Energy companies to taxpayers: "Money, please." Photo courtesy of epSos.de

Dirty energy industry takes handouts despite record profits
Last week, oil and gas companies announced billion-dollar profits in their second quarter, reports the New York Times, even as they continue to receive government subsidies. BP, the infamous oil company that wrecked the Gulf’s economy and environment last year with an unprecedented oil spill, reported about $5.6 billion in profits, and Exxon Mobil earned about $10 billion in April, May and June. While these corporations are busy laughing all the way to the bank, this week President Obama signed a debt deal that won’t cut oil and gas subsidies but will cut about $500 billion from “nondefense discretionary spending,” which includes funds for investments in health and environmental protection, among other things. No need to worry, though. The American Petroleum Institute assured the American public that, “When our industry does well, much of America does well also.” What a relief!

Corporations secretly writing anti-environmental bills for legislators
A number of mega corporations and politicians have secretively been collaborating on ghostwriting “model” legislative bills that legislators then introduce in state capitols across the country, reports the Center for Media and Democracy. Many of the bills pushed by the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) target environmental regulations, like forbidding local governments from limiting pesticide use, opposing uniform rules on hazardous coal combustion, and putting the regulation of fracking in the hands of the states rather than establishing federal safety and environmental standards. Despite its nonprofit status, which limits its ability to lobby, ALEC members regularly hand bills to legislators, which some argue is the very definition of lobbying. Add that to the fact that the Koch brothers are very big fans and funders of ALEC, and it’s not hard to see that this is a recipe for environmental and democratic disaster.
 

George Kimbrell, staff attorney at Center for Food Safety, is serving as co-counsel in Earthjustice’s genetically engineered sugar beet and alfalfa work.

Intro: This is the final part in a series of Q & A's on genetically engineered food, which harm the environment by increasing pesticide use, creating pesticide resistant superweeds and contaminating conventional and organic crops. Earthjustice is challenging the USDA’s decision to allow genetically engineered sugar beets and alfalfa onto the market. To learn more, check out our GMO web feature.

EJ: Are GE foods safe?  

GK: In regards to health, this is a novel technology that is an ongoing experiment on the human population. You’re taking a gene from a species that could never cross in nature and you’re crossing it with a very foreign species. For example, you’re taking a gene from say, a flounder, and you’re inserting it into a tomato to make it more cold resistant. A flounder and a tomato are never going to get together in the natural world. It’s very different than conventional breeding where you’re breeding two types of corn to try to improve the different traits in your corn crop. And because we don’t require labeling of GE foods, we really can’t identify any potential toxicity or health concerns that might arise. Basically we have a lot more unknowns than knowns with regards to the potential human health impacts of GE food.

There are also environmental impacts. Eighty-five percent of these crops are pesticide-promoting crops. The companies that make them, chemical companies like Monsanto, Syngenta, Bayer, DuPont and Dow, sell more of their flagship products, pesticides, by making these crops. These crops don’t help us feed the world, they don’t help us fight climate change, and they don’t help us better the environment. They just increase pesticides. That’s what they do. This technology is a one-trick pony.

The agave plant, typically used to distill tequila. Courtesy of kimsdinner.

Tequila takes a shot at decreasing gasoline use
A new study that looks at the life-cycle analysis of agave-derived ethanol has found that the desert plant produces relatively few carbon emissions, positioning itself as a possible biofuel and substitute for gasoline, reports the Guardian. Though agave is best known for its use in distilling tequila, the sugar-filled plant’s ability to grow on desert lands that aren’t usable for other food crops has garnered the interest of the biofuel industry, which is eager to find a plant-based fuel that won’t drive up food prices, a la the corn ethanol disaster. Scientists are already conducting agave biofuel trials in Australia, and the technology may also have potential for use in abandoned agave plantations in Mexico and Africa. Though experts warn that biofuels can’t be the only strategy used to cut carbon emissions, finding more options to fight climate change is still a success worth drinking to.

Grey wolves in Yellowstone help keep the elk population in check. Photo courtesy of Arran_Edmonstone

Environment loses in predator versus people standoff
A new study has found that the decline of the world’s largest predators is wreaking havoc on the rest of the ecosystem, reports the Washington Post. Nature abhors a vacuum, and by killing off large sums of the world’s wolves, lions, buffalo and wildebeest, humans have inadvertently opened a door to other, sometimes less beneficial, wildlife. For example, the decimation of lions and leopards in parts of sub-Saharan Africa has allowed disease-ridden baboons to thrive, sometimes venturing into populated areas. And in the U.S., the hunting and killing of wolves in Yellowstone Park has incresed the numbers of elk and deer, which devour the forest food supply, leaving less food for other creatures. Deer also carry ticks that spread Lyme disease, an emerging infectious disease that can affect the joints, heart and central nervous system in humans.

Though the authors of the report acknowledge that it can be difficult to predict the effect that the loss of a large predator will have on the environment, what is clear is that no species is an island unto itself. In fact, the reintroduction of a native species can sometimes have a positive effect on the environment. For example, a reintroduction of wolves into Yellowstone back in the 1990s has helped keep the elk population in check, thereby allowing other creatures like beavers and birds to bounce back. Said William Ripple, co-author of the international report, “It’s amazing the effect one species, the wolf, can have on the entire ecosystem.”

Frank Morton is an organic farmer in Oregon's Willamette Valley.

(This is the third in a series of Q & A's on genetically engineered food, which harm the environment by increasing pesticide use, creating pesticide resistant superweeds and contaminating conventional and organic crops. Earthjustice is challenging the USDA’s decision to allow genetically engineered sugar beets and alfalfa onto the market. To learn more, check out our GMO web feature.

EJ: How did you first learn about GE crops in your area?  
 
FM: I was at a meeting of the Willamette Valley Specialty Seed Association in Oregon in 2006 when a member told us that he had planted GE sugar beets. None of the other members of the association had any idea this had happened. We were never informed by the USDA. Nobody asked the seed association whether this would have any impact on us. So basically a lot of us felt like we weren’t consulted about this, but there was a sort of fatalism about it among the membership because they didn't think there was anything that could be done about it.
 
I am the only 100 percent organic seed farmer in the group, so it fell to me to make the organization realize the long-term consequences of us having GE crops in the valley. I told the group that whether they were conventional or organic, their customers would not want to have GE seed contamination. The group actually did agree with that perception. However, they insisted that because the USDA allowed this happen, we were powerless to do anything about it. So, nobody wanted to get involved, except eventually I did.
 

The hunting and fishing crowd is increasingly unhappy with GOP efforts to slash conservation spending. Photo courtesy of eadmund42

Republicans cutting enviro bills shoot themselves in the foot
Republican measures to cut environmental programs that keep the nation’s air and water clean may prove foolish if they continue to ruffle the feathers of outdoorsmen, reports Politico. The angler and hunter crowd may typically swing conservative, but that could change if House Republicans continue their attempts to pull the trigger on a number of programs that keep wildlife intact, such as the North American Wetlands Conservation Act or State Wildlife Grants. Last week, leaders from a handful of conservation organizations like Ducks Unlimited met with top officials to make their case for restoring funding for environmental programs, arguing that the benefits of wildlife conservation go far beyond the duck pond, like cleaning up waterways and providing flood control for coastal communities. Though hunting and fishing types tend to be fiscally conservative, when it comes to slashing conservation programs that diminish the favorite pastimes of a large voting bloc, Republicans better think twice before going in for the kill.
 

Scientist Charles Benbrook is a pesticide policy expert and weed resistance specialist.

Intro: (This is the second in a series of Q & A's on genetically engineered food, which harm the environment by increasing pesticide use, creating pesticide resistant superweeds and contaminating conventional and organic crops. Earthjustice is challenging the USDA’s decision to allow genetically engineered sugar beets and alfalfa onto the market. To learn more, check out our GMO web feature.)

EJ: The biotech industry claims that genetically engineered (GE) foods decrease pesticide use. Is that true?  

CB: The Organic Center has done four reports on this question and has found that crops like corn, cotton and soybeans genetically engineered to be resistant to herbicides have actually increased herbicide use by hundreds of millions of pounds over what herbicide use would have been had these crops not been commercialized. So when the biotech industry says that today’s GE crops have reduced and are reducing pesticide use, they’re factuallywrong.
 
EJ: Why is herbicide use increasing?  
 
CB: GE crops were being exposed to only one herbicide, glyphosate, which is the active chemical in Monsanto’s Roundup brand herbicide. Whenever farmers try to control weeds with a single chemical, they create selection pressure on the weed population so that weeds that are highly susceptible to one chemical are completely controlled, but those weeds that are less well-controlled do a little bit better every year. These weeds are actually undermining the effectiveness of the Roundup Ready system as a whole. In the southeast it is a technology in active decline and in a few more years it simply won’t be a commercially viable option.
 

Earthjustice Managing Attorney Paul Achitoff

Intro: (This is the first in a series of Q & A's on genetically engineered food, which harm the environment by increasing pesticide use, creating pesticide resistant superweeds and contaminating conventional and organic crops. Earthjustice is challenging the USDA’s decision to allow genetically engineered sugar beets and alfalfa onto the market. To learn more, check out our GMO web feature.

 
EJ: Why are genetically engineered (GE) crops bad for the environment?
 
PA: Most GE crops are engineered to be resistant to herbicides. As a result of continually applying a single herbicide to the same field over and over again, there is now a proliferation of herbicide-resistant weeds across the nation. It’s been particularly prevalent in cotton, but we’ve also seen it in GE soybean fields. The amount of herbicide that’s going into the environment, into the soil and into the groundwater has increased significantly as a result of these GE crops.
 
That’s the main issue, but there are other issues as well. For example, GE crops can contaminate conventional or organic crops, so that has economic impacts on non-GE farmers whose crops become mixed with their GE counterpart.

Michelle Bachman has some crazy ideas about the environment. Photo courtesy of Markn3tel.

Michelle Bachman drills down to solve the energy crisis
As the Republican contenders for the 2012 election begin to emerge, a old theme among the crew is arising deep from within the ashes of the failed McCain-Palin 2008 presidential run: Drill, baby, drill. The most recent aspiring president, Michelle Bachman, recently said that energy can be the “most easy problem for America to solve” by, you guessed it, digging for more fossil fuels, reports Grist. Unfortunately, the Republican rhetoric, as nice and easy as it may sound, relies heavily on ignoring all of the environmental and health problems that come with the practices involved in this age of extreme energy, such blowing up mountains and shoving millions of gallons of chemically treated water into rock formations.

Unfortunately for those of us stuck in the real world, this overly simplistic solution to the current energy crisis is just par for the course in Bachman’s world. According to recent news reports, Bachman has been busy spreading lies like the idea that high-speed rail from Disneyland to Las Vegas is just a ploy to get little kids hooked on gambling and that EPA is a murderous villain that’s attacking “helpless” corporations. Those kinds of allegations are akin to environmentalists calling Bachman a deranged serial killer—a serious allegation that has bite but is nonetheless inaccurate. Good thing she already beat everyone to the punch by accidently comparing herself to John Wayne Gacy. 

Scented candles may burn users with dangerous toxins
Filling a room with an array of scented candles may no longer be a harmless option for Romeos looking to make their Juliets swoon, reports the UK’s Daily Mail. A recent study found that burning scented candles in a poorly ventilated room may release air pollution toxic enough to raise the risk of asthma, eczema and skin complaints. Though stuffing candle wax with synthetic fragrances is harmful enough, the wicks themselves are also a concern. When burned, they release soot particles that can travel deep into the lungs and aggravate respiratory illness. To avoid getting burned, experts suggest using beeswax or soy-based candles with thin, braided wicks. Or, skip the candles and buy her fair trade, locally grown, organic, vegan chocolates. Everybody wins! 

Gershon Cohen is Project Director at the Campaign to Safeguard America’s Waters, a client on Earthjustice's case regarding wastewater discharge by cruise ships in Alaska.

Recently, Earthjustice staffer Jessica Knoblauch spoke with Gershon Cohen, project director of the Campaign to Safeguard America’s Waters. In June, Earthjustice successfully defended an Alaskan ballot initiative that Cohen co-authored, which called for cruise ships to stop discharging waste into Alaska’s pristine waters.

JK: How did you first learn about cruise ship pollution? 

GC: Back in 1999, I read about how Royal Caribbean had just been convicted for dumping waste into the water. One of the places they dumped it was right near my home in Alaska. I immediately called the Environmental Protection Agency to find out if I could get a copy of their permits to see what they were supposed to be able to discharge. A few hours later, I got a call back from a very sheepish EPA person who said “Gee. They don’t have permits.” I said, “What do you mean they don’t have permits? How could you be discharging millions of gallons of wastewater and not have a permit?” He said, “Well, it looks like they’re exempt. I was like, “No kidding. I wonder how they worked that?” That’s where it all started for me.