It is now summer and I am starting into my “dog days”. Hillside Music Fesitival is just around the corner, things are happening on the municipal scene, I just can’t seem to be inspired to write at the moment. If you have not been following the World Cup, the games between France and Brazil and between Italy an Germany were thrilling to say the least - regardless whom you might have supported. From a philosophical perspective, these games were the epitome of arete - excellence and athletic virtue - but I digress, I am not teaching ethics right now and I can enjoy a bit of holiday and just cheer on the world’s greatest sport - apologies to Leaf fans (I confess I am one).

Now is the time to consider how to get invoved in the municipal elections happening all over Ontario. Vote, work run for School Trustee, City Council - elect the government you deserve. There are excellent candidates out there including June Hofland and Leanne Piper. There are others too.

So that is it for me, I am going golfing. I get the best value out of a golf game on the face of the earth. For my dollar, I swing more often. I consider myself lucky when I am one or two over par - for balls lost and found.

Below is an article written by Cameron Smith. It is a compelling look at Global Warming - something to consider in the hot days of July.

We are running out of time
Evidence of the potentially devastating effects of global climate change keeps accumulating
With the time to move fast approaching, governments will need to be prodded into taking action
Jul. 1, 2006.
CAMERON SMITH

The world is at its tipping point — on the brink of runaway global warming that will have devastating consequences. But the worst can be avoided, and the world can remain prosperous and habitable, provided massive cuts in carbon dioxide (CO{-2}) and methane emissions are started immediately.
We have only 10 years to get it right, and it’s going to take a tremendous and concentrated global effort.
These aren’t just my opinions. James Hansen is the one using the phrase tipping point. I’m simply putting his language in briefer, more dramatic form. But he’s no less emphatic.
Hansen, head of NASA’s Goddard Institute of Space Studies, is one of the world’s top climate scientists, and was one of the first to sound the alarm about global warming. Recently, he defied efforts by White House appointees in NASA to force him to remove postings on his website (http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh) that contradict positions taken by U.S. President George W. Bush.
His message comes as a particularly sharp reminder that Canada has an enormous amount of ground to make up, since it has been lagging so badly on reducing CO{-2} emissions.
Hansen’s concern centres on the melting of polar ice caps, which is occurring far faster than predicted. To prevent an unmanageable rise in sea levels, he says increases in global temperatures must be held to no more than 1 degree Celsius. That differs from a lot of other scientists who have been saying an increase of 2 degrees is safe.
But the scientific community as a whole has not yet fully digested what’s happening at the ice caps. And Hansen has been right so often in the past, it makes sense to accept what he’s saying now.
He points out that in the warmest periods during the past 400,000 years, temperatures were about 1C warmer than they are now, and in a couple of cases seas were five metres higher. In addition, rapid increases in sea levels of 10 metres of more occurred many times in the past.
If his targets are met, maybe seas won’t rise nearly as high, or as fast as they have in the past, Hansen says. In any event, with a 1C increase, they wouldn’t rise significantly in the lifetime of people who are now teenagers, since there’s a lag time between temperature increases and polar melting.
However, if today’s rate of increase were to continue unabated, temperatures would be 2.8C higher by the end of this century. The last time the Earth was this warm was 3 million years ago, when seas rose 25 metres above previous levels.
If that were to happen now, Hansen says, “the United States would lose most East Coast cities … (and) practically the whole state of Florida … China would have 250 million displaced persons. Bangladesh would have 120 million refugees, practically the entire nation. India would lose the land of 150 million people.”
No wonder he urges caution. If a 1C increase could produce a five-metre rise, a 2C increase would be far too close to a watery Armageddon.
It’s not just the level of seas that should worry people, Hansen says. It’s the destruction of coastal communities by storms matching or surpassing last summer’s Hurricane Katrina — and he adds firmly that global warming is unquestionably behind the increasing frequency and intensity of storms.
Catastrophic storms will continue to increase, he says, but they’ll be manageable if the temperature increase is held to 1C. As temperatures rise beyond that, the destruction will become progressively less manageable.
If any should doubt him, all they need do is look at the graphic of catastrophic damage prepared by Munich Re, one of the main international reinsurance groups. It shows a dramatic increase since 1988 in insured and uninsured losses.
A similar pattern is emerging in Ontario. Environment Canada’s Impact and Adaptation Research unit in Toronto checked 79 years of destructive windstorms in Dufferin County and found an exponential increase in the number and intensity of winds since the mid-1980s. What’s more, as intensity has been increasing, damage has been skyrocketing.
Hansen says to prevent temperatures rising beyond 1C, global emissions of CO{-2} must be capped within 10 years. Then, they need to be cut a further 60 to 80 per cent by 2050.
He also says human-caused methane emissions — for instance, those released in oil and gas operations — should be cut immediately by 30 per cent. Since methane is 21 times more potent as a greenhouse gas, limiting its emissions offers a fast start toward his targets. (Methane impact is calculated in terms of equivalent CO{-2} emissions.)
To underline how necessary these reductions are, I should point out that the current warming momentum will produce an increase of 0.55C even if not a single additional molecule of CO{-2} is added to the atmosphere.
There’s a bright side, however: Hansen says that if the world meets the cuts he’s urging, the momentum can probably be slowed.
His greatest fear is that global warming will rise so high that permafrost will melt and release methane. This is what caused intense global warming 58 million years ago that resulted in mass extinctions, he says. Temperatures then were about 5.5C above today’s level.
Many of Hansen’s comments are grounded in data from the U.S. National Ice Core Laboratory, where scientists examined ice cores drilled in East Antarctica.
As the graphic of that data shows, there is great regularity to the swing between warm and cold periods over the past 420,000 years, with warm periods lasting about 10,000 years, and cold roughly 100,000 years. It confirms several things:
We have only 10 years to get it right, and it’s going to take a tremendous global effort
First, it confirms the Earth is undergoing a regular, cyclical period of global warming.
Second, it shows that global concentrations of CO{-2} and methane are far higher than they were in any of the previous warm periods during the past 420,000 years. This points to how forcibly the natural warming cycle is being accelerated.

The time scale for the graph is so long it doesn’t show that the drop-off in CO{-2} and methane occurred about 1,000 years ahead of the drop in temperature. So, in the past, what caused the concentration of greenhouse gases to drop and the Earth to cool?
The answer, Hansen says, has been primarily the Earth’s orbital variations. The planet moves from a circular to an elliptical orbit about every 92,000 years; the tilt of its axis changes by about two degrees on a 40,000-year time scale; and its closeness to the sun varies over about 23,000 years.
None of this affects the total amount of radiation received from the sun. But it does change the angle, so that the northern hemisphere receives less heat — and less heat means lower CO{-2} and methane emissions, and a lower greenhouse effect.
Again, Hansen says, there’s good news: Never again will there be another ice age, “unless humans become extinct.” Human-made greenhouse gases will offset cooling from orbital variations.
“Humans now control global climate, for better or worse,” he says.
But this still leaves the other great threat: runaway global warming. A quick glance at the graphic estimating emissions to 2025 shows just how big a task capping them by 2016 will be. North America and emerging Asian powerhouses, especially China, are already responsible for the bulk of the annual 2.1 per cent average increase.
According to the U.S. Department of Energy, this year there will be about 27 billion tonnes (gigatonnes or Gt) of CO{-2} emissions, and by 2016, if current trends continue, there will be about 34 Gt of emissions, an increase of 29 per cent.
Hansen wants to keep the atmospheric concentration of CO{-2} to between 400 parts per million (ppm) and 475 ppm. Any more and the world will edge into the dangerous area of a 2C increase. The current concentration of CO{-2} in the atmosphere is about 381 ppm, and it’s increasing at a rate of 2 ppm a year, which would get it to 550 ppm by 2090. If that happened, it would send temperatures shooting well over a 2C increase.
Meeting Hansen’s target is a matter of timing. The lower the level at which emissions are capped by 2016, the lower will be the CO{-2} atmospheric concentration, and the lower the need to cut emissions in 80 per cent range.
Make no mistake, however — a global capping by 2016 will be an enormous undertaking. But the consequences of failure are so severe, it should surpass everything else on international agendas.
Still, once again Hansen has some good news, and it coincides with similar information in a report by Canada’s National Round Table on the Environment and the Economy (NRTEE) and ICF Consulting International of Toronto: All the tools needed to achieve the cuts in Canada and the United States are available; nothing new needs to be invented.
The report lists the tools in great detail (see: Advice on a Long-term Strategy, at http://www.nrtee-trnee.ca/eng/index_e.htm.). They range from upgrading homes, to improving fuel efficiency for motor vehicles, to capturing carbon dioxide and storing it. One thing that Hansen urges, but the report does not, is a carbon tax. Quebec already is introducing one.
Both Hansen and the NRTEE report stress that using the tools will strengthen the economy, not impede it.
However, cutting CO{-2} emissions in China and India is another matter — in fact, it’s the most important issue — and Canada is ill-equipped to help because the Conservative government in Ottawa is not enforcing the Kyoto Protocol, and there’s no effective cap on emissions. As a result, there’s no incentive to invest in projects in China and India that reduce emissions because an investment won’t count toward meeting emissions caps in Canada.
Now, one final word about the environment. Because of current warming, climatic zones have been moving northward at a rate of about 56 kilometres every 10 years. However, habitat ranges for everything from trees to salamanders and lake trout are moving at a rate of only about 6.5 kilometres a decade.
So, there are going to be extinctions in areas where zones have shifted and species have not. The only questions are how high will temperatures be, how fast will zones move, and how extensive will be the extinctions.
Whether the world meets the challenge is going to be strictly a matter of will. Hansen points out that in 1974, when it was discovered that CFCs (chlorofluorocarbons) were destroying the ozone layer, nations mobilized and CFC emissions were drastically reduced.
“How narrowly we escaped disaster was not realized until years later,” Hansen says. If the growth rate of CFCs had continued “just one more decade … (they) would have caused a larger greenhouse effect than CO{-2}.
“Why is the same cast, which acted so heroically (with CFCs), failing so miserably in the global warming crisis?”
That’s a question I can answer: It’s because there has been an appalling lack of political will — and I think it’s going take a determined clamour from the grass roots before there’s political backbone enough to meet the challenge.

Cameron Smith can be reached at camsmith@kingston.net.

I have lifted the following article from the net as it aptly applies to a concern I have had since I purchased an “organic” pop for my stepson and discovered the drink was produced by Smuckers.

I do not have a problem with companies such as Kelloggs and Smuckers producing more and more organic goods - in fact given the size and the authority of the agri business industry, I welcome any “nutritional reform”.

I am however, bothered by how underhanded a lot of this is and how many people buy organic simply because they want to be anti corporate in their purchasing power.

What I have decided is that we must carefully consider when we make our purchases:

“do we wish to be organic for the purpose of better personal health?”

“do we buy organic because we believe it is better for the environment?”

“do we do th is because we wish to avoid supporting corporations whereever possible?

“do we believe in fair trade?”

These are all good reasons to buy organic. Suffice to say however, that purchasing organic, being ethical in our purchases, attentive to the environment and to our health is getting harder all the time.

What Is Organic?
Reporter: Anna Werner

Producers: Anna Werner, Abby Sterling

(CBS 5) 30 Minutes Bay Area
Sunday, December 18th, 6:30pm

SCRIPT:

It’s not your neighborhood natural foods store anymore….’organic’ has hit the big leagues, with mammoth grocery stores stocked full of products from organic pop-tarts to frozen dinners.

And if you’re wondering how those small companies can make all those processed products, maybe it’s because many of them aren’t so small anymore.

Big food companies are quickly trying to take over the organics business - so how will that change what is organic?

* * *

You won’t see their names on the labels of all these ‘organic’ products, but they’re behind them: Kashi cereals…now owned by Kellogg’s….Vegetarian Boca Burgers? Now owned by Kraft…itself owned by Philip Morris. Even that popular juice company:

WERNER: “Who owns Odwalla?”
JACKSON: “Coca-cola.”
WERNER: “Coca-cola?”

Justin Jackson, who decides what hits the shelves at Whole Foods, has watched the natural food chain go from 30 stores to 180 stores nationwide in just a decade.

JACKSON: “That is a lot of money. I think there’s a lot of money to be had in organic foods.”

And with an estimated 15 billion dollars in sales just this past year, many large corporations are buying their way in… it’s a trend that bothers many Whole Foods shoppers like Kate Kendall…

KATE KENDALL/Shopper: “I would like to think that buying organic means that you are supporting something other than the powers that be.”

Supporting people like farmer John Kolling. Over 20 years ago, he started growing organic apples in Sonoma County…

KOLLING: “This is a real premier area for apples.”

…producing organic apple juice and other apple products under the Solana Gold label.

KOLLING: “One of these boxes is about 20 cases of apple juice gallon.”

He sold them in natural foods stores, right alongside other California brands. But one by one, he says, bigger companies started taking over his once local competitors. Like Santa Cruz Organics and R.W. Knudsen

KOLLING: “Smucker’s bought those companies.”

That’s right. You won’t find it on their websites, but both are now owned by J-M Smucker…a company that also owns Pillsbury and Crisco along with their jams and jellies. And Kolling says with so many big companies now in the game:

KOLLING: “They just pushed you around. And you got knocked off the shelf.”

And that’s what Kolling believes happened to his apple juice at one large chain store.

KOLLING: “We were just notified–you’re cancelled, you’re off the shelf.”

And even at Whole Foods we found row after row of Smucker-owned Santa Cruz and Knudsen organic juices.

WERNER: “Do you think that consumers know, though, when they’re looking at the juice section that three-fifths is actually Smucker of Ohio?”
JACKSON: “Ah, that’s a… I do not think that consumers would know that, no.”

And the fight between many longtime organic advocates and big corporations isn’t just over shelf space. Some say it’s a fight over the very nature of organics itself. Over how much and what can be added to a product and still keep this valuable USDA organic label.

RONNIE CUMMINS/Organic Consumers Association: “These big companies don’t want to play by the traditional rules of organic integrity.”

He’s Ronnie Cummins, the head of the 600,000 member Organic Consumers Association– who says it’s been a constant fight.

CUMMINS: “The USDA in ‘98 said that it would be ok to use genetic engineering, food irradiation, sewage sludge for example.”

That battle they won.

CUMMINS: “280,000 people wrote in to the USDA saying no way.”

Then in 2004…

CUMMINS: “They said, oh yeah, some of these previously banned pesticides, antibiotics, hormones, tainted animal feed that aren’t allowed in organic– we’re going to allow those after all.”

And once again Cummins says they managed to stop it. But now this year the fight has gone to Congress. And this time Cummins says they’re fighting a former ally - the Organic Trade Association, or OTA.

DiMATTEO: “The Organic Trade Association is a business association.”

She’s Katherine DiMatteo, the head of the OTA.

DiMATTEO: “We cover the entire chain from the farm through the retail store.”

And in campy videos like this one, they market themselves as the defender of organic farms and farmers.

(video clip from “Store Wars”) “…he’s now more chemical than vegetable…”

But Cummins says recently…

CUMMINS: “There’s basically been a takeover of the OTA by the big players.”

He says companies like Smucker and Kraft. And just two months ago the OTA had a last minute amendment inserted into the massive Federal Agricultural Appropriations Act, an amendment Cummins and many others fear will allow hundreds of synthetic ingredients to start appearing in organic products.

CUMMINS: “This amendment was concocted in secrecy. It was not shared with anyone in the organic community. They’re playing very hardball.”

DiMATTEO: “I’m sure to some people that is what they would think.”
WERNER: “But–did you get the word out?”
DiMATTEO: “No we did not.”

She says that the OTA didn’t need to.

DiMATTEO: “The amendment has now legalized or authorized the standards that we had all agreed to.”

But not so, according to the Chair of the prestigious National Organic Standards Board, which reviews the quality and content of organic goods. In an open letter two months ago, Jim Riddle called the OTA “false and misleading,” saying the group’s “action opens the door to numerous [additional] substances being used” in organic products.

And that even though “Congress received 320,000 calls and letters” opposing it, “those concerns were ignored by OTA and the Republicans who carried the amendment.”

DiMATTEO: “It’s his opinion.”
WERNER: “He’s directly contradicting you. He’s saying that you’re WRONG.”
DiMATTEO: “And we’re saying HE is wrong. Organic isn’t a religion you know. It’s FARM production.”

JOHN ARDREY\Eden Foods: “I disagree with her. And there IS a morality here.”

He’s John Ardrey of Eden Foods, one of the country’s oldest natural food companies, and a leader of the fight against the OTA’s amendment.

ARDREY: “We could do what conventional companies do. We could make things cheaper. We could use shortcuts. We could all make more money. But that’s not what we’re doing. We want to put out the very best thing we can do.

But will they be able to and still compete?

WERNER: “What do you fear happening to organic food?”
CUMMINS: “You can’t grow a 15 billion dollar industry into a 50 billion dollar industry unless you cut corners.”

DiMATTEO: “If you’re in business you have to make profit. You have to have, you know, a return on your investment.”
WERNER: “But do you think business is what organic food is supposed to be all about?”
DiMATTEO: “Ah that’s an interesting question.”