When I first began covering the story in April, I fixated on the question of origin. Had the new virus incubated in the vast hog confinements in Vera Cruz, Mexico? In a village near several large hog buildings there,  a mysterious and virulent respiratory disease had broken out—and at least some of the cases were later confirmed have been infected with H1N1.

I still think it was right and proper to note the proximity between the CAFO and the outbreak. But now I think the focus on origins was wrong. Asking when and where this novel H1N1 strain mutated into present form is a bit like trying to identify the first mutant wolf pup that grew into a proper dog. In this context, origin is impossible to identify—and probably not that interesting.

The real question is, which of our practices are creating ideal conditions for the mutation of new swine-flu strains not recognized by human immune systems?

And once we identify those practices, we’d do well to phase them out. True, the current strain of H1N1 is behaving rather tamely—spreading fast but not causing much more damage than regular flu strains. And it has entered a phase of genetic stability—it hasn’t mutated much lately.

But what if it does begin to mutate—and new forms are more deadly, and resistant to Tamiflu? If and when it does begin to mutate, entire new vaccines will have to be generated—further straining a public health system already stretched to the limit by the current vaccine effort.

As anyone reading this already knows, I believe that concentrated animal feedlot operations (CAFOs) create excellent conditions for the mutation of new flu strains: thousands of genetically similar bodies living in close quarters, their immune systems compromised, swapping germs and occasionally coming into contact with human workers.

In its September issue, Environmental Health Perspectives ran an article called “Swine CAFOs and Novel H1N1 Flu: Separating Facts from Fears.” The article makes three main points: 1) that we’ll never know the precise origin of the current strain of swine flu that has caused a global pandemic; and 2) that CAFOs provide an excellent environment for the generation of new strains; and 3) that CAFOs operate under almost no oversight of public-health authorities.

The only current program for testing hog farms for the new H1N1 strain is voluntary—and CAFO operators are reportedly actively avoiding testing because they don’t want to risk losing their herds if an infection is found. And if operators do find H1N1 present, they’re encouraged but not required to report it.

Thus, given the incredibly slack nature of the oversight regime, no one can take comfort in the recent report of an H1N1 outbreak in an Indiana CAFO.

Or in the work of University of Arizona researcher Michael Worobey, who recently released research concluding that “This virus most likely has been circulating under the radar in pigs for the better part of 10 years.” In other words, not only is it currently appearing in CAFOs, but it’s been in CAFOs for a while, and only broke out into the human population this year.

Few people would knowingly store an open box of oily rags next to a furnace. Yet our meat-production system runs on just that kind of recklessness.

Related Links:

Six months after the outbreak, who’s investigating the CAFO-swine flu link?

CAFOs: ‘Above the Law’ like Steven Seagal?

From Whole (junk) Foods to Julia/Julie hype, tasty morsels from around the Web

During the first 9 months of 2009, the industry groups stepped uptheir lobbying in Congress. They have spent more than $24 million onthe issue of a national excise tax on sweetened beverages and on otherlegislative and regulatory issues, according to an examination oflobbying reports filed with the Senate Office of Public Records. Thereview shows that 21 companies and organizations reported that theylobbied specifically on the proposed tax on sugar-sweetened beverages—which among other things would include sodas, juice drinks, andchocolate milk.

About $5 million of the money was spent on a national advertisingcampaign aimed at Capitol Hill lawmakers and promoting a newly formedcoalition called Americans Against Food Taxes . The group bills itselfon its website as a coalition of “responsible individuals,financially-strapped families, [and] small and large businesses” butits 400-plus membership list is dominated by industry heavyweights suchas Burger King Corporation, Coca Cola, Pepsico and Domino’s Pizza.

Sounds like they’re just getting started. This is par for the course with taxes on the federal level, you can’t even mention one without sending the affected industry’s lobbyists into a frenzy—and why we’re in such a revenue pickle generally. Yet, some insiders suggest that the beverage folks have an ace in the hole—“the sugar guys”:

Jon Doggett, an [National Corn Growers Association] spokesman, said other factions of the sugarlobby pushed hard on Congress, but didn’t describe their work on publicfilings as specific to the sweetened beverage tax. “They have kind ofkept their heads down a little bit,” Doggett said. “Nobody playspolitics better than the sugar guys.”

In other words, the sugar lobby, which is unique in the agricultural world for having maintained strict import quotas on foreign products despite living in a world devoted to “free trade,” has kept their work against the soda tax off their paperwork and thus out of public sight. But its invisibility doesn’t lessen its ferocity or, so far, its effectiveness.

And it certainly doesn’t help that, as HuffPo, myself, and the New York Times have observed, any attempt to enact a soda tax in the Senate Finance Committee runs up against the reality that the committee’s Chairman and Ranking Member are from Montana (sugar beet country) and Iowa (corn syrup country) respectively. But HuffPo’s Christine Spoler and Joseph Eaton (with the Center for Public Integrity) go on to point out that, in fact, farm states are way over-represented on the Senate Finance Committee generally—depending on how you count them more than half come from states with large agricultural interests that might not take kindly to food taxes of any type.

I remain struck by the shamelessness of the beverage lobby. In addition to their efforts on Capitol Hill, a representative for the notorious industry front group the Center for Consumer Freedom went before a meeting of the Obesity Society to declare that obesity was a personal matter that government had no role in addressing. Really:

Senior research analyst at CCF Justin Wilson said in the statement: “Thepublic health community seems dead-set on ever more regulation of ourlives. The push for taxes on sugar-sweetened beverages is just thelatest example of the disdainful belief that when it comes to mattersof personal choices, the regulators know best.

“Government taxation should not be a tool for social engineering.Nor should it be used to penalize individuals for their personal foodchoices.”

Nor, I suppose, should we “penalize” individuals for their personal liquor choice, their personal tobacco choice, or even their personal income choice for that matter. Libertarianism is the last refuge of the corporate flack—when big business starts screaming about “freedom,” it always means trouble ahead.

So will we get a soda tax? Well, betting against a tax making it through the Senate is a pretty safe wager. But perhaps Spoler and Eaton are right that the states will manage something—New York’s Gov. David Paterson apparently has revived his “proposed then dropped like a hot potato” soda tax bill. Nothing like dire financial straits to open your eyes to the dollars floating around in a can of Coke. But watch out, New York. “The sugar guys” are no doubt ready and waiting to take their show on the road.

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Memo to Baucus: Your state’s trees are being ravaged

And if a species were to willfully foul its nest with BPA, it would at least be wise to keep it out of direct contact with food.

That’s because BPA is an established endocrine disruptor. In June, the Endocrine Society relased a statement warning of the health threat presented by BPA. According to thestatement, low-level exposure to BPA adversely affects male and femalereproduction, thyroid function, metabolism, and could increase obesity.

Unhappily, our species hasn’t seen fit to ban BPA production.Instead, we’ve  ginned up a robust and profitable market for it. BPA isa building block of plastic—and modern society remains highlydependent on cheap and abundant plastic.

According to a an industry source, U.S.BPA demand is growing at about a 4 percent annual pace. In Asia, thegrowth rate is much higher. That’s not surprising, given that BPA iscommonly used in electronic gadgets, and Asia generally manufacturesour electronics.

Nor have we seen fit to protect our foodsupply from the nasty stuff. Indeed, we literally pack food in it—BPAis a key part of the lining in cans for foodstuffs.

This week,another study has emerged showing that alarming levels of BPA leach outof can liners right into your green beans—and your baby formula. This one, by conducted by Consumers Reports, looked at 19 common supermarket products. “Almost all” of them showed measurable levels of BPA, CR found. Here’s more:

The highest levels of BPA in our tests were found in the canned green beans and canned soup. In Progresso Vegetable Soup, the levels of BPA ranged from 67 to 134 ppb. In Campbell’s Condensed Chicken Noodle Soup, the levels of BPA ranged from 54.5 to 102 ppb. Canned Del Monte Fresh Cut Green Beans Blue Lake had BPA levels ranging from 35.9 ppb to 191 ppb, the highest amount for a single sample in our test.

What does this mean? “A 165-pound adult eating one serving of canned green beans from our sample, which averaged 123.5 ppb, could ingest about 0.2 micrograms of BPA per kilogram of body weight per day, about 80 times higher than our experts’ recommended daily upper limit.” (Emphasis added.)

Endocrine disruption, meet political corruptionOfcourse, the Food and Drug Administration has a much more expansive takeon how much BPA exposure a human body can endure without harm thanConsumer Reports. An FDA advisory panel found last year that the agency’s“basis for setting safety standards to protect consumers was inadequateand should be re-evaluated,” reports CR. But the FDA stillhasn’t adjusted its policy toward BPA, and “Industry has been waging afight against new regulations,” Consumer Reports says.

Unhappily, the chemical industry exerts major influence over our guardian of food safety. In a superb, must-read, award-worthy special series published this year, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel showed that for years, the FDA has “relied on chemical industry lobbyists to examine bisphenol A’s risks.” Sentinel journalists got hold of nine years worth of FDA emails on BPA. Get this:

Inone instance, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s deputy directorsought information from the BPA industry’s chief lobbyist to discredita Japanese study that found it caused miscarriages in workers who wereexposed to it. This was before government scientists even had a chanceto review the study.

Most egregiously, the agencybased its 2008 draft review declaring BPA safe on two studies funded by thechemical industry. And that’s not all: an industry trade group “wroteentire sections of that draft.”

While FDA bureaucrats play bump-and-tickle with industry chiefs to form policy on BPA regulations, NGOs have been testing consumer food products and findingsignificant levels of the damaging substance. The Consumer Union studywas only the latest. Back in 2007, Environmental Working Group tested 97 canned products. Over half contained significant levels of BPA.

Infant formula showed particularly poorly: “1 in 3 cans ofinfant formula, a single serving contained enough BPA to expose a womanor infant to BPA levels more than 200 times the government’straditional safe level of exposure for industrial chemicals.” In thetwo years since the Environmental Working Group tests, how many peoplehave unwittingly exposed themselves—and their children—to endocrine disruption while FDA administrators cravenly kept their mouths shut? And now that yet another set of independent tests have revealed routine BPA contamination of supermarket staples, will the FDA now act?

One hopes, with the Bush Administration out of office, that theFDA will crack down on BPA use by the food industry. But the U.S.market for the stuff is controlled by extremely powerful corporations,including Bayer, Dow, and Sabic, a Saudi-owned chemical giant. Globally, BPA is an industry with $6 billion in sales. With cash like that at stake, Bayer, et al., aren’t going to merely skulk away. ““The industry has launched an unprecedented public relations blitz that uses many of the same tactics—and people—the tobacco industry used in its decades-long fight against regulation,” reports the Journal Sentinel.

Indeed, Big Tobacco and the BPA merchants don’t just share PR flacks: the tobacco companies put BPA in filters. According to the Journal Sentinel, “Lobbyists for tobacco closely followed the government’s assessment of BPA because of concerns that a ban on the chemical would affect cigarette filters and plastic packaging. The two industries share the same lobby firm, the Weinberg Group.”

Seemslike a smart species would demand that those entities stop producingBPA—PR blitz withstanding. But that would entail the FDA cutting ties to industry anddevoting itself to public health.

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Polluted Southern communities ask EPA to address environmental injustice

The White House has nominated Mr. Siddiqui for the position of chiefagricultural negotiator in the office of the United States traderepresentative. He is presently a vice president at CropLife America, acoalition of the major industrial players in the pesticide industry,including Syngenta, Monsanto, Dow Chemical and DuPont. That job doesn’tseem to square with the Obama administration’s professed interest inmore sustainable, less chemically dependent approaches to agriculture.

Nordoes much of the rest of Mr. Siddiqui’s résumé. The White House hastouted his role in the first phase of developing national organicstandards. But those standards, as they first emerged in draft form inthe Clinton years, were notoriously loose about allowing geneticallyengineered crops and the use of sewage-sludge fertilizers to be labeledas “organic.”

...Everyone wants a pesticide backup, much like an antibiotic whendiseases get out of control. But there are other ways to control pests—more diversity in crop production and rotation, for instance—besides chemicals. The negotiator we need is someone who can representa broad view of American agriculture.

The funny thing is I’m not quoting the text from any of the petitions, but rather from an editorial in today’s New York Times. Getting a paper of record sounding all the right notes on this nomination is certainly music to my ears. As Tom Philpott noted, this campaign against Siddiqui has been surprising for its speed as well as for the traction it’s gained. It will be interesting to see if any of this is brought up at Siddiqui’s hearing before the Senate Finance Committee tomorrow or if it motivates any Senator, whether on the committee or not, to block the nomination entirely.

h/t La Vida Locavore

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Obama urges climate action as Europe ups pressure on U.S.

Rich countries halt Barcelona climate talks with inaction; Africa walks out

I drink raw milk, sold illegally on theunderground black market. I grew up on raw milk from our own Guernsey cows thatour family hand-milked twice a day. We made yogurt, ice cream, butter, andcottage cheese. All through high school in the early 1970s, I sold our homemadeyogurt, butter, buttermilk, and cottage cheese at the Curb Market on Saturdaymornings. This was a precursor to today’s farmer’s markets.

In those days, the Virginia Department ofAgriculture had a memorandum of agreement with the Curb Market that as long asvendors belonged to an Agricultural Extension organization such as ExtensionHomemaker’s Clubs or 4-H, producers could bring value-added products to marketwithout inspection and visits from the food police. The government agentsassumed that anyone participating in the extension programs would be gettingthe latest, greatest food science and therefore conform to the most modernprocedural protocols, which created its own protection.

As the Virginia Slims commercial says,“We’ve come a long way, baby.” These conciliatory overtures to maintain healthyand vibrant local food economies exist no more. Today I can’t sell any of thosethings at a farmer’s market, and even if I take eggs some bureaucrat will comealong with a pocket thermometer and, without warrant or warning, reach over andpoke it through my display eggs to see if they are at the proper temperature.If they aren’t, no amount of pleading that those are for display only candissuade the petulant public servant from demanding that I dump those displayeggs in a trash can on the spot. I don’t sell at farmer’s markets anymore.

In 1975, when I graduated from highschool and began plotting my farming career, I figured out that I couldhand-milk ten cows, sell the milk to neighbors at regular retail prices, and bea full-time farmer. This was before most people had ever heard the wordorganic. But selling milk was illegal. In those days, we didn’t know about herdshares or Community Supported Agriculture or even limited liabilitycorporations.

As a result, I went to work for a localnewspaper and became the proverbial part-time farmer—working in town to supportthe farming passion. I don’t think I’ve ever gotten over the fact that thegovernment arbitrarily determined to make it very difficult for me to become afarmer. That seems un-American, doesn’t it?

Isn’t it curious that at this juncture inour culture’s evolution, we collectively believe Twinkies, Lucky Charms, andCoca-Cola are safe foods, but compost-grown tomatoes and raw milk are not? Withlegislation moving through Congress demanding that all agricultural practicesbe “science-based,” I believe our food system is at Wounded Knee. I do notbelieve that is an overstatement.

Make no mistake, as the local, heritage,humane, ecological, sustainable—call it what you will (anything but organicsince the government now owns that word)—food system takes flight, theindustrial food system is fighting back. With a vengeance. By demonizing,criminalizing, and marginalizing the integrity food movement, the entrenchedpowers that be hope to derail this revolution.

This industrial food experiment,historically speaking, is completely abnormal. It’s not normal to eat thingsyou can’t spell or pronounce. It’s not normal to eat things you can’t make inyour kitchen. Indeed, if everything in today’s science-based supermarket thatwas unavailable before 1900 were removed, hardly anything would be left. And asmore people realize that this grand experiment in ingesting material totallyforeign to our three-trillion-member internal community of intestinalmicroflora and -fauna is really biologically aberrant behavior, they are optingout of industrial fare. Indeed, to call it a food revolution is accurate.

But revolutions are always met withprejudice and entrenched paradigms from the about-to-be-unseated lords of thestatus quo. The realignment of power, trust, money, and commerce that the localheritage-based food movement represents inherently gives birth to a backlash.By the time of Wounded Knee, Native Americans no longer jeopardized theAmerican reality.

But to many Americans, these Natives hadto be crushed, extinguished, put on reservations. Would America have beenstronger if European leaders had listened to wisdom about herbal remedies andconsensus building? The answer is yes. But to Americans, the red man was just abarbarian because he didn’t govern by parliamentary procedure or ride inhorse-drawn stagecoaches along cobblestone streets. In fact, he was considereda threat to America. Just like giving slaves their freedom in 1850. Just likeimbibing alcohol in 1925. Just like homeschooling in 1980.

The ultimate test of a tyrannical societyor a free society is how it responds to its lunatic fringe. A strong,self-confident, free society tolerates and enjoys the fringe people who come upwith zany notions. Indeed, most people later labeled geniuses were dubbedwhacko by their contemporary mainstream society. So what does a culture do withweirdos who actually believe they have a right to choose what to feed theirinternal three-trillion-member community?

The only reason the right to food choicewas not guaranteed in the Bill of Rights is because the Founders of Americacould not have envisioned a day when selling a glass of raw milk or homemadepickles to a neighbor would be outlawed. At the time, such a thought was asstrange as levitation.

Indeed, what good is the freedom to ownguns, worship, or assemble if we don’t have the freedom to eat the proper fuelto energize us to shoot, pray, and preach? Is not freedom to choose our food atleast as fundamental a right as the freedom to worship?

How would we feel if we had to get alicense from bureaucrats to start a church? After all, beliefs can be prettydamaging things. And charlatans certainly do exist. Better protect people fromthose charlatans—bad preachers and raw milk advocates.

But what does a society do when thecharlatans are in charge? In charge of the regulating government agencies. Incharge of the research institutions. In charge of the food system.

That is a real conundrum, because ifhealth depends on opting out of what the charlatans think is safe, we areforced into civil disobedience. When the public no longer trusts its publicservants, people begin taking charge of their own health and welfare. And thatis exactly what is driving the local heritage food movement.

Lots of folks realize they don’t wantindustrialists fooling around with something as basic as food. People like medon’t trust Monsanto. We don’t trust the Food and Drug Administration. We don’ttrust the Department of Agriculture. We don’t trust Tyson. And we don’t think it’ssafe to be dependent on food that sits for a month in the belly of a Chinesemerchant marine vessel.

This clash of choice versus prohibitionbrings us to today’s Wounded Knee of food. The local heritage-based foodmovement represents everything that is good and noble about farming and foodculture. It is about decentralized farms. Pastoral livestock systems. Symbioticmulti-speciation. Companion planting. Earthworms. It is aboutcommunity-appropriate techniques and scale. Aesthetically and aromaticallysensual romantic farming. Re-embedding the butcher, baker, and candlestickmaker in the village. And ultimately about health-giving food grown moreproductively on less land than industrial models.

Certainly some of this clash representsthe difference between nurturing and dominating. The local heritage foodmovement—the raw milk movement—is all about respecting and honoring indigenouswisdom. The industrial mind-set worships techno-glitzy gadgetry and viewsheritage food advocates as simpletons and Luddites. Or dangerous criminals.

In this wonderful exposé TheRaw Milk Revolution, David Gumpert employs the bestjournalistic investigative techniques to examine this clash from the raw milkbattlefront. Be assured that the same mentality exists toward homemade pickles,home-cured meats, and cottage industry in general. The entrepreneurial spiritis alive and well in the food system, but it is harassed out of existence bycapricious, malicious, and prejudiced government agents who really do believethey are doing society a favor by denying food choice to Americans.

The same curative properties espoused byraw milk advocates exist in a host of other food products, from homemade poundcake and potpies to pepperoni and pastured chicken. Real food is what developedour internal intestinal community. And it sure didn’t develop on food fromConcentrated Animal Feeding Operations and genetically modified potatoes thatare partly human and partly tomato. Long after human cleverness has run itscourse, compost piles will still grow the best tomatoes and grazing cows willstill yield one of nature’s perfect foods: raw milk.

One of our former apprentices has juststarted a ten-cow herd-share arrangement with our customers. Here is a young,entrepreneurial, go-get-‘em farmer embarking on his dream, serving people whoare enjoying their dream of acquiring unadulterated milk. Can any arrangement,any relationship-between farmer and cow, cow and pasture, customer andproducer be more honorable, respectable, open, and trusting? Everything aboutthis is righteous, including respecting the individual enough to let her decidewhat to eat and what to feed her children.

Let the revolution continue.

Related Links:

Consumer Reports finds BPA traces in common canned foods

If you can’t beat ‘em, cheat ‘em

Will FDA take quotation marks off “Smart Choices” [UPDATED]

Indeed, once you take a good look at Issue 2, you see how truly weaselly it is. Eleven members of the 13 member board would be appointed by the governor (who also appoints the chairman). While spaces would be reserved for those consumer and humane society representatives, as well as for family farmers (who may also be large-scale factory farmers), the Ohio Farm Bureau Federation itself would not have underwritten at least $500,000 of the estimated $5 million Issue 2 campaign [PDF] if there were not a clear understanding of whose interests would ultimately prevail.

But far worse for Ohioans than the board’s makeup will be its influence. Issue 2 would write the LCSB into the Ohio State Constitution, rather into than the legal code—no half measures for Big Ag! Why would this be a problem? The group Ohio Against a Constitutional Takeover explains (via PDF):

The Livestock Care Standards Board, once cemented into the state constitution, would have the power to override any act by the Ohio Department of Agriculture or the state legislature, or any other initiative or referendum brought before the Ohio public other than an additional constitutional amendment. In effect, this means that any standard created by the Board is a final decision, giving it unchecked power over animal agriculture.

Nothing like the exercise of little raw power to put a spring in an industry’s step. To be clear, this board would have sole and supreme authority—it would take “self-regulation” to a ridiculous extreme. Again, short of amending the state’s constitution (which is more difficult than simply passing a referendum), voters, along with the state ag department and the state legislature, would lose any ability to control the livestock industry. They could, quite simply, do as they please.

The sad fact is that, in a low-turnout off-year election like tomorrow’s, the odds of passing this ludicrous amendment are surprisingly good. Yes, newspapers across the state both large and small are opposed. Groups from Farm Aid, to the Ohio Farmers Union to Food and Water Watch, and the Center for Food Safety have stated their opposition as well. But that durn LCSB sounds so professional and reform-minded! Why not just trust it?

Make no mistake, this is not just Ohio’s problem. Should this bit of governmental legerdemain succeed, a similar commission will likely be coming to a state near you. Big Ag isn’t even pretending it’s a one-off. Having been embarrassed at the polls in state after state when it’s gone up against the Humane Society, Big Ag is trying not so much to take but to steal Ohioans’ ball and go home. Let’s hope they fail.

Related Links:

I drink raw milk (sold illegally on the underground market)

Big meat tries to spin new antibiotics report [UPDATED]

CAFOs: ‘Above the Law’ like Steven Seagal?

I’m not talking fear-mongering Internet bandits here—guys who amplify their dubious screeds on large-type blogs. I’m talking about Sen. James Inhofe, ranking Republican on the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works; and Bob Stallman, President of the American Farm Bureau Federation, probably the nation’s most potent agribusiness interest group.

The two have opened an assault on the Senate climate bill—on the assumption that human-induced climate change is a hoax. Click here (via Farm Policy blog) to hear the two chat about how the real threat to agriculture going forward isn’t climate change, but rather climate change legislation.

Their exchange is most notable for its utter banality—just a couple of regular guys shooting the breeze about kiboshing the government’s first serious effort to avert climate calamity.

DTN Ag Policy Editor Chris Clayton (via Farm Policy blog) gave the following summary of Stallman’s testimony before the committee.

Scientists and officials who believe climate change is caused by human industrial emissions make the claim that agriculture will be one of the most affected sectors because farming and livestock production are sensitive to weather changes. Stallman questions the logic.

“‘Before you ask that question, implicit is the assumption that all of that [climate change] is going to happen,’ Stallman said.”

Clayton added:

Stallman said the organization [the Farm Bureau] has a lot of skepticism about the science and the process the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change used to come to its conclusions on climate change. Congress should at least hold hearings to consider the scientists and climatologists who disagree with the IPCC data and analysis, Stallman said.

The Farm Bureau’s Bob Stallman: Climate what? Hey, let’s grow more corn and meat!Now, this is not just idle denialist banter. Stallman worked closely with House Ag Committee chair Collin Peterson to turn the House climate bill into yet another sop for Big Ag. He has vowed to do the same with the Senate bill—if he can’t kill it outright.

As for Stallman’s dear friend Sen. Inhofe, he’s reportedly preparing to trip up the climate bill by leading a boycott of the Environment and Public Works committee’s vote.

But then again, maybe Michael Specter doesn’t have any special problem with these two distinguished gentlemen. In his book Denialism, Specter ignores climate-change deniers and instead attacks critics of GMO agriculture, which he presents as the solution to climate change. With the climate crisis so neatly solved, I suppose, there’s no need to curb GHG emissions. Specter envisions a future in which “genetically engineered organisms .. propel our cars and sustain our factories” amid melted ice sheets and rising seas.

Stallman and Inhofe, too, bow before the awesome power of GMOs.

So heave away, boys! Let us move bravely into the future, knowing that our political system can’t deal with climate change, but that guys in white lab coats working for Monsanto can. Or so they assure us!

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The ‘party of no’ becomes the ‘party of slow’

Kay Hagan (D-N.C.)

The Climate Post: The gods must be crazy

—————-

In the late 18th century, Edward Gibbon fretted about getting into trouble for his blunt take on the early Christians. Short summary: their intolerance and stupidity unwittingly helped bring down Rome. In the above-quoted passage of his Decline and Fall, Gibbon tried to prepare the gentle reader for his coming exposé of early-church idiocy.

Like the great institutions of European Christianity, modern science has amassed tremendous power—and not always lived up to its founding creeds. Science needs a Gibbon—someone who appreciates its intellectual grandeur and potential, but who also can train a cold eye on the “inevitable mixture of error and corruption” that has accompanied its tenure since the Enlightenment.

That Gibbon is not Michael Specter, a New Yorker staff writer and author of the new book Denialism: How Irrational Thinking Hinders Scientific Progress, Harms the Planet, and Threatens Our Lives. His book purports to defend science from its philistine critics—people who, in Specter’s view, reflexively deny the validity of the scientific process.

In his intro, Specter sets up the defining focus of the book. He contrasts the “rigorous and open-minded skepticism of science” with “the inflexible certainty of ideological commitment” (i.e., “denialism”). Already, we’re on thin intellectual ice; Specter evidently believes in a pure science, one that exists completely apart from ideology. In Gibbon’s phrasing, he’s defending a science as “she descended from Heaven [read: the Enlightenment], arrayed in her native purity.”

Menace to society? An organic farmer, with bounty. According to Denialism, organic farming threatens millions in Africa. According to the UN, not so much. But science doesn’t exist in an ideal state. Like the arts, it lives on its patrons—and their interests shape its contours. Here in the United States, public funding for universities and research has plummeted since the Reagan era. Into that void have stepped monied interests—corporations more inclined to finance the generation of proprietary knowledge than the sort of pure science Specter so values.

Does this factor automatically invalidate the scientific enterprise? Of course not. But anyone who takes on the topic of modern science has to account for it—or risk playing the fool. Specter blithely ignores the political economy of science as it is practiced. That oversight severely limits the value of his book.

But there’s another, even more glaring oversight at work here. In a book devoted to “denialism,” and “how irrational thinking hinders scientific progress, harms the planet, and threatens our lives,” there is almost no discussion of the most powerful and successful of all the denier cliques: those who insist human-induced climate change is a hoax.

So what do we find in these pages? We get a chapter defending the pharmaceutical industry against critics who question its wares—an industry with nearly $300 billion in sales in the U.S. alone, and fast-growing markets overseas. Specter’s defense aside, Big Pharma typically vies with “oil and mining” and “commercial banks” for the title of most profitable industry in the United States.

There’s a chapter decrying those who question the necessity of vaccinations—even as global child vaccine rates continue to rise. (Indeed, according to a recent report, the main factor holding vaccines back isn’t denialism, but rather their heightened cost.)

We get a chapter lambasting what Specter calls the “organic fetish”—even though organic food sales remain less than 5 percent of the U.S. market (as Specter acknowledges). But really, this chapter (more on which below) amounts to a ringing defense of genetically modified organisms—which can now be found in 75 percent+ of the offerings on supermarket shelves.

Another chapter blasts the herbal remedy and supplement market—substantial at $23 billion in sales per year (according to this report), but still a fraction of the pharma market’s size.

In other words, Specter mainly trains his sights on unsuccessful or marginally empowered “deniers,” such as those challenging the pharma behemoth or vaccines for children.

But what about the successful deniers—the ones who have managed to block any meaningful response to climate change from the federal government, and are even now fouling up the effort to pass an effective climate bill? These folks, part of a loosely concerted movement funded largely by the oil and coal industries, get barely a mention in Denialism; they certainly don’t rate a chapter.

The book’s index has no entry for “climate change.” The entry for “Global warming” cites just one page—a reference to genetically modified foods as a “solution” to global warming. 

Does this mean that Specter thinks Monsanto’s critics—of whom I am one—pose more of threat to humanity than the likes of Sen. James Inhofe, who airs his views not in a blog but on the floor of the U.S. Senate? Monsanto has certainly shaken off its deniers; it now dominates the U.S. corn, soy, and cotton seed markets. The movement to mitigate climate change hasn’t been so lucky.

Specter’s failure to consider this most successful foray into denialism just astounds me.  Did an author really just publish a book about “denialism”—and forget to address climate-change deniers? It’s like writing a book about the British invasion of the 1960s, and neglecting to mention the Beatles and the Rolling Stones.

OK, so what’s in Specter’s chapter on organics and GMOs? Astonishingly, not very much science. Two major assumptions underlie it: organic agriculture delivers frightfully low yields, and GMO agriculture delivers reassuringly high yields. He doesn’t deliver data to back up either of those claims. Here are two studies, both of which came out in time for consideration in Denialism, that Specter really should have grappled with: 1) a 2009 study by the Union of Concerned Scientists showing that after decades of research, transgenic seeds have yet to deliver yield increases; and 2) a 2005 study in Bioscience (summary here) showing that yields of organically grown corn and soy match those of their conventional counterparts—with dramatically lower energy inputs.

Straddling his two wobbly, undefended givens about GMO and organic yields, Specter leaps to the conclusion that proponents of organic agriculture are dooming millions to starvation. Or as he puts it:

An organic universe sounds delightful, but it would consign millions in Africa and in much of Asia to malnutrition and death.

To hear Specter tell it, the only thing standing between the African continent and a future marked by widespread famine is a complete surrender to GMO technology. But in declaring that vision, he’s brazenly denying the conclusions of the largest and most comprehensive study on the future of agriculture in the global south, the International Assessment of Agricultural Science and Technology for Development (IAASTD).

Under the auspices of the United Nations, World Bank, WHO, and other institutions, the IAASTD gathered 400 scientists and development experts from dozens of nations to assess the very problems that concern Specter. A three-year project, it has been called the IPCC of agriculture. Its conclusion: agroecological practices—including the very organic-farming techniques Specter finds so frightful—are at least as important as biotechnology in terms of “feeding the world” in the decades to come.

The study [PDF] is at best lukewarm on GMOs. It openly doubts whether GMOs actually increase yields; and deplores the patent regime that now governs them. The IAASTD states:

In developing countries especially, instruments such as patents may drive up costs, restrict experimentation by the individual farmers or public researchers while also potentially undermining local practices that enhance food security and economic sustainability. In this regard, there is particular concern about present IPR instruments eventually inhibiting seed-saving, exchange, sale and access to proprietary materials necessary for the independent research community to conduct analyses and long term experimentation on impacts. Farmers face new liabilities: GM farmers may become liable for adventitious presence if it causes loss of market certification and income to neighboring organic farmers, and conventional farmers may become liable to GM seed producers if transgenes are detected in their crops.

The IAASTD turned out to be so unenthusiastic about GMOs, in fact, that Croplife International, the trade group for the globe’s dominant GMO/agrichemical purveyors, angrily pulled out of participation shortly before its release.

I’m not blasting Specter for refusing to agree with the IAASTD’s conclusions; but I do find it inexcusable that he failed to grapple with this vast scientific undertaking. In doing so, he lurches toward a kind of denialism of his own.

Generally, he might have more fully engaged the major literature on ag development in the global south. He glancingly refers to the FAO’s 2003-‘04 “State of Food and Agriculture” paper that gave tepid support for GMOs among poor farmers (while stressing that they’re “not a panacea”). Yet Specter ignores a more recent paper (this one from 2008, by the U.N. Conference on Trade and Development) that’s directly relevant to the topic of his chapter: its on the potential of organic ag in Africa. The paper concludes:

Organic agriculture can increase agricultural productivity and can raise incomes with low-cost, locally available and appropriate technologies, without causing environmental damage. Furthermore, evidence shows that organic agriculture can build up natural resources, strengthen communities and improve human capacity, thus improving food security by addressing many different causal factors simultaneously ... Organic and near-organic agricultural methods and technologies are ideally suited for many poor, marginalized smallholder farmers in Africa, as they require minimal or no external inputs, use locally and naturally available materials to produce high-quality products, and encourage a whole systemic approach to farming that is more diverse and resistant to stress.

Again, no need to agree with every science-based report that praises organic ag. But to pretend such papers don’t exist is poor journalism. Judging from his organic chapter, Specter spent a lot of time trolling the aisles at Whole Foods, marvelling at the simplistic comments of the shoppers. Fine. I have no doubt that he heard silly, science-denying things there. But where is the push to find the intersections between organic and science—such at the Rodale Institute in Pennsylvania, which has for years been running a test organic farm, complete with control farm? The results of its work, often in conjunction with USDA researchers, show that innovative organic techniques have at least as much promise for mitigating and surviving climate change as some patent-protected transgenic seed cooked up in a Monsanto lab.

Scientific output is messy and full of contradictions. And that brings me back to my broader critique of this book: that Specter defends an ideal, objective science that doesn’t exist in this world. There is no greater case study of the grubbiness of real-world science than the rise of Specter’s beloved GMOs.

(I’m still marveling at this statement, from the introduction: “I wonder, as the ice sheet in Greenland disappears, the seas rise, and our sense of planetary foreboding grows, will denialists consider the genetically engineered organisms that propel our cars and sustain our factories as a continuation of what [organic champion] Lord Melchett described as a war against nature?”)

GMOs are hardly a product of the kind of pure and objective science that Specter celebrates. Indeed, the few companies involved in GMO seed production have been accorded such extraordinary intellectual property power by the U.S. government that research scientists have risen up in rebellion.

In an article published in February of this year—maybe too late for consideration by Specter—The New York Times reported that 26 corn-insect specialists signed a letter to the EPA complaining that “no truly independent research [on GMOS] can be legally conducted on many critical questions” because the patent-holding companies have so much power over research. From the Times:

The problem, the scientists say, is that farmers and other buyers of genetically engineered seeds have to sign an agreement meant to ensure that growers honor company patent rights and environmental regulations. But the agreements also prohibit growing the crops for research purposes.

Shockingly, “The researchers ... withheld their names [from the EPA letter] because they feared being cut off from research by the companies.” Now there’s an example of scientists who are free to pursue the path of truth!

I’d also urge Specter to read a paper by Don Lotter, published early this year in the International Journal of the Sociology of Food and Agriculture. Lotter’s paper, provocatively titled “The Genetic Engineering of Food and The Failure of Science,” shows how the collapse of biology’s “central dogma”—theone-gene, one-trait thesis that fell apart with the mapping of thehuman genome—exposed GM plant breeding as a rather crude tool. He traces the rise of GMOs, convincingly arguing that political and economic power, not scientific rigor, have driven the technology’s ascent.

But political and economic power are precisely what elude Specter’s gaze. This great defender of science appears to be cursed with something that a love of science should have cured: naiveté. To be sure, the kind of know-nothing, reflexive anti-scienticism that Specter deplores certainly exists; and its adherents need a kick in the pants. Specter’s boot misses the target. Moreover, he sees deniers everywhere, except where they are actually powerful and effective: denying climate change.

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As a member of both the Environment & Public Works Committee and the Agriculture Committee, Gillibrand will be heavily involved in the development of the Kerry-Boxer clean-energy bill. She is considered a likely “yes” vote, and her advocacy for the bill has had three notable features, each reflecting her state’s interests:

We asked Sen. Gillibrand about these issues, and she was gracious enough to answer the questions via video (full transcript below):

Here’s the full transcript:

——-

Hi, I’m Senator Kirsten Gillibrand from New York. I’m pleased to be here today to answer some questions from Grist.org on climate change legislation.

Question #1: The first question asks: Do other senators share your support for EPA Clean Air Act authority? Will it survive the coming negotiations?

Absolutely. Other senators do share my view on this issue, but for a number of the senators who don’t serve on the [Environment & Public Works] Committee they haven’t been as engaged yet on this discussion, which is why they need to hear from constituents like you so that they know how important it is that they preserve the Clean Air Act. These protections, as you know, are critical to New York ‘cause we are the ones that suffer from a lot of the air pollution that comes across the country from coal-fired plants. We suffer from acid rain, we suffer particularly in the Adirondacks increasing contamination in all of our rivers and streams. In New York you can only eat one fish a month because of the high mercury content in our waters. And we also have a growing asthma rate throughout our state, so for me this is a critical issue that I will continue to fight for.

Question #2: Second question. How are you working to persuade your Senate colleagues to support the creation of a carbon market involving many financial instruments?

I’m very concerned that we make sure we have a robust financial market that will fuel investments in carbon reductions. I think it’s very important that we have proper oversight and accountability, good regulations that provide transparency, and also capital requirements. I think this kind of regulation will be a derivative market that will be regulated through the [Commodity Futures Trading Commission], and I think it’s critical that we regulate this alongside the other derivatives legislation that we are going to do. We want to make sure that capital is available for investing in clean energy generation like large-scale wind and solar projects, so we have to make sure that we have the kind of products that are necessary to do this. I’ve been advocating for both standardized products and customized products with oversight and accountability and capital requirements for both.

Question #3: Third, What type of measures would you like added to the climate change bill to serve the interests of farmers?

Well, I think farmers can play a very important part in this climate change bill. We want to make sure that the agriculture section can achieve the overall parts of the bill or the overall goals of the bill which is to make sure there is verifiable reductions in carbon emissions, but there are so many opportunities for our farmers whether they’re going to be part of wind energy or solar energy or whether they’re going to be part of anaerobic digesters and cellulosic ethanol, they have a lot of opportunity to be part of the climate change bill and do those offsets by the things they can create throughout agriculture. We also want to make sure that our farmers have the resources and technical assistance available for smaller projects and working with aggregators who can connect for example multiple dairy farms for large methane digestive projects or make the project not just achieve reductions but also be economically feasible for those farms who are participating. So there is a lot of opportunity out there and I just want to make sure our farmers have a voice in this climate change bill.

Question #4: Fourth question: Which Senate Republicans do you think will support climate change legislation?

Answer: Well, I really think this issue is not about Democrats or Republicans, I think climate change is not going to wait for anybody so we need to bring colleagues together to actually achieve results. I think Senator Graham, Senator McCain have both spoken out in favor of climate change in the past, and I’m hopeful that they will join us in our efforts. But the bottom line is, as Chairman Boxer said, that this is something we all have to care about. It’s the future of our country, its our national security, its our economic strength, and it’s the one thing that’s going to turn around global climate change, so I think we will have a lot of allies in this and my goal is that for all Americans we need to support these kinds of efforts to achieve energy independence, grow green jobs in a clean economy, and stop all of the threats of global climate change.

I want to thank Grist.org for giving me the opportunity to discuss these very important issues. The Clean Energy Jobs and American Power Act will lead to long-term economic prosperity, energy security, and the protection of our environment for generations to come.

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Worse, the devastating effects on the surrounding communities and ecosystems are hushed by the cruel corporatism wrapped around this crime. Once beautiful curves rising out of the landscape, now at their peak in breathtaking seasonal colors, are chopped off, their “fill” dumped carelessly at the wayside.

Stop the horrors of pumpkintop removal!Tonya RicksIf you aren’t familiar with this heartless crime against nature, allow me to introduce you to the horrors of ... pumpkintop removal.

Yes, every year field upon field of ripe pumpkins, bright orange jewels of the autumn landscape, have their peaks hacked off and their rich, wholesome innards scooped out and cast away. The pumpkin—the most beloved of squashes, and yet, the most abused. Why not turn them to better uses, such as warm and delicious pumpkin and white bean chili?

Most people haven’t a clue about the seasonality of food, but they know what time of year to expect this godly gourd. Another lesson lost in eating seasonally and locally! Instead, so many of us choose to bulldoze pumpkin tops and stab and scrape out the flesh, with little regard for its value beyond a few roasted seeds. Most often, these vibrant veggie globes are reduced to hollowed-out shells of their former selves, offering nothing more than a gruesome, flickering smile.

OK, so the real and insidious threat cloaked in the night is probably not pumpkintop removal. However, the terrors I described are very genuine for many people living in the hollows of Appalachia, those who have to deal with the effects of mountaintop removal coal mining. Mountain peaks are leveled off and their guts (minus thin layers of coal) tossed in valleys and streams, raising the risks of flash floods and leaching chemical and heavy metal pollution into streams that are the source of drinking water for thousands. On top of all this, local residents are forced to live with the bone-rattling blasts as the mountaintops fall around them.

And the spookiest part is that all of this is legal in the United States. Is there a more frightening story I could tell this Halloween?

(Because I don’t want to give anyone nightmares,  I will note that, after intense pressure on their part, anti-mountaintop removal activists feel the tide is beginnning to turn in favor of ending this destructive practice.) But let’s not forget that the scariest ghost stories of all are the ones that are true.

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