Monsanto knew of birth defects

SUBHEAD: Monsanto and federal regulators have known since 1980 that Round-Up produces birth defects and said nothing.

By Lucia Graves on 7 June 2011 for Huffington Post -
(http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/06/07/roundup-birth-defects-herbicide-regulators_n_872862.html)


Image above: Men spraying herbicides without much protection. From (http://ecokvetch.blogspot.com/2011/02/surprise-approval-of-gmo-alfalfa.html).

Industry regulators have known for years that Roundup, the world's best-selling herbicide produced by U.S. company Monsanto, causes birth defects, according to a new report released Tuesday.

The report, "Roundup and birth defects: Is the public being kept in the dark?" found regulators knew as long ago as 1980 that glyphosate, the chemical on which Roundup is based, can cause birth defects in laboratory animals.

But despite such warnings, and although the European Commission has known that glyphosate causes malformations since at least 2002, the information was not made public.

Instead regulators misled the public about glyphosate's safety, according to the report, and as recently as last year, the German Federal Office for Consumer Protection and Food Safety, the German government body dealing with the glyphosate review, told the European Commission that there was no evidence glyphosate causes birth defects.

The report comes months after researchers found that genetically-modified crops used in conjunction Roundup contain a pathogen that may cause animal miscarriages. After observing the newly discovered organism back in February, Don Huber, a emeritus professor at Purdue University, wrote an open letter to Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack requesting a moratorium on deregulating crops genetically altered to be immune to Roundup, which are commonly called Roundup Ready crops.

In the letter, Huber also commented on the herbicide itself, saying: "It is well-documented that glyphosate promotes soil pathogens and is already implicated with the increase of more than 40 plant diseases; it dismantles plant defenses by chelating vital nutrients; and it reduces the bioavailability of nutrients in feed, which in turn can cause animal disorders."

Although glyphosate was originally due to be reviewed in 2012, the Commission decided late last year not to bring the review forward, instead delaying it until 2015. The chemical will not be reviewed under more stringent, up-to-date standards until 2030.

"Our examination of the evidence leads us to the conclusion that the current approval of glyphosate and Roundup is deeply flawed and unreliable," wrote the report authors in their conclusion. "What is more, we have learned from experts familiar with pesticide assessments and approvals that the case of glyphosate is not unusual.

"They say that the approvals of numerous pesticides rest on data and risk assessments that are just as scientifically flawed, if not more so," the authors added. "This is all the more reason why the Commission must urgently review glyphosate and other pesticides according to the most rigorous and up-to-date standards."


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Nausea of American Exceptionalism

SUBHEAD: Has everybody in upstate New York only just been released from prison?

By James Kunstler on 6 June 2011 for Kunstler.com -
(http://kunstler.com/blog/2011/06/the-creeping-nausea-of-american-exceptionalism.html)


Image above: A photo portrait of a Crusty Punk. (http://crustypunks.blogspot.com/2010/08/were-all-poor-white-trash-squatters.html).

History, that coy dominatrix, loves to trick the credulous human race. In a moment when something we call "democracy" seems to be spreading through the dodgy precincts of the world like a contagion of virtue, the trend is actually going the other way in countries that have practiced it for a while.

That is certainly the case in Europe, especially Greece right now, where the mobs in Syntagma Square denounce their waffling parliament for agreeing to a bailout deal that will make Greece a step-child of Germany. The German voters are none too pleased with this, either, since their country is now on the hook to pay Greece's bills. Ireland, Portugal, and Belgium are standing by for adoption next in Europe's Home for Wayward Children. Spain and Italy may need to become wards of the Euro-state, too, but they are more like adults with drinking problems who are liable to wreck the whole household if invited in.

Anyway, the Greeks rallying in Athens' central square lately are sick of politicians and parliaments, and there is a no small danger that they will soon rise up and dispense with theirs in the dumpster behind the Parthenon. A man in a uniform has a certain appeal in a situation like this. He is comfortable issuing orders in unfavorable situations, in fact, rather thrives on it. The Germans know all about this. Their "savior" back in the 20th century was a fellow in an ersatz military getup who virtually ran for office by denouncing "parliamentarism" and by the time his party occupied a fair portion of the seats in theirs, he burned the darn thing to the ground.

The Irish gaze longingly at little Iceland, out there in the North Atlantic now free of debt obligations from the simple act of raising the middle finger in the direction of the London banks. Ireland is sore tempted to do likewise, and the act would have an appealing historical symmetry to it. They may toss out their parliament to get to it. Staying sober is another matter. In Portugal, they are too busy having lunch, which is a very serious affair, they will assure you, and undertaken in spirit of absolute Iberian fatalism (that beefsteak died for you!).

Oh, for the days of Salazar when lunch was decreed eighteen hours a day! Belgium, of course, will always be hopeless - Europe's doormat. And what can you say about a people who slather mayonnaise on their French fries - apart from their amazing failure to discover the miracle of ketchup, despite being overrun by American GIs sixty-odd years ago - and speaking a language that nobody has ever written rock and roll song in.

Europe is held together with baling twine, masking tape, and spit. It's been a fun half-century catering to harmless clownish tourists from Houston, with their "big boss" belt buckles and decoupaged wives. But lately the Chinese visitors look more like bargain-hunters at the preview of an estate auction, sizing up the merchandise, and even the waiters in the cafes know the score. The Grand Palace of Euroland is closing for business. Anybody who thinks that Germany is going to run some kind of halfway house for crackhead countries "in recovery" will be disappointed. The compressive contraction that grips the OECD like economic Lou Gehrig disease will be with us as far ahead as anyone can see.

For sure, there are features of European life that dispose many of its countries to face the long emergency on much better terms than the train wreck across the Atlantic. They know how to get by on much less oil - though the coming energy crisis will still be hard on them. They have excellent public transit already in place (yes, it depends on the energy situation). Their agriculture is scaled much more intelligently. Their cities, too, with some exceptions. But they have a long history of brawling amongst themselves and the recent half-century of peace and prosperity is already taking on the shimmer of a fading mirage.

Europe is burning down financially from the outside in while the monster that was known as the global economy lies gasping on the rocky shore of Fukushima. The Euro and the weak political union that went with it, is toast. You can include the outsider England in all that, since their practical circumstances are no better than Spain's or Italy's - perhaps a little worse, even... poor tattered Old Blighty!

By the way, I hope you don't think the homefolks here in the USA are all that deliriously happy with representative government either. These days, despite all Sarah Palin's bluster about "freedom" and "our heritage," elected officials are held in about equal esteem to herpes viruses. Congress and the senate are paralyzed by triviality and the President is too busy golfing to disturb the status quo - which is the status quo of a house on fire. We won't have to wait much longer to find out how unexceptional America actually is.

It's a darn shame, and I mean that literally, because this is exactly what the American public is so ashamed of, and why appeals to the repressed sense of shame based on hyper-patriotic bluster, are so successful. It allows folks to feel great about themselves while they sink into the ooze. It's okay, we're special. I stopped at a convenience store at the edge of the Adirondack Mountains on Saturday afternoon and a more frightening gaggle of disfigured mutts I have never seen before. Has everybody in upstate New York only just been released from prison?

The tattoo craze is especially telling. It's one thing to get some tattoos with the idea that you are artfully expressing something. It's another thing to deploy them around your body parts as though you were slapping decals on a 1989 beater car. These mutts had tattoos on their necks, their boobs, the sides of their heads, their knuckles, their ankles. The idea, apparently, is to make yourself appear as frightening as possible - and I can tell you it is a very successful initiative. Can lady Gaga please write us a new national anthem: America the horror movie.

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New Fukushima data discomforting

SUBHEAD: Fukushima release of radioactive material was double original estimate by Tokyo Electric Company.

By Ami Sedghi on 7 June 2011 for the Gaurdian -
(http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2011/mar/18/japan-nuclear-power-plant-updates)


Image above: Fukushima Daiichi Reactors #3 and #4 after meltdown. From (http://sidewalksocial.wordpress.com/2011/03/26/nuclear-energy-vs-natural-gas/).

Japan is racing to gain control of the crisis at the Fukushima nuclear power plant. Where does the most detailed data come from?

Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant has had a nuclear disaster after the events of March 11 in Japan.Photograph: Air Photo Service/AFP/Getty Images

The 9.0 magnitude earthquake and following tsunami on March 11 has seen a rush by officials to gain control of power plants in the north-east of the country and have been under pressure to resolve the situation.

Today it has been revealed that studies show the nuclear leak could be double the estimated amount when the disaster first occurred. Justin McCurry writes:

"The amount of radiation released by the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in the days after the 11 March tsunami could have been more than double that originally estimated by its operator, Japan's nuclear safety agency has said.

The revelation has raised fears that the situation at the plant, where fuel in three reactors suffered meltdown, was more serious than government officials have acknowledged."

Last month The World Bank estimated the cost of the nuclear crisis at $235bn (£144bn) - making it one of the world's most expensive disasters.

The operators of the plant, Tokyo Electric Power (Tepco), announced record losses of 1.25 trillion yen (£9.5bn) as they struggle with the nuclear crisis still present. Tepco also announced last month that there is data that would indicate that during the immediate aftermath of the earthquake and tsunami, the fuel rods in three of the reactors had melted.

Although it may be some time after the radiation levels at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant rose: the severity level changed from five to seven - the same level as Chernobyl in 1986, the Fukushima plant is still being focused on as more information and images appear.

Fukushima nuclear power plant has been closely scrutinised as reports flow in on the progress of the situation - Japan's nuclear board previously raised the nuclear alert level from four to five in the weeks following the disaster and the JAIF warned of products such as dairy and spinach being restricted for shipping. Explosions and reports of nuclear fuel rods melting at the power plant have meant progress on the situation has been closely followed as has the environmental effects with concerns for marine life and spreading radiation through seawater. There were also concerns over radioactive dirt found in a school playground in Fukushima.

Industry body the Japan Atomic Industrial Forum are currently publishing daily updates of the status of power plants in Fukushima which give great detail into the condition of each reactor. Ranked from a level of low to severe, the update records the conditions of core and fuel integrity, water level and containment amongst other key information. These are some of the most in-depth and recent records and show how the crisis is being handled.

The table below shows the status of the reactors in the Fukushima Daiichi (the largest of the Fukushima power plants) and is colour coded to show the severity. Green for low, yellow represents high and red shows those of severe significance as judged by the JAIF. We have used JAIF's update 154 as of 12:00 local time as this is the most up to the minute data we can get. The format of these reports has changed as of 6th June 2011 and are now focused on countermeasures and only reactors one to four, therefore some of the details collated before are now unavailable. For full details you can download the report from JAIF.

A table of major incidents and accidents at the plants can be found in our spreadsheet as can the data for Daini, Onagawa and Tokai Daini Nuclear power stations. What can you do with this data?

For spreadsheet on Fukushima damage:
(https://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=0AonYZs4MzlZbdHY4aUJhUlY3Mnd0NVFJRXVidFYtR2c&hl=en#gid=92)

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Big Island Agventures

SUBHEAD: Agro-tourism in Hawaii is tapping into the self-reliant locovore movement but it is still tourism.

By Roberta Kruger on 4 June 2011 for TreeHugger -
(http://www.treehugger.com/files/2011/06/agritourism-big-on-big-island-with-farm-to-table-agventures.php)


Image above: Not the oil-soaked Gulf Coast - it's Hawaiian lava black sands. Photo by Steve Cadman via Flickr.

Salamanders zip by, wild flowers grow along the mountainside and a misty marine layer floats up from the Pacific. Sounds like it could be Hawai'i but it was Will Rogers State Park near Topanga Canyon where I took a hike recently and learned the latest about the Big Island. While climbing to Inspiration Point, I remembered scrambling across moonscapes of volcanic lava rock previously and caught up on the current molten smoldering glow of Kilauea Volcano, plus news of its plentiful farmers markets and locally sourced eateries. Some recipes may wet your appetite:

will-rogers-state-park.jpg
From California's coast looking westward toward Hawai'i. Photos by R Cruger

While climbing the trail, I looked across the Pacific longingly at the islands and met Ann Shepphird who blogs for her Gardens-to-Tables website and has written extensively on Hawaiian agritourism and restaurants aboard the locavore movement. It's a natural way to eat in Hawai'i, as she says, they live in an "agricultural paradise!"

With the goal of sourcing 60 percent of its produce from certified local farms, thanks to the Hawaii Farm Bill 1471, Hawaiian chefs tap into farms, a goat dairy, fish companies, and their own gardens. Ann shares some chef's enticing recipes, like Apple Banana Kabucha Pumpkin Soup from the Fairmont Orchid, the Mauna Lani Bay Hotel & Bungalows' Grilled Vegetable Gazpacho with Hamakua heirloom tomatoes and watermelon, and Hamakua Mushroom Risotto from the Sheraton Keauhou Bay Resort. Try them with your own local ingredients.

hilo farmers market image
Pineapple and rambutan at Hilo Farmer's Market. Photo by Synthetic Aperture via Flickr

Not-to-be-missed, the historic daily Hilo Farmer's Market is filled with papaya, mango and macadamia nuts, and coffee from the nearby Puna Coast. More than 200 local farmers and crafters sell their produce and wares. In season now is soursop with its pineapply, strawberryish and coconutty taste. There's also tropical fruits such as jackfruit, longan and rambutan, vegetables like taro and warabi (fiddlehead ferns), and exotic flowers from anthuriums to protea. Wash down a coconut pastry with an awa juice and pick up locally fished opihi or uhu.

Hawaiin ecotourism has played an important role in keeping the islands sustainable and Big Island Farm Bureau's Hawai'i AgVentures offers informative agri-tours of sustainable and family farms, tastings and harvests. There are 65 farm stop's on the Big Island (a/k/a Hawai'i), including the organic Honopua Farm and Waimea Lavender -- plus Natural Energy Laboratory of Hawai'i Authority's research of deep-ocean energy generation, whales and micro-algae farming.

big island farm image
Check out organic farms on Big Island Farm Agventures. Photo by Kanu Hawaii via Flickr

The classic complaint about Hawaii is that the food is expensive. I realize it's a long way to the mainland for supplies, but still I've wondered why. Is it the little orchids decorating every plate instead of a sprig of parsley that ups the cost? In a fertile and diverse environment with 11 of the world's 13 climates, ideal for farming, agriculture accounts for $1.9 billion of the local economy and the Big Island has 820,000 acres of the state's 1.3 million acres for agriculture, according to the University of Hawai'i, per Gardens to Tables. Much is exported but there's plenty of local fresh food to be had on the Big Island.

topanga canyon park photo
Topanga Canyon or Big Island?

The east side of the Big Island doesn't offer long stretches of white sand beaches, but there's plenty of exotic black sand, lava tubes, waterfalls, and an endless to-do list from snorkeling to mountain climbs, landscapes from rainforests to jungles, World Heritage sites--Hawai'i Volcanoes National Park and the Marine National Monument. And now my favorite island can be reached directly with United/Continental Airlines nonstops between Hilo and California, starting June 9 from LA/June 11 from San Francisco. Since direct flights are generally more energy-efficient, I'll skip hopping from Honolulu and Maui.

Also, you can stay at the solar powered guesthouse on the organic Kona Rainforest Coffee Farm where geese handle weed control and rain is harvested for the 41-acres where beans are picked, dried and roasted or the Ka'awa Loa Plantation and Guest Retreat on a 5.6-acre sustainable plantation.

hawaiian-macademia-nuts.jpg
Hawai'i produces 65% of the world's macadamia nuts. Photo by 4Nitsirk via Flickr

When not eating, visit the lush Hāmākua Coast, pastoral Waipi'o Valley, hike up Maunakea, bike Kīlauea volcano -- if it doesn't erupt and temporarily cool off the planet while spewing.


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The Sail Transport Network

SUBHEAD: For in today's post-peak oil world, millions of people may soon need sail power, along with pedal power transport.

By Jan Lundgren on 4 June 2011 for Culture Change -
(http://www.culturechange.org/cms/content/view/734/1)


Image above: The Star of India, built in 1863 is the oldest ocean going sailing vessel in the world. From (http://www.schoonerman.com/sailing_ships_s.htm).

A sail transport revival is afoot and afloat around the world. As the cheap, easy crude oil has mostly been extracted from the Earth and spewed into the sky and water, the desirability and economics of sail power get stronger.

Sail Transport Network (STN) is an open project for almost anyone to participate in. Most of the inhabited world is coastal or on rivers. STN was put forward originally by Culture Change in 1999. We sail-transport activists envision linking coastal communities, islands, and river communities together sustainably -- without the extreme petroleum dependency we have known.

Post-petroleum travel and shipment of goods are about communication and exchange that we might have a hard time doing without. Long distances may be bridged only by sail in the fairly near future. However necessary this might be, sail power will allow any local surpluses to be traded. This helps specialized areas gain diverse sources of needed products, skills, heirloom seeds, etc.

A few years ago sail transport was thought to be off on the distant horizon and impractical in the "real world." This is changing rapidly.

Without the continuity of affordable oil supplies -- a toxic and planet-warming commodity whose use has greatly afflicted the world's ecosystems and peoples -- arrangements to go oil-free need to be made immediately. For in today's post-peak oil world, millions of people may soon need sail power, along with pedal power transport, for local self-reliance.

Our STN website does not yet tell of the rapidly developing planning for sail transport that excites my colleagues, fellow sailors and me. This report is our latest thinking for you to consider. It is the result of our investigations into opportunities for truly sustainable, renewable wind power and human power for certain products as well as for benefits such as sharing information and enabling education. A look at SailTransportNetwork.com presently features the Dutch concern Fair Transport, a sail transport group whose schooner recently took a cargo of rum from the Caribbean to Holland. Please check the website's other projects, news, positive press on STN, and join our listserve for active communication online.

In this report I lay out the ideas and initiatives brewing on Sail Transport Network. They may earn your optimism, as they offer humanity a realistic way to reduce carbon emissions immediately. Let us take a big step toward emancipating ourselves from horrific oil dependence. A study in the UK found that 16 cargo vessels spew the equivalent of the world's entire "fleet" of cars' air pollution. We cannot just throw up our hands and wait until "they" think of something. The time is now to act and reclaim our future.

Lest one imagine that sail power is premature or just idealistic, let economic reality speak: cargo container ships have slowed down to an average of 15 knots, the speed of the clipper sailing ships of 150 years ago. This historic development saves on increased oil costs.


"

Global greenhouse-gas emissions are at an all time high. How smart is society's vaunted economic growth and job generation, when global corporate trade based on strategic, dwindling supplies of oil threatens life as we know it? How will people cope when the "energy slave" known as crude oil and refined petroleum are suddenly unavailable? The energy power of a single barrel of oil equals all the power a bicyclist can generate in several year's time.

Before you despair too much, know that there are things we can still do about the climate trend and petrocollapse. And, fear not ye denizens of northern nations, for coffee, cacao and cigars may be extended for your pleasurable habits and benign addictions, thanks to sail voyages from the tropics.

The reason for revealing the following projects' announcements -- some projects are merely on the drawing board -- is that we wish to spread the word now instead of waiting and sitting on a good thing that should be shared. The more the merrier! Join with sailfolk hoisting halyards and fonding tillers, and with "foodies" who pedal local produce. We of many diverse skills and interests are getting together for a measure of food security, passenger service, and transporting goods. Our efforts may not serve more than an extremely modest portion of the present economy. But the bioregional economies of tomorrow will rely on sail power for a crucial amount of trade and travel.

The questions of profit margins, economic efficiency, break-even points, and subsidies all come up when we brainstorm to assess what is doable now for sail transport. The main uncertainty is the up-and-down price of oil. Subsidies for oil have been massive, so what about subsidies now for sail transport? Will sail transport have to wait to be on a large scale only when oil-based freight cost is much, much higher in price? No. We can shape the future now.

A few examples of new local initiatives:

• Sail-ferry service between Monterey and Santa Cruz, California can enjoy a niche advantage today. Note that it can take less time to sail across the Monterey Bay than to take the public bus system. Such a sail transport service can easily extend north to include the San Francisco Bay. Already, wine is sailed from Petaluma to the SF Peninsula.



• Speaking of other fun liquids, a brewery downstream of Portland, Oregon will be receiving malted grain by sailboat and enabling beer-keg distribution by sail and pedal power.

Across oceans:

• China has great potential to dive into sail transport as a fast growing sector. As the nation is the top solar panel maker in the world, and plastic bag waste has been consciously and hugely cut back, we should think of China as forward-thinking. China is fortunately still heavily bicycle friendly, which will aid sail transport by connecting people and products pedaled to and from the docks. Peak oil and climate protection are major concerns in China. A top financial and political newspaper, the Shanghai Oriental Morning Post, ran an extensive interview of me on May 6, and in it I spoke of our mutual concerns and dreams that may help lay groundwork for a sail revival in the western Pacific and beyond.

• The entire Pacific Rim, with its currents called gyres, and the helpful trade winds, is a once and future sail transport environment of major importance. An international sail transport conference needs to be held in the near future, perhaps in Hawaii as a central location. Representatives from various countries can convene to share their knowledge and advance the cause. Attendees who arrive via sailboat or outrigger canoe will get a double lei (no double entendre intended). At the conference STN projects under discussion can be manifested in various forms: new shipping companies, expanded eco-tourism, passenger service, green jobs generation, energy saving and pollution abatement, and communication such as cultural exchange.

Many boats are already available for sail transport, in part because they are low-cost compared to new cars. Meanwhile, some new, large boats must be designed and built too, and this is already underway. A potential STN supporter can make a donation of his or her boat's time for STN's use, resulting in a tax deduction. Likewise, a charitable gift of a boat for the Sail Transport Network or related nonprofit entity can help this movement on its way. Existing as well as new boats need to be outfitted with gear and crew. (Please see our wish list at the first link at bottom.) Biodiesel/veggie-oil engines and electric motors as auxiliary for sailboats are available. Renewable energy charging through solar and wind systems help, as does regenerative propeller charging at sea. Gathering information on the best models, their installation and cost needs to be done for the network to share. The role of the sculling oar may become surprisingly significant.

As with the marine research vessel Alguita, the catamaran sailboat made famous by Captain Charles Moore (who displays the STN burgee), sailboats can do important research such as on the presence and source of plastic plaguing the sea and its creatures. Another contribution to the common good is for sailboats to be available for emergency rescue if oil for the Coast Guard boats is unavailable. Indeed, saiboats might have to rescue Coast Guard "sailors" at sea.

The possibilities for Sail Transport Network are so awesome that I am more excited about the potential than anything I can imagine, short of kicking back in a perfect ecovillage by a beautiful cove.

Interns and volunteers are being sought to help implement STN plans, and integrate them with academic advancement, job possibilities, fund raising, and logging hours at sea. Please contact us ( info@culturechange.org ), and sign up for the listserve [never mind the technical lingo "private information" that is simply our STN description].

Making a donation toward STN development will help Culture Change and STN spread the word about the growing movement: sail transport networking. Thank you for your participation in any way.

See also:
Island Breath: Future of Ocean Sailing - Dmitry Orlov 1/15/08
Island Breath: Rethinking the Sail 12/25/07
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A Heads Up

SUBHEAD: We'll be heading for a trip to the mainland and will be unable to post to the website from Tuesday until Thursday.

By Juan Wilson on 6 June 2011 for Island Breath -
(http://islandbreath.blogspot.com/2011/06/heads-up.html)


Image above: A view of the back of The Farm in Panama, New York. Photo by Juan Wilson in 2008.

Linda Pascatore and I head for the mainland on Wednesday. We'll be leaving our chickens, vegetable, fruit trees and cat to a caretaker staying in our home. Given the fragility of the world economy as well as the price of oil we expect that this may be the last time we'll be able to get back to remote western New York state. We have lots of things to take care of if that's true.

When we first moved to Hawaii we thought we might spend half the year on Kauai and half in Chautauqua County, NY. Our plan was July-January in NY and February-June in HI. Well that never happened. We knew that couldn't really fly until Linda retired from the DOE here. In the early 2000's We did spend our summers back in the woods of the Amish country that is the western tip of the Empire State. We simply called the place The Farm, as my grandmother, my mother and now my kids do.

We even had a dog and a couple of cats that our renters took care of while we were here. - Ah - the renters. That was one reason we pull off the snowbird life. We needed someone staying in our place back on the mainland when we were on Kauai, but we didn't want them there while we were. It was hard to find renters that didn't mind being displaced for eight weeks a year. Few did more than one tour of duty. That problem was mirrored on Kauai. We needed people to stay in our Hanapepe house and take care of things. Often time that meant people staying for free and us paying to keep both places up and running.

That gets increasingly difficult form a distance, and will only get worse. We intend to consolidate our efforts of resilience and sustainability here on Kauai. It's going to require jettisoning a lot of our old lives and reducing four generations of our past into a 1/4 of a 20' shipping container. I'm not looking forward to the triage.

Anyway, once past the overseas trip we have to get a car registered and running, pick up a DLS modem, install it and get our laptop up on a wireless network. Once that's in place we'll be back online with new material for Island Breath. For continued coverage of the birthing of a self relient Hookahi Kauai we need you, who will be on island, with your observations. Please let us know what's going on - KIUC, FERC, DLNR, PMRF, GMO's - whatever. Email juanwilson@mac.com or lindapascatore@me.com.

We'll be there.

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Sweet Justice

SUBHEAD:Homeowners wrongly foreclosed on foreclose on Bank Of America.

By Staff on 5 June 2011 for Huffington Post -
(http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/06/05/homeowners-foreclose-on-bank-of-america_n_871540.html)


Image above: Demonstrators against Bank of America. From (http://understory.ran.org/2008/07/11/%E2%80%9Cbillionaires-for-coal%E2%80%9D-defend-bank-of-america-investments-in-mountain-top-removal/).

Sweet justice.

That's how foreclosure defense attorney Todd Allen described the feeling of going to a Bank of America branch in Naples, Fla. to seize their assets.

Faced with a pair of sheriff's deputies locking down his building, the branch manager capitulated and handed over a check for $2,534. The sum was to cover Allen's fees from a case where he represented clients that the bank had tried to foreclose on -- despite the fact that they paid for their home in cash.

According to the News-Press in Fort Myers, Bank of America opened their case against Warren and Maureen Nyergers in February of 2010 and voluntarily dropped it two months later, but never coughed up for the couple's legal fees as ordered by a judge.

North Carolina's WFMY has the details on how justice was served:

Sheriff's deputies, movers, and the Nyergers' attorney went to the bank and foreclosed on it. The attorney gave instructions to to remove desks, computers, copiers, filing cabinets and any cash in the teller's drawers.

After about an hour of being locked out of the bank, the bank manager handed the attorney a check for the legal fees.



Video above: Video coverage of foreclosure by WINK-TV (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ctLEGrOmf4)
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Where to from Here?

SUBHEAD: Ilargi and Nicole Foss (Stoneleigh) announce changes for Automatic Earth.

By Ilargi & Stoneleigh on 5 June 2011 for the Automatic Earth -
(http://theautomaticearth.blogspot.com/2011/06/june-5-2011-where-from-here.html)


Image above: The logo of automatic Earth - North Pole Sun Moon. From (http://s243.photobucket.com/albums/ff223/dbzgirl2234/?action=view&current=north-pole-sun-moon.jpg).

Ilargi: Unemployment numbers on the one hand, and home sales and prices on the other, are the by far most important trend indicators for the US economy. Without falling unemployment, in combination with rising home sales and prices, there can be no recovery. And a jobless recovery is no more real than a homeless one.

Trillions upon trillions in wealth, capital, earning potential, that belongs to our children and grandchildren, has served only to temporarily soften the deterioration in economic indicators. This has provided us with an entirely illusory picture, greatly helped along by politicians and media pundits, which serves to make people believe what they want so much to believe: that things have been, and are, getting better.

We can all understand that if you ignore the millions of Americans who drop out of what the government defines as the "looking for work" category, and that if millions of -often foreclosed- homes that sit empty are not put on the market, the indicators will look less detrimental. We understand this. Still, we all do follow the "polished" numbers, because they are the ones that make the headlines.

And if even the polished data start looking bad, there's never a shortage of pundits to tell us it's all just a temporary blip on the road to recovery. All we really need to do, goes their -often unspoken- message, is to look at the stock markets, which are doing just fine. Or the price of gold, copper, or food commodities.

But the largest investors in these items are the very financial institutions that have received your children's money to invest, play, and gamble with. They don't have to fess up their losses, say our invented-on-the-fly accounting "standards", but instead the house supplies them with more and new money, in order to keep the game going.

The house doesn’t want the game to stop, because the house is the game. The house isn't about to shut its doors, and its elected puppets aren't about to join the ranks of the unemployed, as long as access to the capital and earning potential of future generations is available.

That is where the financial crisis has long since become a political one. Right there. In the bankers, industrials and politicians' access to the -fast rising, re: the deficit- interest your children will have to pay on their labor. The Greeks, Spanish and Egyptians seem to understand this dynamic much better than do Americans, but then the PR industry in these countries is a lot less sophisticated than that in the US.

Still, this should be no excuse. It is glaringly obvious, so much so that nobody, when put to the question, will attempt to deny it: there can be no economic recovery with falling home prices and rising unemployment. There can be a period of confusion, especially when gargantuan amounts of public money are transferred to the private sector; indeed, we have witnessed such a period in the past two years.

Confusion sown by tax incentives for homebuyers, for instance, but most of all by manipulation of the data. By mortgage modification initiatives that are as dead in the water when they start as they turn out to be down the line. By job creation programs that strip down hourly wages and benefits until what's left is not even enough to feed and house an individual, let alone a family. By pushing millions of would be workers off the back of the employment truck, and hoping they’ll never be heard from again; even if they are, at least for now they don't show up in the stats anymore. And don't let's forget: there's always an election somewhere coming up that trumps the interests of those who will vote in it, and those who elect not to.

So where to from here? The BLS unemployment report on Friday was once again dismal. There was supposed to be a lot of growth in the job market that had long since been forecast by the usual suspects, but hasn't materialized. Temporary blip, says White House economist Austan Goolsbee. Just a bump in the road. Looks like the road is nothing but a bump. Even if the official U3 number went up "only" to 9.1%, and U6 even fell a notch, unemployment duration went up again, and that's a big one.

It’ll take many years for the labor market to get anywhere near "normal" numbers, and even then, and even IF it does, it will look nothing like what we have become used to over the past decades. The situation where we had good wages, and strong benefits, will never return, or at least not for decades. For that situation to occur, you need an economy with a solid manufacturing base, with near full employment, and with home prices that are available and affordable for Joe and Jane Main Street with their average salaries.

But homes have only been affordable for Joe and Jane off late because the Federal Reserve and the government pushed down interest rates and made huge amounts of credit available (re: Fannie and Freddie). Ironically, though, these policies pushed up home prices to levels where they were no longer affordable. And just as ironically, this means that Joe and Jane and all of their families and friends now owe trillions of dollars more to the banks than before Greenspan and Rubin and Summers et al. injected US society with financial steroids. All these every day Americans may not all realize it yet, but then, home prices are only down 33% so far. Just wait for the real plunge. It’ll come. Soon enough. Pending home sales came in down 11.6%, 27% for the year. Just follow the money. As it vanishes.

Where from here? Looking at all the week's awful stats, it should be clear that a return to business as usual, in case this wasn't clear yet, is out of the question. You need to find a way to make sure your elected leaders', and their financial leaders', fingers, no longer have access to your kids' cookie jars and piggy banks. That is pivotal. It's also the hardest part; you'll have to snatch it from their cold dead fingers, since it's the biggest prize out there to be had. An infinite claim on the future, which pays out today: the rewards of multiple generations worth of labor used to pay off the gambling debts of the past and present. There is nothing more perverse than that.

We will have to mark down all assets, including our homes, to their present market value. A value that, moreover, will go down enormously simply because we do the marking down. If we don't do it now, it will happen later anyway, but it will then occur beyond our control. Better to keep our hands on the pulse, no matter how painful the experience may be. And it's from that point that we will have to try and rebuild. It's not going to be fun, not by a long shot, but it'll be our own "not fun", not something contrived for us by psychopaths and perverse narcissists who care not whether we live or die.





Ilargi: Because of all the thoughts, trials and tribulations described above, as well as through the past 3.5 years of The Automatic Earth in its present form, Stoneleigh and I have decided that it's time to change things around here. Observing the shenanigans of the financial and political world inevitably turns to rubber necking and accident tourism, and we feel it's time to talk more about what comes after the present, what we can supply people with that can help them when what we are witnessing today snaps out of this suspended animation and starts its way down into the gorge for real.

We will continue to comment on the economy, but we will also add sections to our new site on for instance preparation, in all its diverse forms, from growing and preserving food to building homes and energy facilities to keeping your remaining wealth where it counts. In short, all that will serve to make people less dependent on the crumbling infrastructures they presently rely upon. We invite anyone who thinks they can contribute to contact us.

We’ll fill you in on the details as we go along. It may take a while longer to get all the pieces to fit into place, but they will be there. In order to make that happen, we do something today that we haven't done for a long time: launch a fund drive. People have been very generous with their donations in the past, and it's thanks to them that we have been able to do what we have done, and to contemplate doing just that, but more and better. In order to achieve this, we need a stable funding base; it is the only way we can make future -financial- commitments involved in everything a larger and more elaborate site requires.

We have been thinking about setting up a members sections at TAE for this purpose, and we may have to go that road at some point. However, if enough people sign up for recurring donations, which for members -if we would be forced to go that route- would be maybe $10 per month, we may not need to do this, which would be a relief: it's not really what we're about. We've set the goal for this Summer Fund Drive at $50,000. We know that may seem like a lot of money to some, but believe me, it's really not; not for what we have in mind.

There are several ways to support the Automatic Earth: One-time donations and recurring donations via Paypal, donations through other means, visits to our advertisers (that’s why they're there!), and clicking on the Amazon box with Stoneleigh’s book favorites in the left hand bar: if, for any Amazon purchase you make, not just those books, you go through their box at TAE, we get a percentage of what you purchase without any extra cost to you. That should be easy...

As I said, we will explain -much- more soon. First, here's Stoneleigh's own personal message for you:



Stoneleigh: This summer The Automatic Earth marks three and a half years of big picture commentary on finance, energy, the environment, resources, carrying capacity, geopolitics, the psychology of herding behaviour, networked systems, crisis preparedness and anything else we have considered to be relevant to helping people to navigate the tumultuous times we are poised to descend into. While there are many sources of information on single aspects of our predicament, there are few that attempt to truly tackle complexity and render it comprehensible. That is our chosen role and we see it as being of the utmost importance.

The consequences of ponzi finance on the global scale, the peaking of the energy supply that has been our lifeblood as a civilization, environmental degradation and ecological overshoot are set to manifest in our times, and we need to understand what is unfolding in order to minimize the impact on ourselves, our loved ones and our societies.

The Automatic Earth focuses first on finance for reasons of timeframe. As the resumption of financial crisis looms, and bubbles can burst very rapidly once a critical momentum to the downside is reached, people must address the issues of debt vulnerability, control over the essentials of their own existence and capital preservation in order to retain their freedom of action to deal with the other challenges to follow.

However, we must not lose sight of the larger context. Humanity faces an intractable and thoroughly multi-faceted predicament, with no means to continue a busines-as-usual scenario. As the top down structures we have built, which are structurally dependent on cheap energy and cheap credit, begin to fail, we must construct new means of supporting ourselves from the bottom up - at a human rather than an industrial scale.

These community initiatives will need to be funded, and that requires capital to be rescued and preserved for the purpose, rather than allowing it to disappear into a giant black hole of credit destruction or end up entirely in the the hands of the very few. The Automatic Earth attempts to provide the information ordinary people need to accomplish this critical task.

We also exist to warn people as to the dangers of the darker side of human nature that typically manifests when there is not enough to go around, especially when that circumstance can manifest rapidly. When fear and anger are in the ascendancy, societies can turn in directions that benefit no one but a handful of manipulative predators.

One of our goals is to minimize the tendency for people to become embroiled in movements that feed such interests, and maintain a focus on the constructive activities that will be absolutely essential if we are to mitigate the pain of a major economic depression. Fear and anger are extremely 'catching', hence we regard what we do as providing a 'psychological inoculation' against them.

We feel we have a very important role to play in providing the intellectual and emotional tools that people will need in the unstable times that are coming, and we have chosen to undertake that through the vehicle of The Automatic Earth. In order to maintain and expand an endeavour that requires two people to make a full time commitment to the project, and others to play supporting vital roles, we need to develop and maintain a stable funding base.

For this reason we will soon be making a number of changes to our site and the way it is run. We have secured the programming services needed to develop an expanded and more flexible site, outside of the constraints imposed by blogspot, that will be able to offer greater value to our readers. We will need to maintain programming services and deal with other costs of a more ambitious endeavour.

Today we are instituting a summer fundraising drive in order to take The Automatic Earth to the next level. We ask you to support our efforts on your behalf, so that we can continue to bring you the biggest possible big picture, and help you to navigate the challenges to come.

.

FERC on Lanai, Maui & Kauai

SOURCE: Ken Taylor (taylork021@hawaii.rr.com)
SUBHEAD: Spate of FERC hydro project permit applications by U.S. mainlanders are causing a stir.

By Sophie Cocke on 3 June 2011 for pacific Business News -
(http://www.bizjournals.com/pacific/blog/2011/06/spate-of-hydro-projects-causing-a-stir.html#ixzz1OMoDjnMf)


Image above: View looking south-west of Maliko Gulch on Maui. Site of a FERC permit application. From GoogleEarth.

There hasn’t been much talk about hydropower as the state works to transition away from oil to locally produced, renewable sources of energy.

But a recent spate of proposed hydro projects have, for better or worse, been causing quite a stir. And in large part it’s because Mainland companies have been filing applications for preliminary permits for hydro projects with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.

Federal oversight of Hawaii’s waterways was fought vigorously by the state two decades ago, with mixed results. But in the end, three proposed projects on Kauai didn’t move forward. The pushback was centered in large part over concern that federal regulators didn’t have the specialized knowledge of local waterways and ecosystems to make decisions such as how much water can be diverted from a stream or river to turn a turbine without having harmful environmental impacts.

On Kauai, where executives of the Kauai Island Utility Cooperative are hoping to make small hydro projects a cornerstone of the island’s transition to renewables, this issue has presented a stumbling block. A company called Free Flow Energy, based in Boston, filed six permits with the federal agency to develop hydro projects on Kauai, which the utility has now assumed control of, and is working in conjunction with the company to develop.

David Bissell, CEO of the KIUC, has made strong arguments for why these projects are a good source of energy for the island, providing residents with low-cost, stable rates for years to come. And he has expressed a commitment to ensuring that they are carried out in ways that don’t harm the fragile waterways. But the strategy of going through FERC to develop the projects has not proven a smooth one, with some members of the community, and now state agencies, sounding alarm bells.

But the more startling hydro projects have been ones proposed for Maui and Lanai. Not only are they huge in scale, the Mainland developers who filed the applications through FERC don’t seem to have much knowledge of the local landscape — topographical or political.

Idaho resident Matthew Shapiro filed an application for a 57-acre pumped storage hydro project on Lanai that would ideally work in tandem with the Big Wind project. The technology of the proposed project is in and of itself intriguing. With the benefit of a 1,700-foot drop, seawater would be pumped upward and then released back down to drive a turbine to generate electricity. There’s only one other project like it in the world — a 30 megawatt plant in Okinawa, according to Shapiro. The project on Lanai would be 10-times the size, turn the wind energy into a reliable source of electricity and the cost to ratepayers would be marginal, according to his plan.

But it hasn’t gotten much traction. Not from Castle & Cooke, which has publicly said that they have no relationship with his company, and not from Hawaiian Electric Co., whose officials Shapiro said weren’t returning his calls. He described the lack of response as “puzzling.”

Part of the problem could be that Shapiro, as he told PBN, had never been to Lanai, or Hawaii, and never consulted with local officials before filing the application, which is still pending.

While he described the project to PBN as “quite small,” for local residents it doesn’t seem so modest.

Lanai resident Robin Kaye told PBN that the project would encompass “a very, very large area in a very accessible part of the island — right in the middle of a hunting ground.”

“It’s a huge project, and it came out of the blue,” said Kaye. “We were as stunned as everyone else.”

On Maui, two proposed projects by the same developer — one which would dam up the Maliko Gulch on the North Shore and a second on the west side near Lahaina, aren’t going over so well, either. As on Lanai, residents and local officials found out about the projects when legal notices were filed in newspapers.

Doug McLeod, Maui’s energy commissioner, told PBN that the project on Maliko Gulch was “the single worst idea we have seen in a long time” and that “we’d like to see it die an early death.”

Rob Parsons, executive assistant to Maui‘s mayor, Alan Arakawa, said the project on the west side, which proposes to use wastewater, could potentially be a very good idea.

But he said “it’s just perplexing that these things would go forward without any communication with anyone locally. A few phone calls could have helped smooth things out,” he added.


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The Perfect Genetic Storm

SUBHEAD: BP's catastrophic Gulf Oil Spill was followed with a chemical and biological assault the was even worse.

By Michael Edward on 21 January 2011 for World Vision Portal -
(http://worldvisionportal.org/wordpress/index.php/2011/01/the-perfect-genetic-storm)



Image above: A BP cleanup crew on gulf shore. From (http://www.seismologik.com/journal/2011/1/21/the-perfect-genetic-storm-synthetic-dna-and-the-gulf-blue-pl.html).

There’s a new proprietary recipe being force-fed to all of us here on the Gulf of Mexico that is now becoming available worldwide. Although this recipe has been closely guarded for 8 months, we were able to break it down after examining the plentiful supply us “Gulf Coasters” have available here. The ingredients are abundantly available while both the recipe and the brewing process are not as secret as everyone had thought.

THE GULF BLUE PLATE (BP) SPECIAL

Fill a large bowl with saline ocean water, add a generous proportion of thick crude oil, then pour in a cup of liquid Correct-it (available from Nalco under the brand name Corexit) making sure you don’t spill any on yourself, stir gently, and then let it sit for a day or two. As the newly thinned oil mixture begins to sink to the bottom of the bowl, make sure the resulting gasses are allowed to ever-so-slightly bubble in orange foam on the surface. This will let you know you’re ready for the next and most important step.

Quickly add Syn-Bio (available from JCVI, SGI, and other private companies) along with a colloidal mixture containing iron, copper, and other natural elements to begin the interactive brewing process. Let it sit for no less than 6-9 months making sure nothing is allowed to disturb it. When there is no more gas coming to the surface and the mixture on the bottom turns into a gelatinous black goo, the first stage of the recipe is finished.

The amazing thing about this new state-of-the-art recipe is what it becomes after the initial first stage brewing process is finished. No-one knows! It’s no wonder some have begun to refer to it as The Blue Plate (BP) Special. You can be assured that once the second stage of this concoction begins to release its mutated biological ingredients, as it appears to have done so already, the rest of the world will abruptly notice.

OIL SPILL OR OIL FLOW?

There was never a BP Gulf of Mexico oil spill in 2010. When you fill a glass with water, bump into something while holding it in your hand, and then some of the water splashes out, that’s a spill. When you turn on a water faucet and allow a continual flow to fill the glass so that it’s constantly overflowing, that’s not a spill. Because the multiple BP drilling operations that began at Mississippi Canyon 252 in 2009 fractured the floor of the Gulf of Mexico sometime before April 22, 2010, there is a continuous flow of crude oil and, especially, oil derived gasses such as methane. That’s called an oil and gas flow.

Since the Gulf has a steady flow of toxic crude oil and gasses, then how do you stop it? You can’t. The only solution to the problem is to find a way to eliminate it before it has a chance to surface en mass. This is exactly what has, is, and will continue to occur in the Gulf of Mexico.

SYNTHETIC GENOME BIOREMEDIATION

Toxic crude oil and gas can be changed, altered, or eliminated by microbes. Natural microorganisms in all the oceans, such as bacteria, have been known to do this over time, usually lasting decades and beyond. It’s a slow natural process. Yes, natural biology can do the job, but under continual flow conditions there is no possible way all the hydrocarbon-hungry microbes in the entire world can eliminate that much oil and gas fast enough. Time is the critical factor.

For the past decade, synthetic biology has been the new science realm. We now have engineered genetic biology that synthetically creates RNA and DNA sequences for both viruses and bacteria.

In the 1980’s, the fad was designer jeans. Now, we have designer genes.

Soon after the Deepwater Horizon inferno, U.S. government scientists – with grant funds supplied by British Petroleum – started giving us solid clues as to what they were doing with all that crude oil and gas. In May 2010, National Geographic quoted Dr. Terry Hazen from the U.S. government’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory who said,

“…we could introduce a genetic material into indigenous bugs via a bacteriophage – a virus that infects bacteria – to give local microbes DNA that would allow them to break down oil. Either that, he said, or a lab could create a completely new organism that thrives in the ocean, eats oil, and needs a certain stimulant to live…”

There were two possible solutions according to Dr. Hazen, who is considered to be the foremost crude oil bioremediation expert in the world. Either use synthetically engineered viruses called bacteriophages, or ‘phages’, to infect and alter the genetics of indigenous Gulf bacteria; or, synthetically create an entirely new organism, i.e. a new species of bacteria, to eat up the oil and/or gas and introduce it into the Gulf of Mexico.

In September 2010, Duke University gave us another confirmation as to what was going on in the Gulf:

“In a paper published in the journal Science, Terry Hazen and his colleagues at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory discovered in late May through early June 2010 that a previously unknown species of cold-water hydrocarbon-eating bacteria have been feasting on the underwater oil plumes degrading them at accelerated rates.”

Natural microorganisms are well known to biologists and their genetic sequences are catalogued in a worldwide library. The public can even access the entire genetic library on the internet. But here we have a new and never before identified species of bacteria that suddenly “appears” in the Gulf of Mexico, and it’s eating up the oil at a much faster speed than any natural bacteria possibly could or ever has.

In August 2010, Science Magazine reported about bacteria that were gobbling up the Gulf oil and how it was being done by microorganisms that were not typical:

Hazen’s team found that microbes inside the plume samples were packed more than twice as densely as microbes outside it. Even more encouraging, the genes specifically geared to degrade hydrocarbons were more common in the plume as well, implying that it’s not just general bacteria that are taking on the plume.

Terry Hazen had described how the genes of a certain microbe that were “geared” (created) to eat-up crude oil were not just thriving within the oil plume, but were rapidly duplicating more than twice as fast as those same microbes outside the oil plume. He reveals that indigenous “general” or natural bacteria in the Gulf are not responsible for this amazing outcome. Obviously, he knows exactly what’s doing the job at such an accelerated rate: Synthetic genome bacteria created specifically to consume hydrocarbons, crude oil.

Dr. Terry Hazen is just one source, so I don’t expect you to believe synthetically engineered organisms are being used in the Gulf based solely on what he has said, even though he’s an absolute expert scientist in his field. What if I were to tell you that British Petroleum has admitted to using synthetic designer gene organisms in the Gulf? Would that help convince you?

In September 2010, reporter Stephen Fry of the UK’s BBC was granted a video interview with Mike Utsler, the Chief Operating Officer of BP’s Gulf Coast Restoration. Here’s what Mr. Utsler publicly admitted on camera:

“There is a new form of microbiology that is attacking this (oil) plume and using it as a food source”.

You can view him saying this on our YouTube Channel or on our Gulf Blue Plague internet blog at BP Admits Using Synthetic Microbes in Gulf of Mexico. This 17 second video snippet is taken from a November 7, 2010 broadcast entitled Has the Oil Really Gone? which is available for viewing at BBC TWO.* Note how Utsler is cut off by his own people at BP immediately after stating this and the interview was abruptly ended.

* It appears that the BBC has now restricted this video so that it can no longer be viewed from within the US.

A NEW FORM OF MICROBIOLOGY

A “new form of microbiology” is not a natural biological organism. Genome scientist J. Craig Venter, PhD, the founder of Synthetic Genomics Inc. and JCVI, clearly defined this new biological structure on May 27, 2010 in his prepared testimony before the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Energy and Commerce:

“One of the major advantages of synthetic genomics is that there is no need to have access to a physical supply of a particular DNA sequence. Sequence fragments are simply created de novo by chemical synthesis and assembled into entire chromosomes and organisms. This ability to synthesize (write) DNA and use it in the construction of new cells can catalyze a major change in what organisms can be engineered to do.

…these [synthetic genome] technologies could be used to produce bioremediation techniques.

In 2003, JCVI successfully synthesized a small virus, approximately six thousand base pairs long, that infects bacteria. By 2008, the JCVI team was able to synthesize a small bacterial genome.”

Now it’s easy to understand exactly what Terry Hazen, PhD, and BP’s Mike Utsler were revealing with regards to the creation of new genetically engineered microorganisms – either viruses that attack bacteria or bacteria themselves – within the Gulf of Mexico.

AN OBSCURE FAMILY OF SUPERHUMAN MICROBES

The latest development in the Gulf is how an incomprehensible bacterium is remarkably eating up the methane gas. It appears that engineered designer genes have also been used to remove the gas just as they have been used to consume the oil. The common denominator is that neither of these microbes are natural microorganisms. This should come as no surprise.

Microbiologist David Valentine at the University of California at Santa Barbara stated,

“Within a matter of months, the bacteria completely removed that methane. The bacteria kicked on more effectively than we expected.”

It sounds to me that this created synthetic genome microbe far exceeded the engineering and programming expectations.

According to a Fox Business report,

“This discovery offered a rare glimpse into the remarkable abilities of an obscure family of microbes in the depths of the Gulf”.

I agree. It is scientifically incomprehensible that any natural microorganism could do this and synthetically engineered microbes are definitely obscure by comparison.

University of Georgia microbiologist Samantha Joye, who has been independently analyzing methane from the Gulf of Mexico, also agrees with me. She said,

It would take a superhuman microbe to do what they are claiming.”

So it has, Samantha. It was specifically engineered and its “superhuman” genetics were created synthetically.

In a January 7, 2011 article, the UK Register wrote how the scientists were particularly

surprised at the speed with which the bacteria consumed their enormous meal”.

They also brought up the fact that earlier studies elsewhere in the world suggested methane levels around Deepwater Horizon would be well above normal for years ahead. It’s remarkable what highly engineered designer genes can do.

On January 6, 2011, the Christian Science Monitor reported how the study’s leaders boldly stated that rates of methane decomposition after the Gulf oil spill

“were faster than had ever been recorded in any other place on the planet.”

That’s because these are not natural microbes. You can’t compare apples to grapefruit.

TRACE ELEMENTS ADDED TO THE GULF

In the same CS Monitor report, University of Georgia microbiologist Samantha Joye stated how

“[The Gulf] is not well stocked with trace elements the bacteria need to survive – among them, copper, which bacteria specifically use to deal with the methane. Shortages of copper, as well as other trace elements, likely would have slammed the brakes on the exponential growth in bacterial populations needed to get rid of the methane in fewer than four months.”

The same applies to hydrocarbon-eating bacteria that consume oil, except that iron is needed more than the other trace elements. Since copper and iron are not prevalent mineral elements normally found in the Gulf of Mexico, the synthetic bacterium eating both the oil and the methane would not be able to do so at the remarkable speed they have without such essential earth elements. The only possible way these synthetic bacterium could have done this is by adding the required elements to the Gulf. Spraying a highly dissolved or colloidal mixture of trace elements onto and into the Gulf of Mexico would be absolutely required to accomplish this.

In our October 21, 2010 research article The Gulf BLUE PLAGUE (BP): It’s Not Wise To Fool Mother Nature, we had revealed the abnormally high amounts of elements found in the Gulf and that it was being sprayed along with or separately from the oil dispersants. In August 2010, rain water samples were tested by the Coastal Heritage Society of Louisiana where rain coming directly from the Gulf had unusually high concentrations of iron, copper, nickel, aluminum, manganese, and arsenic.

Without a doubt, the synthetically created bacterium introduced into the Gulf of Mexico to consume the oil and gasses were – and continue to be – fed these essential trace elements. Otherwise, they could not have thrived or reproduced at the accelerated rate they have. The continued spraying in the Gulf by aircraft and by boat is not Corexit or other oil dispersal chemicals. Consider the current spraying to have the same effect of adding liquid fertilizer to your crops.

SYNTHETIC MICROBES MUTATING NATURAL MICROORGANISMS

In early December, 2010 the research vessel WeatherBird II, owned by the University of Southern Florida (USF), went back to the Gulf of Mexico for follow-up water and core samples. As reported by Naomi Klein on January 13, 2011 in Hunting the Ocean for BP’s Missing Millions of Barrels of Oil,

“…these veteran scientists have seen things that they describe as unprecedented …evidence of bizarre sickness in the phytoplankton and bacterial communities…”

This “bizarre sickness” in the indigenous Gulf microorganisms is the direct result of the synthetic microbes that are still creating genetic sicknesses by mutating the DNA of the natural microbes. We had alerted our readers to this in DNA Mutations Confirmed in Gulf of Mexico on September 28, 2010 when we stated,

“DNA mutations are occurring within the Gulf of Mexico at a microscopic cellular level. The obvious effect this has on marine life as well as humans is a Pandora Box of unknowns.”

Tampa Bay Online gave further insight to this in an interview with Dr. John Paul, an oceanography biology professor at USF, regarding the oil plume they had discovered 40 miles off the Florida Panhandle:

It was found to be toxic to microscopic sea organisms, causing mutations to their DNA. If this plankton at the base of the marine food chain is contaminated, it could affect the whole ecosystem of the Gulf.

“The problem with mutant DNA is that it can be passed on and we don’t how this will affect fish or other marine life,” he says, adding that the effects could last for decades.

In Naomi Klein’s article, she describes how Paul introduced healthy bacteria and phytoplankton to Gulf water samples and what happened shocked him. The responses of the organisms “were genotoxic or mutagenic”. According to Paul, what was so “scary” about these results is that such genetic damage was “heritable,” meaning the mutations can be passed on.

Genotoxins pass on genetic changes to successors who have never been exposed to the original gene. Healthy microorganisms are then genetically changed and will pass on their DNA mutations to their descendants. This is a genetic chain-reaction as each mutated microbe interacts with and affects other microorganisms, especially with regards to the food chain:

“…the phytoplankton, the bacteria, and the [microorganisms] that graze on them – the zooplankton – seem to be the most potentially impacted.” – Dr. David Hollander, USF Marine Geochemist: December 6, 2010: Video interview on WeatherBird II.

THE PERFECT GENETIC STORM

In a Bridging The Gap radio interview with Dr. John Waterman on September 9, 2010, he stated,

“Microbes can morph, they can change. Viruses can turn into bacteria and bacteria can turn into fungi. In the Gulf we have bacteria that can morph. It can morph [mutate] because it’s attacked by a virus. The virus can change the genetics of the bacteria so that it morphs [mutates] into something very deadly.

Some of these changed bacteria can become deadly, Ebola deadly. When you have a morphed bacterium that gets airborne, now you’re going to see it go from person to person.

We’re on the verge of something that can become a deadly pandemic. They had to know that was the case. All it has to do is enter the human host… and once it gets started, it’s going to be impossible to stop.”

In October, 2010, I was contacted by Riki Ott, PhD who had written a book on the effects of the Exxon Valdez tanker spill in Alaska. Her Master’s Science degree is in marine biology with emphasis on the effects oil has on zooplankton. She had just read my It’s Not Wise To Fool Mother Nature article and wanted to talk. So far, she is the only U.S. based scientist who has agreed with me that there were genetically bio-engineered bacteria eating the oil in the Gulf.

In an article she published while in Ocean Springs, Mississippi, entitled Bio-Remediation or Bio-Hazard? Dispersants, Bacteria & Illness in the Gulf, she recounts how comments made by a local grandmother made her re-evaluate her thoughts on crude oil bio-remediation. That grandmother said she felt the oil-eating bacteria were “running amok and causing skin rashes”. Here’s part of what Dr. Ott wrote:

“To make things a little scarier, some of the oil-eating bacteria have been genetically modified, or otherwise bio-engineered, to better eat the oil – including Alcanivorax borkumensis and some of the Pseudomonas.”

Pseudomonas alcaligenes is a Gram-negative aerobic bacterium used for bio-remediation purposes because it can degrade aromatic hydrocarbons such as benzene or methane. Alcanivorax borkumensis is also a Gram-negative bacterium used for bio-remediation purposes because it can degrade oil hydrocarbons. There we have it. Confirmation once again that synthetic designer genes are the reason the oil and gas are being eaten up at alarming rates within the Gulf.

But why are these Gram-negative bacteria so important? Because, as Riki Ott said,

Oil-eating bacteria produce bio-films. Studies have found that bio-films are rapidly colonized by other Gram-negative bacteriaincluding those known to infect humans.”

A nurse Riki Ott was working with in the Gulf, Nurse Schmidt, put it this way:

This is like a major bacterial storm. It could be the reason we are seeing a variance of symptoms in different individuals. In some people, we see respiratory complications, while in others we see skin or GI symptoms. I think it is due to a multitude of colonized bacteria.”

But this is not just a typical bacterial storm. In this instance, there are synthetically created bio-remediation bacteria that have mutated untold species of natural organisms in the Gulf water and in the air. As different colonies begin to grow and colonize, you are witnessing the perfect genetic storm.

SYNTHETIC DNA CREATED THE GULF BLUE PLAGUE

I’ve written numerous articles in various forums since July, 2010 trying my best to warn not only my own family and friends, but the entire world with what has been evolving in the Gulf of Mexico. I’ve described in detail precisely how it was and is still evolving. For the record, I’ve researched and published these findings in the World Vision Portal forum, WVP’s YouTube channel, in the Blue Plague blog, and in weekly radio broadcasts on the Living Light Network. In August, I appropriately named the ensuing pandemic The Gulf Blue Plague.

To my frustration, few have cared to listen. I’ve been ignored and shunned on most internet sites owned and controlled by those who purportedly claim to be representing those of us living along the Gulf coast. Many of them simply don’t represent us at all. They exist for their own agendas, such as to find clients for their attorney practices. Some have exploited Gulf victims to only make a name for themselves. Some simply disappeared when BP and government agencies said the Gulf oil disaster was finished. The truth of the matter is that it’s not finished in the least. The worst part is yet to come this spring and summer as the warmer water and air accelerates the growth of the synthetically mutated viruses and bacteria.

What’s taking place in the Gulf of Mexico is not a regional problem just for those of us who live here. It’s a worldwide problem. Subtle viral and bacterial signs are beginning to show up everywhere. Mysterious unexplained diseases affecting fish, sea mammals, animals, fowl, trees, plants and mankind are occurring because of the synthetic genomes that are changing and mutating the natural organisms in the oceans and in the air.

I’ve been constantly interviewing both family members and friends who are physicians, scientists, Registered Nurses, ship captains, shrimpers, and fishermen. All of them agree that the scientifically confirmed mutated organisms – directly caused by synthetically engineered genomes interjected into the Gulf – can and most assuredly will become a pandemic or even multiple pandemics. As my RN friend with over 30 years of trauma and clinical experience in Louisiana put it,

“This is like an opera where the main characters are Frankenstein and King Neptune. When the fat lady of the Gulf finally sings in the last act, there may not be much of an audience left to hear her.”

In summary, all I can say is what I’ve been saying for months now….

“Wherever the Gulf wind blows and the Gulf water flows”

http://worldvisionportal.org/wordpress/index.php/2011/01/the-perfect-genetic-storm/

NOTES & ADDENDUM

From The Gulf Blue Plague is Evolving – Part II

VIRUSES

Bacteriophages are viruses that change the DNA of bacteria. Many types of bacteriophages exist. Some simply infect the host bacteria while others insert into and alter the bacterial chromosome.

Some of the viruses donate their DNA materials to the host cell and cause alteration in the genetic code. Some bacteriophages can enter the host cell, but instead of immediately making new viral material the bacteriophages DNA will integrate into the chromosome of the bacteria.

BACTERIA

Bacteria are a large group of single cell microorganisms that grow to a fixed size and then reproduce through a form of asexual reproduction. Under optimal conditions, bacteria can grow and divide rapidly and some bacterial populations can double as quickly as every 9.8 minutes. Most bacteria have a single circular chromosome and inherit identical copies of their parent’s genes (they clone themselves).

However, all bacteria can evolve through changes made to their genetic material DNA caused by mutations. Mutations come from errors made during the replication of DNA or from exposure to mutagens (mutating agents), such as certain chemicals or bacteriophages (viruses). Mutations are changes in the DNA or RNA sequence of a virus. It can occur at both a Gene level – called a Gene Mutation – and at a Chromosome level – called a Chromosome Mutation. This process of change is called Mutagenesis. The result is a mutated virus that quickly duplicates itself, develops into maturity, and then discharges itself into the environment. A water environment discharge will become airborne due to high temperatures or as a result of storms.

Despite their apparent simplicity, bacteria can also form complex associations with other organisms. If bacteria form a parasitic association, they are classed as pathogens. Pathogenic bacteria are a major cause of human death and disease. MRSA and other flesh eating bacterium are pathogenic.

REFERENCES


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