Playing with Smoke and Fire

Ven. Bhikkhu Bodhi

Yesterday evening, when I sat down to check out the news, I immediately came across two articles that almost blew the nonexistent hair off my head. The first, on Common Dreams, announced: “Canada Vows Plunder in the Arctic.” According to the report, Canada has just assumed the chairmanship of the Arctic Council, a consortium of states bordering the Arctic which met in Sweden this past week to discuss the region’s future. One would think the leaders of these nations, alarmed by the melting of the Arctic ice that takes place for ever longer periods each summer, have been anxiously discussing how we can preserve this natural wonderland and prevent its pristine beauty from being further defiled by the greedy hands of man. But let’s not fool ourselves. With global demand for oil and natural gas on the rise, they have other visions swimming around in their heads: of ships plowing the Arctic seas and previously inaccessible reserves of minerals, gas, and oil suddenly coming straight into their pockets.

The ostensible purpose of the Arctic Council is “to promote cooperation on environmental protection,” but it doesn’t take a PhD in economics to detect a wolf in lamb’s clothing. The council’s principal membership—Canada, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, Russia, Sweden, and the United States—should give the lie to any sweet protests of environmental concern that might be voiced by the group. I can’t speak about the smaller Nordic nations, but are we to trust Canada with the future of the Arctic after it has turned its Alberta forests into a lunar landscape in order to extract tar sands oil? Or can we trust Russia, the world’s largest non-OPEC oil producer, home of the world’s second largest coal reserves, the largest exporter of natural gas? And least of all, can we trust the U.S., whose tentacles reach everywhere for more oil— from the Alaskan wilderness to the Persian Gulf to offshore ocean depths—ever thirsty for more energy to maintain its global dominance?  Greenpeace certainly doesn’t trust these nations but has thrown its weight behind the Indigenous peoples who also sat in the conference hall, vowing to stand “shoulder to shoulder with them on this issue to protect the Arctic from destructive oil exploration.”

The second article to blow my brain across the room appeared on the informative website Climate Progress, written by Deputy Editor Ryan Koronowski. The headline may beg belief, but I’m not playing a practical joke on you: Industry Groups Urge Supreme Court To Ban EPA From Regulating CO2. Really! According to the article, “conservative states, business groups, fossil fuel companies, and global-warming denying politicians are petitioning the Supreme Court to reverse Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) regulations on greenhouse gases and to weaken the Clean Air Act.” Nine petitions were submitted to the Court over the past few months seeking review of EPA regulations: “Don’t let that damn agency protect our environment!” Petitioners include such states as Texas, Alaska, and Virginia; industry groups such as the Chamber of Commerce, the American Petroleum Institute, and the National Association of Manufacturers; and fossil fuel companies like Peabody Energy, the world’s largest private-sector coal company.

Ironically, these events occur right on the heels of another major event that should have been blazed forth by banner headlines on every newspaper on earth, but in most cases probably squeaked by with a back-page article at best. Last week the concentration of carbon dioxide in the earth’s atmosphere, as measured by the Mauna Loa observatory in Hawaii, passed “the climate’s grim milestone,” the mark of 400 parts per million (ppm). Numbers, of course, are mere abstractions along a continuum, but this figure portends serious consequences for our collective future. It is said to be the first time in at least three million years that the CO₂ concentration has reached this level.

Before the Industrial Age, CO₂ concentration was 280 ppm. The figure rose steadily with the onset of industrialization and then escalated sharply over the past half-century. According to leading climate scientist James Hansen, the maximum amount of CO₂ the atmosphere can safely hold is 350 ppm. Beyond 350 ppm, the worst impacts of climate change become unavoidable. And we’re already 50 ppm over the mark and well on our way to 450 ppm. CO₂ is a greenhouse gas that traps heat in the atmosphere. Hence more CO₂ in the air means a hotter planet, and a hotter planet means ever more frequent, more destructive weather events.

Do we really think we can play with fire without getting burnt? Do we think we can play in the smoke without choking? Over the past decade we’ve already gotten a foretaste of what’s in store for us: disastrous floods, deadly heat waves, harsher droughts, raging wildfires, more devastating hurricanes, tornadoes, and super-storms. Even if we were to cut our carbon emissions by half overnight, the trajectory of warming we’re already on would still continue for decades before leveling off. But don’t count your luck. Since we’ve been doing little to reduce the extraction and burning of fossil fuels—and since the fuel corporations, politicians, and a supine press are doing their utmost to keep the public happy and oblivious—the accumulation of carbon in the atmosphere is likely to continue unchecked for a long, long time to come. As Bill McKibben has pointed out in his book Eaarth, we’re ushering in a radically different planet.

Since extreme changes in the weather strongly influence food production and food prices, curbing global warming is intimately connected to the work of BGR. Weather disasters strike and food supplies dwindle. Smaller food reserves mean higher prices, which in turn mean more hunger, illness, death, and despair. If we’re going to reduce global hunger, we’ve got to stop climate change. If we’re going to give people a fresh lease on life, we’ve got to ensure that their environment remains stable. Sadly, the most severe repercussions of global warming hit those in the global South, populations least responsible for it. Yet no one on earth is safe. There’s no place one can hide to escape the shocks to be unleashed when the planet’s mean temperature exceeds the range congenial to human life. We’re all vulnerable to floods and tornadoes; to droughts wilting our essential crops; to strange pests appearing out of the blue and ravaging our food supply. We’ll all have to face a future in which famished children in relief camps look up at us with hollow eyes, desperate populations migrate to our shores, and states descend into conflict, chaos, and perhaps regional wars.

Our moral responsibility extends both horizontally and vertically: horizontally, to our contemporaries throughout the world, who are already suffering under the impact of a warmer, stranger, more violent planet; and vertically, to our descendants, who will have to bear the weight of the legacy we leave to them. As Buddhists, we’re constantly enjoined to cultivate compassion to all sentient beings, above all to our fellow human beings. But compassion is not a luxury we can leave behind when we get up from the cushion. Under our present circumstances, the supreme gesture of compassion is to act—to act courageously, to act decisively, to act unrelentingly to protect the planet, to protect the poor and needy, to protect the voiceless species facing extinction, to keep the earth viable for present and future generations.

We can’t expect politicians to act without a strong push, no matter how bright their smiles and how eloquent their words. Far too many of our elected representatives are pawns of the corporations, whose contributions feed their campaign chests and gratify their ambitions. Even less can we expect the CEOS of the oil, gas, and coal corporations to take our side. Despite their lovely endorsements of environmental ethics, they know what sells, and their eyes are so glazed over by delusion that they can’t even see how their policies have thrown into jeopardy their own future and the future of their children.

It is we ourselves who must act—without procrastination, fear, or the despondent thought that we are powerless. In numbers there is power; in collective action there’s hope for change. Opportunities to act are sprouting up all around us. We need only open our eyes to see them. A search on the internet will turn up plenty of ways to act, many ways to take a stand. Already several campaigns are set to launch this summer, among them the Summer Heat campaign of 350.org and the June Week of Action of Fearless Summer. It’s our collective future that’s at stake, so let’s get to work.

A New Slate of Projects–Part 1

Ven. Bhikkhu Bodhi

This is the first of a four-part series of posts giving brief summaries of the BGR projects approved for fiscal year 2013–14. Thanks are due to Patti Price, chair of the Projects Committee, and Jessie Benjamin, Carla Prater, Jennifer Russ, and Khanh Nguyen who all helped to prepare the material used in this series. Projects are arranged alphabetically by country, with the U.S. projects to follow the international projects.

Over the first weekend of May, months of hard work by BGR team members came to fruition at the annual general meeting and projects selection board meeting, both held in the Woo Ju Memorial Library at Chuang Yen Monastery, Carmel, New York. The general meeting, on Saturday, May 4, was attended by team members from as far away as California, Colorado, Illinois, and Texas. At the board meeting on Sunday, May 5^th, the board considered a slew of applications for partnership grants. Twenty-one projects were approved for the next fiscal year, at a total cost of $285,000. The projects are both international and domestic in scope. They include renewals of existing projects and a substantial number of new undertakings with partners both new and old. Their fields range from Cambodia and Vietnam, through India, Sri Lanka, Rwanda, Ethiopia, and Cote d’Ivoire, to Haiti, New York, and California. Distinctive about this year’s register is the number of multiyear projects that are to be launched. Experience has taught us that projects extending over several years provide a better timeframe for accomplishing more ambitious objectives than is possible with a one-year project, our usual mode of operation. Here are brief summaries of the projects approved for implementation.

1. Bangladesh: Making Markets Work for Women           NEW

Helen Keller International, established in 1915, works in 22 countries to save the sight and lives of the most vulnerable and disadvantaged through programs in vision, health, and nutrition. BGR will be partnering with HKI on a three-year program in Bangladesh called “Making Markets Work for Women.” The program aims to uplift 75 extremely poor indigenous households in five villages in the Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT), one of the poorest regions in the country. The project will train women in agricultural skills such as pest management, organic fertilizer use, and intercropping, as well as food processing techniques. It will also establish community marketing groups for women so participants can work together to process and sell their products, thus helping to combat discrimination at local markets. Courtyard sessions will focus on gender and nutrition issues relevant to both men and women, including optimal feeding practices for children from birth to two years of age. Year one of a three-year project.

2. Bangladesh: Educating Children in
the Chittagong Hill Tracts          NEW

Moanoghar was founded in 1974 by a group of Buddhist monks to provide shelter to children of the Chittagong Hill Tracts affected by conflict or living in remote areas. There are currently more than 1,250 children sheltered at Moanoghar, approximately 40% of them girls. Many of the children were left homeless or orphaned as the result of a decades-long ethnic conflict. All children at Moanoghar receive free or highly subsidized education. BGR will be sponsoring a three-year project to establish a sustainable educational system that can generate income to support the institution and support the children being schooled there. The program has three components: (1) to build a computer lab to teach the children IT; (2) to provide stipends for the children for general and technical education; and (3) to plant trees and bamboo orchards that will provide economic returns to Moanoghar. Year one of a three-year project.

3. Cambodia: System of Rice Intensification

Rachana is a Cambodian organization dedicated to improving the socio-economic well-being of poor and vulnerable communities in Cambodia. Rachana has been promoting the System of Rice Intensification (SRI), an ecologically sensitive agricultural methodology that increases yields of rice from an average of 2 tons per hectare to 4.75 tons per hectare. BGR has already partnered with Rachana over the past two years in spreading the use of SRI, with highly favorable results. The program has enabled farmers to feed their own families better and obtain a surplus to sell on the market. As a result, SRI has substantially boosted family incomes. The annually renewable program will promote SRI in eight villages, five old ones and three new ones, up to December 2013. 

4. Cambodia: Giving Girls Access to Education

Since 2009, BGR has been partnering with U.S.-based Lotus Outreach International in support of its life-transforming Girls Access To Education (GATE) program, intended to ensure that girls remain in school. In Cambodia the education of girls is considered unnecessary, but LOI and BGR are trying to promote a new perspective. To encourage families to keep their girls in school, Lotus Outreach provides 50 kg of rice monthly during the school year to the families of 50 poor girls in Siem Reap and Banteay Meanchey. Without such assistance these highly vulnerable girls would almost surely be forced to leave school for work; many would wind up in brothels. With support from BGR, Lotus Outreach has recently been extending rice support to GATE graduates who enroll in university programs. These graduates, who have risen up from poverty to enter university, are called GATEways scholars. The grant from BGR will enable 33 additional GATEways scholars to receive 15 kilograms of rice for each month they attend classes during the year or live away from home due to their individual circumstances. With continued scholarship support, we hope to see these young women rank among the exclusive 1% of Cambodia’s female population to receive post-secondary education. An annually renewable program.

5. Cambodia: Helping Women Escape the Sex Trade

Driven by desperate poverty, with no other opportunities in sight, many girls in Cambodia find themselves compelled to turn to the sex trade to support themselves and their families. Lotus Outreach’s Non-Formal Education program offers these women and their children a light in the dark. By teaching them basic literacy, health education, life skills, and vocational training, the program helps young women escape exploitation while discovering their own strength, self-worth, and competency. The renewed grant from BGR will provide non-formal education, vocational training, and life skills to approximately 30 sex workers and their children. Daughters of sex workers receive scholarship packages so they can return to school. Many of these women and children will learn to read and write for the first time in their lives. An annually renewable program.

 6. Côte d’Ivoire: Enhanced Homestead Food Production       NEW

BGR will be partnering with Helen Keller International on a three-year expansion of its innovative Enhanced Homestead Food Production program in Côte d’Ivoire’s Bouaké District (Gbèkè Region), an especially poor district where families struggle with food security and lack access to food markets. The project is designed to improve the food security and nutritional status of vulnerable households, with special emphasis on women and young children. A model of enhanced food production through the establishment of year-round gardens and farms will be taught to community gardening groups comprised mostly of women. A key component of the program is growing orange-fleshed sweet potatoes, a food rich in micronutrients especially good for children and pregnant women. The project will improve gardening practices, irrigation systems, and income generation, while empowering women. Farmers will also learn marketing strategies for selling their crops. Successful small-scale irrigation systems will be of use not only to programs in Côte d’Ivoire but throughout the region, especially to areas vulnerable to climate change. Year one of a three-year program.

To be continued

GMOs: Food, Money & Control: Part III

Charles W. Elliott

(In Parts I and II of “GMOs: Food, Money & Control,” we explored the failure of the leading U.S. state proposal to require labeling of GMO foods (California Proposition 37), the control of crop seeds through GMO patents and licensing, the loss of seed and crop diversity, and the increasing domination of the seed industry by biotechnology firms.  In this post, we examine GMO contamination of other food crops and the impacts of GMO technologies on pesticide use.)

“When we try to pick out anything by itself we find that it is bound fast by a thousand invisible cords that cannot be broken, to everything in the universe. —John Muir

Despite pervasive human intervention, the dynamism of the natural world overcomes virtually all artificial boundaries and limits.  We directly experience nature’s refusal to stay within the lines we draw. Plants penetrate concrete sidewalks; moving water inexorably surmounts or breaks through barriers; nature retakes land abandoned by humans.

Seed dispersal and plant cross-pollination are examples of this dynamic movement in the natural world.  In fact, the plant world depends upon it.   The notion that we can control genetically modified organisms requires a willful blindness to this fundamental fact of nature.

“Guilty by GMO Contamination”

Genetically modified crop seed can contaminate other crops. Seed movement, pollen flow and other causes result in “gene flow”, the transfer of genes from one population to another.  This occurs in a variety of natural ways: via birds, animals, flooding, or wind.  It can also result from human activities such as farm or seed cleaning machinery, spillage during transport, and other human errors throughout the production process.

Transgenic contamination cannot be recalled.  Genetically modified plants continue to reproduce where the seeds are sown or blown and where plants are pollinated. Their traits are passed on to subsequent generations of crops. They also reproduce in nature where genetically modified varieties can forever alter wild relatives, native plants, and ecosystems.

This process is virtually inevitable:

Scientists generally expect that if a GM variety of a crop is grown near non-modified varieties, gene flow will be a fairly common occurrence. It is well known that pollen from, for example, one variety of corn (conventional or transgenic) can spread to an adjacent field containing another variety and create a hybrid. There are plenty of documented cases of this kind of spontaneous “crop-to-crop” gene flow occurring between transgenic and conventional varieties of corn and canola. The likelihood of gene flow through pollen drift will depend on the specific crop.[1]

In fact, the risk of gene flow between GMO crops and conventional or organic crops is considered so high that Monsanto has disclaimed any liability for such contamination, and has described the phenomenon in cross-pollinated crops as “well known and is a normal occurrence.” [2]

GMO contamination is not a merely theoretical concern; it is already a problem.  In one well-reported GMO contamination fiasco, the corporate chemical giant Bayer A.G. and its global affiliates agreed to pay U.S. rice farmers $750 million in damages caused by the 2006 contamination of the nation’s rice crop by Bayer’s experimental and unapproved genetically modified “Liberty Link” rice.[3]  Bayer’s contamination of the rice supply threatened the entire U.S. rice export market. Rice futures plummeted by $150 million immediately after the contamination announcement. European Union nations halted acceptance of shipments of rice from the U.S. that hadn’t been extensively tested to show they weren’t contaminated. Japan, South Korea and the Philippines imposed a strict certification and testing regime on all rice imports, and Russia and Bulgaria imposed bans on imports of U.S. rice. [4]

The problem is not limited to a few well-publicized market-wrecking incidents. Research performed by the Union of Concerned Scientists (www.ucsusa.org) found that seeds of traditional varieties of corn, soybeans, and canola were “pervasively contaminated” by GMO crops:

The study found that the seeds of traditional varieties [of corn, soybeans and canola] bought from the same retailers used by U.S. farmers are pervasively contaminated with low levels of DNA sequences originating in genetically engineered varieties of those crops. This conclusion is based on tests conducted by two respected commercial laboratories using duplicate samples of seeds of six traditional varieties each of corn, soybeans, and canola. One laboratory detected transgenically derived DNA in 50 percent of the corn, 50 percent of the soybean, and 100 percent of the traditional canola varieties tested. The other laboratory detected transgenically derived DNA in 83 percent of the traditional varieties of each of the three crops.[5]

The GM Contamination Register (http://www.gmcontaminationregister.org/) indexes more than 200 other publicly reported contamination incidents from 1997 to the present around the world.

GMO contamination can threaten the livelihood of farmers of traditional and organic crops. If organic crops or conventional crops are tainted with genetically modified material, “farmers can lose their crop certification, their customers and markets, their reputation, and the ability to sow the crop of their choice.”  [6] Conventional farmers are concerned that GMO crops may endanger sales to some of their overseas markets. See, Have Transgenes, p. 7. Regulatory and market restrictions on the labeling and sale of GMO crops in other countries create concerns that gene flow from GMO crops may make U.S. crops unacceptable in those markets. European Union policies require food and animal feed containing more than 0.9 percent of “approved” GM content to be labeled as genetically modified. For non-approved GMOs, the threshold is “zero” and thus requires that cargoes containing non-approved GMOs are returned to the port of origin or are destroyed.

In one case, U.S. food (supposedly a “non-GMO” soy flour) contaminated with GMO material was forced to return to its port of origin. [7] In another case, Canadian organic crop producers “have been unable to certify canola crops as organic for the EU market because of the extensive potential for cross-pollination between GM and organic crops; these producers are losing a lucrative and growing market.” [8]

But the implications of GMO contamination extend far beyond market concerns:

The recognition that the seed supply is open to contamination by low levels of a wide variety of genetically engineered sequences has broad implications. In general terms, seed contamination is important for two reasons. First, seeds reproduce and carry genes into future generations. Every season of seed production offers new opportunities for the introduction of new genes. In the case of genetic engineering, transgenic sequences that enter the seed supply for traditional crop varieties will be perpetuated and will accumulate over time in plants where they are not expected and could be difficult to control. Second, seeds are the  wellspring of our food system, the base on which we improve crops and the source to which we return when crops fail. Seeds will be our only recourse if the prevailing belief in the safety of genetic engineering proves wrong. Heedlessly allowing the contamination of traditional plant varieties with genetically engineered sequences amounts to a huge wager on our ability to understand a complicated technology that manipulates life at the most elemental level.[9]

Moreover, hundreds of novel genes have been engineered into crops and field-tested. These include genes for the creation of so-called “pharma” and “industrial” crops that are genetically engineered to produce drugs, vaccines and industrial chemicals.  Examples include proteins, enzymes, hormones, antibodies, vaccines, and compounds used to manufacture paper, plastic and detergents.[10]

The problem of GMO contamination also creates legal confusion and unforeseen legal liabilities. Because United States patent infringement law does not require a showing of intent to infringe, farmers can be sued if their fields are contaminated and the patented GMO seed from the contaminated crop is saved and planted.  Monsanto and other corporate giants have investigated and sued farmers whose fields were contaminated by neighboring GMO crops or when a previous year’s GMO crop sprouted in fields planted with conventional varieties the following year. An investigation by the Center for Food Safety showed that “the industry also sues farmers even when they were never presented with, and hence never signed, a technology use agreement at the time of seed purchase.” [11]

Failed Promises: Failure to Yield

Although the advent of agricultural genetic engineering more than two decades ago arrived with promises of increased yields and reduction of world hunger, these promises have largely failed.  The only independent study of transgenic food crop yields concluded that, unlike traditional breeding techniques, transgenic crops have failed to increase yields. [12]

No commercial transgenic crop has been engineered for increased yield, nutritional enhancement, increased fertilizer use efficiency, or many other promised traits.  Instead, the biotechnology industry is focused on enhancing its bottom line.  Rather than concentrating its efforts on reducing world hunger, agricultural biotechnology firms have commercialized a small number of transgenic commodity crops that produce insecticides or withstand direct application of herbicides. Much of the commercial transgenic crop acreage is engineered to give crops the ability to survive intensive spraying of a single broad-spectrum herbicide: Monsanto’s RoundUp®.

“Rounding Up” the Corporate Bottom Line: More Herbicides and “Superweeds”

In this perfect marriage of business models, Monsanto has managed to create a fantastically expensive technology that allows it to control food crops with patents and license agreements while also significantly expanding the use of its primary chemical herbicide, RoundUp®.  Monsanto uses genetic engineering primarily to develop patented “Roundup Ready®” crops for use with its own Roundup® herbicide. American soybeans, corn, canola, and sugar beets are now largely Roundup Ready®. This has made RoundUp’s active ingredient, glyphosate, the most heavily used chemical pesticide in history.[13]  Overall pesticide use has increased by 404 million pounds in the 16 years since transgenic crops were first released, largely due to the massive increase in glyphosate use with Roundup Ready® crops.[14]

This increase in the use of glyphosate-based herbicides is associated with widespread environmental contamination.  Glyphosate was found in 60 – 100% of rain and air samples tested in Iowa and Mississippi by the U.S. Geological Survey, and nearly every stream, river, and reservoir in heavily farmed regions contains glyphosate and its degradation products. [15]

Roundup Ready® crops have also worsened an ongoing epidemic of glyphosate-resistant “superweeds.”[16] Given the widespread reliance on glyphosate-based herbicides, the emergence of herbicide resistant weeds is perhaps one of the most serious challenges facing American agriculture.

Since 2000, glyphosate-resistant weeds have infested approximately forty to sixty million acres of cropland. [17] As a result of this superweed infestation, farmers are forced to use more Roundup® or more toxic herbicides, and to mechanically remove the weeds through soil-eroding tillage operations.[18]  The biotechnology corporate response to this problem is to offer more of the same, only worse: more genetic engineering to make crops simultaneously resistant to several herbicides, including the more toxic herbicide 2,4-D. [19]  Approval of these “stacked trait” crops with resistance to multiple herbicides will inevitably lead to large increases of ever-more toxic herbicides and consequential environmental contamination.

Another Vision: Sustainable Agriculture

We can reject this industrialized, technology-based way of growing our food. There is another way.  Indeed, there has always been another way –sustainable agriculture based on both ancient knowledge and modern practices that respect the natural environment, make the most efficient use of non-renewable resources and on-farm resources and integrate, where appropriate, natural biological cycles.[20]  This approach to agriculture recognizes the need for sustainability in three inter-related domains: environmental, economic, and social. This ecosystem approach includes options such as long-term crop rotations, returning to natural cycles that annually flood cultivated lands (thus returning lost nutrients indefinitely), soil building and soil conservation practices (e.g., minimization of soil erosion through no-till farming, creation of wind breaks to hold soil, incorporation of organic matter back into fields), reduction of use of chemical fertilizers, and utilization of integrated pest management programs.

This approach to agriculture also respects and protects smallholder farmers, traditional cultures, and the human relationship with the natural world.  In the long run, it is the only sustainable way to feed a growing human population on a small and increasingly warmer planet.

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[1] “Have Transgenes, Will Travel: Issues Raised by Gene Flow from Genetically Engineered Crops”, Pew Initiative on Food and Biotechnology, August 2003, available at: http://www.pewtrusts.org/uploadedFiles/ wwwpewtrustsorg/Reports/Food_and_Biotechnology/food_biotech_transgenes_081803.pdf

[2]  Monsanto Co., 2005 Technology Use Guide, at 17 (“Since corn is a naturally cross-pollinated crop, a minimal amount of pollen movement (some of which can carry genetically improved traits) between neighboring fields is well known and is a normal occurrence in corn seed or grain production.”). The Monsanto 2005 Technology Use Guide can be found at: http://goo.gl/PsJ3g

[3] http://www.bayerricelitigation.com/

[4] See, e.g.,http://www.bayerricelitigation.com/PDFs/ SKELLY67_1271429373912.pdf; http://www.gmcontaminationregister.org/ index.php?content=nw_detail2

[5] M. Mellon, J. Rissler, “Gone to Seed – Transgenic Contaminants in the Traditional Seed Supply”, Union of Concerned Scientists, 2004, p.1 . The report is available at: http://www.ucsusa.org/food_and_agriculture/ our-failing-food-system/genetic-engineering/gone-to-seed.html

[6]  Center for Food Safety, “Seed Giants v. U.S. Farmers, A report by the Center for Food Safety and Save Our Seeds” (2013), p. 7. The report is available at: http://www.centerforfoodsafety.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/Seed-Giants_final.pdf

[7] Davison, J., “GM plants: Science, politics and EC regulations”. Plant Science 178 (2): 94–98. doi:10.1016/j.plantsci.2009.12.

[8]  Belcher, et al., “Genetically modified crops and agricultural landscapes: spatial patterns of contamination”, Ecological Economics 53.3 (2005): 387-401. The report is available at http://www.saveourseeds.org/downloads/ belcher_contamination_2005.pdf   (last accessed February 16, 2013).

[9] “Gone to Seed – Transgenic Contaminants in the Traditional Seed Supply”, Union of Concerned Scientists, 2004, p.2.

[10]  For a list of pharma/industrial crops, see UCS, “Gone to Seed”, p. 36; Pew Initiative on Food and Biotechnology (PIFB),“Harvest on the Horizon: Future Uses of Agricultural Biotechnology”, (2001) Washington, DC: PIFB, pp. 53-63 and references therein; Union of Concerned Scientists, “Pharm and Industrial Crops: the Next Wave of Agricultural Biotechnology” Washington, DC, pp. 3-4 and references therein, available at http://www.ucsusa.org/assets/documents/ food_and_agriculture/pharmcropsucs403.pdf

[11] Center for Food Safety, Monsanto vs. U.S. Farmers, (Washington, DC: Center for Food Safety, 2005), http://www.centerforfoodsafety.org/pubs/CFSMOnsantovsFarmerReport1.13.05.pdf, pp.37-45.

[12]  See, Doug Gurian-Sherman, Union of Concerned Scientists, “Failure to Yield: Evaluating the Performance of Genetically Engineered Crops” (Apr. 2009),  pp. 1-5 .The report is available at http://www.ucsusa.org/food_and_agriculture/our-failing-food-system/genetic-engineering/failure-to-yield.html.   Monsanto disputes these claims, asserting that genetically modified traits have indeed increased yields of various crops. http://www.monsanto.com/newsviews/Pages/do-gm-crops-increase-yield.aspx   These reported Monsanto claims are largely based on analyses by PG Economics Ltd, a UK-based independent consultancy that “specializes in analyzing the impact of new technology in agriculture.” http://www.pgeconomics.co.uk/pdf/focusonyieldeffects2009.pdf. Its work has been criticized as relying on biased data and using faulty analyses.  See, “Cooking the Books: A Methodological Critique of PG Economics’s 2011 Global Report on GM Crops,” http://www.foodandwaterwatch.org/briefs/cooking-the-books/. For more information about critiques of the UCS study and UCS’ responses, see http://www.gmwatch.org/latest-listing/48-2009/11340-responses-to-qfailure-to-yieldq-critics.

[13] EPA, Pesticide Industry Sales and Usage: 2006 and 2007 Market Estimates, tbl. 3:6 (Feb. 2011), available at: http://www.epa.gov/opp00001/pestsales/07pestsales/market_estimates2007.pdf

[14] Benbrook, C., Impacts of Genetically Engineered Crops on Pesticide Use in the U.S. – The First Sixteen Years, 24 Envtl. Scis. Eur. 24 (2012), available at http://www.enveurope.com/content/pdf/2190-4715-24-24.pdf; Brian Clark, “Pesticide Use Rises as Herbicide-Resistant Weeds Undermine Performance of Major GE Crops, New WSU Study Shows”, Wash. State Univ. (Oct. 1, 2012), http://news.cahnrs.wsu.edu/2012/10/01/pesticide-use-rises-as-herbicide-resistant-weeds-undermine-performance-of-major-ge-crops-new-wsu-study-shows/

[15] Feng-Chih Chang, Matt F. Simcik, P.D. Capel, 2011. “Occurrence and Fate of the Herbicide Glyphosate and Its Degradate Aminomethylphosphonic Acid in the Atmosphere,” Envir. Toxicology  Chem., Vol. 30, pages 548-555.

[16] Comm. on the Impact of Biotechnology on Farm-Level Econ. & Sustainability, Nat’l Research Council, “The Impact of Genetically Engineered Crops on Farm Sustainability in the United States”, 82 (2010), available at http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=12804; Stephen B. Powles, Gene Amplification Delivers Glyphosate-Resistant Weed Evolution, 107 Proc. of the Nat’l Acad. of Sci. 955, 955 (2010).]

[17] Melody M. Bomgardner, War on Weeds, Chemical & Eng’g News, May 21, 2012, at 20, 20-22 (see map), available at http://cen.acs.org/articles/90/i21/War-Weeds.html;  Benbrook, supra note 7, at 4 .

[18] Benbrook, C., “Impacts of Genetically Engineered Crops on Pesticide Use: The First Thirteen Years”, pp. 28-30, 34-36, 40 (The Organic Center, 2009), available at http://www.organic-center.org/science.pest.php?action=view&report_id=159n; Georgina Gustin, Resistant Weeds Leave Farmers Desperate, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, July 17, 2011.

[19] See, Green, J.M., C.B. Hazel, D.R. Forney and L.M. Pugh. 2008. “New multiple-herbicide crop resistance and formulation technology to augment the utility of glyphosate”, Pest Manag. Sci. 64:332-339; Benbrook, C. 2009. “Impacts of Genetically Engineered Crops on Pesticide Use in the United States: the First Thirteen Years”, The Organic Center, Boulder, Colorado, http://www.organic-center.org; Gray, M.E. 2011. “Relevance of traditional integrated pest management (IPM) strategies for commercial corn production in a transgenic agroecosystem—a bygone era?”, J. Agric. Food Chem. 59:5852-5858.

[20] Detailed information about sustainable agriculture is widely available.  One good source is “Applying the Principles of Sustainable Farming: Fundamentals of Sustainable Agriculture” from the National Sustainable Agriculture Information Service, a program of the National Center for Appropriate Technology, available at: https://attra.ncat.org/attra-pub/viewhtml.php?id=29

Time to Draw a Line in the Tar Sands

Ven. Bhikkhu Bodhi

The impact of climate change on global food security is sure to be one of the most critical issues we’ll be facing in the years ahead. Since agricultural productivity depends on a stable and congenial climate, we cannot tamper with the climate without jeopardizing the world’s food supply. Over the past decade we’ve seen how a warming climate has triggered long droughts, violent hurricanes, torrential storms, and searing heat waves, reducing yields of essential food commodities. Policy expert Lester Brown writes ominously: “Extreme soil erosion, growing water shortages, and the earth’s rising temperature are making it more difficult to expand production. Unless we can reverse such trends, food prices will continue to rise and hunger will continue to spread, eventually bringing down our social system.”[1]

As an organization dedicated to the battle against hunger and malnutrition, Buddhist Global Relief is deeply concerned with how we’re altering the climate. In our view alleviating hunger calls not merely for acts of philanthropy but also for a vigorous effort to counteract the forces responsible for hunger, among which global warming is now the most formidable. Tackling climate change requires in the first place a commitment to honesty and truth. We can’t hide behind the mask of denial and we can’t afford the luxury of delay. We have to recognize that the primary cause of global warming is human behavior: our carbon-driven economy, our frenzied consumerist culture, and the hunger of fossil fuel corporations for ever greater profits.

Actions have consequences, and so too does the failure to act. Practices born of narrow self-interest will inevitably rebound, harming ourselves as well as others. Since an altered climate affects us and our communities, tackling it is partly a matter of enlightened self-interest. But only partly, for it is also a matter of justice. The freakish weather patterns whipped up by an altered climate bear down hardest on poor populations in the global South, those least responsible for greenhouse gas emissions and least equipped to deal with the  devastation. This fact gives climate change an inescapably ethical dimension. It makes our impact on the climate a moral issue—the burning moral challenge of our time, perhaps even the gravest moral challenge in human history. From this perspective considerations based on expediency and pragmatic efficiency fade into the background. The primary demand placed on us is to act as the situation demands–under the guidance of compassion, humane responsibility, and a commitment to social justice.

It was thus to answer the call of conscience that two weeks ago I traveled to Washington to participate in the demonstration against the Keystone XL pipeline. KXL, as it’s often called, has emerged as the symbolic rallying point in the battle to stop climate change. Over the past two years a vigorous campaign against it has been waged across the country and the D.C. demonstration was to mark its culmination. Just a month earlier I joined fellow clergy in Washington for a “pray in” against the pipeline. On February 17th, I returned to the capital to attend a demonstration promoted as “the largest climate rally in history.”

The weather in Washington that day was bitterly cold, but joining the rally nurtured my body and soul with the warm joy of knowing I was part of a movement dedicated to a crucial mission. Ayya Santussika, another BGR board member, had flown all the way from San Francisco to join the rally, and a contingent from the Interfaith Moral Action on Climate gave the gathering a broad effusion of spirit. Sixty environmental organizations endorsed the rally, including the Sierra Club, 350.org, and the National Resources Defense Council.

From the place where I stood on the National Mall I could not judge the size of the crowd, which extended as far as my eyes could see, but reports the next day estimated the number to be between 35,000 and 50,000. Speakers included Bill McKibben, who has led the anti-KXL campaign from the start, green-tech advocate Van Jones, and Senator Sheldon Whitehouse. The most moving speakers, however, were three Native American women who rocked the audience with their vision of a different kind of relationship between human beings and the natural world—a relationship of love and kinship rather than extraction and commodification.[2]

take action to reject the keystone pipeline
Sign the Petition to the white house

For those who haven’t been following environmental news, the Keystone XL pipeline is proposed as a means of transporting tar-sands oil from Alberta, Canada, to refineries along the Gulf of Mexico. If completed, it will allow delivery of 830,000 barrels of crude oil daily from Alberta to the Gulf. Tar sands is a mixture of sand, clay, water, and bitumin, a form of petroleum said to be 17% more carbon intensive than ordinary oil. In terms of proven crude oil reserves Alberta ranks third in the world, just behind Saudi Arabia and Venezuela, but ahead of Iran, Iraq, and Kuwait. In 2011, Alberta’s total proven oil reserves were 170.2 billion barrels, of which 168.7 billion (99%) come from the tar sands.[3]

Exploiting this much oil promises big returns to the petroleum corporations, but to proceed with this project is truly to enter into a bargain with the devil. Why so? Extracting and processing tar-sands oil is an energy-intensive operation that produces three times more greenhouse gas emissions than conventional oil. It also leaves behind gigantic lakes of toxic waste. Already tar-sands oil extraction has turned huge tracts of Canadian forest into a barren moonscape visible even from outer space.[4]

Bill McKibben describes KXL as “the fuse to the biggest carbon bomb on the planet.” NASA climate scientist James Hansen has said that “if the tar sands are thrown into the mix [of existing carbon fuels] it is essentially game over” for the climate. Apart from the sharp increase in atmospheric carbon such a pipeline would enable, the project poses other environmental dangers. There’s the real risk the pipeline might leak, spilling millions of barrels of oil into precious waterways and aquifers, polluting fertile farm land, discharging toxins into the air, and destroying the habitats of wild birds and animals.[5]

The Canadian corporation scheduled to construct the pipeline, TransCanada, has powerful representatives in D.C. Its chief lobbyist for this project had been the deputy campaign manager for Hillary Clinton during her run for the presidency, which virtually gave TransCanada a backdoor key to the State Department. Letting vested interests dominate climate policy is terribly shortsighted. Global warming has already unleashed a chain of disasters around the world, from long droughts and heat waves to monster storms and hurricanes. The last thing we should be doing now is seeking new sources of fossil fuels to feed our appetite for energy. Not only does the burning of such fuels directly pump more carbon into the atmosphere, but a hotter climate would likely set off unpredictable feedback loops escalating global warming to greater heights.

Instead of seeking new sources of  fossil fuels, we should be converting at breakneck speed to clean and renewable sources of energy, such as wind, solar, and geothermal power. Such a transition won’t be easy, for the oil, coal, and gas corporations will fight back, using their grip on Congress to resist any changes that cut into their profits. To turn the tide would require a no-holds-barred grassroots campaign, one that should be guided by intelligent planning and inspired by a conscientious concern for all the world’s people, present and future.

Because the pipeline will cross the border between Canada and the U.S., a presidential permit is needed for construction to go ahead. Before the permit is granted, the President directs the Secretary of State to determine whether the project is in the “national interest.” The Department of State then commissions an environmental impact study on the basis of which the President makes his decision. While final authority to approve or reject the pipeline rests with the President, after the impact assessment is issued, the Department solicits comments from public citizens, government agencies, tribal governments, and interested non-governmental organizations. This should give us hope that our collective voices can make a difference.

A little over a year ago President Obama was on the verge of approving the Keystone pipeline, but passionate protests by environmentalists, climate scientists, clergy, and ordinary citizens—staged just as the election season began—convinced him it would be more prudent to delay a decision until after the election. Since then the decision has been postponed several times, pending a new State Department assessment of the pipeline’s likely environmental impact.

This past Friday, March 1st, at 4 pm, just as the work week was winding down, the draft of the new assessment was released.[6] The report has sparked outrage throughout the climate movement. Michael Brune, executive director of the Sierra Club, issued a press release stating that if President Obama is really committed to fighting the climate crisis, “he should throw the State Department’s report away and reject the dirty and dangerous Keystone XL pipeline.” Bill McKibben announced his intention in the weeks ahead to mount as many public protests as possible. Jane Kleeb of the group Bold Nebraska wrote that “with a stroke of a pen he [Obama] can protect property rights, water, and make a dent in climate change.” Bill Snape of the Center for Biological Diversity said Obama “needs to take Keystone XL off the table. There’s simply no way to be in favor of this dirty, dangerous project and still think we’re going to avert climate catastrophe.”[7]

These critics are likely to be right. In any case, with global warming on the rise through a multitude of causes, we’ve got to call a halt somewhere to the quest for ever-new sources of fossil fuels, and KXL has just happened to emerge as the major battleground in the contest. This is the symbolic line in the sand that we can’t cross; this is the test that will determine how earnest we are about protecting our own future and preserving a viable planet for posterity. Tar-sands oil is one of the dirtiest fuels imaginable. To add its emissions to our atmosphere, already overburdened with carbon, is to play with fire and fury. A post on the RealClimate website succinctly explains the significance of KXL: “If the Keystone XL pipeline is built, it surely smooths the way for further expansions of the market for oil sands crude. Turning down XL, in contrast, draws a line in the oil sands, and affirms the principle that this carbon shall not pass into the atmosphere.”

If KXL becomes operational, the greenhouse gases released into our skies may push the climate beyond the point of reversibility, leaving us a barren, desecrated, desolate world. Rejecting the pipeline could propel us onto an alternative course, a new pathway leading away from fossil fuels to a rapid expansion of clean renewable energy. We now stand at a critical crossroads, and the President’s decision may well depend on whether we let him know our minds. In this momentous contest, we can’t sit by as passive observers but must step forward as warriors for the climate, as defendants of the culture of life against the profit-driven culture of death.

The Sierra Club has given us the opportunity to communicate directly with the White House. On their website you will find an appeal that you can send to President Obama, urging him to reject the Keystone XL pipeline. Only weeks remain until he makes his decision, so don’t postpone writing to a rainy day. Take action now right here.

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[1] See too Brown’s remarks at the Earth Policy Institute’s 2012 Teleconference: http://www.earth-policy.org/images/uploads/transcripts/Transcript-CORN_HARVEST_TELECONFERENCE_7-19-2012.pdf.

[2] For excerpts from the talks see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XZbsMea6A0E. For a video of the full program see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KDtksA9vmiE.

[3] These figures are taken from Alberta Energy, http://www.energy.alberta.ca/oilsands/791.asp.

[4] These facts are taken from Desmogblog’s “Top 10 Facts About the Alberta Oil Sands,” updated February 2013, at http://www.desmogblog.com/top-10-facts-canada-alberta-oil-sands-information.

[5]  For more on the dangers posed by the pipeline, see Key Facts on Keystone XL | Rainforest Action Network http://ran.org/key-facts-keystone-xl#ixzz2Mg7226kT. The Desmogblog fact sheet on the tar sands reports that in April, 2008, a flock of migrating ducks landed on a tar sands toxic lake and died.

[6] For the Executive Summary of the Environmental Impact Statement, see http://keystonepipeline-xl.state.gov/documents/organization/205719.pdf.

[7] All citations are taken from the Common Dreams article “State Dept. Releases Keystone XL Environmental Impact Statement,” available at http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2013/03/01-7. For a detailed critical analysis of the Statement, see Danielle Droitsch, “Another Flawed Environmental Review on the Keystone XL Tar Sands Pipeline,” at http://switchboard.nrdc.org/blogs/ddroitsch/another_flawed_environmental_r.html.

Buddhist Global Relief Makes Emergency Donation To Feed Syrian Refugees

Moved by the plight of the hundreds of thousands of refugees who have fled the ongoing conflict in Syria, Buddhist Global Relief has made an emergency donation of $10,000 to the World Food Programme (“WFP”) to help feed families forced from their homes.

According to the WFP, over 1.2 million people are displaced inside Syria and some 250,000 people have fled the country and become refugees in neighboring countries. Many fled the conflict zones with their families under shelling and gunfire from both government and rebel forces, often able to bring along only the clothes that they were wearing. Harsh conditions in refugee camps—including plummeting temperatures and flooding—are making for a life of intense suffering. Many families living in tents lack heaters and winter clothing.

Food for these families is the most critical need. It takes only $72 to provide a month’s worth of food for a Syrian refugee family. BGR’s donation will feed 138 families for an entire month during the difficult winter season.

The WFP is the food assistance branch of the United Nations, and it is the world’s largest humanitarian organization addressing global hunger. It is funded entirely by voluntary donations.  To read more about the humanitarian crisis in Syria, and to make a personal  donation, go here.

We are thankful to BGR’s generous donors who are making this emergency food donation possible.

BGR Wins Prestigious Award

Ven. Bhikkhu Bodhi

We are pleased to inform our readers that Buddhist Global Relief was selected by the Foundation Beyond Belief as an encore beneficiary of its “Challenge the Gap” program  for the first quarter of 2013. In the email telling us about this award, A.J. Chalom, the Foundation’s Humanist Giving Program Coordinator, writes:

Your commitment to adding programs for people in need and our positive response from our members when you were last featured helped with our selection.  It’s often assumed that an unbridgeable gap exists between the religious and non-religious. Challenge the Gap—Different Beliefs, Common Goals is an innovative humanist program that challenges this idea by finding and working the common ground between theists and non-theists. In April of this year, 100% of the funds collected in the Challenge the Gap beneficiary category will be distributed to BGR. Though we cannot guarantee any specific amount, the average raised for our recent beneficiaries has been approximately $7,000. We hope this contribution will assist you in the success of your programs.

Foundation Beyond Belief is a charitable foundation created to focus, encourage, and demonstrate generosity in the secular humanist community. The Foundation highlights five charitable organizations per quarter. Its members (over 1,100) join by signing up for a monthly automatic donation in the amount of their choice, and then set up personal profiles to indicate how they would like their contribution distributed among the featured causes. At the end of each quarter, 100% of the donations are forwarded to the beneficiaries and a new slate is selected. More information about the Challenge the Gap program can be found on their website here.

In its recent blogpost (01/28/13) about BGR, the full text of which can be found here, the Foundation writes:

Buddhist Global Relief’s mission is simple to put into words—to combat chronic hunger and malnutrition—but the work they do is anything but simple. Their vision is a complex image of a future without poverty, with equal access to education, where we live in harmony with our natural world, and where all people have the shelter, clothing, and health care they need. To work toward their vision of an improved world, Buddhist Global Relief works to sponsor programs around the globe run by local organizations with track records of success in those communities. These programs support the BGR mission by providing direct food aid, developing sustainable approaches to food production, educating young women and girls, and giving girls opportunities to start projects to support their families.

Naturally, we are deeply grateful to the Foundation Beyond Belief for their cordial words and for selecting BGR as their beneficiary. We are also grateful to all our donors, supporters, and volunteers, whose contributions of whatever sort  have enabled BGR to win the respect of the wider humanitarian community.

Ending Poverty in America

Ven. Bhikkhu Bodhi

Americans routinely hail their country as the greatest nation on earth, a land of boundless opportunity providing everyone the chance to fulfill their dreams of freedom, prosperity, and success. Reality, however, does not quite live up to this rhetoric. Over the past three decades, U.S. poverty rates have actually increased and by 2010 over 46 million people in this country, approximately 1 person in 7, could be considered poor. In flat contradiction to its self-image, the U.S. now ranks lowest among industrialized nations on many critical indicators of economic and social well-being.

According to a briefing from the Institute of Policy Studies, among all economically advanced countries, the U.S. has the highest rates of relative poverty and child poverty. It also has one of the largest margins of income inequality and the smallest number of social services provided to its citizens. Contrary to the creed of neoliberal economic theory, those countries in which the government devotes more funds to social services are consistently more successful in reducing poverty and inequality than those that adopt a “Wild West” version of corporate capitalism.

Politicians have treated poverty as if it were a taboo topic not to be spoken about in polite company. While long hours in Congress are devoted to debating how to avoid a fiscal cliff, barely a glance is given to those who have fallen off the poverty cliff and face a daily struggle just to survive. Talk about reducing the economic burden on the middle class and protecting small businesses is considered respectable, but acknowledging the existence of an underclass can raise shrieks about “class warfare,” as if it were the poor that are attacking the rich.