"King Corn" Threatens Our Health and Environment
Question:
> >I see o’ Jimbo is still telling lies. > Two things are then clear. If Jim is telling lies then he is posting. > He is not telling lies when he is sleeping I suppose. > Now we can expect one of the Mommies to come and smother him.
True, true and true.
Response:
>"You environmentalists forced California to add an oxygenate to >gasoline." >The Clean Air Amendments of 1990 were the creatures of scheming >lobbying environmentalists — not, I assure you, the Republican party.
And who voted for it? That’s called Democracy. >The amendments required the use of reformulated gasoline containing an >oxygenate. I showed that environmentalists (the Sierra Club) sued >"very automatically" to compel the EPA to meet Amendment deadlines.
What’s wrong with ensuring that the law is complied with? If you don’t like environmental regulations, you should go live in the former Soviet Union. Because of a lack of environmental controls, life expectancy for men is 53 years, so you’re already overdrawn on your life account. It’s a good example of what happens without environmental regulations.
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>There is nothing necessarily wrong with promoting a law and suing to >see that it’s enforced, but if you will recall, this discussion came >about because I pointed out (and later proved) exactly what >environmentalists had done and you called me a liar.
You have only proven that the statement was a lie, and will remain a lie. Please engage brain before putting mouth in gear. >I don’t like that word "liar". Unless provoked by some jackass >calling me a liar, I refrain from using it. You would do well to >follow the same policy.
Oh, now you put on the Mr. Goody Two-shoes mask. It won’t work Miss Representation. Screw you. You misrepresent so many things, you have lost the capability to tell the difference.
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- Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – > may have said: >>There is nothing necessarily wrong with promoting a law and suing to >>see that it’s enforced, but if you will recall, this discussion came >>about because I pointed out (and later proved) exactly what >>environmentalists had done and you called me a liar. >You have only proven that the statement was a lie, and will remain a lie. >Please engage brain before putting mouth in gear. >>I don’t like that word "liar". Unless provoked by some jackass >>calling me a liar, I refrain from using it. You would do well to >>follow the same policy. >Oh, now you put on the Mr. Goody Two-shoes mask. It won’t work Miss >Representation. >Screw you. You misrepresent so many things, you have lost the capability to >tell the difference. > Name calling — the last resort of the inept of mind and mouth. > Jeff
Time to put the asshole in the trash!
Response:
>> Thanks, Jim. Now who is the liar? > Jeff >I see o’ Jimbo is still telling lies.
You right Wingers have nothing to offer the world except plans to destroy the planet for bigger cars; and of course to brand anyone who disagrees with you as a liar. Ann Coulter and Carl Rove would be proud. .
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>!. "You environmentalists forced California to add an oxygenate to >gasoline." >TRUE! >Surely you would not care to debate the truth of that sentence. But if >you would: >An environmental history lesson for Chamblee: >Reformulated gasoline with an oxygenate component was MANDATED by >Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990.
But you said that environmentalists FORCED the use of MTBE. No "environmentalists" passed the Clean Air Act, and no "environmentalists" recommended MTBE. "environmentalists" and others may have concurred on the selection, so get your lies straight.
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- Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – > may have said: >>Jim — You environmentalists forced California to add an oxygenate to >>gasoline. Turns out your preferred solution, MTBE, is poisoning the >>environment, >This is a LIE. > Bull Shit it’s a lie!! > !. "You environmentalists forced California to add an oxygenate to > gasoline." > TRUE! > Surely you would not care to debate the truth of that sentence. But if > you would: > An environmental history lesson for Chamblee: > Reformulated gasoline with an oxygenate component was MANDATED by > Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990. There were only two oxygenates > available in practical quantities — Ethanol (thank you, Glenn) and > Methyl Tertiary Butyl Ether (MTBE). Ethanol was initially out of the > running because it was too volatile to pass the very strict Clean Air > Act Amendments. Farmers attempted to obtain a waiver. Guess who > opposed granting the waiver — among others — environmentalists and > their bedfellows in the oil industry! > (15) Environmentalists, Oil Industry Join To Fight Pollution Waiver > For Ethanol. The Energy Report, Sept. 14, 1992. p. 616. > " The anti-waiver group included an unusual coalition of the oil > industry and environmentalists, among others. > At a Washington press conference last week, officials from the > Natural Resources Defense Council, the Sierra Club, the American > Petroleum Institute and the American Methanol Institute blasted > ethanol lobbyists’ efforts to pressure the Bush administration into > waiving the vapor pressure standard in EPA’s pending reformulated > gasoline rules for ethanol". (15) > http://www.cnie.org/nle/crsreports/air/air-7.cfm > The Center for Environmental Health Newsletter > Volume 7, Number 1, Spring 1998 > "Oxybusters, a citizens action group, has formed chapters across the > country advocating the abolition of MTBE use in gasoline. The Sierra > Club and the Natural Resources Defense Council, however, have not > jumped on the bandwagon against MTBE. Instead, they have strongly > defended the use of MTBE in gasoline to clean up the air." > http://www.sp.uconn.edu/~an226vc/98newsltr.htm#mtbe# > Don’t like the word "forced"? Think that’s a lie?? > "Several parties, including Congressman Henry Waxman (D, California), > Public Citizen, and the Sierra Club, have been helping EPA meet its > deadlines. "Wherever we’re missing deadlines, we’re getting sued very > automatically," says Brenner, "and we’re getting court deadlines." > http://ehpnet1.niehs.nih.gov/docs/1993/101-3/focus1.html > "As a way to clean up the air, the environmentalists strongly defend > MTBE’s use in gas. In fact, they found themselves in the odd position > of fighting alongside their usual foe, the oil industry, in defeating > Mountjoy’s attempt earlier this year to ban the additive." > http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/199… >The decision to use MTBE was recommended by private sector scientists. >Environmentalists could not and did not "FORCE" anything. > See above! >MTBE turns out to be a bad choice, which nobody could foresee. > It was foreseen. MTBE was recognized as a bad choice early on. > Health complaints related to MTBE were first reported in Denver, > Colorado in 1987 > http://www.sp.uconn.edu/~an226vc/98newsltr.htm#mtbe# > Environmentalists and their bed fellows in the oil industry fought the > switch to Ethanol long after it was apparent (or should have been) > that MTBE was a huge potential problem. Out here in California > conservatives led the fight against environmentalists, the oil > industry and MTBE. Specifically an organization called OxyBusters as > well as Melanie Morgan and a right leaning San Francisco radio > station, KSFO. In the state senate, the leading opponent of MTBE was > Dick Mountjoy, a Republican. >So What? Fix it and move on. > Yeah sure — after billions of gallons of ground water all over the > country have been contaminated with MTBE, which is not biodegradable. > When added to water in the minutest quantities imaginable It tastes > like turpentine, is a probable carcinogen, and is associated with > asthma and a variety of other illnesses. > Thanks, Jim. Now who is the liar? > Jeff
I see o’ Jimbo is still telling lies.
Response:
>Jim — You environmentalists forced California to add an oxygenate to >gasoline. Turns out your preferred solution, MTBE, is poisoning the >environment,
This is a LIE. The decision to use MTBE was recommended by private sector scientists. Environmentalists could not and did not "FORCE" anything. MTBE turns out to be a bad choice, which nobody could foresee. So What? Fix it and move on.
Response:
- Hide quoted text — Show quoted text ->may have said: >>This was today’s most emailed article at nytimes.com: >>July 19, 2002 >>When a Crop Becomes King >>By MICHAEL POLLAN >>CORNWALL BRIDGE, Conn. – Here in southern New England the corn is already >>waist high and growing so avidly you can almost hear the creak of stalk and >>leaf as the plants stretch toward the sun. The ears of sweet corn are just >>starting to show up on local farm stands, inaugurating one of the ceremonies >>of an American summer. >Jim — You environmentalists forced California to add an oxygenate to >gasoline. Turns out your preferred solution, MTBE, is poisoning the >environment, so we are forced to switch to methanol — which is >distilled from corn. Soon there will no doubt be a corn shortage. > It’s ETHANOL, not methanol. Methanol is wood (methyl) alcohol > and will cause you to go blind. Ethanol is grain (ethyl) alcohol > and will cause you to mellow out. Lord knows you need it. > If you want, just raise your own corn, distill it, and buy a Ford > that runs on 85 percent ethanol. Just remember not to drink the > product after you have mixed it with the 15 percent gasoline.
Drink the grain alcohol and you don’t need a Ford to get around in.
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ADM touts corn as a fuel, as in methanol production.
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– Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – >may have said: >This was today’s most emailed article at nytimes.com: >July 19, 2002 >When a Crop Becomes King >By MICHAEL POLLAN >CORNWALL BRIDGE, Conn. – Here in southern New England the corn is already >waist high and growing so avidly you can almost hear the creak of stalk and >leaf as the plants stretch toward the sun. The ears of sweet corn are just >starting to show up on local farm stands, inaugurating one of the ceremonies >of an American summer. >Jim — You environmentalists forced California to add an oxygenate to >gasoline. Turns out your preferred solution, MTBE, is poisoning the >environment, so we are forced to switch to methanol — which is >distilled from corn. Soon there will no doubt be a corn shortage.
It’s ETHANOL, not methanol. Methanol is wood (methyl) alcohol and will cause you to go blind. Ethanol is grain (ethyl) alcohol and will cause you to mellow out. Lord knows you need it. If you want, just raise your own corn, distill it, and buy a Ford that runs on 85 percent ethanol. Just remember not to drink the product after you have mixed it with the 15 percent gasoline.
Response:
This was today’s most emailed article at nytimes.com: July 19, 2002 When a Crop Becomes King By MICHAEL POLLAN CORNWALL BRIDGE, Conn. – Here in southern New England the corn is already waist high and growing so avidly you can almost hear the creak of stalk and leaf as the plants stretch toward the sun. The ears of sweet corn are just starting to show up on local farm stands, inaugurating one of the ceremonies of an American summer. These days the nation’s nearly 80 million-acre field of corn rolls across the countryside like a second great lawn, but this wholesome, all-American image obscures a decidedly more dubious reality. Like the tulip, the apple and the potato, zea mays (the botanical name for both sweet and feed corn) has evolved with humans over the past 10,000 years or so in the great dance of species we call domestication. The plant gratifies human needs, in exchange for which humans expand the plant’s habitat, moving its genes all over the world and remaking the land (clearing trees, plowing the ground, protecting it from its enemies) so it might thrive. Corn, by making itself tasty and nutritious, got itself noticed by Christopher Columbus, who helped expand its range from the New World to Europe and beyond. Today corn is the world’s most widely planted cereal crop. But nowhere have humans done quite as much to advance the interests of this plant as in North America, where zea mays has insinuated itself into our landscape, our food system – and our federal budget. One need look no further than the $190 billion farm bill President Bush signed last month to wonder whose interests are really being served here. Under the 10-year program, taxpayers will pay farmers $4 billion a year to grow ever more corn, this despite the fact that we struggle to get rid of the surplus the plant already produces. The average bushel of corn (56 pounds) sells for about $2 today; it costs farmers more than $3 to grow it. But rather than design a program that would encourage farmers to plant less corn – which would have the benefit of lifting the price farmers receive for it – Congress has decided instead to subsidize corn by the bushel, thereby insuring that zea mays dominion over its 125,000-square mile American habitat will go unchallenged. At first blush this subsidy might look like a handout for farmers, but really it’s a form of welfare for the plant itself – and for all those economic interests that profit from its overproduction: the processors, factory farms, and the soft drink and snack makers that rely on cheap corn. For zea mays has triumphed by making itself indispensable not to farmers (whom it is swiftly and surely bankrupting) but to the Archer Daniels Midlands, Tysons and Coca-Colas of the world. Our entire food supply has undergone a process of "cornification" in recent years, without our even noticing it. That’s because, unlike in Mexico, where a corn-based diet has been the norm for centuries, in the United States most of the corn we consume is invisible, having been heavily processed or passed through food animals before it reaches us. Most of the animals we eat (chickens, pigs and cows) today subsist on a diet of corn, regardless of whether it is good for them. In the case of beef cattle, which evolved to eat grass, a corn diet wreaks havoc on their digestive system, making it necessary to feed them antibiotics to stave off illness and infection. Even farm-raised salmon are being bred to tolerate corn – not a food their evolution has prepared them for. Why feed fish corn? Because it’s the cheapest thing you can feed any animal, thanks to federal subsidies. But even with more than half of the 10 billion bushels of corn produced annually being fed to animals, there is plenty left over. So companies like A.D.M., Cargill and ConAgra have figured ingenious new ways to dispose of it, turning it into everything from ethanol to Vitamin C and biodegradable plastics. By far the best strategy for keeping zea mays in business has been the development of high-fructose corn syrup, which has all but pushed sugar aside. Since the 1980’s, most soft drink manufacturers have switched from sugar to corn sweeteners, as have most snack makers. Nearly 10 percent of the calories Americans consume now come from corn sweeteners; the figure is 20 percent for many children. Add to that all the corn-based animal protein (corn-fed beef, chicken and pork) and the corn qua corn (chips, muffins, sweet corn) and you have a plant that has become one of nature’s greatest success stories, by turning us (along with several other equally unwitting species) into an expanding race of corn eaters. So why begrudge corn its phenomenal success? Isn’t this the way domestication is supposed to work? The problem in corn’s case is that we’re sacrificing the health of both our bodies and the environment by growing and eating so much of it. Though we’re only beginning to understand what our cornified food system is doing to our health, there’s cause for concern. It’s probably no coincidence that the wholesale switch to corn sweeteners in the 1980’s marks the beginning of the epidemic of obesity and Type 2 diabetes in this country. Sweetness became so cheap that soft drink makers, rather than lower their prices, super-sized their serving portions and marketing budgets. Thousands of new sweetened snack foods hit the market, and the amount of fructose in our diets soared. This would be bad enough for the American waistline, but there’s also preliminary research suggesting that high-fructose corn syrup is metabolized differently than other sugars, making it potentially more harmful. A recent study at the University of Minnesota found that a diet high in fructose (as compared to glucose) elevates triglyceride levels in men shortly after eating, a phenomenon that has been linked to an increased risk of obesity and heart disease. Little is known about the health effects of eating animals that have themselves eaten so much corn, but in the case of cattle, researchers have found that corn-fed beef is higher in saturated fats than grass-fed beef. We know a lot more about what 80 million acres of corn is doing to the health of our environment: serious and lasting damage. Modern corn hybrids are the greediest of plants, demanding more nitrogen fertilizer than any other crop. Corn requires more pesticide than any other food crop. Runoff from these chemicals finds its way into the groundwater and, in the Midwestern corn belt, into the Mississippi River, which carries it to the Gulf of Mexico, where it has already killed off marine life in a 12,000 square mile area. To produce the chemicals we apply to our cornfields takes vast amounts of oil and natural gas. (Nitrogen fertilizer is made from natural gas, pesticides from oil.) America’s corn crop might look like a sustainable, solar-powered system for producing food, but it is actually a huge, inefficient, polluting machine that guzzles fossil fuel – a half a gallon of it for every bushel. So it seems corn has indeed become king. We have given it more of our land than any other plant, an area more than twice the size of New York State. To keep it well fed and safe from predators we douse it with chemicals that poison our water and deepen our dependence on foreign oil. And then in order to dispose of all the corn this cracked system has produced, we eat it as fast as we can in as many ways as we can – turning the fat of the land into, well, fat. One has to wonder whether corn hasn’t at last succeeded in domesticating us. Michael Pollan is the author, most recently, of "The Botany of Desire: A Plant’s-Eye View of the World." Copyright 2002 The New York Times Company | Permissions | Privacy Policy
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