IRIS. That would be the same point the culprits using, releasing or dumping the toxins on to the environment and the public would have to ‘regroup’.
Who wants to regroup when the old group is so cozy?
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Since it isn’t economically beneficial for anyone to find a cure for cancer and most of us don’t have the training to even attempt, I propose a radical solution.
How about we the people, the piss ants, the captains of common wisdom, cure what is causing cancer?
Labels: Brad Miller, Bush, EPA, Environment, Speak no Evil, Trichloroethylene
© 2009, Pacific Spirit Marine Institute.
Ya gotta love Oklahoma. There’s even a musical.
Saturday, July 12, 2008
It’s all voodoo science until somebody gets an eye put out.
California’s Republican Governor Schwarzenegger says the Bush administration failed to counter global warming emissions. As if that were some sort of new revelation. What is new is the rift opening up in the tight knit collars of the Republican party.
Schwarzenegger makes the nefarious actions of the Bush administrations stance on climate change sound like a play ground ‘nah ney nah ney’.
I’m not going to do it if Mikey isn’t gong to do it too.
Schwarzenegger said the Bush administration didn’t believe they should do anything about it (global warming emissions) since China is not doing anything about it and since India is not willing to do anything why should we?
Way to lead the free world!
Schwarzenegger also said “We don’t wait for other countries to do the same thing. That’s what makes America number one…”
Here’s a little news; most people on the planet noticed a long time ago The U.S. stopped leading and for the past several decades took up the tedious job of mostly pillaging the free world.
Since the EPA decided not to take further actions to stave-off global warming while the lame-duck finishes his term in office, Schwarzenegger said in an interview with George Stephanopoulos that will be aired July 13th, “Well, to be honest with you, if they would have done something this year, I would have thought it was bogus anyway,” (have to love a Republican governor that can use the word ‘bogus’ correctly in a sentence)
California has been on the front lines of the envirmental issues for decades because if it’s unique problems. These problems forced California to take aggressive and costly actions to clean-up the air, water, and agriculture among other problems. For decades the rest of the nation categorized California as tree hugging fruits and nuts, and on the lighter side generally alarmists.
Another one’s collar has begun warming…
Answering a question about climate change asked by one reporter on a flight to Australia, Pope Benedict said, “We have to give impulse to rediscovering our responsibility and to finding an ethical way to change our way of life.” He wants to “wake up consciences”.
The Pope said politicians and experts must be “capable of responding to the great ecological challenge and to be up to the task of this challenge.” “We have our responsibilities toward Creation”.
I am loathed to see politicians and experts used in the same sentence and frankly find ‘give impulse to rediscovering our responsibility and to finding an ethical way to change our way of life’ a statement that is filled with more than a little irony in light of the past behaviour
of the so many authorities in the Pope’s flock, but I digress. If the head of an organization, 1 billion strong, can come up with ‘one quotable’ that fits all questions…he’s worth his weight in gold.
Meanwhile…
California is burning like a wicker cabinet. Raging fires are one of those recurring challenges they’ve had to deal with for decades.
The lame-duck President plans a visit to survey the damage. The last thing California needs right now is more hot air blowing in, but in light of Schwarzenegger’s comments about the Bush administration, the visit might be an icy one which could chill the atmosphere. Fire and ice might too contribute some much needed moisture in the air there.
The White House did not say where Bush would go to get his briefing on Thursday, but it’s always nice to kill two birds with one stone…Bush is scheduled to attend a private Republican fundraising event in the Wine Barrel of the state, Napa.
Multitasking, one quote fits all…we should all be able to rest well knowing there are so many wise captains at the helms.
Photo: NASA’s Terra Satellite…only a small portion of the California fires are shown.
Labels: Bush, Climate Change, EPA, Global Warming, Pope, Schwarzenegger
© 2009, Pacific Spirit Marine Institute.
Global warming is making some Republican’s hot under the collar.
Thursday, July 10, 2008
Perverting Common Wisdom, nephew, is the mark of all great conspiracies!
He who controls the Spice, controls the universe!
The Spice must flow.
The people of the United States woke up one day to find themselves living in the Scifi classic Dune and Dick Cheney is looking a lot like Baron Harkonnen. Is Dick Cheney the real floating fat man?
Perverting Common Wisdom.
Cheney ordered, among other things, deletions from congressional testimony given by Julie Gerberding,M.D.,Director, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Dr. Gerberding is also Administrator, Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
Dr. Gerberding’s original testimony, presented to the Committee on Environment and Public Works, was cut by half. Here is a link to the original draft with censored testimony in highlight.
Pacific Spirit Marine Institute posted an article on 10/24/07. CDC officials were calling Julie Gerberding’s report to the committee “Eviscerated”.
9 months ago,Senator and Chairwoman of the Committee on Environment and Public Works,Barbara Boxer (D-Calif), questioned why the administration would edit testimony by one of the country’s leading voices on public health?
The Chairwoman’s question of why wasn’t answered, but in a 3-page letter from Jason Burnett the who was answered.
“Cheney’s office was deeply involved in getting nearly half of the CDC’s original draft testimony removed.”
Why indeed.
Boxer contends,”This cover-up is being directed from the White House and the office of the vice president.”
Burnett resigned from the EPA last month and told Boxer’s committee the White House pressured him to retract an email detailing his finding. Burnett refused. Boxer will subpoena the material unless EPA documents are released to her committee.
Oh. Really?
Word from Sen. James Inhofe’s (R-Oklahoma) is the eviscerated report given by Gerberding is a non issue. “All administrations edit testimony before it is submitted to Congress.”
If that is the case why bother keeping the EPA, or the CDC for that matter? Why not just send down some lackey to report any so-called findings the administration wants?
The Spice must flow.
Boxer said, “History will judge this Bush administration harshly for recklessly covering up a real threat to the people they’re supposed to protect.”
Oath of Office.
In fact, history judging harshly is a non issue. For those that place their hand on a bible and swear to “protect and defend”, are held to a ‘higher’ standard. Intentionally leading the nation down a path of destruction that not only impacts the U.S., but the world, falls under the heading of ‘high crimes and misdemeanors’.
Perhaps one day, when the world is fighting the war on climate change, people of the planet will judge this administration guilty of war crimes. But, by then it will be a post obitum judgement.
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This may not be the correct forum to present a history lesson, but I hold the pen; for today anyway.
As Jon Roland, Constitution Society explains: “high” does not mean “more serious” crimes. “It refers to those punishable offenses that only apply to high persons, that is, to public officials, those who,because of their official status, are under special obligations that ordinary persons are not under, and which could not be meaningfully applied or justly punished if committed by ordinary persons.”
An example is the Uniform Code of Military Justice. An ordinary person cannot be punished for moral turpitude, or conduct unbecoming. There would never be enough prisons to hold all those whose conduct is unbecoming!
As in the case of the President who swears an oath, ‘Any public statement is perjury if it is a lie, and not necessary to deceive an enemy.” Art. II Sec. 1 Cl. 8.
The President is legally responsible for everything that everyone in the executive branch is doing. The Presidents subordinates include everyone in the executive branch, their agents and contractors. He is not protected by “plausible deniablility”.
Holding a particular office of trust is not a right, but a privilege,and removal from such office is not a punishment.
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I’m sure a subpoena will work as well on those who occupy the Vice President’s ‘office’ as it has worked on Carl Rove. Rove failed to appear after being served with a subpoena to testify at the House Judiciary subcommittee hearing this morning. Rove did have a proxy; it was an empty chair with his name on the table.
Thumbing his nose, like the rest of the useless rapscallions in Washington, Rove would have like to informally ‘chew the fat’ with the subcommittee as if an informal chat would not bind him to telling the truth. Informal, just like the tests that the Gulf Stream Travel Trailer company did on their formaldehyde ridden toxic trailers sold to FEMA.
Unlike Rove, Gulf Stream Coach Chairman Kim Shea at least showed up to face the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. Gulf Stream hit the jackpot with a windfall contract to provide $50 million worth of ‘death chambers’ to FEMA to house Katrina survivors. FEMA hadn’t done enough to try and shed themselves of survivors. Of course it isn’t the trailer manufacturer’s fault. After all there are no federal guidelines for formaldehyde exposure limits in ‘travel trailers’. Never mind that in some of the trailers tested the levels of formaldehyde exceeded the levels at which OSHA requires mandatory medical monitoring of workers who have been exposed to formaldehyde.
To say we have awakened to “A world where the mighty, the mad, and the magical will have their final battle.” is a gross understatement.
As the movie trailer for Dune tells us; this has become “A world beyond your experience, beyond your imagination.”
Photo: IMDb
Labels: Boxer, CDC report, Censored, Censorship US Government, Climate Change, EPA, FEMA, Formaldehyde, Speak no Evil
© 2009, Pacific Spirit Marine Institute.
"They’ve Taken Your Mind"
Friday, June 27, 2008
The oceans are currently uptaking 22 million tons of CO 2 daily which is making a significant and exponential change in the ocean’s chemistry.
In 2004, it was projected that the pH balance of the oceans would be lower in the middle of this century than they had been for more than 20 MILLION years.
There was a spike in methane release last year from the thawing Arctic permafrost too. Scientists are concerned that as the Arctic continues to warm and the permafrost thaws a cycle of carbon release and temperature rise will add to the reverberating feedback cycle…In April Ed Dlugokencky from NOAA’s Earth System Research Lab said, “It’s too soon to tell whether last year’s spike in emissions includes the start of such a trend.”
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That was just 2 short months ago. Now the grim news is that for the first time in human history the ice at the North Pole will disappear entirely if it continues its current rate it will be gone by summer’s end. Science is placing the odds at 50:50. About 70% of the sea ice this spring was new ice formed over last winter. New ice melts faster than the old ice.
Inuit natives, near Baffin Bay, are reporting the sea ice is breaking up much earlier than normal this year. They have also seen wide cracks appearing where the ice normally remains stable.
The rate of Arctic land warming is 3.5 times greater than the average 21st century
warming rates predicted in climate models; more feedback cycles. So much so that
Science News is reporting over the past century the leading edges of conifer forests
have crawled from 20-60 meters of the mountains and have begun to overrun the tundra.
There are now conifers growing where no living tree has grown in the last 1,000 years. The greening of the Arctic is something we don’t want. The albedo, or the extent of which light from the sun can be reflected will be decreased more and more as the ‘green’ of the plant material continues to advance toward the Arctic.
The cycle continues to compound as the tundra thaws and releases methane. Scientists think between 1/3 and 1/2 the CO 2 that has been produced by humans since
the industrial revolution is now in the ocean. Water that is upwelling today is water that was exposed to 1958 CO 2 concentrations. 50 years from now the water being upwelled will be that exposed to the methane and carbon dioxide levels of today…
So, the last thing the Bush Administration wants getting out is a 250 page report by the EPA giving detailed alternative approaches of how to regulate greenhouse gases!
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Did you ever hit that nasty ’send’ button on an email, and wish you could bring it back?
You aren’t alone. It generally happens to me after I’ve had a little too much wine. I’m not suggesting that’s the problem at the White House, but if the cork fits…
The White House demanded that an email the EPA had ’sent’ be ‘recalled’. If, however, the pesky ’send’ button has already been hit, then the White House has its own simple and fairly elegant solution to news it just doesn’t want to see. Just don’t open the email.
That won’t work either.
The EPA apparently had 250 pages of ‘detailed alternative approaches’ to regulate greenhouse gases from fuels, cars and some industry. But, no; the White House doesn’t want anything to do with solving problems. It appears, as is widely speculated, this administration is all about creating problems. Speculated is a generous term in this case. The time for speculation, in regard to the intentions of this administration, has long past.
The Supreme Court had already tried to set the White House straight when it ruled carbon dioxide is an air pollutant, and the Clean Air Act gave the EPA the power to start mandating that new vehicles to reduce their pollutants.
If we do have the technology and the money to regulate greenhouse gases it seems apparent those in power don’t want us to know about them.
Photo Thanks: NOAA
Labels: Acid Ocean, Arctic, Arctic Ice, Baffin, CO2, EPA, Methane, NOAA, North Pole, Ocean, Speak no Evil, Tundra, carbon dioxide, cover-up
© 2009, Pacific Spirit Marine Institute.
Learn To Take Your Drinks ‘neat’; We’re running out of ice, among other things.
Sunday, June 8, 2008
You’ll need rubber hip boots to wade through the odoriferous methods the White House is using to keep you in the dark.
Steven Johnson, EPA Administrator refused again to answer pointed questions and requests to disclose information about his contacts with the White House to the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. With people like Johnson and Libby who needs Controlled Unclassified Information?
Johnson, tossing himself under the bus in Scooter Libby’esque fashion, claims any decisions to reverse various air pollution rules were purely his own. White House intervention on behalf of industry had nothing to do with his decisions. He may find his refusals culminating in subpoenas and contempt of Congress findings. “I don’t think it’s appropriate for me to discuss the conversations” Johnson said, of conversations he was loath to admit did or did not take place between himself and the White House.
Are you on a ‘need to know’ basis? Apparently not.
The Integrated Risk Information System (IRIS) has been ‘refashioned’. Refashioned as in buying a suit and having it tailored for a custom fit. To fit whom? The new tailored IRIS has been ‘refashioned’ to exclude from the public, comments from federal agencies now known as ‘deliberative’. These comments are not allowed to be part of the public record, and they are in fact exempt from Freedom of Information Act requests.
John Stephenson, director of natural resources and environment at the General Accounting Office, testified before the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee saying the OMB, Office of Management and Budget, ordered EPA to terminate 5 IRIS assessments without giving any reason.
The revised process, besides giving an added cloak of secrecy for the government to hide behind, also holds up risk assessment time for years. Now it takes an average of 7 years to conduct an IRIS assessment. EPA could do a risk assessment in only 1 year.
This affords the government a ‘plausible deniability’ out, as when in 2005 the government provided 120,000 trailers having toxic levels of formaldehyde leching from fiberboard. Formaldehyde was declared a known human carcinogen in 2006. The EPA still has not completed the formaldehyde assessment. EPA had nearly finished an assessment of formaldehyde it had started in 2004 when at the ‘behest of the formaldehyde industry was postponed.
One might think that with plausible deniability, deliberative protection and people in the administration willing to toss themselves under the wheels of the bus for their leaders the government wouldn’t need Controlled Unclassified Information.
The CUI policy puts the people on the short list of those who ‘need to know.’ We the people don’t need to know about the lack of inspections, chemical plants located near populated cities that don’t pass inspections, dams, bridges and other infrastructure that isn’t passing inspections, toxins released into the oceans, the air and into our food…
It’s so much easier to spend our economic stimulus checks when we don’t have all that pesky environment poisoning and risk assessment stuff on our minds!
If you’re spending that rebate on food, as so many people are finding necessary to get by, keep this in mind. Private labs aren’t required to inform the FDA when tests indicate imported food is contaminated.
Labels: Controlled Unclassified Information, EPA, FDA, IRIS, Integrated Risk Information System, Speak no Evil, deliberative
© 2009, Pacific Spirit Marine Institute.
CUI, Controlled Unclassified Information! You don’t need to know.
Saturday, March 15, 2008
Rep Bart Gordon, chairman Committee on Science and Technology said in his opening statement, “EPA executed a failed process for modernizing their library network.”
Rep Brad Miller, “The most generous interpretation is incompetence – that EPA managers grossly mismanaged their library system.” Miller also said it may take years and a lot of money to set things right again.
When the EPA closed its largest regional library in Chicago it sold all of its fixtures, valued at more than $40,000.00 for less than $350.00. I’m not sure anyone can that is surprising information.
The Office of Enforcement and Compliance (OECA), will be left holding perhaps nothing more than thin and polluted air when it’s time to prosecute Eco-felons. 1. Information access; especially to original documents. 2. Worry that the centralized system EPA is espousing may not meet tight court-imposed deadlines. 3. Cost. And, how it will be funded?
One of the more interesting notes of irony is that apparently the agency did not anticipate copyright restrictions as they apply to making digitized copies of some material.
In February a federal arbitrator found the EPA guilty of unfair labor practices and acting in bad faith in its national series of library closures. The EPA was ordered to bargain with affected public employee unions before making any further changes in its library network. On more slice of irony, the EPA acted without benefit of any employee input regarding the actions it has taken.
The GAO, Government Accountability Office found the decision to close the libraries wasn’t justified and it deprived the public, EPA staff, state and local agencies and academics of valuable environmental data.
Labels: Brad Miller, EPA, EPA libraries, GAO
© 2009, Pacific Spirit Marine Institute.
EPA Library GAO report
Wednesday, October 24, 2007
Eviscerated is the term being used by on CDC official!
The Associated Press is reporting that CDC director Julie Gerberding’s report delivered to Congress yesterday was cut by 1/2. The report was to address public health effects of climate change. Details of how climate change and global warming will affect the health of Americans and how the government has failed to fully address the potential health risks of climate changes.
Senator Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) wants to know why the administration would edit testimony by “one of the country’s leading voices on public health.
For their part the Bush Administration via Dana Perino, White House spokeswoman says,…”It (the report) wasn’t watered down in terms of the concerns that climate change raises for the public health.”
Those at the CDC can take a number and stand in line behind other agencies that have been muted on climate change and the environment.
Speak no evil, or speak only of the evil we embrace seems to be this administrations motto.
From NASA the Fish and Wildlife Service to The EPA, up to and including censorship of exhibits on Global warming at the Smithsonian Institute, keeping Climate Change and Global Warming on the lowest key possible is the melody.
Links provided are to Pacific Spirit Archived Articles on Censorship. CDC report is a PDF file.
Labels: Artic, Boxer, CDC report, Climate Change, Congress, EPA, Environment, Global Warming
© 2009, Pacific Spirit Marine Institute.
Bush Administration Altered CDC Report on Climate Change! What else is new?
Monday, October 8, 2007
The EPA approved methyl Iodide being manufactured and sold by Arysta LifeScience Corp., late last week. In spite of concerns by scientists and physicians, many of whom are Nobel Prize winners.
Leaping from the frying pan into the fire is common place these days. Each time one evil is eliminated another one rears its ugly head to replace it. Methyl Iodide has many of the same dangerous traits as the chemical it will now be used to replace. It also seems to pose less danger to the earth’s ozone.
The EPA says Midas has undergone rigorous testing. The Department of Pesticide Regulation in California is conducting its own tests which won’t be completed for several more months. The California agency uses stricter guidelines than the EPA when it comes to what can be used in California.
Arysta has spent more than $11 million dollars on their own data, and 8 years.
Pay careful attention here.
Last year the EPA dropped its plan to approve methly iodide. But, the agency was given ‘additional data’ to review by Arysta. Elin Miller, Arysta’s former chief executive, is now a top official at the EPA and is now the administrator of the EPA’s northwest region.
Voila! Another case of the Fox guarding the hen house?
Pressure from the United Farm Workers, some environmental groups and California pesticide officials may be underlying the one-year approval methyl iodide was granted. The EPA says the one-year approval is due to new regulations it is developing for all fumigants.
The effects of Global warming are running at break-neck speeds. Efforts to prop the dominoes back up seem to be finally moving into high gear all over the world.
Is the cure going to be more deadly than the disease? How soon will we hear the words,”The treatment was a success, but the patient died?”
Labels: EPA, Global Warming, Methyl Bromide, Methyl Iodide, Ozone, Pollution
© 2009, Pacific Spirit Marine Institute.
EPA Approves Methyl Iodide to Replace Methyl Bromide. Differences Blur!
Friday, September 28, 2007
Methyl Bromide has been used by the hundreds of thousands of tonnes to sterilize soils before crops are planted. It’s devastating affect on our Ozone layer is well documented.
Methyl Iodide maybe approved as a replacement for Methyl Bromide today by the EPA. Methyl Iodide was researched as long ago as 50 years.
Both compounds are known to be toxins to humans and animals but, methyl Bromide is thought to be far more devastating to the ozone.
Methyl Iodide has been proven to be equal to, and in many cases better than, Methyl Bromide in the control of many detrimental organisms living in the soil. Why, when this compound seems to be a safer alternative, to the Ozone layer was Methyl Iodide not being used for the past 30 years?
Why then has the world used Methyl Bromide instead?
The nature of Methyl Iodide causes it to dissipate far faster in the air than the methyl bromide, a few days rather than several years. It’s properties cause it to be used in a liquid form rather than gas, like Methyl Bromide; an advantage that makes it potentially less dangerous to use during application.
Interestingly enough there are claims by the USDA itself that the lack of the iodide portion of the compound is a major cause of mental illness in the world…..DOH! Is it really that easy?
The USDA also states unlike bromide, iodide is a recognized plant and human nutrient. Why would we continue to float this Methyl Bromide into our earth’s atmosphere for some 50 years, knowing there may be a suitable substitute that might even be good for us?
Good farming practices went out the window with the coming of the industrialized age. There was a time when plowing a crop under after harvest and rotating crops were the norm. The Hebrew Scriptures (the old Testament) even give detailed instructions as to how to successfully and with good stewardship cultivate the soil. How did we get so far off the track of nourishing the soil and in doing so our bodies? Follow the money.
At some point in our industrialized evolution someone got the bright idea that farming could and should be a mega profitable venture. Mechanized harvests, mechanized fumigation, mechanized fertilization became the mechanics for the mega bottom line profits of farming.
One look at the ever evolving ‘food pyramid’ and the volumes of food recommend for a balanced diet only proves there are fewer and fewer nutrients in the foods we eat. I’m not even speaking of processed and refined foods. Fresh, wholesome fruits and vegetables now days need to be eaten in quantities that are bordering on the ridiculous. Why? Because these foods are grown in void and vanquished soil. Over farmed, over worked and over sterilized.
I don’t know what the answer is, but I do know that to produce nutrient rich food from the earth, the earth needs to be nourished. Sterilization does not enrich. Fertilizing with lab made compounds does not nourish.
The only thing that has been truly nourished on our earth in the last 60 years has been the bottom line of the commercial ventures.
Photo: World Ag Expo-Tulare CA.USA
Labels: Agriculture, EPA, Environment, Global Warming, Methyl Bromide, Methyl Iodide, Ozone
© 2009, Pacific Spirit Marine Institute.
Methyl Iodide May Be Approved by EPA Today
Thursday, September 27, 2007
In an effort to find an acceptable substitute for Methyl Bromide, Tokyo’s Arysta LifeScience Corp is marketing Methyl iodide, a compound they are calling MIDAS (MIDASusda). Was this product named after King Midas? Maybe Arysta plan was to make farmers feel that everything their new product touches will turn to gold?
Then again maybe it’s merely a stroke of good luck with the acronym.
In any case at least 54 scientists and physicians feel what this product touches may turn to death and destruction. The Methyl iodide is being called “one of the more toxic chemicals…”
EPA is expected to approve the use of MIDAS, in the US, as soon as tomorrow. 6 chemistry Nobel Prize winners are concerned that people living near, and those working with this product will be at “serious risk”
Methyl Bromide has long been known to be a severe and serious detriment to our fragile Ozone layer, and therefore a contributor to global warming. The EPA is taking the position buffer zones could be created around fields to reduce the risk of nearby residents and neighbors and that farm workers could be protected by using respirators.
The EPA, evaluated studies that linked Methyl iodide inhalation a horrifying array of illnesses and deaths in rats, but concluded the chemical was not likely cancerous in humans! Okie Dokie then!
The Montreal Protocol banned the use of Methyl Bromide and is calling for smaller and smaller usage with a complete fade out by 2010. Though the U.S. is using more Methyl Bromide each year than the rest of the world combined, and has applied for conditional use permits up to 2009, MIDAS may not be a less toxic alternative.
As for the depletion of the Ozone layer, Methyl Iodide is destroyed by light in as little as a few days, where Methyl Bromide can stay in the atmosphere for as long as 2 years.
Methyl Iodide seems to be an affordable alternative when it comes to being more friendly to the ozone, but as 1981 Nobel prize winner, Professor Roald Hoffmann from Cornell says “I wouldn’t like to live near a field where it’s (Methyl Iodide) applied.
Methyl Iodide was studied as long as 50 years ago…Provided there is no breaking news will have more on that sad subject tomorrow.
Labels: EPA, Global Warming, Methyl Bromide, Methyl Iodide, Montreal Protocol, Ozone
© 2009, Pacific Spirit Marine Institute.
Replacing Methyl Bromide with the MIDAS Touch?
