KUUF Social Justice Forum

corporations and free-speech

2011-03-03T09:19:00.000-08:00

A simplified, excellent summary of the "Citizens United" decision
allowing corporations the same free-speech rights as people, thus
letting them spend whatever they want on influencing elections.
Calls for an amendment clarifying the 1st Amndt and undoing that
disastrous SCOTUS decision.

http://storyofstuff.org/citizensunited/

What's Best for Kids: Bottled Water or Fountains?

2010-03-08T10:41:00.000-08:00

[from National Geographic, pointed out by D. W. - thanks!]

As the U.S. taste for bottled water grows, environmentalists have been trying to sell people on good old-fashioned—and free—tap water.

But tap water's place in schools is thorny, since some experts say children should actually be drinking more bottled water to head off two stubborn health threats: obesity due to sugary drinks and lead poisoning.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2010/02/100303-bottled-water-tap-schools/

Month Without Monsanto: One Woman's Attempt To Avoid GMOs

2010-03-05T09:10:00.000-08:00

SUMMARY: Describes her experiment and gives a website to follow it on. It seems GMOs are more embedded in our lives than we think and could be pretty harmful.

URL: http://www.care2.com/causes/trailblazers/blog/month-without-monsanto-one-writers-attempt-to/

Fighting the Subversion of Our People's Sovereignty

2010-03-01T14:40:00.001-08:00

SUMMARY:  Here's High-Horse Hightower on the dastardly Supreme court
decision which will make all legislation worse (including enviro,
peace, health care, GLBTI issues, women's rights, and on & on, for
the foreseeable future until enough of the 9 die or retire.  It's
rhetoric, but good rhetoric.  NEXT: a guide to the history of this
legislation (if I can find a post) and how to undo the damage (ditto).

http://www.truthout.org/jim-hightower-fighting-subversion-our-peoples-sovereignty57194

CFLs and LEDs

2010-03-01T06:54:00.000-08:00

SUMMARY: This article lays out nice and clearly the pros and cons of incandescent, CFL, LED, and nanofiber light bulbs. I did not know that CFLs (as well as containing mercury which usually gets into water-tables) emit harmful levels of UV light which you shouldn't sit close to -- as I do when reading (aaaargh!). I found LEDs at the Marquette Menard's -- not too expensive considering the savings over time. Neat LED night-lights too.

URL: http://www.care2.com/causes/environment/blog/alternative-lighting/

How to Responsibly Recycle Old Computers, Electronics, and other Appliances

2010-02-11T18:33:00.000-08:00

Upgrading Your Appliances? Top Tips For Dealing With E-waste

by: Beth Buczynski

Everyone from diehard conservationists to the federal government is encouraging people to swap their old appliances and electronics for more efficient versions which bear the EnergyStar label. Using less energy is good for your wallet, and the planet, so it's a good idea to take this advice if you have the resources.

However, refrigerators, computers, dishwashers, VCRs, dryers and other electronic appliances are part of the hazardous waste category commonly referred to as "e-waste", and that means simply leaving them by the curb for the garbage truck isn't an option.

The EPA defines hazardous waste as:

"...Waste that is dangerous or potentially harmful to our health or the environment. Hazardous wastes can be liquids, solids, gases, or sludges. They can be discarded commercial products, like cleaning fluids or pesticides, or the by-products of manufacturing processes.

Lead, mercury, cadmium and brominated flame retardants are among the substances of concern in electronics. These substances are included in the products for important performance characteristics, but can cause problems if the products are not properly managed at end of life."

Here are some planet-friendly suggestions about how to handle those old appliances so that they are utilized to their fullest extent, and properly disposed of...

RECYCLE

Electronics can't be placed at the curb with your bottles and cans) and even if you arrange for pick up from your usual trash hauler, the odds are that they'll simply toss it in the landfill. And then there's the worry that the local electronics "recycler" might just ship them overseas where they'll be picked over by low income families and then incinerated.

Good e-waste recyclers will dismantle the various components of your appliance so that the metals and plastics can be recycled seperately. Then, they will arrange for hazardous elements to be diposed of properly.

For organizations providing information on electronics donation and recycling opportunities in your area, please visit the EPA's Where Can I Donate My Old Computer and Other Electronic Products? page. You can also check out independent resource sites like Earth911.org which has a directory of recycling facilities all accross the country, plus information about how and why to recycle different materials.

If you're not to keen on finding a way to haul your old stereo all the way across town to the local e-recycler, you should know that there are several online services that will not only take your e-waste, they might even pay you for it! All you have to do is search for your device, agree to sell it back at the offered price, ship it in and wait for your check.

Gazelle provides a practical, responsible, rewarding way for consumers to get value for used electronics. Even if Gazelle can't make you an offer for your Zac Morris phone, they'll still let you send it in for recycling at no charge.

YouRenew is another company dedicated to taking the hassle out of selling or recycling your old devices: you don’t need to make an account, use your credit card, or pay for shipping. Also for each item you recycle with YouRenew, they'll give you the choice to make a positive impact on the environment. They’ve partnered with Carbonfund.org and Americanforests.org to allow users to donate the price of their electronics towards domestic renewable energy or reforestation efforts.

DONATE

If you’ve recently upgraded a phone, television or other popular electronic appliance, but the old version still works, it might seem like a waste just to ship it off to a recycler, even if there are few bucks in it for you. If no one in your immediate circle of friends can find a use for the item, consider putting it up for grabs on the Freecycle Network, a grassroots and entirely nonprofit movement of people who give (& get) stuff for free in their own towns. More trust worthy and locally focused than Craig’s List, each local group is moderated by a local volunteer and membership is free. To sign up, find your community group at http://www.freecycle.org/.

You might also think about donating appropriate electronics to non-profit organizations that could use them to further their cause.

Earth911.org states:

"The Taxpayer Relief Act of 1997 states that companies donating personal computers to schools qualify for an enhanced charitable deduction benefit. It also expands tax incentives for private companies donating computer technology, equipment or software to K-12 classrooms."

Some sites worth checking out:

The Electronics Industry Alliance (EIA), is a national trade organization that includes the full spectrum of U.S. electronics product manufacturers, and maintains a listing of organizations nationwide that accept donations of electronics products.

Share the Technology provides a way for donors and potential recipients to connect, no matter where they are in the country.

Through an extraordinary, nationwide partnership, the Computers for Schools Program welcomes contribution of quality computer equipment and support dollars to accomplish their refurbishing work from donors across the nation.

The Wireless Foundation collects wireless phones to benefit victims of domestic violence.

Plastic Recycling

2010-01-30T06:19:00.000-08:00

KUUF Social Justice Committee

Summary: This Wikipedia article [below] on Plastics recycling

will tell you as much as or more than you probably want to know about

recycling plastic. Waste Management in Houghton (where Hancock

curbside pickup goes, I'm told) recycles only #1 (PETE) and #2

(HDPE), but the article didn't tell me what one has to do to recycle

the other kinds (esp. #7, PLA which is the 'what-the-heck-is-it'

category -- a real failure of the system, imo). The best way to

deal with this stubborn, highly complex material, which requires more

processing to recycle than most others, would still have to be to

AVOID IT WHENEVER HUMANLY POSSIBLE.

Next time -- the effect of discarded plastic on the oceans where our

fish comes from.

From Barry Pegg

Below FROM:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plastic_recycling

Plastic recycling

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Jump to: navigation, search

Plastic recycling is the process of recovering scrap or waste plastics and reprocessing the material into useful products, sometimes completely different in form from their original state. For instance, this could mean melting down soft drink bottles then casting them as plastic chairs and tables.

Before recycling, plastics are sorted according to their resin identification code, a method of categorization of polymer types, which was developed by the Society of the Plastics Industry in 1988. Polyethylene terephthalate, commonly referred to as PET, for instance, has a resin code of 1.

When compared to other materials like glass and metal materials, plastic polymers require greater processing to be recycled.^{[citation needed]} Plastics have a low entropy of mixing, which is due to the high molecular weight of their large polymer chains. A macromolecule interacts with its environment along its entire length, so its enthalpy of mixing is large compared to that of an organic molecule with a similar structure. Heating alone is not enough to dissolve such a large molecule; because of this, plastics must often be of nearly identical composition in order to mix efficiently.

When different types of plastics are melted together they tend to phase-separate, like oil and water, and set in these layers. The phase boundaries cause structural weakness in the resulting material, meaning that polymer blends are only useful in limited applications.

Another barrier to recycling is the widespread use of dyes, fillers, and other additives in plastics. The polymer is generally too viscous to economically remove fillers, and would be damaged by many of the processes that could cheaply remove the added dyes. Additives are less widely used in beverage containers and plastic bags, allowing them to be recycled more frequently.

The use of biodegradable plastics is increasing. If some of these get mixed in the other plastics for recycling, the reclaimed plastic is not recyclable because the variance in properties and melt temperatures.^[1]

Many such problems can be resolved by using a more elaborate monomer recycling process, in which a condensation polymer essentially undergoes the inverse of the polymerization reaction used to manufacture it. This yields the same mix of chemicals that formed the original polymer, which can be purified and used to synthesize new polymer chains of the same type. Du Pont opened a pilot plant of this type in Cape Fear, North Carolina, USA, to recycle PET by a process of methanolysis, but it closed the plant due to economic pressures.^[2]

Another potential option is the conversion of assorted polymers into petroleum by a much less precise thermal depolymerization process. Such a process would be able to accept almost any polymer or mix of polymers, including thermoset materials such as vulcanized rubber tires and the biopolymers in feathers and other agricultural waste. Like natural petroleum, the chemicals produced can be made into fuels as well as polymers. A pilot plant of this type exists in Carthage, Missouri, USA, using turkey waste as input material. See the main article on thermal depolymerization. Gasification is a similar process, but is not technically recycling since polymers are not likely to become the result.

Recently, a process has also been developed in which many kinds of plastic can be used as a carbon source in the recycling of scrap steel.^[3]

Yet another process that is gaining ground with startup companies (especially in Australia, United States and Japan) is heat compression.^{[citation needed]} The heat compression process takes all unsorted, cleaned plastic in all forms, from soft plastic bags to hard industrial waste, and mixes the load in tumblers (large rotating drums resembling giant clothes dryers). The most obvious benefit to this method is the fact that all plastic is recyclable, not just matching forms. However, criticism rises from the energy costs of rotating the drums, and heating the post-melt pipes.

Contents

[hide]

[edit] Applications

Main article: Recycling of PET bottles

Post-consumer polyethylene terephthalate (number 1), also known as PET, is often used as the raw material for a range of products. To obtain the pure PET, the recycled items, such as plastic bottles and containers(the main use for PET), are first inspected for any non PET materials^[4]. These materials are then removed and the PET items are sorted into different color fractions, cleaned, and prepared for processing^[5]. This sorted post-consumer PET waste is crushed, chopped into flakes, pressed into bales, and offered for sale^[6].

One use for this recycled PET that has recently started to become popular is to create fabrics to be used in the clothing industry^[7]. The fabrics are created by spinning the PET flakes into thread and yarn^[8]. This is done just as easily as creating polyester from brand new PET^[9]. The recycled PET thread or yarn can be used either alone or together with other fibers to create a very wide variety of fabrics. Traditionally these fabrics were used to create strong, durable, rough, products, such as jackets, coat, shoes, bags, hats, and accessories. However, these fabrics are usually to rough on the skin and could cause irritation. Therefore, they usually are not used on any clothing that may irritate the skin, or where comfort is required^[10]. But in today’s new eco-friendly world there has been more of a demand for “green” products. As a result, many clothing companies have started looking for ways to take advantage of this new market and new innovations in the use of recycled PET fabric are beginning to develop. These innovations included different ways to process the fabric^[11], to use the fabric, or blend the fabric with other materials^[12]. Some of the fabrics that are leading the industry in these innovations include Billabong's Eco-Supreme Suede^[13], Livity's Rip-Tide III^[14], Wellman Inc's Eco-fi(formerly known as EcoSpun)^[15], and Reware's Rewoven^[16]. Some additional companies that take pride in using recycled PET in their products are Crazy Shirts^[17] and Playback^[18].

PVC- or Vinyl Recycling has historically been difficult to perfect on the industrial scale.^{[citation needed]} But within the last decade several viable methods for recycling or upcycling PVC plastic have been developed.^{[citation needed]}

The most-often recycled plastic^{[citation needed]}, HDPE or number 2, is downcycled into plastic lumber, tables, roadside curbs, benches, truck cargo liners, trash receptacles, stationery (e.g. rulers) and other durable plastic products and is usually in demand.

The white plastic foam peanuts used as packing material are often accepted by shipping stores for reuse.^[19]

In Israel successful trials have shown that plastic films recovered from mixed municipal waste streams can be recycled into useful household products such as buckets.^[20]

Similarly, agricultural plastics such as mulch film, drip tape and silage bags are being diverted from the waste stream and successfully recycled ^[21] into much larger products for industrial applications such as plastic composite railroad ties.^[22] Historically, these agricultural plastics have primarily been either landfilled or burned on-site in the fields of individual farms.^[23]

CNN reports that Indian Dr. S. Madhu of the Kerala Highway Research Institute has formulated a road surface that includes recycled plastic.^{[citation needed]} Aggregate, bitumen (asphalt) with plastic that has been shredded and melted at a temperature below 220 degrees C (428 °F) to avoid pollution. This road surface is claimed to be very durable and monsoon rain resistant. The plastic is sorted by hand, which is economical in India. The test road used 60 kg of plastic for an approx. 500m long, 8m wide, two-lane road.

[edit] Financial justification

In 2008, the price of PETE dropped from $370/ton in the US to $20 in November.^{[clarification needed][24]}. PET prices had returned to their long term averages by May 2009.^[25]

[edit] Consumer education

[edit] United States

Plastic recycling rates lag far behind those of other items, such as newspaper (about 80%) and corrugated fiberboard (about 70%).^[26] Low national plastic recycling rates have been due to the complexity of sorting and processing, unfavorable economics, and consumer confusion about which plastics can actually be recycled.^[27] Part of the confusion has been due to the recycling symbol that is usually on all plastic items^{[citation needed]}. This symbol is called a resin identification code. It is stamped or printed on the bottom of containers and surrounded by a triangle of arrows. (See the table in Plastic.) The intent of these arrows was to make it easier to identify plastics for recycling. The recycling symbol doesn’t necessarily mean that the item will be accepted by residential recycling programs.^[28] They just indicate the plastic resin content.^[29]

[edit] United Kingdom

In the UK, the amount of post-consumer plastic being recycled is relatively low^[30], due in part to a lack of recycling facilities.

[edit] Plastic Identification Code

Main article: Resin identification code

Seven groups of plastic polymers,^[31] each with specific properties, are used worldwide for packaging applications (see table below). Each group of plastic polymer can be identified by its Plastic Identification code (PIC) - usually a number or a letter abbreviation. For instance, Low-Density Polyethylene can be identified by the number 4 and/or the letters "LDPE". The PIC appears inside a three-chasing arrow recycling symbol. The symbol is used to indicate whether the plastic can be recycled into new products.

The PIC was introduced by the Society of the Plastics Industry, Inc. which provides a uniform system for the identification of different polymer types and helps recycling companies to separate different plastics for reprocessing. Manufacturers of plastic products are required to use PIC labels in some countries/regions ^[32] and can voluntarily mark their products with the PIC where there are no requirements. Consumers can identify the plastic types based on the codes usually found at the base or at the side of the plastic products, including food/chemical packaging and containers. The PIC is usually not present on packaging films, as it is not practical to collect and recycle most of this type of waste.

Plastic Identification Code	Type of plastic polymer	Properties	Common Packaging Applications
	Polyethylene Terephthalate (PET, PETE)	Clarity, strength, toughness, barrier to gas and moisture.	Soft drink, water and salad dressing bottles; peanut butter and jam jars
	High Density Polyethylene (HDPE)	Stiffness, strength, toughness, resistance to moisture, permeability to gas.	Water pipes, Hula-Hoop (children's game) rings, Milk, juice and water bottles; the occasional shampoo / toiletry bottle
	Polyvinyl Chloride (PVC)	Versatility, clarity, ease of blending, strength, toughness.	Juice bottles; cling films; PVC piping
	Low Density Polyethylene (LDPE)	Ease of processing, strength, toughness, flexibility, ease of sealing, barrier to moisture.	Frozen food bags; squeezable bottles, e.g. honey, mustard; cling films; flexible container lids.
	Polypropylene (PP)	Strength, toughness, resistance to heat, chemicals, grease and oil, versatile, barrier to moisture.	Reusable microwaveable ware; kitchenware; yogurt containers; margarine tubs; microwaveable disposable take-away containers; disposable cups and plates.
	Polystyrene (PS)	Versatility, clarity, easily formed	Egg cartons; packing peanuts; disposable cups, plates, trays and cutlery; disposable take-away containers;
	Other (often polycarbonate or ABS)	Dependent on polymers or combination of polymers	Beverage bottles; baby milk bottles; electronic casing.

This section does not cite any references or sources.
Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (July 2009)

The quantity of post-consumer plastics recycled has increased every year since at least 1990. In 2006 the amount of plastic bottles recycled reached a record high of 2.2 trillion pounds.

The amount of PET bottles recycled in 2006 increased more than 102 million pounds compared to 2005.

HDPE bottle recycling increased in 2005 to 928 million pounds.

All plastic bottles were recycled at a rate of 24 percent in 2005.

[edit] See also

Reuse of water bottles

[edit] References

^ http://cygnus-group.com/use-less-stuff/Paper-and-Plastic-Grocery-Bag-LCA-Summary-3-21-08.pdf
^ http://www.allbusiness.com/chemicals/chemicals-overview/9060603-1.html
^ Steel CNN, Accessed 9.11.06
^ http://www.rewarestore.com/tech_recycled_pet.html
^ http://www.eartheasy.com/wear_ecospun.htm
^ http://www.innovations-report.com/html/reports/environment_sciences/report-7183.html
^ http://www.thisisbrandx.com/2009/11/trashy-chic-recycled-clothing-from-playback.html
^ http://www.innovations-report.com/html/reports/environment_sciences/report-7183.html
^ http://www.rewarestore.com/tech_recycled_pet.html
^ http://www.sustainableisgood.com/products/2008/04/billabong.html
^ http://www.innovations-report.com/html/reports/environment_sciences/report-7183.html
^ http://www.billabongbiz.com/bethechange/environment.php?page=sustainable
^ http://www.billabongbiz.com/bethechange/environment.php?page=sustainable
^ http://www.treehugger.com/files/2008/03/rip-tide-livity.php
^ http://www.eartheasy.com/wear_ecospun.htm
^ http://www.rewarestore.com/tech_recycled_pet.html
^ http://www.gogreenstreet.com/eco-friendly-recycled-plastic-bottle-board-shorts/
^ http://www.thisisbrandx.com/2009/11/trashy-chic-recycled-clothing-from-playback.html
^ http://www.allbusiness.com/consumer-products/office-supplies-equipment/6916130-1.html
^ Plastic trial procedure Oaktech Environmental website, accessed 9.11.06
^ Agricultural plastics recycling process Agricultural plastics recycling website, accessed 07.11.08
^ Plastic Composite Railroad Tie Facts Plastic Composite Railroad Ties website, accessed 01.21.08
^ Recycling Used Agricultural Plastics James W. Garthe, Paula D. Kowal, PennState University, Agricultural and Biological Engineering
^ Page, Candace, Waste district raises recycling fees, Burlington Free Press, November 12, 2008
^ Financial Times, May 15, 2009 (article by Max Hogg)
^ The Self-Sufficiency Handbook: A Complete Guide to Greener Living by Alan Bridgewater pg. 62--Skyhorse Publishing Inc., 2007 ISBN 1602391637, 9781602391635
^ "Where can we put all those plastics?". Seattle Times. http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/homegarden/2003730398_ecoconsumer02.html. Retrieved 2007-06-02.
^ Where can we put all those plastics? By Tom Watson June 2, 2007 Seattle Times http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/homegarden/2003730398_ecoconsumer02.html
^ Recycling FAQ by Ginny Figlar http://life.gaiam.com/gaiam/p/Recycling-FAQ.html
^ Plastics wasteonline.org.uk, Accessed 10.18.07
^ "Safe Use Of Plastic Food Packaging And Containers". http://www.ava.gov.sg/FoodSector/FoodSafetyEducation/Food+Facts/SafeUsePlasticContainers/index.htm.
^ "19". Holt Chemistry (Florida edition). Holt, Rinehart, and Winston. 2006. p. 702. ISBN 0-03-039114-8. "More than hlf the states in the United States have enacted laws that require plastic products to be labeled with numerical codes that identify the type of plastic used in them."

[edit] External links

West, Larry. "Recyclable Plastic: Why are So Few Food Containers Made of Recyclable Plastic?". About.com. http://environment.about.com/od/reducingwaste/a/corn_plastic.htm. Retrieved 2009-05-04.
Plastic Packaging Resin Codes data from the American Chemistry Council
ISF's Plastics Recovery Manual

[show]

v • d • e

Recycling by material

[show] v • d • e Health issues of plastics and Polyhalogenated compounds (PHC)'s

Plasticizers: Phthalates

Other plasticizers

Monomers

Other additives incl. PHC's

Health issues

Miscellaneous

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plastic_recycling"

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A Convenient Delusion

2010-01-27T06:24:00.000-08:00

KUUF Social Justice Committee

Summary: Explains why "They" are putting so much money [from us!] into denying climate change: "It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on his not understanding it." -- Upton Sinclair.

for TUESDAY 29 DECEMBER 2009

A Convenient Delusion

Monday 28 December 2009

by: Earnest Partridge | The Crisis Papers

"Reality must take precedence over public relations, for nature cannot be fooled."

-Richard Feynman

The same sort of public relations wizardry that once convinced a sizeable portion of Americans that cigarette smoking was harmless, that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction and had a hand in the 9/11 attacks, that Al Gore claimed to have invented the internet, and that John Kerry's war record was fraudulent, is now convincing an increasing number of our citizens that global warming is at least of little consequence, or, at most, a massive hoax.

This trend is reported by the Pew Research Center which, in August, 2006, found that 77% of the public believed that there is solid evidence that the earth is warming. In October, 2009, that number had dropped to 57%. In the same period, the percentage of those who denied that there is such evidence increased from 17% to 33%. An early Pew poll found that "global warming ranked dead last among 40 concerns ranked by the 1503 respondents to the poll."

Unfortunately, as John Adams observed, "facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passion, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence." Here are some of those stubborn facts:

Climate change skeptics have succeeded in convincing much of the public that global warming is a live issue of contention among climate scientists. The facts tell us otherwise. For example, in December, 2004, Science Magazine (AAAS) reported:

The American Meteorological Society, the American Geophysical Union, and the AAAS all have issued statements in recent years concluding that the evidence for human modification of climate is compelling.

... [While these reports] might downplay legitimate dissenting opinions, [that] hypothesis was tested by analyzing 928 abstracts, published in refereed scientific journals between 1993 and 2003, and listed in the ISI database with the keywords "climate change."

... Of all the [928] papers, 75% .. either explicitly or implicitly accept[ed] the consensus view; 25% dealt with methods or paleoclimate, taking no position on current anthropogenic [human-caused] climate change. Remarkably, none of the papers disagreed with the consensus position. (My emphasis, EP).

Furthermore, according to a survey conducted by Peter Doran of the University of Chicago 97% of climatologists active in research concur that global warming is real and that human activity plays a role in it.

While I could go on with this recitation, it is not my task to offer yet another argument that global warming is a fact. Thousands of peer-reviewed scientific papers support that conclusion. These papers are by qualified climate scientists, which I am not. No citation here of scientific data will persuade a single individual determined not to be persuaded. So instead, I pose a different question: how credible is the denialists' rejection of this scientific consensus?

No skeptic has ever offered me a plausible explanation as to how thousands of climate specialists from around the world -- the vast majority of such specialists -- can all be so profoundly mistaken about conclusions from research, both independent and coordinated, conducted at the cost of billions of dollars. Not that there is a shortage of implausible explanations.

For example, William Bennett (the Secretary of Education in the Reagan Administration) recently told Sean Hannity on FOX that all those scientists were "driven by ideology," though he never identified the ideology that united the scientists from dozens of different nations and cultures. He did, however, compare all those scientists to the Nazi doctors who performed experiments on concentration camp prisoners.

A more common explanation is that climate scientists pretend to believe in global warming in order to get research grants. But clearly, if that is the researchers' motivation, there is much more cash to be found from the energy corporations and their foundations. Moreover, the "grant-search" explanation begs an even greater mystery: What could possibly motivate the funding agencies (primarily governments) into encouraging gullible scientists to conclude that the climate is warming due to human effects. Most governments, and especially the US government, have a stake in the status-quo and in placating international corporations and industries.

In a sense, however, William Bennett is correct: scientists the world over are united by an "ideology," though "ideology" is hardly the correct word. That "ideology" is what Jacob Bronowski called "the habit of truth":

By the worldly standards of public life, all scholars in their work are of course oddly virtuous. They do not make wild claims, they do not cheat, they do not try to persuade at any cost, they appeal neither to prejudice or to authority, they are often frank about their ignorance, their disputes are fairly decorous, they do not confuse what is being argued with race, politics, sex or age, they listen patiently to the young and to the old who both know everything. These are the general virtues of scholarship, and they are peculiarly the virtues of science. Individually, scientists no doubt have human weaknesses. . . But in a world in which state and dogma seem always either to threaten or to cajole, the body of scientists is trained to avoid and organized to resist every form of persuasion but the fact. A scientist who breaks this rule, as [Soviet agronomist, Trofim] Lysenko has done, is ignored. . .

The values of science derive neither from the virtues of its members, nor from the finger-wagging codes of conduct by which every profession reminds itself to be good. They have grown out of the practice of science, because they are the inescapable conditions for its practice. (Science and Human Values, Harper and Row, 1972, pp. 59-60).

Is the scientific affirmation of anthropogenic global warming a "hoax," as Sen. Inhofe would have us believe. Possibly. But to believe this one would also have to believe either that (a) hundreds of millions of dollars of funded and peer-reviewed research have systematically led to a false conclusion, or (b) that thousands of scientists from around the world are engaged in a giant conspiracy, or (c) that all these scientists are simply fools. Sorry, but that is much more than I can swallow.

On a personal note, I am convinced that these scientists are neither knaves nor fools, for I know many of them and have worked with them. In 1991 I organized a scholarly conference on Environmental Ethics at Cal State Fullerton. Keynoting that event were Stephen Schneider (climate scientist, Stanford University) and John Holdren (now the President's Science Advisor). Previously I worked for two years under a National Science Foundation grant at the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES) in Boulder, where I got to know several climate scientists, including Steve Schneider (then at the National Center for Atmospheric Research) and John Birks, a collaborator with Paul Crutzen, a Nobel Laureate. While my work was in applied seismology, not climate science, I was nonetheless able to gain a moral measure of these individuals. They were neither knaves nor fools. They were, each and every one of them, scrupulous scientists. Moreover, they had families and hoped for a prosperous future for their children and their posterity. Accordingly, they were and are appalled at what their research was and is disclosing about the future prospects of the earth and of humanity.

And so should we all be.

How then do we explain the persistence of global warming denial? Upton Sinclair's observation is instructive: "It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on his not understanding it.. Thus the behavior of tobacco industry executives when presented with laboratory and statistical evidence from cancer researchers, and the response of the chemical industry to the publication of Rachel Carson's Silent Spring and the effect of CFCs on atmospheric ozone. Thus the proliferation of industry sponsored and scientifically trained "biostitutes" (to use Robert Kennedy Jr's term) many of whom, I am confident, sincerely and firmly believe what they are paid to believe. This enlistment of scientific "experts" has been effective for, as Ross Gelbspan noted in 1995:

The people who run the world's oil and coal companies know that the march of science, and of political action, may be slowed by disinformation. In the last year and a half, one of the leading oil industry public relations outlets, the Global Climate Coalition, has spent more than a million dollars to downplay the threat of climate change. It expects to spend another $850,000 on the issue next year. Similarly, the National Coal Association spent more than $700,000 on the global climate issue in 1992 and 1993. In 1993 alone, the American Petroleum Institute, just one of fifty-four industry members of the GCC, paid $1.8 million to the public relations firm of Burson-Marsteller partly in an effort to defeat a proposed tax on fossil fuels....

These 1994 figures grossly understate the current industry PR expenditures. Continuing:

For the most part the industry has relied on a small band of skeptics Dr. Richard S. Lindzen, Dr. Pat Michaels, Dr. Robert Balling, Dr. Sherwood Idso, and Dr. S. Fred Singer, among others who have proven extraordinarily adept at draining the issue of all sense of crisis. Through their frequent pronouncements in the press and on radio and television, they have helped to create the illusion that the question is hopelessly mired in unknowns.

And what if brute reality raises its ugly head? Just suppress it. As Andrew Revkin of the New York Times reports:

For more than a decade the Global Climate Coalition, a group representing industries with profits tied to fossil fuels, led an aggressive lobbying and public relations campaign against the idea that emissions of heat-trapping gases could lead to global warming.

The role of greenhouse gases in climate change is not well understood, the coalition said in a scientific backgrounder provided to lawmakers and journalists through the early 1990s, adding that scientists differ on the issue.

But a document filed in a federal lawsuit demonstrates that even as the coalition worked to sway opinion, its own scientific and technical experts were advising that the science backing the role of greenhouse gases in global warming could not be refuted.

The scientific basis for the Greenhouse Effect and the potential impact of human emissions of greenhouse gases such as CO2 on climate is well established and cannot be denied, the experts wrote in an internal report compiled for the coalition in 1995.

The "biostitution" of climate science should come as no surprise. We've seen it with the tobacco, chemical, atomic, advertising and financial services industries. Why should the coal and petroleum industries be any different?

Nonetheless, the "stubborn facts" of atmospheric chemistry and physics are what they are, totally indifferent to public relations campaigns and their effect upon public opinion. "In nature," Robert Ingersoll observed, "there are neither rewards nor punishments. There are consequences." The world governments and multi-national corporations may choose to ignore those consequences. Nature will not.

That being so, "climate skeptics" are doing a great disservice to humanity as they obstruct and forestall urgent action in the face of a planetary emergency. Skepticism in science is, in principle, commendable, as long as it is conducted responsibly according to rigors of scientific method -- of Bronowski's "habit of truth.. But I find little if any such "responsibility" among the climate skeptics. Not William Bennett, not Sean Hannity and his FOX colleagues, most assuredly not Senator Inhofe, and not at such regressive think-tanks as the Competitive Enterprise Institute, the American Enterprise Institute, and the Cato Institute.

If global warming is as real and as serious as the consensus of climate scientists say that it is, then unconstrained free market industrialization has much to answer for, and mitigation of the dire consequences thereof will require the kind of coordinated action at the national and international level that free-market absolutists deplore (as I argue in my essay , "Climate Reality Bites the Libertarians"). What is required is a world-wide economic and industrial mobilization on the scale of that which took place in the United States after the Pearl Harbor attack. Instead, what we are offered are pipsqueak palliatives, too little and too late.

Today, as the Copenhagen fiasco indicates, the deniers and their corporate sponsors appear to have the upper hand. Thus the public belief in and concern about global warming continue to erode. Quite frankly, I am very pessimistic.

And yet, the aforementioned history of corporate abuse offers some hope. The public eventually got the message: cigarettes kill, and today the per-capita consumption of cigarettes in the United States is about a third of what it was in 1965. Eventually, Rachel Carson was vindicated, as DDT was removed from the market. Likewise, CFCs were eventually phased out.

Eventually!

Trouble is, if the climate scientists are to be believed, an "eventual" solution to global warming is no solution at all.

We face the acute urgency of NOW. The lost Bush/Cheney decade has already condemned humanity to untold misery. But it is not too late to avoid still worse catastrophes. Meanwhile, the carbon continues to be pumped into the global atmosphere, the seas are becoming still more acidic, and "peak oil" is upon us.

Comments

Tue, 12/29/2009 - 21:57 - Rick (not verified)

Personally, I agree with climate scientists, that global warming is real. Of course I'm not in denial, like most American's (actually Humans). I also feel, that most Humans really would like to go the way of the dinosaurs. In any case, I think we have run out of time. As for Peak Oil, another major issue, already upon the world. If you're into this kind of stuff, check out this site: http://www.kunstler.com/index.php Peak Water will become another major issue as well.

Tue, 12/29/2009 - 22:11 - rbe1 (not verified)

I fully expect the number who disbelieve global warming to increase to close to 50%, the number of Americans who get their ideas from Rush Limbaugh.

Tue, 12/29/2009 - 22:14 - herbert browne (not verified)

Everybody KNOWS that scientists hate the oil companies... because the oil companies won't give them any money to do research. So, they're gonna THREATEN them all- with blame for Global Warming- until the petrodollars start rolling in for all their petty little pet projects. When that happens, they'll all change their tune (just like the doctors who worked for Philip Morris did) ^..^

Tue, 12/29/2009 - 22:36 - Regina (not verified)

The mass denial of scientific information is sorrowful evidence of the failure of American education. Most Americans are dangerously ignorant of basic science, irrespective of years actually spent in school. The pseudo-populism now rampant among us is a growing danger on many issues, not only global warming. The flipness with which the general population rejects scientists as "elitists" is evidence of shallow thinking and susceptibility to the harangues of know-nothings in those areas of the media that have sprung up without any grounding in journalism. The quote above from Richard Feynman is exactly right.

Stop Monsanto's Genetically Modified Alfalfa

2010-01-25T06:25:00.000-08:00

KUUF Social Justice Committee

Summary/intro: Genetically modified (GM) food is (or will someday soon be) a huge problem, impacting everything we eat; this post from "Organic Bytes: Millions Against Monsanto" explains the threat to organic foods from cross-pollination from nearby GM fields.

Take Action

Stop Monsanto's Genetically Modified Alfalfa!

Don't believe Monsanto's greenwashing. Genetically modified organisms (GMOs), aren't meant to feed the world or survive the evermore frequent droughts and floods brought on by global warming - they're designed to sell Monsanto's patented Roundup resistant or Bt seeds and pesticides now spliced into millions of acres of corn, cotton, soy, canola, sugar beets and alfalfa.

A 2009 study showed that, over the last 13 years, Roundup Ready crops have increased herbicide use by 383 million pounds! In addition, once GM alfalfa and other Monsanto crops are planted in the open environment, they contaminate non-GMO and organic varieties as well as plant relatives. So if you are operating an organic dairy, feeding your cattle organic alfalfa, a nearby farm growing GMO alfalfa will almost inevitably contaminate your alfalfa fields, causing you to lose your organic certification.

During the Bush administration, the movement to stop GMOs was making progress. Reflecting public concern over GMOs, in 2007, a Federal court ruled that the Bush USDA's approval of Roundup Ready alfalfa violated the law because it failed to analyze risks such as the contamination of conventional and organic alfalfa and the development of "super-weeds." The court banned the planting of GM alfalfa until USDA completed a rigorous analysis of these impacts. The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals twice affirmed the national ban on Roundup Ready alfalfa planting, but Monsanto is appealing. They're taking producers of organic alfalfa seed all the way to the Supreme Court!

Barack Obama, despite promising us "change we can believe in," is unfortunately turning out to be just as pro-GMO as the preceding Bush and Clinton administrations, packing the USDA and other government bureaucracies with Monsanto men and biotech cheerleaders such as former Iowa Governor, Tom Vilsack, named "Biotech Governor of the Year" in 2001, now serving as USDA Secretary. Vilsack, notorious for flying around in a Monsanto company jet during one of his previous election campaigns, is now busy trying to get the court-ordered ban on Roundup Ready alfalfa lifted by issuing a new draft environmental impact statement (EIS) that denies or downplays the obvious environmental (genetic pollution and creation of herbicide-resistant superweeds) and human health hazards of GM alfalfa.

Alfalfa is the fourth most widely grown crop in the U.S. and a key source of dairy forage and hay. The first perennial crop to be genetically engineered, GM alfalfa can regenerate itself from its root-stock. It is open-pollinated by bees, which can cross-pollinate at distances of several miles, spreading Monsanto's patented, foreign DNA to non-GMO and organic crops. Widespread GMO-contamination of organic alfalfa is inevitable if the Obama Administration successfully distorts science and ignores public opinion and allows Monsanto's GM Roundup Ready alfalfa to be planted across the U.S.

Consumers who ingest GM alfalfa are likely risking their health; since even the Obama Environmental Impact Statement admitted that, "acute toxicity in mice was observed."

According to the EIS, consumers who ingest foods with residues of Monsanto's Roundup herbicide may experience "general and non-specific signs of toxicity from subchronic and chronic exposure to glyphosate includ[ing] changes in liver weight, blood chemistry (may suggest mild liver toxicity), liver pathology, and weight of the pituitary gland."

The EIS warns that, "Based on upper estimates of exposure ... infants consuming fruit and all age groups consuming vegetables may be at risk of adverse effects associated with acute exposure to glyphosate [the active ingredient in Roundup herbicide] residues."

Consuming milk and meat from animals fed crops that are genetically engineered is also risky. Mounting evidence shows damage to animals and humans from unlabeled and untested Frankenfoods. Even in Europe, where farmer and consumer rejection has kept GMO corn and soybean acreage to a bare minimum, (massive quantities of GMO tainted animal feed is imported from the U.S.) a survey of milk products sold in stores in Italy, results from the screening of 60 samples of 12 different milk brands demonstrated the presence of GM maize sequences in 15 (25%) and of GM soybean sequences in 7 samples (11.7%).

Most consumers, especially organic consumers, are determined to avoid Roundup Ready alfalfa, and meat and dairy products derived from animals ingesting Roundup Ready alfalfa, but according to the EIS, we don't have that right because, "At the present time, there is no policy regarding the unintended presence of GE (genetically engineered) material in organic products or food, consistent with the fact that the NOP (National Organic Program) is a process-based program for certifying a farm or production system as organic, and not a product-based program that tests or certifies individual products as organic."

We must stop the Obama administration from taking away our right to grow and consume organic and GMO-free food. The "change we believe in" is a healthy and sustainable future based upon organic food and farming and a green economy.

Take Action

Barry Pegg
22059 Royalewood Rd.
Houghton, MI 49931-9014, USA

(906) 482-8614