Tim Dechristopher and Oil Leases in Utah Update

Raleigh Eco News
For all the news that is fit to print about the Apex fire, which I was guilty of ignoring because I was “too busy”. She writes well too.

Holy tentacular twins, Batman! This is crazy news, the first study linking the incidence of twins with environmental factors. The culprit is growth hormone fed to cows to increase milk production. According to this Wikipedia article, a third of all dairy cattle use Monsanto’s rBGH (or rBST) brand Posilac®, so obviously, use is widespread.

FEED – July 2006 (from the Union of Concerned Scientists)

1. Engineered hormone in milk may be linked to twinning. A recent study found that women who consumed dairy products were five times more likely to give birth to twins than vegan women. The study suggested that the use of engineered bovine growth hormone/bovine somatotropin (BGH/BST) to boost milk production in dairy cows may be related to the higher level of twinning. BGH is known to increase twinning in dairy cows. In addition, the rate of human twinning is twice as high in the United States, where BGH is used, as in Britain, where BGH is banned. BGH affects twinning rate by increasing insulin-like growth factor (IGF), a protein produced in the milk of both animals and humans, that promotes ovulation and may help early-stage embryos survive. A separate study found that levels of IGF were 13 percent lower in vegan women than in women who consumed dairy products. Read a press release about the study, which was published in The Journal of Reproductive Medicine.

If true, no woman should ever drink “conventional” milk (non-organic, non rGBH free, etc). Twins are fun, I love my twin nieces very much, but they are much more difficult to carry and deliver, and there are more complications.

Scary, but I suspect this is the tip of the iceberg as far as environmental effects on childbirth are concerned.

I begin to wonder how much of this was not known previously, and is coming out now, pushed by US domestic food interests who can suddenly become a little more competitive.

Reuters AlertNet – Pesticides next frontier in China food safety

China’s farmers overuse pesticides, skip protective clothing and have at their fingertips an array of banned and counterfeit products, raising another area of concern in the country’s fragile food chain. Spraying chemicals on crops improperly or using products that may be fake or banned risks the health of China’s hundreds of millions of farmers and could lead to unsafe levels of residues in fruits and vegetables, experts say. “The government has to stop banned or illegal pesticides being available in the market,” said Angus Lam, a Greenpeace Campaign Manager for Food and Agriculture based in the southern city of Guangzhou. China banned five high toxicity pesticides as of Jan. 1, but Lam said old stock was still in the market, in the hands of traders, retailers and farmers themselves. The government pledged last week to step up inspections in its food industry, saying checks on fertilisers and pesticides would be one of the priority areas.

China is not alone in this problem. Pesticides get overused in the US as well. But it’s as if all of a sudden, the mainstream press is waking up to the reality that is China. It is a developing country with high levels of growth in manufacturing, and a burgeoning middle class. But government regulation mechanisms have a long way to go to catch up.

The US surely knows this, and needed to have a more stringent testing regime with food imports from China. But the FDA was not given the mandate or the money. It is very easy to blame the FDA here. The fact of the matter is that any agency is only as good as the money and mandate it’s given. The political will to take a good look at where your food comes from, and how to ensure its safety needs to come first.

Technorati Tags: China, Food Safety, Pesticides

Sanders, Leahy re-introduce Jeffords global warming bill – Boston.com

“The good news is that we know how to address the problem. The bad new is that, for many years now, government policy has been totally inadequate,” Sanders said. “The forward-thinking legislation will put the United States on track to lead the way toward a cleaner future for all and I look forward to strong support as we push to protect our planet.”

The bill was originally introduced in July of 2006, when it (predictably) went nowhere. Here is Sanders’ summary of the bill.

The Global Warming Pollution Reduction Act calls for carbon dioxide (CO₂) and other heat-trapping emissions to be reduced to 80 percent below 1990 levels by 2050.

80% is the reduction called for in the Stern Review as well. The point is to stabilize global concentration at 450 ppm.

It is still early to say what the prognoses in the Congress and Senate are, but one thing is sure, the US emperor will veto it. The point is, however, to establish this bill as the starting point of any negotiation/bargaining that will surely occur.