by Mickey Huff
14. Wireless Technology a Looming Health Crisis
As a multitude of hazardous wireless technologies are deployed in homes, schools, and workplaces, government officials and industry representatives continue to insist on their safety despite growing evidence to the contrary. Extensive deployment of “smart grid” technology hastens this looming health crisis.
By now many residents in the United States and Canada have smart meters—which transfer detailed information on residents’ electrical usage back to the utility every few minutes—installed on their dwellings. Each meter has an electronic cellular transmitter that uses powerful bursts of electromagnetic radio frequency (RF) radiation to communicate with nearby meters, which together form an interlocking network. Such information can easily be used to determine individual patterns of behavior based on power consumption.
Utilities sell smart grid technology to the public as a way to “empower” individual energy consumers, allowing them to access information on their energy usage so that they may eventually save money by programming “smart” (i.e., wireless-enabled) home appliances and equipment to run when electrical rates are lowest. In other words, a broader plan behind smart grid technology involves a tiered rate system for electricity consumption that will be set by the utility, to which customers will have no choice but to conform.
For sources and further analysis, see page 127 and the “Health and the Environment” News Cluster.
15. Food Riots: The New Normal?
Reduced land productivity, combined with elevated oil costs and population growth, threaten a systemic, global food crisis. Citing findings from a study by Paul and Anne Ehrlich, published by the Royal Society, Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed identified the links among intensifying economic inequality, debt, climate change, and fossil fuel dependency to conclude that a global food crisis is now “undeniable.”
“Global food prices have been consistently higher than in preceding decades,” reported Ahmed, leading to dramatic price increases in staple foods and triggering food riots across the Middle East, North Africa, and South Asia. The crux of this global phenomenon is climate change: severe natural disasters including drought, flood, heat waves, and monsoons have affected major regional food baskets. By mid-century, Ahmed reported, “world crop yields could fall as much as 20–40 percent because of climate change alone.”
Industrial agricultural methods that disrupt soil have also contributed to impending food shortages. As a result, Ahmed reported, global land productivity has “dropped significantly,” from 2.1 percent during 1950–90 to 1.2 percent during 1990–2007.
By contrast with Ahmed’s report, corporate media coverage of food insecurity has tended to treat it as a local and episodic problem. For example, an April 2008 story in the Los Angeles Times covered food riots in Haiti, which resulted in three deaths. Similarly, a March 2013 New York Times piece addressed how the loss of farmland and farm labor to urbanization contributed to rising food costs in China. Corporate media have not connected the dots to analyze how intensifying inequality, debt, climate change, and consumption of fossil fuels have contributed to the potential for a global food crisis in the near future.
For sources and further analysis, see page 127 and the “Health and the Environment” News Cluster.
16. Journalism Under Attack Around the Globe
The world is a more dangerous place for journalists. Journalists are increasingly at risk of being killed or imprisoned for doing their jobs, a situation that imperils press freedom. From 2011 to 2012, the number of journalists behind bars because of their work increased from 53 to 232, and the 70 journalists killed in the line of duty during 2012 represents a 43 percent increase, compared with 2011, according to a study by the Committee to Project Journalists (CPJ). Over the past two decades, a journalist is killed once every eight days.
The CPJ also published a Risk List, identifying the ten countries worldwide where press freedom suffered the most in 2012. Notably, half of the nations on the Risk List—Brazil, Turkey, Pakistan, Russia, and Ecuador—“practice some form of democracy and exert significant influence on a regional or international stage.”
“When journalists are silenced, whether through violence or laws, we all stand to lose because perpetrators are able to obscure misdeeds, silence dissent, and disempower citizens,” said CPJ deputy director Robert Mahoney.
The CPJ has been a leader in advocating for full implementation of a five-year-old UN resolution calling for protection of journalists in conflict zones, in order to guarantee a free and safe press. Article 19 of the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights includes the freedom to “impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers,” making freedom of press a transnational right.
The New York Times ran a story on the CPJ report on February 15, 2013, noting the alarming rise in the number of journalists killed and imprisoned during 2012. However, the Times’ report did not address the possible UN resolution or freedom of press as a transnational right.
Dave Lindorff, of ThisCantBeHappening!, writes that “the incidence of journalists killed by US forces in recent US conflicts has been much, much greater than it ever was in earlier wars, such as the one in Vietnam, or in Korea or World War II,” begging the question of whether some of the deaths have been “deliberate, perhaps with the intent of keeping journalists in line.”
For sources and further analysis, see page 65 and the “Whistleblowers and Gag Laws” News Cluster.
17. The Creative Commons Celebrates Ten Years of Sharing and Cultural Creation
Creative Commons (CC) is celebrating ten years of helping writers, artists, technologists, and other creators share their knowledge and creativity with the world. CC provides free, public, and standardized licenses that allow creators to share their material with others and help create a balance between the open nature of public domain (e.g., the Internet) and copyright laws. The first CC licenses were issued in December 2002, and they now number in the millions. For example, governments and libraries make their information available to the public using CC tools. YouTube now has over four million videos available under Creative Commons, allowing everyone to use, remix, and edit them.
A strong push for copyright reform is currently occurring around the world—coming both from the increased recognition of public/ user rights as well as the need for author protection. Creative Commons and the free culture movement envision a new world in which partnership premised on shared benefits replaces the false battle between self-interest and community. To imitate or steal an idea is one thing, but to transform or remix content, while crediting its originator, is something new and completely different. Collaboration is the center of community, and CC tools offer a major step toward a more collaborative and abundant world.
For sources and further analysis, see page 143 and the “Iceland, the Power of Peaceful Revolution, and the Commons” News Cluster.
18. Fracking Our Food Supply
The effects of hydraulic fracturing (or “fracking”) on food supply and the environment are slowly emerging. The fracking process runs contrary to safe sustainable food production. In the agriculturally and energy-rich region called the Marcellus Shale, a tug-of-war between food producers and energy companies has begun.
Chemicals used in the fracking process contaminate surrounding land, water, and air. Ranchers in Pennsylvania, North Dakota, Louisiana, and New Mexico have been reporting health problems and incidents of dead and tainted livestock, due to elevated levels of contaminants from nearby wells.
While no long-term research on the effects of fracking on humans, livestock, or plants exists, a peer-reviewed report by Michelle Bamberger and Robert E. Oswald has linked fracking to illness in animals. They believe chemicals leaking from fracking sites could start appearing in human food supplies, because of a lack of regulation and testing.
There is an absence of both adequate disclosures by energy companies and timely regulation by government to protect the environment and
landowners. Secrecy shrouding the fracking process and Bush-era loopholes obscure consumer knowledge of food safety.
A lack of whistleblowers has been attributed to fear of retaliation, nondisclosure agreements, or involvement in active litigation. While some fear that the early warnings will be ignored, two major agricultural insurance companies now refuse to cover damages from fracking.
For sources and further analysis, see page 127 and the “Health and the Environment” News Cluster.
19. The Power of Peaceful Revolution in Iceland
Iceland is experiencing one of the greatest economic comebacks of all time, reported Alex Pietrowski.
After privatization of the nation’s banking sector, completed in 2000, private bankers borrowed $120 billion (ten times the size of Iceland’s economy), creating a huge economic bubble that doubled housing prices and made a small percentage of the country’s population exceedingly wealthy. When the bubble burst, the bankers left the nation on the verge of bankruptcy and its citizens with an unpayable debt.
In October 2008, Iceland’s people took to the streets in response to the economic crisis caused by the banksters. Over a span of five months, the main bank of Iceland was nationalized, government officials were forced to resign, the old government was liquidated, and a new government was established. By March 2010, Iceland’s people voted to deny payment of the €3,500 million debt created by the bankers, and about 200 high-level executives and bankers responsible for the economic crisis in the country were either arrested or faced criminal charges.
In February 2011, a new constitutional assembly settled in to rewrite the tiny nation’s constitution, which aimed to avoid entrapment by debt-based currency foreign loans. In 2012, the Paris-based Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development expected Iceland’s economy to outgrow the euro and the average for the developed world.
For sources and further analysis, see page 143 and the “Iceland, the Power of Peaceful Revolution, and the Commons” News Cluster.
20. Israel Counted Minimum Calorie Needs in Gaza Blockade
Declassified documents reveal that the Israeli military calculated how many calories a typical Gazan would need to survive, in order to determine how much food to supply the Gaza Strip during Israel’s 2007–2010 blockade. The Israeli human rights group Gisha, which campaigns against Israel’s Gaza blockade, fought a legal battle to force the Israeli Ministry of Defense to release the documents.
Israel began its blockade in September 2007, identifying Gaza as a “hostile territory” that had been “seized” by Hamas. Israel claimed that the blockade was necessary to weaken Hamas. Critics accused the Israeli government of targeting Gaza’s more than 1.5 million people in its failed effort to overthrow Hamas.
In the food calculation, Israel applied the average daily requirement of 2,279 calories per person to determine that it would allow roughly 1,836 grams of food per person, per day. Food imports to Gaza were cut by nearly 75 percent, from 400 trucks per day to 106 trucks per day, five days a week, from the start of the blockade.
“How can Israel claim that it is not responsible for civilian life in Gaza when it controls even the type and quantity of food that Palestinian residents of Gaza are permitted to consume?” asked Sari Bashi, Gisha’s executive director, in a statement. After Gisha published the documents, Israeli defense ministry official Guy Inbar defended the Israeli research paper as something “that came up in two discussions” but was “never made use of.”
These developments occurred against the backdrop of a diplomatic cable from 2008 showing that Israel informed US officials that it would keep Gaza’s economy “on the brink of collapse” while avoiding a humanitarian crisis.
For sources and further analysis, see page 101 and the “Human Rights and Civil Liberties” News Cluster.
21. Monsanto and India’s “Suicide Economy”
Monsanto has a long history of contamination and cover-up. In India, another Monsanto cover-up is ongoing. Since 1995, nearly 300,000 Indian farmers have committed suicide due to massive debt. Monsanto has argued that these suicides have no single cause. However, there is clear evidence that Monsanto’s Bt cotton is implicated. Physicist and author Vandana Shiva has been monitoring what is going on in these rural farming towns. Shiva noted, “The price per kilogram of cotton seeds [has gone] from 7 to 17,000 rupees. . . . Monsanto sells its GMO seeds on fraudulent claims of yields of 1,500 kg/year when farmers harvest 300–400 kg/year on an average.” Shiva and other critics have concluded that Monsanto’s profit-driven policies have led to a “suicide economy” in India.
A new documentary film, Dirty White Gold by Leah Borromeo, goes beyond the issue of farmer suicides to explain how the global fashion industry and international consumer habits contribute to Indian ffarm-ers’ hardships. Dirty White Gold examined the cotton supply chain, with the aim of generating support for legislation that will, in Borro-meo’s words, “make ethics and sustainability the norm in the fashion industry.”
Monsanto’s horrific impact in India is also showcased in an earlier documentary, Bitter Seeds, directed by Micha X. Peled, which follows a teenage girl whose father committed suicide due to debt. Bitter Seeds showcased the major problems people in India are having, and how Monsanto lies directly to Indian farmers, going as far as making up fictitious farmers who “have success” with the new Bt cotton. Monsanto has claimed that there has also been a 25 percent reduction in pesticide costs. In Bitter Seeds, both of these claims were proven false.
For sources and further analysis, see page 127 and the “Health and the Environment” News Cluster.
22. Pennsylvania Law Gags Doctors to Protect Big Oil’s “Proprietary Secrets”
In communities affected by hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking,” people understand that this process of drilling for natural gases puts the environment and their health at risk. In February 2013, legislators in Pennsylvania—a state on the forefront of a national debate over fracking—passed a law that requires oil companies to disclose the identity and amount of chemicals used in fracking fluids to health professionals who request the information so that they can diagnosis or treat patients who may have been exposed to hazardous chemicals. However, as Kate Sheppard reported for Mother Jones, a provision in the new bill requires those health professionals to sign a confidentiality agreement stating that they will not disclose that information to anyone else—not even their own patients. The companies deem the chemical ingredients used in the process as “proprietary secrets.”
The crucial provision gagging doctors was added after the bill was introduced, so many lawmakers did not recognize the broad, problematic alterations to the proposed law. Pennsylvania State Senator Daylin Leach told Mother Jones, “The importance of keeping it as proprietary secret seems minimal when compared to letting the public know what chemicals they and their children are being exposed to.”
An addendum to the Mother Jones report noted that Patrick Henderson, the energy executive for Pennsylvania Governor Tom Corbett, said that others’ interpretation of the law is inaccurate. Doctors will still be allowed to share information with their patients. However, Kate Sheppard reported, “the actual terms of the confidentiality agreements have not yet been drafted, and there seems to be pretty wide confusion in the state about what exactly the bill as signed into law would mean.”
Under the Obama administration, the Environmental Protection Agency has pressed oil companies to voluntarily provide information about fracking fluids, but the industry has largely rebuffed those appeals.
For sources and further analysis, see page 65 and the “Whistleblowers and Gag Laws” News Cluster.
23. Transaction Tax Helps Civilize Wall Street and Lower the National Debt
In February 2013, United States senators Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) and Peter DeFazio (D-Oregon) introduced a bill to implement a new tax of three basis points (that is, three pennies for every hundred dollars) on most nonconsumer stock trades. If made law, the tax could generate $35
0 billion in federal revenues over the next ten years.
Describing the proposed tax as a “simple matter of fairness and fiscal sanity,” Senator Harkin elaborated, “We need the new revenue generated by this tax in order to reduce deficits (after sequestration) and maintain critical investments in education, infrastructure, and job creation. . . . Wall Street (investors) can easily bear this modest tax.”
Because the tax is percentage-based, large transactions would be harder hit; most middle-class investors would see minimally increased charges. The tax would also help curb overzealous market speculation by discouraging the large-sum, short-term, risky trading that tends to put the economy in a fragile state.
This bill has been proposed in previous congressional sessions, yet it has been underreported in the corporate media, making it hard to gain public support.
France recently became the first country in Europe to pass such a tax. French finance minister Pierre Moscovici said the law marks “the first step toward fiscal reform and a move toward justice.” Ten other European countries are discussing similar laws. For the US, the Harkin-DeFazio transaction tax would be a major step in civilizing speculative investment, stabilizing the economy, and reducing the national debt.
For sources and further analysis, see page 86 and the “Plutocracy, Poverty, and Prosperity” News Cluster.
24. Widespread GMO Contamination: Did Monsanto Plant GMOs Before USDA Approval?
Monsanto introduced genetically modified alfalfa in 2003—a full two years before it was deregulated, according to recently released evidence. Global Research reported that a letter from Cal/West Seeds indicated that “evidence of contamination was withheld and the USDA turned a blind eye to proof of contamination,” thus allowing widespread GMO contamination of GMO-free crops. The Cal/West Seeds letter to the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) stated they found the Roundup Ready gene in foundation production lots seeds in 2005: according to the letter, the GMO-contaminated foundation seed originated in 2003 from a field in Solano County, California. The letter stated, “Cal/West Seeds had zero access to Roundup Ready seed at that time; therefore we assume the contamination originated from an external source.”