Re: [Biofuel] FFA decolorization
Whew! For a moment there I though the Future Farmers of America http://ffa.org/ lost their trademark colors. :) Doug, N0LKK Kansas USA ___ Biofuel mailing list Biofuel@sustainablelists.org http://sustainablelists.org/mailman/listinfo/sustainablelorgbiofuel Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Search the combined Biofuel and Biofuels-biz list archives (70,000 messages): http://www.mail-archive.com/biofuel@sustainablelists.org/
[Biofuel] Open Letter Sent to Prof. Lovelock on Global Warming and Nuclear Power
http://www.japanfs.org/db/1855-e Open Letter Sent to Prof. Lovelock on Global Warming and Nuclear Power Date: 20071009 In April 2007, a group of 14 Japanese organizations involved in environmental and energy issues sent an open letter to Professor James Lovelock, a British scientist, regarding the relevance of nuclear power as a means to curb global warming. The group consists of civil organizations and non-governmental organizations, such as Greenpeace Japan and the Kiko (Climate) Network. In his book The Revenge of Gaia and contiributions to newspapers, Professor Lovelock argues that we should make the maximum use of nuclear power to survive climate change. Advocating this view, the Japanese government and the Japan Atomic Energy Relations Organization have placed advertisements in newspapers in an effort to gain public acceptance for the nation's nuclear policy. In the open letter, the group asked Professor Lovelock nine questions, including Do you believe that accidents like the Chernobyl Accident (1986) and the Tokai Criticality Accident (1999) will never happen again? The group also expressed their own view for each question, concluding that nuclear power is not an appropriate way to address global warming. The Executive Director of Greenpeace Japan says, Promoting nuclear power in Japan and abroad will increase world energy consumption, which runs against the efforts to tackle global warming. Instead, we should concentrate our limited time and resources on energy conservation and promotion of renewable energy that is safer and more reliable. http://www.greenpeace.or.jp/campaign/climate/lovelock/Open_Letter_to_L ovelock.pdf ___ Biofuel mailing list Biofuel@sustainablelists.org http://sustainablelists.org/mailman/listinfo/sustainablelorgbiofuel Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Search the combined Biofuel and Biofuels-biz list archives (70,000 messages): http://www.mail-archive.com/biofuel@sustainablelists.org/
[Biofuel] Congressional Leadership Urged to Ditch Energy Bill Renewable Fuel Standard
... ie Agrofuels, not biofuels. No to the agrofuels craze! http://www.grain.org/nfg/?id=502 See also: http://www.mail-archive.com/biofuel@sustainablelists.org/msg70375.html Re: [Biofuel] SVO congres sept 2007 + Trade fair nov 2007 -- http://www.commondreams.org/news2007/1010-01.htm October 10, 2007 10:50 AM CONTACT: Nick Berning, 202-222-0748 Congressional Leadership Urged to Ditch Energy Bill Renewable Fuel Standard Coalition of groups sends letter to Pelosi, Reid prior to energy conference WASHINGTON - October 10 - Congressional leaders are being urged by environmental, family farmer, and social justice organizations to ensure that a radical biofuels provision passed by the Senate be left out of final energy legislation under consideration this fall. In a letter http://www.foe.org/biofuel/RFS_Letter_Pelosi%20FINAL%2010oct07.pdf being sent to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid today, the groups warn that the massive Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) passed by the Senate earlier this year could lead to significant environmental and social harm. The RFS would mandate the use of 36 billion gallons of biofuel by 2022, a five-fold increase over current levels. Fifteen billion gallons of this total would come from corn-based ethanol, and the remaining 21 billion gallons would be so-called advanced biofuels-fuels that could be produced from anything other than corn starch, including environmentally degrading imported sugarcane ethanol and palm oil. Congress has a chance to pass an energy bill that is a major step forward on global warming, with stronger fuel economy standards and a transition to clean, alternative forms of energy, said Kate Horner of Friends of the Earth. However, this bad biofuels provision, if it remains in the bill, will harm both the people and environment of our planet. The RFS will do little to support sustainable agriculture or rural economies and will cause substantial environmental damage, the groups warned, pointing specifically to the provision's potential to lead to increased fertilizer use, consumption of scarce water resources, deforestation to produce more cropland, and further consolidation of corporate agribusiness. The provision could also lead to increased global warming emissions, the groups said. The U.S. government's relentless push for biofuel expansion will mean greater control and profit for big oil and agribusiness cartels, said John Kinsman, President of Family Farm Defenders. The RFS mandate provides little benefit to family farmers or rural communities, either at home or abroad. The rush to convert land from food to fuel crops is a big step in the wrong direction, said Nikhil Aziz, Executive Director of Grassroots International. We've already seen in the first wave that, in addition to severe environmental damage and labor rights violations, pursuing the industrial scale biofuel model destroys local communities and ways of life that, once gone, can never be brought back. Large scale, intensive biofuel production is a false solution to climate change, said Andrea Samulon of Rainforest Action Network. The RFS mandate for increased biofuel production will hasten the destruction of pristine forests and threaten food security in countries like Indonesia and Brazil. A recent report from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) about the costs and benefits of biofuels is available here. http://www.foeeurope.org/publications/2007/OECD_Biofuels_Cure_Worse_Th an_Disease_Sept07.pdf A copy of the letter, which was sent today to Congress by the Borneo Project, Family Farm Defenders, Food and Water Watch, Food First, Friends of the Earth, the Global Justice Ecology Project, Grassroots International, the Institute for Social Ecology, Rainforest Action Network, and the Student Trade Justice Campaign, is available here. ### ___ Biofuel mailing list Biofuel@sustainablelists.org http://sustainablelists.org/mailman/listinfo/sustainablelorgbiofuel Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Search the combined Biofuel and Biofuels-biz list archives (70,000 messages): http://www.mail-archive.com/biofuel@sustainablelists.org/
[Biofuel] How the Military Can Stop an Iran Attack
http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/10/10/4434/ Published on Wednesday, October 10, 2007 by The Nation How the Military Can Stop an Iran Attack by Jeremy Brecher and Brendan Smith Sometimes history-and necessity-make strange bedfellows. The German general staff transported Lenin to Russia to lead a revolution. Union-buster Ronald Reagan played godfather to the birth of the Polish Solidarity union. Equally strange-but perhaps equally necessary-is the addressee of a new appeal signed by Daniel Ellsberg, Cindy Sheehan, Ann Wright and many other leaders of the American peace movement: ATTENTION: Joint Chiefs of Staff and all U.S. Military Personnel: Do not attack Iran. The initiative responds to the growing calls for an attack on Iran from the likes of Norman Podhoretz and John Bolton, and the reports of growing war momentum in Washington by reporters like Seymour Hersh of The New Yorker and Joe Klein of Time. International lawyer Scott Horton says European diplomats at the recent United Nations General Assembly gathering in New York believe that the United States will launch an air war on Iran, and that it will occur within the next six to eight months. He puts the likelihood of conflict at 70 percent. The initiative also responds to the recent failure of Congress to pass legislation requiring its approval before an attack on Iran and the hawk-driven resolution encouraging the President to act against the Iranian military. Marcy Winograd, president of Progressive Democrats of Los Angeles, who originally suggested the petition, told The Nation: If we thought that our lawmakers would restrain the Bush Administration from further endangering Americans and the rest of the world, we would concentrate solely on them. If we went to Las Vegas today, would we find anyone willing to bet on this Congress restraining Bush? I don't think so. Because our soldiers know the horrors of war-severed limbs, blindness, brain injury-they are loath to romanticize the battlefield or glorify expansion of the Iraq genocide that has left a million Iraqis dead and millions others exiled. Military Resistance What could be stranger than a group of peace activists petitioning the military to stop a war? And yet there is more logic here than meets the eye. Asked in an online discussion September 27 whether the Bush Administration will launch a war against Iran, Washington Post intelligence reporter Dana Priest replied, Frankly, I think the military would revolt and there would be no pilots to fly those missions. She acknowledged that she had indulged in a bit of hyperbole, then added, but not much. There have been many other hints of military disaffection from plans to attack Iran-indeed, military resistance may help explain why, despite years of rumors about Bush Administration intentions, such an attack has not yet occurred. A Pentagon consultant told Hersh more than a year ago, There is a war about the war going on inside the building. Hersh also reported that Gen. Peter Pace had forced Bush and Cheney to remove the nuclear option from the plans for possible conflict with Iran-in the Pentagon it was known as the April Revolution. In December, according to Time correspondent Joe Klein, President Bush met with the Joint Chiefs of Staff in a secure room known as The Tank. The President was told that the U.S. could launch a devastating air attack on Iran's government and military, wiping out the Iranian air force, the command and control structure and some of the more obvious nuclear facilities. But the Joint Chiefs were unanimously opposed to taking that course of action, both because it might not eliminate Iran's nuclear capacity and because Iran could respond devastatingly in Iraq-and in the United States. In an article published by Inter Press Service, historian and national security policy analyst Gareth Porter reported that Adm. William Fallon, Bush's then-nominee to head the Central Command (Centcom), sent the Defense Department a strongly worded message earlier this year opposing the plan to send a third carrier strike group into the Persian Gulf. In another Inter Press analysis, Porter quotes someone who met with Fallon saying an attack on Iran will not happen on my watch. He added, You know what choices I have. I'm a professional. There are several of us trying to put the crazies back in the box. Military officers in the field have frequently refuted Bush Administration claims about Iranian arms in Iraq and Afghanistan. Porter says that when a State Department official this June publicly accused Iran of giving arms to the Taliban in Afghanistan, the US commander of NATO forces there twice denied the claim. More recently, top brass have warned that the United States is not prepared for new wars. Gen. George Casey, the Army's top commander, recently made a highly unusual personal request for a House Armed Services Committee hearing in which he
[Biofuel] Europe Aims for Global Dominance Via Precaution, Neocons Assert
Rachel's Precaution Reporter #111 Wednesday, October 10, 2007 http://www.precaution.org/lib/07/prn_rpr071010.htm http://rachel.orgwww.rachel.org Europe Aims for Global Dominance Via Precaution, Neocons Assert Neoconservatives are attacking the European Union for using the precautionary principle to try to dominate the world by promoting sustainable business practices and corporate social responsibility. Heavens! Op-Ed: Reagan and the Law of the Sea Neoconservatives rail against the Law of the Sea Treaty, which embodies a Luddite better safe than sorry approach to protecting the oceans and is therefore, as they see it, a dramatic step toward world government. Law of the Sea Treaty Hurts U.S. Security, Neocons Say Europe is using the Law of Sea Treaty to impose a better safe than sorry regulatory model for the environment that jeopardizes America's free enterprise system, according to a vocal group of neoconservatives. :: :: From: PR Newswire, Oct. 9, 2007 http://www.precaution.org/lib/07/prn_eu_use_of_precaution_attacked.07 1009.htm[Printer-friendly version] Europe Aims For Global Dominance Via Precaution, Neocons Assert PRINCETON, N.J. -- In the current issue of the http://www.kluwerlawonline.com/toc.php?pubcode=GTCJGlobal Trade and Customs Journal, international trade and regulatory lawyer http://www.itssd.org/about_us.htmLawrence Kogan details how the European Union and its member states previously enlisted private European environmental standards bodies to promote official government sustainable forest management policies that likely violated the World Trade Organization rights of developing countries and their industries. In addition, the article describes how these same EU governments are behind the ongoing efforts of other European pressure groups to promote, via United Nations agencies and international standardization organizations, the adoption by global industry supply chains of overly strict corporate social responsibility standards. According to Mr. Kogan, It is no secret that the EU aspires to 'usurp America's role as a source of global standards,' and to become 'the world's regulatory capital' and 'standard-bearer.' Therefore, it is natural that they would endeavor to employ whatever nontransparent means are available to push their regulatory control agenda forward. As EU trade commissioner Peter Mandelson claimed in a prior speech, 'exporting our rules and standards around the world is one source [and expression] of European power.' Two recent articles appearing in the Financial Times and the http://www.precaution.org/lib/07/prn_europe_eclipses_the_u.s.070920.h tmEconomist confirm this assessment. The Commission, the EU's executive body, states openly that it wants other countries to follow EU rules and its officials are working hard to put that vision into practice... [T]he Union [has]... a body of law running to almost 95,000 pages -- a set of rules and regulations that covers virtually all aspects of economic life and that is constantly expanded and updated. Compared with other jurisdictions, the EU's rules tend to be stricter, especially where product safety, consumer protection and environmental and health [sustainable development] requirements are concerned. The European regulatory model is worrisome, emphasizes Kogan, paraphrasing from one article, especially because 'it rests on the [standard-of-proof-diminishing, burden-of-proof-reversing, guilty- until-proven-innocent, I-fear-therefore-I-shall-ban, hazard-(not risk)-based] http://www.precaution.org/lib/pp_def.htmPrecautionary Principle', which is inconsistent with both WTO law and US constitutionally-guaranteed private property rights. As another article reaffirms, In Europe corporate innocence is not assumed. Indeed, a vast slab of EU laws...reverses the burden of proof, asking industry to demonstrate that substances are harmless...[T]he philosophical gap reflects the American constitutional tradition that everything is allowed until it is forbidden, against the Napoleonic tradition codifying what the state allows and banning everything else. Notwithstanding its knowledge of Europe's extraterritorial activities, warns Kogan, the 110th US Congress may soon ratify the UN Law of the Sea Convention without all of its committees possessing oversight jurisdiction having first adequately reviewed in public hearings its 45-plus environmental regulatory articles -- which also incorporate Europe's Precautionary Principle! This would essentially open up the floodgates to a tsunami of costly non-science and non- economics-based environmental laws, regulations and standards that would abridge Americans' Fifth Amendment rights, impair U.S. industry's global economic competitiveness and fundamentally reshape the American legal and free enterprise systems.
[Biofuel] EPA registers methyl iodide
Pesticide Action Network North America (PANNA) http://www.panna.org 11 Oct 2007 EPA registers methyl iodide Ignoring the pleas of more than fifty of the nation's eminent scientists, EPA granted Arysta Life Science a one-year approval for its fumigant pesticide Midas. The http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/dia/track.jsp?v=2c=v1XPRN%2B01%2F 67GPj6j5QeXx%2B%2F09%2Bz7TnrLos Angeles Times reports, Methyl iodide is a neurotoxin and carcinogen that has caused thyroid tumors, neurological damage and miscarriages in lab animals. Last year, EPA halted approval after it received over 12,000 comments opposed to registration from public health, farmworker, and environmental advocates and the California EPA. An editorial today in the http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/dia/track.jsp?v=2c=oBX2Su40%2BPwH B28gPrH4Cc5HAvkYuTLxSacramento Bee declares: State should keep methyl iodide out. The http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/dia/track.jsp?v=2c=%2B7%2Frj7x7rW hH2QQ4yd7DG85HAvkYuTLxVentura County Star wrote, ...eyes are turning to the California Department of Pesticide Regulation to see if it will allow methyl iodide to be used on California farms, even though 54 of the nation's top scientists warn of dire consequences. The Star's agriculture reporter, Stephanie Hoops, also writes about the bidding war going on to buy Arysta: ...MSN Business reported that 'United Phosphorus and Tata Group enterprise Rallis India are in the race to acquire the world's largest privately held crop protection and life sciences firm, Arysta LifeScience Corporation, from private equity firm Olympus Capital Holdings.' Read more about http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/dia/track.jsp?v=2c=gePTYhY0WkkN0V QBkNNGo85HAvkYuTLxmethyl iodide. http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/dia/track.jsp?v=2c=CyQEXthjjLX%2F wj6ETN%2FxXM5HAvkYuTLxTake action now to demand a reversal of EPA's decision. http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/california/la-me-pesticide6oc t06,0,932938,full.story EPA approves new pesticide despite scientists' concerns Chemists say methyl iodide, a neurotoxin that can mutate DNA, has 'serious potential for accidents.' But federal officials say safeguards in place are sufficient to protect farm workers and field-adjacent neighborhoods. By Marla Cone, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer October 6, 2007 Despite the protests of more than 50 scientists, including five Nobel laureates in chemistry, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on Friday approved use of a new, highly toxic fumigant, mainly for strawberry fields. The new pesticide, methyl iodide, is designed for growers, mainly in California and Florida, who need to replace methyl bromide, which has been banned under an international treaty because it damages the Earth's ozone layer. In a letter sent last month to EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson, 54 scientists, mostly chemists, warned that pregnant women and the fetus, children, the elderly, farmworkers and other people living near application sites would be at serious risk. Methyl iodide is a neurotoxin and carcinogen that has caused thyroid tumors, neurological damage and miscarriages in lab animals. But EPA officials said Friday that they carefully evaluated the risks and decided to approve its use for one year, imposing restrictions such as buffer zones to protect farmworkers and neighbors. We are confident that by conducting such a rigorous analysis and developing highly restrictive provisions governing its use, there will be no risks of concern, EPA Assistant Administrator Jim Gulliford said in a letter sent Friday to the scientists. Growers, particularly those who grow strawberries and tomatoes, have been searching for 15 years for a new soil fumigant to replace methyl bromide. Fumigants are valuable to growers because they can be injected into the soil before planting to sterilize the field and kill a broad spectrum of insects and diseases without leaving residue on crops. But fumigants are among the most potentially dangerous pesticides in use today because the toxic gas can evaporate from the soil, exposing farmworkers and drifting into neighborhoods. Methyl iodide will be manufactured by Tokyo-based Arysta LifeScience Corp. and marketed under the name Midas. Its use will be allowed on fields growing strawberries, tomatoes, peppers, ornamentals, turf, trees and vines. California growers can use the new pesticide only if it is also approved by the Department of Pesticide Regulation. The state agency often imposes tighter restrictions than the EPA, and last year its top officials expressed concerns to the EPA about methyl iodide. We are conducting our own risk assessment of methyl iodide, and we expect that process to continue for several months before we make a decision whether or how it can be used safely in California, said Glenn Brank, a spokesman for the state Department of Pesticide Regulation. Robert Bergman, the Gerald E. K. Branch Distinguished
