Mention Monsanto and most would be aware of the chemical company’s flagship product Roundup, and its pushing of genetically engineered (GE) seeds onto farmers and big agriculture.
But the company has its supporters, such as Bill Gates, who claim that seed engineering can address food, land and water shortages while the global population keeps on booming. Former head of the United Nations World Food Programme, Josette Sheeran, is also a fan, says www.economist.com. Is it really a potential saviour in the climate-change age? Unlikely. Something to be suspicious of is its push, via the US government, of its GE seed onto countries that don’t want or need it. According to www.guardian.co.uk, ‘The US embassy in Paris advised Washington to start a military-style trade war against any European Union country which opposed genetically modified (GM) crops, newly released WikiLeaks cables show.’ The report in January 2011 adds that in other released WikiLeaks cables, ‘US diplomats around the world are found to have pushed GM crops as a strategic government and commercial imperative.’ The extent to which Monsanto pursues unethical behaviour demonstrates that it does not act in the interest of the human species. This is shown in its poisoning of the entire town of Nitro in West Virginia, where it produced Agent Orange. Like all corporations devoid of social responsibility it only exists to maximise profits. The poisonous 40-year legacy of Monsanto will be getting an airing in Mullumbimby, and this co-incides with events being held internationally. Activities will be held in four different venues around town, and kick off with a sign-making day on Tuesday September 11 at the Mullumbimby Community Garden from 10am. Documentaries, organic food and talks are all planned, ending with a street march on Saturday, September 15. For more visit www.occupymonsanto360.org or email byronshirechemicalfreelandcare@gmail.com.
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Genocide is on our doorstep and it looks like we are complicit. One of our closest neighbours, the West Papuans, are being systematically murdered and enslaved by the Indonesians, says indigenous activist and musician Ronnie Kareni.
It’s a topic we don’t hear much about in the mainstream press, he says, because both Australia and Indonesia benefit from strip- mining the region’s resources and subjugating its inhabitants. To most Australians, it sits to the left of Papua New Guinea. It’s not something I am proud of, but until I met Kareni and Blue King Brown’s Natalie Pa’apa’a, I had little idea about the place. And that appears to be how the Australian and Indonesian governments like it. The ‘free press’ like it as well, because advertisers who pay their wages are also profiting from the mining and rainforest logging, says Kareni. In light of that, it’s always worth thinking about where your next outdoor ensemble originates from. Since the Indonesian military occupation in the 1960s, it’s estimated over 100,000 West Papuans have been killed, according to www.freewestpapua.com.au. But Ronnie says studies from Sydney University in 2009/10 claim it to be around half a million. Its population of 3.5 million has been reduced to around 48 per cent indigenous, with the other half mostly Indonesian. It’s a stark difference to the time before the occupation, he says. Perhaps invading underdeveloped countries is not personal; after all, the indigenous are just getting in the way of expected returns on investments (ROI). Case in point is that the Freeport gold mine in West Papua is one of the largest on the planet. It harks back to the days of King Leopold II of Belgium, possibly the most evil imperialist to ever live. This fucker is responsible for the death of an estimated five to 15 million Congolese around the late 1800s. Eventually he was forced to hand over his private enterprise to the Belgian government, but that wasn’t before he extracted a fortune from the Congo. Initially it was ivory, but after a rise in the price of rubber, he enslaved natives to collect sap from rubber plants. It’s an uncomfortable truth that almost all wealth in human history has been created from slavery and the consumption of finite and polluting resources. Even more uncomfortable is a news cycle generally wasted on petty crime and celebrity gossip. At least we can be thankful that there are other options. To learn more visit www.freewestpapua.com.au. The climate change debate has reached biblical proportions. What that means is that it’s now pursued with religious fervour,
and often teeters on the evangelical. Climate change is so divisive it means that emotions run high, so let’s call it being enviromotional. With a topic this complex it is no surprise; climate science can never be definitive, nor can sceptics claim to know any better. This was demonstrated on last Thursday’s Q&A and climate change documentary on ABC TV. Environmental campaigner Anna Rose and former Liberal science minister Nick Minchin travelled the globe – chalking up carbon emissions – to see if they could change each other’s minds on the climate. They presented each other with who they considered experts on the topic. Minchin won the enviromotional award: some of his camp appeared both aggressive and suspicious. Perth-based sceptics Jo Nova and David Evans even employed their own cameraman to film the ABC for fear of being misrepresented. While at least both sides agree the Earth is warming, the difference of course is whether or not it is man-made. But does it even matter? The real point is about economics. Minchin says there is no empirical evidence and that climate change policies will have enormous implications for the resource sector. He says Australia has an economic advantage because of ‘our access to cheap reliable coal’. He wants nuclear and coal-seam gas fracking too, presumably because it will meet our energy needs and will give us a job. This argument is between those who believe economic salvation lies in free-market practices, whether they be renewable or not, and those who want our species to adapt to less-polluting energy sources. Interestingly Rose claimed the people that Minchin introduced to her were almost all connected to the US conservative think tank, the Heartland Institute, which is funded largely by big oil and tobacco. From Q&A’s panel discussion, the prediction was made that both the US and China believe that coal will be more expensive to produce than solar energy in only a matter of years. Another is that base-load energy (ie coal and nuclear) is now achievable from geo- thermal solar. Questions that could have been asked include why can’t Australia develop base-load energy from geo-thermal solar right now, like other countries. It would sure go a long way in helping those who are facing a huge increase to their heating bills this winter. Then there will be no need for dirty and dangerous coal or nuclear. One assumes it will take a while because of that great elusive rare earth commodity: leadership. US Author Derrick Jensen’s philosophy is the catalyst for a film – END : CIV – being shown this week at the Byron Bay Uniting Church.
It’s heartening to know this church wants to expose elite power structures and is a hot-bed for radicalism. Isn’t that what Jesus would want? The film examines our cultural addiction to violence and environmental exploitation through the construct of civilisation. The word civilisation comes from the Latin ‘civilis’, meaning civil, related to the Latin ‘civis’, meaning citizen, and ‘civitas’, meaning city or city-state. The rise of cities is where civilisations start, Jensen says, and as it is a ‘collection of people living in numbers so large that they need to import resources’ that construct is not, or can never be, sustainable. Our way of life is based on violence and slavery, according to Jensen. Our clothes are made largely by slaves from other countries, the meat we consume is farmed without consideration for the animal and diamonds generally have blood on them... And of course there’s our collective unevolved thirst for oil and other non-renewables. He says we don’t see the violence because ‘we’ve been metabolised’ into the system. Additionally, ‘We have bought into a strange notion that it’s ok to have to pay to exist on the planet.’ If you don’t pay rent for example, someone with a gun – or more power than you – will come and enforce compliance. A less emotive and more anthropological analysis of civilisations is by Scott Nearing, author of Civilization And Beyond. To paraphrase his dense and excellent tome in less than 100 words: civilisation is a means of communication, trade and record keeping. It includes an economy based on a division of labour and specialisation. It has a self-selected and perpetuating oligarchy, utilising a unified political and bureaucratic apparatus. It requires an adequate labour force to farm, transport and mine, while it supports a large middle-class element of professionals, technicians and semi-parasitic fringe dwellers. A well trained and financed military for both offence and defence is essential, along with institutions and social practices. And lastly, agreed-upon religions that maintain social conformity. |
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