Our World and Everything in It

Owen Lutz bequeathed his Victorian era Farmstead property of 300 acres to Livingston County to help preserve the wild places he loved so much. It is located a half-mile north of Cohoctah Road, near Lutz Rd. in Deerfield Twp. The property was just dedicated last week.

The county is going to try to keep the area as original as possible but still accessible to the public who can walk along trails of wood chips and enjoy nature as Owen had intended.

I hope this dedicated land never faces the threat of slant oil drills like the Mason Tract, another wilderness area dedicated by the head of the Mason family. Mr. Mason, an auto industrialist, donated the land to preserve the experience of the river and the wild, that is, until an upper Michigan utility company started to build a road near the Mason Tract area with the intention of drilling for oil there. If Earthjustice hadn’t intervened, the area would have been ravaged. Considering it has some of the best trout fishing in the lower 48 states, that would have been a travesty. And an irony, when we consider it was the express desire of the person dedicating the land that it remain a sanctuary against development of any sort.

Meanwhile, thank you Own Lutz for loving nature enough to hopefully preserve it forever.

http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080824/NEWS05/808240394/1007/NEWS05

I’ve been wondering how long it would take for religious communities to recognize the cruelty of animal farming; how extremely opposite it is from the idea of kosher where animals are tended with kindness and the ” method of slaughter is a quick, deep stroke across the throat with a perfectly sharp blade with no nicks or unevenness. This method is painless, causes unconsciousness within two seconds, and is widely recognized as the most humane method of slaughter possible.” A condition under which the meat is further processed is supposed to be extremely sanitary.

This is hardly the definition of a CAFO, where animals are so depressed and frustrated, they chew on the metal bars of their confinement. I’ve written so many blogs about CAFO’s and animal farms. That’s why I was so happy to read an article in the Summer publication of All Animals, by the Humane Society of the U.S., about America’s churches stepping forward to start a grassroots endeavor to restore humane farming.

Methodists support totally natural systems of farming. Jewish rabbis recommend that humans strive to prevent animal suffering. While many other denominations condemn factory farms altogether.

HSUS’s “All Creatures Great and Small” campaign plans to call on the religious, I like to say spiritual, individuals to only purchase cage-free eggs. The article says that “participants can make an on line pledge to do so and pass it along to friends as a form of networking. It also said, “They can then download materials to use in youth groups, Sunday schools, sermons, and bulletins.” There is also a documentary from “people whose religion inspired them to make dietary changes.” This particular campaign will be this October during the monthlong feast of St. Francis of Assisi, saint to all animals.

This one small pledge is designed to spread grassroots style and hopefully bring awareness to the spiritually minded about the guidelines in the bible as to what and how we eat. People can argue that the guidelines are in the Old Testament that we’re living the New Testament now. Yet we cannot simply disregard the entire part of the bible that tells us where we came from can we? Without it, we would have no heritage.

At very least, in America, where spiritualism seems to abound these days, it might make us pay better attention to not only what we eat but how it was raised. It could make a big difference in our health and diminish the amount of pollution we unleash into the environment from factory farms. Not bad by-products for a little extra awareness about what we eat.   

I heard this on ABC news last week that food prices were rising still higher, another five percent, due to corn production for ethanol. But it’s not because of rising prices of corn overall. It’s due to high oil prices.

The following is very good report about this: http://www.ncga.com/news/notd/pdfs/061407_EthanolAndFoodPrices.pdf

One thing I noticed in this article was about the huge increase in ethanol production reported. Is anybody else finding these ethanol pumps, because I’m not locating a whole heck of a lot?

Oil prices just dropped a little so our food should be cheaper for awhile too, otherwise this equation isn’t working. Or is the oil price drop just a facade for the election? If so, and rising food prices are relative to oil, then we know what we’re in for after the election.

And what about the rest of the world that is in starvation mode because of corn? I’m going to have to look that one up. Is much of the world’s starvation due to high oil costs, or high corn costs? Either way it’s just not right.  

For those of us in Michigan or anywhere else that think global warming or any of the climate events happening elsewhere won’t/don’t affect us guess again. Just like yesterday’s blog about Dead Zones that affects our penchant for shrimp, crab, and select fish like grouper, the California fires are in wine country.  So that perfect glass of wine to accompany that already vulnerable seafood dinner may not materialize at all.

Floods in the Midwest have caused a huge loss in corn crops also. So much for ethanol as an alternative. The loss of corn is going to cause an even greater problem with food shortages worldwide, which really can’t take another hit. As a result we’ll soon see food prices climb even higher here.

It simply amazes me that we’re experiencing such drastic degrees of bad weather at the same time. Look at the flood risk this year: http://www.nws.noaa.gov/oh/hic/nho/. Hundreds of people have lost homes and irreplaceable keepsakes due to flood damage.

Does anyone remember some of the prophecies about the future from the likes of  Nostradamus, Cayce, and Dixon? One of the prophecies was that the  U.S. would be divided by water eventually. The water rose through the middle of the country separating the east from the west. This doesn’t bode well considering the middle of our country is flooding.

As for fires, it looks like a fifth of California is burning: http://www.wrh.noaa.gov/sto/cafw/. Eighty homes and other structures have been destroyed by fires, while more homes are still threatened. If fires sweep through wine country there will be zilch for the year 2008.

And for those of us that have always grown things we know weather problems affect our little gardens, fruit trees, and whatever we grow just like the big guys.  The wind that ripped the shingles off my house on Monday would have caused a big loss in my vegetable garden had it been later in the season when the plants were bigger. I’m saying this because I see many more gardens planted this year than ever before, and I just wonder if the novices realize that the survival technique of growing our own food can backfire on us easily if Mother Nature doesn’t cooperate. The idea of living like our forefathers or Grizzly Adams if we have to won’t cut it without the support of a decent environment, so relying on ourselves for survival may not be viable if the weather continues to be extreme.  Like the old commercial for butter used to say: “It’s not nice [or wise] to fool with Mother Nature.”

Do you like the taste of shrimp, crab, or grouper that you can only get along America’s southern coastline? You might what to savor whatever you can of these seafood delights because Dead Zones are growing around the world.

I remember reading about Dead Zones at least 10 years ago. It has now become a chronic problem especially in the Gulf of Mexico and the Chesapeake Bay. The culprit is groundwater runoff from farms that carry fertilizer high in Nitrogen and Phosphorus over hill and dale until it ends up in the ocean waters.

Farm fertilizers do their trick in the open waters along our coastlines raising record crops of algae, which in turn rob the water of oxygen, which pretty much kills off all life to the bottom. In 2004 it was documented that there were over 150 dead zones worldwide. Many are recurring dead zones like in the Pacific Northwest.

The fact that the U.S. is pushing corn for ethanol is going to make the dead zones grow larger and faster. The New Farm Bill may help alleviate some of the problem because for the first time it allotted millions to clean up the Chesapeake Bay and billions for good land stewardship and protection for wetlands. Still the new Farm Bill cut back on the Conservation Reserve Program. This program paid farmers for not farming areas of their land that acted as buffers against fertilizer runoff. Using that land to grow cash crops is enticing.

So the farmer profits from planting more land, while the farmer of the sea will have a decline in profits. Land farming vs. sea farming has an inverse relationship. There has to be a happy medium in the future if we want to continue to enjoy shrimp, crab, and grouper because this is not the way to go. Like the article in U.S. and World Reports says there will be: “more fertilizer in the ground and fewer barriers to stop it.”

http://www.usnews.com/articles/news/national/2008/06/06/dead-zones-grow-in-the-gulf-of-mexico.html

There was interesting news on BBC World this morning about a study done by scientists in India. The scientists seem to think there is a link between cancer and pesticides. The study centered on farmers in Punjab. The farmers didn’t necessarily suffer a higher rate of cancer as much as a change in DNA that leads to cancer.

Of course a spokesperson for the crop industry trade said that just couldn’t be. They don’t use pesticides enough, and the pesticides in use simply do not cause cancer. The author of the article found that the farmers were indeed spraying all the time, not occasionally.

The scientists were careful to rule out age, alcohol, and smoking as a factor, and still ‘found significant change in the DNA, so the cancer risk is greatly increased when the extent of DNA damage is very high.’

The farmer that claimed he was spraying night and day had cancer already. Yields of new crops have gone down, while population rises. The farmers are doing everything they can to maintain crops until harvest, but it doesn’t look promising for the crops, or the health of an India that is slowly emerging from a third world status, and getting cancer now.

Is it me or does it seem that if the country is poor, it suffers deaths and problems from simple diseases we don’t have? But when a poor country begins moving up in status, using modern methods, bingo, cancer makes an appearance relative to DNA damage.  Hmmmm?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/7407707.stm

The Farm Bill is on the senate floor this morning getting its final going over. The Farm Bill has some very good changes compared to all the years it went on as is. The following is a summary of the new changes to the S2419 Farm Bill I found on gov.track. I highlighted the items that many people and organizations like The Sierra Club pushed to get through.

·  The following summary was for the Passage With Amendment for this bill on 2007-12-14. The bill may have changed since then. It hasn’t.

·  -Creates a tax penalty for transactions designed exclusively to avoid federal tax (Sec. 12522).

·  -Lowers an income tax credit for ethanol blenders from 51 cents to 46 cents after the sale of 7.50 billion gallons (Sec. 12315).

·  -Establishes the Agriculture Disaster Relief Trust Fund to provide disaster assistance for crop losses (Sec. 12101).

·  -Ends assistance by the year 2010 for persons who have an average adjusted gross income of $750,000 or more and earn less than two-thirds of their average adjusted gross income from farming, ranching, or foresting (Sec. 1704).

·  -Reauthorizes the Federal Food and Nutrition Program, the Commodity Distribution Program, and the Nutrition Information and Awareness Pilot Program (Secs. 4801, 4802, 4803).

·  -Extends the Conservation Reserve Program and the Wetlands Reserve Program through 2012 (Sec. 2311, 2321).

·  -Establishes programs to provide assistance for improving land for wildlife and forests (Sec. 2313, 2331).

·  -Establishes a mandatory labeling of country of origin on meats (Sec. 10003).

·  -Increases loan rates for sugar producers (Sec. 1501).

·  -Requires the Department of Agriculture to purchase certain dairy products to support their prices, extends the Dairy Export Incentive Program and the Dairy Indemnity Program, and extends the Dairy Promotion and Research Program (Sec. 1601, 1603).

·  -Provides a tax credit for energy generated from wind (Sec. 12301).

·  -Expands and extends programs that provide credits for renewable fuel production (Sec. 12311, 12312, 12313, 12314).

This Farm Bill doesn’t appear to have any changes since December 2007.  The only thing I see missing that is really important is tax incentives for good stewardship of the land, which gives farmers more freedom to rotate the crops of their choice. Our country pretty much locks farmers into 5 crops: corn, soybeans, wheat, cotton, and hay. As a result of all the corn, we end up with high fructose corn syrup in practically everything that’s packaged. One would think the HFCS would have a high enough caloric value to use as fuel instead of dumping it into our food. I bet some farmers in the Tennessee hills know how to make that stuff into high octane.

Look up the different sections in more detail @ http://www.nationalaglawcenter.org/assets/crs/RL34060.pdf

http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?tab=summary&bill=h110-2419

Today the U.S. House of Representatives held a hearing regarding the Clean Water Restoration Act. The Senate held a meeting about this earlier this week. HR 2421 helps clarify that federal safeguards against water pollution must protect all waters of the United States. It may seem funny to some that this is necessary because the general public is out of touch with what has been happening to many of our established environmental laws.

The Bush administration has systematically attacked many of our longstanding environmental laws including The Clean Water Act. Big corporations and developers who seek to pollute have gone to court over the Clean Water Act. It seems they have found a loophole in the act because in many places it describes the waters protected by this act as navigable for one thing, which means if you can’t place a boat on it, well it just might not be protected—by anyone. So we’ve ended up with ambiguous rulings by the Supreme Courts, and federal agencies have issued confusing guidelines on what is or is not protected by federal law.

This leaves ponds, streams, wetlands, drain areas, and many other seasonal wet spots open to damage and destruction from industrial pollution. I’ve read over HR 2421 and what used to be described as navigable waters is now simply called waters. I also read a review on the Big Bear blogsite that it’s doubtful this bill will pass. Hunters, ranchers, and farmers won’t like it. Well more than 175 House members are co-sponsoring it, and 21 Senators so far are co-sponsoring the companion legislation. I had to comment on that site that of course the huge farming and hunting lobby doesn’t want anyone messing with their new found freedom in states like Idaho, Wyoming, and Montana. They’ve pushed their weight around in those states to get the wolves, and bison killed, and wild horses rounded up. I believe it is to make way for more devastation of our national forests when Bush tries to weaken the Roadless Rule too. Because with these animals out of the way, no one has to protect their habitat, paving the way for more lumbering, mining, and drilling on or near our national forests.

Contact our legislators and let them know that every ounce of water is precious to us, especially with the drought that prevails in many places in our country. If anything as simple as a pond or a seasonal wetland is not covered by an individual state, as it stands right now, federal protection for that area may be challenged because the water in question is not navigable. It might not be navigable but pollute it with toxic material and it’s going to leach, or flow somewhere now isn’t it? That bad water just might end up in your well, backyard, creek, or pond. 

Read HR 2421 at: http://bulk.resource.org/gpo.gov/bills/110/h2421ih.txt.pdf

Conveniently contact your legislators with a petition at: http://action.earthjustice.org/campaign/cwara0408/w5eu6wbrlmetjdd

I ran across this article on the AP. It makes me think worse than I already thought about the EPA.  I sometimes get the feeling we are all guinea pigs to some extent. The subject is sludge, which as the article so succinctly states is “the leftover semisolid wastes filtered from water pollution at 16,500 treatment plants.” It goes on to say the federal policy for the past three decades has been that this sludge can be turned into something harmless, even if swallowed, (I may skip dinner tonight).

There is a 1978 memo where the EPA makes the argument that the sludge contains nutrients and organic matter ‘which have considerable benefit for land and crops.’ Does this not sound like the spreading of so-called nutrients from CAFO lagoons onto farm land irregardless of all the bacteria and low levels of toxic substances?

The particular sludge in the article wasn’t sprayed on farmland however. “Nine low-income families in Baltimore row houses agreed to let researchers till the sewage sludge into their yards and plant new grass. In exchange, they were given food coupons as well as the free lawns as part of a study published in 2005 and funded by the Housing and Urban Development Department. Nice, real nice.

Researchers believe that the sludge contains phosphate and iron that binds to lead and other hazardous metals in the soil so that it would pass right through a child if they ate any of it. This little experiment was done elsewhere also in a poor neighborhood, and without much fanfare. The problem is there has been no medical follow up. Isn’t that curious?

It looks like the EPA is looking to utilize semisolid waste in unlikely places. If the EPA was truly in earnest using this waste to protect the health and safety of children against lead, wouldn’t there, shouldn’t there be medical tests over a period of time afterward to see if it worked? The only way I can see that there are no follow up records of this experiment is that it’s not 100% but only a theory and the poor neighborhoods chosen were guinea pigs.

The frightening part is that this idea about sludge/pollution being a nutrient still reigns. So where else has sludge been spread or dumped masquerading as a nutrient? We better not have any more tainted vegetables turn up this year.

http://enews.earthlink.net/article/hea?guid=20080414/4802d6c0_3ca6_15526200804141768367295

I’ve complained about an unscrupulous EPA before, showing that some of its exiting hierarchy was tied to the oil industry. I’ve also tried to get the point across that the Bush administration has dismantled the federal government in small increments handing out contracts to for-profit corporations to do the work our agencies used to do, while cutting the budget drastically in many departments across the board. Sound alright? A lot of people think so—less spending. But do we know who is doing the work instead, how the contract was awarded, who is responsible if something goes wrong, or how much the contractor was actually paid for the job?

Cuts are going to happen. We must pay for the war.  But we just don’t know all the things that have been cut, until it’s too late that is. Just last year around this time, the Bush administration planned to cut some $500 million from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s budget and was met with fierce opposition in congress. The complaint was that it would shortchange vital environmental programs and was unacceptable. Do ya think?

Now it’s the FDA. The cover of the April 2008 Reader’s Digest asks “Can We Trust the FDA?—Must Read Special Report,” and reveals the Food and Drug Administration is in crisis. Most of the article is about the drugs we take, but the department is responsible for regulating $1.5 trillion in food, as well as, animal feeds and drugs. The article stated that insiders say, “it’s [FDA] woefully underfunded, dangerously understaffed and fractured by bitter internal tensions.” I immediately suspected feuding within the department exists because some people have ethics. In 2004, the FDA came under fire for silencing a staff scientist about antidepressants causing suicidal tendencies in teens. Ditto for the EPA, when scientists testified before congress last year that they were tired of being suppressed, and their findings/reports compromised.

The FDA receives only $2 billion in funding, which sounds like a lot but as the article says “is about what Fairfax County, Virginia, pays for its public schools.” It’s really frightening to read words like “chilling new report” in reference to the department in charge of our food and medicine. Worse yet the “chilling” report was commissioned by the FDA’s own advisory Science Board that also describes it as “nearly out of control.”

Congress has just begun to help shore up the FDA, increasing their funding by $145 million, but hey compared to billions, that’s a drop in the bucket. Of course about a quarter of that went to the drug review branch, another reason to read this story to see how much conflict of interest there is within the FDA relative to the drug industry. But special interests and conflict of interest on the food side of this equation cause an equal amount of damage. We start seeing problems like tainted food, beef, and chicken recalls, lax inspection of CAFO’s and runoff from them that may make its way into our tributaries, and of course really lax inspection of imported food. I watched a program where farm raised shrimp in an Asian country were swimming in polluted water with feces from farm animals. I check what I buy now. I steer clear of imports. I know the FDA isn’t checking.

The article said the public needs to weigh in. Weigh in? Scream for Pete’s sake. This is our bread, this is our health and it’s being handled shabbily. This type of decision-making and ethics is repetitive in the EPA, and more than likely throughout our federal agencies at this point. As I read the five key problems in this industry, they were similar to the EPA’s problems:

· The FDA suffers pressure from industry to speed decisions, and soft-pedal problems.
· Safety of New Drugs. Safety decisions are many times based on inefficient industry studies.
· Sloppy Record Keeping
· Conflicts of Interest
· Muzzled Experts

This list just about says it all doesn’t it? From the looks of things, we’re on our own.

Read the article: http://www.rd.com/national-interest/special-reports-and-surveys/problems-in-the-fda/article55513.html