ISIS Report 26/02/08
Science in Society #37 - Spring 2008
Science in Action, In and For Society
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Letters to the Editor
BT Allergy in North India Crying Out for Attention
As follow up to your articles More Illnesses Linked to Bt Crops,
and Mass Deaths in Sheep Grazing
on Bt Cotton (SiS 30) describing health problems associated with
genetically modified (GM) Bt cotton in India, I draw your attention to further
symptoms of allergy reported this year in Sadalpur Village near Hisar in Haryana
State, India. Farmers say skin itching is very common and even buffaloes and
dogs are affected.
The itching started to appear during the Bt cotton season this year. The village
Ayurvedic Hospital Compounder says that on average, 10 cases of skin allergy/itching
symptoms in humans come to the hospital every day, and there is an increasing
trend over the past three or so years. Even cotton factory workers in the area
are complaining of itching problem. Itching is observed mainly on the skin and
in reproductive organs.
Animals are also
affected. On average, 5-10 cases of skin allergy/itching in buffaloes are
presented at the village veterinary hospital daily.
Thousands of sheep
have died in Andhra Pradesh in past years, but there is still no real action
on the part of Indian Government. Even the local and national media are not
paying any attention to this problem. We have asked the local and national
TV channels and newspapers to investigate into the problem caused by Bt cotton
in humans and animals.
I am really afraid
for the future of India and our farmers. Sooner or later, the
effects of transgenic pollution will be more pronounced and will affect people
who do not live in cotton fields or villages next to cotton fields.
Why do we still allow
Bt cotton to be grown in India? Isn’t the death of thousands
of sheep enough for us to wake up and speak and support the truth?
How can the scientific
community be so dead to issue like deaths and health problems due to Bt cotton?
I am really ashamed at the silence of scientific community though I am one
among them.
In India,
we are really fed up with the insensitivity of our Government and other regulatory
authorities. People say that India is one of the largest democracies, but
I feel we do not deserve this reputation if that means the Government cannot
protect its citizens against this poisonous crop.
Dr Sudhir Kumar Kaura is a geneticist and biotechnologist
based in Hisar, Haryana State, India, and can be contacted
at Tel: 09354172987 in India and 00919354172987 from outside India. E-mail:
lokvaani@rediffmail.com
Important Letter to Nature Biotechnology
Your very important Letter to
Nature Biotechnology: Systematic bias in favour of no adverse impacts from
GM feed (SiS 37) should
be disseminated widely along with a summary of Ermakova’s paper. It covers
the key issues succinctly:
- The remarkable harmful
effects on the rats
- How key Nature Biotech and pro-biotech scientists
suppress uncomfortable information
- The low quality of
pro-biotech research
- The inadequacy of the
GM food safety assessment procedure
- The uncritical or biased
stance of our regulators
It should be sent to all EU leaders and parliamentarians.
Jaan Suurküla,
M.D. Chairman of PSRAST, Tallinn, Estonia
Biodynamic farming a hit
Thank you so much for such
a brilliant review Saving
the World with Biodynamic Farming (SiS
37), the best ever! We hope the film will be playing on a TV station near
you soon. I’ve sent it on to every biodynamic organisation I know. Also, we
have a new website: http://cloudsouthfilms.co.nz/
Barbara
Sumner Burstyn, Producer, Hastings, Hawkes Bay, New Zealand
Thank you ISIS
for your fantastic work on so many essential subjects. Your articles are a
source of very important information; and your presentation of biodynamic
agriculture and Peter Proctor’s work in India is no exception. I can judge
as I am a project manager in the Danish Biodynamic Association and have been
working with biodynamic agriculture and food quality research for several
years. Meeting Peter Proctor and seeing the film about him are some of the
very positive experiences in my job.
You may already known
that the best scientifically performed trial comparing conventional, organic
and biodynamic farming was done at the FiBL Institute in Switzerland over
a period of 21 years, and biodynamic method is the one that gives the most
fertile soil (measured in several biological, structural and physical parameters),
and the only of the three methods that is building up carbon in the soil.
This is important for mitigating climate change.
Klaus Loehr-Petersen, Danish
Biodynamic Association, Aarhus, Denmark
Dr. Mae-Wan Ho replies
More details on the trials can be found in our forthcoming report, Food
Futures Now. The Swiss results are interesting, but it should not be generalised,
as many other non-biodynamic, organic farming systems succeed in sequestering
considerably more carbon in the soil compared to conventional, non-organic farming.
Anaerobic Digestion Rules
Your article Bug Power (SiS 27) regarding hydrogen and methane production
from potato waste is very interesting and possibly very useful. Are there
any potato farms in the world and specifically Canada that are
using this technology effectively to achieve energy self- sustainability,
or at least to reduce greenhouse heating costs and vehicle fuel costs? A friend
owns a large potato farm here on Vancouver Island.
Geoffrey Thomas, Vancouver Island,
Canada
Dr. Mae-Wan Ho replies
China has a very active biogas programme (Biogas China, SiS
32). Canada has just started an active anaerobic digestion programme, restricted
to Ontario Province, so far. It announced an Ontario
Biogas Systems Financial Assistance Program of Cad $ 9 million in 2007 to
provide funding for biogas systems. There are also other sources of funding
and subsidies, all in Ontario.
Potato peel is a very good feed stock for biogas digesters and can yield
up to 68 m3 biogas per tonne. Mixed feedstock is being used in Ontario,
with 50 percent livestock manure. For more details, please look up the Ontario
provincial government website, and look out for our Food Futures Now Report.
The Cuban experience can be replicated in India
I have sent your article
Organic Cuba
without Fossil Fuels (SiS 37) to Dr. M.S. Swaminathan, the father of the
Green Revolution in India, with the following remarks.
The following article shows how Cuba has engineered an agricultural revolution
o the Triple Bottom Line approach:
- Social equity of the
endeavour, which means the benefit should go directly to the poor.
- Economic returns, which
means unsupported by state subsidies, and the farmers should also not experience
negative subsidy as at present
with rising costs and falling farm gate prices
- Environmentally safe
and benign activities, without externalised costs to the environment.
Santhanam Ramasubramanyam, New Delhi, India
Economic potential for mitigating climate change?
Your article, IPCC Final Climate Warning Before Bali
(SiS 37) states that the IPPC
sees much evidence of substantial economic potential for mitigation.” This
is nonsensical economist speak, turning cause and effect on their head. Our
economic activities are the cause of climate change. Claiming that cklimate
change has economic potential means ultimately that we need more climate change
so as to boost the economy.
The honourable Dr.
Rajenda Pachauri is missing the point in as far as he claims that the costs
of mitigating climate change will only fractionally reduce economic growth.
If Dr. Rajenda Pachauri wants growth to continue he should specify that this
should be for those areas and people that really need some betterment of their
lot, and this growth must be compensated by an equivalent and even higher reduction
of the rich's standard of living and luxuries.
If mitigation were
an economic potential, as IPPC suggest, we should increase climate gas emissions. We could then get the oil from
the arctic regions that will be free from ice thanks to climate change and
global warming. The melting water from the Greenland ice cover
can be used to generate electricity that will again boost the economy and
create work and help R&D that will ultimately produce the inventions which
will allow us to boost the economy further. Though all that will be immaterially
because we will then have to grow without any material consumption, possibly
there will be none left, and we can start living on thin air.
This is approximately
the ideology of mainstream economists extrapolated to its absurd conclusion.
As an environmental scientist I have no choice but to denounce the
ideologies of economists who claim we must and can grow forever and their
perverse notion that climate mitigation would present a chance for the economy
i.e. growth.
Helmut Lubbers BE MSocSc DipEcol, ecoglobe - ecology discovery foundation,
New Zealand
Dr. Mae-Wan Ho replies
Good point! But to be fair cost means reduction in consumption
here. Also, there is economic potential in clean technologies.
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