Good News/Bad News August 15, 2002

By Matthew Wheeland, AlterNet. Posted August 14, 2002.

When GN/BN took last week off to enjoy nature instead of just writing about it, we feared that based on how things were going in the world, we'd return to a horde of radioactive winged monkeys parading about the capitol. Instead, it seems that things went pretty smoothly in our absence. From local anti-GMO foods initiatives to new, clearer organic labels for foods, the world is looking pretty shiny this week...

Good News

In a groundbreaking move, anti-GMO foods activists have brought a ballot measure to the voters of Oregon that would require all foods with GM ingredients to be labeled. Considering that roughly two-thirds of all packaged foods contain at least some GM ingredients, this bill would certainly open some eyes in the Safeways of the state...

Apparently, "a fungus found in a British dirt sample, and grown in huge fermentation vats" and passed off as a healthy fake meat product could be unhealthy! The Center for Science in the Public Interest has accused the FDA of rushing an unhealthy meat substitute to market and is urging a recall.

We're not sure where to file this one. We think it's good news, but really it's just not-bad news. Apparently, instead of the world's rainforests disappearing by .5 percent per year, they're only disappearing by .3 percent! Not exactly heartening news, but at least they're not disappearing faster than feared.

Like nature's fuel cells: Germany's Max Planck Society has discovered organisms at the bottom of the Black Sea that survive without oxygen by turning methane into nutrients and creating only coral as byproducts. Not only could these organisms potentially curb global warming, but every home could someday have a Great Barrier Reef!

First Denver, next L.A.? Denver this week announced that it is in full compliance with the National Ambient Air Quality Standards, and is the first major U.S. city to do so. What's more, even the Republican governor admitted that getting greener was beneficial to their economy.

Once again, this is less good news than it is "Yikes!" news. On August 7, a coalition of environmental groups filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Navy to prevent it from using its new low-frequency, long-range sonar system, on the grounds that it is deadly to sea life the world over. The system, known as LFA, is capable of reaching 140 decibels more than 300 miles away. That's louder than a jet plane taking off. However, in an unforeseen reaction to the suit, the Bush Administration's Justice Department stated on August 13 that the open sea is not subject to U.S. environmental laws. If this argument becomes policy, then it could very well open the door to an unregulated ocean environment where commercial fishing and energy exploration run unchecked. Sometimes, you just can't win.

The USDA has updated its organic foods labeling requirements, and products will soon show up on your grocer's shelves with one of four levels: only products that contain 70 percent or more organic ingredients will be able to use the word organic on labels. We expect Clairol's "Herbal Essences" products to undergo massive label changes...

Two recent developments have shown that the Bush adminstration is taking some steps to address public concerns about genetically modified foods. Sure, they're half-assed steps, but half an ass is better than no ass:

The Department of Agriculture has announced that it will create a program in which food exporters in the U.S. can voluntarily declare if their shipments are GM or not. Whether or not a voluntary program will make any difference remains to be seen, but we believe that once the agribiz giants realize there's almost no one in the world who wants GM food shipments, they may slack off production.

Additionally, Bush's EPA is taking a stand against agribusiness giants. Two subsidiaries of Dow Chemical and DuPont stand accused of planting biotech corn too close to other plots of corn and not sheltering the experimental corn to prevent it from contaminating non-GM corn crops nearby.

Bad News

The Bad News this week is primarily centered, appropriately enough, around the World Summit on Sustainable Development, which starts Aug. 26 in Johannesburg, South Africa.

And which, pleasantly enough, President Dubya's not going to attend. He is on holiday, after all, and he's only got a month to recover from the stresses of letting his handlers and Dick Cheney run the country. It's probably fortunate for the world that he's not there: considering how poorly the stock market reacted to his repeated calls for calm last month, if Dubya did speak at the WSSD, we might very well see those winged monkeys after all...

Although it's billed as a "snapshot of the Earth's main environmental problems," Agence France Presse's State of the Planet report paints a pretty grim picture of where the world's heading unless we can encourage those in power to wake up to sustainable progress.

A recent UN report has made clear that although North America has made steady, if slow, progress in preserving the environment in the past three decades, the trend toward sustainability needs to dramatically increase, or the rest of the world will pay the costs in terms of water shortages, pollution and disease.

By now, we've all heard about this "giant pollution cloud" over Southeast Asia. But damn! Do you understand that? That's a Giant. Cloud. Of Pollution! Two miles high! This is a klaxon horn going off at 5 a.m. outside your bedroom window. It's suggesting that maybe we should look into alternative fuel sources, what say?

Matt Wheeland is an editorial intern at AlterNet

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