Pacific Spirit Marine Institute
Wednesday, April 30, 2008
The much miligned potato is entering the fast track on it’s way to genetic modefication. Being nearly perfect as it is the lowly potato could turn out to be the linch pin in the chain of food security.
The U.N. has named 2008 the year of the Potato. The lowely tuber is being looked upon as the ’silver bullet’ to fire into the heart of the rising food crisis.
Peru, where the Potato finds its origins, is sending thousands of seeds this year to the Doomsday Vault for storage. There are said to be nearly 5,000 different types of potatoes.
The potato grows almost anywhere, in almost any kind of condition and at nearly any altitude, it matures in as little as 50 days.
Of course blight on the potato was responsible for the great famine in Ireland and still causes about 20% of the world’s potato crop loss. But, never fear; the Potato is on the fast track for genetic modification!
Actually, fast track to genetic modification isn’t exactly correct. According to GM Free Cymru, Monsanto has been working on GM potatoes for a number of years.
The German company BASF was denied approval for Amflora cultivation in the EU. The genetically modified Amflora Potato was being developed for industrial applications for use in paper products and some types of glue by using the potato’s amylopectin starch. The EU Commission has delayed approval for planting Amflora in 2008.
The starch from the BASF Amflora potatoes could also be used in the textiles and even concrete. The residue of the crop was to be mix into animal feed as well. Monsanto and BASF have been working together on other GM projects.
Another player in the GM potato game is Syngenta. The South African government has allowed Michigan State University to experiment with GM Potatoes in an open environment for the past seven years. Syngenta owns the patent on the BT gene that causes the potatoes to be resistant to the tuber moth. What isn’t known is what damage this gene has on benificial insects that come into contact with the GM potatoes grown in the open. Also the risk of cross pollenation with natural crops is huge when the experimental crops are grown in open environments.
Ireland knows a little something about Potatoes. At this link you can find a lot of good information on the dangers of GM potatoes.
Photo Thanks: gm-free ireland.org The slide in the photo is rat colon tissue. The one on the left has been fed GM potato, and the one on the right has not.
Labels: BASF, GM foods, Monsanto, United Nations, Year of the Potato, gentically modified
© 2009, Pacific Spirit Marine Institute.
Hot Potatoes. Genetically Modified, Mashed or Boiled. Will Potatoes Save a Starving Planet?
Thursday, February 14, 2008
New York City’s Mayor Michael Bloomberg takes Global Warming seriously. He sees Global Warming as the same kind of threat as terrorism, only on a slower scale.
Bloomberg has a plan to create “the first environmentally sustainable 21st-century city” with 127 ways to attain that goal in 25 years.
Last year Mayor Bloomberg outlined his plaNYC which is far- reaching and visionary to say the least. There is no doubt this man is serious about what he sees as a real threat to not just NYC but the entire planet. Some would say Bloomberg has gone beyond serious and planted himself firmly on the loony toon side of the ledger sheets.
Cultivating mussels to suck pollution out of the rivers, platforms over rail yards and highways to create land for housing seem futurama like, yet somehow they make sense. NYC’s population is expected to grow by 1 million more residents by 2030. Creating room for more housing is definitely going to be a challenge. But an even larger challenge will be keeping future leaders of the city and the state on board with his plan. As Bloomberg says, “If we don’t act now, when?”
On the more conservative side of the ledger plaNYC proposals include ‘congestion pricing” which would charge people who drive cars below 86th street a fee which he believes would not only reduce congestion, but raise funds to complete more public transportation projects.
Earlier this week Mayor Bloomberg addressed the United Nations and announced his long term plan to reduce the city’s use of tropical hardwoods. The city purchases more than $1 million each year of tropical hardwoods. These types of woods are resistant to rot and are very durable. Bloomberg explained tropical deforestation, “accounts for some 20% of the world’s greenhouse gas emission.”
Last fall Bloomberg, along with New York Restoration Project Founder Bette Midler, planted the first of what will be 1 Million new trees that will be planted in New York. The two planted a Carolina Silverbell tree in the Bronx.
The tree project is part of PlaNYC effort to increase the city’s urban forest by 20% in the next 10 years.
Mayor Bloomberg pointed out that local officials in every large city on the earth are the closest to the people and the problems they face. “And it’s why the mayors of many of the world’s largest cities have joined forces to fight climate change in the ‘C-40′ organization, whose conference it was New York’s privilege to host last May.”
The Mayor reminded those in attendance at the UN that even though the government, at a national level, has yet to approve the Kyoto Protocol, “more than 700 cities in the United States, representing more than 80 million Americans, have pledged to meet its goals.”
Read the entire text of the Mayor’s speech to the UN as delivered.
Opening Photo Thanks: Spencer T Tucker
Mayor Bloomberg delivers remarks at the “Addressing Climate Change: The United Nations at Work” Conference. February 11, 2008.
Second Photo Thanks: Edward Reed
Mayor Bloomberg and New York Restoration Project (NYRP) Founder Bette Midler today launched the Million Trees NYC initiative to plant and care for one million trees throughout the five boroughs in the next decade. October 09, 2007
Labels: Bette Midler, Climate Change, Global Warming, Michael Bloomberg, New York City, United Nations
© 2009, Pacific Spirit Marine Institute.
Welcome to the Capitol of the World! Mayor Bloomberg’s New York City.
Friday, October 26, 2007
But…maybe you can identify this man or woman, spend as much time as you need.
They shoot horses don’t they?
1,400 scientists have concluded humans have punched their dance card for the final time. Humans have danced themselves to the brink of annihilation and done it without taking so much as a break to sleep. However, it seems we have taken more than enough time to have sex and over eat.
Let them eat cake and reproduce into oblivion.
Earth’s population has grown by 34% since 1987.
Each person in the world requires 1/3 more of the earths resources than she is able to now supply. Just try to balance your checking account with that kind of cash flow. It can’t be done. The earth ‘audit’ was done by 400 scientists all experts in their field and then vetted by 1.000 others.
In the face of what seems to be the most dire predictions of doom awaiting the planet we are slapped the cold wet fist of industry:
damage sustained to the environment was of fundamental economic concern, and if left unchecked would affect economic growth
Is there no light at the end of this tunnel? There will be zero commerce when the stores and factories stand empty vanquished of consumers and workers. It seems patently obvious to most of us a symbiotic relationship between profits and consumers must exist. Killing the customer doesn’t make much sense, but that is exactly the monster that has been methodically created.
Achim Steiner, executive director of the United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP), said “The systematic destruction of the Earth’s natural and nature-based resources has reached a point where the economic viability of economies is being challenged, and where the bill we hand to our children may prove impossible to pay.”
On the very same pages these stories are crying doom and extinction are listed a bevy of mind-numbing fluff.
Click here to see rugby legends discuss the topics you raised!
Love Sudoku? Play our brand new interactive game!
Play Fantasy CEO!
Play Fantasy Football!
New suspect in Madeleine McCann disappearance! (he has no face, but look at the sketch anyway)
Find out what was behind Marie Osmond’s Fall on Dancing with the Stars!
Oh please, can we become any more pathetic?
May my finger fall off if I try to click on one more totally irrelevant story designed to detour my mind from the real problems facing me, and the rest of us today!
See how the scientists were chosen
Labels: Environment, Humanity survival, U.N. Climate Change Summit, UNEP, United Nations
© 2009, Pacific Spirit Marine Institute.
Humanity’s very survival at risk!
