ilikeitgreen - Green for Life!

The Swedish right-wing government has won the yearly greenwash award in Sweden! The greenwash award is given to a company or a person who have done the best job to avoid real environmental action, and instead put effort into creating a fake green image. Friends of the Earth has, after a period of public online voting, given this award to Andreas Carlgren, the Swedish Environment Minister.

What is a bit surprising (or not) is that Andreas Carlgren won the award by far even though he was up against other heavy greenwash opponents such as Carl-Henrik Svanberg from BP and Shell. A reason for his crushing victory must be his involvement in the controversial new Swedish motorway project Bypass Stockholm which he is working hard to brand as an "environmentally friendly" solution to the traffic problems in Stockholm.

In September 2009 the government gave permission for the largest and most expensive highway project ever, the so-called bypass Stockholm. The motorway will increase road traffic and get in the way for emission reductions. Environment Minister Andreas Carlgren defended the bypass by claiming that it is an "environmental and climate friendly option for Stockholm", "a major investment in trams and buses", and a motorway "for the future of environmentally friendly cars," said Ellie Cijvat, chairman of the Friends of the Earth in Sweden.

Read more about the Swedish government and its climate-wrecking efforts:
- The Swedish government is bad for the environment
- The Swedish government completes its climate wrecking track record with a pro-nuclear vote

A new report released by the Met Office and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has come to the conclusion that there is "unmistakable signs" that "the world is warming".

The report is based on 10 different indicators of temperature changes. According to the Met Office each indicator "proved consistent with a warming world". According to the report the air temperature over land, the sea-surface and marine air temperature has all increased. Our oceans are also heating and the humidity is getting higher. Tropospheric temperature in the ‘active-weather’ layer of the atmosphere closest to the Earth’s surface has also increased. The Met Office also notes that sea-levels has increased while glaciers, spring snow cover in the northern hemisphere and arctic sea-ice are all in decline.

“The temperature increase of one degree Fahrenheit over the past 50 years may seem small, but it has already altered our planet,” said Deke Arndt, co-editor of the report and chief of the Climate Monitoring Branch of NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center.

“Glaciers and sea ice are melting, heavy rainfall is intensifying and heat waves are more common. And, as the new report tells us, there is now evidence that more than 90 percent of warming over the past 50 years has gone into our oceans.”

You can read a short summary of the report here. The electronic version of the full report can be found on the NOAA website.

Photo credit: Jesse Kruger

Does the individualization of environmentalism have any merits? Can it successfully co-exist with collective action? Environmental advertising (or “green” advertising) assures consumers that they can evoke positive environmental change by adopting simple habits and by purchasing green goods provided by companies (Maniates, 2001). These include wearing clothing made from sustainable fibres, consuming local and organic food, purchasing hybrid cars or choosing cosmetics made with natural ingredients. However, some environmental scholars such as Michael Maniates have criticized these actions as greenwashing which individualizes environmental problems.

The tension at the heart of consumer culture is that it is a fragile system that cannot sustain itself indefinitely (Varey, 2001). The resources needed to extract, produce, transport, and advertise the products that consumers take for granted are being used up at an alarming rate, with devastating environmental costs. We all know this. Consumer culture has received ever-increasing blame for the environmental crisis, which marketing responds to with “green advertising”.

Michael Maniates’ research (2001) provides an insightful critique of this individualization associated with green marketing. Green advertising, he argues, coyly sidesteps the underlying issues of overconsumption and individualization, in the attempt to preserve familiar, comfortable patterns of consumption. According to Maniates, true environmental action would involve long term solutions such as collective public policy that reduces our consumption patterns and breaks our reliance on fossil fuels. This perspective argues that within green advertising, larger social patterns and powers are ignored and civic action is disregarded as a viable solution. Instead, individualization places all blame (as well as all responsibility for action) on individual consumers. In reality, however, green advertising is sustained through a capitalist system that is innately un-environmental in its need for constant growth and the development of new markets. Goldman and Papson (1996) share these sentiments, claiming that the entire purpose of advertising is to create demand for products, and therefore advertising is inherently un-environmental.

Citizenship vs Consumption

But maybe green advertising has benefits that cannot be disregarded. First, in order to fully grasp the complexities of contemporary culture, it is necessary to broaden the traditional definitions of “consumption” and “citizenship”. Maniates asserts that “the individualization of responsibility, because it characterizes environmental problems as the consequence of destructive consumer choice, asks that individuals imagine themselves as consumers first and citizens second” (2001, p. 34). However, I wish to counter this idea and maintain an alternative view of the coupling of the “citizen-consumer”. Trentmann agrees that this phenomenon leaves social change to the realm of consumption, but argues that this new form cannot be overlooked. Thus, the conventional definitions are no longer satisfactory. Citizenship –too often see as irrelevant and stuffy– is being transformed. As Trentmann asserts, “the political is back” (2007, p. 147). Consumption and citizenship do not have to be viewed as a zero-sum game. In fact, consumers are increasingly concerned about political ideas within their consumption habits—consumer boycotts, Fair Trade Certified alternatives and concerns over sweatshops are all examples of this.

Muldoon’s research draws on the concept of the citizen-consumer in the realm of environmentalism. For instance, as Muldoon argues (2006), people have different ways of being politically active, and the marketplace may be an arena for individuals who shy away from politics to be active in environmentalism. Others argue that it is often easier for voices to be heard within the marketplace than within politics. Since companies are afraid of losing business, they may be more likely to respond to public opinion. Here, green marketing has a useful purpose and can fill the voids in collective public action (Muldoon, 2006).

Although Maniates (2001) argues that environmental change is not possible in the realm of the individual consumer, the fact remains that in several cases, (such as some food and personal hygiene products) consumption may be inevitable—so why not offer environmentally-friendly alternatives? Perhaps, green advertising offers consumers a reminder and an opportunity to engage with their environmental values on an ongoing basis. Seyfang also arrives at the conclusion that individual environmentally-conscious consumption is a “necessary complement” to more radical action—necessary because people require some purchased goods (2005, p. 302).

Empowering the Individual?

A second argument claims that green advertising’s individualization is not detrimental because it acts as an empowering force for individuals. As previously mentioned, there was a high level of concern for the environment among Americans in the 90s. However, citizens’ actions do not reflect this level of concern. This is a situation that is still extremely relevant. The authors believe that environmental advertising can be remarkably effective at empowering individuals to act on their environmental concerns. Cobb-Walgren, Ellen and Wiener’s telephone survey measured perceived consumer effectiveness (PCE) and environmental concern. Perceived consumer effectiveness is defined as the “belief that the efforts of an individual can make a difference in the solution to a problem” (1991, p. 103).

However, not all advertising is equally effective in empowering consumers. Interestingly, it appears that the more “lighthearted” advertising (advertising which serious environmentalists may critique) is more effective. The authors suggest that marketing may wish to avoid discussing how dire a situation is (what they call the “sick baby” appeal), or else individuals will be completely overwhelmed and will not feel that there is anything they can do. As they argue, “one can think he or she is guilty of contributing to the problem without thinking he or she has the power to solve the problem” (p. 105).

What is suggested instead of the “sick baby” approach is marketing campaigns that show how individuals are making an impact through their daily decisions. For instance, Encorp (a Canadian recycling company) regularly features advertising that mentions the positive impact of individuals’ decisions. One of their newspaper ads proudly declares: “Just by recycling your beverage containers you help keep the equivalent of 126,000 tonnes of greenhouse gases out of BC’s atmosphere” (Encorp, 2009). This way, people will be inspired to do more. The authors believe that this can be done without minimizing the importance of the issue at hand. In effect, the authors do not dismiss green advertising as a marketing campaign. Instead, they see it as a valuable tactic in warding off sentiments of hopelessness. As they argue, “both public and private policymakers who seek to encourage voluntary behavior on behalf of the environment should try to enhance consumer perceptions that their own actions will improve the environment” (1991, p. 111).

Therefore, these findings suggest that green advertising’s individualization of environmental action is not wholly detrimental. Green advertising may help to raise an individual’s personal sense of control in the problems of environmental destruction, causing more action to be taken. This is a key point that Maniates may have overlooked. Although collective action is perhaps the key element in positive change, individual empowerment may be the important precursor to collective action. In this way, individual action and collective action are not at odds.

Greater Effects: Voluntary Simplicity

Finally, there is some evidence to suggest that individual green consumption can actually lead to more significant action. Voluntary simplicity (VS) refers to the trend of adopting a lifestyle with little consumption and material goods (Kumju et al., 2006). This decision is noteworthy because it is born out of personal choice rather than economic necessity such as poverty or war. Voluntary simplicity is not necessarily new, but the researchers have uncovered a significant new element to add to the theory: beginner voluntary simplicity (BVS). Beginner voluntary simplifiers are not true voluntary simplifiers yet, but are important precursors in the process. They may not reduce their overall consumption, but have taken measures to purchase environmentally-friendly options (Kumju et al., 2006). Because of this, beginner voluntary simplifiers are a crucial target market for green advertising.

Essentially, consumption can be seen as a continuum rather than a binary, with voluntary simplicity on one side, and extreme consumerism on the other. This allows for the possibility of change. The authors decided to study this unique group to decide what steps they were taking, and what motivated them to take part in BVS. The authors determine that although advancement from BVS to VS is certainly not inevitable, there is a group of beginner voluntary simplifiers named “apprentice simplifiers” who will eventually become true voluntary simplifiers (Kumju et al., 2006). The role of green advertising is quite high for this group, the authors suggest, as they may “rely on more accessible and mainstream media, as well as actual product information on packaging” (Kumju et al., 2006, p. 526). Green advertising has educational appeal to this group of BVS.

What do you think?

After weighing the different arguments, Muldoon explains, “the game of sustainable living begins when more people can play. And anything that encourages greater contemplation of, and participation in, green issues is worth examining” (2006, para. 46). Here, I believe Muldoon is correct. Collective environmental groups are made up of individuals—empowered individuals who believe real change can be made. For this reason, it is simply not possible to altogether discount green advertising, and the individual action that stems from it. Green advertising and green consumerism can provide a place for the union of individual and collective action.

Therefore, I believe that individual action, though not sufficient, can be beneficial and may even strengthen areas of collective action. This is not to say that the greenwashing of products is a valuable advertising practice. Rather, I wish to avoid discounting the companies who have invested effort in the hopes of truly supplying a more environmentally-conscious product. I also want to recognize that individuals can be powerful agents of social change.

But I should open this conversation to you, the readers. You’re consumers of environmental media, and most likely buy environmentally-friendly products. What do you think? Is individual action sufficient? Is it important? Or is it just a way to continue destructive consumer culture?

Reference List

Cobb-Walgren, C., Ellen, P. & Wiener, J. (1991). The Role of Perceived Consumer Effectiveness in Motivating Environmentally Conscious Behaviors. Journal of Public Policy & Marketing, 10 (2), 102-117. Retrieved July 15, 2010, from Communication & Mass Media Complete database.

Encorp. (2009). Beverage Containers [print ad]. Retrieved August 2, 2010, from http://www.encorp.ca/cfm/index.cfm?It=914&Id=1&Se=38,58

Kumju, H., McDonald, S., Oates, C. & Young, C. W. (2006). Toward Sustainable Consumption: Researching Voluntary Simplifiers. Psychology & Marketing, 23(6), 515–534. Retrieved July 16, 2010, from Communication & Mass Media Complete database.

Goldman & Papson. (1996). Green Marketing and the Commodity Self, Sign Wars, pp. 187-215. NY, New York: Guilford Press.

Maniates, Michael. (2001). Individualization: Plant a Tree, Buy a Bike, Save the World? Global Environmental Politics 1(3), 31-52.

Muldoon, Annie. (2006). Where the Green is: Examining the Paradox of Environmentally Conscious Consumption. Electronic Green Journal, 23. Retrieved July 15, 2010, from Academic Search Premier database.

Seyfang, Gill. (2005). Shopping for Sustainability: Can Sustainable Consumption Promote Ecological Citizenship? Environmental Politics 14(2), 290-306. Retrieved August 1, 2010, from Google Scholar database.

Trentmann, F. (2007). Citizenship and Consumption. Journal of Consumer Culture, 7(2), 147-158.

Here is a quick quote from Tom Toles, a pulitzer prize-winning political cartoonist at the Washington Post, about the ongoing “climate debate”:

“We are apparently going to let the debate on the science run until hell freezes over. If you can’t accept the conclusions of 98 percent of the scientists whose FIELD IT IS, then why even bother with science? If that high a percentage of field of study is to be discounted ENTIRELY, then we are in deep trouble, which, of course, we are. It would be so simple if it were just a matter of ignoring the yelping commenters hereabouts: “Move on, Mr. Cartoonist! Chill out Tommy! There are more important things to worry about!”

Really? Which would those things be? This may be the only political issue whose results could be catastrophic PERMANENTLY. But the deliberate dust storm thrown up by fossil-fuel-centric interests has succeeded in contaminating and paralyzing the American response. Quite a victory for the deniers! It looks like mass-suicide to me.”

You can read his whole rant about climate deniers here.

Here are two videos from Streetfilms and the BBC which shows two cities in Scandinavia where bicycles dominate. You have probably already heard about Copenhagen and the city’s great reputation as a bicycle city. But you might not have heard about Lund, a Swedish town where around 60% of the population use bicycles and public transportation.

"The Politics Show East has been to a town in Sweden where 60 per cent of people leave their car at home. In the town of Lund the majority of the population use bicycles and public transport."

The second video, from Streetfilms, shows Copenhagen "through North American eyes":

"While Streetfilms was in Copenhagen for the Velo-City 2010 conference, of course we wanted to showcase its biking greatness. But we were also looking to take a different perspective then all the myriad other videos out there. Since there were an abundance of advocates, planners, and city transportation officials attending from the U.S. and Canada, we thought it’d be awesome to get their reactions to the city’s built environment and compare to bicycling conditions in their own cities.

If you’ve never seen footage of the Copenhagen people riding bikes during rush hour – get ready – it’s quite a site, as nearly 38% of all transportation trips in Copenhagen are done by bike. With plenty of safe, bicycle infrastructure (including hundreds of miles of physically separated cycletracks) its no wonder that you see all kinds of people on bikes everywhere. 55% of all riders are female, and you see kids as young as 3 or 4 riding with packs of adults."

And while I am at it I might as well share some of my own favourite cycling blogs.

The first one out is Carbuster’s editorial blog where they discuss all topics related to the "carfree movement". If you are interested in transportation issues I can highly recommend you to start subscribing to both the blog feed and the actual Carbuster magazine.

The Guardian has a good biking blog where they post about “all things cycling – in the UK and around the world”.

Crap Cycling & Walking in Waltham Forest is a good cycling blog. Just beware, you can get really depressed from reading their posts. Another similar blog is Bristol Traffic. If you are even more interested in biking topics in and around London you should also check out Real Cycling.

If fashion is your thing you might want to check out Cycle Chic from Copenhagen.

Other cycling blogs worth subscribing to are A view from the cycle path, Bike Hugger, EcoVelo and Planka.nu which is a Swedish network of commuter organisations working for free public transport.

Do you know about other great cities where bicycles has a dominated role in the traffic? Do you know about any other interesting cycling blogs? If yes please share them with the rest of us in the comment section below. Thanks!

German scholar Wolfgang Sachs talked about sustainable development versus economic growth in Copenhagen on invitation by The Ecological Council, The European Environment Agency and the Danish newspaper Information. Wolfgang Sachs is a former professor, former chairman of Greenpeace Germany, author of several books and contributor to the IPCC.

Sachs introduces with “the four directions” which are his logical answers to scarcity. Then his talk is divided in nine points; some skipped, others expanded. Focussing on growth, the efficiency paradox, green investments, sufficiency and commons here are a selection of quotes and notes.

Introduction: The four directions

“Let us speak about the success of Copenhagen [laughter from the crowd] everybody who is right in his mind, in the world, knows that we are entering a new historic age. Everybody who is clear in his mind knows that, let’s call it universal encompassing environmental scarcity is to be with us for the 21st century.”

“There are four possible reactions. [...] the first logical answer is, well, keep out people who might add to the aspirations; so it is a logical answer to go for exclusion. [...] Second logical answer when scarcity is looming [...] expansion is a logical response [nuclear power, genetic technology, capture and storage of CO2, geoengineering]. Third, [...] get better in the way we use things; so efficiency is another logical answer. [...] Fourth, [...] revise the aspirations.”

Growth

(11-17 minutes)

“Growth [...] it is a very young phenomenon. Of course for many thousand, two thousand years certainly, humanity has lived without steady economic growth. More so, classical economists – Adam Smith, Malthus, [?] – still do not really have the idea about steady accelerating growth. Yes, there was the idea around that you might increase prospect [...] at some point it will kind of level out, it’s not going to be, if you want, a human condition.”

“The idea of permanent economic growth is an offspring of the fossil age.”

Before second world war governments did not see economic growth as their main objective. Growth philosophy a product of the post-war effort to curb unemployment, thus only 40-50 years old.

Efficiency paradox

(22-28 minutes)

Efficiency paradox: Efficiency leads to consumption.

“The direct rebound effect is that once you can do something more efficiently you do more of the same thing. […] The indirect rebound effect is even more important: […] Where does the money go? […] Whereever you look it is very likely that there will be new energy and material demand associated with it.”

For example, I bought a bike about a week ago. I use it to transport myself to and from work so it already did about 100 kilometers. That’s a couple of kilos of CO2 saved right there. However, it is the stated policy of the Danish government to sell unused carbon quotas. The money they use on tax cuts for the rich and for companies. Thus, my green investment and biking effort is funding luxury yachts, stock market speculation and I don’t know what else.

“The precautionary principle [...] requires we begin research, debate, social experiments about how to live well with less or no economic growth.”

Green investments

(33-37 minutes)

“Investments today shape the economy of tomorrow.”

“There is a common ground [...] between green economy and degrowth. We need green investments because we need a different infrastructure. [Even if it comes with short term growth.] In the mid to long term a real green new deal has to incorporate a perspective of degrowth.”

Sufficiency and the commons

(37-51 minutes)

“Cars are built for intermediate performance levels.”

Effort is wasted in designing for top speed etc.

“The more unequal a society is the less happy people are.”

Unhappiness has environmental consequences as well as growth incentives, therefore promoting equitability creates sustainability.

“If we’d had to pay for Wikipedia, we wouldn’t have it.”

The graph below clearly shows that something is seriously wrong with our economy. Our overconsumption and fixation for more and more growth is killing our planet. You can click on the image to see it in more detail or explore the data behind the graphs here.

The graphs comes from New Scientist who recently did a special report on how our economy is killing the earth. In the report several “key thinkers from politics, economics and philosophy” gave their opinions about why they disagree with the current growth dogma. They write:

“Most of us accept the need for a more sustainable way to live, by reducing carbon emissions, developing renewable technology and increasing energy efficiency.

But are these efforts to save the planet doomed? A growing band of experts are looking at figures like these and arguing that personal carbon virtue and collective environmentalism are futile as long as our economic system is built on the assumption of growth. The science tells us that if we are serious about saving Earth, we must reshape our economy.”

Unfortunately you need to be a New Scientist subscriber to be able to read the actual articles.

When it comes to environmental and climate issues the current right-wing government in Sweden is one of the worst ever. And that is not just my own words! According to the Swedish Society for Nature Conservation (SSNC), an environmental organization formed in 1909 with over 180 000 members, the Swedish governments environmental policies have been a failure.

"We have investigated Swedish governments environmental policies since the 80s. This is one of the worst we have seen. Previous governments have slowly made progress. But it’s rare for a government to make so many backward steps that this current government has made", the secretary general of SSNC said [my translation].

SSNC complains that in some areas the Swedish government has failed to implement sufficient, if any, environmental laws and regulations. SSNC also do acknowledge that the current Government have implemented several good environmental policies, such as a ban on phosphates in detergents which is expected to reduce Sweden’s phosphorus discharges into the oceans by 50 tons per year. But the problem is that these good policies have been knocked back by other contradictive anti-environment decisions. One of these decisions is the removal of the tax on fertilizers which will, according to experts, result in a loss of control over several toxic substances and will cause leakage of nitrogen into the ocean.

A general election will be held in Sweden this September. If you are eligible to vote, and the environment is one of your main concerns then clearly you can’t vote for the ones currently in power.

Also read: The Swedish government completes its climate wrecking track record with a pro-nuclear vote

As seen on Global Voices: Russia: Unknown People in Masks and Police Attack Environmentalists

From 20 to 40 young people in white masks attacked the camp of the defenders of the Khimki forest park [RUS], Igor Podgorny [RUS] and Novaya Gazeta [RUS] reported. The police intervention didn’t help – instead several environmentalists and journalists were detained.

Sounds nasty. By now a couple of main stream international media have picked up the story. Like AP: Police detain Moscow forest activists

Russian police on Friday detained two journalists and 15 protesters at a suburban Moscow forest where they have been living to try to protect the woods from destruction. [...] The forest in Khimki has been the focus of controversy for years over plans to chop down much of it for highway construction. Khimki lies on the increasingly jammed route from Moscow to Sheremetyevo International Airport and St. Petersburg, Russia’s second-largest city. A local newspaper editor who reported extensively on the issue was severely beaten in 2008 and left wheelchair-bound and brain-damaged. [...] The activists called the police at the break of dawn on Friday when a group of some 100 young men who had covered their faces blocked the campsite, thus allowing the [tree chopping in an alledgedly illegal area] work to resume, Moscow Regional police said in a statement.

An associated protest was similarly cracked down upon reports The Moscow Times: 5 Detained in Bid to Give Khimki Timber to Putin

“The police swooped down on us and detained us, acting in a very rude and harsh fashion and turning a peaceful event into a brawl,” [head of the Left Front group, Sergei] Udaltsov said.

Also read: Environmental activists violently attacked by timber workers and Watch: Greenpeace activist violently attacked by bluefin tuna fishermen

The comic strip says:

The moderately okay liberal guilt pages:

- Gee honey, the bumblebees are dying, the polar bears are dying, and the oceans are acidifying.

- Something must be done.

- Where’s my checkbook?

The emergence and intensification of agriculture is the basis for human development as we know it. But our path towards a more intensive farming system has made factory farming or industrial agriculture the norm in "civilized" high-tech nations.

And in an industrial world where the animals are increasingly seen as a commodity or product to make money on haven’t improved the animals well-being. Rather, the intensification of our agriculture sector has made their life worse. And this cruelty is happening around the world. Even in the Swedish meat industry animal cruelty is common. And this even though the Swedish meat industry often and proudly proclaims itself for having "the world’s best animal welfare", one can see the awful consequences of industrial farming. The latest example of this is the Animal Rights Alliance disclosure earlier last year on the abuse and neglect of Swedish pigs.

The following disturbing photos in this blog post has all been provided by the animal rights organization Farm Sanctuary. The organization, which is based in New York, was founded in 1986. Farm Sanctuary document the abuses of factory farms, slaughterhouses, and stockyards, rescue animals from these conditions, rehabilitating and caring for animals at shelters in New York and California, as well as running advocacy and education campaigns on these issues.

Confined in metal and concrete pens with slatted floors, these pigs will live in these conditions until they reach slaughter weight of 250 pounds.

Female pigs used for breeding (breeding sows) spend most of their lives confined in gestation crates so narrow that they cannot turn around.

As you can see, a female pig in a gestation crate has no freedom of movement, and barely even has room to lay down.

Most beef cattle spend the last few months of their lives at feedlots, crowded by the thousands into dusty, manure-laden holding pens. The air is thick with harmful bacteria and particulate matter, and the animals are at a constant risk for respiratory disease. Feedlot cattle are routinely implanted with growth-promoting hormones, and they are fed unnaturally rich diets designed to fatten them quickly and profitably. Because cattle are biologically suited to eat a grass-based, high fiber diet, their concentrated feedlot rations contribute to metabolic disorders.

To raise calves destined to be slaughtered for veal, the calves are confined in crates about two feet wide and are tethered to the front of the crate with a chain around the neck. These calves will be slaughtered when 4-5 months old.

Dairy cattle make up the largest percentage of downed animals in factory farming, 75%. Too sick or injured to walk, this dairy cow is left in the stockyard while a calf looks on.

Though there have been moves in Europe to phase out battery cages for hens, in the US the vast majority of egg laying chickens are confined in battery cages such as these. These cages have wire floors and four or five hens are commonly packed into each cage. Obviously they cannot stretch their wings or exhibit any normal chicken behavior.

At chicken hatcheries, chicks enter the factory farming world packed into huge drawers.

Behind a hatchery for laying hens, unwanted male chicks–which are of no economic value to the egg industry–are simply tossed into a dumpster with shells and other waste.

Because commercial turkeys have been bred to have such unnaturally large breasts, to satisfy consumer preference for breast meat, they cannot mount and reproduce naturally. Thus, artificial insemination must be used for reproduction.

Due to the severely overcrowded conditions they will face, baby turkeys have the upper part of their beaks seared off so that injuries caused by pecking one another can be minimized.

Although not confined in cages like egg laying chickens, chickens raised for meat are packed so tightly in grower houses that each chicken is alloted about half a square foot of space. If that isn’t bad enough, because broiler chickens have been bred to grow so quickly (twice as fast and large as their ancestors) the organs and skeleton don’t always keep up with this growth. The heart and lungs can’t support the unnatural body mass, resulting in heart failure and large numbers of deaths a year due to health conditions.

Up to 10,000 chickens are often packed into cages for shipping to the slaughterhouse. On route, they are offered no protection from the elements and a certain percentage of birds are expected to die on each journey due to cold or heat.

At the slaughterhouse, chickens are hung up by their feet fully conscious. Although some slaughterhouses stun the birds by passing them through an electrified bath of water, US federal law specifically excludes chickens from the Humane Slaughter Act mandating that animals be stunned before being killed. However, often times the birds are not rendered unconscious by the shock and proceed, still hung by their feet, to have their necks cut by a mechanical blade. Unfortunately if the bird is not sufficiently stunned, the blade may not actually kill it and the animal proceeds to the next stage in the process while still alive. The birds are then submerged in boiling water to scald them and remove feathers. It’s estimated that millions of chickens a year in the US are ultimately killed in the slaughterhouse by this last step, being boiled alive.

This past week the Icelandic volcano Eyjafjallajökull was officially declared dormant. The volcano, which you almost certainly remember from the news, had a big eruption in the early months of this year effectively grounding flights all over Europe.

“This second eruption threw volcanic ash several kilometres up in the atmosphere which led to air travel disruption in northwest Europe for six days from 15 April and in May 2010, including the closure of airspace over many parts of Europe,” Wikipedia writes.

And you also probably know that volcanic eruptions produces carbon dioxide. So what kind of effects did Eyjafjallajökull have on our climate? Well. Not much it seems.

“This is not the big climate changing eruption that some people seem to think it is,” said Mike Burton from Italy’s National Institute of Geophysics and Vulcanology.

“At the moment, the eruption cloud reaches around 22,000 feet (7km),” says Anja Schmidt from the School of Earth and Environment at the UK’s Leeds University. “That’s high enough to affect aviation but is unlikely to be high enough to have a strong effect on the climate system.”

Because of the mass-grounding of flights in Europe the extra CO2 produced by the volcano actually helped to lower the total amount of greenhouse gas emissions during this period. The Guardian writes:

“A larger effect on the atmosphere, though still small in global terms, comes from the mass-grounding of European flights over the past few days. According to the Environmental Transport Association, by the end of today the flight ban will have prevented the emission of some 2.8m tonnes of carbon dioxide since the first flights were grounded.

The volcanic eruption has released carbon dioxide, but the amount is dwarfed by the savings. Based on readings taken by scientists during the first phase of Eyjafjallajokull activity last month, the website Information is Beautiful calculated the volcano has emitted about 150,000 tonnes of CO2 each day.”

Richard Black from the BBC News concludes that the “eruption would not have any effect on weather and climate” and that:

“[...]its daily CO2 output was only about one-thousandth of that produced by the sum total of humanity’s fossil fuel burning, deforestation, agriculture and everything else. In fact, the extra CO2 produced from the volcano is probably less than the volume “saved” by having Europe’s aeroplanes grounded.”

So it seems the Icelandic volcano managed, if only for a few days, to reduce the impact aviation has on our climate – something which our politicians haven’t managed yet.

Climate institutions and scientists are warning that 2010 might end up as one of the hottest years ever recorded in human history. According to new data from the US National Snow and Ice Centre Data Centre (NSIDC)arctic sea ice levels is now "at its lowest physical extent ever recorded for the time of year". According to the reports this year will break the previous record low levels from 2007. The Guardian reports that:

"Satellite monitoring by the NSIDC in Boulder, Colorado, shows that the melting of sea ice has been unusually fast this year, with as much as 40,000 sq km now disappearing daily.

The melt season started almost a month later than normal at the end of March and is not expected to end until September.

Meanwhile, research from the polar science centre at the University of Washington suggests that the volume of sea ice in March 2010 was 20,300 cubic km, 38% below the 1979 level when records began."

And according to James Hansen, director of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York and one of the world’s most prominent climate scientist, new data also shows that the global surface temperatures may also be at record levels. According to a newly released paper by Hansen and his colleagues the temperature on Earth has for the past 12 months been 0.65C warmer than previous global temperatures from 1951 to 1980. The paper also shows that the global temperature this year will break the previous record from 2005.

"It is likely that the 2010 global surface temperature … will be a record", Hansen writes.

"Global warming on decadal timescales is continuing without let-up … we conclude that there has been no reduction in the global warming trend of 0.15-0.2C/decade that began in the late 1970s."

The Guardian article has written about more findings so be sure to check that article out. Especially worth noting is the new data which shows that January to April this year has been the hottest on record so far. Climate Progress writes:

"Last month tied May 1998 as the hottest on record in the NASA dataset. More significantly, following fast on the heels of easily the hottest April — and hottest Jan-April — on record, it’s also the hottest Jan-May on record.

Also, the combined land-surface air and sea-surface water temperature anomaly for March-April-May was 0.73°C above the 1951-1980 mean, blowing out the old record of 0.65°C set in 2002."

And the temperature records continues! New data also shows that the temperature during January-June this year has been the hottest ever recorded by NASA.

"It’s all the more powerful evidence of human-caused warming “because it occurs when the recent minimum of solar irradiance is having its maximum cooling effect,” as a recent NASA paper notes."

But La Nina conditions might build up during July and August which might reduce the average heat temperature for 2010.

Meteorologist Jeff Masters also notes that new temperature records have been reached in Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Chad, Niger, Pakistan and Myanmar. Masters writes:

"We’ve now had eight countries in Asia and Africa, plus the Asian portion of Russia, that have beaten their all-time hottest temperature record during the past two months. This includes Asia’s hottest temperature of all-time, the astonishing 53.5°C (128.3°F) mark set on May 26 in Pakistan…. This week’s heat wave in Africa and the Middle East is partially a consequence of the fact that Earth has now seen three straight months with its warmest temperatures on record, according to NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center."

Also read:  Hundreds die in Indian heatwave – Death toll expected to rise as India faces record temperatures of up to 122F in hottest summer on record

What kind of role does our mass media play in how we perceive and react to environmental problems around us? Who are currently the owners of our mainstream media? And how does corporations use it to their own benefits?

The media these days are just another big business managed not more differently than any other industry. The mainstream media is very global in its scope (just think on CNN as an example) and like any other business its owned by a handful of large transnational corporations, or TNCs. General Electric (GE) is an example of a media owning TNC as it operates NBC Universal in USA.

But how did it come to this? How come TNCs have such a big influence? If we look back in the US history we find some explanations. In the early days corporations was actually a public institution designed to serve the citizens in USA. It might be hard to imagine today in USA but the state had a great control over these political created corporations. But as time moved on these corporations became increasingly privatized. This was in the beginning fueled by the need to create private finances to help in war efforts and colonial state expansion and imperialism which took place during this period. But as corporations grew bigger and richer their political powers increased even further. During the nineteenth century the privatization increased rapidly as laws and ideologies were introduced to accommodate the corporate interests. In 1868 the US Supreme Court ruled in favor for private corporations to be given the same rights and protections as a "natural person" under the nations constitution. This meant that corporations were now free to influence the government with the very same rights as individual citizens had. This paved the way for corporate donations and lobbying which was used to "dominate public thought and discourse". Elizabeth Campbell notes that as a result corporations today basically controls individual politicians and whole political parties in the USA.

When it comes to the media it wasn’t until around the twentieth century that things changed and a new corporate media industry started to emerge. Before the twentieth century most of the media was local and national and not as globalized or privatized as they are today. The first forms of global media was the radio broadcasting and the film industry. 85% of all the films people were watching in cinemas by 1914 was coming from the US. And it was around this time that corporations and nations started to realize the importance of media as a political tool. At the end of World War II the USA successfully used the global media to reinforce the picture of its nation as a leading superpower in the world. After World War II the transition from local and public-owned media to global and corporate owned media begun. And with the successful spread of English media around the world commercials and advertising increased rapidly.

Mass media and advertising

Because mainstream media is privately owned their end goal is of course to make money from their business. And like one can imagine advertising is one of the main income sources. This means that the media have to comply with and cater to their advertisers wishes so they don’t lose their income source. And those who can afford to advertise are the transnational corporations who all share and push the free-market capitalistic ideology. Campbell writes that these large corporate advertisers rarely want to sponsor shows or programs that involves any kind of serious environmental, social or political criticism towards any corporate activities.

Product-placement in the media, for example when Pepsi pays to have their soda drink visible in a TV-show, is a multi-billion-dollar industry these days. And to be able to influence the public, i.e. their consumers, corporations spend more than half as much per capita on advertising than what is spent on education around the world. With the help of advertising corporations can construct needs and desires among the public for their various products. The ideology which is spread with the help from the mainstream media and the advertising industry encourages mass consumption on an unquestioned level and promotes consumption as happiness.

Because corporations are all about profit margins they want to advertise their products to the largest audience possible. And when the media is profit-driven they want to attract as many viewers or readers as possible to be able to sell more advertisements and increase their sponsor income. And as Campbell notes it seems that the largest audiences can be brought together by offering celebrity gossip news, sex, violence or other shock value tactics. And of course this is what the mainstream media will concentrate their coverage on then. Thus the more in-depth and the more complex social, political or environmental issues gets left behind in the shadows of the spotlight on the "infotainment" news and "advertorials". See the above image screenshot for example.

Corporate media means less diversity

In the beginning of this post I mentioned General Electric as one of the media owning TNCs. GE is one of the six firms that controls most of the news, commentary and entertainment in the USA. Besides GE these six firms are AOL-Time Warner, Viacom, Disney, NewsCorp and Bertelsmann. They are also ranked among the world’s richest corporations. Just 25 years ago there were around 50 different corporate owners in the US media. So as one can imagine if there are only six corporations in the USA, who all concentrate on their own self-interests, while controlling the majority of all the media consumed it results in less diversity for their audiences. And it doesn’t matter then, as Campbell notes, if there are more information available if there is a lack of diversity. Less diversity means less democratic media. Let me explain this a bit further. In USA the top media sources such as CNN, Fox News and the New York Times etc supply the local papers and broadcasters with national and international news. So while the news are being described in many various media actors the news and opinions all originates from the same source.

Richard Peet and Elaine Hartwick also notes that the mainstream media rarely have any coverage or debates about leftist and socialistic theories of development which are critical of our current capitalistic society. They argue this is because the mainstream media is so much largely controlled by private interests who only want to cover conservative and "at most" liberal viewpoints and topics. "Indeed, most people even in the "free democracies" go through life without even hearing the great critical ideas and the political-economic motives of leftist intellectuals," they write.

And in an effort to increase their incomes and securing their profit-margins the corporate media is cutting their costs wherever they can. And unfortunately this means less quality and objective news journalism and more cheap "infotainment" like I’ve mentioned before. A big cost for the news media corporations are their overseas and field reporters. In-depth and field-based reporting is even on a national and local level expensive and reporters based overseas is in turn even more costly. Another result of the cost-saving measurements is that the media gets gradually more and more dependent on "official sources" in their reporting. Campbell notes that the global mainstream media is backing up their stories with information from "experts" provided by businesses and governments. An example of this is the Pentagon, as a government funded department, and Exxon Mobil, as a privately owned corporation, who both has the funds available to offer news organizations with everything from "experts" available for questioning to press statements, quotes and photo opportunities. According to Campbell this reliance is risky as it can make the reporters and journalists hesitant to confront, challenge or debate the information provided by these governmental and corporate bodies as it might "damage their established relationship". It also means that only the wealthy are able to fully access and exercise their right to free speech in the media.

PR firms and think-tanks are the media tools for the corporations

Due to their size, power and involvement in our societies these media corporations play one of the biggest roles in shaping each generations own personal values and thoughts, as well as people’s political and environmental stances. According to Campbell today’s media corporations have "almost total power" to decide what kind of topics will and will not be covered and discussed in our TVs, radios and newspapers. And as Campbell points out environmental topics in the mainstream media are never debated in a way that points out corporations as the source of the problem or the environmental degradation. Her example here is global warming. In USA the climate change debate has been mostly centered around the question if it is a problem or not. This question has managed to stay alive in the media debates mostly thanks to the work of corporate funded think-tanks and PR firms. These PR firms and think-tanks have managed to create a feeling among the public that there still are clear doubts and that the arguments are balanced on both sides of the global warming spectrum.

A Gallup survey released last year shows that an increasing number of Americans (41%) believe that global warming is being "exaggerated" in the media. According to Gallup this is the highest level of public skepticism ever reported when it comes to the coverage on global warming by the mainstream media in USA. The same survey also shows that Americans have started to feel a bit less worried about climate change. The overall worry has decreased from 65% in 2007 and 66% in 2008 to 60% in 2009. According to Gallup global warming was the only environmental issue that "dropped significantly" among the public concerns during 2008. And lastly the survey shows that 16%, a new record-high for Gallup, of Americans believe the effects of climate change will never occur. But it’s still important to note that a majority of Americans still believe that climate change is being correctly portrayed, or even underestimated, in the media.

And as people usually tend to only favor actions on issues that there seems to be no clear doubts about one must say that these PR firms and think-tanks have succeeded in their work of creating "manufactured doubt". The Competitive Enterprise Institute, the Heritage Foundation and the CATO institute, all situated in the political centre in Washington D.C., are examples of powerful corporate funded think-tanks who has a huge influence in shaping the global warming debate in the media. These think-tanks use both emotional arguments as well as scare tactics to create their "manufactured doubt" in the media. Examples of arguments can be that any cuts in our energy consumption would harm workers, elder and poor people around the world. Or that renewable energy is both expensive and damaging to the environment. They also promote the views of a selected few scientists who disagree with the strong consensus and the vast majority of scientists and scientific institutions on man-made climate change. Another example is the now disbanded Global Climate Coalition which was carefully created by PR firms to give the impression of a friendly grassroots organization while actually lobbying against environmental reforms. This so-called grassroots organization had around 50 different trade associations and corporations who were involved in the oil, coal, gas, automobile and chemical industry.

The tactics used by the agrichemical industry back in 1962 alongside the release of the widely popular book Silent Spring by Rachel Carson is yet another example. Carson’s book criticized the use of dangerous toxins such as DDT and helped create awareness of environmental destruction. The agrichemical industry responded by distributing thousands of negative book reviews of Silent Spring and at the same time they doubled their PR budget. According to Campbell it is estimated that corporations and businesses in USA spends $1 billion every year on PR firms and think-tanks who help them lobby against environmental reforms, laws and protection in the media.

Earlier this year Greenpeace exposed the US-based Koch Industries, a privately owned oil company, as a major financial contributor to global warming skeptics in both Europe and USA. According to Greenpeace Koch Industries donated around $48 million to different climate skeptic groups and think-tanks between 1997 and 2008. The money went to many well-known conservative and libertarian think-tanks such as the Heritage Foundation, Americans for Prosperity, the Manhattan Institute, the Cato institute and the Foundation for research on economics and the environment. Greenpeace claims all of these think-tanks are "at the forefront of the anti-global warming debate". The Guardian also writes that Koch Industries also spent nearly $6 million ($5.7m) on various political campaigns and another $37 on lobbying in support of fossil fuels.

"Koch industries is playing a quiet but dominant role in the global warming debate. This private, out-of-sight corporation has become a financial kingpin of climate science denial and clean energy opposition. On repeated occasions organisations funded by Koch foundations have led the assault on climate science and scientists, ‘green jobs’, renewable energy and climate policy progress."

Now one might think that these climate denying think-tanks are solely funded by oil, gas and coal corporations who might have something to win by creating a fog of confusion and doubt around global warming. But this is not entirely the case. The CATO institute is for example funded by well-known corporations such as Comcast, FedEx, GM, Honda, Microsoft, TimeWarner, Toyota, Visa, VW, and WalMart among others. These corporations was, according to Cato’s own annual report in 2007, contributing financially to the think-tank and helped fund an "absurd anti-scientific denier ad" in major American newspapers such as the The New York Times in 2009. Campbell claims that government action on environmental issues such as global warming is lagging behind because these topics can’t be discussed "seriously" in the mainstream media. Instead, she says, the mainstream media and their corporate owners put the spotlight on simplistic topics such as discrediting individual environmentalists and "controversial scientific reports" instead of debating the larger and harder questions. Campbell writes that:

"By reducing complex issues like global warming to simplistic special interest-driven sound bites about whether or not it really exists, citizens consuming the media become incapable of understanding and acting on real debate and questioning and instead prefer easy answers, quick fixes, and easy-to-grasp phrases. Audiences thus grow apathetic, cynical, and quiescent about media presentations of environmental issues, which has resulted in an increasingly widespread lack of interest in engaging in them."

And this lack of interest is a major threat to democracy which requires a actively involved and informed citizen to function properly. Campbell concludes that a so-called democracy that only caters to corporate interests "will never pursue a path toward social and environmental sustainability".

Journalismgate

A paper on what kind of role the media plays in how we perceive and react to environmental issues around us is not complete without talking about "Climategate", as the media calls it. Climategate is what climate skeptics labeled as "the final nail in the coffin" of "the theory of global warming". The root of this "climate scandal", as the mainstream media portrayed it, was some email conversations between scientists at a climatic research unit at the University of East Anglia in Great Britain. The emails, who were illegally hacked, was reported to be evidence of some sort of attempt to manipulate and prevent scientific climate data to be released to the public.

One can easily remember all the news reports, debates and commentaries from scientists who claimed the emails were taken out of context and all the various climate skeptics who claimed this was the evidence which exposed man-made climate change as a fraud last year. Even here in Sweden climate skeptics seemed to breathe fresh air from the major Climategate news coverage. Lars Bern who is one of the founders of the Stockholm Initiative, a Swedish think-tank which opposes the strong link between climate change and human activity, claimed that this was evidence on the "systematically manipulation" of temperature data from UN climate scientists.

But was Climategate really the big scandal that the climate skeptics and largely the mainstream media portrayed it as? Of course not. Recently an independent inquiry set up to investigate the Climategate affair came to the conclusion that there was "absolutely no evidence of any impropriety whatsoever." Lord Oxburgh said that "whatever was said in the emails, the basic science seems to have been done fairly and properly". But did this exoneration for the involved scientists from the University of East Anglia get as much coverage in the mainstream media as the false claims from the climate skeptics did? Did anyone in the mass media try to figure out who hacked the emails? Well from my own, and many others, experience they did not. Why is it, like Johann Hari says, that:

"…when it comes to coverage of global warming, we are trapped in the logic of a guerrilla insurgency. The climate scientists have to be right 100 percent of the time, or their 0.01 percent error becomes Glaciergate, and they are frauds. By contrast, the deniers only have to be right 0.01 percent of the time for their narrative–See! The global warming story is falling apart!–to be reinforced by the media. It doesn’t matter that their alternative theories are based on demonstrably false claims, as they are with all the leading "thinkers" in this movement."

I would say that we can find the answers in the mainstream media’s recent corporate development to why the climate skeptics only have to be right "0.01 percent of the time" to get their claims reinforced in the media. I have with the help from Campbell and others tried to make it apparent that the global mainstream media only cares about their profit-margins and rather want to focus on "infotainment" news, and stories like Climategate, as it helps them pursue their corporate owners free-market and consumption-driven agenda. My main and most obvious example of how corporations have controlled the debates and reports in the mainstream media has been global warming. But there are of course other examples of environmental issues and topics that the media has failed to adequately report on.

Two of those are for example the topic of the garbage’s created by our society and the various energy related issues. The media fails to inform the public on the issue of the millions of metric tons of household, chemical and corporate waste that are affecting a large population of people very day. Campbell argues that it becomes an "nonissue" because those people affected by the waste are not "key power holders" or the media corporations main target audience. When it comes to energy related issues such as oil drilling the media often simplify it to a question of whether who is for or against it. But these "both sides of the story" reports can not cover the complete story in such a complex issue as energy is. The corporate media also fails to explain or examine for their viewers and readers about the connections between energy production and consumption, our dependence on fossil fuels and those who control these energy sources. Simply put, the media is failing to relate environmental and social problems with the socioeconomic factors and powers that have created them. Campbell argues that as an result of this people gets the impression from the media that the war on terrorism, energy consumption and corporate power for example are totally unrelated issues to each other.

Rush Limbaugh might be an extreme example of a conservative corporate mainstream media. But he works just fine as a shock example. In the ongoing BP offshore oil drilling scandal, out in the Gulf of Mexico, Limbaugh is claiming that the explosion could have been an inside "Earth Day eco-sabotage" and that the cleanup is unnecessary: "The ocean will take care of this on its own if it was left alone and left out there," Limbaugh said. "It’s natural. It’s as natural as the ocean water is".

So if we want to be able to have informed citizens, move towards a more environmental and socially sustainable society and a media which not only the wealthy have right to access and use we need to deal with the corporate mainstream media. Otherwise we will soon face a major threat to our fragile democracy. After all, those who have the control over the mass media controls our culture and society.

Sweden, not so green anymore? Photo by: Per Ola Wiberg

The right-wing government in Sweden unfortunately won, with a two votes margin, the pro-nuclear vote in the parliament this past week and is now in full climate-wrecking gear. The political left-leaning opposition as well as numerous environmental organizations have criticized the plans to scrap the Settlement Act and the ban on new nuclear power in Sweden.

Maria Wetterstrand, political leader of the Green Party, said during the parliament vote that this decision "could mean Sweden will be making itself dependent on nuclear power for 100 more years and there will be 100,000 years of consequences for future generations who will have to take care of the waste."

If the opposition gets the majority of the votes in the upcoming general election in Sweden this September they have promised that they will try to reverse this nuclear vote.

Ludvig Tillman, spokesman for Greenpeace in Sweden, criticized the narrow vote margin and said that: "With a narrow majority, the members of parliament show they do not take the environmental risks posed by nuclear power seriously, and that they do not trust in the enormous potential there is for Swedish renewable energy."

The Swedish right-wing government will end their 4 years in power with an rather awful environmental record. Besides ignoring reports that points to nuclear energy as an dangerous, not cost-effective, and too expensive energy solution that even will worsen climate change the coalition of right-leaning parties have also made other climate wrecking decisions. The biggest of them all must be the complete embarrassment during the climate summits in Poland (Cop14) where the Swedish government called for as much as 88% of the EU emission cuts to be allowed to do overseas in development countries. In Copenhagen and during the Cop15 meetings the Swedish prime minister Fredrik Reinfeldt refused to push for strong climate targets and disagreed with Connie Hedegaard, EU Commissioner for the Climate and COP 15 President, and her calls for 30% emission reduction targets in EU.

Other major climate-wrecking decisions include the controversial Bypass Stockholm (Förbifart Stockholm). The traffic link motorway will span 20 kilometres of which 17 kilometres will be by tunnel. It is estimated the new motorway will cost taxpayers 27 billion kronor ($3.75 billion), although the final costs will probably end up much higher, and will thus become one of the most single expensive traffic construction projects in Swedish history. Critics to Bypass Stockholm have complained that the new motorway will results in increased CO2 emissions. The Swedish Environmental Protection Agency has estimated that the construction of the new bypass will result in an 80% increase in CO2 emissions in the Stockholm region by 2030.

“The government’s decision is very unfortunate. Bypass Stockholm will increase Stockholm’s effect on the climate and increase vehicle numbers. At the same time, it will take resources from important commitments to communal traffic,” said the Green Party’s spokesperson, Maria Wetterstrand.

But the Swedish government has ignored all this and the appointed Environment Minister Andreas Carlgren even had the guts to describe the new motorway as an "environmentally friendly motorway". Like it could ever be such a thing as an environmentally friendly motorway.

Another big climate letdown from the Swedish right-wing government is their failure to stop Vattenfall, Europe’s third-largest energy company which is wholly owned by the Swedish Government, from investing heavily in dirty fossil fuels such as coal in Europe. They are currently building a new coal plant outside of Hamburg in Germany that once completed will become the biggest in Europe. As an energy corporation Vattenfall is releasing more greenhouse gases than all of Sweden combined.

Let’s hope that the left-leaning opposition gets the majority of the votes in the general election this September so that they can stop the downward spiral in Sweden. I miss the days when Sweden was a leading role model around the world in green innovation and policies. I mean, If neighboring country Norway can have plans and targets to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions with 40% by 2020 so can Sweden.

Bernie Sanders, the only democratic socialist in the US Senate, says that the single most important lesson we can learn from the ongoing oil spill disaster in the Gulf of Mexico is that drilling is not the answer. Sanders also calls for a stop on offshore drilling and says that the USA must transform its energy system.

"Further, we must learn that with any risky technology, whether it is offshore oil drilling or nuclear power, it is not good enough to be 99% safe. One event can have a calamitous and irreversible impact. We need a major investigation to understand how this accident occurred. We must make certain that precautions are put in place so nothing like it ever happens again.

This crisis occurred at a time when the United States was considering opening new areas to offshore oil drilling. If there is a lesson to be learned from this disaster, it is that Congress must end that policy. There must be no new offshore drilling. Not now, not ever.

Offshore drilling simply does not achieve the goals that its advocates claim, and it is not worth the risk. If we are serious about wanting to break our dependence on foreign oil and move to energy independence; if we want to lower the cost of energy; if we want to combat climate change and cut greenhouse gas emissions; if we want to create millions of new jobs – then more offshore drilling is not the way to go."

In light of the BP oil disaster Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger promptly withdrew his plans on lifting a 40-year moratorium on drilling off the California coast. Earlier Greenpeace have called for an offshore moratorium in the USA and have asked President Barack Obama to cancel Arctic drilling plans. Schwarzenegger should of course be complimented for taking back his support for any new offshore oil drilling plans. But isn’t it a bit sad that an “unprecedented environmental disaster” has to take place before anyone cares to realize the dangers of offshore oil drilling (or nuclear energy)?

But then again this might just all be nice talk from politicians and legislators. It will be interesting to see if they will continue to talk about ending offshore drilling and transforming the nation’s energy system even after the media storm have calmed. Somehow I doubt it. After all, the current oil spill is nothing new. And we shouldn’t forget that the Gulf disaster is only unusual for being so near the US. Elsewhere in the world Big Oil rarely cleans up its dirty mess. And the Western media rarely cares about it.

But one might say that Barack Obama have called for the transformation of the US energy system long before the oil disaster in the Gulf. And yes this is true. In late 2008 when the failing auto industry was the hot topic of the day Obama said that this is "our pattern" and it has to be broken:

"We go from shock to trance. You know, oil prices go up, gas prices at the pump go up, everybody goes into a flurry of activity. And then the prices go back down and suddenly we act like it’s not important, and we start, you know filling up our SUVs again.

And, as a consequence, we never make any progress. It’s part of the addiction, all right. That has to be broken. Now is the time to break it."

But then again, this is also nothing new. As Jon Stewart shows the last eight presidents in the USA have all gone on television and promised to move America towards an energy-independent future.

Photo credit: thomas pix

Growing your own food is a great way to reduce your carbon footprint, guarantee food safety and quality, and save money in the process. But if you’re short on time and space, containers are an easy way to garden. If you haven’t started your garden yet for the summer, it’s not too late.

Soil

Make sure that the soil you buy is natural, with no pesticides, herbicides or artificial fertilizers added to it. There are organic options for fertilizers available (such as natural manure and peat) although plants in containers usually thrive without adding anything to the soil. In some cases, plants can benefit from crushed eggshells added to the soil, which provides extra calcium.

Containers

One of the biggest mistakes organic gardeners can make is using treated wood for containers. Chemicals that the wood has been treated with can leach into the soil and into your vegetables. Choose raw, natural wood instead. Ceramic or clay pots are also available, and of course, the cheapest option is plastic. Make sure all the containers have areas for drainage. Most store-bought containers have a hole in the bottom already, but if you’re making your own, be sure to add one.

Vegetables

• Make sure that all the seeds and plants you buy are certified organic. For those of us who live in North America and are not lucky enough to have genetically-modified products and seeds labeled as such, certified organic guarantees that they are not genetically engineered.
• Tomatoes are a great plant for any beginner because they’re so easy to take care of. Also, there are tons of heirloom varieties to choose from. Cherry tomatoes are a classic favourite, but it’s also fun to experiment with yellow tomatoes, green tomatoes, and tiger-stripe tomatoes. They make recipes like pasta sauce and bruschetta more colourful and delicious. The thing to keep in mind with tomato plants is that they can get quite tall, and require sturdy wooden poles for support. It’s easy to tie the plants loosely to the poles with some hemp twine.
• Other vegetables that are good options to include root vegetables like radishes, beets and carrots. Peppers are also surprisingly easy to grow in containers. Organic bell peppers can be quite expensive, so this is definitely a good investment. Greens like lettuce and spinach work well too.
• Finally, herbs are an essential for the beginner gardener. Chives and rosemary are great in cooking, and lavender and mint can make tea and sweet-smelling homemade bodycare products. Parsley is one of the easiest herbs to grow—it doesn’t need a lot of warmth or water (it can even survive the winter!), it doesn’t attract a lot of pests and it can be added to almost any recipe. Herbs can be combined in one big planter, while vegetables should be kept separate.

Watering

The great thing about containers is that they can easily be moved in and out of the sun or rain. You can even buy wheels for the bottom of the containers! Some plants do better in the elements then others, but moving them undercover when its raining is generally a good idea. When watering your plants, water close to the roots and try to avoid getting the leaves and vegetables wet. When you first plant seeds, water gently so the seeds won’t get uprooted and wash away.

Insects

Not all insects are bad in the garden. Knowing which bugs to keep around can actually improve your vegetables. Garden-friendly insects include bees (to pollinate plants), ladybugs, dragonflies and spiders (who will eat insects you don’t want) and earthworms. Not-so-friendly critters include slugs and snails, and aphids. You can also make your own organic “pesticide” by pouring a little liquid soap on aphids, which will kill them. Even better, introducing ladybugs will solve the problem.

In many cases, simply spraying aphids with the hose will wash them away. Slugs can usually be deterred by a ring of eggshells or pine needles around the plants that they cannot cross. To kill slugs, beer and salt both work well.

In one of his recent New Rules segment Bill Maher said that Al Gore should "come out with a sequel to his movie about climate change and call it, An Inconvenient Truth 2: What the Fuck Is Wrong with You People?". He also criticized the media for helping the global warming deniers spread their misinformation and lies. Be sure to read it, or watch it below.

“There is no debate here — just scientists vs. non-scientists, and since the topic is science, the non-scientists don’t get a vote. We shouldn’t decide everything by polling the masses. Just because most people believe something doesn’t make it true. This is the fallacy called argumentum ad numeram: the idea that something is true because great numbers believe it. As in: Eat shit, 20 trillion flies can’t be wrong.

Or take this recent headline: "TV weathercasters divided on global warming." Who gives a shit? My TV weathercaster is a bimbo with big tits who used to be on a soap opera on Telemundo. Media, could you please stop pitting the ignorant vs. the educated and framing it as a "debate." The other day, I saw a professor from the Union of Concerned Scientists face off against a distinguished expert on Tea Partying, whose brilliant analysis, recently published in the New England Journal of Grasping at Straws, was that we shouldn’t teach climate science in schools because kids find it scary. As they should. I hope they’re peeing in their pants.”

Today Greenpeace activists protested against recent political plans to introduce new nuclear reactors in Sweden. Dressed as different renewable energy sources such as wind, solar and water, and with the help from a old fire truck the activists managed to cross the security fences surrounding the Swedish nuclear plant. Once inside some of the activists managed to get up on the roof of the reactors, casting new light on the lack of security at the Swedish nuclear power plants.

Ludvig Tillman, energy campaigner for Greenpeace Nordic said that:

“The Swedish parliament is risking the country’s reputation and position as a progressive leader in clean and safe energy development. All the evidence shows that nuclear power is a dangerous, expensive and dead-end distraction from the real solutions to climate protection and energy security. Reactors are standing in the way of energy efficiency and renewable energy programs.”

“The reality in many countries is that reactors are hugely expensive, construction is often delayed massively due to safety concerns and technical complications, and there is still no solution to deadly nuclear waste,” added Jan Beránek, nuclear campaigner at Greenpeace International.

It was in 2009 that the current right-wing government announced their plans to scrap the Settlement Act and the ban on new nuclear power in Sweden. The new pro-nuclear agreement will get voted on in the parliament on the 17th of June. Sweden is already far behind other European countries such as Spain, Germany and Denmark in the renewable energy sector. And if the agreement gets a yes from the parliament, sane progress towards a sustainable energy system based on energy efficiency and renewable technologies will likely be blocked and pushed back even further.

“The world is watching. Swedish parliamentarians must let reason guide their choice rather than propaganda from the nuclear industry and vote NO to nuclear power on June 17”, Tillman said.

Also read: Nuclear Energy is Expensive, Dangerous, Not Cost-Effective and Will Worsen Climate Change

photo by Kevin Lallier

At this point, most people are at least somewhat aware that pesticides cause a great deal of environmental harm. Less well known are the effects pesticides have on individual and public health. Here, I give you 5 compelling reasons to avoid pesticides.

A quick note: This list is a little data-heavy.  To start, it will help to read through the bold lines first, and then go back to see the data behind each claim.

1. Acute exposure can kill you.

“Late in the afternoon of April 1, 1990, a three-year-old girl playing in front of her trailer home in California’s San Joaquin Valley suddenly lost control of her body and began foaming at the mouth. By the time the girl arrived at the local emergency room, she was near death. She recovered eventually. A report filed with the California Department of Pesticide Regulation concluded the child had been poisoned by aldicarb, a highly toxic insecticide that works the same way on people as it does on bugs — like nerve gas. ‘Somebody had parked a tractor with pesticide material on it right in front of the play area,’ said Michael O’Malley, the author of the report and a physician at the University of California, Davis.”
– Matt Crenson, Associated Press, December 9, 1997

Some common symptoms of over-exposure include burning, stinging, or itchy eyes, nose, throat and skin; nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, wheezing, coughing, headache. These symptoms can range from mild irritation to death. These symptoms are often misdiagnosed and not attributed to pesticide poisoning. [Peel Public Health]

2. Chronic exposure to pesticides can lead to neurological damage, including Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s disease.

Several studies have shown a link between pesticide exposure and the onset of Parkinson’s disease, Alzheimer’s disease, as well as other neurological conditions such as epilepsy. The main path of exposure is airborne: breathing pesticides. Recently, UCLA researchers looked at Central Valley residents diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease, and found that “years of exposure to the combination of these two pesticides [the herbicide paraquat and fungicide maneb] increased the risk of Parkinson’s by 75 percent. Further, for people 60 years old or younger diagnosed with Parkinson’s, earlier exposure had increased their risk for the disease by as much as four- to six-fold.” [ScienceDaily]

Dr. Patrick Carr of the University of North Dakota finds that low doses of pesticide exposure induces physical changes in the brain, shown in a PET scan. These changes correlate to “a loss of neurons in particular regions of the brain.” Other regions not experiencing a loss instead express different amounts of neurotransmitter chemicals, altering the delicate chemical balance in the brain. [MPRNews]

3. Chronic exposure to pesticides increases the chance of developing endocrine and reproductive disorders. Here are two pesticides to use as case studies:

DDT:
Young women exposed to DDT (in the 1950s) have a greater chance of developing breast cancer later in life. From the Pesticide Action Network – UK:

One recent study found higher levels of miscarriages among women exposed to DDT, and reproductive disorders associated with DDT are well documented in animal studies[6,7]. Another recent study found developmental delays among babies and toddlers exposed in the womb[8]. Other studies have linked DDT to reduced breastmilk production, premature delivery and reduced infant birthweights[9,10]. DDT is classified by US and international authorities as a probable human carcinogen[11].

DDT is now banned in the US, but is being revived for use as an anti-malaria agent in developing nations. I mention DDT because it shows you the egregious effects of using pesticides that have been poorly studied. Additionally, DDT is still present in our air.

Atrazine:
Atrazine has been one of the top two selling pesticides in the US, also commonly found in household pesticide sprays. Many studies on frogs and rodents have shown that atrazine causes developmental disorders and delays and compromises healthy immune function. Most significantly, atrazine causes male frogs and rodents to feminize and produce ovaries and eggs. Animal studies have predictive value in humans, as hormone functions are very similar among all animals. Tyrone Hayes, professor of Integrative Biology at UC Berkeley (whose course I took, he is absolutely amazing, by the way), has done extensive work on this subject and is a prime example of science activism. His website, atrazinelovers.com informs the public about all deleterious effects of atrazine and is backed up with extensive research data. His site states,

similar to atrazine’s induction of prostate cancer and mammary cancer in laboratory rodents, men exposed to atrazine in a Syngenta production facility in Louisiana developed prostate cancer at 8.4 times the rate of unexposed factory workers [9, 10] and women whose well water was contaminated with atrazine were more likely to develop breast cancer when compared to women who lived in the same area, but who do not drink well water [11].

4. Pesticide spray can drift through the air, being carried thousands of miles from where it was originally sprayed. They contaminate our waterways, and can be found in drinking water.

Pesticides can be detected miles from agricultural sites, can be detected in rainfall, as well as in the air. A study by the US Geological Survey in 2000 revealed that “every rain and air sample collected from the urban and agricultural sites had detectable levels of multiple pesticides. The magnitude of total concentration was 5-10 times higher at the agricultural site as compared to the urban site.” In this study, methyl parathion was the pesticide with highest concentration in both air and rain samples. Additionally, even though two decades have passed since the ban of DDT in the US, a metabolite of DDT (p,p’-DDE) was detected in every air sample collected from the agricultural site and in over half the air samples from the urban site.

Atrazine:
Atrazine is highly mobile and can travel as far as 600 miles from the initial point of application. Every year, a half million pounds of atrazine returns to the US in the form of rain and snowfall. It is also the most common groundwater contaminant, and has persisted in France where it has not been applied for 15 years. [atrazinelovers.com]

The EPA allows an average of 3 ppb (parts per billion) of atrazine to be present in drinking water. This is a running average, and does not consider the maximum level that could possibly be present during peak use of atrazine. “Concentrations as low as 0.1 ppb have been shown to alter the development of sex characteristics in male frogs.” [NRDC]

5. Persistent pesticide use over long periods of time results in lower crop yields, reduced soil fertility, and increased susceptibility to attack by new forms of pests and disease.

Soil fertility and crop yield:
Pesticides reduce activity of beneficial microflora in soil, therefore while yields are initially high, they will decline over time due to loss of soil health and fertility. I will have to save discussion of beneficial microflora in soil for a different entry, but in essence, soil health depends on a large variety of factors. These include a combination of beneficial bacteria (rhizobia), fungi (mycelia), worms, etc, working together to aid plants in nutrient absorption. A study by Tulane University Professor John McLachlan reveals the inhibitory effects pesticides have on these beneficial microflora and fauna, and how this translates to declining yields over time, as well as declining soil health (the ability to continue to grow crops).

Genetic diversity for resistance to pest and disease outbreak:
Industrial agriculture also promotes growing crops in monoculture, which means to grow only one species of crop, eliminating any genetic diversity. Genetic diversity is an asset which protects against new diseases. Pests, viruses, and bacteria are all constantly mutating. If an invading pest arrives with a powerful new mutation, a monoculture cannot withstand the pest attack. However, a genetically diverse set of crops will have a greater chance of withstanding the attack, as some variations may have better protection against new intruders than others. Don’t put your eggs in one basket! Such extensive pesticide use increases a monoculture crop’s vulnerability to disease and also accelerates pesticide resistance in weeds. [PANNA]

To end on an optimistic note: The amount of detectable pesticide residues in human urine drops immediately after switching to an organic diet. [Chengsheng Lu et. al]

For further reading:

• Pesticides in rain in four agricultural watersheds in the United States
• NYTimes: Debating Just How Much Atrazine is Safe In Your Drinking Water
• Chronic dietary exposure to low-dose mixture of Genistein and Vinclozolin modifies the reproductive axis, testis transcriptome, and fertility
• Harvard School of Public Health: Pesticides Exposure Associated With Parkinson’s Disease
• Daily Mail UK: Breathing pesticides can trigger MS and Parkinson’s disease