People said no to GMO, so now big agroindustry and pharma-chem businesses are engineering mutagenic food. Yum!

Mutagenesis isn’t new: Breeders have relied on it for decades to produce thousands of varieties of lettuce, oats, rice, and other crops.  Pharma-chem companies sell high volumes of mutant breeds, ranging from wheat to sunflowers, in markets that reject genetically engineered seeds.  It just doesn’t sound very nice and might even be a dangerous idea. …
Continue reading People said no to GMO, so now big agroindustry and pharma-chem businesses are engineering mutagenic food. Yum!

It’s not easy to do the right thing.

So, I must confess that for three years we let a field to a neighbour for use in conventional tillage farming.  Previously, that field had been managed organically for over a decade, but we found we could not use it and the rent money would be welcome.  Now, we’re regalvanised to protect the environment and …
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Biotech is gonna eat you for lunch!

If you don’t live in America you almost certainly haven’t heard about the strong arm tactics of big biotech firms like Monsanto, Novartis and Dupont.  Even if you live in the States you might think that genetically engineered food is “gonna save the world”.  Well it isn’t.  And 90% of Americans want to know whether …
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GMO (genetically modified food) is not good. Don’t assume it is.

Another comprehensive, scientific report on genetic engineering in the food web concludes that it is dangerous, uneconomic and counter-productive.   From our perspective as consumers the worst aspect is danger to health.  From the producers’ perspective the worst aspect is the prospect of being under the thumb of biotech giants. The report GMO Myths and Truths …
Continue reading GMO (genetically modified food) is not good. Don’t assume it is.

Sadly, evidence proves privilege breeds corruption.

It is convenient to assume that people without resources are prone to unethical behaviour, especially if you’ve got lots of stuff.  You might imagine that someone who lives in a cardboard box is likely to steal, simply because they need to eat. But the opposite is true.  If you’ve got the stuff, prepared to be …
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Have we run out of water already?

The review of China’s water supply in The Economist was presented as a sober economic review, as usual.  But the information and data is frightening.   If disaster isn’t here now, it is certainly here soon. Why? China, which accommodates 10% to 15% of humanity,  consumes 400 m3 per person per year which is only a …
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Ocean conditions are ripe for mass extinction

As the government of the richest country in the world bickers over whether or not to give basic healthcare to poor people, the world is dying. The International Programme on the State of the Ocean (IPSO) warns of  multiple threats the oceans are facing.  Overfishing.  Too much CO2.  Fertiliser run-off coming from rivers. Basically too …
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Roundup (glyphosate) is a broad based biocide

Here’s just one reason Monsanto is in the hot seat. According to Green Medical News: “ . . . “within the scientific community and educated public alike, there is a growing awareness that Roundup herbicide, and its primary ingredient glyphosate, is actually a broad spectrum biocide, in the etymological sense of the word: “bio” (life) …
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Facebook, Google and other data grabbers really know you. Really.

Let’s just skip to the meat: Digital records of behavior, Facebook Likes, can be used to automatically and accurately predict a range of highly sensitive personal attributes including: sexual orientation, ethnicity, religious and political views, personality traits, intelligence, happiness, use of addictive substances, parental separation, age, and gender. That’s just scary, especially when you think …
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Thousands of Gaza residents poured on to the streets to celebrate.

Ceasefire. Egypt to receive assurances from both sides that they will abide by the deal, and will follow up any reports it has been broken. Does not everyone wish for peace? So, let us make it so.   BBC: Gaza crisis: Israel-Hamas ceasefire agreement holds