Genetically-modified food: message from Greenpeace

An important vote on GMOs is due to take place on 7 May in Brussels. The agro-chemical industry wants to get EU permission to grow pesticide-producing maize plants and a GM potato that contains an antibiotic resistant gene. We want EU Commissioners to say NO when they discuss the applications on 7 May. Our petitions, postcards, emails, blog comments and actions have helped bring the EU to this historic moment. Now, this is it!

Can you join us in writing directly to all the European Commissioners this week?

The agro-chemical industry is already bombarding the Commission with lobbyists and messages. Greenpeace activists and campaigners are on the ground in Brussels, too. But with your voice, and your network of friends, we can deliver a louder, more direct message to Europe's top politicians.

We have contact details for all 27 European Commissioners, talking points you can use in your message to them, and links to further reading. The vast majority of EU citizens are opposed to GMOs, and emails direct from people who care ? in Europe, around the world ? can really work.

Please click here to take action.

Thank you for taking action before 7 May and for campaigning this far with us already.

Cohen: Bring on the right biofuels - International Herald Tribune

An attempt to put the biofuels issue into a wider perspective.

Cohen: Bring on the right biofuels - International Herald Tribune:

The supposed crimes of biofuels are manifold. They're behind soaring global commodity prices, the destruction of the Amazon rain forest, increased rather than diminished greenhouse gases, food riots in Haiti, Indonesian deforestation and, no doubt, your mother-in-law's toothache.

Most of this, to borrow a farm image, is hogwash and bilge.

I'll grant that the fashion for biofuels led to excess, and that some farm-to-fuel-plant conversion, particularly in subsidized U.S. and European markets, makes no sense. But biofuels remain very much part of the solution. It just depends which biofuels.

Any comments? Has he missed something?

Notes from underground: Biofuels and food prices

I meant to post this here, but posted it on my blog by mistake.

Notes from underground: Biofuels and food prices: "The Washington Post reports on its front page today: 'More than 100 million people are being driven deeper into poverty by a 'silent tsunami' of sharply rising food prices, which have sparked riots around the world and threaten U.N.-backed feeding programs for 20 million children, the top U.N. food official said Tuesday.'"

Peak Oil -- Elizaphanian

An Anglican priest has written several posts on his blog about Peak Oil. Well worth reading.

• My first post was The Great Dislocation which summarises the issue.
• Pledges describes some of what we need to do about it.
• Prophecy and Peak Oil is drawing on Walter Brueggemann to start exploring a theological response.
• Misplacing the Apocalypse is a theological critique of the 'doomers'.
• SUV Spirituality is a cultural critique of mindless consumerism.
• A Fully Wired Future describes why I'm optimistic.
• What I'm optimistic about describes my optimism about the church and the economic future.
• Review of Economist article on Peak Oil points out how useless The Economist is.
• It's the secondary effects, stupid describes what I am most worried about.
• The Holiness of Stuart Staniford describes what I admire about the intellectual exploration of Peak Oil.
• Loose Tappets gives an image describing why some people just don't 'get it'.

Flood: Faith and the Environment Collide - Synchroblog for April 16, 2008

Flood: Faith and the Environment Collide - Synchroblog for April 16, 2008: "Here’s the short version: consumption of fossil fuels throws CO2 into the air. Much of the CO2 stays in the atmosphere a century or more. There is so much CO2 in the atmosphere now, it is affecting the global climate. With more CO2 in the atmosphere, more heat is trapped in the atmosphere. Air and land temperatures warm up, then polar ice starts to melt. In the Arctic, the ice is replaced by sea water, which absorbs more heat than ice. As the water absorbs the heat, Arctic water temperatures rise, causing additional ice melt.

All of this contributes to climate change. There are places in the world that got snow this winter for the first time in years, and the rest of us had pretty brutal winters compared to what we’re used to having, but despite short-term variation, the long-term trend is clearly toward increasing average global temperatures."

Notes from the SAFCEI conference

SAFCEI AGM AND CONFERENCE --31 MARCH – 2 APRIL 2008

Over fifty members of SAFCEI gathered at St Peter’s Place in Johannesburg at the beginning of April to hear theologians from different faith traditions and an array of experts on economics, the environment and climate change.

Among the theologians providing input were Professors Tinyiko Maluleke, Ernst Conradie and Klaus Nürnberger. Energy Consultant Eric Mair, Dr Anthony Turton of the CSIR and Peter Lukey of the Department of Environmental Affairs and Tourism, along with other contributors provided the hard scientific facts and projected outcomes of our present wasteful consumption of resources.

A theme that ran through most of the presentations was the disproportionate effect that the current situation had on the poor and marginalised in South Africa. Despite the heavy burden of responsibility placed on members of faith communities, and the gloomy predictions about the future, the conference members were, never the less, optimistic. It was felt that, by the concerted, effective mobilisation of civil society, working together with the scientific community and relevant government agencies, it was still possible to make a significant difference.

In his keynote address, Professor Ernst Conradie of the University of the Western Cape, highlighted South Africa’s high per-capita carbon emissions, rampant consumerism, the vulnerability of the marginalised and desertification. He also offered some effective guidelines for faith communities to get their message across more effectively.

Delegates affirmed that the need to consciously stress the spiritual dimensions of the environmental problem and solutions. Care of the created order was primarily a moral issue. Neither science nor faith, on their own, could provide all the answers that were needed.

Director sums it all up

Bishop Geoff Davies, Executive Director of SAFCEI, in his concluding remarks, noted that the conference had succeeded in providing input from highly qualified and concerned individuals from the scientific, religious and civil society communities.
“The care of creation” he said, “is central to our calling. There is an urgent need for the development of poverty alleviation and job creation programmes. We want to be able to achieve sustainable growth, provided the environment is not further destroyed.

“We have more in common than that which divides us” he continued. In thanking the outgoing Management Committee, he referred to them as an excellent example of people of different faiths and cultures who are working together harmoniously for the
welfare of this “broken and fractured world.”

Bishop Davies also paid tribute to all those others who had worked so effectively to get the organisation off the ground and into the public sphere. However, he continued, there was a lot of work needed to raise SAFCEI’s profile at local, regional and national levels in both the various faith communities and civil society.
He endorsed what several speakers had said, that the leaders of faith communities need to be involved in the organisation. During the Annual General Meeting, Bishop Davies was mandated to make personal contact with as many faith leaders as possible.
He welcomed the undertaking made by Valli Moosa to facilitate a meeting of the Board of Management with members of the Board of Eskom, and stressed the point made by several speakers that government needs to listen to the message of both the scientific and civil society sectors.

In concluding, he had a special word of gratitude for SAFCEI’s Office Secretary, Di Mellon, for all the administrative work she had put in.

He felt that SAFCEI, which was a movement for ecological sustainability, social justice and spiritual renewal, had been challenged by the presentations and comments of the speakers and delegates. The message now needed to be taken to regional
and local faith communities.

New SAFCEI Management Committee for 2008

• Bishop Geoff Davies (Exec Director, Anglican)
• Ms Tahirih Matthee (Chairperson, Baha’i)
• Mr Shaun Cozett (Vice-Chair, Anglican, DWAF)
• Mr Peter Just (Buddhist)
• Mr John Clark (Roman Catholic)
• Rev Tim Gray (Jo’burg Anglican Diocese)
• Ms Grace Makhudu (Anglican, Ceasefire Campaign)
• Dr Dorie Moodley (Hindu Maha Saba)
• Rev Andrew Warmback (Anglican, Diocese of Natal Environment Committee)
• Dr Mohamed Karodia (Council of Muslim Theologians)
• Prof Ernst Conradie (Uniting Reformed, UWC)
• Ms Kate Davies (EEASA, Anglican)
• Archbishop Seraphim Kykkotis (Orthodox Church)
• Rev Pierre Naude (Methodist Church)
• Rev Rully Notshe (UPCSA)
• Rev Craig Morrison (UCCSA)
• Rev Sue Brittion (Anglican, WCRP)
• Sheikh Mohammed Gallant (Muslim Judicial Council)
• Ms Jennifer Stern (Quakers)
• Ms Gloria Khotlo (Traditional Faith Healer)
• Prof Stephen Finn (Jewish Board of Deputies)

This is an extract from the SAFCEI newsbrief. For the full version, and conference papers, see the main SAFCEI web site.

Haiti: Stuffed and Starved

Behind the food crisis

RAJ PATEL, author of the just-released book Stuffed and Starved: The Hidden Battle for the World Food System, Patel said today: "What's happening in Haiti is an augury to the rest of the developing world.

Haiti is the poster child of an economy that liberalized its agricultural economy and removed the social safety nets for the poor, despite the protests of the majority of its people. Food riots throughout history have happened when two conditions have been
fulfilled. First, there has always been a sudden and rapid discrepancy between what people expect to be able to eat, and what they can actually feed their families. The price shocks around the world have introduced this discrepancy, and the politics that might have dampened them -- grain reserves, tariffs, support for sustainable farmers -- have been eroded by modern development policies.

"But the second feature of food riots in history is that riots happen when there are no other ways of making powerful people listen. Like many other countries in the developing world, Haiti has been forced to liberalize its economy despite popular opposition -- in other words, modern development policy has been forced to be anti-democratic. And since there has been no effective way for the people to hold their leaders accountable, we're seeing riots not just in Haiti, but in places as diverse as Mexico, India, Egypt, Senegal and even Italy. It's something to expect to see with increasing frequency, until governments realize that food isn't a mere commodity, it's a human right" (Hat-tip to The Institute for Public Accuracy)

Haiti and The King Canute of Food | Stuffed and Starved

Part of the more recent intervention came under Reagan and Clinton. When a group of US-funded guerillas deposed Jean Bertrand Aristide, Clinton imposed some harsh trade liberalization conditions as the price Aristide would have to pay to get back into power. It’s this gunboat diplomacy that, Aristide says, tied his hands behind his back in terms of fiscal policy.

Aristide was subsequently deposed when he tried to untie his hands – the current Bush administration bankrolled a coup against him, and only guaranteed his life if he left immediately.

That history is one that is erased. The fact that Haiti produced more rice in 1984 than it does now isn’t an accident. The fact that the bags of rice to be found in Haiti have US flags stamped on them is no accident.

See also __the state of gareth__: Hunger. Strikes. Riots. The food crisis bites!