We’re Killing Off Our Vital Insects Too

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(Image by Spanish conservationist Javier Aznar)

[dropcap]R[/dropcap]ecent independent scientific studies indicate that we are threatening our vital global insect population, including of bees, with widespread extinction through massive deployment of agriculture pesticides. For most of us, insects such as flies or mosquitoes or wasps are nuisances to be avoided. Yet if the latest studies are any indication, we may be in danger of massive elimination of vital insects that maintain nature’s balance. The consequences to life on this planet are only now beginning to be seriously considered.

The first-ever worldwide study of declines of insect species and numbers has just been published by the journal, Biological Conservation. The conclusions are more than alarming. Among other conclusions the study found that over 40% of insect species are threatened with extinction.

The study found that habitat loss by the conversion to intensive agriculture is the main driver of the declines, as well as agrochemical pollutants such as glyphosate, neonicotinoids and other pesticides. The authors explain, “Here, we present a comprehensive review of 73 historical reports of insect declines from across the globe, and systematically assess the underlying drivers. Our work reveals dramatic rates of decline that may lead to the extinction of 40% of the world’s insect species over the next few decades.”

The study notes recent analyses that indicate that extensive usage of pesticides is the primary factor responsible for the decline of birds in grasslands and aquatic organisms such as fish or frogs in streams.

Among other things the study cites results of a 27-year study of insect populations in select German protected nature preserves that found a “shocking 76% decline in flying insect biomass at several of Germany’s protected areas…an average 2.8% loss in insect biomass per year in habitats subject to rather low levels of human disturbance. Worryingly, the study shows a steady declining trend over nearly three decades. A study in rain-forests of Puerto Rico has reported biomass losses between 98% and 78% for ground-foraging and canopy-dwelling arthropods over a 36-year period and parallel declines in birds, frogs and lizards at the same areas…”

Especially alarming were the declines in bee populations, especially bumblebees. Since 1980 they found that wild bee species in Britain declined by 52% and 67% in the Netherlands. In the United States, the country which pioneered intensive agribusiness and wide use of chemicals after World War II, they found that wild bees were declining in 23% of the country between 2008 and 2013, mainly in the Midwest, Great Plains and the Mississippi valley. These were the areas where grain production, particularly GMO corn for biofuel production using glyphosate and other chemicals was prevalent. Overall the USA went from a peak in 1947 of six million honey bee colonies, down to less than half or some 2.5 million colonies today. The decline began immediately as widespread agriculture use of the organochloride insecticide DDT was employed. Decline has continued unabated even after DDT was banned in 1972 in the United States as DDT was replaced by glyphosate-based alternatives and other chemical pesticides.

Irreversible decline?

[dropcap]W[/dropcap]hat is poorly understood by the larger public is the essential role that insects play to the entire order of nature and species preservation. As the report notes, “shrews, moles, hedgehogs, anteaters, lizards, amphibians, most bats, many birds and fish feed on insects or depend on them for rearing their offspring. Even if some declining insects might be replaced with others, it is difficult to envision how a net drop in overall insect biomass could be countered.” The study concludes among other sobering points that “the application of herbicides to cropland has had more negative impacts on both terrestrial and aquatic plants and insect biodiversity than any other agronomic practice.” The far most widely used herbicide in the world today is glyphosate and Monsanto Roundup based on glyphosate.

Another recent study by the California Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation reported that California’s monarch butterfly population is at an all-time low. From the 1980s when monitoring began to 2017, some 97% of monarch butterflies had disappeared. Then from 2017 to today another 85% decline was registered. The scientists claim the intensive agriculture use of pesticides, herbicides is the main cause.

Scientists at the University of Texas have identified in experiments that glyphosate, the controversial herbicide in Monsanto Roundup, harms the microbiota needed by honeybees for growing and resisting pathogens. This, combined with earlier studies linking the group of neonicotinoid pesticides to bee deaths, suggest we need an urgent review of the toxins being widely applied to our agriculture crops. Notably, the world’s largest purveyor of both neonicotinoids and of glyphosate-based Roundup today is the merged giant Monsanto/Bayer.

These studies all are putting the focus on an aspect of agrochemical damage that until now has been largely ignored. But insects make up the structural and functional base of many of the world’s ecosystems. A world without birds and bees would be one of catastrophic damage to all life on our planet. Without insects, entire ecosystems collapse. Rather than solving world hunger as the agribusiness industry likes to claim, their promotion of select pesticides such as glyphosate threaten to destroy the food system. Nobody in their right mind would want to do that, would they?

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
  Born in Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States, Engdahl is the son of F. William Engdahl, Sr., and Ruth Aalund (b. Rishoff). Engdahl grew up in Texas and after earning a degree in engineering and jurisprudence from Princeton University in 1966 (BA) and graduate study in comparative economics at the University of Stockholm from 1969 to 1970, he worked as an economist and freelance journalist in New York and in Europe. Engdahl began writing about oil politics with the first oil shock in the early 1970s. His first book was called A Century of War: Anglo-American Oil Politics and the New World Order and discusses the alleged roles of Zbigniew Brzezinski and George Ball and of the USA in the 1979 overthrow of the Shah of Iran, which was meant to manipulate oil prices and to stop Soviet expansion. Engdahl claims that Brzezinski and Ball used the Islamic Balkanization model proposed by Bernard Lewis. In 2007, he completed Seeds of Destruction: The Hidden Agenda of Genetic Manipulation. Engdahl is also a contributor to the website of the anti-globalization Centre for Research on Globalization, the Russian website New Eastern Outlook,[2] and the Voltaire Network,[3] and a freelancer for varied newsmagazines such as the Asia Times. William Engdahl has been married since 1987 and has been living for more than two decades near Frankfurt am Main, Germany.

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The Showbiz of Conservation: PETA, Google and Steve Irwin

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ABOVE: The Washington Post, a paper closely associated with the CIA and the Deep Establishment in general, and which abhors any form of radical ecological or animal rights activism has opportunistically jumped onto the bandwagon attacking PETA for supposedly desecrating the memory of a beloved "conservationist". Irwin, as author Binoy Kampmark here and others have noted, including this publication, may have been a well-intentioned lover of animals, but he was also an entrepreneur, and he undoubtedly disturbed the animals on countless occasions when it was not even remotely necessary to do so, except in the service of showmanship. (TGP screengrab from article on WaPo by Briana Ellison, 2.25.19)


by Binoy Kampmark / February 26th, 2019

[dropcap]T[/dropcap]he world of conservation has thrown up various voices of tenacity.  There was Aldo Leopold, a vital figure behind establishing the first wilderness area of the United States when he convinced the Forest Service to protect some five hundred thousand acres of New Mexico’s Gila National Forest.  There was Robert Marshall, the founder of The Wilderness Society.  There was Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring (1962), a solidly aimed blow at the use of DDT and its environmental effects.

Then there are the savvy showmen, the exploiters few short of a scruple, and manipulators keen on lining pockets.  The animal kingdom, for such types, is entertainment, much in the way that the automobile world is there for a figure such as Jeremy Clarkson.  Awareness of the existence of animals – their importance, their relevance – is drummed up by means of display and provocation.  The more dangerous, in a sense, the better, for here, human kind can be shown to be jousting with crocodile, sting ray and lion.  Humankind can return to savage roots, confronting other species in gladiatorial encounters with film crew and an extensive promotion strategy.  This is bullfighting, with a conservationist twist.

Such a figure was Steve Irwin, who made his way from Australia to the US, assisted by the solid contacts of his American wife Terri Raines, to build a name in the animal show business.  He became – and here the language is instructive – the self-styled Crocodile Hunter, audacious, brash and vulgar in his animal chase.  He established Australia Zoo, which sports a vision of being “the biggest and best wildlife conservation facility in the entire world, and” (note the entertainment gong here) “there is no other zoo like Australia zoo!”  The emphasis here is also vital: zoos vary in history in terms of what they have done for conservation, turning species as much into museum species for spectacle as any act of preservation.

"Humankind can return to savage roots, confronting other species in gladiatorial encounters with film crew and an extensive promotion strategy.  This is bullfighting, with a conservationist twist..."
Irwin teased out the voyeur in the spectator: would he be added to the crocodile’s next meal?  Or, even more daringly, would he add his baby to it?  Punters, take your pick, and wait for the outcome – you know you are in store for something grand and grisly.

This assertion is not far-fetched; in 2004, the showman introduced his one-month old son in what was promoted as “Bob’s Croc Feeding Debut” to a crocodile at feeding time, real fun for the family. While apologising for his actions in the face of strident protest, Irwin’s rather particular view on animal advertising came through.  He had, for one, been professional in keeping “a safe working distance with that crocodile when that took place”.  He would also have been “a bad parent if I didn’t teach my children to be crocodile savvy because they live here – they live in crocodile territory.”  Responsible, indeed.

His unique interpretation of safe working distance was again at play when he met his death on the Great Barrier Reef near Port Douglas in the course of making an installment in September 2006 for the series Ocean’s Deadliest.  The ingredients were all there: identifying a species that could kill rather than anything cuddly or cute; chasing a choice sample of that species; recording, for camera, its behaviour, using whatever means necessary. In the process, the barb of a stingray pierced his heart.  Marine biologists and zoologists make it clear that “they are not aggressive, reacting only when stepped on or improperly handled.”  The throngs of grieving supporters were revealing about how sapping the cult of celebrity can be.  Critics were few and far between.

One was fellow Australian, herself a superstar of sorts, Germaine Greer.  Greer reproached Irwin for not having “a healthy respect for stingrays, which are actually commoner, and bigger, in southern waters than they are near Port Douglas.”  Irwin never seemed to comprehend the vital fact “that animals needs space.”  No habitat was sacred to Irwin’s celebrity predations; creatures “he brandished at the camera” were distressed.  Left in such vulnerable situations, their options were limited: succumb or strike.

Irwin, whose birthday was commemorated by Google in one their “doodles” on Friday, did enough to drive the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) to a state of sheer consternation.  Google described the doodle as a celebration of “the legendary Australian wildlife advocate & TV personality whose bravery & passion opened the eyes of millions to the wonders of wildlife.”

PETA begged to differ.  Irwin, the organisation tweeted, “was killed while harassing a ray; he dangled his baby while feeding a crocodile and wrestled wild animals who were minding their own business.” The doodle sent “a dangerous, fawning message Wild animals are entitled to be left alone in their natural habitats.”

 

The organisation also reiterated that Irwin was distinctly off message in terms of conservation.  “A real wildlife expert & someone who respects animals for the individuals they are leaves animals to their own business in their natural homes.”

This did not sit well in the Twattersphere and other social media outlets where outrage, not debate, characterise arguments.  Unsurprisingly, Irwin’s methods are irrelevant to the persona of challenging, sporting buffoon.  He entertained, and did so well; that was what counted.  His cheer squad ranged across the fields of entertainment and sport, fitting given the same fold he came from.  Baseball writer Dan Clark scolded PETA for not accepting the premise that Irwin had “saved the lives of countless of animals in his sanctuaries”, “loved animals and cared for them greatly.”  Love, and shoddy pedagogy, are clearly variable things.

Irwin on NBC's Jay Leno, with adult croc.

Irwin had even won over certain wildlife conservationists such as Anneka Svenska, who claimed on BBC Radio 1 Newsbeat that he “has inspired the next generation of conservationists.”  Even she had to admit that “now it wouldn’t be looked at as so good to touch the animals like he used to.”

The problem with the Irwin legacy is how consequences are divorced from actions.  Certain actions, be it the business model of display and torment, and the encouragement his actions supposedly did for conservationists and the cause, are blurred.

PETA might be called out for some its more shonky and inconsistent protests when it comes to the world of animal ethics, but in the scheme of things, their notes of protest were valid.  Irwin was, first and foremost, a man of business, a rumbling combination of yahoo, entrepreneur and Tarzan.  That business might well have involved an element of conservation, but this was ancillary to the man, to his yob image, a person made wealthy on the fate and good deal of harassing, to use PETA’s term, deadly members of the animal kingdom. For that, he paid the ultimate price.

About the Author
Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge. He lectures at RMIT University, Melbourne and can be reached at: bkampmark@gmail.com.  

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Of Insects and Men

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We share this planet; we do not own it.
WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO HELP THE PLANET TODAY?

DATELINE: 02/27/2019

(Javier Aznar)

by EVAGGELOS VALLIANATOS

Invisible denizens — everywhere

[dropcap]I[/dropcap]nsects are all over the world – in and over the waters at the edge of the seas, in and over the waters of lakes, rivers and creeks and swamps and irrigation ditches. They thrive in the forests, mountains, deserts, land, cities, villages, in the tropics and in the homes of the poor and the powerful. Their populations are the largest of all other species. They have been occupying the Earth for 400 million years.

However, insects are tiny, short-lived organisms, hiding for the most part under the surface of the land, crawling in the floor, among rocks, and on everything that has roots, trunk or leaves. So, unless they are beautiful like the Monarch butterflies and obviously very useful like honeybees, insects are invisible.

We call scientists who study insects entomologists from the Greek word for insect, entomon, something that is divided in parts. Aristotle gave this name to insects, saying these parts or notches are on the bellies or the backs and bellies of insects. He studied honeybees and mayflies and some other five-hundred animals in his pioneering zoological research. He founded science and biology as we know them.He urged us to study and love animals because we live in their midst. They make up the natural world, which is absolutely essential for human survival and happiness.

Entomologists are confirming the science and wisdom of Aristotle. They have been saying insects hold ecosystems together. By ecosystems they mean large parts of the natural world: mountains, lakes, rivers, creeks, swamps, seas, deserts, and land. Insects work hard to survive and, in that process, they keep the natural world healthy.

For example, honeybees, wild bees, bumblebees, butterflies, moths and hoverflies pollinate wild flowers and crops. Dragonflies and damsel flies feast on water bugs, mosquitoes, and insects causing damage to crops. Dung beetles keep grasslands fertile. Other beetles decompose wood, thus recycling its nutrients.

Ground beetles eat weed seeds. And along with tiger beetles — like butterflies – they mirror biodiversity. In other words, if they are thriving, the entire ecosystem is healthy. But if their numbers are declining, watch out. A bigger problem is threatening nature.

The staggering decline of insects

A recent study reviewed 73 reports that focused on that bigger problem: the dramatic and staggering worldwide decline of insects, especially in the twenty-first century.

This timely and extremely important review appeared in the January 2019 issue of Biological Conservation. The scientists who reviewed the data on the global decline and extinction of insects work at the University of Sydney, Australia, and the China Academy of Agricultural Sciences in Beijing, China.

This study speaks of the “alarming… demise” of insects: something like 41 percent being in decline and about a third going extinct.

This decline affects all insects everywhere. It is the largest extinction on Earth since the Permian and Cretaceous periods, 299 million years ago and 145 million years ago respectively. This catastrophic decline and extinction of insects are bad omens for  civilization.

Fewer bugs and a continuing extinction of bugs disrupt pollination, the raising of food, the recycling of nutrients, and the fertility of grasslands. Furthermore, they are damaging and crippling natural pest control, whereby insects eat other insects, usually those insect pests that cause damage to crops grown for human food.

Another deadly consequence of the man-made destruction of insects is the starvation and extinction of several animals feeding on insects: shrews, moles, hedgehogs, anteaters, lizards, amphibians, several birds, bats and some fish. Not a few humans are also affected. In 2013, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations reported that about 2 billion people include insects in their traditional diet.

The deadly ecological effects of wiping out insects became obvious in the UK when grey partridges starved to death. They could not find insects to feed their chicks.

The 2019 review rightly identifies “intensive farming” and its deleterious pesticides as one of the main “drivers” of insect decline and extinction.

But what is intensive farming? It’s the violent metamorphosis of peasant farming to a factory armed with chemicals and  giant mechanical implements. It entails the growing of genetically engineered crops requiring, usually, the heavy and repeated application of synthetic fertilizers and weed killers, the removal of hedgerows and trees and, otherwise, the landscaping of large flat fields to accommodate irrigation, drainage, and large machines.

However, this kind of farming produces a great deal of the same food in great expanses of land, which attracts hordes of insects. Thus intensive farming is a heaven, though laced with poisons, for billions of flying and crawling insects and a hell for beneficial insects: pollinators, insect natural enemies, and nutrient recyclers.

For example, wild bees and bumblebees need flowers and places to nest and hibernate. No such necessities and comforts exist in modern industrialized farms. Is there any wonder the mechanized chemical plantation is the enemy of insects? It is devoid of flowers and safety. It is killing pollinators and leading them to extinction.

Some synthetic pesticides are nerve poisons. They are primarily responsible for driving honeybees to dramatic declines and, eventually, extinction.

Pesticides are destroying insects

The 2019 report concludes its review with this unsettling message:

The state of insect biodiversity in the world is “dreadful.” Almost half of the insects are “rapidly declining” and “a third are threatened with extinction.” Such a prospect, now in the arms of global warming, will have catastrophic effects on the ecosystems of the planet: in time, there probably will not be any more pollinators; land is increasingly becoming toxic and toxified; no more recycling of nutrients; extinction of birds and animals feeding on insects, and the eventual impossibility of farming.

The more farm chemicals, the more crop infestations by insect pests, including weeds, tolerant of pesticides. The root cause of this gigantic problem, the report admits, is the “intensification of agriculture.”

Ecological engineering

The authors then resort to recommending some measures that, if taken, could perhaps slow down the decline and extinction of insects. These include: strips of flowers and grassland at the edges of the farms. The hope here is to attract pollinators.

Second, crop rotation with clover to resurrect bumblebees. Sowing clover also fights erosion, fixes nitrogen, improves soil quality and attracts beneficial insects.

These ecological engineering modifications might also revitalize biological control: good insects eating bad insect pests. But these limited measures would go nowhere with constant sprays. So, the report urges that “current pesticide usage patterns, mainly insecticides and fungicides, are reduced to a minimum.”

The report recognizes that reducing pesticides, even cutting down drastically the amounts of sprayed insecticides, will have very little if any effects on crop yields.

The report also recommends the regulation of pollution for the rehabilitation of marshlands. Cleaner water would do wonders for aquatic insects.

No more pesticides

[dropcap]T[/dropcap]hese suggestions are a first step in the management of the decline and extinction of insects and, therefore, the potential recovery of beneficial insects that have been serving the natural world and civilization.

A beekeeper from Colorado named Tom Theobald spent 44 years fighting the excessive use of pesticides harming his honeybees. However, he lost all his hives. He blames the neonicotinoid insecticides (made in Germany) for the death of his bees. He is very disillusioned and angry.

In a mid-February 2019 message, he lashed at the industry and the government. He went further, accusing government employees of potential malfeasance. And he suggested that the 1970 federal Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act might just be the legal means by which to judge corruption associated with the manufacture, use, and regulation of pesticides.

Unless we face what these pesticides do to the natural world and human health, in other words, address the problem at its most fundamental, he said, nothing will happen. The profit motive is so strong that the chemical industry will keep churning these poisons forever. The next generation will confront similar pain, disease and loss.

I sympathize with Theobald. He fought the good fight all his life and for that virtue he was crushed. However, he has it all wrong about government workers. Federal employees have nothing to do with any “chemical mafia” or why neurotoxic neonicotinoids are devastating honeybees. The only bureaucrats at EPA who decide the fate of pesticides are presidential appointees.

Pesticides, however, are inherent toxic and problematic. Those who own them, those who test them, and those who sell them, are most likely wrapped in unethical actions. It’s the nature of the beast. You can’t convert a neurotoxin to anything other than a neurotoxin. It does not matter what tests you perform or what grades you get from the regulators.

Yet, the US Environmental Protection Agency has been “regulating” these chemicals since 1970. Scientists and administrators know what is going on.

Even the law that gives pesticides legal standing, the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide and Rodenticide Act, was drafted by polluters. It has loopholes that cover up and legitimize actions and policies that turn out to be hazardous, nay dangerous. After all, pesticides are chemicals designed to kill and, no less significant, chemicals spawned by chemical warfare.

Politics of change

[dropcap]B[/dropcap]anning pesticides would be a first step in reversing the insect collapse. Much more is necessary to settle the war between civilization and the insects. The deadly conflict must end. Man must learn if not to love insects, but to respect them. They have been on Earth about 390 million years longer than man. They know things he does not.

This philosophy is incompatible with the prevailing chemical and political orthodoxy that the best insect is a dead insect. Intensive farming wants all insects dead. Thousands of urban “pest-control” businesses are killing insects every day. Add the rest of the world, and you have millions of such businesses killing insects. This is foolish and dangerous.

In 2019, the Trump administration is fueling the politics and economics of the rapacious one tenth of one percent oligarchy. This is a tiny class of billionaires that have been making this country the mother of extreme inequality.

Much of this ignorance has been entering the EPA, converting it to be even more than in the past the best friend of polluters. The Trump EPA administrators embraced deregulation, which means they are telling polluters they are free to dump their toxic stuff everywhere. They also deny climate change. They even encourage bizarre schemes like small amounts of toxic chemicals are good for you.

If the Democrats win the White House and the Senate in 2020, they could order EPA to ban pesticides and the genetic engineering of crops. EPA then could support its environmental and public health mission: helping farmers to return to non-chemical, small-scale, sustainable family farming. The US Department of Agriculture could use its enormous agribusiness subsidies to help in the necessary transition from giant agriculture to family farming. Such reform would increase the number of farmers to millions; it would also revitalize rural America with democratic small farms and a variety of crops that would also allow the insects to return and embark, once again, to the restoration of ecosystems.

Agroecology

Agroecology would be essential in this transition. It’s the technical part of policy.

Miguel Altieri, professor of agroecology at the University of California-Berkeley, speaks of the “uncanny ability of pests to overcome [the] single-tactic control strategies” of large industrialized farms. He says agroecology is the science of sustainable agriculture.

This science explains and guides how to protect and conserve biological diversity and integrate it with food production. This means the farmer is thinking and doing ecological pest management: worrying about the whole farm, not exterminating all pests, but managing them at reasonable levels: using “many little hammers or strategies, rather than one big hammer.”

After all, beneficial insects are protecting the farm: they attack crop insects and mites; good parasites “commandeer” bad insects for food and habitat; beneficial fungi and bacteria making their homes in root surfaces, which they protect from disease.

So, we have the knowledge and the tools to return to  sustainable farming that will take advantage of the “built-in defenses” in the natural world. Insects are part of this equilibrium and strategy.

Now it’s a matter of political choice to work with nature, in which case, we can probably end the decline and extinction of insects and face, with equal determination, our next nemesis of rising global temperatures.

NOTE: These extraordinary images were taken by Spanish biologist/conservationist Javier Aznar, who obviously is as much a scientist as he is an artist. He can be reached at http://javieraznarphotography.com/index.php/portfolio/
and info@javieraznarphotography.com

About the Author
Evaggelos Vallianatos is a historian and environmental strategist. Educated in zoology and history at the University of Illinois, receiving a BA in zoology and a MA in Medieval Greek history. He earned a doctorate in European-Greek history at the University of Wisconsin. He did postdoctoral studies in the history of science at Harvard. He worked on Capitol Hill for 2 years and at the US Environmental Protection Agency for 25 years. He is the author of hundreds of articles and 6 books, including "Poison Spring," with Mckay Jenkings.

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New Studies Confirm Dangers of Glyphosate

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ZAGREB CROATIA - MAY 21 2016 : Protesters march with signs raised through Zagreb in a protest against US biotechnology group Monsanto and against TTIP agreement.

[dropcap]S[/dropcap]ince the 1960s uproar over the dangers of widespread agriculture use of the weed killer, DDT, no other herbicide or agriculture chemical has stirred as much widespread opposition as glyphosate. Glyphosate is the main and only publicly disclosed ingredient in the world-leading herbicide, Roundup, from Monsanto/Bayer. With fierce opposition from many EU member states, in 2018 owing to a sly maneuver by the former German Minister of Agriculture, the EU Commission ruled to continue allowing the controversial pesticide. Now recent tests have added to the body of evidence that glyphosate is carcinogenic and should be banned immediately.

On February 10, 2019 the scientific journal Mutation Research published the results of a major new study on the possible cancer-causing effects of glyphosate-based herbicides (GBH). The authors noted, “We investigated whether there was an association between high cumulative exposures to GBHs and increased risk of non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL) in humans. We conducted a new meta-analysis that included the most recent update of the Agricultural Health Study (AHS) cohort published in 2018 along with five case-control studies. Using the highest exposure groups when available in each study, we report the overall meta-relative risk (meta-RR) of NHL in GBH-exposed individuals was increased by 41%…” The study authors concluded that there was a “compelling link between exposures to GBHs and increased risk for NHL.”

A 41% greater risk of lymphoma is significant.

Rachel Shaffer, a co-author of the study at the University of Washington, stated of the results, “This research provides the most up-to-date analysis of glyphosate and its link with Non-Hodgkin Lymphoma, incorporating a 2018 study of more than 54,000 people who work as licensed pesticide applicators.”

The University of Washington study supports the 2015 conclusion of the WHO International Agency for Research on Cancer, which classified glyphosate as a ‘probable human carcinogen.’ The GMO and related agrichemical industry has done everything imaginable to counter the impact of the independent IARC report.

Roundup today is the world’s most widely used herbicide. Since commercialization of GMO crops in the USA after 1996, the amount of Roundup-bearing glyphosate has dramatically increased worldwide. In the United States alone, usage increased nearly sixteen-fold between 1992 and 2009. What is not often understood, the patented GMO crops are modified to resist the toxic Roundup, nothing else.

In addition to killing weeds on GMO soybeans or corn, Roundup or other GBHs are sprayed again on crops just before harvest to accelerate their dessication, giving the crops a far higher glyphosate residue. Given that at least in the USA GMO crops have permeated the entire food chain, exposure to glyphosate and related toxins has spread as well.

EU Stalls on glyphosate ban

Despite decisions by numerous EU member states against use of glyphosate following the 2015 IACR finding, and millions of citizen petitions to the Brussels EU Commission calling to not renew the license for glyphosate, the powerful agrichemical lobby to date is dominant.

The EU has just published results of a 2-year study of effects of GMO corn on rats. It is a response to an earlier shocking study, the first ever over the 2 year normal rat lifetime, of effects of Monsanto GMO corn and of the associated glyphosate-bearing Roundup weed killer. The 2014 Seralini study found very significant chronic kidney deficiencies in the GMO-fed rats as well as cancer tumors and early death among other alarming results. Monsanto and the agrichemical industry launched a de facto war to discredit the damning Seralini study. One result is the of that effort is the EU-funded 2-year study known as G-TwYST that has just been released.

The EU study of the effects feeding rats Mon NK603+Roundup, is misleadingly titled: “Lack of adverse effects in subchronic and chronic toxicity/carcinogenicity studies on the glyphosate-resistant genetically modified maize NK603 in Wistar Han RCC rats.” That makes it sound like they found no problems, unlike Seralini’s group. However when we take the trouble to actually read the study, buried deep in the text is the following:

“…the mortality rate of the male rats fed the 33% NK603 + Roundup diet was significantly higher than that of the corresponding control group. The most common cause of premature death in both groups was a pituitary pars anterior adenoma, 12 in the control group and 17 in the group fed the 33% NK603 diet. The next most common cause of premature death was a kidney chronic progressive nephropathy, 1 in the control group and 3 in the group fed the 33% NK603 + Roundup diet. ”

The EU study ignored this in the conclusion and concluded that no long-term animal studies for risk assessment of °GMO plants was needed.

Fat rats…

[dropcap]I[/dropcap]n order to get their benign result, the EU study authors had to explain away the increased mortality in male rats fed Monsanto NK603 GMO corn with Roundup related to pituitary tumors. To do so they claimed that the GMO-Glyphosate fed rats ate more, leading to a “strong increase” in body weight between the 12th and 24th month of the feeding trial, compared with the non-GMO-fed control group.

Significantly they did not ask why GMO+Roundup fed rats were significantly fatter than non-GMO+Roundup fed rats. That could shed light on the causes of the epidemic obesity in USA and EU populations over the past 20 years as glyphosate use has soared. The EU scientists conveniently ignored both increased deaths in the males fed NK603 maize + Roundup, or the increase in body weight in the same animals. GMWatch asks the relevant question: “This misrepresentation of the study findings raises the question of why scientists funded with EU taxpayers’ money would apparently downplay such results, misleading the public and the scientific community.”

In August 2018 a California jury ruled in favor of a school groundskeeper exposed to significant Roundup over years who contracted non-Hodgkin lymphoma that he claimed was due to Roundup exposure. The court ordered Monsanto to pay $289 million to Dewayne Johnson. Since then Monsanto has become target of thousands of similar lawsuits and the stock price of parent, Bayer AG, has declined significantly on a negative outlook.

It’s time to ask for more than transparency in government studies of effects of the agrichemicals. The accepted precautionary principle requires government agencies to protect the general health and safety when there is any doubt. That pervasive human and food-chain exposure to glyphosate is associated with higher cancer, obesity, organ damage and other risks is clearly indicated. The prudent response would be calling for total ban unless and until effects are fully and independently determined.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
  Born in Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States, FW Engdahl is the son of F. William Engdahl, Sr., and Ruth Aalund (b. Rishoff). Engdahl grew up in Texas and after earning a degree in engineering and jurisprudence from Princeton University in 1966 (BA) and graduate study in comparative economics at the University of Stockholmfrom 1969 to 1970, he worked as an economist and freelance journalist in New York and in Europe. Engdahl began writing about oil politics with the first oil shock in the early 1970s. His first book was called A Century of War: Anglo-American Oil Politics and the New World Order and discusses the alleged roles of Zbigniew Brzezinski and George Ball and of the USA in the 1979 overthrow of the Shah of Iran, which was meant to manipulate oil prices and to stop Soviet expansion. Engdahl claims that Brzezinski and Ball used the Islamic Balkanization model proposed by Bernard Lewis. In 2007, he completed Seeds of Destruction: The Hidden Agenda of Genetic Manipulation. Engdahl is also a contributor to the website of the anti-globalization Centre for Research on Globalization, the Russian website New Eastern Outlook,[2] and the Voltaire Network,[3] and a freelancer for varied newsmagazines such as the Asia Times. William Engdahl has been married since 1987 and has been living for more than two decades near Frankfurt am Main, Germany.

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THIS WORK IS LICENSED UNDER A Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License



Transformations—Actor James Cromwell was motivated to become a full vegan and animal advocate after playing Farmer Hoggett in “Babe”

HELP ENLIGHTEN YOUR FELLOWS. BE SURE TO PASS THIS ON. SURVIVAL DEPENDS ON IT.

First iteration Dec 19, 2017 • By Goran Blazeski • Vintagenews.com

[dropcap]T[/dropcap]rivialized by many as a pig movie for children, Chris Noonan’s Babe proved many people wrong and captured the hearts and minds of children and adults alike. The touching story of a cute talking piglet, who wants to become a sheepdog, hit theaters around the world in 1995 and almost instantly went beyond expectations to become a true smash hit, earning over $250 million over the years.

But profit is least important when talking about such story whose emotional warmth can’t be bought with any money in the world. Who would’ve thought that we can learn so much about humans by watching this tiny pink piglet? Its story and adventures profoundly changed the lives of many people who went vegetarian after watching the movie. But no other human being experienced bigger change than James Oliver Cromwell, who portrayed the character of Farmer Hoggett in Babe. The movie that was released more than 20 years ago earned Cromwell an Oscar nomination, but also made him an outspoken vegan and animal rights advocate.

How do people become socialists, breaking out of the capitalist brainwash? How do humans become dedicated animal defenders? Each journey is different, and often inspiring. This is James Cromwell's own trajectory.
The wider audience knows the legendary actor as “the guy from Babe” but he’s never been too concerned about this because he gave some quite outstanding performances in other iconic movies such as Star Trek: First Contact, The Green Mile, LA Confidential, The Artist, American Horror Story: Asylum.

Cromwell has always been interested in acting and started his career in theater, performing in Shakespearean and experimental plays. His first TV appearance came in 1974 in the Rockford Files and one year later he made his film debut in Neil Simon’s Murder by Death. He appeared in several other films and television series, but finally achieved critical acclaim and got Academy Award recognition for his role as the kindly Farmer Hoggett in the movie Babe.

Adapted from Dick King-Smith’s book The Sheep-Pig, the movie takes place in Australia, and it is about a pig who wants to be a sheepdog. The movie is widely considered as one of the best family movies ever made and received seven Oscar nominations, including one for Best Picture. Cromwell won an Oscar nomination for his masterful portrayal of Arthur Hoggett and, as mentioned above, it was this movie that made him an outspoken vegan and animal rights advocate.

Cromwell had been a vegetarian since the mid-1970s but became an ethical vegan in 1995 while filming Babe. In his interview with TakePart, the actor explains how he came to the decision:

“I was doing a picture in Australia called ‘Babe,’ working with a lot of animals and animal trainers. I cared about their welfare and then, of course, you have lunch and it’s all there in front of you, and I thought, I should go the whole hog, so to speak. So I made that decision and kept that during the shooting. When I came back, I got involved with PETA, and of course, the film opened and it was very successful”.

The actor became involved with PETA’s campaign rescuing pigs from school 4-H programs, and he also appeared in a video that features a hidden-camera investigation at a pork supplier that he claims is used by Walmart.

As reported by the Guardian, in the video presented by animal rights group Mercy For Animals, Cromwell details a hidden-camera investigation which he says has uncovered torture at a pork supplier in Minnesota, used by America’s best-known retailer.

In February 2013, James Cromwell was arrested at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, for protesting about a school study that the animal rights group PETA says involves “abusive experiments” of cats. He was arrested for the second time in 2015, while protesting against the construction of a power station in Wawayanda, New York, near his home in Warwick. Last year he was among 18 others arrested during a protest against an energy company near Seneca Lake.

Babe inspired Cromwell to take ethical actions for the rights and well-being of animals through his diet and activism.

“I decided that to be able to talk about this [movie] with conviction, I needed to become a vegetarian,” he told the Vegetarian Times in 1998.

 

Thank you for visiting our animal defence section. Before leaving, please join us in a moment of compassion and reflection.The wheels of business and human food compulsions are implacable and totally lacking in compassion. This is a downed cow, badly hurt, but still being dragged to slaughter. Click on this image to fully appreciate this horror repeated millions of times every day around the world. With plentiful non-animal meat substitutes that fool the palate, there is no longer reason for this senseless suffering. And meat consumption is a serious ecoanimal crime. The tyranny of the palate must be broken. Please consider changing your habits and those around you in this regard.

 

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