Urban Ecoist

The other day I wrote about the kitchen garden that First Lady Michelle Obama is putting in on the White House grounds, the first garden since the World War II victory garden tended by Eleanor Roosevelt. Mrs. Obama decided to garden after being gently encouraged by a group called Kitchen Gardeners International, and just when you’d think that the First Lady is going to get some respect for doing something like planting some lettuce and peas for White House dinners, another group has taken offense.

The Catch-22 Garden

Seems the organic garden of Mrs. Obama is ruffling some feathers among those that farm the “conventional” way. Ok, is it odd that the way of farming that has been around for thousands of years and lead to the dawn of civilization is not called “conventional”? No, conventional farming is the newfangled less-than-a-century-in-use chemical farming that everyone thought was the answer to all of our species troubles.

Anyway, the Mid America CropLife Association has sent Mrs. Obama a letter asking her to rethink her plans to go organic in her kitchen garden. The main gist of the argument is that chemical “conventional” agricultural practices are good enough for everyone else, so the Obamas don’t need to go starting something.

Here’s a brilliant passage from the letter, which I got from La Vida Locavore.

Starting in the early 1900’s, technology advances have allowed farmers to continually produce more food on less land while using less human labor. Over time, Americans were able to leave the time-consuming demands of farming to pursue new interests and develop new abilities. Today, an average farmer produces enough food to feed 144 Americans who are living longer lives than many of their ancestors. Technology in agriculture has allowed for the development of much of what we know and use in our lives today. If Americans were still required to farm to support their family’s basic food and fiber needs, would the U.S. have been leaders in the advancement of science, communication, education, medicine, transportation and the arts?

We live in a very different world than that of our grandparents. Americans are juggling jobs with the needs of children and aging parents. The time needed to tend a garden is not there for the majority of our citizens, certainly not a garden of sufficient productivity to supply much of a family’s year-round food needs.

Much of the food considered not wholesome or tasty is the result of how it is stored or prepared rather than how it is grown. Fresh foods grown conventionally are wholesome and flavorful yet more economical. Local and conventional farming is not mutually exclusive. However, a Midwest mother whose child loves strawberries, a good source of Vitamin C, appreciates the ability to offer California strawberries in March a few months before the official Mid-west season.

So, chemicals pesticides and fertilizers are responsible for mankind’s advances in other “fields”…ok, sure, I’ll buy that a constant food supply does allow for surpluses, which would in turn lead to wealth that would be able to fund research and the arts. But a lot of studies are showing that there is very little real advantage to conventional farming methods, and that often the health of the soil is degraded over many seasons as the farmers are throwing chemical nutrients into the soil hoping that the plants will absorb them before they leach through the soils into the groundwater supply. If the nutrients are not staying the soil, then the soil turns to dust.

And I love the part at the end about a Midwestern mother be able to give her strawberry-loving child berries in March rather than waiting for the June strawberry season. Come on, that is a poor argument, especially as we start looking at the total carbon footprint of the agricultural industry and see that transporting produce in off-seasons can really add up in terms of carbon emissions. Not only that, but that California strawberry was picked while it was underripe, and underdeveloped nutritionally-speaking, so that it would be perfectly ripe by the time it made its cross-country trip to that Illinois grocery store.

That Midwestern mother would be better off teaching her kid about seasonality and how local produce is more often than not the produce at the peak of its nutritional load. Better yet, she could plant a strawberry patch with her child and then freeze extra berries for March, or make the berries into jam to have all year like my mom did.

Michelle Obama, organic gardening, White House, kitchen garden, agriculture, crops, farming, conventional farming, chemicals, fertilizers, pesticides, seasonality, local foods, Kitchen Gardeners International, carbon emissions

This is just like the whole Clean Coal ad campaign of which I am a big fan. You can read some of my odes here and here.

Now, let me tell you something, Smart Black Lady who is ironically more at risk for the disease that high fructose corn syrup is known to cause — Diabetes.

A little history on the corn industry — think again, if you think it’s all just quaint little family farms growing corn on their daddy and granddaddy’s land. Too often, those who live in the cities have a very naive view of farming and where their food really comes from. Those little guys were bought out years ago, and now huge corporations are farming a big percentage of America’s farmland. And due to some crazy farm laws, corn growers get subsidized to grow corn. That’s right. Big corporate farms make money just to grow corn on top of what they sell it for, and then they get tax breaks that mean they make more on selling their product. And gee, I wonder how you can make even more money from this magical crop?

Yes, find more uses for corn. I mean, come on, who can eat corn for every meal, right? So, let’s process that corn and strip it down to its basic components, namely the glucose. Add an enzyme and you can make fructose. Blend that fructose with the right ratio of sucrose, and viola, you get HFCS, a fine substitute for expensive cane or beet sugar. But the problem is that by “watering down” the sucrose, you are creating a larger problem within your body. You see, it’s sucrose that helps you feel satisfied, and studies are indicating that your body does not process fructose in a way is regulated. Sucrose needs sucrase to break it down, and your body only produces so much of it. Think of sucrose like wheat bread with fibre, and fructose as white bread. Fibre helps you feel full, which in turn helps you stop eating. And Americans don’t stop eating…

Anyway, the corporate farmers figured that if they can convince American food processors to use more HFCS in place of sugars, then that is a whole new market in which to make billions. Real sugar is more expensive than sugar, so food processors and soft drink makers were more than happy to use a ready-to-mix liquid that can save them money. And guess what? The same corporations that own the farms also own the companies that make the processed food. So essentially, corporations like Cargill and ArcherDanielsMidland, grow corn to make into HFCS and then use that cheaper HFCS to make the foods we all know and love, foods that are sold with mascots and big advertising campaigns. And it’s all making us fat and unhealthy, which in turn makes us spend more on health costs, which in turn means that American pharmaceutical and insurance companies are making money.

Do you ever get the feeling that the US Government has really sold us out?

And long-term testing…what long term testing? We see it all around us. Americans not only drink the stuff in soft drinks, but with more and more people using packaged, processed ready-to-eat meals (made by the same corporations that grow the corn and make the HFCS remember), and, well, the hens are coming home to roost.

Mmm…chicken.

Don’t get me started on the Chicken Industry.

high fructose corn syrup, corn, obesity, diabetes, disease, health, American diet, soft drinks, sucrose, sucrase, enzyme, processed foods, industry, corporate farms, farming, government, subsidies, chicken, Cargill, ArcherDanielsMidland, HFCS

I have spent some time in the past on the issue of clean coal, both on this site and on Urban Ecoist’s sistah-site, Daily Science Dose, here and here. So it won’t come as any secret to anyone that I am skeptical of the fossil fuel industry and I like sharing my skepticism with all my smart and well-groomed readers.

I received my first update from a group called the ACCCE. At first, I had to wonder what group this was, but I sign up for newsletters from many, many organizations, so it was perfectly reasonable for me not to figure out immediately that ACCCE stands for the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity.

The email itself doesn’t explain the acronym, but there are several handy links in the body of the message. One of which takes you to the Behind the Plug blog. Here, I’ll give you a link to it as well, it’s that awesome!

An example of pure comedy genius:

Today’s post is all about the “regrettable choice” that my home state of Michigan has made by forcing Big Coal to slow down plans to build more coal-fired power plants in the Great Lakes State.

Recently, Michigan’s Governor has taken a stand to become a “green energy” state. The auto plants have let the state down, and she is looking to the future to save her sorry state. Have you not noticed the ads on TV every now and then (I usually see them during PGA Tour events) with Jeff Daniels talking about how great it is to do business in Michigan? Michigan is hurting, economically, as it has depended on old, dirty technology for far too long.

The Clean Coal blog claims that due to the automaker’s forced re-tooling, the state will be needing a “robust supply of baseload energy.” And renewable sources “will not be sufficient to meet that growing need.” No evidence to support that claim there, but why would Big Coal lie? Here’s the best part…

Gov. Granholm also set a goal to reduce the carbon footprint associated with power generation in her state. That goal can be best met through deploying new technologies that capture and store CO2, not through mandates that would lessen Michigan’s reliance on affordable, domestic energy resources like coal – which currently provides more than 60 percent of Michigan’s power.

There are currently eight new coal plants being proposed in Michigan. Each of these projects provides an opportunity to create jobs for Michigan workers and ensure that electricity production keeps pace with the state’s projected energy needs. These plants can be retrofitted with advanced technologies to capture and store CO2. In fact, given the time necessary to permit and construct a new power plant today, it’s possible that these technologies would become available for deployment at or very near the time these new plants are put into operation.

I added the emphasis on that last sentence.

So the argument is that coal will be just fine when the new technology is installed to capture the carbon and sequester it elsewhere. BUT…that technology is not available. The writer even admits that, but he lamely offers a possibility that those new technologies may prove successful enough by the time that these new coal plants are built that the plants can be retrofitted to reduce their emissions.

This post is just an example of the greenwashing going on. I am tempted to leave a comment, just for giggles, as the comment will only appear after being approved by the author.

And let’s look at the author. He’s Joe Lucas. He’s the ACCCE’s VP of Communications. And he also helped found a group called the Americans for Balanced Energy Choices, which is one of two groups that merged to form the ACCCE. The ABEC was a lobbying group. They got their funding from guess who, the mining industry. In just the last year that ABEC operated, the group received over 3 million dollars in funding.

Huh, I guess that it is “possible” that Mr. Lucas is maybe just a little biased…

coal, clean coal, ACCCE, Americans Coalition for Clean Coal Technology, Americans for Balanced Energy Choices, mining, Big Coal, carbon, Michigan, Governor Granholm, renewable, energy, automakers, technology, greenwashing, lobbyists

The wonderful thing about Urban Ecoists is that we are not only concerned about the immediate eco-system around us, but we see the macro-system as it is all inter-related. Healthy forests and rivers means healthy cities. Despite the fact, that we urbanites live in cities, we love our wilderness. And we love the myriad creatures that inhabit those places. We see protecting that wilderness and the organisms that dwell there as a sacred (not a word I use often) responsibility.

Too bad we don’t have an open season for this species…

In such, do you know what your lame duck president and his hench men are trying to do before they leave office? Well, I could never cover it all in this little blog, but today I will urge you to submit your comment during this next week to the Secretary of the Interior, Dirk Kempthorne regarding proposed changes to the Endangered Species Act. The public comment period ends September 15, 2008.

The changes in a nutshell are a good start at gutting the very things that have made to the Endangered Species Act a success. I will not bore you with all the details, I will let the Center for Biological Diversity do that for me, but essentially, the ESA works because any federal agency, such as the Office of Surface Mining, would have to work with the Fish and Wildlife Service to make sure that any new mine approved by the OSM would be environmentally-sound and not pose a danger to any, well, fish and wildlife. Do you like how I chose agencies whose names tell the story for me? A good writer is an efficient one, ask Hemingway. Not that I am comparing myself to Hemingway, oh, never mind. I’m lazy, there I said it.

Anyhoo, the new rules could lighten up on having “interagency checks and balances.” Also, the period for scientists to evaluate a project is cut by a third and automatically okay’d if the science doesn’t make the deadline. There are some other scary changes, too, like re-defining or limiting what effects would be considered harmful, and the like. Check out the Center for Biological Diversity’s website to find out more and to take action by emailing in a pre-written letter to Secretary Kempthorne and the Department of the Interior. I always like to email the [sic]President as well when it comes to these sorts of things. He whose name must not be named’s email is comments@whitehouse.gov.

Endangered Species Act, Dirk Kempthorne, Department of the Interior, Office of Surface Mining, Fish and Wildlife Service, Center for Biological Diversity