Soon after the news broke last month that nearly 200 Americans in 26 states had been sickened by eating packaged spinach contaminated with E. coli, I received a rather coldblooded e-mail message from a friend in the food business. “I have instructed my broker to purchase a million shares of RadSafe,” he wrote, explaining that RadSafe is a leading manufacturer of food-irradiation technology. It turned out my friend was joking, but even so, his reasoning was impeccable. If bagged salad greens are vulnerable to bacterial contamination on such a scale, industry and government would very soon come looking for a technological fix; any day now, calls to irradiate the entire food supply will be on a great many official lips. That’s exactly what happened a few years ago when we learned that E. coli from cattle feces was winding up in American hamburgers. Rather than clean up the kill floor and the feedlot , some meat processors simply started nuking the meat — sterilizing the manure, in other words, rather than removing it from our food. Why? Because it’s easier to find a technological fix than to address the root cause of such a problem. This has always been the genius of industrial capitalism — to take its failings and turn them into exciting new business opportunities.
News Forum Archives: October 2006
Global warming will cost world $9 trillion: report
Australian Broadcasting Corporation
Monday, October 30, 2006
The world’s biggest economic evaluation of climate change says if countries do not act now the world will face a depression worse than that of the 1930s.
The report puts the global cost of global warming and its effects at $A9 trillion - a bill greater than the combined cost of the two world wars and the Great Depression. It represents a fifth of the global economy.
The Stern report, commissioned by the British Government, also says drought and floods could render swathes of the planet uninhabitable, turning 200 million people into refugees to create the largest migration in history.
Continue Reading Global warming will cost world $9 trillion: report
Global warming could devastate world economy
By Thomas Wagner
Associated Press
Monday, October 30, 2006
LONDON — Unchecked global warming will devastate the world economy on the scale of the world wars and the Great Depression, a British government report said Monday, as the country launched a bid to convince doubters that environmentalism and economic growth can coincide.Britain hired former Vice President Al Gore, who has emerged as a powerful environmental spokesman since his defeat in the 2000 presidential election, to advise the government on climate change — a clear indication of Prime Minister Tony Blair’s dissatisfaction with current U.S. policy.
Blair, President Bush’s top ally in the Iraq war, said unabated climate change would eventually cost the world between 5 percent and 20 percent of global gross domestic product each year. He called for “bold and decisive action” to cut carbon emissions and stem the worst of the temperature rise.
“It is not in doubt that, if the science is right, the consequences for our planet are literally disastrous,” he said. “This disaster is not set to happen in some science fiction future many years ahead, but in our lifetime.”
Continue Reading Global warming could devastate world economy
Japan tries to cut down on plastic bags
By Hiroko Tabuchi
Associated Press Writer
Jun 10, 2006
Buy lunch and a magazine at any Japanese convenience store, and you’re likely to get your drink in one plastic bag, hot lunch box in another, and your magazine in yet a third.
The mega-packaging keeps your food hot, your drink cool and your newspaper clean, but environmentalists say it also creates a mountain of plastic waste that fouls the air, pollutes the oceans and contributes to global warming.
Continue Reading Japan tries to cut down on plastic bags
U.S. Rules Allow the Sale of Products Others Ban
Chemical-laden goods outlawed in Europe and Japan are permitted in the American market.
By Marla Cone
Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
October 8, 2006
OAKLAND — Destined for American kitchens, planks of birch and poplar plywood are stacked to the ceiling of a cavernous port warehouse. The wood, which arrived in California via a cargo ship, carries two labels: One proclaims “Made in China,” while the other warns that it contains formaldehyde, a cancer-causing chemical.Because formaldehyde wafts off the glues in this plywood, it is illegal to sell in many countries — even the one where it originated, China. But in the United States this wood is legal, and it is routinely crafted into cabinets and furniture.
As the European Union and other nations have tightened their environmental standards, mostly in the last two years, manufacturers — here and around the world — are selling goods to American consumers that fail to meet other nations’ stringent laws for toxic chemicals.
Continue Reading U.S. Rules Allow the Sale of Products Others Ban
The Vegetable-Industrial Complex
Continue Reading The Vegetable-Industrial Complex
Poop Power Could Be Next Energy Frontier
By Tom Banse
OPB News
October 12, 2006
RUPERT, ID — Dairy cow manure could be the next frontier of alternative energy in the Northwest. Lord knows, there’s plenty of it around here. Machinery called a “digester” can turn poop into power.
This fall, the biggest digesters built to date in Washington and Idaho go online. Correspondent Tom Banse reports from south-central Idaho.
Continue Reading Poop Power Could Be Next Energy Frontier
Rio Grande Valley slow to adopt green building techniques
The Monitor - McAllen, Texas
June 03, 2006
Kate Lohnes
Monitor Staff Writer
“Green” design, or designing buildings in such a way you minimize harm to the environment, has caught the eye of conservationists worldwide, but according to local experts, the Rio Grande Valley has yet to pay attention.In Texas, Austin and San Antonio are only two examples of cities jumping on the green building wagon, said Pat Williams, regional manager in the Valley for SpawGlass Contractors, Inc. SpawGlass is a Texas-wide contracting company that employs some green design in its projects and has been responsible for much of the new construction at the University of Texas-Pan American and South Texas College campuses. According to Williams, this area of the state trails behind large metropolitan areas in creating sustainable buildings.
Continue Reading Rio Grande Valley slow to adopt green building techniques
Texas to ensure power lines for wind developers
AP Business Writer
October 2, 2006
DALLAS — Gov. Rick Perry said Monday he has received a $10 billion investment guarantee from wind energy developers in exchange for the state’s assurance that the necessary power transmission lines will be built.
Should the development come to fruition, the state would gain about 10,000 megawatts of power supplied by wind, enough to light up about 2.3 million homes.
“Private companies are putting up their money instead of taxpayers putting up their money,” Perry said while flanked by executives from wind developers at Southern Methodist University. “The state of Texas will ensure we build the transmission capacity needed to deliver zero emission power source.”
The agreement, though, is not formal and does not come with any binding contract between the state and energy companies touting plans to install more wind power generation, largely in West Texas.
Continue Reading Texas to ensure power lines for wind developers
Proposed border fence could face environmental obstacles
By Alicia A. Caldwell
Associated Press
Oct. 1, 2006
EL PASO — Plans to build a fence along about 700 miles of the U.S. border with Mexico could mean the destruction of costly environmental restoration projects and could cut in to lucrative tourism and cross-border spending in the Rio Grande Valley and elsewhere in South Texas.
Congress approved a homeland security bill Friday that included $1.2 billion for fence construction.
It’s unclear exactly where the two-layer fence could be built. But a House proposal includes plans for a barrier in El Paso, a nearly 60-mile stretch of fence between Del Rio and Eagle Pass and a final section along more than 220 miles of border between Laredo and Brownsville.
Continue Reading Proposed border fence could face environmental obstacles
Branson Pledges Billions to Fight Global Warming
The New York Times
September 21, 2006
Sir Richard Branson, the British magnate and adventurer, said today that all of his profits from his five airlines and train company, projected to be $3 billion through the next 10 years, would be invested in developing energy sources that do not contribute to global warming.
He announced the plan on the second day of the Clinton Global Initiative, a three-day meeting in Manhattan that amounts to a competitive festival of philanthropy run by former President Bill Clinton.
The money, he said, would be invested in a host of enterprises, including existing businesses within his Virgin Group of 200 companies, that are seeking ways to save energy or produce fuels, including aviation fuel, not derived from coal and oil.
When burned, coal, oil and other fossil fuels produce carbon dioxide, the main heat-trapping greenhouse gas linked by scientists to rising temperatures.
“Our generation has inherited an incredibly beautiful world from our parents and they from their parents,” Mr. Branson said. “It is in our hands whether our children and their children inherit the same world. We must not be the generation responsible for irreversibly damaging the environment.”
Continue Reading Branson Pledges Billions to Fight Global Warming