1. Mark Whitaker
2. The Infrastructure of Asbestos in Korea still there in surprising consumptive uses. A person who regularly puts salt on his fast food, puts talc powder on his body, chews gum, and rides a cheap train may intersect with asbestos unwillingly and unknowingly four different ways every day. If you are someone who lives near Hongseong and Boryeong, you have another infrastructure that's hard to avoid: a 'closed' asbestos mine that is perhaps associated with why half the people there have lung diseases though aren't miners. That's quite a basis for changing someone's institutionalized habit--if they listen to the information that is.
3. Interesting on the large scale of its 'inherited' use or its ongoing tainted use in many consumer products and experiences in Korea. So a person who regularly puts salt on his fast food, puts talc powder on his body, chews gum, and rides a cheap train may intersect with asbestos unwillingly and unknowingly four different ways every day. that's quite a basis for changing someone's institutionalized habit--if they listen to the information that is.
A huge lawsuit is possible I guess if the government refuses to alter this infrastructure and clean it up. I put brackets [] throughout the article where I see an example of forms of institutional habit, personal habit, legalization, and legitimation/delegitimation that keeps the regime of asbestos politically intact or politically challenged.
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11-16-2009 17:52 여성 남성
Traces of Asbestos Detected in Trains
Members of the Korean Railway Workers’ Union read a statement calling on KORAIL to take steps to deal with traces of asbestos found in insulation materials in train cars during a news conference at Seoul Station, Monday.
/ Korea Times Photo
by Kim Ju-young
By Bae Ji-sook
Staff Reporter
Traces of asbestos, a grade-one carcinogen, were detected in heating systems installed in Mugunghwa and Saemaeul railway trains, the Korean Railway Workers' Union and the Korean Federation for Environmental Movement claimed [in a delegitimating way] Monday.
Since the ventilation is poor, the potential impact on the human body could be critical, the groups said, questioning KORAIL's [legitimating, self-assessing] claims that the amount was not big enough to be considered a heath hazard.
According to the workers' union, out of 28 heating and interior material samples collected from 21 carriages, 43 percent were found with traces of asbestos of varying densities but, in some cases, dangerously high.
They attributed it to the [political legalization] failure to refurbish materials installed when there were no regulations.
"The cars we surveyed were made between 1986 and 1998 [under previous institutional rules of construction no longer valid] but those found with traces of asbestos date from 1986 and 1987 in terms of the manufacturing period," said Lee Tae-young, the union spokesman.
Saemaeul and Mugunghwa are cheaper alternatives to the KTX bullet train launched in 2004. "It has been a long time since asbestos has been a hot issue nationwide, but the company doesn't seem to care about the less profitable units," he added. [delegitimating discourse to encouraging upset consumers and rightly so; this makes political allies of the general public around rejecting the material, as well aims to create legalization changes as in the government to regulate these train cars for asbestos.]
Currently, there are 1,006 Mugunghwa and 1,130 Saemaeul train cars in operation nationwide carrying an average of 200,000 passengers a day.
The group asked the [legalizing] government to conduct a health checkup on the health of passengers and railway workers. [delegitimating discourse:] "KORAIL needs to replace its fleets," Choi Ye-yong, an official of the environmental civic group, said.
[delegitimating alliance of agreement:] The World Health Organization has long designated asbestos as a life-threatening substance that is known to cause respiratory diseases such as asbestosis and lung cancer, but it was only recently that Korea started to take it seriously [with legislation against it as a materials choice.].
In April, the [other institutional ally, the] Korea Food and Drug Administration (KFDA) confirmed that it had detected asbestos in 11 brands of baby talcum powders. The revelation expanded to capsule wrappings of several drugs, chewing gum, cosmetic goods and many other products. The authorities banned the sales of the respective products [to legitimate themselves once more and via legislation] and called for a halt of the use of talcum powder in others. [Amazing how deep and widespread are the environmental implications of things, when you consider all different choices of using them in different consumptive categories as part of their general flow.]
In June, [another institutional ally in demoting the residual asbestos material regime] the Ministry of Environment confirmed that nearly one in two residents living in Hongseong and Boryeong near a closed mine in South Chungcheong Province contracted various lung diseases, apparently caused by asbestos inhalation.
Last week, an environmental civic group claimed that traces of asbestos were detected at four salt farms nationwide, apparently due to the slated roof of the salt warehouse. [delegitimating it among general public, making a widespread uproar of concern, since salt is virtually unsubstitutable in its category of mineral foods. Poisoin a country's salt, and you have a rather wide base for social movement opposition to the asbestos material as a choice.]
bjs@koreatimes.co.kr
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http://koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/nation/2009/11/117_55576.html
Recent books:
Fatal Deception: The Terrifying True Story of How Asbestos is Killing America by Michael Bowker (Paperback - Sep 2, 2003)
From Publishers Weekly
Journalist Bowker’s riveting, anecdotal look at the damage done by mining and manufacturing companies who denied the harmful effects of asbestos might have been titled "Evil Incorporated." Focusing largely on a vermiculite mine in bucolic Libby, Montana, Bowker shows a business that put its bottom line over its employees’ health. Interviews with victims of asbestos poisoning and their survivors are interspersed with EPA reports, company memos and other sources, as Bowker charts asbestos’s history, from its identification [i.e., social infrastructural legitimation] as a "miracle mineral" to the first signs that it might be dangerous, to the government’s ineffectual [legalization, pro-asbestos regime] policies and various companies’ decisions not to inform its workers of the health risks it posed. [legitimation via silence and omission, same with fluoride we will watch on Thursday] As one asbestos plant exec is alleged to have said, it was "the company’s policy to let workers continue on the job until they quit work because of asbestosis or died of other asbestos-related disease." Worker after worker describes how he was never told that the dust he encountered daily was poisonous: "The asbestos was whitish-gray and my hair was pure white after work. We never wore any protective gear, except the little paper masks they gave us," said one worker who now has asbestosis. The personal stories make for a sad and gripping read, as Bowker, in classic muckraking style, gives voice to many who suffer from long-term exposure to asbestos and argues for a ban on asbestos products in the U.S.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
Product Description
STILL LEGAL, STILL LETHAL
Most Americans mistakenly believe asbestos was banned long ago. In fact, it is still legal and can still kill you. Its microscopic fibers cause painful and incurable diseases.
Despite being outlawed in nearly every other industrialized country, asbestos remains a legal component of more than three thousand common products in the United States. These include toasters, washers/dryers, ovens, building supplies, and automobile brakes. Our confusion about asbestos is no accident.
Fatal Deception is a chilling exposé of the asbestos industry's successful seventy-year campaign to hide the deadly effects of its products from the American people. The stakes are high -- tens of thousands of lives and hundreds of billions of dollars. Michael Bowker rips the cover off the decades of deceit [around a particular material regime--are other material regimes that we think 'so legitimate' really so upon examination?], including the treachery in Libby, Montana, site of the most deadly environmental disaster in U.S. history. He also unveils a startling and ongoing cover-up at Ground Zero -- where thousands of New Yorkers may still be suffering from exposure to dangerous levels of asbestos fibers. [Do you know who said the air in New York City was 'completely safe'? Someone whose husband was heavily invested in new York real estate insurance companies. No joke. new York was covered in asbestos on 9-11-01 from the pulverized massive buildings and the burning craters for months afterward.]
Compelling, enraging, and very timely, Fatal Deception is not just a fascinating story, it is a plea to [delegitimate the government, and thus cause the government to legitimate itself to have] the government and to the American people to help sponsor research [state-science position] into asbestos-related diseases -- and a call to arms to ban asbestos now.
Defending the Indefensible: The Global Asbestos Industry and its Fight for Survival (Hardcover, 2008)
Review
given all that has been written and said about asbestos over the past 30 years is there anything else worth knowing? Do we really need another book on asbestos? After reading Defending the Indefensible the emphatic answer I reached was yes. This book is a tour-de-force of informed and concerned scholarship. Labour History [a] compelling book. The Lancet, Volume 373, Issue 9660
Product Description
In the early twentieth century, asbestos had a reputation as a lifesaver. In 1960, however, it became known that even relatively brief exposure to asbestos can cause mesothelioma, a virulent and lethal cancer.
Yet the bulk of the world's asbestos was mined after 1960. Asbestos usage in many countries continued unabated. [it's a silent 'inconspicuous consumption' regime, eh? How many people knew that asbestos was still legal in most countries and widely used?]
[The definition of a politicized raw material regime in the position of choice of materials, keeping out other things by politics instead of by economic or material requirements to be there:]
This is the first global history of how the asbestos industry and its allies in government, insurance, and medicine defended the product throughout the twentieth century. It explains how mining and manufacture could continue despite overwhelming medical evidence as to the risks. The argument advanced in this book is that asbestos has proved so enduring because the industry was able to mount a successful defense strategy for the mineral--a strategy that still operates in some parts of the world. This defence involved the shaping of the public debate by censoring, and sometimes corrupting, scientific research, nurturing scientific uncertainty, and using allies in government, insurance, and medicine.
The book also discusses the problems of asbestos in the environment, compensating victims, and the continued use of asbestos in the developing world. Its global focus shows how asbestos can be seen as a model for many occupational diseases [and a model for a repressive raw material regime of politics]--indeed for a whole range of hazards produced by industrial societies. The book is based on a wealth of documentary material gained from legal discovery, supplemented by evidence from the authors' visits and researches in the US, the UK, Canada, Kazakhstan, Zimbabwe, Australia, Swaziland, and South Africa.
"Asbestos: The Other White Meat"
The map above displays asbestos deaths from mesothelioma or asbestosis as reported to the federal government via death certificate records from 1979 through 2001. It likely represents less than 20 percent of total asbestos mortality during that time.
http://reports.ewg.org/reports/asbestos/maps/government_data.php
Nicole Niedermeier
ReplyDelete„Chrysler abandons Electric Vehicle Program after pocketing taxpayer bailout“
Chrylser received $15.3 billion in taxpayer money to produce a fleet of electric vehicles. Now that the money is safely in Chrysler's pocket they announced a new plan which has nothing to do what was said before. It is a shame that influential automaker like Chrysler have means to do what ever they want for their own profit.
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“During the federal government's bailout of the auto industry earlier this year, Chrysler Corporation received $15.3 billion in taxpayer money to keep its factories humming--partly in exchange for the company's aggressive plan to produce a fleet of electric vehicles. Now that the money is safely in the Chrysler coffers, however, the automaker has announced a new plan to disband its electric vehicle team and to produce only a token number of electric cars.”
“In testifying before the Senate Banking Committee in December 2008 while asking for the massive bailout, Chrysler's then-CEO Bob Nardelli told Congress: "A key feature of Chrysler's future is our capability as an electric vehicle company" and "we expect that 500,000 Chrysler electric-drive vehicles will be on the road by 2013."
“But that was then, and this is now. In the past 11 months, Nardelli has taken another job and Chrysler has changed its game plan after pocketing billions of taxpayer dollars. Yet as recently as June 10, the new Chrysler CEO Sergio Marchionne said, "Work is already underway to develop new environmentally friendly, fuel-efficient, high-quality vehicles, including Chrysler's electric-vehicle program."
In spite of those glowing predictions, just days ago Marchionne announced that Chrysler plans to dismantle most of its electric-vehicle capacity and reduce its production goals for both full-electric vehicles and plug-in hybrids. Marchionne claimed that Chrysler's electric-vehicle division will have approximately the same number of employees, he also said that he now expects annual sales of only 28,000 to 56,000 electric vehicles by 2014--a small fraction of Chrysler's original goal of putting half a million electric vehicles on the road by 2013.
“In response, Friends of the Earth has started a petition drive to send Chrysler a message and to remind taxpayers that, because of the bailout, they now own 10 percent of the company. “
“Consumers who sign the petition pledge to boycott Chrysler products unless or until the company lives up to its promises to taxpayers and Congress.”
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http://environment.about.com/b/2009/11/13/chrysler-abandons-electric-vehicle-program-after-pocketing-taxpayer-bailout.htm
Anna Maislinger
ReplyDelete„New Report Reveals Dramatic Rise in Pesticide Use on Genetically Engineered (GE) Crops Due to the Spread of Resistant Weeds“
This article is about GE Crops and their correlation with pesticides. One aim of producing GE crops was probably to multiple benefits, but they actually increase the use of pesticides. Pesticide companies might be happy about that…
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Genetically engineered (GE) corn, soybeans and cotton have increased use of weed-killing herbicides — a type of pesticide — by 383 million pounds in the U.S. from 1996 to 2008, according to a new Organic Center report titled “Impacts of Genetically Engineered Crops on Pesticide Use in the United States: The First Thirteen Years” announced today by The Organic Center (TOC), the Union for Concerned Scientists (UCS) and the Center for Food Safety (CFS). In addition, GE corn and cotton have reduced insecticide use by 64 million pounds, resulting in an overall increase of 318 million pounds of pesticides over the first 13 years of commercial use.
Based upon data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), report author Dr. Charles Benbrook presents compelling evidence linking the increase in pesticide use on GE, “herbicide-tolerant” (HT) crops to the emergence and spread of herbicide-resistant weeds. This report comes at a time when farmers are increasingly critical of GE crops because of drastically rising biotech seed prices and increasingly resistant weeds.
The agricultural biotechnology industry claims that the much higher costs of GE seeds are justified by multiple benefits to farmers, including decreased spending on pesticides. The price of GE seeds has risen precipitously in recent years, and the need to make additional herbicide applications in an effort to keep up with resistant weeds is also increasing cash production costs. As an example, corn farmers planting “SmartStax” hybrids in 2010 will spend around $124 per acre for seed, almost three times the cost of conventional corn seed. In addition, new-generation “Roundup Ready” (RR) 2 soybean seed, to be introduced on a widespread basis next year, will cost 42 percent more than the original RR seeds they are displacing.
[…]
”This report confirms what we’ve been saying for years,” said Bill Freese, science policy analyst for the Center for Food Safety. “The most common type of genetically engineered crops promotes increased use of pesticides, an epidemic of resistant weeds, and more chemical residues in our foods. This may be profitable for the biotech/pesticide companies, but it’s bad news for farmers, human health and the environment.”
Industry claims that GE crops are benefitting the environment ignore the impacts of the 300+ million additional pounds of pesticides required over the period covered by this study, as well as growing reliance by farmers on high-risk herbicides including 2,4-D and paraquat. In addition to the environmental harm, a report released earlier this year by TOC demonstrated that exposure to pesticides is linked to increased risk of reproductive abnormalities, birth defects and neurological problems.
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http://truefoodnow.org/2009/11/17/new-report-reveals-dramatic-rise-in-pesticide-use-on-genetically-engineered-ge-crops-due-to-the-spread-of-resistant-weeds/
Alexandra Vorobyova
ReplyDelete"Registering the world's 'invisible' millions"
It's funny, having a birth certificate isn't something we think about on a regular basis- we get it when we're born, and we consider it normal. So I was very surprised to find out that many millions of children the world over (mostly in Bottom Billion countries) don't have any official documents,so that they can't gain access to important and vital services, as well as education.
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Awawou is one of half a billion children who are estimated to be without a birth certificate. It is thought that at least 51 million of the babies born each year are not registered.
Without registration, it is difficult, if not impossible, to gain access to vital services such as health care, education and welfare support, says child rights organisation Plan International.
It also denies them the possibility of voting or getting legal aid.
Children without any record of identification are more vulnerable to exploitation and abuse such as human trafficking and prostitution, being forced into under-age marriages or into becoming child soldiers, the organisation adds.
However, this has now changed for some 40 million people in 32 countries over the past five years, thanks to a Plan International campaign called Universal Birth Registration (UBR).
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http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_depth/8359477.stm
Hyun-deok, Park
ReplyDeleteBiofuels cropping may threaten health, environment
This article is about danger of changing agricultural pattern for biofuels. And if biofuels are proved uneconomic,we will have a terribly abundunt weeds.
Moreover, recently it is on discussing to introduce GM techniques into cropping for biofuels and the plantation naturally places in poor Africa countries. So it can also be worried about new environmental racism.
Therefore we must not go forward just following shining sustainable future and have to consider whether if biofuels are really valuable comparing other alternative energies.
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The Biosecurity in the New Bioeconomy symposium is discussing the potential of failed crop species to become invasive weeds, as well as the risks to people from allergens or toxins, and the introduction of pests.
With increasing pressure globally to find alternatives to fossil fuels, Dr Andy Sheppard from CSIRO Entomology says it is critical the impact of new crops is understood.
Dr Sheppard says it is simplistic to think all plants that can replace fossil fuels are sustainable.
"While on the face of it, people think that because you grow something and it comes from a plant it's going to be relatively good," he said.
"There's really little understanding of the dangers that can come from changing your agricultural systems in such a dramatic way."
Dr Sheppard says research and better information sharing could improve crop productivity and minimise mistakes.
"These new types of crops being proposed have characteristics that are very similar to many of our highly abundant weeds in Australia," he said.
"If these cropping systems prove to be uneconomic, like in the past, we'll have many abandoned crops that then go on and invade our natural environment."
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http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/11/19/2748152.htm?section=business
1. Mark Whitaker
ReplyDelete2. Social Construction of Carbon, behind the scenes at a major 'global warming research center' (political lobby?) is very shameful
3. Think about this in terms of a raw material regime about carbon, there are institutions, there are legal policies, and there is legitimation--the climate science--though this legitimation seems rather artificial if the below relevations are the proverbial tip of the iceberg on setting the politics first and then the climate science instead of visa versa...
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Climate scientists accused of 'manipulating global warming data'
Some of the world’s top climate scientists have been accused of manipulating data on global warming after hundreds of private emails were stolen by hackers and published online.
Published: 8:00AM GMT 21 Nov 2009
The material was taken from servers at the University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit – a world-renowned climate change research centre – before it was published on websites run by climate change sceptics.
It has been claimed that the emails show that scientists manipulated data to bolster their argument that global warming is genuine and is being caused by human actions.
One email seized upon by sceptics as supposed evidence of this, refers to a “trick” being employed to massage temperature statistics to “hide the decline”.
The university yesterday confirmed that research data had been stolen and published online and said it had reported the security breach to police.
A spokesman said: “We are aware that information from a server used for research information in one area of the university has been made available on public websites.
“Because of the volume of this information we cannot currently confirm that all this material is genuine.
“This information has been obtained and published without our permission and we took immediate action to remove the server in question from operation. We are undertaking a thorough internal investigation and have involved the police in this inquiry."
The files were apparently first uploaded on to a Russian server and then mirrored across the internet.
An anonymous statement accompanying the emails said: “We feel that climate science is too important to be kept under wraps. We hereby release a random selection of correspondence, code, and documents. Hopefully it will give some insight into the science and the people behind it.”
One of the emails under scrutiny, dated November 1999, reads: "I've just completed Mike's Nature [the science journal] trick of adding in the real temps to each series for the last 20 years (ie, from 1981 onwards) and from 1961 for Keith's to hide the decline."
Scientists who are alleged to be the authors of the emails in question have declined to comment on the matter.
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http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/environment/climatechange/6619796/
Climate-scientists-accused-of-manipulating-global-warming-data.html
more commentary:
Climategate: the final nail in the coffin of 'Anthropogenic Global Warming'?
Sujin Kwon
ReplyDelete"Safe GM crops a fairytale"
"12 Myhts about World Hunger"
Australia and New Zealand had allowed some of genetically modified food before, and now farmers and environment organizations and perhaps consumers are protesting against GMO. Everyting they are going through and getting now is all opposite of what they were promised when they started growing GM crops. They found out GMO's 'promising' aspects were 'fairytales'. I'm writing a paper for '12 Myths about World Hunger' too, and they probably figured out that GM crops do not really help us get rid of world famine. World famine came from flaw of capitalism, the rich get richer and the poor get poorer, not from lack of food on the earth. Now so many countries are working on GMO, like India, Australia and New Zealand, and Bangladesh just accepted GM crops too, we wil see what will happen.
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On November 18, 200 people rallied outside the Western Australian parliament to protest against the introduction of genetically modified crops. The state government will decide next year whether to permanently lift the ban on GM crops.
...
They said that at first they supported GM, but have found it to be the opposite of everything they were promised. They said the promised higher yields, drought resistance and the claim that non-GM can be segregated from GM crops were all “fairytales”.
===
http://www.greenleft.org.au/2009/819/42101
Sam Wijnants
ReplyDelete------------------------------------
Why India Is Playing Hard to Get on Climate Change
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Sunita Narain, the director of the influential Centre for Science and Environment, can be as caustic as she is intelligent, and never more so than when she is taking rich nations to task for what she sees as their hypocrisy on global warming. The basic argument is that since rich nations like the U.S. are responsible for most of the greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, they should take the lead on cutting emissions before asking the developing world to step in. "The rich have to reduce their emissions so the rest of the world can grow," says Narain, speaking in her office in New Delhi. "This is about sharing growth between nations and people. If we can't, then India has to be a naysayer for a bad climate agreement." The country of more than 1 billion — a populace that encompasses the very rich and the very poor, and whose carbon emissions are microscopic on a per capita basis but massive overall — is uniquely vulnerable to global warming yet suspicious of international efforts to stop it.
On the other side India is often cast as the spoiler, a country that wants the right to continue emitting carbon with impunity while insisting that the West takes on strict caps. India has come to be seen less as an impoverished nation than an economic competitor, which aims to use climate-change negotiations as another way to catch up, and perhaps surpass, the West.
---------------------------------------------
If U.S. diplomats consider India to be a major obstacle to global climate-change negotiations — and they do — it might be because of Sunita Narain, the director of the influential Centre for Science and Environment. They pressure the developing world to control carbon emissions even as they refuse to move themselves, she says.
ReplyDeleteIndia has emerged as a keystone for global climate-change negotiations, and so far its role has indeed been mostly negative. As a leader of the bloc of developing nations, it has repeatedly argued that since rich nations like the U.S. are responsible for most of the greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, they should take the lead on cutting emissions before asking the developing world to step in.
The result is a global standoff. The U.S. has been reluctant to cut emissions unless major developing nations — meaning India and China — take steps of their own on a global level. The conflict has stifled international climate negotiations for years, and threatens to scuttle the vital U.N. climate-change summit in Copenhagen next month. "The developed–developing country divide that has run down the center of climate-change discussions for the past 17 years is still, I'm afraid, alive and well," said Todd Stern, the U.S. envoy on climate change, speaking to the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee on Nov. 4.
But while China has earned plaudits from Western environmentalists in recent months for its green policies — including hundreds of billions in government spending on renewable energy — and its newfound flexibility on climate change, India is often cast as the spoiler, a country that wants the right to continue emitting carbon with impunity while insisting that the West takes on strict caps. India has come to be seen less as an impoverished nation than an economic competitor, which aims to use climate-change negotiations as another way to catch up, and perhaps surpass, the West. "It's an image that plays to the fears of people: 'First they take away our jobs to Bangalore, now they want to take away our cars,'" says Narain.
It's worth asking whether that image is rooted in reality. Like China, India is a major developing power — indeed the country is rising, its economy having grown more than 7% in 2008, even during the recession. Major Indian firms like Infosys and Tata Group are world leaders. Yet the reality is that much of the country is still unimaginably impoverished — a third of the world's poor live in India, more than in all of sub-Saharan Africa. As a result, its per capita carbon emissions are miniscule — just 2.77 tons of CO2 equivalent, compared with 19.81 tons for the average American and 4.4 tons on average for the world as a whole. Less than half of India's population has access to grid electricity — and even those that do suffer frequent brownouts. There are just 12 cars per 1,000 people in India, compared to more than 800 in the U.S., and thanks to stiff taxes, gasoline and diesel cost more in India than in the U.S. or China. Even in their diet, Indians put significantly less pressure on the planet: Indians eat one twenty-fifth the amount of meat that Americans do, and their mainly vegetarian food source emits a lot less carbon. "India has gotten its income through very low levels of energy intensity compared to the E.U. or the U.S.," says Girish Sant, a coordinator with the Prayas Energy Group.
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http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1929071_1929070_1936360,00.html#ixzz0XaPWajRg
Young Han
ReplyDelete"Reducing impact of climate change on agriculture by improving technology, policy and knowledge."
The article talks about how poor communities that are heavily depend upon agriculture can benefit from changes in knowledge, technologies, and policy about global warming. A lot of farm industries have been damaged by current global warming, not just because it increased the average temperature, but also it changed the growing season, brought some catastrophic event to a location such as typhoon or tsunami. It points out a few things as being very critical in agriculture. Water and land use, pest control, and climate proof crops are three main focuses here. It looks like knowledge and technologies are both important but I personally think making atmosphere to develop better knowledge and technologies by making good policy is the first step that one has to take.
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Pests are usually controlled by cultural practices, natural enemies, host plant resistance, biopesticides and synthetic pesticides. But many of these control tactics are highly sensitive to the environment and climate change may render them less effective.
It may alter the interactions between pests and their host plants, directly affecting resistance to pest control. For example, there are indications that stem rot (Sclerotium rolfsii) resistance in groundnut is temperature dependent, while in Kenya resistance to sorghum midge (Stenodiplosis sorghicola) breaks down under high humidity and moderate temperatures.
We must urgently identify and develop crops that can resist pests under variable climates. ICRISAT has started work in this area, developing mildew-resistant pearl millet in India, wilt-resistant high-yielding pigeon pea in Malawi, Mozambique and Tanzania, and rosette-resistant groundnuts in Uganda.
Invest in innovation
In the medium term (2010–2050), scientists are well placed to help poor farmers mitigate the challenges of climate change.
The impact of climate change on yields from low-input agriculture is likely to be minimal as other factors will continue to be the overriding constraints on crop growth and yield. Adopting the agricultural technologies outlined above will substantially increase the yields of smallholders, regardless of climate change.
But adopting better 'temperature-adapted' varieties could completely mitigate the climate change effects that result from global warming.
We urgently need better policies that support the adoption of agricultural innovation. Not only will these improve the welfare of rural populations now, but they will also do a great deal to mitigate the future impacts of climate change.
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http://www.scidev.net/en/opinions/agriculture-can-adapt-to-climate-change.html
Christoffer Grønlund (Just got back from Shanghai)
ReplyDeleteChávez Offers Public Defense for Carlos the Jackal
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I do acknowledge that this article is a bit off topic, but wauw what impact this Venezuelean president has on what his supporters must believe on right and wrong. Defending Ramirez as Chavez is doing here is nothing less that a declaration of belief - a belief that is a total opposition of the western worlds values and opinions. Knowing how dependent he is on the US qua the oil market, I think it is a politically bold move, and personally I find him a disgrace.
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CARACAS, Venezuela — President Hugo Chávez is heaping praise on Ilich Ramírez Sánchez, the Venezuelan better known as Carlos the Jackal and implicated in hijackings and terror attacks across Europe in the 1970s and ’80s, describing him in a speech here Friday night as a “revolutionary fighter.”
Mr. Chávez, speaking to an applauding gathering of leftist political parties from around the world, said he knew he was risking scorn by defending Mr. Ramírez, who is 60 years old and serving a life sentence in France for the murder of two French police agents and a Lebanese informer in Paris’s Latin Quarter in 1975.
“I defend him. I don’t care what they say tomorrow in Europe,” Mr. Chávez said.
Mr. Chávez, 55, who exchanged elaborately written correspondence with Mr. Ramírez early in his presidency, taps a small but persistent well of support in Venezuela for Mr. Ramírez, born here in 1949 to Altagracia Ramírez, a wealthy Marxist lawyer who named his other two sons Vladimir and Lenin.
One Caracas group, the Committee for the Repatriation of Ilich Ramírez, wants Mr. Ramírez transferred from France to Venezuela. Vea, a pro-Chávez newspaper accused of fostering anti-Semitism, closely follows Mr. Ramírez’s life in prison and calls him a “revolutionary compatriot demonized in international Judaism’s media campaigns.”
It is not uncommon here for pro-government media to attribute to a Jewish conspiracy episodes like the predicament of Mr. Ramírez, who was seized in a hospital room in Sudan in 1994 by French agents acting on a tip from the C.I.A. and then wrapped in a burlap bag and flown to Paris on an executive jet.
Mr. Chávez, who expelled Israel’s ambassador here in January before severing diplomatic ties with Israel, said Friday that he viewed Mr. Ramírez’s detention through the prism of pro-Palestinian causes, calling his countryman “one of the great fighters of the Palestine Liberation Organization.”
Mr. Ramírez, after his expulsion from Moscow’s Patrice Lumumba University, moved to Lebanon in the early 1970s, where he got involved with Palestinian operatives who were plotting attacks in Europe.
Adopting the nom de guerre Carlos, he reportedly led actions including the abduction of oil ministers attending an OPEC meeting in Vienna in 1975 (including Venezuela’s representative, Valentín Hernández Acosta) before allying himself with the Baader-Meinhof Gang, the West German terrorist group also known as the Red Army Faction.
Mr. Ramírez, who moved largely in secularist clandestine circles prior to his 1994 capture in Sudan, later converted to Islam under the guidance of an Iranian mullah while in prison in France and married his Parisian lawyer, Isabelle Coutant Peyre. In a book published in 2003, he had some praise of his own: for Osama bin Laden.
In the book, he called Mr. bin Laden a “shining” example of what he considers “revolutionary Islam,” and described the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks in the United States as a “lofty feat of arms.”
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http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/22/world/americas/22venezweb.html?_r=1&ref=world