NEWSLETTER MAY 2004

CLIMATE CHANGE

It's Getting Hot in Here

Climate change is back on the political agenda with a vengeance. Last month, Tony Blair helped launch a new international organisation, The Climate Group, with an impressive array of business leaders from both sides of the Atlantic in support. Government caps on pollution from industry have been announced so that carbon trading can finally begin and Tony Blair has stated that he intends to make climate change,  along with Africa, his big project for chairmanship of the G8 group of leading industrial countries next year. These events followed on from reports predicting that the UK was facing catastrophic floods over the next 80 years. The big question is:  Will he maintain this stance in the face of pressure from the Confederation of British Industry, who are already whinging that too strict caps on pollution would damage competitiveness, and Big Brother George Bush. The attempted gagging of Sir David King, the Prime Minister's chief scientist, after he made outspoken comments about Bush's policy(!) on climate change suggest that the strings are still being pulled from the other side of the Atlantic.The science of Global Warming is no longer the obstacle in this campaign. Everyone , with any credibility, agrees that gases such as Carbon Dioxide, Methane and oxides of Nitrogen are trapping heat in the atmosphere. The problem, as ever, remains co-ordinating the political will, or in some cases creating the political will (take a bow George Bush), to prevent the current situation deteriorating further and to cope with the problems we have already created. See inside for the likely consequences for us if we carry on as we are at present and what YOU can do to prevent them.

 ”Climate change presents serious challenges for the South-East; many of the impacts on the UK will be most pronounced in our  region.”

Mark Goldthorpe

Programme Manager, South-East Climate Change  Partnership.

GM CROPS

Going Round in (Crop) Circles

The government still intends to keep the GM door open. But it has nowhere near resolved many thorny issues that individually or cumulatively may trip it up, seriously delaying planting or making GM practically impossible to grow.

1 The crop

The only crop in the British pipeline was Chardon LL (Liberty Link) T25, a maize developed by GM company Bayer to be tolerant tobeing sprayed with its best-selling herbicide, Liberty, and to be fed only to animals. But Bayer have now decided to withdraw Chardon LL, claiming that the conditions imposed by the government were too strict. This is ironic, considering the lengths the UK government went to to approve the crop, with question marks over the marketing consent Bayer received for the crop, based as they were on only one feeding study on chickens with none carried out on cattle.

2 The politics

The government must persuade a sceptical Scottish executive and a hostile Welsh assembly to accept GM crops. Both countries have the power to block acceptance and are being lobbied fiercely by environmental groups which argue that they stand to gain economically by remaining GM-free. Wales has already voted overwhelmingly to be GM-free.

3 Insurance

No British company wants to cover the risk of GM crops polluting non-GM crops - an inevitability, according to all scientific studies. The risk of litigation is real, and not just from organic farmers who stand to be put out of business. In the US, a GM maize called Starlink was approved for animal feed, but made its way into tortillas. Courts made awards of over $100m, including $6m to individuals who said they had suffered allergic reactions. The National Farmers’ Union hopes insurers will offer lower premiums to non-GM growers who take precautions. The government wants all farmers to take out insurance, but the industry refuses to underwrite the risks. No farmer will plant until this is resolved.

4 The distances

The biotech industry has voluntary guidelines setting distances between GM and other crops but these are widely regarded as hopelessly inadequate. Research shows that fodder maize can cross-pollinate plants up to 800m away and that under certain conditions, can travel miles.  The government can, but does not have to, set statutory distances. Government advisers argue that it should, but this would leave it  financially and legally exposed if pollination occurs beyond the recommended distances. Even 800m seems far too small a distance when you consider that, under the right weather conditions, much heavier grains of sand from as far away as the Sahara desert can be deposited on the UK.

5 The law

Conservative MP Gregory Barker, supported by Friends of the Earth, has introduced a Private Member’s GM Bill that would set stringent separation distances to prevent cross-contamination, a strict liability code and would force industry to compensate farmers affected. Many believe the Bill would make it impractical to grow most GM crops. It will be debated in Parliament next month but is unlikely to get government backing.

6 The retailers

The Chardon maize will feed cattle and will not be on sale to the public, but supermarkets are coming under pressure to refuse to sell dairy products from cows that are fed on GM products. Only Marks & Spencer has agreed to this policy so far, but Greenpeace believes that if just one more caves in, the rest will follow - rendering the crop ungrowable. Last month, protesters, dressed as pantomime cows, invaded Sainsbury’s flagship outlet in Greenwich, and promises were made that many others would be targeted.

7 The public

The government plans a major campaign to swing public opinion, which is largely against GM products, and will be lobbying its friends in the food and drink industry. The push could easily backfire as the anti-GM lobby fights back.

8 Democracy

The government will have to counter the growing number of regions applying direct to the EC to become GM-free zones. Some parts of Austria applied last year but failed because they tried to get protection under the Treaty of Rome. Legal advice for Friends of the Earth, however, suggests that if regions apply under the Deliberate Release Directive ,they are more likely to succeed. So far, 40 British counties, unitary authorites, one national park and many district councils have voted to prevent GM being grown on land that they control.  Half of these are likely to go on to apply for complete GM-free status. Hundreds of regions, communities and districts in mainland Europe are also exploring ways to legally stop the crops being grown and are exchanging information and strategies.

9 The anti-GM lobby

The first farmers who grow the crop will become targets of the 2,500 activists who have pledged to destroy the crops or support those who do. While there will be no public register of GM farms, protesters believe it will not be hard to identify growers or to deter the vast majority.

Reproduced, with additions, from the Guardian 25/2/04

Recently, Monsanto announced that it would abandon plans to develop       genetically modified wheat anywhere in the world. This is despite investing years and hundreds of millions of  dollars into researching and developing wheat to be resistant to its own Round-Up pesticide. Massive consumer resistance to GM crops in  Europe and Japan have meant that the Canadian and American farmers  growing the crop would have had very little export market making the crop  commercially unviable. Monsanto have also announced that they are pulling out of developing GM oil seed rape in Australia and sugar beet in Europe (with Syngenta). This is yet another massive blow for the GM industry and comes hot on the heels of the Spanish government  withdrawing the consent for Syngentas Bt Corn, the only GM crop being commercially grown in Europe, because of fears that it could lead to anti-biotic resistant super bugs, and Bayer  backing out of growing GM crops in Britain

(SchNEWS 448).

GM Campaign Achievements

Here’s a brief summary of the anti-GM campaign achievements over the last 12 months: At the government’s “GM public debate” last summer 86% of those participating said they did not want GM foods. There were accusations of the debate being  hijacked by the W.I. (SIC!)  (Paramilitary wing no doubt! Ed.). A group of people who had not taken part and were neither pro or anti-GM were found to have more and more reservations about GM the more they learnt about it. The supermarkets are responding to  consumers by extending their anti-GM  policies. The Co-op and Marks and Spencer have gone furthest in this. With this newsletter you will receive a form to fill in and hand to your supermarket manager (or customer services). Please ask them to forward it to their head office. If you manage to never shop at supermarkets, good for you! If you have no form, you should have already received one, hand delivered.

 The US, Canada and Argentina are having a legal dispute with the European Union through the World Trade Organisation over our ‘negative’ attitude to GM crops which they see as a barrier to their trade. They reckon they’ve lost £1 billion over the last 6 years through the EU not importing any of their tasty GM foods. They also think that the recently implemented (18th April 2004) new EU GM labelling regulations are a barrier to trade and are therefore illegal. The EU is fighting back at the legal level. Meanwhile a citizen’s objection has been organised Europe-wide on-line and on paper. Bayer (formerly Aventis) have just withdrawn the one GM crop to have received commercial planting approval in the UK - Chardon LL fodder maize, so National Friends of the Earth thinks that we will have no commercial planting in the UK until 2008 at the earliest, but we must  keep up the  pressure! One of the reasons for the withdrawal is probably the government’s refusal to keep secret the locations of GM crop sites in spite of Bayer’s lobbying!

The FoE GM-Free Britain campaign now has 21 County Council and Unitary Authorities signed up as GM Free Zones, including all of S.W. England, plus 23 smaller councils. 14 million people live in these zones. We have not had much success with Cambridgeshire County Council in spite of your signatures and have still to lobby the City Council further and present signatures to them. In Europe, Austria, Slovenia and Northern Italy have declared themselves GM Free Zones, along with 1000 mayors of towns in France. Worldwide Venezuela is banning GM crops in spite of US pressure. In Africa, Angola, Sudan, Malawi, Mozambique, Zambia and Zimbabwe have refused US food aid and imports unless certified to be GM free - almost a practical impossibility.

If you would like any more information on the World Trade Organisation, seed purity, the Third World and GM or any other technical aspects of GM please contact Ursula on C. 840882 or  ustubbings@hotmail.com as I have some very good FoE briefing sheets.

 Two very good GM websites are: www.gmwatch.org and  www.ngin.org.uk

Ursula

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John Clark, is compiling a register of people growing maize as part of the GM campaign, so please tell him if you are. A few plants can even be grown in a window box.

For more details, he can be contacted at :       

Cropton Mill,

Pickering,

N.Yorks.

Tel: 01751 417131

e-mail:

johnclark@gmfreeryedale.org.uk

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By the 2080s, in the South-East of England

Winter rainfall will be 30-35% higher

Summer rainfall will be 50-60% lower

Autumn and summer soil moisture content  will  be 40-50% lower

Winter snowfall will be 90% lower

Winter daily average wind speeds will be 9-11% higher

Summer cloud cover will be 15-18% lower.

The distribution of a kilogram of apples from New Zealand to the UK consumer results in one kilogram of carbon dioxide emissions, an average of twenty times larger than if the apples were locally-sourced.