Our World and Everything in It

I read in the Union of Concerned Scientists newsletter, Volume 10, Number 3, Summer 2008, that the U.S. Senate approved bipartisan legislation in March to improve the effectiveness of the Consumer Product Safety Commission. Good idea after last summer’s tainted spinach, tainted lettuce, beef recalls, and toxic toys went unchecked.

It seems there has been political interference in the work of CPSC employees like statisticians, psychologists, chemists, and engineers. The legislation is meant to keep science independent of political tactics to ensure consumers remain safe. There are whistle blower protections built in to the legislation that extends to other employees of companies regulated by the CPSC. The agency must also accept anonymous complaints via the Internet.

The Union of Concerned Scientists worked with doctor’s and consumer groups to put this Senate Bill together and encouraged scientists to speak up if they have had political interference in the past.

There is a House Bill that addresses the same problems but lacks the whistle blower protections. The idea now is to combine the bills to become the strongest legislation possible.

I’m certainly glad this is happening, but does it occur to anyone that we are now in the habit of writing legislation to keep the Bush administration’s mitts out of most things scientific, that we’ve had to use the supreme court and federal court judges to get the EPA to act on our behalf relative to the environment, and to get the Dept. of the Interior to move on putting polar bears on the endangered list?

If the agencies that are in existence to keep the public, environment, wildlife and habitat, food, and imports safe are being kept from doing their respective jobs by interference from politicians, then instead of doing this round about and creating new legislation, on top of legislation that already exists, wouldn’t it just be easier to get rid of the politicians affecting the problems? Remember to vote for a heck of a lot more than president this November, like voting out of office those that interfere with our safety, the earth’s safety, and wildlife looking to survive in a safe haven. 

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

I read an article “More Problems With Plastics” in U.S. News and World Report, May 19, 2008, by Adam Voiland that will be very disturbing to males. It’s about chemicals called phthalates found in plastics. I’ve already reported and insinuated that we’re slowly poisoning ourselves with gender bending bisphenol A (BPA), another additive in plastics. Phthalates are endocrine disruptors, (interferes with hormones) like BPA, whose results are already seen in fish with both male and female reproductive organs, no organs, or a variety of mutations in between. BPA could soon affect birds and mammals, if it hasn’t already done so. Who knows? We’re lied to so much with scientific jargon relating to parts per million, trillion, and so goes the story of phthalates.

It takes me a long time to research scientific reports about industrial toxins because I have to look up every other word and then find out what the baseline is. Then I have to look at the industry that produces it and figure out how they are lying about it. It’s like every time I hear that water and air are so much cleaner than 30 years ago.  I want to scream. Thirty some years ago we were so awfully polluted, and I was here to see it, when beaches were closed not sporadically but regularly. Out of this pollution came the Clean Air and Water Acts where we began to clean up. So of course we’re cleaner than at our all time highest pollution levels. But how much cleaner? If we mean 2 parts per trillion less of any of a myriad of toxins in our air and water than in 1970, we can honestly make that claim, but it’s hardly ideal or healthy now is it?

So here we have an article that talks about birth defects from phthalates especially in male babies. One out of 300 baby boys, (scary numbers here) don’t have a urethra that emerges out of the tip of their penis. It ends up somewhere else underneath, midway down the shaft, or barely out of the scrotum. It’s called hypospadias and studies show that phthalates reproduce it in rodents. The article says, “Phthalates are used widely as softening agents in certain plastics,” PVC mostly, but also pharmaceuticals, cosmetics, and all types of products. 

The article states that in 2005 the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that “most Americans have traces of hormone-disrupting chemicals in their body.” Another advocacy group found “84 percent of American have at least six different phthalates in their urine.”  Scientists have been studying 3 of the most prevalent hormone disruptors that are also linked to “testicular cancer, reduced sperm quality, diminished penis size, and undescended testicles.” Told you it was a male nightmare.

Of course, and here is the lie, not everyone thinks the effects seen in animals justifies concern. Again, the excuse is that the doses the animals are given are higher than anything in humans. Risk to humans is minimal. Lives are weighed by parts per million/trillion. Nice, real nice. One in 300 babies has hypospadias, but nah, no big risk. That’s why many European countries have banned phthalates in certain toys. America is still in the consideration stage at this point; even though some companies stepped up to the plate and phthalate free products are showing up in stores. Now you know what that means.

I have to take the time here to point out one of my biggest complaints also. What’s the sense of experimenting on animals if someone ultimately uses the same tired excuse that it’s not the same for humans? It is why I am and have been adamantly against animal experimentation for a long time. It is an absolute myth that it is necessary. Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, NEAVS, and many professionals have been testifying about it for years. We’re in the 21^st century now. There are superior methods. But research animals are a big racket and cheap. Don’t ever lose your cat or dog.

If you’re male and already in your 20’s or 30’s breathing a sigh of relief, think again. Or rather look to your hairline. As a licensed cosmetologist that had my own shop for almost 8 years, I paid close attention to the most successful products for baldness. Baldness is relative to some of the many hormones our body produces. An overabundance of a certain type chokes out the hair follicles. My husband’s father and grandfather on his mother’s side were bald, as were all of his uncles on both sides of the family. My husband is 55 with a full head of hair. Hmmm. Eating freshly cooked meals every night, not drinking tap water for almost 30 years, imbibing minimal pop or junk food, and growing our own fruits and vegetables is starting to really show results. It’s not just a cliché that we are what we eat, drink, and breathe. Believe it!

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

“Strange Days on Planet Earth” series from the National Geographic channel previewed the North Pacific Gyre, a swirling clockwise vortex, of ten million square miles. We wonder where all the debris goes that gets into the water.  It ends up where it’s ashamedly known as the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. Among other things tons of plastic has accumulated here. Some argue plastics do eventually bio degrade, well, not so much. Plastic photodegrades, which means it gets smaller and thinner, and thinner until it is in micro pieces.

Most people are not aware of this gyre. Others know to avoid it’s swirling outer perimeter and the dead calm center. So many haven’t actually experienced the mess. In the series “Strange Days,” a boat decided to motor across the gyre to cut down on time on its way to another environmental study. It would only take a week to cross. But once the boat entered, the captain could not believe what he encountered day after day. He said it was literally a cesspool of large items and what appeared to be floating flakes. The captain decided to lower a skim for plankton that pretty much looks like a cheese cloth wind sock meant to gather plankton. What he gathered were small plastic particulates in the millions. According to Wikipedia: “These pieces, still polymers, eventually become individual molecules, which are still not easily digested.^[1] Some plastics photodegrade into other pollutants.”

Birds and other mammals are feeding on this stuff. Birds feed it to their offspring. Industrial plastic pellets are washing up near shorelines also, and look like fish eggs. Baby albotross’ dead on the beach showed exposed stomachs filled with plastics of all kinds. There is more polymer in the N. Pacific Gyrate than there is plankton. According to Wickipedia: “Besides ingestion and entanglement of wildlife, the floating debris absorbs toxins in the water which, when ingested, are mistaken by the animals brain for estradiol, causing hormone disruption in the affected wildlife.” This is evidence of more hormone disruptors that affect the genetics of young life. We’re seeing gender bender fish, wait until we start finding gender bender birds and mammals. That’s food for thought. Right now we’re eating into this polluted animal chain, and will more than likely suffer the same consequences in the future if not already. So keep using and throwing out plastic of all kinds and keep saying man doesn’t have an affect on his environment and that recent rapid changes in climate are happening naturally. Sure. 

http://www.greenpeace.org/international/campaigns/oceans/pollution/trash-vortex

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7312777.stm

http://www.smh.com.au/news/environment/the-plastic-killing-fields/2007/12/28/1198778702627.html?page=fullpage

The BBC reported tonight that there is a worldwide food shortage. Over 100 million people will go hungry this year. Problems from a rise in food prices have crossed every border in the world, even causing riots in some countries.

This is the cost of not acting on earlier warnings. Now $1.7 billion is needed to assist farmers worldwide. The crisis is being blamed on:

· Climate change
· Population growth
· Higher demand by growing Asian markets
· Use of land to bio-fuels
· Rise in oil prices

It’s interesting because the BBC also said that many countries are rethinking bio-fuel, especially corn-based ethanol. Science has made it well known that we cannot produce enough ethanol to replace the gas we use. The land mass just isn’t there. But while other countries push away from bio-fuel, president Bush pushes it forward saying that a good way to new renewable energy is the ability to grow it. Someone needs to tell him that it’s already been figured out that route is impossible.

Read more: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7372393.stm.

I couldn’t post a blog last night because I lost my dial tone again. It just came back on so I’m getting this out there as fast as I can. I couldn’t research what I wanted to blog about and maybe that’s a good thing because I caught an absolutely fantastic show on WGTE, Toledo Public TV last night as part of their Strange Days on Planet Earth series. Ed Norton narrated current findings relative to global warming that are directly tied to of all things fish and mankind. Like he said no one would ever consider fish as heroes of the global warming battle but after last night’s presentation the realization of how man is so intimately connected to everything on earth, that every little thing we do, every little thing we eat like a sardine, affects us and sometimes in very bad ways that only adds to global warming and loss of more food.

What was showcased is the latest correlation between man and global warming concerns fish. Did you know that Namibia besides being the birthplace of Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt’s baby is also home to one of the world’s richest fisheries? At least Namibia was rich with fish 40 years ago, where millions of tons of fish were processed per year and sold worldwide.
 
Namibia is one of the most productive ocean systems in the world because it enjoys almost constant ocean winds, which churn up nutrients like plankton from the bottom. Sardines love plankton and swarmed the area in the millions. But man over fished the sardines years ago and although Namibia has made a concentrated effort to recover their fish populations, it’s just not happening. Fleets of fishing boats from Europe and other far away places invaded that space and harvested, and harvested, ten million sardines in one month’s time sometimes, without enforced regulations to stifle the pillaging.

So what about sardines you say? As part of another delicate ecosystem that has been disrupted by mankind, the sardine is necessary to insure the plankton does not build up on the ocean floor. Rotting plankton has a very detrimental effect.  Hydrogen sulfide and methane production is the by-product of rotting plankton. Sulfur is that rotten egg smelling gas.

As a result of over fishing sardines, Namibia’s coastline now boasts a strange shift in ocean color on a regular basis. Some call it lemonade, or a whitish ethereal color appears while the horrible stench of rotten eggs is emitted, and then unimaginable amounts of dead fish float up and line the shoreline. With all the over-fishing in our oceans today, we do not need this additional kill off of fish. It’s creating a cycle where we’re going to end up with no fish at all.

Three people figured out what’s happening in Namibia. A marine biologist, Brownen Currie, a satellite expert Scarla Weeks, and an oceanographer Andrew Bakun figured out that deep-sea eruptions were taking place and emitting hydrogen sulfide. Bakun found that deep sea eruptions coincided with desert rain, that atmospheric storms that pass over the ocean’s surface cause pressure on top that translates to pressure at the bottom where the buildup of hydrogen sulfide and methane lay. Eruptions on the ocean floor take place releasing millions of bubbles of the two gases. As methane rises to the surface it expands and becomes explosive.

Experts have known about these eruptions for a while and figured they were isolated incidents, but when Scarla Weeks, a satellite expert became involved a whole other scenario surfaced. From satellite images in space these eruptions were shown to be increasingly more virulent, and are occurring back to back, growing out of control into huge events covering hundreds of kilometers over the ocean.

This is where my eyes bugged out. I wrote a blog about a CO2 explosion at the bottom of a lake in Africa, which resulted in a cloud of gas belching into the night and traveling miles to kill 1700 people. At first, it was thought to be a methane gas explosion like those happening off of Namibia. Then I remembered writing a blog about the first global warming event some 40 million years ago that incinerated the earth. It was caused by a ½ degree in temperature change over a longer period of time than we’re experiencing now. It happened because of constant methane eruptions on the ocean floor from an earth that was still forming.  The atmosphere eventually filled with methane, which is twenty six times more effective at trapping heat than carbon dioxide, and the earth fried.

Scientists have always thought that it was impossible for methane or carbon dioxide to build up like that again on the ocean floor due to the constant movement of water. Wrong again. It seems like what we’re facing now is totally new territory. But there are still quite a few obstinate people who will not see that humans are affecting the earth in a myriad of ways that is upsetting the intricate balance of all living things. This is just one of the ways we’ve impacted the earth and helped global warming along. I remember someone I talked to about environmental events brushing off the idea that an increase in earthquakes is tied to global warming. Why not? Now that we know atmospheric pressure on the surface of seawater affects pressure at the bottom of the sea, it’s quite possible that atmospheric pressure can affect pressure below the earth’s surface just as easily, and there are a lot more earthquakes happening lately.

The idea of eating fish because it is healthy for us is starting to resemble the idea of drinking bottled water. We do it for our own health but do not realize the affects of those actions, that it hurts the earth to toss that plastic in a trash dump or along the roadside, every bit as much as over harvesting even the smallest fish. Without strict fishing regulations, new ways of farming fish, (more about that mess in another blog), and a quick attitude change by the human population to conserve, it doesn’t appear there will be enough in the wild to sustain mankind worldwide. 

Read more about methane explosions and Namibia at: http://www.pbs.org/strangedays/episodes/dangerouscatch/experts/stench.html.

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

Last week on Good Morning America there was a guy who has been fueling his little diesel car with Chinese oil. What is Chinese oil? It’s the leftover oil from Chinese restaurants. He said the restaurant was only too happy to give the oil away. He put it in a plastic gas container and uses a funnel to put it in his car. He said he probably saved $3,000 last year by not buying gas. So if you have a little diesel car you drive to work, why not? The Welsh do it. The Welsh were using so much vegetable oil in their cars they had to come up with laws to stop it because the country wasn’t getting enough money from gas tax. The big clue? Everytime there was a new delivery of cooking oil to the supermarkets, the shelves were wiped out in hours. Now the Welsh police are allowed to stop a car and look at what it’s running in its tank. 

On that note, I ran across something good from an oil company. While I was researching oil company contributions to alternative energy, I read that Conoco Phillips is working with Tyson foods to use chicken fat for fuel.  Reuters.com has the entire article. The article stated: “Beef, pork and chicken fat from Tyson rendering plants will be processed at ConocoPhillips refineries to create transportation fuel.” They plan in the future to produce about 175 million gallons per year of this biodiesel. Conoco Phillips is already preparing some of their refineries for processing the animal fat. The first one is in Borger, Texas. ConocoPhillips is processing soybean oil as a biodiesel fuel already at its Whitegate refinery in Cork, Ireland. Tyson said “the fats will be processed with hydrocarbon feedstocks to produce a high-quality diesel fuel that meets all federal standards for ultra-low-sulfur diesel.” And unlike ethanol, this fuel can run through pipelines. 

This is good news. These two companies are making good use of leftover pollution, and there is a lot of it in the meatpacking industry. Since Conoco Phillips doesn’t stand to gain or lose from doing this, this is a very generous move.  I just hope finding a way to get rid of rendering material doesn’t cause a spike in eating more meat, or establishing more CAFO’s! There is a humane and ethical side to the treatment of animals that figures in here, not just the environment, or money. Industrialized farming is extremely horrific for animals, totally inhumane, and we end up with sickly meat.

http://www.reuters.com/article/consumerproducts-SP/idUSN1629340720070416?pageNumber=1&virtualBrandChannel=0

Here is a link to a list of organic body care products found to contain 1,4-Dioxane, a carcinogen linked to breast cancer.

http://www.organicconsumers.org/bodycare/DioxaneResults08.cfm

 Finding the list, I found this really good website for people who go organic even sometimes. It is Organic Consumers Association website. This is the largest organization of organic consumers in the country. They have been campaigning for the USDA and organic companies to preserve strict organic standards. I don’t think a responsible company should have to be pressured to do this but considering the warning list above…help by joining the campaign. Look around the OCA website. It covers all types of topics even children’s health.

The basic premise of the Organic Consumers Association as it relates to food is that change for pure food is in the consumer’s hands. Buying locally grown and harvested organic fruits and vegetables as much as possible assures better quality control in a product. And many times this means buying from a smaller farm market. I do this all of the time, always have. It’s cheaper and much of the produce, even chicken, is from Michigan, and raised naturally. I grow my own fruits and vegetables too.

By supporting smaller local farms we help spread the wealth around and show congress that we’re serious about eating healthy foods so that the next time the Farm Bill comes around maybe we can change it for the better. The Farm Bill needs to address the needs of local farmers who want to be good stewards of their land, and despite a big farm lobby.