Author Archives: LynetteCjr

One of the Biggest Opponents of GMO Labeling Is Offering More Non-GMO Products

by LynetteCjr Posted on July 2, 2014

Mother Jones

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Cargill, a giant privately held food manufacturer, is one of the biggest enemies of laws requiring companies to label products that contain genetically modified ingredients. But even as it fights GMO-labeling laws in state legislatures and courthouses around the country, Cargill is introducing more GMO-free products.

Last week, Cargill announced its newest non-GMO crop, soybean oil, which will join corn and beans on Cargill’s list of unmodified products.

Gregory Page, the chairman of Cargill’s board, sits on the executive board for the Grocery Manufacturers Association (GMA), the big-food lobbying group that recently sued Vermont for passing a bill requiring food manufacturers to label genetically modified foods. The company warns on its website that mandatory labeling can be “misleading” to consumers who might believe genetic modification and bioengineering in food is dangerous. A GMO label does not provide any meaningful information about the food, Cargill argues, because GMO foods are “substantially equivalent” to non-GMO foods.

But despite this, Cargill seems to see the benefit in offering consumers the option of eating unmodified foods. “Despite the many merits of biotechnology, consumer interest in food and beverage products made from non-GM ingredients is growing, creating opportunities and challenges for food manufacturers and food service operators,” Ethan Theis, a spokesman for the company, told the Toronto-based Digital Journal last week. Even the fiercest opponents of GMO labeling are willing to offer non-GMO products when consumers’ cash is on the line.

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One of the Biggest Opponents of GMO Labeling Is Offering More Non-GMO Products

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Will Only the Rich Benefit From the EU’s New Right to Purge Google?

by LynetteCjr Posted on May 15, 2014

Mother Jones

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Danny O’Brien of the Electronic Frontier Foundation isn’t happy about the new EU court decision that requires Google to delete links to information that people find troublesome:

When a newspaper publishes a news item, it appears online….Attempting to limit the propagation of that information by applying scattergun censorship will simply temporarily distort one part of the collective record in favor of those who can take the time and money to selectively edit away their own online blemishes….Meanwhile, a new market is created for mining and organizing accurate public data out of the reach of the European authorities. The record of the major search engines will be distorted, just as it was by Scientology and the Chinese government. Outside of Europe’s reach, rogue sites will collect the real information, and be more accurate than the compliant search services.

There are two interesting points here. First, that the EU ruling will mostly benefit the rich, who can afford to hire people to police their image and make legal demands to have links deleted. Second, that this will prompt the rise of “rogue” search engines that can bill themselves as uncensored.

The first point depends almost entirely on just how broad the court ruling turns out to be, and right now that’s deeply unclear. In the case at hand, the court ruled that Google had to delete a link because it was now “irrelevant,” a standard that’s fuzzy to say the least. Could I demand that links to dumb articles I wrote for my campus newspaper a few decades ago be deleted? How about a failed business from the 90s? Or bad student evaluations on an anonymous website? The court provided very little guidance on this, so only time will tell how broadly this gets interpreted. Either way, though, it’s almost certainly true that, in practice, only the fairly affluent will be able to take advantage of it.

The second point is also something to keep track of. The court ruling specifically targeted search engines as a way of exerting EU control even when the source information itself is held on a site outside of EU jurisdiction. But will this work? Creating a search engine isn’t all that difficult. It’s hard to create one as good as Google, but it’s not hard to create one that’s pretty good. And if that search engine is located solely in the United States and does no business in Europe, then the court’s ruling doesn’t affect it. However, residents of Europe would still have access to it unless the EU gets outrageously heavy-handed and tries to firewall unapproved sites, much as China does. That seems unlikely.

Now, it’s true that your average searcher would still get the censored Google results. At the same time, if a few uncensored sites pop up in response to this court ruling, it wouldn’t be all that hard for anyone who cares to use them. What’s more, the very act of filing a demand to delete a link would itself be a public record, and might produce more bad PR than the original search results ever did.

I remain opposed to this ruling, which seems vague, overbroad, and just plain bad public policy. But just how bad it is depends a lot on how things unfold over the next few years. Stay tuned.

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Will Only the Rich Benefit From the EU’s New Right to Purge Google?

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Sochi Olympics are bad for environment and locals alike

by LynetteCjr Posted on January 22, 2014

Sochi Olympics are bad for environment and locals alike

By

Vladimir Arndt / Shutterstock

When Russia made its bid to host the 2014 Winter Olympic Games, it promised green building standards and “zero waste.” But as we count down to the opening ceremony on Feb. 7, illegal landfills and trashed ecosystems suggest that Russia may not medal in eco-friendly practices.

Not only is this shaping up to be the most expensive Olympics in the history of the games, with $51 billion of new development, it is also arguably one of the most destructive. Five thousand acres of pristine forests have been felled, while wetlands that served as important stopovers for migrating birds have been filled in. Landslides and waste dumping threaten the watershed, which feeds into the Black Sea. Building within national parks in Russia used to be limited, but that regulation was reversed in order to make way for some games facilities, hotels, and roads. Some observers note that the Olympics have provided an opportunity for developers to cash in on what they hope will be a profitable tourist destination in the future.

The construction projects have also left local Sochi-ers in the lurch, facing frequent power shortages, land subsidence, flooding, and widespread pollution. While the mayor of Sochi pointed to a new Louis Vuitton store as a symbol of progress, nearby communities are living without running water, and some have been cut off from the city by a new $635 million highway, as the Associated Press reports:

The residents of 5a Akatsy street have lived for years with no running water or sewage system. Construction for the 2014 Winter Games has made their lives more miserable … Even their communal outhouse had to be torn down because it was found to be too close to the new road and ruled an eyesore. …

People elsewhere in Sochi and surrounding villages have had the quality of their life decline because of Olympic construction. In the village of Akhshtyr, residents complain about an illegal landfill operated by an Olympics contractor that has fouled the air and a stream that feeds the Sochi water supply. Waste from another illegal dump in the village of Loo has slid into a brook that flows into the already polluted Black Sea.

As though to prove how ecologically oblivious they are, some Russian entrepreneurs recently flew two captured orca whales to a Sochi aquarium, where they’ll be on display during the Olympics. It’s a bizarrely tone-deaf move considering the widespread popularity of anti-dolphinarium documentary Blackfish. But the presiding philosophy in Sochi seems to be “make hay while the sun shines,” and it only shines for another month.

Russia doesn’t want you to be thinking about any of this, so officials have put the squeeze on potential whistleblowers. In the wake of the highly publicized release of Pussy Riot and Greenpeace activists last December, lower-profile harassments of activists and reporters continue. Evgeny Vitishko, a member of the Environmental Watch of the North Caucasus and an outspoken critic of Sochi development, has just been sentenced to spend three years in a penal colony, and his group was ordered to suspend its activities under a controversial foreign-agents law. Al Jazeera reports:

Vitishko, who denies all charges and remains free pending an appeal, was accused of violating a curfew imposed on him after he was sentenced to probation in 2012 on charges that human-rights advocates have called spurious and politically motivated. Another member of the group sentenced with him, zoologist Suren Gazaryan, fled to Estonia and was granted asylum. …

“It seems that every other day, police in Sochi are detaining and stopping people who are political and environmental activists,” [Rachel Denber of Human Rights Watch] said. “It has been a steady stream of harassment.”

Meanwhile, officials claim that five trees will be replanted for every one felled, and animals disturbed during preparations for the games will be relocated or replaced. Even if all this is carried out — and some NGOs working with the planners are dubious — it will still almost certainly not be enough to save the ecosystem.

“The Mzymta Valley had the most diverse ecosystem in the region. It was a beautiful place,” Gazaryan said from Tallinn, Estonia. He dismissed official promises of reforestation for the area. “Of course we can put some trees. We can breed some animals. But we can’t restore an ecosystem. We lost a territory for the future.”


Source
A crumbling Sochi hides behind Olympic facades, Associated Press
Russia cracks down on green activism ahead of Sochi Olympics, Al Jazeera

Amelia Urry is Grist’s intern. Follow her on Twitter.

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Sochi Olympics are bad for environment and locals alike

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