The scientists said they saw little role for GM, as it is currently practised, in feeding the poor on a large scale . “Assessment of the technology lags behind its development, information is anecdotal and contradictory, and uncertainty about possible benefits and damage is unavoidable,” said the report.

So the report GMO wanted said – what?

Genetically-modified crops are not the solution to spiralling food prices or Third World hunger, according to a powerful international report published yesterday.

Questions remain over their effects on human health and the environment, it warns.

Sixty governments, private industry, scientists, consumer groups and social campaigners have delivered a blueprint for global agriculture for the next 50 years.

It delivers a remarkable snub to “Frankenstein Foods” and the industrialisation of farming while offering a boost to organic and small-scale agriculture.

This represents a direct challenge to government policy in the UK, Europe and the U.S. Publication of the report triggered an international row after the U.S. government, which has attempted to impose GM crops on the world, refused to sign up to the global initiative.

Yet over the last week: on the BBC’s “Have Your Say”, on NPR, and from the AUstralian Broadcasting Network, I heard “experts” invited by the “public” media systems tell listeners that GM crops really were the answer to global famine.

Mr Core says a second major concern the Australian Government had with the report is that it underplays the contribution of 21st century technologies including genetically modified (GM) crops, which will be crucial to feeding the world.

Just another day of spin for the apostles of the Shock Doctrine

Shock Doctrine’s ugly flask – and spray nozzle – were the first thing Big Ag grabbed this week when they lost bigtime on global hunger and in the CA courts.

On April 15, the IAASTD delivered their comprehensive report on global ag.

What’s the IAASTD?

The report, the International Assessment of Agricultural Knowledge, Science and Technology for Development (IAASTD) Global Report, was commissioned in partnership with the United Nations after a group of biotech companies asked the World Bank what it thought of genetic engineering technology as an agricultural strategy for developing countries.

So who did the work?

The report – the first significant attempt to involve governments, NGOs and industries from rich and poor countries – took 400 scientists four years to complete.

What did they find?

Sixty countries backed by the World Bank and most UN bodies yesterday called for radical changes in world farming to avert increasing regional food shortages, escalating prices and growing environmental problems.

But in a move that has led to the US, UK, Australia and Canada not yet endorsing the report, the authors said GM technology was not a quick fix to feed the world’s poor and argued that growing biofuel crops for automobiles threatened to increase worldwide malnutrition.

The Shock Doctrine – Noami Klein

Great American Hypocrites – Glenn Greenwald

Bad Samaitians – Ha-Joon Chang

Crunch time, what a shock. Heavy reading for sure.

They tried long and hard to tell us that a mixed economy or any other variation of distribution and politics besides so-called free market capitalism was bad or evil.

there is no such thing as a free market and all regulation does is force industry to pay the bills they cause but don’t want to pay

for instance, they dump crap in our air and it is their expense to clean it up but they won’t in a “free market”, they ONLY method of getting them to pay the bills they incur is through regulation

the brutal truth is “regulation” are sulutions to problems industry created themselves and refused to address

They tried long and hard to tell us that a mixed economy or any other variation of distribution and politics besides so-called free market capitalism was bad or evil. There were occasional glimpses of the truth — like the section in international economics in which we discussed Ricardo’s Theory of comparative advantage, and the problems that come from excessive concentration on a single industry or crop — but the truth was always squelched with absolutes.

Ricardo’s Theory was flawed, and so was much of the rest of classic economics taught by American business schools for the last 40+ years. While specialization should be encouraged to enhance growth, no country should concentrate all of its resources in the production of product(s) at which it excels, putting itself at extreme risk if factors related to production fail. This is one of the key reasons why we are seeing food insecurity; some locales concentrated on a single crop, only to have it fail and have no fall back due to the lave of diversity.

This is but one theory; the rest of what they taught me in business school is just as flawed, riddled with holes. What an immoral waste; how long it will take to stop this damage and undo it.

Also, the price of petroleum is going to hit education, hard, and quite soon. Where we live, there are big regional high schools, where kids from half a dozen smallish towns are bused in – not too far, but some of these kids travel twenty or so miles to school.

And the schools are big. Big buildings. What happens to education when costs of heat and transportation become half, or more, of the annual school budget? It won’t be long before they cannot afford to bus rural kids to school – or heat the buildings in winter. Then we’ll all be homeschooling, or a quick shift back to small local school houses.

what are we gonna do when we can’t afford to get to work?

that’s gonna happen, there’ll be 10 dollar gas no doubt

no doubt

they will use this “crisis” for their next “shock doctrine” policy change

fuel is going up for a number of reasons, one being how many greenbacks are being printed but the other reason is that speculation is causing the price to rise which creates more speculation

just like the housing market

there will be another redistribution of wealth when the fear and shock hits us that we can have our life blood choked from us

here’s the twist though;

this can result in the benefit of the planet, we can begin to make the changes needed to woo our country off of petroleum and toward a greener scenarion as a whole

first thing we need to do is begin harvesting hemp again instead of corn for althernative fuel, that’s the first thing, the next thing might be to make 50% hybrid or pure electric/alternative vehicles a standard that has to be met

this will actually be good for the auto industry, they will begin to sell this new technology and people will be lining up to buy it

created one. everyone stocked up, my gma had every cupboard filled…toilet paper, tissues, etc.

so, then there was one.

the structure was ready for those who crashed the banking bubble just moved their money on over to commodities, their world bank buddies already had it set up for them…

and rayne at 35–i find that disturbing, one side said the other side is ’gaming’ the system, then the other side brags about ’gaming’ the system….hmnn.

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and fubar–why would the baker’s union release a statement and end it with a statement about ethanol tariffs and waiving production limits? ..trading influence for lesser tariffs on what they need?

and i bet the ’fake g9/nafta’ meeting in new orleans last week was alllllll about the ethanol…

canada just finishing largest ethanol plant…

when bush was in south america last year, he stayed with the largest ethanol producer. we have all kinds of treaties pending regarding ethanol. north and south.

google south america ethanol paraguay brazil uraguay etc…….pick one.