Another week of GW News, February 27, 2011

Logging the Onset of The Bottleneck Years


This weekly posting is brought to you courtesy of H. E. Taylor. Happy reading, I hope you enjoy this week's Global Warming news roundup

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Another week of Climate Instability News

Logging the Onset of The Bottleneck Years

February 27, 2011


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Low Key Plug

My first novel Water was published in Canada May, 2007. The American release was in October. An Introductionto the novel is available, along with the Unpublished Forewordand the Launch Talk(which includes some quotations), An overview of my writing is available here.

<regards>

-het

P.S. Recent postings can be found in the week archive and the ancient postings can be accessed here, which should open to this.


"There's a lot more to higher global grain prices than just the US preoccupation with gas-guzzling cars and subsidising farmers. Drought in China, floods in Australia, fires in Russia, more people wanting more food, they all play a role. But while natural disasters and human hunger happen, willfully burning food is a particular form of obscenity." -Michael Pascoe

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HET's novel looks interesting. As someone with background in population genetics, I would disagree with the notion that Metis people could harbour a genetic mutation that would not be found in other groups. Metis is a cultural distinction more than a genetic distinction, and Metis lineages are greatly intermixed with other lineages.

Coby, an off-topic question ... where was your profile pic near the top left of this page taken? It looks a heck of a lot like one of the peaks of Mt. Unnecessary (near the Lions) along Howe Sound. Am I close?

It's not really to do with climate change, but I found this report both unexpected and worrying. There's no obvious (to me) reason why GM foods should cause serious health problems for livestock but from this evidence it certainly seems to be the case.

By Richard Simons (not verified) on 05 Mar 2011 #permalink

Greg, not too far off, just a bit south of the mark! This was on the third (maybe 2nd??) peak of Stawamus Chief near Squamish. Beautiful day!

Have not been on top of Unnecessary Mountain, it has always seemed, well, you know ;-)

Richard, that is only the tip of the ice berg in regards to GMO's. At last research is now being carried out and reported on the problems with GMO's. Until recently, it was almost impossible for a researcher to publish any results which were negative towards GMO's. A good example of this was one of the very first negative papers published by Dr. Arpad Pusztai who was a researcher at the Rowett Institute in Aberdeen Scotland. He received praise from the Institution's head immediately after a brief interview on BBC on his results. Within 24 hours he was fired and was blackballed and smeared.

Many years later, after a FOI request in Germany the results of some regulatory tests were released. The "event" was approved in the US even though many of the test animals exhibited many of the same malformations found in Pusztai's early work.

There are many, many more similar examples of problems with GMO's. Perhaps Coby can start a thread so those of us who are "skeptical" (in the true sense) can discuss the problems.

Many of the same names come up when looking at the AGW deniers and the list of GMO supporters e.g Avery and his son.

By Ian Forrester (not verified) on 06 Mar 2011 #permalink

>Have not been on top of Unnecessary Mountain, it has always seemed, well, you know ;-)

Good one! Here's the best reason to go there: Assemble a group of avid hikers into two cars, park one at the Lions trailhead in Lions Bay, pile everyone into the other car and drive to the highest point on the other side of Lions Bay, which is where the Unnecessary trailhead is. Now you can hike a loop, and you probably won't see another party until you get to the Lions proper. At the right time of year, you get to ascend a mostly dry trail, cross a snow covered ridge to the Lions, and then boot-ski the first part of the descent.

This is a challenging hike though. I did it a few times between 18 and 25. I would require considerable preparation to get myself ready for that now.

Ian

Before changing threads, I just had to respond to your post #6.

Now, I am not saying you are wrong, but don't you think your comments read a little paranoid? Sort of like the standard spiel of the AGW denier. Broken peer review. Dissent suppressed. AGW deniers = GMO supporters.

I look forward to seeing some of the evidence for these claims over at the new thread.

mandas, I'm a biochemist who has done work on gene regulation. If you could only understand what the genetic engineers are doing and the complacency of the US regulatory system you would not accuse me of paranoia. I am preparing a post for the new thread. It will be a long one.

There has been way too much secrecy and muzzling of people who are trying to show the negative effects of GMO's. There has also been a whole lot of propaganda on the usefulness of the products. Check on "golden rice" and the virus resistant yams. Nothing useful at all but the projects were praised like crazy.

The only recent advances in agriculture in the developing world which have been of use to farmers and consumers have been developed using none r-DNA techniques. The past Chief Scientist in the UK made a major gaff in his farewell speech when he praised a project in Africa as being due to r-DNA technology when in fact it was a non-GMO project.

By Ian Forrester (not verified) on 06 Mar 2011 #permalink