Our World and Everything in It

Chimpanzees are being threatened in more ways than one. We like to think of Africa and point over there when it comes to the species closest to man, the little chimps that make us laugh and that everyone remarks are “so like us.” And they are. We’ve spent millions of dollars on the study of apes, on how much they are similar yet not exactly like us as we’ve come to find they have emotions, families, mates, tribes, and live life much like we do mourning death, being afraid, stressed, defensive, angry, happy, and depressed. Scientists have successfully taught large primates sign language, and they have conversed with humans too. There is only 1 percent difference in our DNA and their’s.

So to read the heart-wrenching stories of chimpanzees and other large primates used in research is depressing to say the least. What are we thinking spending millions to find out if a species is similar to humans, and when we do, use them as objects for research? The old cliché that “we have to do that to save human lives” is outdated and has been a crock for quite some time. Breeding research animals is big business. The medical community has been divided on the use of animals in research for years.  Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, NEAVS or New England Anti-Vivisection Society, In Defense of Animals, the Humane Society, Doris Day Animal League, and plenty of other organizations have been trying to get the message out in the mainstream that the use of animals for experimentation is no longer necessary. There are other and better alternatives.

How many times have we heard that a certain drug or procedure tested fine in animals, but not in humans? And we’re only lately seeing the results of what is known as a virus “jumping species.” When viruses jump species, from animal to human, dog to cat, etc., the virus usually becomes virulent or deadly to the new species host, i.e., the bird flu. So when the new human host of an animal virus passes that virus onto another human—look out. It could become a deadly epidemic. In this scenario, using animals for research should not be the norm, not to mention being outright inhumane? How inhumane are we? Read what Theodora Capaldo, president of NEAVS, and also a licensed psychologist with over 35 years of experience helping humans highlights in the NEAVS Newsletter about the lives of 3 different research chimps and their rescue into a sanctuary:

• Rachel [a chimp], raised in a home like a human child, was abandoned to a laboratory and spent the next eleven years in research. Even though she is now in sanctuary, her emotional breakdown left her prone to terrified screaming and attacking her own hand as if it were a stranger’s.
• Jeannie spent most of her life in a lab, being used in research that included cervical biopsies and HIV studies. She suffered what can only be described as a complete emotional collapse. She self-mutilated and screamed to the point that the lab considered euthanizing her. She was rescued and spent nine years in sanctuary before she died.
• Bill Jo endured repeated “knockdowns” during his 14 years in research, surrounded by groups of men while he was shot with darts of anesthesia. For years afterwards he couldn’t bear to have more than a few familiar people near his sanctuary enclosure. He died after nine years in sanctuary.

Theodora says that rescued research chimps display human symptoms of “trauma and abuse like hypervigilance, dissociation, depression, self-abuse, and relentless anxiety.”

This is just one misuse of primates that I’ve read about lately.  I also watched what happens to the chimpanzees and great apes imported for the express purpose of using them in shows, movies, even the circus. The TV special about entertainment primates aired on PBS not long ago. We think “Oh Hollywood is filled with rich people that are animal right’s activists,” and self assure ourselves the animals in show business are treated better than some human kids but that’s not the case. When the apes get older and unruly, they are simply shipped off in the most expedient manner to an immediate place, and by no means are they guaranteed a nice sanctuary somewhere.  Think about it. Young chimps are imported from the wild, and trained for a particular purpose in the entertainment industry. This means they get constant attention and stimulation from humans. They have names, are fed and taken care of, get medical attention, and bond with people. As they age, hormones kick in and many times the apes become erratic teenagers. This is when humans simply throw them away. They are discarded to all types of locations.

I watched a small, innocent chimp end up at a research facility that was no longer in use. There were a lot of cages and space available in buildings what looked to be out in the middle of nowhere. The little chimp was locked in a cage in a small room with little to no light, no other animal around, in dead silence, only to be given food once a day. There were no toys, no stimulus of any kind in that cage. The chimp was given a solitary confinement sentence for simply growing up.  He wasn’t cute or funny anymore, no use to humans. 

Hopefully since the series aired, he’s been given freedom at a sanctuary. Other entertainment apes won’t be as lucky. They’ll end up in research facilities going through what Rachel, Jeannie, and Billy Joe endured.  I’m surprised I haven’t found that some of these castaways ended up in a canned hunt in the U.S. somewhere–yet.

The practice of importing these apes for entertainment remains the same. It’s a cycle that needs to be broken. As fast as they are discarded, new apes are imported. Their lives are expended in order to achieve a little more laughter, a little more entertainment for humans. And it isn’t only chimps and apes that suffer this abuse.

Research and entertainment aren’t the only industries that are culprits in the abuse of the species that are the closest to human beings. The savagery of the illegal bushmeat trade is unbelievable. So unbelievable that I have to include the picture I received in a newsletter from the Jane Goodall Institute here:

The left half are what appear to be gorilla parts, the hands being a prized possession for a collector. Mind you, a gorilla named Suzie learned sign language and spoke with her human companion. That’s twisted irony.

The right half looks like cooked and/or dried chimpanzees.

People are starving. There is a world famine going on. These pictures are the result of both greed and starvation. Greed is an unordinary desire for wealth, whether for money or treasure. Starvation on the other hand, is the outcome of the unfulfilled basic human need for food. They are opposite on the spectrum of what is necessary, and what is outright wasteful and inhumane. We can do without both.

This is just a small snapshot to what is happening with many of our animal populations, animals we love, and have been aware of since we were children. Chimpanzees and apes are some of the biggest draws at the zoo, not by coincidence, but because they are so much like us. But we’re abusing them worldwide as we are each other, not only by fueling global warming, but also by our neglect for reverence for life, all life. It’s our world, our domain as humans and we’ve abused it to the point people are starving and eating anything. What’s next? I already did a blog on cannibalism as a next step. Tell me that in the picture above and on the right that it doesn’t look like a charred person lying there with an arm up near the head.

I’ve said all that to say this. There is a U.S. House Bill, H.R. 5852, the Great Ape Protection Act, that’s being considered in committee right now. This bill would end testing on chimpanzees, all breeding for invasive research on them, and retire chimpanzees currently in research to sanctuaries. It’s a brand new bill that I’m going to urge my rep to co-sponsor. Contact your rep to get this bill out of committee with few changes and onto the floor, or to co-sponsor it. 

We can do something immediate about research on apes. Great Britain, New Zealand, Austria, Sweden, and the Netherlands have already banned chimpanzee research.

Unfortunately, the greed and starvation causing the illegal death of chimpanzees and other apes have no immediate solution.  We need to practice the grandness of our humanity by being humane, not by the arrogance and unempathetic tendencies of which we are also capable to the detriment of our world and everything in it.

My 85-year-old mother asked me why there aren’t as many stars at night? I told her; to begin with, it has to be a clear night to see a bunch of stars. She said it seems when she was young there were a lot of starry nights. She’s intently watching the skies over Monroe to see if we have any clear nights, and how many stars are visible.

She thinks there aren’t as many clear nights because of pollution. My mother also remarked that some of her friend’s children were down from northern Michigan for a visit and it was quite noticeable to them that our skies are different, not as clear, even in the daytime.

I’m still wondering when the EPA is going to release reports about all types of things in our air, water, and land mass. It’s the same old stall or obstruction used by the Bush Administration against the environment for 8 years. I witnessed the put-off again on the news today when President Bush, during his talks in Britain with Gerald Brown, said that the U.S. would embrace environmentalism when China and India agree to the same pact or “whatever the U.S. does just won’t be affective.”

What a crock. First of all the U.S. only has 300 million citizens compared to both China and India with over one billion citizens each, yet the U.S. holds its own creating one quarter of earth’s total pollution. I think we could make quite a big dent in cleaning up the environment without China and India along for the ride. Has this administration ever heard the term, leading by example? Besides India is making huge strides by using their pollution for methane production to fuel their cooking and lighting needs. Bio Tech India has both a portable and permanent models of residential bio mass digesters. Just feed the digester food scraps and it produces methane gas to burn. Bio Tech India is also working on incorporating human waste into the works. India is already using the cow dung from its sacred cows for methane and energy production. Just think of all the fuel we could get from doggy parks, and litter boxes.

So it’s the same old song and dance from Bush. I really didn’t expect much more from his regime, but then I read an article on ENS website that congress is wondering about the big stall on reports about clean air, water, and land too, and what it’s costing us health wise.  It seems Congress “questioned the health effects of a new White House policy that delays the completion and release of chemical assessments into a public database maintained by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.”

There it is, the purposeful stall from the Bush regime that delays the release of assessments that inevitably affect our health in a bad way, but no doubt help some big polluter down the line. I’m starting to feel like a Polar Bear more and more all the time.

http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/jun2008/2008-06-12-093.asp

I wrote about riding bikes to save on gas and get in shape before, but the biking business is really taking off now with high gas prices. I participated in a survey by an environmental group that listed all types of things that can help ease global warming and the bicycle was number one by 34 percent. Prophylactics were second at 19%, but I digress.

It seems the bicycling trend is really picking up. There has been a 100 percent rise in cycling since 1985. There are 3.2 million people that bicycle to work at least once a week. Burning one gallon of gas equals 20 lbs. of CO2 released into the atmosphere.  I would guesstimate the average car used to get about 20 mpg. My old car does anyway. If the average distance to work is 5 miles one way, then two days of biking by just one bicyclist to and from work would equal one gallon of gas and save 20 lbs. of CO2 from being released into the atmosphere. One day would save 10 lbs. of CO2 per bicyclist. Never underestimate the power of one. Never say your individual actions don’t account for much, because other people are doing that same action too. 

One bicyclist times 3.2 million bicyclists cycling an average 10 miles round trip for work saves 32 million lbs. of CO2 from entering the atmosphere IN ONE DAY!  The results are pretty staggering, not to mention those American bicyclists are getting in shape at the same time. It’s healthy for the individual, and healthy for the earth.

My husband just said if work was just a little closer he would bike. We used to bike together. It’s unbelievable how far a person can bike quite easily. I know I did plenty of biking in my day. I used to stash my bike in the trunk of my car and drive my car to get serviced. I’d simply take the bike out and ride it home until the car service called to pick up my car. It was about 5 miles one way. 5 miles on a ten speed is a breeze. I think we are just conditioned to catching a ride everywhere, instead of peddling ourselves. We would do it more if we just thought about it. Well, we have to own a bike too.

Read more statistics about biking in America: http://www.solutions-site.org/artman/publish/article_395.shtml.

Earlier this month while working outside, I noticed a prevalence of little reddish ants. I’m not saying fire ants necessarily because they are not supposedly indigenous to Michigan, but little reddish ants seem to be everywhere and they bite. I got bit on my left leg. A trail of horribly itchy red bites took about a week or more to get rid of. I put my usual sting cure on them, a wet aspirin. Aspirin is just salicylic acid, so meat tenderizer, and anything else including special shampoos that have salicylic acid usually work to take the sting away. Not so for those bumps.

I live in the country and have been bitten by chiggers, mosquitoes, spiders, fleas, and am really allergic to apple maggot fly bites that many people call black flies. They are those triangular shaped flies with spotted wings. I guess they don’t bite as much as deposit eggs under the skin. Lovely. But, I know when I’ve been bitten by one of those. I feel the pinch, the skin gets hot, and aspirin  works great. Not so with the trail on my left leg. I put all the over the counter stuff on the bites, and the household stuff like ammonia, alcohol, baking soda, vinegar, you name it. I even took tweezers and pulled at what looked like the spot of entry, then applied Neosporin.

Nothing worked. The dots remained and eventually ran their course. After beating up my skin so bad, I started to worry about scars. I can tell where the bites were but they left little trace considering what I did to them and my skin.  I was soooo happy when they were gone.

Last week it was cool outside and I didn’t do much work out there at all so there was little chance for me to get bit right? I thought nothing of pulling on a pair of jeans and sweatshirt I threw off to the side of my nightstand just the day before. I left the house to run errands on Thursday before Memorial weekend. I thought the itch behind my right leg was persistent as I stood at my pharmacy to pick up my renewed prescription for Allegra. I remember scratching there more than once while I was running around. Something in my jeans felt picky.

When I got home and removed my jeans I had a trail on my inner thigh around the back of my knee and down the outside of my lower leg. I was so disgusted knowing what those bites were and how they would itch, be ugly, and not go away all weekend. If that wasn’t bad enough, when I woke up Friday morning and thought I had hives on my back and neck, I found it was yet another trail of ant bites.

I didn’t try any weird treatments this time. I learned my lesson the bites are much like poison ivy, oak, and sumac, all of which I’ve had my fair share. I had poison ivy four times one summer thanks to my cat. They are miserable but I won’t die. My husband made sure I was planning to wear long pants when we went out to eat so as not to look like I had some sort of plague.

So memorial weekend did create quite a memory for me. Now I know what not to do while working in my yard in Michigan. I have biting ants that I didn’t have before. Call them what you will, but I say they are indeed fire ants, and Michigan is getting more and more of them because of climate change. I watched a little black ant bite me and nothing happened. I saw the color of the ants in question. They are reddish and seem to be everywhere. Like a nightmare they are not centrally located around a large mound like ant experts describe. 

When I started to plant my vegetable garden in a pair of shorts and spotted little reddish ants in the dirt, I quickly went inside and returned with long pants, and knee high socks over the pant legs. I also had on a long sleeved shirt that I tucked in. Real cute.  My mom said to put rubber bands around the sleeves of my shirt also. Yard work will not be fun when temperatures soar above 80 degrees and I have to wear this kind of get up. 

One good thought: I know these ants are in Michigan now. And one good cure for the itch is an ice pack.  But my one bad thought outweighs the good. What else is in store for us insect wise in Michigan? What plague of things we didn’t have to worry about before will global climate change bring? The ants are bad enough. I don’t even want to think about the mosquito populations. 

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

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!

“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

A report about the Colorado River and benzene was on BBC and I caught some of it, but the articles I found about it are extensive. BBC previewed a citizen singing a country song about poisoning his water with benzene. I guess people are just giving up the fight against big corporations taking over areas and punching holes in the ground for natural gas.

The article explains the process to obtain natural gas. I had no idea how toxic it is. “Each hydraulic fracturing attempt on a gas well uses about 1 million gal of fluid and most wells are “frac’ed” about 10 times, said hearing witness Theo Colborn, president of the Endocrine Disruption Exchange, a nonprofit group that focuses on health problems from low-dose chemical exposures. Many different chemicals—including surfactants, lubricants, foamers, plastics, biocides, antioxidants, acids, and alkalis—are employed for fracturing operations, she said. These chemicals are added to alter the underground strata to allow methane to escape up the well pipe, she said. Her group has identified 171 products used in Colorado containing altogether 245 different chemicals, 92% of which have adverse health effects, she explained. She went on to say the chemicals have multiple health effects as developmental toxicants and endocrine disruptors that have adverse affects on hormones in the body.

There are lots of side affects. “More than half the volatile chemicals on the list Colborn’s group has identified irritate the skin, eyes, nose, lungs, and stomach. Some affect the nervous system, causing headaches, blackouts, and memory loss, she explained. ‘About 55% can cause cardiovascular and kidney damage, and 35 are carcinogens,’ she noted.”

Meanwhile, another article discloses how badly this particular natural gas exploration is beating up an entire area as well as leaching dangerous chemicals into the Colorado River. The implications are bad considering the Colorado is the only water supply to the four fasting growing states in the southwest. All that population explosion is dependent on this river, which is bad enough, let alone contaminating it too.  “Green activists blame the Bush administration for opening the door too widely for energy companies, a charge backed up by a trail of executive orders and administrative actions, as well as the 2005 Energy Policy Act approved by a then-Republican-led Congress — all geared toward deriving more energy from public lands.”

 http://pubs.acs.org/cen/government/86/8606gov1.html

http://www.saveroanplateau.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=68&Itemid=36

As part of the “Strange Days on Planet Earth” by National Geographic that I watched on PBS, was a segment about compounds found in plastic like bisphenol A that leached into a Missouri Tributary, and into the fish and animals in a remote area. Bisphenol A acts like estrogen, and is an endocrine interrupter. It doesn’t take much for this stuff, 30 parts per trillion, to affect estrogen response in fish because they have an extremely sensitive system.

I went to find out more about this because I’ve already written about fish in N.Y. and recently the Potomac River in Washington that have both sexes, have changed gender, or are sexless due to estrogen discharged in the effluents of sewage treatment plants. When I watched this latest presentation about fish in Missouri that are altered by bisphenol A, I thought I would rummage around and found website after website from different places all over the country with gender bender fish.

There was even a study about perch in Michigan’s lakes on jestor @ http://www.jstor.org/pss/3435861. The article listed various endocrine disruptors present in the water like the estrogen from sewage plants but also bisphenol A. Read the article because it states “gonadal intersex was observed in male white perch collected from the Bay of Quinte (22-44%) and Lake St. Clair (45%), [] Intersex was not observed in hatchery-reared white perch or in white perch collected from an uncontaminated reference site (i.e., Deal Lake) in the United States.” So the lower Great Lakes are considered contaminated.

This does not bode well for our water systems. The “Strange Days” series continued about bisphenol A in plastic from which we eat and drink. It’s dangerous for our health. That’s why we’re being told lately not to microwave anything in a plastic container. As for baby bottles it’s really bad news.

The series stated that hormones control genetic programming in developmental stages of life, so babies are really affected by bisphenol A. Heating plastic baby bottle causes 10 times the amount of bisphenol A to leach out. They didn’t have to connect the dots any further. Do not use plastic baby bottles unless it’s documented they don’t contain bisphenol A.

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.