Archive for September, 2006

Only in Europe you say? Let’s hope its gone no further -Contaminated Chinese rice found in Europe

Saturday, September 23rd, 2006

I am very concerned about Genetically Engineered Foods.  I am even more disturbed by the blatant corporate neglect that leads to these products being circulated and consumed without anyone knowing.

It is not just butterflies and insects that vulnerable to dangerouse GE plants. Greenpeace has found evidence of GE products being sold in Europe and consumed without any approvals.

Could this happen here? I hope not. However, Europe just might be our canary. For more information see below.

Contaminated Chinese rice found in Europe

London, United Kingdom, Sept. 6, 2006 — The genetic engineering industry sank to a new low when it was revealed recently that US company Bayer’s field trials of genetically engineered (GE) rice had contaminated rice exports. Japan moved fast and banned the US rice from coming into its ports. The EU quickly followed and placed import restrictions and testing regimes in place. Now, Greenpeace research has uncovered a new example of contamination of the world’s most important staple food.

We recently uncovered, and independently verified, that illegal GE rice from China has contaminated food products in France, Germany and the UK. We’ve notified authorities that the illegal GE rice poses serious health risks and we’re calling upon European governments to take immediate action to protect consumers.

Greenpeace offices and Friends of the Earth in the UK tested samples of rice products such as vermicelli, rice sticks and other processed foods. Five positive samples were found containing an illegal GE organism not approved anywhere in the world. However this may only be the tip of the iceberg. Rice products are included in everything from baby food to yoghurt.

“These findings are shocking and should trigger high-level responses”, said Jeremy Tager, GE rice campaigner at Greenpeace International. “Consumers should not be left swallowing experimental GE rice that is risky to their health.”

The illegal GE rice, genetically engineered to be resistant to insects, contains a protein or fused protein (Cry1Ac) that has reportedly induced allergic-like reactions in mice. Three independent scientists have issued a statement backing the health concerns we raised.

Greenpeace International is calling for immediate worldwide recall, measures to ensure no further contaminated rice enters the EU and the urgent implementation of a preventative screening system for countries with high contamination risks. Demanding GE-free certification for food from countries that grow and produce GE crops is reasonable, cost effective, and necessary to protect Europe’s consumers.

Like Bayer’s illegal GE rice in the US, this recent rice contamination in China began with field trials; the rice is not currently approved for commercial growing because of mounting concerns over its safety.

“Innocent consumers again become the victims,” says Tager. “Once illegal GE crops are in the food chain, removing them takes enormous effort and cost. It is easier to prevent contamination in the first place,” he concluded.

Greenpeace campaigns for GE-free crop and food production that is grounded in the principles of sustainability, protection of biodiversity and providing all people to have access to safe and nutritious food. Genetic engineering is an unnecessary and unwanted technology that contaminates the environment, threatens biodiversity and poses unacceptable risks to health.

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Blue about Green (Party that is); Gucci Environmentalism is alive and well in Canada.

Wednesday, September 6th, 2006

The Green Party is as susceptible to criticism as either the Conservatives or the Liberals (and in my books the NDP when it fails to be the voice of progress in social, environmental, and economic matters).

Make no bones about it, Green ideology has a foundation that might make some uncomfortable. So for that reason my comments of months ago re: Gucci Environmentalism still stand. Poverty is not a concern for many Greens and nor is foreign policy - witness the almost eerie silence on Stephen Harper’s stand on Afghanistan and working for peace instead of occupation therein.

In fact, it is fair to call the Greens “Blue Green” - a shade of algae best associated with the Spirolina I sometimes take.

Like Red Tories of the past the Blue Greens are trying to be all things to all people without being anything to anyone. Of course, there are also “Red Greens” - Liberals, free market environmentalist who believe the environment is served best by the whims of the marketplace. For me, both are patent falsehoods. In the true collective bargaining tradition of trade unionism, we will get the environmental improvements we negotiate, not those for which we wish.

Below is an article that appeared in Straight Goods - Canada’s online critical journal. Boyce Richardson is an Ottawa-based writer and filmmaker who has stong misgivings about the Green Party’s new leader Elizabeth May - a concern shared by me and pundits like Liberal Larry Zolf see: LARRY ZOLF: The Tory ties of the Green Party’s new leader CBC News Viewpoint | August 31, 2006 |

You be the judge, read what is below and Zolf’s column at CBC.ca. What passes for “progressive” might ultimately just be another form of “conservative”.

Phil

The Greens’ new leader

Reviewing Elizabeth May’s track record leaves doubts.

Dateline: Tuesday, September 05, 2006

by Boyce Richardson

Elizabeth May, still entranced by the aura of Canada’s most-hated PM, Brian Mulroney: an odd way to begin a leadership of a rival party.

I doubt if too many progressives are going to be flocking to Elizabeth May’s banner with the Green Party. She expressed her contempt for the Left when, in her acceptance speech, she declared she made no choice between Left and Right: a sure sign of a Conservative, if you ask me,

Her next move was to announce, in reply to a question, that she was going to invite Brian Mulroney to join the Greens.

Do us a favour, Elizabeth!

May has always been an equivocal figure on the political scene, although one cannot doubt her devotion to the cause of environmentalism. She has never really cared who she worked for: when I first heard of her, she was an active assistant to Tom Macmillan, Mulroney’s Minister of Environment. In my book that was sufficient reason to be somewhat suspicious of her.

Now that she is in politics, and presumably hoping to attract progressive-minded people, she will have to live down her reputation, so caustically described by Elaine Dewar in her book, Cloak of Green, about the environmental movement, of being on all sides at the same time.

Dewar first ran into May when she (May) was a member of the Canadian government delegation to the preparatory meeting in Nairobi for the upcoming Rio summit on the environment. Since May was national director of the Sierra Club, as well as executive director of Cultural Survival Canada, Dewar found this rather puzzling. After a little further questioning Dewar came to the conclusion that May had become an NGO interface with government. “In fact,” wrote Dewar, ” May was both government and opposition, depending on which hat she put on. She could represent the government one day, she could attack it another, she could sign letters from several organizations, she could become a groundswell of public opinion.

“In short, she was a debate-shaper; she was involved in so many organizations that if any were asked to comment, she would have some hand in forming it. How handy this was for governments or business seeking out contained criticism or praise: getting May on side was the equivalent of one-stop shopping: what she put in, what she left out, both could matter.

“She was like a node on an information network. Information, or a position on an issue, could be generated anywhere — in an embassy in Brazil, in a meeting room in Washington, in a boardroom in Switzerland — and, if fed to May, end up touted in the pages of the Globe and Mail.”

This is a pretty devastating critique, and one that one would think Elizabeth May would be anxious to live down, now that she is in politics.

But apparently she is still seduced by Brian Mulroney, who appears to be her man-of-influence of choice.

No thanks, Elizabeth. I think I will stick with the NDP, for all its faults.

Boyce Richardson is an Ottawa-based writer and filmmaker. He worked for newspapers on four continents, including eight years as London correspondent for the Montreal Star, where he became associate editor. He has been a free-lancer since 1971, producing half a dozen books and working on about 30 films for the National Film Board. He is a Member of the Order of Canada.

Posted in Environment, Harping on Harper and the LibCons, canadian political scene | No Comments »
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