Rigorous scientific debate

Personally, I'd feel a lot happier about the evidence in favour of Genetically Modified crops if that evidence wasn't wholly owned and selectively released by corporations whose legal obligation is to maximise profit above all other considerations, and who are not legally obliged to release any contrary data under the protection of "commercial sensitivity".

By the way, where IS all the necessary fertiliser going to come from once the accessible oil runs out?

Feed the soil, not the plant

Peaking Early

With oil running out, and biofuels not being the answer, perhaps humans should grow and trade their food closer to home.

Perhaps we suffer from collectively traumatised amygdalas

Sons of the sod

This cartoon was originally published in Ethical Consumer magazine.

YOUR OPINION PLEASE, ON THE FOLLOWING:-
I'm about to commit to a domain name for this new website that is, honestly, about to go live. I am given to understand that the title Throbgoblins (international or otherwise) is something of a turn-off for many as it sounds like some sort of pornographic smurf movie. So I would welcome any feedback on whether I should keep it or just go with my own name. I know that a rose by any other name would still smell of old man and wet fox, but I have to plump for something, and it might as well be something somebody somewhere quite likes.

On The Rebound

Researchers suggest that our self indulgence might cancel out our cleverness, as we consume more of what we save in a "rebound effect".
Which is, apparently, a variant of the Jevons parradox (thanks to Marc Hudson)
What price water and food when there's no water and food.

Elsewhere, Russia reserves the right to wage its own wars for oil; the planet becomes increasingly unbalanced; marine wildernesses go the way of all fish.

Some fine urban pollution materials here, at Urban Emissions.info

I haven't been through this, but it looks very interesting - Recalibrating the Law of Humans with the
Laws of Nature: Climate Change, Human Rights, and Intergenerational Justice.

Infernal Combustion

Frank is feeling a little better today. Thanks for asking.

While the UK entrenches itself up to its neck in car culture, the scientific world debates whether it is best to starve us all and destroy our biodiversity in the name of biofuel or bio-electricity - whichever gives most miles per acre. Motorists, as ever, expect to be coddled through without inconvenience.
Those on two wheels had better watch their backs.

So many choices, so little accurate information.

What price action?

China and Italy invest heavily in renewables

When Fixes Need Fixing?

Grist provides these two links to reports of pending agricultural collapse in the Punjab due to (profit driven?) over-exploitation of resources.

The Huffington Post posts this , by Lise van Susteran, on Moral Obligation

Fred Pearce on consuming vs population. Did I post this already?)

I just saw this - Ian Tomlinson's death at the G20 demonstrations now being treated as possible manslaughter

The most terrifying video you will ever see?

Choice and Prosperity

It's a conundrum, isn't it? Development and climate change. Such a dilemma -convoluted and labyrinthine, loaded and provocative. Whilst India pushes for escape from endemic poverty by pursuing a Nano for everyone, its' islands start to disappear, as do its' neighbours. The result of success will be failure. Hmm. Tricky. Plenty of arguments to be had there. Good job we're all totally focused on it and not distracted by beer and football.

Elsewhere the Murray dries up, as do the Cedars of Lebanon. Bankruptcy beckons.

The poles are not so far apart after all.

When even the CBI say we're not doing enough, we know we're in trouble.

Equal Rights and Stern Warnings

Stern warnings followed by stern warnings, as drought pushes up grain futures

Selective Seratonin

A Greenpeace report implicates our obsession with beef - which pumps out 57 times more GHG emissions than would a similar obsession with potatoes - in up to 80% of deforestation.

Researchers believe that a build up of seratonin is at the root of the destructive swarming behaviour of locusts.

We at Throbgoblins International think studies should be funded into the effects of dangerous build ups of beef on the destructive swarming behaviour of humans. It might prove illuminating.

Thanks to Susan Anderson for the nod

Multi-Coloured Swop Shop

As money dries up, more traditional means of exchange reassert themselves, whilst the pillage of the poor by the wealthy continues, for those with the means. Those without the means speak up where they can.

Elsewhere, sanity and gibbering madness compete for attention with hubris and incompetence

Plots and Plans

Sowing and reaping becomes a more unpredictable affair as weather begins to dance to a new tune

Obama keeps his momentum going.

Please complain to the BBC about their shameful and cowardly refusal to broadcast appeals for humanitarian aid to Gaza. It won't take a minute.

Meanwhile, turbines get tougher, racism gets weirder and yeast levels begin to stabilise

Barbarous apes revisited

This is a straight re-post because the song remains the same (it just gets louder).
The Guardian has a bunch of stuff on it

Meanwhile Humans dredge the bottom of the aquatic food chain to make absolutely sure that we've hoovered up the last morsel of everything edible anywhere and for ever. We're nothing if not thorough.

Dead man's chest

"War-torn" is such a compact description, isn't it. It leaves out the economics and the politics and the machinations of great powers, and concentrates on the trauma in the here and now, as though it had sprung fully formed upon an innocent world.
So we watch the seizing of an oil tanker by desperate men from a failed state - whose climate and conditions get crueller by the year - and we imagine that it is not a portent of things to come, but an abberation in an otherwise purposeful, perfectable world. We choose not to look down the path from whence this monster came.

One of many links from today's extensive coverage, and another one not so well covered, and another BIG ONE - not for the feint hearted

Monsieur McCudgeon is sporting this year's must-have look - pirate chic. I think it suits him

Secret Gardens and Magic Beans

All very hush-hush, don't you know.
There is an open admission that the need for GM crops is (allegedly) so pressing because of the inevitable diversion of millions of tons of foodstuffs to biofuels. We will continue to be fat lazy fucks who drive to the gargantumart to eat shite on a stick, so there can be no other alternative but to mess with what's left of our biodiversity and then place it entirely in the hands of the highest bidder.

The ongoing bollocks that is the nuclear industry just gets more and more priceless. Not only does the industry massively underestimate the amount of safe storage facilities required - based on a basic muisunderstanding of their core business - but they screw a series of blank cheques out of the government and an exemption from public scrutiny via the freedom of information act. So we will be obliged to pay up when they fuck up, without the satisfaction of knowing when or where or how they fucked up, or how much it cost.

This Searaser looks good though

Big dipper

Not only does their brew taste like shite, but they're environmental criminals as well. Starbucks wastes millions of gallons of water every day through leaving taps running for no good reason, just as the UK is looking at massive water-price rises and restrictions (despite flood warnings).

Raveheart

The Scottish assembly plans to unite the Celtic fringe in resisting Westminster's imposition of GM crops on/in their soil, whilst the Global Crop Diversity Trust are amassing a data and skills base to provide growers with "Climate Proof" crops for when the shit hits the fan. How Genetically Modified plants will ultimately fit into that scenario is, of course, hotly debated. Throbgoblins International would like to see the patent laws of the United States withdrawn from the field so that sense can be extracted. In the spirit of impending doom, we are pretty free with our own intellectual copyright, and would like to see Monsanto, BASF et al join the party

They can take our lives but they cannot take our FREEEEEEDOOOOOMMM! Sounds like a pretty poor deal to me.

The lesser of two evils

This epiphany may have come just in time to save Frank's gall bladder. We all have our blind spots.
Before anyone gets all upset, I would like to make it clear that - Yes, of course, a predominantly vegetarian diet is by far the healthiest for both individual and ecosystem. My own opinion is that meat is for high days and holidays and then only under the strictest ethical and humanitarian conditions. I'm not indulging in dietary relativism here. I'm just saying...you know....mass production...cheap pizzas...shit cheese...habitual consumption...food miles. Nothing is as simple as it seems. (apart from, occassionally, myself.) The source of the food is the question that everyone has to address.