Wired sells out to Monsanto

I picked up my new Wired magazine and immediately read their cover story, an inflammatory ‘environmentalists are full of shit’ piece. It really pissed me off. They end their series of anti-arguments based on facts focused around cutting carbon dioxide, with a “take it with a grain of salt" letter from the editor of Worldchanging.com. He basically says the article is a short-lens focus that could get us into even more trouble. Isn’t the damage already done with a cover like “Keep your SUV, forget organics and screw the spotted owl?” I suppose it would be okay if they were using it to get people reading but then dole out some actual wisdom inside, but they don’t.

Here are my reactions to the articles:

1) A/C is OK. Here they say it takes more energy to heat a house in a cold climate than it does to cool a house in a hot climate. Good point, but really do we want everyone to move to the Southwest? The area is already burgeoning and just beginning a mega-drought that could last up to 150 years, where are they going to get enough water to live? What about clamping down on cheap housing construction and passing ordinances requiring better insulation. We’ll all have to pay more per square foot but maybe it will have the doubly beneficial effect of making our houses use space more efficiently.

2) Live in cities. Yes, for the most part, urbanization is cool and better for the environment but they make an argument that exurbs are the same as living in a truly rural area surrounded by trees. People don’t live in exurbs to be closer to nature, they sprouted up because people (like in Los Angeles) couldn’t afford to buy houses in the city so developers bought cheap land 50 miles out of town in the desert and built affordable housing there. The article points a finger at lawnmowers (a product of the suburb/exurb) and I totally agree that lawnmowers are a waste of energy. But why not encourage people with land to plant trees and grow a garden to feed themselves instead of trying to get them to move to a city? Not everyone wants to live in an apartment.

3) Organics are not the answer. This one really burns me up. They say we should screw organic because it takes 25 organic cows compared to 23 industrial cows for the same milk and they put out 16 percent more greenhouse emissions. Are they f’ing kidding me? We should drink hormone-laced pus-filled milk from sick suffering cows for that differential? The only smart thing they say in this article, albeit stuffed in the middle, is that if you really want to do something for the environment, stop eating meat altogether. It’s true that we can’t go organic at our current rate of consumption but we (in industrialized countries) eat and waste too much food anyway. Instead, I think we should go organic 100% and patronize restaurants that serve reasonable proportions of quality food.

4) Farm the forests. The only good thing in this section is about culling dead wood out of the forests, it does prevent fires and with the climate heating up, we can’t afford the kind of fires it’s going to bring. But the rest of it, about becoming full time forest farmers and cutting down old growth trees is total bullshit.

5) China is the solution, not the problem. I agree! (See next post) China has become the number one producer of alternative energy solutions for export and use in their own country. Due to decades of rapid and untethered production and growth, their feet are now much closer to the proverbial fire than ours; they will likely find and implement environmental solutions quicker than us.

6) Accept genetic engineering. If I read one more thing about biofuel, I’m going to be sick. They just made the point that we should use more public transportation in the “move to the city” argument but now they’re talking about how we should embrace genetic engineering so we can grow more biofuel. They attack fertilizer and say nothing of chemical sprays, but fertilizer is necessary because of our addiction to monocrops (and profits). Thousands of years ago, farmers rotated crops and used trees and companion plants that naturally kept bugs away or attracted complimentary insect relationships (like worms) and enrich the soil to the benefit of certain crops. The author mentions Monsanto as some kind of wonder company here to save our lives. Monsanto is a chemical company that produces the world’s best-selling “herbicide,” a chemical that kills everything. They then got into the agriculture business producing 90% of the GMO crops on the planet, specifically engineered to resist their herbicide. Roundup kills everything except the crops they engineer. They are corporate bullies who use lawsuits and threats to wipe out local farmers. "Monsanto should not have to vouchsafe the safety of biotech food," said Phil Angell, Monsanto's director of corporate communications. "Our interest is in selling as much of it as possible. Assuring its safety is the FDA's job." Unchecked, everything we eat will be engineered by Monsanto. If Wired really gave a shit about us and the environment, they’d do a full report on how they control our food supply.

7) Carbon Trading doesn’t work. I agree, good idea that needs improved.

8) Embrace nuclear power. There’s been a lot of talk that the only way we’ll produce enough energy for the billions of us on the planet in the future is from nuclear. They call it the cleanest of the fossil fuels because of the low emissions, uh, but what about the huge volume of nuclear waste produced? We already have tons of it buried in leaking containers under the ground in Washington and other states, we have no safe way to dispose of it and it remains toxic for thousands of years. Let’s focus on energy saving and efficiency before we make feeding our voracious appetites the top priority, eh?

9) Used cars not hybrids. Okay, I get the argument. New cars cost a lot of energy to make. If you’re driving a ten-year old fuel-efficient Toyota like my RAV, it’s better for the environment to keep driving it than to buy a new car. Except that my RAV will never end up in the landfill, there will always be someone waiting to buy it. They suggest (again, to be inflammatory) by the same logic you’re better off driving a Hummer because making a Hummer contributes less carbon to the environment (because of the nickel in Prius’ battery). They say nothing about the fact that cars in Europe are twice as fuel-efficient as ours and are the same as a Prius, which is why you don’t see hybrids there. It’s all a bunch of crap. We’re sold gas-guzzlers on purpose so the hybrids look good in comparison. While it doesn’t affect our carbon output, the quiet drive of the hybrids has many other benefits.

10) Prepare for the worst. Yes, things are going to get much hotter and much worse before they get better and we do need to accept that and prepare. They quote Stewart Brand who says, "We are as gods and might as well get good at it" and suggest that we take over completely by using our technology to fix the things we've broken like helping birds migrate, for example. We're destroying their natural habitat, building over open spaces that break up long migration journeys, disrupting communication with our noise and killing them and their food with pesticides but the scientists are going to save the birds with assisted migration? Then again, they mention that Monsanto, who brought us Agent Orange, PCBs and Bovine Growth Hormone, will save us with genetic engineering. What is this issue sponsored by Bush and the chemical industry?

I agree we better figure out ways to adapt and continue to innovate but we are consuming and disrupting the natural order of the planet at an unsustainable rate and technology alone will not save us (or the birds). We need to continue to make our small but impactful changes like eating locally produced food, driving less, taking a tote the store instead of using plastic bags, planting trees and food in our yards if we have them, installing energy efficient appliances, using less energy by unplugging what we aren’t using, and continuing to pay attention, support innovation and demand responsibility from corporations and governments.

Here's the first part of a two hour-long show about Monsanto:

The World According to Monsanto 1 of 4 27min

Look over there, it's a sex scandal!

I've been reading a book, recommended by a friend, called "Astrology for the Soul." I'm not a devout believer of astrology but I find pretty much any "what's it all about, what am I all about" questioning to be helpful and enjoyable. This book is about the North Node, which dictates what this life is all about for us, based on our past life! As the story goes, in my past life, I was a queen or some kind of royalty and I came into this life bossing people around, wanting to get my way, including my parents. Which is pretty much true. While it's natural for me to pursue the spotlight, it says, I will not be happy there and should instead devote myself to a humanitarian cause. Have I not been fumbling towards that same conclusion for months now? The description of my love life is shockingly true and too embarrassing to disclose here.

But I think the most interesting point is that it says Aquarius North Node people are here to bring in the New Age. We pick up messages from the future, as we have a way of seeing what is coming, and communicate those messages back to everyone else. If I follow a selfless path, I will have angels and support beyond my wildest dreams. I once went to a party with a good friend and a deaf comedienne with a knack for seeing auras and such, told me that she saw me coming up the drive surrounded by beautiful spirits. I can't help but think that this might be the point of my blog, to show people the future and rally for change.

So in the face of a brand new sex scandal - thank goodness, the Bush administration was a little dry in that area - I want to point out three stories from the paper that we should actually be concerned about. (By the way, I predict this girl will get a TV show from all the publicity.)

1) We're about to hit a major traffic jam in the Internet. Of course there are people who say that isn't likely, that we're improving the technology at the same rate that we're increasing demand for it, but it's not just about technology. Access requires physical and finite things like server space, power and a robust network to connect. Every day more people start using the Internet regularly and watch their first video or upload their first photo. Entire countries of people are still not on the Internet and young people are expecting in the near future to have access to all of their friends online, on video, all the time. We can bemoan the possibility of "missed opportunities" that are predicted but far more serious consequences await us as this network has become something our entire world depends on.

2) Small farmers in the United States are about to disappear forever. This is a critical issue. Mass-produced food is laden with chemicals, poisoning the animals, the earth, and us. It's devoid of nutrition, is tasteless and nearly half of it is not eaten but used as fuel so we can keep driving cars. The small farmer can't compete with the commercial farms and are selling out to developers. We're building houses and roads and gobbling all the islands of open space that dot the country. Birds that migrate thousands of miles need to stop somewhere to rest. If the islands disappear, they won't be able to rest and they'll die. Other animals will lose their habitats, migratory paths and will die or be killed trying to live in a human world. You must watch this great video about two endangered Whooping Cranes that landed on a farm in Tennessee. We apparently spent $11 million to hatch a group of them and teach them fly (most of them died but these two survived) but we can't stop developers from using up all the open space? I don't understand the logic of this!

3) 1 in every 100 adult Americans is in prison. This is the highest incarceration rate of any country at any time in history. The numbers are frightening for certain ethnicities, 1 in 35 black men is in prison. In the 1990's we passed mandatory sentencing and increased penalties for drug offenses. We had more money then and prisons were a booming business. Now they're overcrowded, crime has not gone down in response and the "drug war" is a joke. Housewives in the Midwest are getting hooked on meth cooked up in a house down the street using legal ingredients. Non-violent drunk driving offenders are mixed in the with murderers and rapists and very few people are receiving any kind of treatment. At the same time, our president is defending our right to torture to keep our country safe.

There are positive changes happening the in the world too, but even these are overshadowed by the sex scandal of a guy who stood on a soapbox for morality. Why hasn't everyone figured out yet that the people who preach morality are almost always the ones committing the offenses they so vehemently reproach?