posted 01-24- 07:47 AM               

In George W. Bush's First year in office he:

1. Significantly eased field-testing controls of genetically engineered
crops.
2. Cut federal spending on libraries by $39 million.
3. Cut $35 million in funding for doctors to get advanced pediatric
training.
4. Cut by 50% funding for research into renewable energy sources.
5. Revoked rules that reduced the acceptable levels of arsenic in
drinking water.
6. Blocked rules that would require federal agencies to offer bilingual
assistance to non-English speaking persons. This, from a candidate who
would readily fire-up his Spanish-speaking skills in front of would- be
Hispanic voters.
7. Proposed to eliminate new marine protections for the Channel Islands
and the coral reefs of northwest Hawaii (San Francisco Chronicle, April
6, 2001).
8. Cut funding by 28% for research into cleaner, more efficient cars
and trucks.
9. Suspended rules that would have strengthened the government's
ability to deny contracts to companies that violated workplace safety,
environmental and other federal laws.
10. OK'd Interior Department appointee Gale Norton to send out letters
to state officials soliciting suggestions for opening up national
monuments for oil and gas drilling, coal mining, and foresting.
11. Appointed John Negroponte - an un-indicted high-level Iran Contra
figure to the post of United Nations Ambassador.
12. Abandoned a campaign pledge to invest $100 million for rain forest
conservation.
13. Reduced by 86% the Community Access Program for public hospitals,
clinics and providers of care for people without insurance.
14. Rescinded a proposal to increase public access to information about
the potential consequences resulting from chemical plant accidents.
15. Suspended rules that would require hard rock miners to clean up
sites on Western public lands.
16. Cut $60 million from a Boy's and Girl's Clubs of America program
for public housing.
17. Proposed to eliminate a federal program, designed and successfully
used in Seattle, to help communities prepare for natural disasters.
18. Pulled out of the 1997 Kyoto Treaty global warming agreement.
19. Cut $200 million of work force training for dislocated workers.
20. Eliminated funding for the Wetlands Reserve Program, which
encourages farmers to maintain wetlands habitat on their property.
21. Cut program to provide child care to low-income families as they
move from welfare to work.
22. Cut a program that provided prescription contraceptive coverage to
federal employees (though it still pays for Viagra).
23. Cut $700 million in capital funds for repairs in public housing.
24. Appointed Otto Reich - an un-indicted high-level Iran Contra figure
- to Assistant Secretary of State for Inter-American Affairs.
25. Cut Environmental Protection Agency budget by $500 million.
26. Proposed to curtail the ability of groups to sue in order to get an
animal placed on the Endangered Species List.
27. Rescinded the rule that mandated increased energy-saving efficiency
regulations for central air conditioners and heat pumps.
28. Repealed workplace ergonomic rules designed to improve worker
health and safety.
29. Abandoned campaign pledge to regulate carbon dioxide, the waste gas
that contributes to global warming.
30. Banned federal aid to international family planning programs that
offer abortion counseling with other independent funds.
31. Closed White House Office for Women's Health Initiatives and
Outreach.
32. Nominated David Lauriski - ex-mining company executive - to post of
Assistant Secretary of Labor for Mine Safety and Health.
33. OK'd Interior Secretary Gale Norton to go forth with a
controversial plan to auction oil and gas development tracts off the
coast of eastern Florida.
34. Announced intention to open up Montana's Lewis and Clark National
Forest to oil and drilling.
35. Proposes to re-draw boundaries of nation's monuments, which would
technically allow oil and gas drilling "outside" of national monuments.
36. Gutted White House AIDS Office.
37. Renegotiating free trade agreement with Jordan to eliminate
workers's rights and safeguards for the environment.
38. Will no longer seek guidance from The American Bar Association in
recommendations for the federal judiciary appointments.
39. Appointed recycling foe Lynn Scarlett as Undersecretary of the
Interior.
40. Took steps to abolish the White House Council on Environmental
Quality.
41. Cut the Community Oriented Policing Services program.
42. Allowed Interior Secretary Gale Norton to shelve citizen-led
grizzly bear re-introduction plan scheduled for Idaho and Montana
wilderness.
43. Continues to hold up federal funding for stem cell research
projects.
44. Makes sure convicted misdemeanor drug users cannot get financial
aid for college, though convicted murderers can.
45. Refused to fund continued cleanup of uranium-slag heap in Utah.
46. Refused to fund continued litigation of the government's tobacco
company lawsuit.
47. Proposed a $2 trillion tax cut, of which 43% will go to the
wealthiest 1% of Americans.
48. Signed a bill making it harder for poor and middle-class Americans
to file for bankruptcy, even in the case of daunting medical bills.
49. Appointed a Vice President quoted as saying "If you want to do
something about carbon dioxide emissions, then you ought to build
nuclear power plants." (Vice President Dick Cheney on "Meet the
Press.")
50. Appointed Diana "There is no gender gap in pay" Roth to the Council
of Economic Advisers. (Boston Globe, March 28, 2001.)
51. Appointed Kay Cole James - an opponent of affirmative action - to
direct the Office of Personnel Management.
52. Cut $15.7 million earmarked for states to investigate cases of
child abuse and neglect.
53. Helped kill a law designed to make it tougher for teenagers to get
credit cards.
54. Proposed elimination of the "Reading is Fundamental" program that
gives free books to poor children.
55. Is pushing for development of small nuclear arm to attack deeply
buried targets and weapons, which would violate the Comprehensive Test
Ban Treaty.
56. Proposes to nominate Jeffrey Sutton - attorney responsible for the
recent case weakening the Americans with Disabilities Act- to federal
appeals court judgeship.
57. Proposes to reverse regulation protecting 60 million acres of
national forest from logging and road building.
58. Eliminated funding for the "We the People" education program which
taught School children about the Constitution, the Bill of Rights and
citizenship.
59. Appointed John Bolton - who opposes nonproliferation treaties and
the U.N. - to Undersecretary of State for Arms Control and
International Security.
60. Nominated Linda Fisher - an executive with Monsanto - for the
number-two job at the Environmental Protection Agency.
61. Nominated Michael McConnell - leading critic of the separation of
church and state - to a federal judgeship.
62. Nominated Terrence Boyle - ardent opponent of civil rights - to a
federal judgeship.
63. Canceled 2004 deadline for automakers to develop prototype high
mileage cars.
64. Nominated Harvey Pitts - lawyer for teen sex video distributor - to
head SEC.
65. Nominated John Walters - strong opponent of prison drug treatment
programs - for Drug Czar. (Washington Post, May 16, 2001.)
66. Nominated J. Steven Giles - an oil and coal lobbyist - for Deputy
Secretary of the Interior.
67. Nominated Bennett Raley - who advocates repealing the Endangered
Species Act - for Assistant Secretary for Water and Science
68. Is seeking the dismissal of class-action lawsuit filed in the U.S.
against Japan by Asian women forced to work as sex slaves during WWII.
69. Earmarked $4 million in new federal grant money for HIV and drug
abuse prevention programs to go only to religious groups and not
secular equivalents.
70. Reduced by 40% the Low Income Home Assistance Program for
low-income individuals who need assistance paying energy bills.
71. Nominated Ted Olson- who has repeatedly lied about his involvement
with the Scaiffe-funded "Arkansas Project" to bring down Bill Clinton -
for Solicitor General.
72. Nominated Terrance Boyle - foe of civil rights - to a federal
judgeship.
73. Proposes to ease permit process - including environmental
considerations - for refinery, nuclear and hydroelectric dam
construction. (Washington Post, May 18, 2001.)
74. Proposes to give government the authority to take private property
through eminent domain for power lines.
75. Proposes that $1.2 billion in funding for alternative renewable
energy come from selling oil and gas lease tracts in the Alaska
National Wildlife Reserve.
76. Plans on serving genetically engineered foods at all official
government functions.
77. Forced out Forest Service chief Mike Dombeck and appointed a timber
industry lobbyist.

posted 01-25- 12:17 AM               

Thanks,

Werner

------------------
Werner Molders

Abbeville Field: Dedicated to the SDOE Experience.

posted 01-25- 12:36 AM               

Here's one on Bill Clinton,
"Clinton Appoints Former Monsanto & Tobacco Lobbyist as
"Consumer Representative" to Global Biotech Forum." And another, "Clinton praised Monsanto in his State of the Union speech last January, while he was facing impeachment. The
company is one of three big funders of Clinton's welfare-to-work programme and has paid the American Medical Association and others to promote positive information about GM food.
"http://www.socialistfuture.org.uk/livingplanet/articles/monsanto.htm inheritance

posted 01-25- 10:48 AM               

I'm glad someone is keeping track of this
shit. I'll agree the post shouldn't have gone
in Jade's but otherwise good job Killer-Ants.

posted 01-25- 12:18 PM               

I agree with almost every item on that list... I started to itemize my list... but most made perfect sense to me... or I had no idea of the details of the issue.

posted 01-25- 12:51 PM               

Thanks for this info. If I may ask though (those of you who know me, know what's coming), what are the sources and how much of it is backed up by additional sources. I want to use the information next campaign to hopefully re-take the House and increase the Democratic* majority in the Senate. However, I for one do not believe that everyone's opinions are equal. As they say, opinions are like assholes, everybody has one. Being able to back up my opinions with solid,verifiable facts rather than the anecdotal stuff one gets from so many people, would be a great help. I'm going to work on verifying it myself, but any information you can give me would be great.

*Don't get me wrong, the Democrats are no saints, I generally view them as the lesser evil. For me at least, their social and environmental positions (in general, there are always exceptions) are enough to put me in their camp most of the time.

posted 01-25- 01:11 PM               

The Brits can't even get along with a next door neighbor (Ireland) and they feel they should be telling us how to run our internal affairs. When Brazil quits destroying the rain forest, which affects the whole world, then maybe I'll listen to Killer-Ants, but until then, shove it!

Most of the items are taken out of context. So called "cuts" in expenditures are often just cuts in "proposed" spending, not in actual spending. And many "cuts" are just transfers of funds to related activities. You need to know the background before passing judgement.

Items like the arsenic rules were merely delays to study items that Clinton passed just a few days before he left office...the arsenic rules, as proposed by Clinton, have now been accepted.

And library funding....unlike Britain and other countries where the central government runs everything, US libraries are funded locally, by cities and counties. Federal funding is a nit. My wife is a Librarian and she is hard pressed to come up with any examples of federal library funding. Hell, Bill Gates donates more to our lbraries than the Feds!

And Pediatric funding, the birth rate in the US is falling...who's to say that we need as many Pediatrician's in the future?

Bi-lingual assistance? Tell me Killer, if I move to Brazil will your government furnish me with English speaking teachers? California last year voted against bi-lingual education and you know what? The grades and test scores of immigrant kids went up when they were forced to learn in English! Bi-lingual education doesn't work! By the way, the majority of Hispanics in California voted to do away with it also.

I could go on, but the bottom line is..when the US does something that affects you,then talk about it. You don't know enough about US internal affairs to complain about them.

posted 01-25- 03:21 PM               

The destruction of the rain forest in fact does impact the whole world, not just Brazil!

My point is, you have to have pretty big balls to complain about a country (US) not investing $100 million in rain forest conservation (see item 12) when it's your own coutry (Brazil) which is destroying them! Charity begins at home.

Why doesn't the US ask for foreign aid to clean up the pollution in our air caused by our citizens buying SUV's? Makes as much sense.

posted 01-25- 03:28 PM               

"We have found traces in corn that has been grown organically for ten to
fifteen years," Arran Stephens, president of Nature's Path Foods, told The
New York Times in June. "There's no wall high enough to keep that stuff
contained.

The costs associated with trying to keep organic separated from genetically
modified seed are mounting. For farmers, it includes buffer zones, cleaning
equipment, inspections of crops and processing facilities, and frequent
testing. Seed testing costs on average about $10 a bag. After-harvest
testing can cost $400 per sample."

If you ask me, that's not fair to the organic farmer. So one can even try to take responsibility for ones on health and still get screwed. Health care is big money. We all know that. It's in all our best interest to stay healthy. There are places in Japan where living to be a healthy 100 is no big deal. Women losing their gallbladders in America are getting younger. In America we're bombarded with add after add on drugs. Take a drug to defecate, take one to have sex. This is from Reclaiming Our Health:
"CANCER MISTREATMENT?

Percentage of cancer patients whose lives are predictably saved by chemotherapy - 3%

Conclusive evidence (majority of cancers) that chemotherapy has any positive influcence
on survival or quality of life - none.

Percentage of oncologists who said if they had cancer they would not participate in
chemotherapy trials due to its "ineffectiveness and its unacceptable toxicity" - 75%

Percentage of people with cancer in the U.S. who receive chemotherapy - 75%.

Company that accounts for nearly half of the chemotherapy sales in the world -
Bristol-Meyers Squibb.

Chairman of the board of Bristol-Meyers - Richard L. Gelb.
Mr. Gelb's other job: vice chairman, board of overseers, board of managers,
Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, World's largest private cancer treatment
and research center.

Chairman, Memorial Sloan-Kettering's board of overseers, board of managers - John S.
Reed.

Reed's other job - director, Philip Morris (tobacco company).

Director, Ivax, Inc., a prominent chemotherapy company - Samuel Broder.

Broder's other job (until 1995) - executive director, National Cancer Institute."

And another interesting one from the press:

"BIOLOGIST CALLS SCIENTIFIC BASIS OF GENETIC ENGINEERING FLAWED

NEW YORK, New York, January 17, 2002 (ENS) - A new report charges that
a long overlooked flaw in the science behind genetic engineering
raises serious questions about the safety of genetically engineered
foods.

In a review of scientific literature, biologist Dr. Barry Commoner
argues that the bioengineering industry, which now accounts for 25 to
50 percent of the U.S. corn and soybean crop, relies on a 40 year old
theory that DNA genes are in total control of inheritance in all forms
of life.

According to this theory, which Commoner calls the "central dogma,"
the outcome of transferring a gene from one organism to another is
always "specific, precise and predictable" - and therefore safe.

Commoner summarizes a series of scientific reports that contradict
that dogma. For example, last year the $3 billion Human Genome Project
found there are too few human genes to account for the vast inherited
differences between people and lower animals or plants, indicating
that agents other than DNA must contribute to genetic complexity,
Commoner says.

The central dogma claims a one to one correspondence between a gene's
chemical composition and the structure of the protein that it
produces, Commoner explains. But under the influence of specialized
proteins that carry out alternative splicing, a single gene can give
rise to a variety of different proteins, resulting in more than a
single inherited trait per gene.

As a result, the gene's effect on inheritance cannot be predicted from
its chemical composition alone, which defeats one of the main purposes
of both the Human Genome Project and biotechnology, Commoner says.

Commoner's research sounds an alarm concerning the processes by which
agricultural biotechnology companies modify food crops. Scientists
assume the genes they insert into these plants always produce only the
desired effect, with no other impact on the plant's genetics.

But recent studies show that the plant's own genes can be disrupted in
modified plants. Such outcomes are undetected because there is little
or no governmental regulation of the industry, Commoner charges.

"Experimental data, shorn of dogmatic theories, point to the
irreducible complexity of the living cell," Commoner warns, "which
suggests that any artificially altered genetic system must sooner or
later give rise to unintended, potentially disastrous consequences."

"Genetically engineered crops represent a huge uncontrolled experiment
whose outcome is inherently unpredictable," Commoner concludes. "The
results could be catastrophic."

"Dr. Commoner's work challenges the legitimacy of the agricultural
biotechnology industry," said Andrew Kimbrell, director of the Center
on Food Safety. "For years, multibillion dollar biotech companies have
been selling the American people and our government on the safety of
their products. We now see their claims of safety are based on faulty
assumptions that don't hold up to rigorous scientific review."

posted 01-25- 04:15 PM               

"Because Brazil is burning rain forests is not a good reason for us not to try and improve our, and by extension, the world's,
environment."
------------------------------------------
Good point 3dp

Here's one fro the Brits
-------------------------------------------
Tony Blair accused environmentalists for putting “dogma and prejudice” before science and will encourage the Government to press further with trials of GM crops. Blair’s rebuke reflects the growing irritation that “green groups are never satisfied, constantly criticizing the Government but failing to
support it when it adopts environmentally friendly policies.”

posted 01-25- 04:30 PM               

As for genetic engineered food. Man has been genetically improving food for hundreds of years. It's called cross breeding and hybrid cross pollonization. Very little of what the world eats today is the same genetically as it was just a few hundred years ago. How do you think we obtain such high yields on wheat for example, or get so much meat from beef and chickens, etc.? If we hadn't done this over the years, millions more would have starved. Now, instead of taking years to develope better strains of food we can increase the speed of genetic mutation in the lab. Is there risk? Of course, all scientific advancement contains elements of risk. Using your thinking we should also abandon all medical research in improving medicines and cures for disease because some risk might be involved.

If our British and Brazilian friends are concerned about American genetically engineered food, then don't eat it!

Nice that you found a scientist against it. For everyone you find, I can find one who says man made global warming is BS. Do you listen to them, or only to the ones you agree with?

posted 01-25- 05:40 PM               

After all do you think issues such as those only referring to domestic policy would not make it to foreign newspapers and bulletins on TV & radio if someone, somewhere other than in America was taking an interest in them? I mean it's up to you if you don't think that what goes on in the UK effects you at all, in fact you are probably right in thinking so, but I do believe that changes in America will effect in someway the rest of the globe, simply because of the influence America holds. Thus I find all of Americas policies interesting.

Commentators who study other countries realise that in order to get the full picture of various nations (and a better picture of the world), their capabilities and leaders, you must look at those countries from all angles, domestic and foreign. Therefore it is entirely pertinent that foreigners should make comments on things that have any effect upon a country, especially when that particular country happens to be so important on the global stage.

posted 01-26- 12:17 AM               

They also approve a lot of stuff---things proven harmful for years. Not that drinking milk would be good for anyone anyway but, Bovine Growth Hormone anyone? The American public, much of the world, seems against this, but it's slipped in anyway.

Professor Mae Wan-Ho, of the UK Open University Department of Biology says, "Genetic engineering bypasses conventional breeding by using artificially constructed parasitic genetic elements, including viruses, as vectors to carry and smuggle genes into cells. Once inside cells,
these vectors slot themselves into the host genome. The insertion of foreign genes into the host genome has long been known to have many harmful and fatal effects including cancer of the
organism."

Dr. George Wald
* Nobel Laureate in Medicine (or Physiology) 1967
* Higgins Professor of Biology, Harvard University.
"Recombinant DNA technology [genetic engineering] faces our society with problems
unprecedented not only in the history of science, but of life on the Earth. It places in human hands the capacity to redesign living organisms, the products of some three billion years of
evolution."

This is from PCRM---they're the group that told us how heart disease could be reversed. Until then, most said it couldn't be done.
"Genetically Engineered Foods Quietly Take Over
You can kiss old-fashioned corn or soybeans good-bye. Monsanto and other biotech giants are marketing genetically engineered crops that have spread like an epidemic before the public noticed what was happening. The crops contain viral genes intended to make them resistant to insect damage or other adversities. But what effects these viral genetic components have as they enter the human body is unknown.
The American Soybean Association
estimates that genetically engineered
soybeans are now grown on 40 million
acres, or 55 percent of the total U.S. crop.
Genetically altered corn is close behind, at
35 percent. Organic soy and corn products,
if you can find them, are not genetically altered."

Dr Erwin Chargoff, often called the father of molecular
Biology, noting the 'awesome irreversibility' of genetic engineering experiments being planned, Chargoff
warned that, "...you cannot recall a new form of life...It will survive you and your children and your children's children. An irreversible attack on the biosphere is something so unheard of, so unthinkable to previous generations, that I could only wish that mine had not been guilty of it."

posted 01-26- 01:10 AM               

By the way, where do those starving farmers get all the heavy equipment (bulldozers, etc) that the news shows clearing the Brazilian rain forest. Bottom line is that it's not the starving farmers clearing millions of acres a year. That's some bleeding heart BS you dreamed up!

posted 01-27- 01:25 PM               

There's also the question of enlightened self-interest. To use an analogy like Jerry did, if my neighbor, who is a careless smoker who I've tried to get to stop for years to no avail, manages to set his house on fire, I could just stand there and say "Ha, serves you right!" as I would have every right to do, rather than help him fight the blaze. However, such a course of action would be of little consolation to me as I stood amongst the smoking ruins of my own home because the fire spread to mine because I did help to contain it when it was containable.

In short, we should all be doing our best to preserve the environment for all of our sakes. I spoke earlier of American elitism, but I was not quite on the mark. We are different in some ways as we are the richest, most powerful, most influencial, and most stable nation on Earth. Therefore, we shoulder a larger responsibilty than many nations dealing with double-digit unemployment, hyper-inflation, etc. (and yes I know much of that is their own fault, but much of it isn't). Thanks to our great good fortune of relative stability and freedom of information in the West, we certainly know better than many elsewhere in the world, and in contrast to many of those trouble-wracked nations, we have the capacity to to something about it, both at home and abroad. If we do not, the future will not forgive us.

posted 01-27- 02:24 PM               

i.e. Killer-Ant's country purposely destroys the rain forest, affecting everyone's oxygen supply and carbon dioxide levels, and Killer-Ant stands by doing nothing but complain about the US not giving his country $100 million to conserve the rain forest!

And yes, America should sholder a bigger burden than any other country. We already are. But countries needing help need to ask for it and need to participate in solving the problem. Point in fact, "Blackhawk Down" We were in Somalia to feed starving people and take down some of the war lords who were preventing the food relief. What happens? Tens of thousands of Somalians attacked, killed and brutalized the bodies of our troops. "Let them eat cake!"

posted 01-27- 03:31 PM               

Shit, it's just an analogy to make a point. If I spent all of my time picking apart your analogies because I didn't agree with your main point, I'd need a whole forum!

posted 01-27- 09:57 PM               

Oh and here, more on organic farming from John Robbins. Sorry it's so long, but some may find it interesting.

It has long been a myth that organic farming produces reduced yields compared to conventional farming systems, but that simply isn't true. The latest study on the subject was published in the April 18, 2001, issue of
the scientific journal Nature. The study was conducted by researchers at
Washington State University from 1994 to 1999, and compared organic, integrated,and conventional apple orchards.

The organic orchards did not use pesticides or synthetic fertilizers, and relied instead on Earth-friendly practices such as compost, mulch, and thinning fruit by hand. The integrated systems used compost and mulch, but also used herbicides and synthetic fertilizers. The conventional orchards relied on pesticides, synthetic fertilizers, and chemical fruit thinners.

As things turned out, all three systems
had similar apple yields, and there were
no significant differences in pest or
disease damage across the three apple
production systems. But the organic
orchards showed the highest soil quality,
environmental sustainability, profitability,
and energy efficiency.

The organic systems not only had the
least adverse environmental impact.
Consumer tests found that the organic
orchards also produced apples with the
most taste appeal. This preference stood
up over time. Consumers found that
organic apples tasted better than either
the conventional or integrated apples,
both at harvest and after six months of storage.

Although the organic system involved higher labor costs, they were more
profitable because the organic farmers did
not have to buy expensive chemicals, and
also because they were able to sell their
produce for a higher price.

This study dealt with apples, but similar
results have been found in studies done on
a vast array of food crops.

To my eyes, the movement toward organic
agriculture is one of the most promising transitions currently occurring in our society. I believe that one day people will look back upon these times with
amazement that we ever sought to grow our food with poisons.

posted 01-28- 01:13 PM               

An yes, I am certainly sympathetic to the lumberjack or mill worker. The difference here, is that the problems are rarely on the scale they are in the developing world and we do have some safety nets. Not much I know, I was just unemployed for over six months and about 70% of my unemployment check went just to pay for my family's health insurance, but at least it's something.

The problem with the lumber industry, defense industry, etc. is often (certainly not always) a poor business practices issue from what I've seen, heard, read, and experienced. I'll briefly relate my experience as a simple example. In the mid 90s, I worked for an outsourcing firm which for years had depended on government defense contracts for technical drawings. With the end of the Cold War, much of that work started to dry up. The firm I worked for, was wise enough to see that coming and diversified, starting a technical publications side to the business (that's why they hired me). Other similar firms around us went under because they kept their heads in the sand for so long and did not adapt.

Very often, the auto industry and others, would rather spend their money lobbying both Republican and Democratic legislators than to invest in the business and the future. I once heard it said a while back that that's why the Japanese car industry did so well in this country because their procedure was, and I'm paraphrasing here, "What do you want, restrictions, minimum MPG, and all, and we'll go away and make it". At the same time, the U.S. industry was just crying and moaning trying to put off new MPG requirements, etc.

As a people, we contribute to this too. Look how big and gas guzzling our cars have become again. However, if a fuel crunch comes again, just watch how fast that changes and companies who have chosen to live and die by the SUV will go crying to Congress.

The answer is often, be it lumberjacks in Oregon or farmers in Brazil, help them out with subsidies for a while and slowly wean them off of them, giving them time to adapt. Sometimes the answer is "You kept your head in the sand when you should have known better and could have done something about it so we're not going to help at all". And more often than not, the answer is somewhere in between. We can not look at countries, governments, industries, etc. as monolithic. There's a lot of variation within each and we should recognize that if we ever hope to deal with the problems effectively.

posted 01-28- 02:39 PM               

He calls it consumption and waste, in fact he is talking about productivity. Is he proposing that we should adopt the life styles of rural Brazil and Indonesia, to avoid "consumption, waste and pollution"? Or is he just slinging mud? What a stupid comparison in the first place, but consistant with liberal philospohy....anti-business, anti-capitalism, anti-wealth.

Maybe the question that should be asked is why rural Indonesia and rural Brazil are so 3rd world. What's wrong with their political and economic systems that hold them back? Interesting that he refers to "rural" areas. The urban centers of these developing countries are typically far more polluted than those in the US - littered streets, sewage, poor air quality.

posted 01-28- 03:44 PM               

Something positive about "government regulations" and "environmentalists". Jerry's sounding a bit 'liberal' to me! Face it, we're all for restricted capitalism and big government. Our modern life depends on both. The arguement, as always, is all a matter of degrees. Before Upton Sinclair's classic 'The Jungle' at the turn of the century, food safety regulations were considered anti-capitalist and the "big government" interference of the day, but we all take it for granted that our food is safe now thanks to said regulations.

Jerry makes a good point that consumption does not equal waste. We all have our lives to live. It's when that consumption becomes uneccesary and indulgent that I take issue, the 15MPG+- SUV craze for instance. Most people don't need them, drive them around themselves most of the time (i.e without passengers), and don't think what harm their doing to the environment and the future when they drive. "I can afford it and it's the cool new status symbol" is good enough such people.

We ALL need to do our part, from the U.S. to Brazil, from Indonesia to Germany. Because someone else is falling down on the job is not an excuse for us to shirk our responsibilities.

posted 01-28- 04:04 PM               

Paul Hawken:
"In fact, reducing resource use creates jobs and lessens the impact we have on the environment. We can grow, use fewer resources, lower taxes, increase per capita spending on the needy, end federal deficits, reduce the size of government, and begin to restore damaged environments, both natural and social."

And more:

"The lesson of Biosphere II is that there are no man-made substitutes for essential natural services. We have not come up with an economical way to manufacture watersheds, gene pools, topsoil, wetlands, river systems, pollinators, or fisheries. Technological fixes can't solve problems with soil fertility or guarantee clean air, biological diversity, pure water, and climatic stability; nor can they increase the capacity of the environment to absorb 25 billion tons of waste created annually in America alone."

Here's more by John Robbins:
Pandora's Feedlot

o Huge livestock farms are generating an estimated five tons of animal manure for every person in the US, says Iowa Senator Tom Harkin.

o In one day, a single hog farm produces the raw waste of a city of 12,000 people. In 1997, North Carolina's hogs are expected to produce as much waste as roughly five times the state's human population.

o In one year, a massive egg farm yields enough manure to fill 1,400 dump trucks

o Poultry farms in Arkansas alone produce 5,100 tons of manure each day.

o The 1,600 dairy farms in California's Central Valley generate more waste than 21 million people.

posted 01-28- 07:33 PM               

quote:

---

Originally posted by casualty26ac:
I called on the factory farm example to prove Peter Raven's point. The world population keeps growing. 260 million acres of forest have been cut down for cropland for animal-based farming. A study from University of California showed that it took 25 gallons of water to produce one pound of wheat; it takes 2,500 gallons to "make" a pound of meat.

---

And your point is?

posted 01-28- 10:30 PM               

You said "What a stupid comparison in the first place, but consistant with liberal philospohy....anti-business, anti-capitalism, anti-wealth." I was merely providing the proof, not compiled by myself, yet from reliable sources. Just like the study in the journal Nature proved regarding organic farming, we don't have to use poisons to grow food. I used raising animals for food, because it does more environmental damage than other U.S. industry. This causes more water pollution than any other source in the U.S.

posted 01-29- 06:30 AM               

So gentlemen, that´s all - for now

Cheers & Beers
K-A