tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32269839826984229122024-02-19T02:18:34.420-08:00ITSSD Journal on Economic SabotageThe ITSSD Journal blogs are administered by the ITSSD's student interns or Advisory Board members as designated belowITSSD Charitable Missionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00790887154748866904noreply@blogger.comBlogger17125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3226983982698422912.post-26705284550656462422009-09-06T06:50:00.000-07:002009-09-06T08:37:06.458-07:00Are the Obama Administration and the US Congress Foolish Enough to Impose the Harsh Costs of the European REACH Regulation on America?<div align="justify"><em>The following article confirms prior ITSSD research about the exhorbitant costs associated with the European Union's regional adoption of the European Precautionary Principle-based REACH regulation, and its global efforts to export this philosophical and legal requirement abroad, including to the United States</em>.</div><br /><br /><br /><div align="justify"><strong><span style="font-size:180%;">[</span><span style="font-size:130%;">See: Lawrence A. Kogan, <em>The Extra-WTO Precautionary Principle: Once European 'Fashion' Export the U.S. Can Do Without</em>, 17 Temple Political and Civil Rights Law Review 491 (Sept. 2008) accessible at: <a href="http://www.itssd.org/Kogan%2017%5B1%5D.2.pdf"><span style="font-size:100%;">http://www.itssd.org/Kogan%2017%5B1%5D.2.pdf</span></a> ; <em>Has Barack Transformed Himself into EURObama Given His Interest in Adopting as US Law the Well-Known EU REACH Green Regulatory Trade Barrier??</em>, ITSSD Journal on Disguised Trade Barriers (June 12, 2008) at: <a style="COLOR: #00c; TEXT-DECORATION: underline" href="http://itssddisguisedtradebarriers.blogspot.com/2008/06/is-obama-european-enough-to-support.html"><span style="font-size:100%;">http://itssddisguisedtradebarriers.blogspot.com/2008/06/is-obama-european-enough-to-support.html</span></a></span><span style="font-size:100%;"> </span></strong><strong><span style="font-size:130%;">; <em>WTO 'Fever' Necessary to Stem Advance of Precautionary Principle 'Virus', Says ITSSD</em>, PR Newswire (March 27, 2007) at:</span> </strong><a style="COLOR: #00c; TEXT-DECORATION: underline" href="http://www.pr-inside.com/wto-fever-necessary-to-stem-advance-r77720.htm"><strong>http://www.pr-inside.com/wto-fever-necessary-to-stem-advance-r77720.htm</strong></a> ; <strong><span style="font-size:130%;">Lawrence A. Kogan, <em>REACH: The fight must go on</em>, Viewpoint: Specialty Chemicals Magazine (March 2007) at:</span> </strong><a href="http://www.itssd.org/Publications/p04_SCM03_Viewpoint2.pdf"><strong>http://www.itssd.org/Publications/p04_SCM03_Viewpoint2.pdf</strong></a><strong> ;</strong> <strong><span style="font-size:130%;"><em>Precautionary Principle Will Run in Place in 2007, Trade Expert Predicts</em>, Pestidice.net Interview With ITSSD President Lawrence A. Kogan (Jan. 2007) at: </span></strong><a href="http://www.itssd.org/interviews/200701300402Precautionary2.pdf"><strong>http://www.itssd.org/interviews/200701300402Precautionary2.pdf</strong></a><span style="font-size:130%;"><strong> ; </strong><strong>ob Spiegel, <em>American Trade Groups Call REACH Misguided, DESIGN News</em> (Dec. 27, 2006) at: </strong></span><a href="http://www.designnews.com/article/3120-American_Trade_Groups_Call_REACH_Misguided.php"><strong>http://www.designnews.com/article/3120-American_Trade_Groups_Call_REACH_Misguided.php</strong></a><strong> ;</strong> <strong><span style="font-size:130%;"><em>EU REACH Adoption Likely to Trigger WTO Action</em>, ITSSD PR Newswire (Dec. 15, 2006) at:</span> </strong><a href="http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/stories.pl?ACCT=109&STORY=/www/story/12-15-2006/0004492076&EDATE"><strong>http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/stories.pl?ACCT=109&STORY=/www/story/12-15-2006/0004492076&EDATE</strong></a><strong> ; <span style="font-size:130%;">Lawrence A. Kogan, <em>REACHing for Your Wallets or Your Lives</em>, ITSSD (Dec. 15, 2006) at: </span></strong><a href="http://www.itssd.org/Publications/REACHing-for-Your-Wallets.pdf"><strong>http://www.itssd.org/Publications/REACHing-for-Your-Wallets.pdf</strong></a> <strong>; <span style="font-size:130%;">Chresten Andersen, <em>Will Bad EU Policies REACH America?</em> Brussels Journal (Nov. 19, 2005) at: <a href="http://www.brusselsjournal.com/node/492"><span style="font-size:100%;">http://www.brusselsjournal.com/node/492</span></a> ; </span></strong><strong><span style="font-size:130%;">Lawrence A. Kogan, <em>Exporting Precaution: How Europe's Risk-Free Regulatory Agenda Threatens American Free Enterprise</em>, Washington Legal Foundation (Nov. 2005) at:</span> </strong><a href="http://www.wlf.org/upload/110405MONOKogan.pdf"><strong>http://www.wlf.org/upload/110405MONOKogan.pdf</strong></a><strong> ; <span style="font-size:130%;">Lawrence A. Kogan, <em>Precautionary Preference: How How Europe Employs Disguised Regulatory Protectionism to Weaken American Free Enterprise</em>, International Journal of Economic Development Vol. 7 No. 2-3 (2005) at: </span></strong><a href="http://www.spaef.com/article.php?id=966"><strong>http://www.spaef.com/article.php?id=966</strong></a><strong> and </strong><a href="http://www.itssd.org/White%20Papers/ijed-7-2-3-kogan.pdf"><strong>http://www.itssd.org/White%20Papers/ijed-7-2-3-kogan.pdf</strong></a><strong> ; <span style="font-size:130%;">Lawrence A. Kogan, <em>Exporting Europe's Protectionism</em>, The National Interest Journal (Sept. 2004) at: </span><a href="http://www.itssd.org/Publications/Kogan%20TNI%2077FINAL.pdf">http://www.itssd.org/Publications/Kogan%20TNI%2077FINAL.pdf</a> ;</strong><strong><span style="font-size:130%;">Lawrence A. Kogan, <em>Claims of Improper U.S. Lobbying Quite a REACH</em>, EU Reporter (May 2004) at p. 18, at: </span><a href="http://www.itssd.org/Publications/1-20_EUR_04May04.pdf">http://www.itssd.org/Publications/1-20_EUR_04May04.pdf</a> ; </strong><strong><span style="font-size:130%;">Lawrence A. Kogan, <em>'Enlightened' Environmentalism or Disguised Protectionism: Assessing the Impact of EU Precaution-based Standards on Developing Countries</em>, National Foreign Trade Council (April 2004) at:</span> <a href="http://www.wto.org/english/forums_e/ngo_e/posp47_nftc_enlightened_e.pdf">http://www.wto.org/english/forums_e/ngo_e/posp47_nftc_enlightened_e.pdf</a> ; <span style="font-size:130%;">Lawrence A. Kogan, Unscientific <em>"Precaution": Europe's Campaign To Erect New Foreign Trade Barriers</em>, National Foreign Trade Council (Sept. 2003) at:</span> <a href="http://www.itssd.org/White%20Papers/WLFKoganArticle2.pdf">http://www.itssd.org/White%20Papers/WLFKoganArticle2.pdf</a> ; <span style="font-size:130%;">Lawrence A. Kogan, <em>Looking Behind the Curtain: The Growth of Trade Barriers that Ignore Sound Science</em>, National Foreign Trade Council (May 2003) at: </span><a href="http://www.wto.org/english/forums_e/ngo_e/posp47_nftc_looking_behind_e.pdf">http://www.wto.org/english/forums_e/ngo_e/posp47_nftc_looking_behind_e.pdf</a> <span style="font-size:180%;">]</span></strong></div><br />-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------<br /><div><a href="http://pharmtech.findpharma.com/pharmtech/Online+Only/REACH-Program-May-Carry-Six-Times-the-Expected-Cos/ArticleStandard/Article/detail/623599?contextCategoryId=40936">http://pharmtech.findpharma.com/pharmtech/Online+Only/REACH-Program-May-Carry-Six-Times-the-Expected-Cos/ArticleStandard/Article/detail/623599?contextCategoryId=40936</a><br /><div><div><br /></div><div align="justify"><strong><span style="font-size:130%;color:#ff0000;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXJVr_7Ha7buTMMX5Z0S-IEj31E7ZaAH9wwT3YtaObZJZcUp0jHEqwOxlVnSFAU2JWbeawPq2KLbibSfisMs9DxLf16hB6YbIPmXQmPwC5SptrfxpG7C5N3MuXLx1329K4MjsHkhVyo4E/s1600-h/EU-US-small.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5378352590314232914" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 246px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 194px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXJVr_7Ha7buTMMX5Z0S-IEj31E7ZaAH9wwT3YtaObZJZcUp0jHEqwOxlVnSFAU2JWbeawPq2KLbibSfisMs9DxLf16hB6YbIPmXQmPwC5SptrfxpG7C5N3MuXLx1329K4MjsHkhVyo4E/s400/EU-US-small.jpg" border="0" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPHk9g30xhZCyXdhLDByMjnTd0a42c5kU__7XspfRI2WY_d4OydtbyePyE5t9Stn6n48q0IzIk3RPiIIB-pyuw6i3br6Qz9Zqz4PUTxNtljcEB2WTxoXDyekRsXdLzxl5-nzoI-gHkzPg/s1600-h/REACH%2520Web_35.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5378353038647609986" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 176px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 169px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPHk9g30xhZCyXdhLDByMjnTd0a42c5kU__7XspfRI2WY_d4OydtbyePyE5t9Stn6n48q0IzIk3RPiIIB-pyuw6i3br6Qz9Zqz4PUTxNtljcEB2WTxoXDyekRsXdLzxl5-nzoI-gHkzPg/s400/REACH%2520Web_35.jpg" border="0" /></a>REACH Program May Carry Six Times the Expected Cost</span></strong></div><div><br /></div><div><br />Sep 3, 2009</div><div><br /><br /></div><div>By: Stephanie Sutton</div><div><br /><br /></div><div>ePT--the Electronic Newsletter of Pharmaceutical Technology<br /></div><div><br /></div><div align="justify"><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHqonuZhqYxmN3cZHvZPW5nVM3vGS7bAms_s76qSCKZXxSh8p8L15wtoWP8NzKII8s6zadjOQeEXt9baLogWfuhvL_9gbnbkqonXBDmciMOOlBURKX_KS7HrEzY3fxv1TAhp73C7N5Z8Q/s1600-h/REACH+-+Registration+Evaluation+Authorisation+Chemicals.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5378352169618056242" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 229px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 136px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHqonuZhqYxmN3cZHvZPW5nVM3vGS7bAms_s76qSCKZXxSh8p8L15wtoWP8NzKII8s6zadjOQeEXt9baLogWfuhvL_9gbnbkqonXBDmciMOOlBURKX_KS7HrEzY3fxv1TAhp73C7N5Z8Q/s400/REACH+-+Registration+Evaluation+Authorisation+Chemicals.jpg" border="0" /></a><strong><span style="font-size:180%;color:#ff0000;">Implementing Europe’s Registration, Evaluation, Authorization, and Restriction of Chemicals</span></strong> (<a href="http://ec.europa.eu/environment/chemicals/reach/reach_intro.htm" target="_blank">REACH</a>) <span style="font-size:180%;color:#ff0000;"><strong>program will require a massive increase in animal testing and cost six times more than previously estimated.</strong></span> The findings come from an analysis conducted by researchers at the John Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health (Baltimore, MD).</div><div><br /></div><div align="justify"><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEja9JNQuVeiXD5JThH9Pl1M98v0EeH7LWebf3TbmrFqlGstsbebwa1iD1iZXO6f4YN-LkWrYM9C04trWUiWtCiyO3OhF93fjstBEgjsgfXISAoyCjnW09XhJw8S1rDHN44dExU27X-THBo/s1600-h/REACH-guide.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5378353157216399970" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 198px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 191px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEja9JNQuVeiXD5JThH9Pl1M98v0EeH7LWebf3TbmrFqlGstsbebwa1iD1iZXO6f4YN-LkWrYM9C04trWUiWtCiyO3OhF93fjstBEgjsgfXISAoyCjnW09XhJw8S1rDHN44dExU27X-THBo/s400/REACH-guide.jpg" border="0" /></a><strong><span style="font-size:130%;">"REACH expected that 27,000 companies would submit 180,000 preregistrations on 30,000 chemicals,” Thomas Hartung, a Doerenkamp-Zbinden professor, chair for evidence-based toxicology, and director of the Center for Alternatives to Animal Testing at the Bloomberg School of Public Health</span></strong>, explained to Pharmaceutical Technology Europe (PTE). “The big surprise, however, was that at the end of December 2008, 65,000 companies had submitted 2.7 million preregistrations on 143,000 chemicals." Hartung co-chaired the 7th World Congress on Alternatives & Animal Use held in Rome earlier this week. </div><div><br /></div><div align="justify"><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMASXqcTYvz4XlUBiMqpnABiPGY1wOQo5eTujP7tXzrJmOLq0f6SnRbsvwLz_GrgnfVe95tI3S2t9aXjScjkBHoYM9bfjgDACt2haFSwfN5r70xe0V2kMQYzIs4ULQ_2MyGahXi59u3KQ/s1600-h/eu+reach.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5378352080977210866" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 130px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 86px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMASXqcTYvz4XlUBiMqpnABiPGY1wOQo5eTujP7tXzrJmOLq0f6SnRbsvwLz_GrgnfVe95tI3S2t9aXjScjkBHoYM9bfjgDACt2haFSwfN5r70xe0V2kMQYzIs4ULQ_2MyGahXi59u3KQ/s400/eu+reach.jpg" border="0" /></a>In a <a href="http://www.jhsph.edu/publichealthnews/press_releases/2009/hartung_REACH.html" target="_blank">press statement</a>, <strong><span style="font-size:130%;color:#ff0000;">Hartung described REACH as the "biggest investment ever into consumer safety." However, he also believes that the scale of the challenge may have been underestimated. </span><span style="font-size:180%;color:#ff0000;">REACH could require 54 million research animals and EUR 9.5 billion ($13.5 billion) during the next 10 years.</span></strong> Approximately 90% of the projected animal use and 70% of the projected cost would come from research into reproductive toxicity testing. Usually, data must be collected from two generations of two species of animals.</div><div><br /></div><div align="justify"><br />Hartung explained to PTE that the second species is rarely used when testing chemicals because few new chemicals are produced at quantities high enough to trigger testing. "This is now different with REACH where the high-production chemicals are tested; so while only 70 two-generation studies were conducted over 25 years for industrial chemicals in the EU, we calculated 14,000 for REACH if the guidance to industry is followed," he said.</div><div><br /></div><div align="justify"><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKkc1j3qYQHW1l1n9FTVb0KfDEQDOT6zK3sPcREbuREOwcRI2z4aNW1GL2i8ovhrdfLBpPnLvvjxdUVsJXEhxjkYcmd8EUuL7d5qBtKkX56Ui_RYTosfjHxE9G3E12qhP9xeitgYF78ng/s1600-h/EU+REACH+compliance.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5378352293676406962" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 221px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 159px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKkc1j3qYQHW1l1n9FTVb0KfDEQDOT6zK3sPcREbuREOwcRI2z4aNW1GL2i8ovhrdfLBpPnLvvjxdUVsJXEhxjkYcmd8EUuL7d5qBtKkX56Ui_RYTosfjHxE9G3E12qhP9xeitgYF78ng/s400/EU+REACH+compliance.jpg" border="0" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixUYVDN2J-0zpEIc4vunvovz1bCDGcxDQwBNnBd7U-ZWeK8lzeQ2wdevmrtw0O7Y5rxOqv2J_E715jID97RKVEBNbr2Hz3af6oFoPrz-AlSJbmodjlbpMIwOdWof6BfIpBkWdQMgFnJmw/s1600-h/EU-Reg-130x100.gif"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5378352452139583490" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 146px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 120px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixUYVDN2J-0zpEIc4vunvovz1bCDGcxDQwBNnBd7U-ZWeK8lzeQ2wdevmrtw0O7Y5rxOqv2J_E715jID97RKVEBNbr2Hz3af6oFoPrz-AlSJbmodjlbpMIwOdWof6BfIpBkWdQMgFnJmw/s400/EU-Reg-130x100.gif" border="0" /></a>He added that, <strong><span style="font-size:180%;">"<span style="color:#000099;">European regulators</span> need to understand that this is not only about animal numbers, but mainly about feasibility. It is not possible to create the test facilities. We do not have the toxicologists—a two-generation study assesses 80 endpoints, including complex histopathology. Our analysis should not be misread as a pure ethical or financial concern—it is about a bottleneck identified for a program we want to happen."</span></strong></div><div><br /></div><div align="justify"><br /><strong><em><span style="font-size:130%;">So what are the alternatives? Hartung suggests testing only suspicious chemicals. "Currently, the main trigger is production volume; at least prioritize the suspicious substances and leave the others for later when high-throughput strategies are developed," he says.</span></em></strong> He offered additional options, including the use of an extended one-generation study and in vitro approaches. </div><div><br /><br /></div><div align="justify">According to Hartung, 80–90% of the classifications of chemicals in two-generation studies are based on testing toxicity for which promising tests do exist.</div><div><br /></div><div align="justify"><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQhirqFmowN4QEnxTD5dNydN3lajMQA6XAqycR_lbzE8lSjlw2FzNuLMIKAj-t953ToKhAoSxhck4EIZfkpuP3r65fxqUbG3UjVAPk_cKg8kX4XIHknNXfay22rDQdeG76zUiv3Qyym8s/s1600-h/reach-regulation1.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5378353333261052562" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 318px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 170px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQhirqFmowN4QEnxTD5dNydN3lajMQA6XAqycR_lbzE8lSjlw2FzNuLMIKAj-t953ToKhAoSxhck4EIZfkpuP3r65fxqUbG3UjVAPk_cKg8kX4XIHknNXfay22rDQdeG76zUiv3Qyym8s/s400/reach-regulation1.jpg" border="0" /></a>"We hope that our study helps to gain momentum for a revision of current practices in regulatory toxicology," Hartung told PTE. He also explained that <span style="font-size:130%;color:#000099;"><strong>Europe</strong></span> could benefit from a development similar to the US Environmental Protection Agency <a href="http://www.epa.gov/osa/spc/toxicitytesting/" target="_blank">toxicity testing</a> strategy, which came into force in March 2009. </div><div><br /></div><div align="justify"></div><div><br /></div><div align="justify"></div><div><br /></div><div align="justify">------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- </div><div><br /></div><div align="justify"></div><div align="justify"><strong><span style="font-size:180%;color:#ff0000;"><span style="color:#000099;">New Jersey Senator Frank Lautenberg</span> and <span style="color:#000099;">California Congressman Henry Waxman</span> Wish to Adopt EXPENSIVE EU REACH Regulation as U.S. Federal Law</span></strong></div><div></div><div></div><div><a href="http://www.treehugger.com/files/2009/06/obama-administration-suspends-epa-champ-chemical-assessment.php">http://www.treehugger.com/files/2009/06/obama-administration-suspends-epa-champ-chemical-assessment.php</a></div><div></div><div><strong><span style="font-size:130%;color:#ff0000;">Obama Administration Suspends CHAMP Chemical Assessment Program</span></strong></div><div></div><div></div><div>By Christine Lepisto</div><div></div><div></div><div>Treehugger.com</div><div></div><div></div><div>June 21, 2009</div><div></div><div></div><div align="justify">Only a few months ago, <strong><span style="font-size:180%;">EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson announced that the U.S. Environmental Protection Administration would pick up the pace of the Chemicals Assessment and Management Program (CHAMP), partly in response to the barrage of activity in the <span style="color:#333399;">EU under </span></span></strong><a href="http://www.treehugger.com/files/2009/05/no-data-no-market-eu-chemicals-law.php"><strong><span style="font-size:180%;">REACH</span></strong></a><strong><span style="font-size:180%;"> <span style="color:#000099;">(Registration, Evaluation and Authorization of CHemicals).</span></span></strong> Now the EPA has thrown Industry and Citizens into confusion with an announcement that all activity to screen and prioritize hazardous chemicals under CHAMP is to be suspended, effective immediately. How is it possible the EPA finds doing nothing better than doing something -- especially in the face of increasing concerns about the chemicals in our bodies, and even in the everyday products sold for our kids? And how long before EPA is doing something again?</div><div align="justify"><br /><a name="more"></a><br />Insiders Mulling Over ImpactsThe insiders, <a href="http://www.awma.org/publications/articles.html?id=1862">BNA</a> and <a href="http://chemicalwatch.com/2373">ChemicalWatch</a>, are both reporting that EPA has released an announcement on the end of CHAMP. But even <a href="http://community.blr.com/safety/forums/3383/ShowThread.aspx">industry professionals</a> are left in the dark, as no announcement has been made publicly available at the websites of <a href="http://www.epa.gov/CHAMP/">CHAMP</a>, <a href="http://www.epa.gov/">the EPA</a>, nor <a href="http://www.whitehouse.gov/issues/energy_and_environment/">the White House blog</a>.</div><div align="justify"></div><div align="justify"><br />Major organizations have responded cautiously to the announcement. Some statements published in <a href="http://pubs.acs.org/cen/news/87/i25/8725news7.html">Chemical & Engineering News</a>: </div><div align="justify"></div><div align="justify"><br />"We are confident that any changes to ChAMP do not signal a reversal of the U.S. government's commitment, but rather further strengthen the program." -American Chemistry Council.<br />"It is extremely disheartening that the administration would abandon its priority-setting chemicals management process before it is even given the opportunity to work." -National Petrochemicals and Refiners Association </div><div align="justify"></div><div align="justify"><br />"We urge EPA to not delay the forward progress it has been making under ChAMP." - Society of Chemical Manufacturers.</div><div align="justify"></div><div align="justify"><br /><strong>CHAMP for Better or WorseCHAMP represents a largely "voluntary" effort by the chemical industry to provide information on High Production Volume (HPV) chemicals.</strong> "Voluntary" in quotations, because such programs have become the preferred way for industry to avoid the burden of regulation by stepping up to the plate first. So the response of industry can be understood in the context of fears that the program which succeeds CHAMP may very well require a bit more -- meaning more cost and more bureaucracy in the pursuit of more protection of American citizens.</div><div align="justify"></div><div align="justify"><br />The <a href="http://blogs.edf.org/nanotechnology/2009/06/01/champs-double-standard/">Environmental Defense Fund</a> and others have criticized CHAMP for an insufficient standard of protection, pointing out that the data submitted voluntarily by industry shows large gaps in knowledge about the chemicals currently on the market. Worse, according to EDF, is the process EPA applies to the incomplete data. CHAMP throws chemicals with no evidence of a high hazard into the "don't worry" or "don't worry too much" boxes. EDF argues that in the face of incomplete data, EPA should flag chemicals for priority research whenever the data is incomplete.</div><div align="justify"></div><div align="justify"><br />As is often the case in the complexity of the real world, both sides are right. The chemicals which have incomplete data are most often the ones that industry knows are not too bad, based on years of handling these chemicals without observing any clusters of illness related to them. <strong><span style="font-size:130%;">So the assumption that these chemicals are "safe" is not groundless in spite of a lack of specific animal studies. </span></strong>Perhaps hiding behind the PETA issues, industry makes a strong case that testing should not be done simply so that check-boxes can be ticked. </div><div align="justify"></div><div align="justify"><br />What Comes After CHAMP?</div><div align="justify"></div><div align="justify"></div><div align="justify">But EDF can rightly point out concerns that are not addressed by industry's stance that some chemicals are simply "recognized as safe." Changes are occurring in our bodies and the environment that are not sufficiently explained nor attributed. More study is needed, or we are effectively using ourselves, and our only planet, as a giant laboratory. </div><div align="justify"></div><div align="justify"><br />And no matter who is right, the key fact is that the US EPA has to do something. <strong><span style="font-size:180%;">Clearly the Obama Administration is committed to environmental protection. So the message behind the suspension of the Bush era CHAMP program can only imply a finding or anticipated finding, perhaps under cost-benefit analysis, that CHAMP is grossly, indefensibly ineffective</span></strong>. Subtext: US citizens have been inadequately protected for years in spite of money being thrown at the problem (EPA requested a hefty increase in its 2010 budget for more hiring in CHAMP).</div><div align="justify"></div><div align="justify"><br /><span style="font-size:180%;color:#ff0000;"><strong>The anticipated successor to CHAMP is the Lautenberg</strong></span> <a href="http://lautenberg.senate.gov/newsroom/record.cfm?id=298072"><strong><span style="font-size:130%;">Kids Safe Chemical Act</span></strong></a>. <span style="font-size:180%;color:#ff0000;"><strong>This law would update the decades old Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA). In the wake of European REACH, EPA will be under pressure to expect more, much more, from industry.</strong></span> A battle looms. Will industry be able to maintain its stance that "responsible care" can protect people and the environment most cost-effectively? Or will they face an era of regulatory control championed by a public confused and fearful as they confront daily a chemical soup. </div><div></div><div>------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------</div><div><br /><a href="http://www.nacd.com/%5Cdocs%5Cadvocacy%5C2009%5Cpdf%5CNACD%20Key%20Issue%20-%20Chemicals%20Management-TSCA%20-%204-17-09.pdf"><strong>http://www.nacd.com/%5Cdocs%5Cadvocacy%5C2009%5Cpdf%5CNACD%20Key%20Issue%20-%20Chemicals%20Management-TSCA%20-%204-17-09.pdf</strong></a></div><div><strong><span style="font-size:130%;"></span></strong></div><div><strong><span style="font-size:130%;">KEY ISSUE: CHEMICALS MANAGEMENT / TSCA REFORM</span></strong> </div><div></div><div></div><div>National Association of Chemicals Distributors </div><div></div><div></div><div>June 2009</div><div></div><div align="justify"><br />NACD ISSUE<br /></div><div align="justify"></div><div align="justify">Modernizing the Toxic Substances Control Act without disturbing the delicate balance between protection of human health and the environment, and sustainment of a vital industry and its customers. </div><div align="justify"></div><div align="justify"><br />BACKGROUND<br /></div><div align="justify"></div><div align="justify">The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) regulates chemicals through authority granted by a number of federal statutes, most notably the 1976 Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA.) Over the years, EPA has used TSCA to review more than 47,000 new chemical submissions and lists 83,000 chemicals on its current TSCA Inventory. <strong><span style="font-size:130%;">Since 2007, EPA has been working to enhance TSCA through the Chemical Assessment and Management Program (ChAMP). ChAMP</span></strong> was created to implement commitments that the United States made at the Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America (SPP) Leaders Summit to complete screening-level chemical prioritizations and initiate action as appropriate on an estimated 6,750 chemicals being produced or imported in high and moderate volume quantities. Despite these efforts, the current legislative climate and action taken by other governments worldwide have driven some in Congress to re-examine the authority and scope of TSCA and potentially expand its power to "better protect the public from chemicals."<br /></div><div align="justify"></div><div align="justify">Based on weak scientific data, individual states and Congress have taken action to ban certain types of chemicals in the name of consumer safety. <strong><span style="font-size:180%;color:#ff0000;">In September of 2008, California became the first state to enact a comprehensive chemicals management program</span></strong>. As individual states take action, a major concern is that federal and state programs may be duplicative or conflicting. This could make chemical distribution across state lines extremely difficult. <span style="font-size:180%;color:#ff0000;"><strong>In July 2008, Congress overwhelmingly approved a measure to ban certain types of phthalates from children’s products. This legislation, as well as other legislation being introduced, has called for use of the "precautionary principle," which is the basis for the European Union REACH regulation.</strong></span><br /></div><div align="justify"></div><div align="justify">Registration, Evaluation, Authorization and restriction of Chemicals (REACH) is a 2006 European Union (EU) regulation that addresses the production and use of chemical substances, and their potential impacts on both human health and the environment. It took seven years to pass and has been described as the most complex and strictest legislation in EU history and will impact industries throughout the world. When REACH is fully in force, it will require all companies manufacturing or importing chemical substances into the EU in quantities of one ton or more per year to register these substances with a European chemicals agency in Helsinki, Finland. <span style="font-size:180%;color:#ff0000;"><strong>Because REACH applies to some substances that are contained within other products, any company importing goods into Europe could be affected.<br /></strong></span></div><div align="justify"></div><div align="justify">LEGISLATIVE UPDATE<br /></div><div align="justify"></div><div align="justify">Last year, <span style="font-size:180%;color:#ff0000;"><strong>Senator <span style="color:#000099;">Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ)</span> introduced the Kids-Safe Chemical Act of 2008, S. 3040. Congresswoman Hilda Solis (D-CA,) also introduced the measure for consideration, H.R. 6100. The bill was cosponsored by <span style="color:#000099;">Henry Waxman (D-CA,)</span> now the Chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee with jurisdiction over EPA</strong></span>. <span style="font-size:180%;color:#ff0000;"><strong>The existence of REACH and the chemical ban proposals pending in Congress and the states along with the new Chairmanship for Mr. Waxman have pushed this issue higher on the priority list for the 111th Congress.</strong></span> </div><div align="justify"></div><div align="justify"><br />While TSCA reform has yet to solidify into real legislative proposals in the current Congress, Senator Lautenberg has indicated that he will reintroduce the Kids Safe Chemicals Act in 2009. This legislation would inject the "precautionary principle" into the chemicals management process and shift the burden of proof away from the government and to the chemical company. Critics say this approach is like altering our judicial system toward the philosophy that a defendant is "guilty until proven innocent." </div><div align="justify"></div><div align="justify"><br /><span style="font-size:180%;color:#ff0000;"><strong>Meanwhile, on February 26, 2009 the House Subcommittee on Commerce, Trade, and Consumer Protection held the first of what is expected to be a series of hearings on the potential overhaul of TSCA. Committee Members and their witnesses expressed a strong desire to explore the possibility of REACH as an appropriate model for the U.S</strong></span>. while industry witnesses criticized REACH and similar programs, favoring instead a "true risk-based system" to align economic and regulatory regimes. However, even the chemical industry has indicated it is not opposed to updating or modernizing TSCA. American Chemistry Council (ACC) and Society of Chemical Manufacturers and Affiliates (SOCMA) testimony echoed this point but were very clear on the principle that the U.S. should not go the route of Europe and completely change its philosophy regarding chemicals management. </div><div align="justify"></div><div align="justify"><br />NACD POSITION </div><div align="justify"></div><div align="justify"><br />In considering TSCA reform, NACD urges Congress to support approaches like ChAMP, which has the potential to quickly test and provide public information on more chemicals than a REACH type of framework. NACD is concerned with approaches such as REACH which follow the "precautionary principle," create a cumbersome bureaucracy, and stifle innovation. In addition, NACD believes that there should be one uniform federal system for chemicals management rather than a patchwork of 50 different state standards. </div><div align="justify"></div><div align="justify"><br />NACD members are committed to the distribution of products that can be used safely and without harm to the environment as well as meeting or exceeding governmental safety requirements. <span style="font-size:180%;color:#ff0000;"><strong>Any evaluation of TSCA must recognize that the chemical industry’s innovation has played an integral role in the U.S. economy, and that sweeping revisions could prove highly detrimental to Americans’ way of life with no measurable benefit</strong></span>. </div><div align="justify"></div><div align="justify"><br />NACD Government Affairs staff will continue to participate in the discussions with industry groups as well as Capitol Hill and Committee staff as this issue continues to develop in the 111th Congress with an eye toward chemicals management policies based on sound scientific data and an adherence to the risk-based approach which has served the public well. </div><div></div><div></div><div></div><div></div><div>-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------</div><div></div><div><a style="COLOR: #00c; TEXT-DECORATION: underline" href="http://www.euractiv.com/en/environment/eu-chemicals-law-reach-inspires-us-bill/article-142660">http://www.euractiv.com/en/environment/eu-chemicals-law-reach-inspires-us-bill/article-142660</a><br /></div><div></div><div><strong><span style="font-size:130%;">EU chemicals law REACH inspires US bill </span></strong></div><div></div><div></div><div>EurActiv.com</div><div></div><div><br />Published: Monday 18 July 2005 </div><div></div><div></div><div align="justify">Senator Frank R. Lautenberg has introduced a bill to regulate chemicals in the US after a government report criticised current legislation for failing to protect Americans from toxic substances.</div><div align="justify"></div><div align="justify"><br />US Senator Frank R. Lautenberg introduced draft legislation aiming at better protecting children, mothers and workers against potentially hazardous chemicals.<br /></div><div align="justify"></div><div align="justify">Introduced on 13 July, the 'Child, Worker and Consumer Safe Chemicals Act' is largely inspired by the hotly debated EU proposal for the registration, evaluation, and authorisation of chemicals (REACH) now at final stage of adoption before the European Parliament.<br /></div><div align="justify"></div><div align="justify">The draft US bill would force chemical manufacturers to provide health and safety information on chemicals used in consumer products like baby bottles and food wrapping instead of presuming a substance is safe until proven dangerous.<br /></div><div align="justify"></div><div align="justify">The principle, know as the reversal of the burden of proof, is the cornerstone of REACH.<br /></div><div align="justify"></div><div align="justify">Senator Lautenberg's proposal follows the publication in June of a US federal report detailing the failures of the 1976 Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) in protecting Americans from hazardous chemicals.<br /></div><div align="justify"></div><div align="justify">The <a onclick="javascript:urchinTracker('/Links/www_gao_gov_new_items_d05458_pdf');" href="http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d05458.pdf" target="_blank">report </a>, by the United States Government Accountability Office (GAO), recommended that the US congress consider providing the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) with additional authority to assess chemical risks.<br /></div><div align="justify"></div><div align="justify">According to Lautenberg, procedures under the TSCA are so daunting that, in 29 years, only five toxic substances have been regulated by the EPA. Currently, the EPA has to demonstrate a chemical poses an "unreasonable risk" to restrict or ban it.<br /></div><div align="justify"></div><div align="justify">Positions:<br /></div><div align="justify"></div><div align="justify">"Most Americans believe their government is making sure that chemicals used in the market place are safe. Unfortunately, that simply isn't true," said Senator Lautenberg. "Study after study has shown we have dozens, if not hundreds, of synthetic chemicals in our bodies, yet we have very little information about how they impact our health."</div><div align="justify"></div><div align="justify"><br />The bill is sponsored by Democrat political heavyweights including 2004 Presidential candidate John Kerry and Hillary Clinton.<br /></div><div align="justify"></div><div align="justify">In a separate development, the Environmental Working Group (EWG) on 14 July published analyses of the blood from the umbilical cord of ten newborn babies. Performed by an independent laboratory, the tests revealed the presence of 287 industrial chemicals in the blood samples tested, leading the EWG to conclude that "industrial pollution begins in the womb". </div><div align="justify"></div><div align="justify"></div><div align="justify">However, the correct interpretation of blood tests - a practice know as biomonitoring - and their use in policy-making is still subject to controversy (see related <a title="LinksDossier" href="http://74.125.113.132/en/environment/biomonitoring-health-environment-policy-making/article-136293">LinksDossier</a>).</div><div align="justify"></div><div align="justify">-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------</div></div></div>ITSSD Charitable Missionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00790887154748866904noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3226983982698422912.post-37224815659810998812009-08-10T04:45:00.000-07:002009-08-10T09:19:57.452-07:00Danish Energy Minister Has Gone Gulag Over Climate Change!<a href="http://s-espersen.blogspot.com/2009/08/danish-minister-for-climate-and-energy.html">http://s-espersen.blogspot.com/2009/08/danish-minister-for-climate-and-energy.html</a><br /><br /><div><div align="justify"><strong>The Danish minister for Climate and Energy and her misguided views on humankind </strong><br /><br /></div><div>By Simon Espersen</div><br /><br /><div>8. august 2009</div><br /><div align="justify"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimZNnX162vHv6Ysy04XHqxbZIwRdgqVUea8CVG5NasrSETCIqp0YJwW83ik0iGuf6287PKEhdsJbsPml-kCEafpLtO4hACnTOU3fLkb-RGI6qR1ZBrwWe9GR_5vjPuTIbso3LW-movhXM/s1600-h/Connie+Hedegaard.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5368308382577813026" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 213px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 320px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimZNnX162vHv6Ysy04XHqxbZIwRdgqVUea8CVG5NasrSETCIqp0YJwW83ik0iGuf6287PKEhdsJbsPml-kCEafpLtO4hACnTOU3fLkb-RGI6qR1ZBrwWe9GR_5vjPuTIbso3LW-movhXM/s320/Connie+Hedegaard.jpg" border="0" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhsq6Io2G_sXLgr2sGaVVk1a_tNNS4yBjVhSRSSOgq4rYq-p0G3TlVz2_etWUM7VxRSrpg2pD5N5Go-aHhCUEpO3ITIy4g-GNMoj_bCjo0nVAWT0-c6-VpHZb4ZeyqNJKPZ6TQtXLdwURY/s1600-h/copenhagen+2009.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5368307342935955378" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 155px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 198px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhsq6Io2G_sXLgr2sGaVVk1a_tNNS4yBjVhSRSSOgq4rYq-p0G3TlVz2_etWUM7VxRSrpg2pD5N5Go-aHhCUEpO3ITIy4g-GNMoj_bCjo0nVAWT0-c6-VpHZb4ZeyqNJKPZ6TQtXLdwURY/s400/copenhagen+2009.jpg" border="0" /></a>The <strong><span style="font-size:130%;">Danish minister for Climate and Energy</span></strong> and her misguided views on humankind <span style="font-size:130%;color:#33ff33;"><strong>Connie Hedegaard</strong></span> is the Danish Minister for Climate and Energy. Along with her fellow Danish colleagues <strong><span style="font-size:130%;">she is hosting the 2009 United Nations Climate Change Conference to be held in Copenhagen</span></strong>. Being a member of the Danish conservative party for decades you would not expect the minister to hold radical or extreme viewpoints regarding the relationship between man and nature. However in February 2007 <span style="font-size:130%;color:#ff0000;"><strong>the Minister said the following:"We cannot act like an enormous swarm of locusts, settling, feeding and leaving nothing to our descendants. We are ob<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHmBxYZz4lvLR0E8FFmFO3NtbAtEsxVCU53xsHkMYn9_zuuQ-NWkjFkVp9vPXB1A_TUs0TZJG2Ct75MjDLHZ5cpMFkzyTiiBxUDcapHuhsXrg1fSTAxX37aMAX-vqztQ2YtmTyfoU-aw8/s1600-h/thomas+malthus.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5368356438058357634" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 158px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 192px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHmBxYZz4lvLR0E8FFmFO3NtbAtEsxVCU53xsHkMYn9_zuuQ-NWkjFkVp9vPXB1A_TUs0TZJG2Ct75MjDLHZ5cpMFkzyTiiBxUDcapHuhsXrg1fSTAxX37aMAX-vqztQ2YtmTyfoU-aw8/s320/thomas+malthus.jpg" border="0" /></a>liged to act and the [UN] reports tells us to act now."</strong></span></div><br /><br /><div align="justify"><em><strong><span style="font-size:130%;color:#ff0000;">The likening of people with locusts is not a new one</span></strong></em>. <strong>Thomas Malthus considered people </strong><strong>similar in some respects to a pack of animals - expecting people to consume blindly enough to ensure starvation and leading finally to a decreasing population more suitable for any given amount of stock.</strong> Industrialization, trade and prosperity however proved Malthus wrong in the developed part of the world. </div><br /><br /><div align="justify"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7cxuBRPq0iJLipkKjjPdg0rKcRbOq-2JXAqV5MpjIhmMl3T-FUA2GP4svWgxaz-4apyAISoJsQbv_GvGA5bpPOxX291VtwG4lHUYs4C0PhxZj7CXDq-HbJire-gw_QanPiPw9tq04S8Y/s1600-h/green_fascism.jpg"><strong><span style="font-size:130%;"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5368356011552316034" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 267px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 234px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7cxuBRPq0iJLipkKjjPdg0rKcRbOq-2JXAqV5MpjIhmMl3T-FUA2GP4svWgxaz-4apyAISoJsQbv_GvGA5bpPOxX291VtwG4lHUYs4C0PhxZj7CXDq-HbJire-gw_QanPiPw9tq04S8Y/s320/green_fascism.jpg" border="0" /></span></strong></a><strong><span style="font-size:130%;">It is also a sad fact that targeted people in Europe and elsewhere have been treated like beasts of burden by people in power – in the shape of slavery or repression - culminating in the horrors of <span style="color:#cc0000;">Nazi-Germany</span> - who also used analogies with animals in trying to eradicate particular creeds or races of humankind</span></strong>. - <span style="font-size:130%;color:#33ff33;"><strong><em>And along with the environmentalists the Nazis also did not consider production, innovation, creativity or industriousness a significant let alone defining human trait. </em></strong></span></div><br /><br /><div align="justify"><strong><span style="font-size:180%;">[</span><span style="font-size:130%;">See also: <em>Eureka!! British Media Finally Realizes Seriousness of Threat Posed to Freedom by Green Socialists and Green Fascists</em>, ITSSD Journal on Economic Freedom (7/31/09) at:</span> </strong><a href="http://itssdeconomicfreedom.blogspot.com/2009/07/eureka-british-media-finally-realizes.html"><strong>http://itssdeconomicfreedom.blogspot.com/2009/07/eureka-british-media-finally-realizes.html</strong></a> <strong>; <span style="font-size:130%;"><em>How Close Is Euro-Environmentalism to German Neo Eco-Fascism? VERY! But is Virulent Socialist Eco-Pacifism Any Better?</em>, ITSSD Journal on Economic Freedom (April 5, 2008) at:</span> </strong><a href="http://itssdeconomicfreedom.blogspot.com/2008/04/how-close-is-euro-environmentalism-to.html"><strong>http://itssdeconomicfreedom.blogspot.com/2008/04/how-close-is-euro-environmentalism-to.html</strong></a><strong> <span style="font-size:180%;">]</span>.</strong></div><br /><br /><div align="justify">However <em><strong><span style="font-size:130%;">the ability to change the environment and shape it so that it becomes a life-promoting value to the creators are exactly what sets man apart from consuming animals. Humans do not consume as animals do. They transform what exists using their comparatively powerful minds to ensure a more viable result</span></strong></em>. The earth may be considered a gigantic ball of “resources” or an almost infinite combination of chemicals - that nevertheless have no value in it self – but does become valuable because the human mind is able to see a potential usefulness in that matter (live or inanimate) and furthermore because they are able to realize that potential through productive action. Thus it is people who assess value to what surrounds us, and makes the potential value into something of genuine value.</div><br /><br /><div align="justify">Capitalist society (or industrialization) is in this respect the societal pinnacle of this creative human trait that sets us apart from the brutes of nature including swarms of locusts which Mrs. Hedegaard likens us with, killer bees or a marching army of ants. <strong><span style="font-size:180%;">Thanks to capitalism production is now more complex, sophisticated and yielding higher results than ever before. The pace within which human life has been extended and improved is staggering.</span></strong></div><br /><br /><div align="justify"><strong><em><span style="font-size:130%;">Growth is therefore all about production and transformation and not about consumption. Growth is the same as an improved rearrangement of inanimate or animate matter. More growth is similarly not the equivalent of more consumption, – it is a further rearrangement of what is given in nature. </span></em></strong>And because humans have common needs, a very sizeable amount of what is made by every productive generation in capitalist society is left over to the next generation, who are thus free to move onwards with new challenges and a fuller and richer life. </div><br /><br /><div align="justify"><strong><span style="font-size:180%;"><em>The opposite of what Mrs. Hedegaard claims is happening is in fact happening: We leave more and more of value to the next generation!</em> By improving our own life through trade and production, we also liberate the next generation as may be seen in the ability to reduce work hours, hard work, time of transportation, obstacles to communication etc. etc., that may be identified during the last two hundred years.</span></strong> </div><div align="justify"></div><div align="justify"></div><div align="justify"></div><div align="justify"></div><div align="justify"></div><div align="justify"></div><div align="justify"></div><div align="justify">The bells are therefore tolling for <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhiCJsQE-nYGxH6EnM2xHAfkLB2fgTZMKkBOnj7xSTKJxkP5HgjqlbuBscw6cQOui_QTkOGQM6uIwhVpsQTdNYV6vo7C05ok60kcG5-Q0mDZ27WNph_zWwxf9kSITESWhV0yy5IjBI0lCM/s1600-h/euroSocialistLogo.gif"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5368367127634200642" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 117px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 150px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhiCJsQE-nYGxH6EnM2xHAfkLB2fgTZMKkBOnj7xSTKJxkP5HgjqlbuBscw6cQOui_QTkOGQM6uIwhVpsQTdNYV6vo7C05ok60kcG5-Q0mDZ27WNph_zWwxf9kSITESWhV0yy5IjBI0lCM/s400/euroSocialistLogo.gif" border="0" /></a><span style="font-size:180%;color:#33ff33;"><strong>Mrs. Hedegaard whose <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjcnjcXchE7FeGh6Q9gOSReZjppVKIh6jl1XpbyM9ggh4c17vxRrN_vDly7TOihsnkYTUFJB81PULM4JEFWfhhqIKQVVXSFZptYgQh5l1wrrKOCCR3Yo-Fiw_h1zCtfROMl3W2tG5Xwp4o/s1600-h/Party+of+European+Socialists+I.png"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5368367536902357154" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 72px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 106px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjcnjcXchE7FeGh6Q9gOSReZjppVKIh6jl1XpbyM9ggh4c17vxRrN_vDly7TOihsnkYTUFJB81PULM4JEFWfhhqIKQVVXSFZptYgQh5l1wrrKOCCR3Yo-Fiw_h1zCtfROMl3W2tG5Xwp4o/s400/Party+of+European+Socialists+I.png" border="0" /></a>viewpoints are entirely misguided (if not wilfully chosen by sheer malice regarding the producers to whom she does not belong)</strong></span>. <span style="font-size:180%;color:#ff0000;"><strong>There are of course people who simply consume what others produce <span style="color:#000000;">[</span>i.e., they are parastic<span style="color:#000000;">]</span> - apart from taxpayer salaried politicians</strong></span>: Some get handouts from the welfare state. Others in the third world are victims of rulers who will not allow their respective countries to become members of the group of productive (westernised) nation-states. <span style="font-size:180%;color:#33ff33;"><strong>In the last category we find real plundering and little viable production or transformation. </strong></span>Here Mrs. Hedegaards sinister words would be in place. (Sadly however, she would recommend anything but free trade and genuine industrialization.)</div><br /><br /><div align="justify"><strong><span style="font-size:130%;color:#ff0000;">The <span style="color:#33ff33;">Danish Minister of Climate and Energy</span> has confused the pinnacle of civilisation that productive society is with a society of raw consumption. If she and her fellow regulators succeeds in halting the human ability to transform the environment to serve a variety of human needs, future generations will find that the horrendous comparison of people with locusts may suddenly have become true. </span></strong></div><br /><br /><div align="justify"><strong><span style="font-size:130%;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEif52Ib2P6cR32RvTyvvILJIvUemg7rhhEzSN9E4huH6LN8kH4-H8ZgdcTELgtn9TArZN9Ris-3dtuzSOdKniToVy1WToXGdwQglqLgl6tZ_JnqLxUbBksBD0-Caw7Te0Wz-rt6F4OZte4/s1600-h/gulag.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5368365513636345714" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 239px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 333px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEif52Ib2P6cR32RvTyvvILJIvUemg7rhhEzSN9E4huH6LN8kH4-H8ZgdcTELgtn9TArZN9Ris-3dtuzSOdKniToVy1WToXGdwQglqLgl6tZ_JnqLxUbBksBD0-Caw7Te0Wz-rt6F4OZte4/s320/gulag.jpg" border="0" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPi5Qj76f9edz0e9XrweEd2W_xymbuPzeqo1nbzua_nIzpNUSGDRja1VY3KReWEXVz_LZMUhHZMtPT87v-Iqhsi6jxton7zY9jo8vUd30r1SaMI6z-Rzv9nyp-rehoAk3bAUqx79B_ff8/s1600-h/Nazi-SovietEcoRelations.png"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5368361928117700162" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 161px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 337px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPi5Qj76f9edz0e9XrweEd2W_xymbuPzeqo1nbzua_nIzpNUSGDRja1VY3KReWEXVz_LZMUhHZMtPT87v-Iqhsi6jxton7zY9jo8vUd30r1SaMI6z-Rzv9nyp-rehoAk3bAUqx79B_ff8/s320/Nazi-SovietEcoRelations.png" border="0" /></a>Thanks to the <em><span style="color:#ff0000;">no-growth policies of our political leadership</span></em> we may in time return to the brutal state of nature that capitalism and industrialization relieved us from: "At first we wanted to call the agreement <span style="color:#33ff33;">[the environmentalist Kyoto-protocol]</span> a kind of international <span style="color:#ff0000;">GOSPLAN</span>," [former advisor to Russian President Putin, Andrei Illiaronov] added, referring to the agency that repeatedly created disastrous results in its efforts to run the old Soviet economy. "But then we realized that <span style="color:#ff0000;">GOSPLAN</span> was much more humane and so we ought to call the Kyoto Protocol an international gulag. "In the gulag, though, you got the same ration daily and it didn't get smaller by the day," said Illiaronov. "In the end we had to call the Kyoto Protocol an international Auschwitz."</span></strong></div><br /><br /><div align="justify"><strong><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-size:180%;">[</span><em>See</em> James M. Taylor, </span></strong><strong><span style="font-size:130%;"><em>Europe to Russia: Ratify Kyoto or Else</em>, Heartland Institute (June 1, 2004) at: <a href="http://www.heartland.org/publications/environment%20climate/article/14997/Europe_to_Russia_Ratify_Kyoto_or_Else.html">http://www.heartland.org/publications/environment%20climate/article/14997/Europe_to_Russia_Ratify_Kyoto_or_Else.html</a> <span style="font-size:180%;">]</span>.</span></strong></div><div align="justify"><br /></div></div><div><div align="justify"><strong><span style="font-size:180%;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgyFyfZvoSU9xbBDDVd633549w1sgngT0QRJ2EVp4619JdJA07zVTi2c4IMgwN8ft3MUU7vNU1GfEi_PBYUujSerZz4-vP4w3g-BFVwafOoUl-c71scfWMjJzOkkXBtmmmD_yy1UsJH4ck/s1600-h/Moscow+University.gif"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5368365215208029730" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 404px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 305px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgyFyfZvoSU9xbBDDVd633549w1sgngT0QRJ2EVp4619JdJA07zVTi2c4IMgwN8ft3MUU7vNU1GfEi_PBYUujSerZz4-vP4w3g-BFVwafOoUl-c71scfWMjJzOkkXBtmmmD_yy1UsJH4ck/s320/Moscow+University.gif" border="0" /></a>[</span><em>"<span style="font-size:130%;">Under party guidance, the State Planning Committee (Gosudarstvennyi planovyi komitet - Gosplan)</span> was primarily responsible for creating and monitoring five-year plans and annual plans. The name was changed from State Planning Commission in 1948, but the acronym was retained. The Five-Year Plan was a comprehensive plan that set the economic goals for a five- year period. Once the Soviet regime stipulated the plan figures, all levels of the economy, from individual enterprises to the national level, were obligated to meet those goals...Economic planning, according to Marxist-Leninist doctrine, was a form of economic management by the state, indispensable both during the transition from capitalism to socialism and in a socialist society. Soviet economic theorists maintained that planning was based on a profound knowledge and application of objective socialist economic laws and that it was independent of the personal will and desires of individuals. The most general of these laws, commonly referred to as the basic law of socialism, defined the aim of economic production as the fullest satisfaction of the constantly rising material and cultural requirements of the population, using advanced technology to achieve continued growth and improvement of production. Centralized planning was presented by its proponents as the conscious application of economic laws to benefit the people through effective use of all natural resources and productive forces. The regime established production targets and prices and allocated resources, codifying these decisions in a comprehensive plan or set of plans."</em> <span style="font-size:130%;">See <em>Gosplan</em>, Federation of American Scientists website at: </span></strong><a href="http://www.fas.org/nuke/guide/russia/agency/gosplan.htm"><strong>http://www.fas.org/nuke/guide/russia/agency/gosplan.htm</strong></a><strong> <span style="font-size:180%;">]</span>.</strong></div><br /><div><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOFwmmlYzmL7g6edLv8TCLYtgaiRS40AhS-hIaZMerNFBXHnrbhEba3tT34HDMJh4swqlfdDGVJ3cb4QSVqIMlgGa0kOJMOIdIrckyAa9qAiMXdlo0xvmHo_D-G5b7-2bZkjO-qmj0mYc/s1600-h/Denmark+-+Cartoon20090711.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5368306228405045250" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 312px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOFwmmlYzmL7g6edLv8TCLYtgaiRS40AhS-hIaZMerNFBXHnrbhEba3tT34HDMJh4swqlfdDGVJ3cb4QSVqIMlgGa0kOJMOIdIrckyAa9qAiMXdlo0xvmHo_D-G5b7-2bZkjO-qmj0mYc/s400/Denmark+-+Cartoon20090711.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><br /></div><br /><br /><br /><br /><div align="justify"></div><br /><br /><br /><br /><div><br /><br /><br /></div><br /><br /><br /><br /><div align="justify"></div></div>ITSSD Charitable Missionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00790887154748866904noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3226983982698422912.post-86781481546149837692009-06-23T07:07:00.000-07:002010-01-02T18:18:27.974-08:00Obama's New Green Collar LAWYER Jobs Initiative Will Suck the Lifeblood Out of American Free Enterprise<a href="http://www.usnews.com/articles/opinion/2009/06/22/epa-climate-change-ruling-would-be-a-stimulus-for-lawyers--and-no-one-else.html">http://www.usnews.com/articles/opinion/2009/06/22/epa-climate-change-ruling-would-be-a-stimulus-for-lawyers--and-no-one-else.html</a><br /><br /><h1 style="TEXT-ALIGN: justify"><span style="font-size:100%;">EPA Climate Change Ruling Would be a Stimulus for Lawyers--And No One Else</span><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhWP9RaJyGM0bAUwqjYKYHcHGEld9MMn9ROMHm6XQkYpnsKw0lOaL5MNNEt-32jOnvKlH_vH6qzWQtxQRAaFb7gayMY_pVwjP1IKyGDl6zQ3EHTZWuQiVdzU3BZIsKqWbe-fDA0MOzRYE/s1600-h/DEM+LAWYERS.JPG"><span style="font-size:100%;"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5350528600126346818" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; WIDTH: 328px; CURSOR: pointer; HEIGHT: 324px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhWP9RaJyGM0bAUwqjYKYHcHGEld9MMn9ROMHm6XQkYpnsKw0lOaL5MNNEt-32jOnvKlH_vH6qzWQtxQRAaFb7gayMY_pVwjP1IKyGDl6zQ3EHTZWuQiVdzU3BZIsKqWbe-fDA0MOzRYE/s400/DEM+LAWYERS.JPG" border="0" /></span></a></h1><br /><br /><div style="TEXT-ALIGN: justify"></div>By <a href="http://www.usnews.com/Topics/tag/Author/g/glenn_g_lammi/index.html">Glenn G. Lammi</a> <div id="byline" style="TEXT-ALIGN: justify"><br /><br /></div><div style="TEXT-ALIGN: justify"></div><div id="dateline" style="TEXT-ALIGN: justify">Posted June 22, 2009</div><div style="TEXT-ALIGN: justify"><br /><br />With debate raging in Congress over how to reduce greenhouse gases, it is easy to overlook the critical developments on this issue that are simmering in federal agencies. <span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold; COLOR: rgb(255,0,0); FONT-STYLE: italic">Federal rulemaking is certainly far less entertaining than the pageantry of politics, but one proceeding now coming to a head at the Environmental Protection Agency will have profound implications for climate change and the conduct of everyday commerce.</span></span><br /><br /><br /></div><p style="TEXT-ALIGN: justify">While nearly every sector of our economy will be bracing for its negative impact, one sector—the <span style="font-size:130%;"><a class="kLink" id="KonaLink0" style="POSITION: static; TEXT-DECORATION: underline! important" href="http://www.usnews.com/articles/opinion/2009/06/22/epa-climate-change-ruling-would-be-a-stimulus-for-lawyers--and-no-one-else_print.htm#" target="undefined"><span style="COLOR: rgb(0,84,151)! important;font-family:Georgia,';color:#005497;" ><span class="kLink" style="COLOR: rgb(0,84,151)! important;font-family:Georgia,';" >litigation</span></span></a> </span><a class="kLink" id="KonaLink3" style="POSITION: static; TEXT-DECORATION: underline! important" href="http://www.usnews.com/articles/opinion/2009/06/22/epa-climate-change-ruling-would-be-a-stimulus-for-lawyers--and-no-one-else_print.htm#" target="undefined"><span style="COLOR: rgb(0,84,151)! important;font-family:Georgia,';font-size:130%;color:#005497;" ><span class="kLink" style="BORDER-BOTTOM-WIDTH: 1px; BORDER-BOTTOM-COLOR: rgb(0,84,151); COLOR: rgb(0,84,151)! important">industry</span></span><span id="preLoadWrap3" style="POSITION: relative"></p></span></a><div id="preLoadLayer3" style="DISPLAY: none; Z-INDEX: 4000; LEFT: -18px; POSITION: absolute; TOP: -32px"><img style="BORDER-RIGHT: 0px; BORDER-TOP: 0px; BORDER-LEFT: 0px; BORDER-BOTTOM: 0px" src="http://kona.kontera.com/javascript/lib/imgs/grey_loader.gif" /></div>—can look upon the EPA's action as a job-creating government stimulus. <p></p><p style="TEXT-ALIGN: justify"><br /></p><p style="TEXT-ALIGN: justify"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRzQPrcPwZFTvLw9b7URmEBfDU15dQpfVSMjeLo5blB6oEnohztbJWOTY9aRTGuDMmShzq-p2S0I4ScY-WZe7w6Ii0uO1zgd5QXhVqmJzPX6w-oXGBNwZCCGREh9Uvdr5MJGUmdXOWCT4/s1600-h/epa_logo.gif"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5350532483364611826" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; WIDTH: 200px; CURSOR: pointer; HEIGHT: 200px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRzQPrcPwZFTvLw9b7URmEBfDU15dQpfVSMjeLo5blB6oEnohztbJWOTY9aRTGuDMmShzq-p2S0I4ScY-WZe7w6Ii0uO1zgd5QXhVqmJzPX6w-oXGBNwZCCGREh9Uvdr5MJGUmdXOWCT4/s320/epa_logo.gif" border="0" /></a></p><div style="TEXT-ALIGN: justify"></div><p style="TEXT-ALIGN: justify">Empowered by a 2007 U.S. Supreme Court ruling, the <span style="font-size:180%;"><span style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold; COLOR: rgb(0,102,0)">EPA</span></span> proposed a finding last April that greenhouse gas endangers public health and welfare and contributes to climate change. The proposal is undergoing <span style="font-size:180%;"><span style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold; COLOR: rgb(255,0,0)">a regretfully abbreviated 60-day comment period that ends tomorrow</span></span>. But EPA statements and related actions clearly indicate the agency intends to ultimately find "endangerment."</p><p style="TEXT-ALIGN: justify"><br /></p><div style="TEXT-ALIGN: justify"></div><p style="TEXT-ALIGN: justify"><br /></p><p style="TEXT-ALIGN: justify">Such a finding triggers regulation of sources of greenhouse gas emissions under the federal Clean Air Act, a law written over 30 years ago to address local and regional environmental problems. <span style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold;font-size:130%;" ><span style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold">One legislative leader on climate change, <span style="COLOR: rgb(51,51,255)">Rep. John Dingell</span>, has remarked that i<span style="COLOR: rgb(255,0,0)">t would be "insane that [Congress] would be talking about leaving this kind of judgment ... to a long and complex process of regulatory action," affecting "potentially every industry and every emitter and every person in this country." From cars to cows, </span></span><a class="kLink" id="KonaLink1" style="POSITION: static; TEXT-DECORATION: underline! important" href="http://www.usnews.com/articles/opinion/2009/06/22/epa-climate-change-ruling-would-be-a-stimulus-for-lawyers--and-no-one-else_print.htm#" target="undefined"><span style="COLOR: rgb(0,84,151)! important;font-family:Georgia,';color:#005497;" ><span class="kLink" style="COLOR: rgb(0,84,151)! important;font-family:Georgia,';" >energy </span><span class="kLink" style="COLOR: rgb(0,84,151)! important;font-family:Georgia,';" >plants</span></span></a></span><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold"> t<span style="COLOR: rgb(255,0,0)">o neighborhood dry cleaners, landfills to restaurants, the regulation would encompass American businesses of all types and sizes.</span></span></span></p><p style="TEXT-ALIGN: justify"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgu2E0Jo9sKVeUq-UGXqVvRzbilK71xRgvvFU6TKWBoKDMYf3HMBXv0f-xl6SSqyqHhuyVfTEIRQXb13sUyuTpMKfVBlxrKE02vNNKqS3HTVBcFg0RQbwO6_jl2HqkQm5RshxQQMdWcOpE/s1600-h/3lawyers.gif"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5350528342184769042" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: pointer; HEIGHT: 223px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgu2E0Jo9sKVeUq-UGXqVvRzbilK71xRgvvFU6TKWBoKDMYf3HMBXv0f-xl6SSqyqHhuyVfTEIRQXb13sUyuTpMKfVBlxrKE02vNNKqS3HTVBcFg0RQbwO6_jl2HqkQm5RshxQQMdWcOpE/s400/3lawyers.gif" border="0" /></a></p><p style="TEXT-ALIGN: justify"><br /></p><p style="TEXT-ALIGN: justify"></p><div style="TEXT-ALIGN: justify"></div><p style="TEXT-ALIGN: justify"><span style="font-size:180%;"><span style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold"><span style="COLOR: rgb(51,51,255)">A formal government proclamation</span> that greenhouse gases are a threat to public health and welfare, and are thus subject to the Clean Air Act, is <span style="COLOR: rgb(51,51,255)">a dream come true for plaintiffs' lawyers</span> and <span style="COLOR: rgb(51,255,51)">l</span><span style="COLOR: rgb(51,255,51)">itigious professional activists</span>.</span></span> Up to now, litigation has thus far, thankfully, played a minor role in addressing climate change. Courts have largely rebuffed lawsuits by state attorneys general alleging that greenhouse gas emitters were a "public nuisance." (A $400 million nuisance and conspiracy suit filed against 23 energy companies by an entire Alaskan village remains undecided.)</p><p style="TEXT-ALIGN: justify"><br /></p><p style="TEXT-ALIGN: justify"><br /></p><p style="TEXT-ALIGN: justify"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5Jp1TY93DHDwExBg5xY6yikySieCgVOUjTy8mJ9c7m4FE0x-pRVtW4l2rEFyLSLVk5hKcSVc0iyoXjwJqvPbhAwoPQ0q6zDIoFJeSPd8F4ne60GcsyWXC9YXaXWLnv4HKkZOE_J5k994/s1600-h/vampire_obama.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5350531430434402898" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; WIDTH: 294px; CURSOR: pointer; HEIGHT: 320px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5Jp1TY93DHDwExBg5xY6yikySieCgVOUjTy8mJ9c7m4FE0x-pRVtW4l2rEFyLSLVk5hKcSVc0iyoXjwJqvPbhAwoPQ0q6zDIoFJeSPd8F4ne60GcsyWXC9YXaXWLnv4HKkZOE_J5k994/s320/vampire_obama.jpg" border="0" /></a></p><div style="TEXT-ALIGN: justify"></div><p style="TEXT-ALIGN: justify">But <span style="font-size:180%;"><span style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold; COLOR: rgb(255,0,0)">the slow drip of climate change lawsuits </span></span>is about to become a deluge, drowning the judiciary and thousands of businesses, in a tsunami of litigation.</p><p style="TEXT-ALIGN: justify"><br /></p><h1 style="TEXT-ALIGN: justify"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6g2adQQif5FgNyf7yU-Bt8dBDrsDkMFvJmIOKihDZ9rqQriWHT-8vCdCy1YVvtgbLk9u7kYZFz8vFzX3zaX803gwfnU9sZAg_URT67KKebnQ0i4GSpHm5ks2HfC_DyMf6OyVwp38GbRE/s1600-h/LogoSwissRe.gif"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5350530547132227682" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; WIDTH: 150px; CURSOR: pointer; HEIGHT: 164px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6g2adQQif5FgNyf7yU-Bt8dBDrsDkMFvJmIOKihDZ9rqQriWHT-8vCdCy1YVvtgbLk9u7kYZFz8vFzX3zaX803gwfnU9sZAg_URT67KKebnQ0i4GSpHm5ks2HfC_DyMf6OyVwp38GbRE/s400/LogoSwissRe.gif" border="0" /></a></h1><div style="TEXT-ALIGN: justify"></div><p style="TEXT-ALIGN: justify"><span style="font-size:180%;"><span style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold">Swiss Re,</span></span> a leading insurance company, recently opined that <span style="font-size:130%;"><a class="kLink" id="KonaLink2" style="POSITION: static; TEXT-DECORATION: underline! important" href="http://www.usnews.com/articles/opinion/2009/06/22/epa-climate-change-ruling-would-be-a-stimulus-for-lawyers--and-no-one-else_print.htm#" target="undefined"><span style="COLOR: rgb(0,84,151)! important;font-family:Georgia,';color:#005497;" ><span class="kLink" style="COLOR: rgb(0,84,151)! important;font-family:Georgia,';" >global </span><span class="kLink" style="COLOR: rgb(0,84,151)! important;font-family:Georgia,';" >warming</span></span></a> suits will explode and expand faster than asbestos</span> litigation. The EPA's endangerment finding will be cited in countless class actions and other suits alleging that productive economic activity caused health problems or led to damaging heat, flooding, drought, wildfires, or the spread of pathogens.</p><p style="TEXT-ALIGN: justify"><br /></p><p style="TEXT-ALIGN: justify"><br /></p><div style="TEXT-ALIGN: justify"></div><p style="TEXT-ALIGN: justify"><span style="font-size:180%;"><span style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold">The EPA's proposal makes <span style="COLOR: rgb(255,0,0)">no effort </span>to quantify the risk of any of these potential outcomes of global warming, or to specify a direct health effect from them.</span></span> This won't, of course, stop creative plaintiffs' lawyers from using EPA's finding to sow fear or prevent judges and juries from favorably noting the government determination in liability suits. Just as with asbestos liability, exposure to climate change litigation will be spread throughout the economy, with the small scale rancher or farmer, the corner restaurant, and the community nonprofit hospital bearing the brunt of the burden.</p><p style="TEXT-ALIGN: justify"><br /></p><p style="TEXT-ALIGN: justify"><br /></p><div style="TEXT-ALIGN: justify"></div><p style="TEXT-ALIGN: justify">In addition to civil liability suits, EPA's endangerment finding will allow activist organizations to file citizen suits against businesses whose greenhouse gases emissions allegedly violated the Clean Air Act. These "private attorney general" actions can be very lucrative and activists regularly deploy them to expand the boundaries of laws like the Clean Air Act to create even more litigation opportunities.</p><p style="TEXT-ALIGN: justify"><br /></p><p style="TEXT-ALIGN: justify"><br /></p><div style="TEXT-ALIGN: justify"></div><p style="TEXT-ALIGN: justify">In litigation, there is no occasion for the parties, the judge, or the jury to weigh the costs, benefits, feasibility, and both short- and long-term consequences of different potential legal outcomes. This concern is significantly amplified when the overarching matter before a court is as complex, or as global in nature, as global warming.</p><p style="TEXT-ALIGN: justify"><br /></p><p style="TEXT-ALIGN: justify"><br /></p><div style="TEXT-ALIGN: justify"></div><p style="TEXT-ALIGN: justify">As one federal judge prudently wrote in dismissing California's climate change lawsuit against auto manufacturers, "injecting [this court] into the global warming thicket at this juncture would require an initial policy determination of the type reserved for the political branches of government."</p><p style="TEXT-ALIGN: justify"><br /></p><p style="TEXT-ALIGN: justify"><br /></p><div style="TEXT-ALIGN: justify"></div><p style="TEXT-ALIGN: justify">EPA's regulation of greenhouse gas emissions under the antiquated Clean Air Act would create, as Representative Dingell put it, "a glorious mess." <span style="font-size:180%;"><span style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold; COLOR: rgb(255,0,0)">A</span><span style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold; COLOR: rgb(255,0,0)">dd to that the disparate patchwork of court decisions and jury verdicts that would emerge from years of EPA-inspired greenhouse gas litigation, and you have a recipe for stagnating commerce.</span></span></p><p style="TEXT-ALIGN: justify"><br /></p><p style="TEXT-ALIGN: justify"><br /></p><div style="TEXT-ALIGN: justify"></div><p style="TEXT-ALIGN: justify">There would, however, be a hiring boom in the litigation industry. Are these some of the "green jobs" we've all been hearing about?</p>ITSSD Charitable Missionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00790887154748866904noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3226983982698422912.post-66185942523655242352008-09-23T16:04:00.000-07:002008-12-31T13:27:06.153-08:00Al Gore's Call for Climate Change Disobedience, UK Court's Climate Change Ruling and Lewis Gordon Pugh's North Pole Kayaking 'Do Monty Python Proud'!<a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2008/09/14/do1402.xml">http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2008/09/14/do1402.xml</a><br /><div><br /><div><strong><span style="font-size:130%;">Climate change chicanery</span></strong></div></div><div><br /></div><div>By Christopher Booker</div><br /><div><br /></div><div>The Independent UK</div><br /><div></div><br /><div>14/09/2008</div><br /><br /><strong><span style="color:#33ff33;">Recent events have seen the scare campaign over global</span> <span style="color:#33ff33;">warming</span> </strong><em><span style="font-size:130%;"><strong>descend to the level of a</strong> </span><span style="font-size:180%;"><strong>Monty Python sketch.</strong></span></em><br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifJ7NH5-4aI21eyw8rozW2iGbD2noJyJ8WPpP-5tqDg_CaDejfhob6Le7JuEY0rxeNDhq_Bh30clbTN-hEi9FaJQrAKu6lp6-kisr3lsmLTzsLhT7G29QKcHo2dhT57VAMXBN-IadcGm8/s1600-h/monty+python+sketch+2.bmp"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5250131807758948546" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifJ7NH5-4aI21eyw8rozW2iGbD2noJyJ8WPpP-5tqDg_CaDejfhob6Le7JuEY0rxeNDhq_Bh30clbTN-hEi9FaJQrAKu6lp6-kisr3lsmLTzsLhT7G29QKcHo2dhT57VAMXBN-IadcGm8/s400/monty+python+sketch+2.bmp" border="0" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHu2vHh3EpdD40EM6A_uxTwT6fg1-oiBJaUeB_Hy6IbMhEL6mgO1uhl80hQE1xX71qoIW3nQrV4MsCR53RRQL_Imza43fFhqo0_1rak8M6OPlTtnakp0-5K0nU7CIfGmCWRp6hEQpa64o/s1600-h/deadparrot1308_468x333.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5250130863408964994" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHu2vHh3EpdD40EM6A_uxTwT6fg1-oiBJaUeB_Hy6IbMhEL6mgO1uhl80hQE1xX71qoIW3nQrV4MsCR53RRQL_Imza43fFhqo0_1rak8M6OPlTtnakp0-5K0nU7CIfGmCWRp6hEQpa64o/s400/deadparrot1308_468x333.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhR5hIUjuYYDSjc8gcrIqhFUqfedxvJI91cbzkfKLhm_pzsqDZSFXkD2Pe1NpWu3w3kbTp4U127wVOD9GQ3uIgP6zAvhOnERwEij74yyPbR2VgIEairuNM4cAFlQGctqjZZUHQonbJ9YFk/s1600-h/monty+python+clever-sheep.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5250131954145164674" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhR5hIUjuYYDSjc8gcrIqhFUqfedxvJI91cbzkfKLhm_pzsqDZSFXkD2Pe1NpWu3w3kbTp4U127wVOD9GQ3uIgP6zAvhOnERwEij74yyPbR2VgIEairuNM4cAFlQGctqjZZUHQonbJ9YFk/s400/monty+python+clever-sheep.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IqhlQfXUk7w">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IqhlQfXUk7w</a><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKmgp6cINnyBxJP5TQLVlM7QrffOf5AYo498LTyp88GSbPvVEp2gjrCz7ho_hkPPWuOKgtGXiIrwp4QRsI2Nx0B4jCwvRUzFEDOGhE_H3tktJ3LpkmXb1OSOnEvxXraYkr7V3rUhZY9E0/s1600-h/monty+python+sketch+1.bmp"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5250131596432158578" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKmgp6cINnyBxJP5TQLVlM7QrffOf5AYo498LTyp88GSbPvVEp2gjrCz7ho_hkPPWuOKgtGXiIrwp4QRsI2Nx0B4jCwvRUzFEDOGhE_H3tktJ3LpkmXb1OSOnEvxXraYkr7V3rUhZY9E0/s400/monty+python+sketch+1.bmp" border="0" /></a> <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjaRWBA_Y1sXfagYl_FaRyI8Uf6dL5qhcq0NBHGjkGneDM6pFFWz1N9KGgkAly0_vOpmDJg12bINoc63Mw8Vp51TRhy-UUAcmRp5_ljmkEiKnlB6TvTrc2m59piheE6vmW2saCX0q1F0Ts/s1600-h/monty+python+king+arthur.bmp"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5250135438576119010" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjaRWBA_Y1sXfagYl_FaRyI8Uf6dL5qhcq0NBHGjkGneDM6pFFWz1N9KGgkAly0_vOpmDJg12bINoc63Mw8Vp51TRhy-UUAcmRp5_ljmkEiKnlB6TvTrc2m59piheE6vmW2saCX0q1F0Ts/s400/monty+python+king+arthur.bmp" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><div><br /></div><div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvhR4hty5bSANMWVfI7y0uU6gojurQ6Nj0BATjVOU2UDD7c0uv9kcEj4J-K_9OEdr3ACcei0DfiM_-CXkp-KUZHMgb-5gbMFThpUgtO2oDikg68nocFVKqoc7mDp-7lGKCjZiRpF5VJ9A/s1600-h/blackknight.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5250137057019711442" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvhR4hty5bSANMWVfI7y0uU6gojurQ6Nj0BATjVOU2UDD7c0uv9kcEj4J-K_9OEdr3ACcei0DfiM_-CXkp-KUZHMgb-5gbMFThpUgtO2oDikg68nocFVKqoc7mDp-7lGKCjZiRpF5VJ9A/s400/blackknight.jpg" border="0" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmVFf1csMHQDTu6YB7kjw4vN7BICCKGcJIuTKMoAl9Xhyd8C658Sw1Lxd0Xk1msAwrJ0LuvGJnYKOepQQgtjqe_mPCNYR78t8tG6esqRqaJQR8k20ijTx4kNFCkRwOEHjE8kAvVuJYJJI/s1600-h/lewis-gordon-pugh_1822.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5250177028682885522" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 326px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 217px" height="228" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmVFf1csMHQDTu6YB7kjw4vN7BICCKGcJIuTKMoAl9Xhyd8C658Sw1Lxd0Xk1msAwrJ0LuvGJnYKOepQQgtjqe_mPCNYR78t8tG6esqRqaJQR8k20ijTx4kNFCkRwOEHjE8kAvVuJYJJI/s400/lewis-gordon-pugh_1822.jpg" width="350" border="0" /></a><strong>Much publicity was given, for instance, to Lewis Gordon Pugh, who set out to paddle a kayak to the Pole to demonstrate the vanishing of the Arctic ice.</strong> At 80.5 degrees north, still 600 miles short of his goal, he met with ice so thick that he and his fossil-fuelled support ship had to turn back. </div><div><br /></div><div><div><strong><em>But this did not prevent him receiving a congratulatory call from Gordon Brown, nor boasting that he had travelled "further north than anyone has kayaked so far".<br /></em></strong><br /><a href="http://ads.telegraph.co.uk/event.ng/Type=click&FlightID=31944&AdID=39442&TargetID=10241&Values=1478&ASeg=&AMod=&Redirect=http://www.noble-caledonia.co.uk/telegraph.asp" target="_top"></a><br />It took the admirable <a lang="en.uk" href="http://wattsupwiththat.wordpress.com/2008/09/09/polar-defense-project-deletes-the-tough-questions/" target="external" jquery1222210677640="62">Watts Up With That </a>blog, run by the American meteorologist Anthony Watts, to point out that <em><strong>in 1893 the Norwegian explorer Fridtjof Nansen</strong></em> found the Arctic so ice-free that he was able to kayak above 82 degrees north, <em><strong>100 miles nearer the Pole than our hapless campaigner against "unprecedented global warming".</strong></em></div><br /><div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihBSbrMRhQTcm9tBO5n7_5awg9XssVhObDO-ORqYCfroSkYokGLjmGyQAnbt0HGaVY3nZznBxj4amz2BPu0-qK-5rqCEvCK5_lNR4Yky__WnFnPXJAa3yUWYJW_t2yXvAEN1m4lAXUsAY/s1600-h/Rajendra_Pachauri_wideweb__470x317,0.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5250179000713883938" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" height="230" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihBSbrMRhQTcm9tBO5n7_5awg9XssVhObDO-ORqYCfroSkYokGLjmGyQAnbt0HGaVY3nZznBxj4amz2BPu0-qK-5rqCEvCK5_lNR4Yky__WnFnPXJAa3yUWYJW_t2yXvAEN1m4lAXUsAY/s400/Rajendra_Pachauri_wideweb__470x317,0.jpg" width="349" border="0" /></a>Then there was the <a lang="en.uk" href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/main.jhtml?xml=/earth/2008/09/08/eameat108.xml" jquery1222210677640="63">much-publicised speech</a> to Compassion in World Farming by <strong><span style="font-size:130%;">Dr Rajendra Pachauri</span></strong>, chairman of the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, <strong><em><span style="font-size:130%;">pleading for people to give up meat, on the grounds that the digestive methane given off by cattle contributes more to greenhouse gases than all the world's transport</span></em>. </strong></div><br /><div></div><br /><div><strong><span style="font-size:180%;">[</span><span style="font-size:130%;">IT WOULD SEEM THAT THE 'GASSING' OF ANOTHER, ESPECIALLY A LAW ENFORCEMENT OFFICER (PRESUMABLY, AS THE RESULT OF ONE'S CARNIVOROUS PREDILECTIONS), COULD TRIGGER A CRIMINAL CHARGE OF 1ST DEGREE BATTERY & POTENTIALLY JAIL TIME. See: <em>Man Charged After Allegedly Passing Gas Toward Cop</em>, CBS News (Sept. 25, 2008) at: </span></strong><a href="http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/09/24/ap/strange/main4476754.shtml"><strong>http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/09/24/ap/strange/main4476754.shtml</strong></a> <strong><span style="font-size:180%;">]</span></strong>. </div><br /><br /><div>Although hailed by the BBC as "the UN's top climate scientist", Dr Pachauri, who holds PhDs in economics and engineering, is nothing of the kind, but just an apparatchik. </div><div></div><div><br /><strong><em><span style="font-size:130%;">A vegetarian Hindu, Dr Pachauri not only used highly tendentious figures to promote his cause but said nothing about the contribution made to global warming by India's 400 million sacred cows, which presumably would still be free to vent wind even if the rest of humanity is converted to eating veggieburgers</span></em></strong>.</div><div></div><div><br />Telegraph.co.uk/earth</div></div><div></div><div><br /></div><div>There has also been an acclaimed new paper by Michael Mann, the creator of the iconic "hockey stick" graph, purporting to show that the world has recently become hotter than at any time in recorded history, eliminating all the wealth of evidence to show that temperatures were higher in the Mediaeval Warm Period than today.</div><div></div><div><br />After being used obsessively by the IPCC's 2001 report to promote the cause, the "hockey stick" was comprehensively discredited, not least by Steve McIntyre, a Canadian computer analyst, who showed that Mann had built into his computer programme an algorithm (or "al-gore-ithm") which would produce the hockey stick shape even if the data fed in was just "random noise".</div><div></div><div><br /></div><div>Two weeks ago Dr Mann published a new study, claiming to have used 1,209 new historic "temperature proxies" to show that his original graph was essentially correct after all. This was faithfully reported by the media as further confirmation that we live in a time of unprecedented warming. Steve McIntyre immediately got to work and, supported by expert readers on his Climate Audit website, shredded Mann's new version as mercilessly as he had the original.<br /></div><div><br /></div><div>He again showed how selective Mann had been in his new data, excluding anything which confirmed the Mediaeval Warming and concentrating on that showing temperatures recently rising to record levels.<br /></div><div></div><div><br /></div><div>Finnish experts pointed out that, where Mann placed emphasis on the evidence of sediments from Finnish lakes, there were particular reasons why these should have shown rising temperatures in recent years, such as expanding towns on their shores. McIntyre even discovered a part of Mann's programme akin to a disguised version of his earlier algorithm, which he now calls "Mannomatics".<br /></div><div></div><div><br /></div><div>But Mann's new study will surely be used to push the warmist party line in the run-up to the IPCC international conference in Copenhagen next year to agree a successor to the Kyoto Protocol.<br /></div><div><br /></div><div>Meanwhile, back in the real world, temperatures continue to drop. The latest Nasa satellite readings on global temperatures from the University of Alabama, one of four officially recognised sources of temperature data, show that August was the fourth month this year when temperatures fell below their 30-year average, ie since satellite records began. The US National Climatic Data Center showsis showing that last month in the USA was only the 39th warmest since records began 113 years ago.<br /></div><div></div><div><strong><span style="font-size:180%;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmrIH220XMZhXdZEt40VqEZT72Ynt1OxaOHj04Geg6tK6eJOIT3E0hVdff2LYIe3Ot1pU1Gb_jQOKYWcdTZE0F2VOK5dnrK5imaNdOsyu38riDGX3eH-2LU6NLg1MPIdw3-Q5Z8z9RB5g/s1600-h/biden+kangaroo+court.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5249370855236257842" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmrIH220XMZhXdZEt40VqEZT72Ynt1OxaOHj04Geg6tK6eJOIT3E0hVdff2LYIe3Ot1pU1Gb_jQOKYWcdTZE0F2VOK5dnrK5imaNdOsyu38riDGX3eH-2LU6NLg1MPIdw3-Q5Z8z9RB5g/s400/biden+kangaroo+court.jpg" border="0" /></a><span style="color:#000066;">It is high time, however, that we took all this chicanery and wishful thinking seriously - as was evidenced in</span> <em><span style="color:#ff0000;">Maidstone Crown [Kangaroo] Court</span></em> last Wednesday, by </span></strong><a lang="en.uk" href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/main.jhtml?xml=/earth/2008/09/10/eacoal110.xml" jquery1222210677640="66"><strong><span style="font-size:180%;">the acquittal of six Greenpeace campaigners </span></strong></a><strong><span style="font-size:180%;"><span style="color:#000066;">tried for criminal damage to Kingsnorth power station.</span> </span></strong><br /></div><div></div><div><br /></div><div><span style="font-size:130%;"><strong>They were attempting to stop a new coal-fired power station being built, to produce 1,600 megawatts of electricity (two and a half times as much as is generated by all the 2,300 wind turbines so far built in Britain). </strong><br /></span></div><div></div><div><span style="font-size:130%;"><br /></span><em><strong><span style="font-size:130%;">As gleefully reported on the front page of The Independent, and at length by other promoters of warming alarmism such as the BBC and The Guardian, the jury agreed that the damage they had perpetrated was lawfully justified - because the damage done by the new power station, in raising global sea levels and contributing to the extinction of "a million species", would be far worse. </span></strong></em><br /></div><div></div><div><br /></div><div><strong><span style="font-size:130%;">The court was swayed to this remarkable verdict by the evidence of two "expert witnesses" for the defence: Zac Goldsmith, one of David Cameron's envrionmental policy advisers and a prospective Conservative MP, and James Hansen, head of Nasa's Goddard Institute for Space Studies.<br /></span></strong></div><div></div><div><br /><strong><span style="font-size:130%;">Dr Hansen, who has been the world's leading global warming campaigner for 20 years <span style="font-size:180%;color:#3333ff;">(along with his ally Al Gore),</span> claimed that the proposed Kingsnorth power station alone would be responsible for the extinction of "400 species".</span></strong><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><span style="color:#cc0000;"><strong><em><span style="font-size:130%;">It is extraordinary that two such partisan witnesses were accepted by the court in this role, since the rules, as defined by Mr Justice Cresswell in 1993, insist that the function of an "expert witness" is only to give "objective evidence". He must not be an "advocate" for one side or the other on any issue on which experts are divided.</span></em></strong> </span></div><div></div><div><br /></div><div>This should have ruled Dr Hansen out at once. Question marks are raised over his institute's temperature data. Last year he was forced by Steve McIntyre to revise his figures for US surface temperatures, to show that the hottest decade of the 20th century was not the 1990s, as Hansen claimed, but the 1930s. He has also campaigned tirelessly for the scrapping of all coal-fired power stations.<br /></div><div></div><div><br /></div><div>Yet we are critically dependent on coal-generated power: it supplies 35 per cent of Britain's needs and 50 per cent of America's. Thanks to EU rules, we will be forced to close six coal-fired power stations before long, and without new ones, such as that proposed for Kingsnorth, our economy will judder to a halt.<br /></div><div></div><div><br /></div><div><strong><em><span style="font-size:130%;color:#cc0000;">David Cameron could well be prime minister by then. That one of his closest advisers believes that criminal damage is justified to stop coal-fired power plants being built is just as alarming as that the British courts now seem to agree with him.</span></em></strong></div><div></div><div><span style="font-size:130%;">----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- </span></div><div></div><div><a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUSTRE48N7AA20080924">http://www.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUSTRE48N7AA20080924</a> </div><div><br /></div><div><strong><span style="font-size:130%;">Gore urges civil disobedience to stop coal plants</span></strong></div><div></div><div></div><div>Sep 24, 2008 3:29pm EDT</div><div></div><div><br /></div><div>By Michelle Nichols</div><div></div><div></div><div>NEW YORK (Reuters) - Nobel Peace Prize winner and environmental crusader <em><strong><span style="font-size:130%;">Al Gore urged young people on Wednesday to engage in civil disobedience to stop the construction of coal plants without the ability to store carbon.<br /></span></strong></em></div><div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgT4s49FsLVK8tUqoT1N8t8CLiwL15cU3wNJfAxAvokFEs5vBkWBzjpuDryTuDYuJyluCUg0CgjgjSF27vYaCnTxBYUQViwjheuOama7KwWvSD8lkPyA3m7TrUKpkUtZEY3x1P0bFNb2eU/s1600-h/Al+Gore+bloviating.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5250172505764402994" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" height="214" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgT4s49FsLVK8tUqoT1N8t8CLiwL15cU3wNJfAxAvokFEs5vBkWBzjpuDryTuDYuJyluCUg0CgjgjSF27vYaCnTxBYUQViwjheuOama7KwWvSD8lkPyA3m7TrUKpkUtZEY3x1P0bFNb2eU/s320/Al+Gore+bloviating.jpg" width="256" border="0" /></a></div><div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggfi3z5-v0LXRyYb7WJI36XYxz3X6GHeGWcnQ9eYUpl68Xe99dl1haGZrWVvXdSYb8GkfTGM-J5aL1bquiRXOHN-XozCbWsz2vcy3q0wzo8d7Fc9q3aPqqI9R-pI8od336jk5KFR9IaaE/s1600-h/spot+the+looney.bmp"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5250175596027211058" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" height="212" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggfi3z5-v0LXRyYb7WJI36XYxz3X6GHeGWcnQ9eYUpl68Xe99dl1haGZrWVvXdSYb8GkfTGM-J5aL1bquiRXOHN-XozCbWsz2vcy3q0wzo8d7Fc9q3aPqqI9R-pI8od336jk5KFR9IaaE/s320/spot+the+looney.bmp" width="269" border="0" /></a><strong><span style="font-size:180%;">CAN YOU SPOT THE LOONEY?</span></strong><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /><br /><br /></div><div><br /></div><div></div><div>1) <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CQmFMXkhXPY">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CQmFMXkhXPY</a></div><div></div><div></div><div></div><div></div><div></div><div>2) <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KTFDS-MGFK0">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KTFDS-MGFK0</a></div><div></div><div></div><div>The former U.S. vice president, whose climate changedocumentary "An Inconvenient Truth" won an Academy Award, told a philanthropic meeting in New York City that "the world has lost ground to the climate crisis."<br /><br /></div><div><strong><em><span style="font-size:130%;">"If you're a young person looking at the future of this planet and looking at what is being done right now, and not done, I believe we have reached the stage where it is time for civil disobedience to prevent the construction of new coal plants that do not have carbon capture and sequestration,"</span></em></strong> Gore told the Clinton Global Initiative gathering to loud applause.<br /></div><div><br /><br /></div><div><strong><em><span style="font-size:130%;">"I believe for a carbon company to spend money convincing the stock-buying public that the risk from the global climate crisis is not that great represents a form of stock fraud because they are misrepresenting <span style="font-size:180%;">a material fact</span>," he said. "I hope these state attorney generals around the country will take some action on that."<br /></span></em></strong></div><br /><br /><strong><span style="font-size:180%;">[THE STATEMENT THAT, "THE RISK FROM THE GLOBAL CLIMATE CRISIS IS GREAT" IS A 'MATERIAL FACT'??? ANY PUBLIC DISAGREEMENT WITH THIS SO-CALLED 'MATERIAL FACT' IS EQUIVALENT TO FRAUD?? MR. GORE, ARE YOU AWARE THAT MUCH OF THE PUBLIC THINKS YOU ARE A LOONEY?]</span></strong><br /><div></div><div></div><div>The government says about 28 coal plants are under construction in the United States. Another 20 projects have permits or are near the start of construction.<br /></div><div><br /></div><div>Scientists say carbon gases from burning fossil fuel for power and transport are a key factor in global warming.<br /></div><div><br /></div><div>Carbon capture and storage could give coal power an extended lease on life by keeping power plants' greenhouse gas emissions out of the atmosphere and easing climate change.<br />But no commercial-scale project exists anywhere to demonstrate the technology, partly because it is expected to increase up-front capital costs by an additional 50 percent.<br /></div><div><br /></div><div>So-called geo-sequestration of carbon sees carbon dioxide liquefied and pumped into underground rock layers for long term storage.<br /></div><div><br /></div><div>(Additional reporting by Timothy Gardner; Editing by Christine Kearney and Xavier Briand)</div><div></div><div>-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------<br /></div><div><a href="http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,427421,00.html">http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,427421,00.html</a></div><div></div><div><strong><span style="font-size:130%;">Al Gore Urges 'Civil Disobedience' Toward Coal Plants</span></strong></div><div></div><div><br />Wednesday, September 24, 2008<br /></div><div><br />Al Gore called Wednesday for "civil disobedience" to combat the construction of coal power plants without the ability to store carbon, Reuters reported.<br /></div><div></div><div>The former vice president, whose efforts to raise awareness of global warming have made him the most prominent voice on that issue, made the comment during a session at the fourth annual Clinton Global Initiative in Manhattan.<br /></div><div></div><div>"If you're a young person looking at the future of this planet and looking at what is being done right now, and not done, I believe we have reached the stage where it is time for civil disobedience to prevent the construction of new coal plants that do not have carbon capture and sequestration," Gore said, according to Reuters.<br /></div><div></div><div><strong><em><span style="font-size:130%;">It wasn't clear what specific action he intended by "civil disobedience," which calls for the intentional violation of laws deemed to be unjust.<br /></span></em></strong></div><div></div><div>Since leaving the White House after losing to George Bush in the 2000 presidential election, Gore has turn his focus to environmental issues, a longtime passion. The 2006 documentary based on his lecture, "An Inconvenient Truth," won an Oscar. In addition, he received a Nobel Peace Prize for his climate change work.<br /></div><div>------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------</div><div></div><div></div><div><strong><span style="font-size:180%;">[WE MIGHT HAVE AN IDEA REGARDING THE TYPE OF SPECIFIC ACTIONS MR. GORE HAS IN MIND].</span></strong></div><div></div><div></div><div><span style="font-size:130%;"><strong>See, e.g.,</strong> <strong>Liz Veazey, <em>NC Youth Stop Coal Plant Construction: 8 arrested!</em>, STUDENT ENVTL. ACTION COALITION, Apr. 1, 2008, available at:</strong></span> <a href="http://www.seac.org/node/296"><strong>http://www.seac.org/node/296</strong></a> (“Shortly after activists locked themselves to construction equipment, police arrived on the scene and used pain compliance holds and tazers to force them to unlock themselves. 8 young people were arrested. We’ve talked to one of them from jail and they seem to be ok.”); <strong><span style="font-size:130%;">Steven Mufson, <em>Coal Rush Reverses, Power Firms Follow: Plans for New Plants Stalled by Growing Opposition</em>, WASH. POST (Sept. 4, 2007), available at:</span></strong> <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wpdyn/content/article/2007/09/03/AR2007090301119_pf.html"><strong>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wpdyn/content/article/2007/09/03/AR2007090301119_pf.html</strong></a> <strong><span style="font-size:180%;">]</span></strong>.<br /></div><div><br /><strong><span style="font-size:180%;">[</span>"What is most disturbing about these legal and illegal grassroots initiatives, as the Mayor of Missoula, Montana and the Florida Public Service Commission had previously found out, is that they were encouraged overwhelmingly by current and former high-level U.S. politicians of predominantly one political persuasion. In the case of Montana and Florida, local popular doubts over the wisdom of going forward with new coal plant builds arose as the result of strident public opposition voiced (a “warning shot fired”) by U.S. Senate Democratic Majority Leader Harry Reid while, in North Carolina, illegal student protests were triggered by statements made by Former Democratic Vice President Al Gore."</strong> </div><div></div><div><strong><span style="font-size:130%;">See: Lawrence Kogan, <em>The Extra-WTO Precautionary Principle: One European “Fashion” Export The United States Can Do Without,</em> 17 Temple Political & Civil Rights Law Review 2 (2008) at pp. 586-87, at:</span></strong> <a href="http://www.itssd.org/Kogan%2017%5B1%5D.2.pdf"><strong>http://www.itssd.org/Kogan%2017%5B1%5D.2.pdf</strong></a> <strong><span style="font-size:180%;">].</span><br /><br /></strong>------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------<br /></div><div><a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/main.jhtml?xml=/earth/2008/09/11/earthlog111.xml">http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/main.jhtml?xml=/earth/2008/09/11/earthlog111.xml</a></div><div></div><div><strong><span style="font-size:130%;">Greenpeace Kingsnorth trial collapse is embarrassing for Gordon Brown</span></strong></div><div><br /></div><div>Earthlog - Charles Clover's weekly column that takes an inside look at the environment</div><div><br /></div><div>Telegraph UK</div><div></div><div></div><div>11/09/08</div><div><br /></div><div>Whatever you may think of the anti-nuclear environmental group Greenpeace, the collapse of the case against its activists for causing criminal damage to a coal-fired power station at Kingsnorth in Kent is embarrassing to the Brown Government, for it leaves it looking, well, browner than ever.</div><div><br /></div><div>Six activists admitted trying to shut down the station and painting "Gordon" down the chimney in a protest at EON's plans to build an even bigger coal-fired station next door.</div><div><br /></div><div>But a jury of nine bought the activists' argument, supported in person by James Hansen, the US climate scientist and director of Nasa, that Greenpeace were legally justified because they were trying to prevent climate change causing greater damage to property around the world.</div><div><br /></div><div><strong><span style="font-size:180%;">The jury, in other words, took at face value pronouncements by ministers such as Hilary Benn, David Miliband, and Gordon Brown himself, and by Sir David King, the former chief scientist, </span><span style="font-size:130%;">that that global warming is with us and that the proliferation of coal-fired plants in China, at a rate of two a day, risks dangerous climate change. Proliferation of coal fired plants in China is damaging, but not apparently proliferation in Britain.<br /></span></strong></div><div><br /></div><div><strong><span style="font-size:180%;">[NO EVIDENCE REQUIRED!! BRITISH JUSTICE REQUIRES ONLY ATTESTATIONS BY 'DISTINGUISHED' PUBLIC FIGURES, NOTHING MORE - RULE <em>BY</em> MEN, NOT RULE <em>OF</em> LAW!! ]</span></strong></div><div><br /></div><div>John Hutton, the Business secretary, who is expected to take a decision on whether Kingsnorth should go ahead after the party conferences, is absolutely right that Britain needs coal to keep the lights on and give stability to its electricity grid.</div><div><br /></div><div>But he has got himself into an incredible muddle over when and how carbon capture technology should be fitted to coal fired stations.<br /><br /></div><div>Hutton's department and the power utilities believe they must build unabated coal plants and let them pollute for years in order to push up the price of permits to pollute to a level sufficient to make carbon capture and storage commercial. This is madness.</div><div></div><div><br /><strong><span style="font-size:130%;"><em>The Conservatives, Lib Dems and Governor Schwarzenegger in California are all right, there should be no new coal plants without carbon capture.<br /></em></span></strong></div><div></div><div></div><div><strong><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-size:180%;">[WE WONDER WHETHER THE GOVERNATOR AND LIB DEMS ARE 'CLOSET' MEMBERS OF THE BRITISH LABOUR PARTY. BASED ON ITS EMBRACE OF EURO-STYLE 'ENVIRONMENTAL<em>ISM</em>' CALIFORNIA CAN EASILY PASS AS THE 28TH E.U. MEMBER STATE!]</span></div></span></strong><div></div><div></div><div>If you hold the views the Government has expressed on global warming (and there are plenty of people in the world, for instance Sarah Palin who don't) then it should be a matter of principle. Now a jury appears to think so, too.</div><div><br /></div><div><strong><span style="font-size:180%;">[THIS JURY DID NOT WEIGH ANY EVIDENCE, ONLY RHETORIC. THEREFORE, THE JURY VERDICT SHOULD HAVE NO VALIDITY OR STANDING AS A MATTER OF LAW. THIS BRITISH LEGAL FORUM WAS NOTHING LESS THAN A KANGAROO COURT].</span></strong><br /></div><div></div><div><span style="font-size:130%;">------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ </span></div><div></div><div><a href="http://features.csmonitor.com/environment/2008/09/11/greenpeace-activists-cleared-of-damaging-uk-power-plant/">http://features.csmonitor.com/environment/2008/09/11/greenpeace-activists-cleared-of-damaging-uk-power-plant/</a></div><div></div><div><span style="font-size:130%;"><strong>Greenpeace activists cleared of damaging UK power plant</strong> </span></div><span style="font-size:130%;"><div></span></div><br /><div><span style="font-size:100%;">By Eoin O'Carroll </span></div><div><br /></div><p>Christian Science Monitor</p><div><span style="font-size:100%;"></span></div><div><span style="font-size:100%;">09.11.08</span></div><p><br />A British court cleared six Greenpeace activists Monday of causing more than $50,000 of criminal damage to a coal-fired power plant. The court ruled that, by shutting down the plant, the activists were preventing greater property damage from climate change.<br /></p><div>Five of the activists scaled the 650-foot smokestack at Kingsnorth power station with the intention of painting “Gordon bin it” on it (that would be British English for “Prime Minister Gordon Brown, throw it out”). They got as far as writing “Gordon” before someone climbed up there to serve them a court injunction.<br /></div><div></div><p>The activists argued that they possessed a “lawful excuse” for trying to shut the plant down, because they were trying to prevent the coal plant from causing greater property damage around the world by way of global warming. An example of lawful excuse, as cited by the prosecution and quoted in a Greenpeace blog, would be <a class="" href="http://www.greenpeace.org.uk/blog/climate/kingsnorth-six-day-one-20080901">breaking a window to rescue a child from a burning car</a>.<br /></p><div><br /></div><div>The Guardian <a class="" href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/sep/11/activists.kingsnorthclimatecamp">details the expert testimony</a> marshaled by the activists:<br /></div><div></div><div>The court had heard from Professor Jim Hansen, one of the world’s leading climate scientists, that the 20,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide emitted daily by Kingsnorth could be responsible for the extinction of up to 400 species. <strong>Hansen, a Nasa director who advises Al Gore, the former US presidential candidate turned climate change campaigner, told the court that humanity was in “grave peril”. <em>“<span style="font-size:130%;">Somebody needs to step forward and say there has to be a moratorium, draw a line in the sand and say no more coal-fired power stations.”</span></em></strong><br /></div><div></div><p>It also heard [opposition leader] David Cameron’s environment adviser, millionaire environmentalist Zac Goldsmith, and an Inuit leader from Greenland both say climate change was already seriously affecting life around the world. Goldsmith told the court: “By building a coal-power plant in this country, it makes it very much harder [to exert] pressure on countries like China and India” to reduce their burgeoning use of the fossil fuel.<br /></p><div><em><strong><span style="font-size:130%;">The court was told that some of the property in immediate need of protection included parts of Kent at risk from rising sea levels, the Pacific island state of Tuvalu and areas of Greenland.</span></strong></em> <strong><span style="font-size:130%;">The defendants also cited the Arctic ice sheet, China’s Yellow River region, the Larsen B ice shelf in Antarctica, coastal areas of Bangladesh and the city of New Orleans.</span></strong></div><div><br /></div><div>The jury was told that Kingsnorth emitted the same amount of carbon dioxide as the 30 least polluting countries in the world combined – and that there were advanced plans to build a new coal-fired power station next to the existing site on the Hoo peninsula.</div><div><br /></div><div><strong><span style="font-size:130%;">The jury – nine men and three women – found the testimony compelling, and found the six activists not guilty</span></strong>.</div><div><br /></div><div>Greenpeace is delighted at the ruling. “This verdict <a href="http://uk.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUKLA34747320080910?pageNumber=2&virtualBrandChannel=0&sp=true">marks a tipping point for the climate change movement</a>,” said Ben Stewart, one of the six defendants, as reported by Reuters:</div><div><br /></div><div>“If jurors from the heart of Middle England say it’s legitimate for a direct action group to shut down a coal-fired power station because of the harm it does to our planet, then where does that leave government energy policy?</div><div></div><div><br />“We have the clean technologies at hand to power our economy, it’s time we turned to them instead of coal.”<br /></div><div></div><div><br /><strong><span style="font-size:130%;">Emily Highmore, a spokeswoman for E.ON, the German energy firm that operates the plant, told the BBC that she was </span></strong><a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/kent/7608054.stm"><strong><span style="font-size:130%;">less than thrilled</span></strong></a><strong><span style="font-size:130%;"> at the outcome.</span></strong></div><div><strong><span style="font-size:130%;"></span></strong></div><div><strong><span style="font-size:130%;"></span></strong></div><div><strong><span style="font-size:130%;">She said: “We respect people’s right to protest, but what Greenpeace did was hugely irresponsible. It put people’s lives at risk and that is clearly completely unacceptable.”</span></strong></div><div><strong><span style="font-size:130%;"></span></strong></div><div><strong><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-size:100%;"></span></span></strong></div><div><strong><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-size:180%;">[ALSO, IT DIRECTLY VIOLATED E.ON's PRIVATE PROPERTY RIGHTS WHICH, IN THE UK, APPARENTLY ARE 'POSITIVE' RIGHTS CONDITIONED UPON THE GENERAL WILL, OR IN THIS CASE, ON GREENPEACE'S RIGHT TO PROTEST / EXERCISE ITS RIGHT TO FREE SPEECH.]</span> </div></span></strong><div></div><strong><span style="font-size:130%;"><div><br /></span></strong></div>Ms Highmore called for an “open and honest debate” about the challenges of energy and climate change, but added: “That’s a debate that shouldn’t be taking place at the top of a chimney stack.”<br /><span style="font-size:130%;">------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------</span> <div></div><div><a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change/cleared-jury-decides-that-threat-of-global-warming-justifies-breaking-the-law-925561.html">http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change/cleared-jury-decides-that-threat-of-global-warming-justifies-breaking-the-law-925561.html</a> </div><div></div><div><strong><span style="font-size:130%;">Cleared: Jury decides that threat of global warming justifies breaking the law</span></strong></div><div><br /><br />By Michael McCarthy, Environment Editor</div><div><br /></div><div>The Independent UK</div><div><br /></div><div>11 September 2008 </div><div><br /></div><div>The threat of global warming is so great that campaigners were justified in causing more than £35,000 worth of damage to a coal-fired power station, a jury decided yesterday. In a verdict that will have shocked ministers and energy companies the jury at Maidstone Crown Court cleared six Greenpeace activists of criminal damage.</div><div></div><div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9rvxeCxHCxxG3-085WhGngFj_kbiC1jSJRscbQfGEnc-jh3w9v1SkyXnH2RFMxO3zBAuUf3CM4ACNSPmK6oAETElXxxrDnXZS3N-brf1iRjBgxCHbBnIUFDMEpHIcguJ6H_omfYbeCZU/s1600-h/Greenpeace+UK+Loonies.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5250157800957838818" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9rvxeCxHCxxG3-085WhGngFj_kbiC1jSJRscbQfGEnc-jh3w9v1SkyXnH2RFMxO3zBAuUf3CM4ACNSPmK6oAETElXxxrDnXZS3N-brf1iRjBgxCHbBnIUFDMEpHIcguJ6H_omfYbeCZU/s400/Greenpeace+UK+Loonies.jpg" border="0" /></a><strong><span style="font-size:130%;color:#ff0000;">Jurors accepted defence arguments that the six had a "lawful excuse" to damage property</span></strong> at Kingsnorth power station in Kent to prevent even greater damage caused by climate change. </div><div><br /></div><div><strong><span style="font-size:130%;">[THE 'GREENPEACE 6']</span></strong></div><div><br /></div><div><strong><span style="font-size:130%;">The defence of "lawful excuse" under the Criminal Damage Act 1971</span></strong> allows damage to be caused to property to prevent even greater damage – such as breaking down the door of a burning house to tackle a fire.</div><div><br /></div><div>The not-guilty verdict, delivered after two days and greeted with cheers in the courtroom, raises the stakes for the most pressing issue on Britain's green agenda and could encourage further direct action.</div><div><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjnaN2YnrqTnAL7PI36btxc8nl6gXCiNfbk3v_PoVrK5cEPb3_058-qrQ5oR922r453DklgfqfIjfklQhOTmsSkPXwMlO-9NYUSxBhDoIdCYXrSo7At62l-bjkct05SFBnpniKF81WJSO8/s1600-h/Greenpeace+Defaces+Coal+Plant+Chimney.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5250159079010385362" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjnaN2YnrqTnAL7PI36btxc8nl6gXCiNfbk3v_PoVrK5cEPb3_058-qrQ5oR922r453DklgfqfIjfklQhOTmsSkPXwMlO-9NYUSxBhDoIdCYXrSo7At62l-bjkct05SFBnpniKF81WJSO8/s320/Greenpeace+Defaces+Coal+Plant+Chimney.jpg" border="0" /></a>Kingsnorth was the centre for mass protests by climate camp activists last month. Last year, three protesters managed to paint Gordon Brown's name on the plant's chimney. Their handi-work cost £35,000 to remove.</div><div><br /><br /><strong><span style="font-size:130%;">The plan to build a successor to the power station is likely to be the first of a new generation of coal-fired plants. As coal produces more of the carbon emissions causing climate change than any other fuel, campaigners claim that a new station would be a disastrous setback in the battle against global warming, and send out a negative signal to the rest of the world about how serious Britain really is about tackling the climate threat. </span></strong></div><div><br /></div><div>But the proposals, from the energy giant E.ON, are firmly backed by the Business Secretary, John Hutton, and the Energy minister, Malcolm Wicks. Some members of the Cabinet are thought to be unhappy about them, including the Foreign Secretary, David Miliband, and the Environment Secretary, Hilary Benn. Mr Brown is likely to have the final say on the matter later this year. </div><div><br /></div><div><strong><em><span style="font-size:130%;">During the eight-day trial, the world's leading climate scientist, Professor James Hansen of Nasa, who had flown from American to give evidence, appealed to the Prime Minister personally to "take a leadership role" in cancelling the plan and scrapping the idea of a coal-fired future for Britain.</span></em></strong> Last December he wrote to Mr Brown with a similar appeal. <strong><span style="font-size:130%;">At the trial, he called for an moratorium on all coal-fired power stations, and his hour-long testimony about the gravity of the climate danger, which painted a bleak picture, was listened to intently by the jury of nine women and three men. </span></strong></div><div></div><div></div><div><strong><span style="font-size:130%;"><em>Professor <span style="font-size:180%;">Hansen</span>, who first alerted the world to the global warming threat in June 1988 with testimony to a US senate committee in Washington, and who last year said the earth was in "imminent peril" from the warming atmosphere,</em> </span><span style="font-size:180%;">asserted that emissions of CO2 from Kings-north would damage property through the effects of the climate change they would help to cause.</span></strong> </div><div><br /></div><div>He was one of several leading public figures who gave evidence for the defence, including Zac Goldsmith, the Conservative parliamentary candidate for Richmond Park and director of the Ecologist magazine, who similarly told the jury that in his opinion, direct action could be justified in the minds of many people if it was intended to prevent larger crimes being committed.</div><div><br /></div><div><strong><em><span style="font-size:130%;">The acquittal was the second time in a decade that the "lawful excuse" defence has been successfully used by Greenpeace activists. In 1999, 28 Greenpeace campaigners led Lord Melchett, who was director at the time, were cleared of criminal damage after trashing an experimental field of GM crops in Norfolk.</span></em></strong> In each case the damage was not disputed – the point at issue was the motive.<br /></div><div><br /></div><div><strong><span style="font-size:180%;">[</span><span style="font-size:130%;">See: Lawrence Kogan, <em>Economic sabotage a form of free speech?</em>, New Zealand Rural News (6/28/05) at:</span></strong> <a href="http://www.itssd.org/Publications/Rural%20News%20--%20Rural%20News_co_nz.pdf"><strong>http://www.itssd.org/Publications/Rural%20News%20--%20Rural%20News_co_nz.pdf</strong></a> <strong><span style="font-size:180%;">].</span></strong></div><div><br /></div><div>The defendants who scaled the 630ft chimney at Kingsnorth, near Hoo, last year were Huw Williams, 41, from Nottingham; Ben Stewart, 34, from Lyminge, Kent; Kevin Drake, 44, from Westbury, Wiltshire; Will Rose, 29, from London; and Emily Hall, 34, from New Zealand. Tim Hewke, 48, from Ulcombe, Kent, helped organise the protest.<br /></div><div><br /></div><div>The court heard how, dressed in orange boiler suits and white hard hats bearing the Greenpeace logo, the six-strong group arrived at the site at 6.30am on 8 October. Armed with bags containing abseiling gear, five of them scaled the chimney while Mr Hewke waited below to liaise between the climbers and police.<br /></div><div><br /></div><div>The climbers had planned to paint "Gordon, bin it" in huge letters on the side of the chimney, but although they succeeded in temporarily shutting the station, they only got as far as painting the word "Gordon" on the chimney before they descended, having been threatened with a High Court injunction. Removing the graffiti cost E.ON £35,000, the court heard.<br /></div><div><br /></div><div><strong><span style="font-size:130%;color:#33ff33;">During the trial the defendants said they had acted lawfully, owing to an honestly held belief that their attempt to stop emissions from Kingsnorth would prevent further damage to properties worldwide caused by global warming</span></strong>. Their aim, they said, was to rein back CO2 emissions and bring urgent pressure to bear on the Government and E.ON to changes policies. They insisted their action had caused the minimum amount of damage necessary to close the plant down and constituted a "proportionate response" to the increasing environmental threat.<br /></div><div><br /></div><div>Speaking outside court after being cleared yesterday, Mr Stewart said: "This is a huge blow for ministers and their plans for new coal-fired power stations. It wasn't only us in the dock, it was the coal-fired generation as well. After this verdict, the only people left in Britain who think new coal is a good idea are John Hutton and Malcolm Wicks. It's time the Prime Minister stepped in, showed some leadership and embraced the clean energy future for Britain."<br /></div><div><br /></div><div>He added: "This verdict marks a tipping point for the climate change movement. When a jury of normal people say it is legitimate for a direct action group to shut down a coal-fired power station because of the harm it does to our planet, then where does that leave Government energy policy? We have the clean technologies at hand to power our economy. It's time we turned to them instead of coal."<br /></div><div><br /></div><div>Ms Hall said: "The jury heard from the most distinguished climate scientist in the world. How could they ignore his warnings and reject his leading scientific arguments?" </div><div></div><div><span style="font-size:130%;">-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------</span></div><div></div><div><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/sep/11/activists.kingsnorthclimatecamp">http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/sep/11/activists.kingsnorthclimatecamp</a></div><div></div><div><span style="font-size:130%;"><strong>Not guilty: the Greenpeace activists who used <span style="color:#33ff33;">climate change as a legal defence</span></strong></span></div><div><span style="font-size:130%;"><strong><span style="font-size:100%;"><em></em></span></strong></span></div><div><span style="font-size:130%;"><strong><span style="font-size:100%;"><em></em></span></strong></span></div><div><span style="font-size:130%;"><strong><span style="font-size:100%;"><em>Protesters cleared of damaging power station · Rare defence may boost other environment groups</em></span></strong></span></div><div><br /></div><div><span style="font-size:130%;">by <span style="font-size:100%;">John Vidal</span><span style="font-size:100%;">, environment editor </span></span></div><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><div><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size:100%;">The Guardian UK</span></div><div></div><p><span style="font-size:100%;">September 11, 2008</span></p><div>----------------------------</span></div><div></div><div><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/sep/10/activists.carbonemissions">http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/sep/10/activists.carbonemissions</a> </div><div><strong><span style="font-size:130%;">Kingsnorth trial: Coal protesters cleared of criminal damage to chimney</span></strong></div><div><br /></div><div><em><strong>The trial of the six Greenpeace UK activists was the first case in which acting to prevent climate change causing damage to property formed part of a 'lawful excuse' defence</strong></em></div><div><br /></div><div>by John Vidal, environment editor</div><div></div><div></div><div>Guardian.co.uk </div><div></div><div><br />September 10 2008</div><div><br /></div><div>Six Greenpeace climate change activists have been cleared of causing criminal damage at a coal-fired power station in a verdict that is expected to embarrass the government and strengthen the anti-coal movement. </div><div></div><div><br />The jury of nine men and three women at Maidstone crown court cleared the six, five of whom had scaled a 200m tall chimney at Kingsnorth power station at Hoo, Kent in October 2007.</div><div><br /></div><div><strong><span style="font-size:130%;">The activists admitted trying to shut down the station by occupying the smokestack and painting the world "Gordon" down the chimney, but argued that they were legally justified because they were trying to prevent climate change causing greater damage to property around the world.<br /></span></strong></div><div></div><div></div><div><strong><span style="font-size:130%;">It was the first case where preventing property damage caused by climate change has been used as part of a "lawful excuse" defence in court. It is now expected to be used widely by environment groups.<br /></span></strong></div><div><br /></div><div>The court had heard from Prof James Hansen, one of the world's leading climate scientists, that the 20,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide emitted daily by Kingsnorth could be responsible for the extinction of up to 400 species. </div><div></div><div><br /><strong><span style="font-size:180%;">Hansen, a Nasa director who advises Al Gore, told the court that humanity was in "grave peril". <em><span style="font-size:130%;">He said: "Somebody needs to step forward and say there has to be a moratorium, draw a line in the sand and say no more coal-fired power stations."</span><br /></em></span></strong></div><div><br /></div><div><strong><span style="font-size:180%;">It also heard David Cameron's environment adviser, millionaire environmentalist Zac Goldsmith, </span><span style="font-size:130%;">and an Inuit leader from Greenland say that climate change was already seriously affecting life around the world.</span></strong></div><div><br /></div><div>The court was told was that some of the <strong><span style="font-size:180%;">property in immediate need of protection </span><span style="font-size:130%;">included parts of Kent at risk from rising sea levels, the Pacific island state of Tuvalu and areas of Greenland. The defendants also cited the Arctic ice sheet, China's Yellow river region, the Larsen B ice shelf in Antarctica, coastal areas of Bangladesh and the city of New Orleans.</span></strong></div><div><br /></div><div>Goldsmith told the court: "By building a coal-power plant in this country, it makes it very much harder in exerting pressure on countries like China and India to reduce their burgeoning use of the fossil fuel."</div><div><br /></div><div>The jury was told that Kingsnorth emits the same amount of CO2 as the 30 least polluting countries in the world combined – and that there are advanced plans to build a new coal-fired power station next to the existing site on the Hoo Peninsula in Kent.</div><div><br /></div><div><strong><em>Greenpeace used the court's decision to pile pressure on government to abandon plans for a new generation of coal-fired plants</em>.<br /></strong></div><div><br /></div><div><em><strong><span style="font-size:130%;">"Today's acquittal is a potent challenge to the government's plans for new coal-fired stations from jurors representing ordinary people in Britain who, after hearing the evidence, supported the right to take direct action in order to protect the climate," said Ben Stewart, Greenpeace's communications director who was one of the six acquitted. </span></strong></em></div><div><br /></div><div>The others were Will Rose, Kevin Drake, Tim Hewke, Huw Williams and Emily Hall.<br /><br /></div><div></div><div>"It wasn't only us in the dock, it was coal-fired power generation as well. The only people left in Britain who think new coal is a good idea are business secretary John Hutton and the energy minister Malcolm Wicks," said Hall.<br /></div><div></div><div></div><div>"It's time the prime minister stepped in and embraced a clean energy future for Britain."</div><div></div><div>------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ </div><div></div><div><a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/kent/7608054.stm">http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/kent/7608054.stm</a></div><div></div><div><strong><span style="font-size:130%;">Power station protesters cleared</span></strong> </div><div><br /></div><div>BBC News</div><div><br /></div><div>September 10, 2008<br /></div><div><br /></div><div><strong><em>Six Greenpeace activists have been cleared of causing criminal damage during a protest over coal-fired power.<br /></em></strong></div><div><br /></div><div><strong><span style="font-size:130%;">The activists were charged with causing £30,000 of damage after they scaled Kingsnorth power station in Hoo, Kent.<br /></span></strong></div><div></div><div><br />At Maidstone Crown Court Judge David Caddick said the jury had to examine <strong><em><span style="font-size:180%;">whether protesters had a lawful excuse.<br /></span></em></strong></div><div><br /></div><div><strong><span style="font-size:130%;">The defendants said the protest was lawful because it aimed to prevent damaging emissions.</span></strong> <strong><span style="font-size:130%;"><em>Energy firm E.ON said <span style="font-size:180%;">lives had been put at risk.</span></em> <span style="font-size:180%;">[????] </span><br /></span></strong></div><div><br /></div><div>Five people who scaled the chimney - Huw Williams, 41, of Nottingham; Ben Stewart, 34, of Lyminge, Kent; Kevin Drake, 44, of Westbury, Wiltshire; Will Rose, 29, of London; and Emily Hall, 34, from New Zealand - were all charged with causing criminal damage.<br /></div><div><br /></div><div><strong><span style="font-size:130%;">'Gordon, bin it'</span></strong><br /></div><div><br /></div><div>Tim Hewke, 48, from Ulcombe, Kent, accused by the prosecution of organising the protest from the ground, also faced the same charge.<br /></div><div><br /></div><div>Jurors heard how protesters painted the name "Gordon" on the 200m (650ft) chimney on 8 October last year, in a political protest against the redevelopment of the plant as a coal-burning unit.<br /></div><div><br /></div><div><strong><span style="font-size:130%;">They had planned to daub the words "Gordon, bin it" on the stack in a reference to Prime Minister Gordon Brown, but were threatened with a High Court injunction and arrested.<br /></span></strong></div><div><br /></div><div><em><strong><span style="font-size:130%;">After the hearing, E.ON spokeswoman Emily Highmore said the firm, which is planning to build a coal-fired unit at the plant, was "hugely disappointed".<br /></span></strong></em></div><div><br /></div><div>She said: "We respect people's right to protest, but what Greenpeace did was hugely irresponsible. It put people's lives at risk and that is clearly completely unacceptable."<br /></div><div><br /></div><div>Ms Highmore called for an "open and honest debate" about the challenges of energy and climate change, but added: "That's a debate that shouldn't be taking place at the top of a chimney stack." </div><div></div><div><br /><strong><span style="font-size:130%;">She added: "Our men and women who work at Kingsnorth have a right to go to work to do their lawful business and to do it safely, so we're very concerned indeed about today's outcome."</span></strong><br /></div><div><br /></div><div>This is a huge blow for ministers and their plans for new coal-fired power stations [said] Ben Stewart<br /></div><div><br /></div><div>Outside the court, <strong><span style="font-size:130%;">activist Mr Stewart</span></strong> said the verdict was "a tipping point for the climate change movement".<br /></div><div><br /></div><div><strong><span style="font-size:130%;">He said: "When 12 normal [???] people say it is legitimate for a direct action group to shut down a coal-fired power station because of the harm it does to our planet then where does that leave government energy policy?"<br /></span></strong></div><div><br /></div><div>Mr Stewart called for "clean technologies" to be used instead of coal. </div><div><br /></div><div>And he said: "This is a huge blow for ministers and their plans for new coal-fired power stations." </div><div><br /><br />There has been no government response to the verdict.<br /></div><div></div><div><br />Activists scaled Kingsnorth power station in Hoo in a protest over a coal-fired power plant.</div>ITSSD Charitable Missionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00790887154748866904noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3226983982698422912.post-66964868738291690952008-09-08T10:15:00.000-07:002008-09-08T11:50:19.597-07:00Economic Saboteurs Now Include Among Their Ranks NASA Scientist James Hanson?? Common Sense Has Gone With the Wind!<a href="http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/4864">http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/4864</a><br /><strong><span style="font-size:130%;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6fN3raid9dFnuArEZQ6pGUQLvIN5DN404KBkYM31EYYxMgli2mWIUcxWyf-_P6qNgSp6hc7cv__q-2YYg4_pBwB77lnmd0FPw7sTIqYhXv0exDzvo0ZQd9M7acqgbecV68IFlM0UXcsQ/s1600-h/hansen190.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5243712477572241618" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6fN3raid9dFnuArEZQ6pGUQLvIN5DN404KBkYM31EYYxMgli2mWIUcxWyf-_P6qNgSp6hc7cv__q-2YYg4_pBwB77lnmd0FPw7sTIqYhXv0exDzvo0ZQd9M7acqgbecV68IFlM0UXcsQ/s320/hansen190.jpg" border="0" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYIQXWWDJelzOrqeT3uHoR8fE-LKhnKNJu8xNbPDlFImHiVbxQ26OtBv3dEZG7fkndjcj10zbUZnz-tsq6QslDnzFRsgD2BuahBPDCnaWBARWAIGPkc0w_XiUNSdQCbtP1dGMi-hloXW8/s1600-h/coal_protest+-+democratic+underground.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5243716541749241538" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYIQXWWDJelzOrqeT3uHoR8fE-LKhnKNJu8xNbPDlFImHiVbxQ26OtBv3dEZG7fkndjcj10zbUZnz-tsq6QslDnzFRsgD2BuahBPDCnaWBARWAIGPkc0w_XiUNSdQCbtP1dGMi-hloXW8/s200/coal_protest+-+democratic+underground.jpg" border="0" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiD4fd5G02UMZTGlIg0xMmE4LNExYaJ7kGsVjnD_llJ_SC0gHvqZI5Ga1Krb2kugpvBFPZsvix2bfYJk79dj5heuHgWwqNxrS9c8IJrOTptjc-y5-d_tXj9YwgSg0DunvI5Bpxo4WOqYoI/s1600-h/DraxCoalProtest20080613.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5243717923367806226" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiD4fd5G02UMZTGlIg0xMmE4LNExYaJ7kGsVjnD_llJ_SC0gHvqZI5Ga1Krb2kugpvBFPZsvix2bfYJk79dj5heuHgWwqNxrS9c8IJrOTptjc-y5-d_tXj9YwgSg0DunvI5Bpxo4WOqYoI/s200/DraxCoalProtest20080613.jpg" border="0" /></a>Hansen: Coal Plant Vandals Actions ‘Justified’ Because of ‘Emergency Situation’</span></strong><br /><br /><br /><br /><strong><em><span style="font-size:130%;">All fired up, American climate scientist James Hansen explains why he’s testifying against coal Hansen: Coal plant vandals actions ‘justified’ because of ‘emergency situation’ By EPW Blog Saturday, September 6, 2008</span></em></strong><br /><br /><br />By EPW Blog<br /><br /><br />Saturday, September 6, 2008<br /><br /><br /><br /><p>[H/T: to <a title="Tom Nelson" href="http://tomnelson.blogspot.com/2008/09/james-hansen-defends-people-who.html">Tom Nelson</a> ] <strong><span style="font-size:180%;color:#3333ff;">NASA’s James Hansen</span></strong>: Coal plant vandals actions ‘justified’ because of ‘emergency situation’ - Nature.com - September 5, 2008 Excerpt: Q So do you think that these activists were justified in doing what they did? Hansen: The activists drawing attention to the issue seems to me as justified. You should try to do things through the <a class="iAs" style="FONT-WEIGHT: normal! important; FONT-SIZE: 100%! important; PADDING-BOTTOM: 1px! important; COLOR: darkgreen! important; BORDER-BOTTOM: darkgreen 0.07em solid; BACKGROUND-COLOR: transparent! important; TEXT-DECORATION: underline! important" href="http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/4864#" target="_blank" itxtdid="5912580">democratic</a> process, but we really are getting to an emergency situation. We can’t continue to build more coal-fired power plants that do not capture CO2 if we hope to solve the problem. </p><p><a title="NASA's James Hansen: Coal plant vandals actions ‘justified’ because of 'emergency situation'" href="http://www.nature.com/news/2008/080905/full/news.2008.1086.html">All fired up American climate scientist James Hansen explains why he’s testifying against coal.</a> </p><br />Geoff Brumfiel<br /><br /><br />James Hansen, the director of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York City, is well known for rattling his nation’s political establishment. <strong><span style="font-size:180%;color:#ff0000;">This week, the climate scientist was in London, UK, to testify on behalf of activists who defaced a coal-fired power station in Kent</span></strong>. Geoff Brumfiel caught up with Hansen at a London hotel to find out what has got him all hot and bothered. <strong><em><span style="font-size:130%;">Why did you come to testify?</span></em></strong><br /><br /><br />Nothing could be more central to the problem we face with global <a class="iAs" style="FONT-WEIGHT: normal! important; FONT-SIZE: 100%! important; PADDING-BOTTOM: 1px! important; COLOR: darkgreen! important; BORDER-BOTTOM: darkgreen 0.07em solid; BACKGROUND-COLOR: transparent! important; TEXT-DECORATION: underline! important" href="http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/4864#" target="_blank" itxtdid="5912546">climate change</a>. If you look at the size of the oil, gas and coal reservoirs you’ll see that the oil and gas have enough CO2 to bring us up to a dangerous level of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.<br /><br /><br />There’s a potential to solve that problem if we phase out coal. If we were to have a moratorium on coal-fired power plants within the next few years, and then phase out the existing ones between 2010 and 2030, then CO2 would peak at something between 400 and 425 parts per million. That leaves a difficult problem, but one that you can solve.<br /><br /><br />Do you think that leaders like UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown have lived up to their promises on climate change?<br /><br /><br />It depends on whether they will have a moratorium on coal-fired power. I think that the greenest leaders, like German chancellor Angela Merkel and Prime Minister Brown, are saying the right words. But if you look at their actions, emissions are continuing to increase. All of these countries and the United States are planning to build more coal-fired power plants. And if you build more coal-fired power plants, then it is not possible to achieve the goals that they say they are committed to. It’s a really simple argument and yet they won’t face up to it.<br /><br /><br />So do you think that these activists were justified in doing what they did?<br /><br /><br /><strong><span style="font-size:180%;color:#ff0000;">The activists drawing attention to the issue seems to me as justified.</span></strong> You should try to do things through the democratic process, but we really are getting to an emergency situation. We can’t continue to build more coal-fired power plants that do not capture CO2 if we hope to solve the problem.<br /><br /><br />We need to get energy from somewhere. So if we’re not getting it from coal, then where?<br /><br /><br />The first thing we should do is focus on <a class="iAs" style="FONT-WEIGHT: normal! important; FONT-SIZE: 100%! important; PADDING-BOTTOM: 1px! important; COLOR: darkgreen! important; BORDER-BOTTOM: darkgreen 0.07em solid; BACKGROUND-COLOR: transparent! important; TEXT-DECORATION: underline! important" href="http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/4864#" target="_blank" itxtdid="6319181">energy efficiency</a>. The fact that utilities make more money by selling more energy is a big problem. We have to change those rules. Then there is renewable energy — in order to be able to fully exploit renewable energy, we need better electric grids. So those should be the first things, but I think that we also need to look at next-generation nuclear power.<br /><br /><br />Some have said you are hypocritical for flying all the way from the US to the UK just to testify. How do you respond?<br /><br /><br />I like to travel as little as possible, not only because it uses less CO2 but because I prefer to do science. But sometimes there are things which are sufficiently important that I think it makes sense.<br /><br /><br />What do you think the roll of the scientist should be in the broader societal debate on climate change?<br /><br /><br /><strong><span style="font-size:180%;color:#ff0000;">I think it would be irresponsible not to speak out. There is a clear gap between what is understood by the relevant scientific community and what is known by the public, and we have to try and close that gap. If we don’t do something in the very near future, we’re going to create a situation for our children and grandchildren that is out of control. </span></strong><br /><br />-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------<br /><br /><a href="http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=115x154579">http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=115x154579</a><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOswsVl6KIQGCUAVcX5JjUmM6qg2ZjwPQf1U1YdKfvLsKKKdNa-W_GVt2vJT_kSi9UCPpwJOU5BT8hu6dyFuvxl0iLCorItJp3HwnR5y9zH3TJ45TxiN6Y_UCPWI1yHU3-B-J3VzIc-D4/s1600-h/dulogo.gif"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5243718933289373426" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOswsVl6KIQGCUAVcX5JjUmM6qg2ZjwPQf1U1YdKfvLsKKKdNa-W_GVt2vJT_kSi9UCPpwJOU5BT8hu6dyFuvxl0iLCorItJp3HwnR5y9zH3TJ45TxiN6Y_UCPWI1yHU3-B-J3VzIc-D4/s400/dulogo.gif" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><p><strong><span style="font-size:130%;">UK Protestors Occupy Coal Train - wanna chain yourself to a bull dozer?<br /></span></strong></p><br /><br /><strong><span style="font-size:130%;">Democratic [Party] Underground Blog</span></strong><br /><br /><br />NICE!!! <strong><span style="font-size:180%;color:#3333ff;">We need to do more way of this in North America - remember <em>when Gore asked why we weren't chaining ourselves to bulldozers at coal plant sites</em>?</span></strong> Well, why aren't we?Protestors who halted a coal train carrying fuel for Drax power station in Yorkshire, the single biggest source of CO2 in the UK, are settling in to make sure supplies of coal to the power station remain cut off. The protest comes six weeks before the 2008 Camp for Climate Action at Kingsnorth power station - which will also highlight how using coal to supply energy will be a disaster for the planet.Dressed in white overalls and canary outfits, they used safety signals to stop the train on a bridge overlooking the power station, before climbing on board and dumping coal off onto the tracks.<a href="http://www.coal-is-dirty.com/protestors-coal-train-keep-it-in-the-ground" target="_blank"><a href="http://www.coal-is-dirty.com/protestors-coal" target="_blank">http://www.coal-is-dirty.com/protestors-coal</a> ...</a>Anyone want to buy the chains? I know a few bulldozers...<br /><br /><br /><strong><span style="font-size:180%;">[APPARENTLY, DR. HANSEN BELIEVES THAT INDIVIDUALS CAN TAKE 'JUSTICE' INTO THEIR OWN HANDS WHENEVER THEY BELIEVE THAT THE 'PUBLIC INTEREST' IS AT STAKE. <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiiycz4i59Fz-HmjhYq7DOrU6pYCTfnfoj0SOhDAh3R7p9SjZZRuVhXx_RFw1vMtamieA2HMBH7QmubEGUKyAZUNiaI7yK3OjaFOg7vqz8DJft5TIe-ZfuPKk_FCbKdDicON9Azik0p4sk/s1600-h/melchett203ok.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5243715722144548242" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiiycz4i59Fz-HmjhYq7DOrU6pYCTfnfoj0SOhDAh3R7p9SjZZRuVhXx_RFw1vMtamieA2HMBH7QmubEGUKyAZUNiaI7yK3OjaFOg7vqz8DJft5TIe-ZfuPKk_FCbKdDicON9Azik0p4sk/s320/melchett203ok.jpg" border="0" /></a>IN THIS REGARD, HIS POLITICAL AGENDA IS NO DIFFERENT THAN THE GLORIFIED BRITISH LORD MELCHETT AND OTHER BIOTECH, ANIMAL RIGHTS AND ENVIRONMENTAL ACTIVISTS WHO WERE RESPONSIBLE FOR THE PRIOR INCIDENTS OF LAWLESS/CRIMINAL ECONOMIC SABOTAGE COMMITTED IN THE UNITED KINGDOM DURING THE PAST 10 YEARS AGAINST FARMERS, SCIENTISTS, LABORATORY EMPLOYEES, SHAREHOLDERS AND SHOPKEEPERS (FOOD RETAILERS). SADLY, THE BRITISH GOVERNMENT UNDER FORMER PRIME MINISTER TONY BLAIR and THE BRITISH COURTS DID VIRTUALLY NOTHING TO PUNISH THE PERPETRATORS WHO CONTINUE TO BELIEVE and ACT AS IF THEY HAVE RIGHTS TO HARM OTHERS AND THEIR PROPERTY. APPARENTLY, CLIMATE CHANGE ACTIVISTS FEEL THE SAME WAY, and ARE UNWILLING TO PROVIDE PROOF BEYOND THEIR ENVIRONMENTAL (RELIGIOUS & POLITICAL) IDEOLOGY AND THEIR UNSUBSTANTIATED 'FEARS' OF ECO-ARGMAGEDDON. BOTH EUROPEAN AND U.S. BLUE PARTY POLITICIANS AND GRANT-SEEKING, POLITICALLY CORRECT SCIENTISTS ARE TO BLAME FOR THIS. THEY WISH TO CHANGE THE GLOBAL SCIENTIFIC PARADIGM SO THAT HARD SCIENTIFIC and EMPIRICAL EVIDENCE OF PROBABLE HARM OR 'RISK' OF HARM, IS NO LONGER REQUIRED. INSTEAD THEY WISH TO ESTABLISH A NEW 'HAZARD'-BASED PARADIGM THAT MERELY REQUIRES TO SHOW THE 'POSSIBILITY' OF ENVIRONMENTAL HARM. IT WOULD SEEM, THEN, THAT WHEN THEY DON'T GET THEIR WAY, THEY RIOT AND RESORT TO CRIMINAL BEHAVIOR. HOW CAN THE FEAR-BASED CLIMATE CHANGE POLITICIANS, SCIENTISTS AND ACTIVISTS NOW BE TAKEN SERIOUSLY?? THEY CANNOT!!]</span></strong><br /><br /><br /><strong><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-size:180%;">[</span>See: <em>Economic Sabotage IS Free Speech In The UK; Is It Now Also Free Speech In the US?</em>, ITSSD Journal on Economic Sabotage, at:</span></strong> <a href="http://itssdjournaleconomicsabotage.blogspot.com/2008/03/economic-sabotage-is-free-speech-in-uk.html"><strong>http://itssdjournaleconomicsabotage.blogspot.com/2008/03/economic-sabotage-is-free-speech-in-uk.html</strong></a> <strong><span style="font-size:180%;">].</span></strong><br /><br /><br /><strong><span style="font-size:180%;">[</span><span style="font-size:130%;">See: <em>UK Lord Melchett: Aristocrat Eco-warrior</em>, BBC News.com, at: </span></strong><br /><a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/405061.stm"><strong>http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/405061.stm</strong></a> <strong><span style="font-size:180%;">].</span></strong><br /><br /><br /><p>July 27, 1999<br /></p><p><strong><span style="font-size:130%;">UKLord Melchett: Aristocrat eco-warrior</span></strong> </p><p></p><p>The fourth Lord Melchett is lead away by police Lord Peter Melchett, Labour peer and executive director of Greenpeace UK, is probably experiencing the most inactive period of his adult life.<br /></p><p>Arrested for his part in the dawn raid on a farm trialling GM crops and charged with theft and criminal damage, the Old Etonian was refused bail by a stipendiary magistrate in Norwich on Tuesday. </p><p><br />The 51-year-old aristocrat eco-warrior is well-known for his dedication to the green cause, although his political and activist career has tended to be within the law.<br /></p><br /><br /><br /><p>Young Lord </p><br /><br /><strong><span style="font-size:180%;">He inherited his title aged 23 when his father Lord Julian, chairman of British Steel, died suddenly of a heart attack in 1973. </span></strong><br /><strong><span style="font-size:180%;"></span></strong><br /><br /><p><strong><span style="font-size:100%;"></span></strong></p><p><strong><span style="font-size:180%;"><span style="color:#33ff33;">Greenpeace</span> activists vandalised the trial crops. He toyed with the idea of renouncing it, but instead entered politics as a Labour peer, making his maiden speech in the Lords about cruelty to animals in zoos. </span></strong><br /></p><p><br /><strong><span style="font-size:180%;color:#ff0000;">His great-grandfather, then Sir Alfred Mond, and the founder of ICI, had already indelibly linked the family name with both <em>socialism</em> and activism</span></strong>.<br /></p><br />As head of the World Foundation of Jewish Sports Clubs, he recommended a boycott of the 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin.<br /><br /><br />Sir Peter became a whip, and then a junior minister - in environment and industry under Harold Wilson, and in Northern Ireland under Jim Callaghan.<br />Voted for abolition of Lords<br /><br /><br /><p>From 1976-79 he chaired a working party on pop festivals, and still is a regular at Glastonbury.<br /></p><br /><br /><p>He withdrew from the Lords when he took up a position on the board of the environmental organisation - but returned to vote for its abolition.<br /></p><br /><br /><p><strong><span style="font-size:180%;">His concern for the environment started in his youth on the family's 750-acre estate, Courtyard Farm, on the north Norfolk cost. </span></strong><br /></p><br /><br /><strong><span style="font-size:180%;">[IT'S NICE NOT TO WORRY ABOUT HAVING ENOUGH MONEY TO EAT, WITHOUT FEAR OF HAVING YOUR LIVELIHOOD DESTROYED, ISN'T IT, MR. MELCHETT??]</span></strong><br /><br /><br />He said: "On our farm, partridges went down from their hundreds to tens and you'd see the chicks dead in the fields.<br /><br /><strong><span style="font-size:180%;">Brent Spar ended in controversy for Greenpeace"I remember being told that it was because of the drought or the weather; now we know it was the pesticides."</span></strong><br /><br />His father, Lord Julian and mother, socialite Sonia Sinclair, were keen preservers of hedgerows at Courtyard Farm.<br /><br /><br /><strong><span style="font-size:180%;color:#33ff33;">Lord Melchett normally cycles to work at Greenpeace HQ</span></strong> from his home in North London, which he shares with his partner Cassandra and their two teenage children.<br /><br />He is known for always arriving late - but tends to stay late into the night to carry out the work he has been doing for the past decade, and which often takes him all over the world.<br /><br />He has seen Greenpeace through its lows - with inaccurate measurements taken from the Brent Spar oil platform - and its highs - the campaign against genetic engineering is the organisation's longest, and it says, the most popular.<br />Energetic and dedicated<br /><br /><br /><br /><p>The organisation holds him in high regard. Spokeswoman Mirella Von Lindenfels said: "He does not really regard himself as a leader, he sees himself as a small cog within the worldwide Greenpeace, he does not appear to see himself as an important person at all.<br /></p><br /><br /><br /><br /><p>"He is energetic and thoroughly dedicated. He has a great deal of experience and he is indefatigable."<br /></p><br /><br /><strong><span style="font-size:180%;">He is known to his colleagues simply as Peter, and like all of its activists will receive legal and moral support throughout his detention.</span></strong><br /><br /><strong><span style="font-size:180%;">Ms Von Lindenfels said: "Peter, like the others who were arrested, is highly trained in non-violent direct action</span></strong>, and he will be fully supported by Greenpeace.<br /><br /><strong><span style="font-size:180%;">"He feels, as so many people do, very, very strongly about the issue of GM crops and technology."</span></strong><br /><br /><br /><strong><span style="font-size:180%;">[FORTUNATELY, ECONOMIC SABOTAGE IS NOT FREE SPEECH IN THE U.S.A, AT LEAST NOT YET!]</span></strong><br /><br /><br /><br /><strong><span style="font-size:180%;">[</span><span style="font-size:130%;">See: <em>Eco & Animal Terrorism is NOT Free Speech in the USA!</em>, ITSSD Journal on Economic Sabotage, at:</span></strong> <a href="http://itssdjournaleconomicsabotage.blogspot.com/2008/07/eco-animal-terrorism-is-not-free-speech.html"><strong>http://itssdjournaleconomicsabotage.blogspot.com/2008/07/eco-animal-terrorism-is-not-free-speech.html</strong></a>; <strong><span style="font-size:130%;"><em>NYSE Finally Musters Courage to Defend Economic Freedom and Defy Animal Extremists</em>, ITSSD Journal on Economic Sabotage at:</span></strong> <a href="http://itssdjournaleconomicsabotage.blogspot.com/2008/03/nyse-finally-musters-courage-to-defend.html"><strong>http://itssdjournaleconomicsabotage.blogspot.com/2008/03/nyse-finally-musters-courage-to-defend.html</strong></a>; <strong><span style="font-size:130%;"><em>Fire ELFs Attack Homes Under Construction in Washington State, ITSSD Journal on Economic Sabotage</em>, ITSSD Journal on Economic Sabotage at:</span></strong> <a href="http://itssdjournaleconomicsabotage.blogspot.com/2008/03/fire-elfs-attack-homes-under.html"><strong>http://itssdjournaleconomicsabotage.blogspot.com/2008/03/fire-elfs-attack-homes-under.html</strong></a> <strong><span style="font-size:180%;">].</span></strong><br /><br /><br /><strong><span style="font-size:130%;">[See also: <em>ITSSD: 'Putting Country First' Means Defending America's Sovereignty, Constitution and Free Enterprise System Against Foreign Incursion</em>, ITSSD Journal on Economic Freedom, at: <a href="http://itssdeconomicfreedom.blogspot.com/2008/09/putting-country-first-means-defending.html"><span style="font-size:100%;">http://itssdeconomicfreedom.blogspot.com/2008/09/putting-country-first-means-defending.html</span></a> </span><span style="font-size:180%;">].</span></strong>ITSSD Charitable Missionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00790887154748866904noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3226983982698422912.post-7312730269082339942008-07-08T14:29:00.000-07:002008-07-08T18:41:45.934-07:00Eco & Animal Terrorism is NOT Free Speech in the USA!<a href="http://news.aol.com/story/_a/animal-rights-protests-grow-violent/20080708093209990001?icid=100214839x1205191633x1200260402">http://news.aol.com/story/_a/animal-rights-protests-grow-violent/20080708093209990001?icid=100214839x1205191633x1200260402</a><br /><br /><br /><strong><span style="font-size:130%;">Animal-Rights Protests Grow Violent</span></strong><br /><br /><br />By Marcus Wohlsen<br /><br /><br />Associated Press<br /><br /><br />2008-07-08<br /><br /><br />BERKELEY, California (July 8) - In the hills above the University of California's Berkeley campus, nine protesters gathered in front of the home of a toxicology professor, their faces covered with scarves and hoods despite the warm spring weather.<br /><br /><br /><strong>One scrawled "killer" in chalk on the scientist's doorstep, while another hurled insults through a bullhorn and announced, "Your neighbor kills animals!" Someone shattered a window. <span style="font-size:180%;">[AT A MINIMUM, THESE ACTS CONSIST OF THE INTENTIONAL CIVIL LAW TORTS OF TRESPASS, ASSAULT, BATTERY, DEFAMATION OF CHARACTER & TORTIOUS INTERFERENCE WITH BUSINESS. AT MOST, THESE ACTS CAN RISE TO THE LEVEL OF CRIMINAL ACTS OF TRESPASS, VANDALISM, ASSAULT, TERRORIZING, HARRASSMENT, STALKING, ATTEMPTED BATTERY &/OR BATTERY.]</span></strong><br /><br /><br /><em>Animal rights activists are becoming increasingly confrontational, heading right to the doorsteps of scientists. Here, protesters demonstrate outside the home of a University of California professor in Berkeley, Calif., May 31.</em><br /><br /><em>...Douglass, an activist who declined to give his full name, yells through a bullhorn while protesting outside the professor's home. <strong><span style="font-size:130%;">The activists are borrowing tactics used by anti-abortion demonstrators, harassing and terrorizing scientists in their homes.</span></strong></em><br /><br /><em>...Graffiti and a broken window mark the doorway of the professor's home. <strong><span style="font-size:130%;">The protesters, upset about the UC Berkeley entomologist's experimentation on animals, scrawled "killer," "murderer," and an obscenity on the entryway before breaking a window.</span></strong></em><br /><br /><em>...An activist confronts one of the professor's neighbors. "What they've decided to do now is make things more personal," said one researcher. <strong><span style="font-size:130%;">A spokesman for the Animal Liberation Front said, "if you had to hurt somebody or intimidate them or kill them, it would be morally justifiable." </span></strong>Source: AP</em><br /><br /><br /><strong><span style="font-size:180%;">Borrowing the kind of tactics used by anti-abortion demonstrators, animal rights activists are increasingly taking their rage straight to scientists' front doors.</span></strong><br /><br /><br /><strong><em><span style="font-size:180%;color:#33ff33;">Over the past couple of years, more and more researchers who experiment on animals have been harassed and terrorized in their own homes with weapons that include firebombs, flooding and acid</span></em></strong>.<br /><br /><br /><strong><span style="font-size:180%;color:#ff0000;">Scientists say the vandalism and intimidation threaten not just themselves and their families but the future of medical research</span></strong>. Specialists in such fields as addiction, eyesight and the aging brain have been targeted.<br /><br /><br />"It used to be everyone was worried about their laboratories being broken into and their data being destroyed, their animals being taken away," said Jeffrey Kordower, head of the Society for Neuroscience's animal research committee. <strong>"What they've decided to do now is make things more personal."</strong><br /><br /><p></p><p><em>In May 2008, an animal rights group stripped nearly naked before lying down on the floor of a shopping mall in Sydney, Australia. The "die-in" protested the export of live animals.</em></p><a href="http://osocio.org/images/uploads/PETA_logo.JPG"><img style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 209px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 199px" height="155" alt="" src="http://osocio.org/images/uploads/PETA_logo.JPG" border="0" /></a> <em>...A <strong><span style="font-size:130%;">PETA</span></strong> protester wrapped herself in cellophane and painted her body with fake blood to protest the National Cattlemens Beef Association's Spring Legislative Conference in March 2006. The protesters wanted to persuade the cattlemen that "Meat is Murder."</em><br /><br /><em>...<strong><span style="font-size:130%;">PETA</span></strong> launched a campaign in 2004 to try to force DaimlerChrysler to market leather-free vehicles in India. The leather interior of a car can require the hides of up to 15 cows. This protester, dressed as butcher, pretends to slaughter a cow on top of a Mercedes in front of the DaimlerChrysler headquarters in Stuttgart, Germany.</em><br /><br /><em>...An unidentified <strong><span style="font-size:130%;">PETA</span></strong> protester splatters Yum! Brands CEO David Novak with fake blood as he enters a KFC in Hanover, Germany, in 2003. The protest sought to resume negotiations between Yum! and KFC suppliers to improve their animals' living conditions.</em><br /><br /><em><a href="http://www.fauna.hu/images/fauna.gif"><img style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 200px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="http://www.fauna.hu/images/fauna.gif" border="0" /></a>...A member of the animal protection group <strong><span style="font-size:130%;">Fauna</span></strong> dressed as a chicken hands out leaflets in Budapest, Hungary, in 2003. <strong><span style="font-size:130%;">Fauna</span></strong> campaigned for increased education in schools about fair treatment for animals. The 33-pound chicken costume circulates among animal rights groups across Europe.</em><br /><br /><a href="http://www.editing.org.uk/tanis/alf2.jpg"><img style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 321px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 231px" height="155" alt="" src="http://www.editing.org.uk/tanis/alf2.jpg" border="0" /></a>Accompanying the attacks is increasingly tough talk from activists such as Dr. Jerry Vlasak, a spokesman for the <strong><span style="font-size:180%;">Animal Liberation Front</span></strong> press office. In an interview with The Associated Press, he said he is not encouraging anyone to commit murder, <strong><em><span style="font-size:130%;color:#ff0000;">but "if you had to hurt somebody or intimidate them or kill them, it would be morally justifiable.</span></em></strong><br /><br /><br />"The Washington-based Foundation for Biomedical Research said researchers were harassed or otherwise victimized more than 70 times in 2003, up from just 10 the year before. The number of attacks has held steady or risen ever since, according to the group.<br /><br /><br /><strong><span style="font-size:130%;">Activists say the escalation in tactics results from a frustration that nonviolent methods have failed to stop what they call the needless torture and killing of animals</span></strong>. <strong><span style="font-size:180%;color:#000000;">[TOO BAD!!]</span></strong><br /><br /><br />"An animal has as much of a right to life as we do. To take a life without provocation is immoral, it's violent, there's no excuse for it," said Jacob Black, 23, an organizer of demonstrations at the homes of UC Berkeley researchers. "<strong><span style="font-size:180%;color:#ff0000;">To name and shame these people as morally bankrupt individuals in our society is key.</span></strong>"<br /><br /><br />A Web site aimed at Berkeley lists the names of a dozen researchers and their home, work and e-mail addresses, their photos, and often their home numbers. The roster also includes graphic descriptions of each scientist's purported work with animals.<br /><br /><br />"This information is here so that others may pressure these individuals with legal protests - we do not participate in or encourage illegal activity," the Web site says.Despite that disclaimer, the late May protest in the Berkeley hills left a window of the toxicology professor's home shattered along with the window of a neighbor, who sprayed demonstrators with a garden hose to drive them away.<br /><br /><br />Activists say researchers drill holes into the skulls of monkeys and cats in pursuit of esoteric discoveries that will never help anyone.<br /><br /><br />But scientists say every effort is made to minimize the suffering of animals used in experiments. Rigorous government and university regulations provide detailed protocols for the humane treatment of lab animals. And scientists must show they have exhausted all other options to obtain data before they turn to animals as test subjects.<br /><br /><br />Many scientists are reluctant to discuss the effect violent incidents have had on biomedical research. They worry that any sign the attacks are succeeding could just lead to more of the same.<br /><br /><br /><br /><p><strong><span style="font-size:130%;">But at least one researcher decided the pressure was too much.</span></strong><br /></p><br /><span style="font-size:180%;color:#ff0000;"><strong>In 2006, activists began besieging the homes of several UCLA professors. Masked protesters converged on scientists' homes late at night, banging on doors, throwing firecrackers and chanting, "We know where you sleep," according to court documents</strong></span>.<br /><br /><br />Threatening calls and e-mails followed. <strong><span style="font-size:180%;color:#ff0000;">Firebombs were left near homes three times; two failed to go off, while the third charred a front door</span></strong>. One professor's home was flooded when a garden hose was shoved through a broken window.<br /><br /><br /><strong><span style="font-size:180%;">[ANIMAL PROTESTERS BEWARE! - DEPENDING ON THE JURISDICTION, THE LAW PERMITS USE OF SIGNIFICANT AND EVEN DEADLY FORCE, AS A MEANS OF SELF-DEFENSE, WHERE A TRESPASS THREATENS DEATH OR SERIOUS INJURY. SOME JURISDICTIONS PERMIT USE OF SIGNIFICANT OR DEADLY FORCE TO PREVENT THEFT OF PROPERTY.]</span></strong><br /><br />During the onslaught, which lasted two years, a UCLA scientist with small children informed protesters he had stopped doing animal research."Effective immediately, I am no longer doing animal research," vision researcher Dario Ringach wrote in an e-mail. "Please don't bother my family anymore."<br /><br /><br />Though no one has been seriously hurt since the jump in home protests, the attacks have drawn the attention of the FBI. <strong><span style="font-size:180%;color:#ff0000;">The agency has broad authority to investigate animal rights incidents under the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act of 2006. [Public Law No: 109-374 <span style="color:#000000;">, <span style="font-size:130%;">at: </span><a href="http://npl.ly.gov.tw/pdf/5562.pdf"><span style="font-size:130%;">http://npl.ly.gov.tw/pdf/5562.pdf</span></a><span style="font-size:130%;"> </span></span>].<br /></span></strong><br /><br />"We consider this to be a serious problem, especially when people's lives are being disrupted," said agent David Strange, who oversees a domestic counterterrorism squad at the FBI's Oakland office. <strong><em><span style="font-size:180%;color:#ff0000;">"We call it terrorism because it is a violent act violating federal criminal laws that has a political or social motivation to it."</span></em></strong><br /><br /><br /><strong><span style="font-size:180%;">Six members of a Philadelphia-based organization were sentenced to federal prison after they and the group itself were convicted in 2006 of using a Web site to incite threats, harassment and vandalism </span></strong>against people connected with a company that tests drugs and household products on animals.<br /><br /><br /><strong><em><span style="font-size:180%;color:#ff0000;">But otherwise, few activists have been prosecuted, because of free speech concerns and the movement's extreme secrecy.</span></em></strong><br /><br /><br /><strong><span style="font-size:180%;">[</span></strong>See: <span style="font-size:130%;"><strong><em>Economic Sabotage IS Free Speech In The UK; Is It Now Also Free Speech In the US?, </em></strong>ITSSD Journal on Economic Sabotage, at: <a href="http://itssdjournaleconomicsabotage.blogspot.com/2008/03/economic-sabotage-is-free-speech-in-uk.html">http://itssdjournaleconomicsabotage.blogspot.com/2008/03/economic-sabotage-is-free-speech-in-uk.html</a> </span><span style="font-size:180%;"><strong>].</strong></span><br /><br /><br />Recently, federal investigators joined a probe into an alleged February assault against the husband of a University of California, Santa Cruz breast-cancer researcher who experiments on mice. Police said masked activists pounded on the family's front door during a birthday party for their young daughter, and one threw a punch when the husband tried to force them to leave.<br /><br /><br /><strong><span style="font-size:180%;">Afterward, UC Santa Cruz Chancellor George Blumenthal backed a proposed state law that would limit activists' access to public information about animal experiments. Blumenthal called acts against animal researchers "the greatest threat to academic freedom that I've seen in the history of this campus."</span></strong><br /><br />Copyright 2008 The Associated Press.ITSSD Charitable Missionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00790887154748866904noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3226983982698422912.post-33726413457355519852008-07-07T19:12:00.000-07:002008-12-15T05:51:44.931-08:00Consumers Likely to Lose as PETA Herds US & European Importers of Australian Wool Products Like Sheep<div><div><a href="http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/08_28/b4092040870521.htm?chan=globalbiz_europe+index+page_top+stories">http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/08_28/b4092040870521.htm?chan=globalbiz_europe+index+page_top+stories</a><br /><div><div><div><div><div><div><br /><div><strong><span style="font-size:130%;">The Wool Industry Gets Bloodied</span></strong><br /></div><br /><div><a href="http://www.almastud.com.au/shearingday5.jpg"><img style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 200px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="http://www.almastud.com.au/shearingday5.jpg" border="0" /></a> <em><strong>Pressured by PETA, companies from Timberland to H&M are banning <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhzhbN7OF4FipK1c9sgmaT4JozwnAd0p4mXPTwBu_9fg0Swimrv4USKTXbjP36sNcgHbjwSddCNtNBrX3D_vXCkzVXR_rGvK8MDMdvmK3i43QCr1Qfxa1gZbDv5hXn3M_XEwaLbYry6tGE/s1600-h/wool_producers08.gif"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5238236220198012242" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 102px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 44px" height="75" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhzhbN7OF4FipK1c9sgmaT4JozwnAd0p4mXPTwBu_9fg0Swimrv4USKTXbjP36sNcgHbjwSddCNtNBrX3D_vXCkzVXR_rGvK8MDMdvmK3i43QCr1Qfxa1gZbDv5hXn3M_XEwaLbYry6tGE/s400/wool_producers08.gif" width="100" border="0" /></a>Australian wool</strong></em><br /><br /><br /></div><br /><br /><div>By Kerry Capell</div><br /><br /><div>Business Week<br /><br /></div><br /><div>July 3, 2008</div><br /><br /><div align="justify"><a href="http://cache.gizmodo.com/assets/resources/2007/10/australian%20flag%20reduced.jpg"><img style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 200px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="http://cache.gizmodo.com/assets/resources/2007/10/australian%20flag%20reduced.jpg" border="0" /></a>It's an unlikely international cause célèbre: sheep's rear ends. But because of <strong><span style="font-size:130%;">activists at People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals</span></strong>, <a href="http://cache.daylife.com/imageserve/0gQMgri4wU9g8/610x.jpg"><img style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 312px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 194px" height="133" alt="" src="http://cache.daylife.com/imageserve/0gQMgri4wU9g8/610x.jpg" border="0" /></a>it's an issue that <strong><span style="font-size:130%;">threaten</span></strong>s <strong><span style="font-size:130%;">to undermine Australia's $2.2 billion wool industry. </span></strong><br /><br /></div><div align="justify">Forget fur and leather—PETA's latest target is wool. Australian merino wool, to be exact. The animal rights group is on a quest to get clothing companies to quit using wool from so-called mulesed merino sheep. So far, more than 30 have signed on to the ban, <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimvh1xGtBCmFjrdenF4PuzC5ELClFduec9hc_iSgBALiEF053nKSTPYZf_bBZA4baFESxEOMdvHYEthoOA_PMBSv1lhiUvXeRx0u6-a8Sm0ms3iv_RygYk8ylXNSnR3sXWnqSBlh9gvyc/s1600-h/timberland+smartwool.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5220468167398438770" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimvh1xGtBCmFjrdenF4PuzC5ELClFduec9hc_iSgBALiEF053nKSTPYZf_bBZA4baFESxEOMdvHYEthoOA_PMBSv1lhiUvXeRx0u6-a8Sm0ms3iv_RygYk8ylXNSnR3sXWnqSBlh9gvyc/s200/timberland+smartwool.jpg" border="0" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhsL7vs2SVEUtL4XjKQPXD4sXA1Z4ITY-TfeyyOWEQii6lzUGChTN9LoBJw3Dt4n-z2fMkAaMoeYzrP0AaB9pK_Gyht7oYOcsXf_hGgt3z9hQL9lUhsla4PU9JhHNPUJ6tGyrCHHTVOsKQ/s1600-h/Abercrombie+&+Fitch+wool+sweater.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5220469579584360946" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 215px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 237px" height="200" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhsL7vs2SVEUtL4XjKQPXD4sXA1Z4ITY-TfeyyOWEQii6lzUGChTN9LoBJw3Dt4n-z2fMkAaMoeYzrP0AaB9pK_Gyht7oYOcsXf_hGgt3z9hQL9lUhsla4PU9JhHNPUJ6tGyrCHHTVOsKQ/s200/Abercrombie+%26+Fitch+wool+sweater.jpg" width="235" border="0" /></a>including Abercrombie & Fitch (<a href="http://investing.businessweek.com/research/stocks/snapshot/snapshot.asp?symbol=ANF" rel="ticker">ANF</a>), Timberland (<a href="http://investing.businessweek.com/research/stocks/snapshot/snapshot.asp?symbol=TBL" rel="ticker">TBL</a>), </div><br /><br /><br /><br /><div><br /></div><br /><br /><br /><br /><div></div><br /><br /><br /><br /><div><a href="http://www.hdclothing.co.uk/hdconcept/male/topsmale/hugo/Hugo%20Boss%20Geky%20Sweater/Hugo%20Boss%20Geky%202.jpg"><strong><span style="font-size:130%;"><img style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 310px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 206px" height="129" alt="" src="http://www.hdclothing.co.uk/hdconcept/male/topsmale/hugo/Hugo%20Boss%20Geky%20Sweater/Hugo%20Boss%20Geky%202.jpg" border="0" /></span></strong></a><a href="http://www.catwalkqueen.tv/merinowoolh&m.jpg"><strong><span style="font-size:130%;"><img style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 200px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="http://www.catwalkqueen.tv/merinowoolh&m.jpg" border="0" /></span></strong></a><strong><span style="font-size:130%;">H&M, and Hugo Boss</span></strong>. On June 4, German sportswear giant <strong><span style="font-size:130%;">Adidas</span></strong> <a href="http://www.solesuppliers.com/blog/images/logos/addidas-logo.gif"><img style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 168px; CURSOR: hand" height="157" alt="" src="http://www.solesuppliers.com/blog/images/logos/addidas-logo.gif" border="0" /></a>became the latest global brand to add its name to the list. "Approaching companies with big names and deep pockets is the best way to drive change," says PETA official Matt Prescott. </div></div><br /><div align="justify"><br /><strong><span style="font-size:130%;">PETA's gripe, mulesing, involves removing folds of skin from a sheep's hindquarters, a process named for John Mules, who devised it 70-plus years ago. The procedure, generally performed without anesthetics, guards against infestation by blowflies whose eggs hatch into flesh-eating maggots</span>.</strong> Australian merinos are more susceptible to attacks because they've been bred to have wrinkly coats that boost wool output. Four years ago, when PETA first began lobbying against mulesing, few apparel makers had even heard of the practice. </div><div><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXsbtpNXXf5RyT50nzGkAOy_RA2YDeHCKSbBK73KeFk8c04oz63Vqq3XDLyPltpQdlWkNiISOaXjYhYn1nl2VJCuZg_eRimCRHgr1B_wCdiXPtFu53V4RImQ4RG96U_MaDo4h4GHpzjH0/s1600-h/Benetton+%2B+wool+protest+2.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5280012378622787698" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 267px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXsbtpNXXf5RyT50nzGkAOy_RA2YDeHCKSbBK73KeFk8c04oz63Vqq3XDLyPltpQdlWkNiISOaXjYhYn1nl2VJCuZg_eRimCRHgr1B_wCdiXPtFu53V4RImQ4RG96U_MaDo4h4GHpzjH0/s400/Benetton+%2B+wool+protest+2.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /></div><div align="justify"><strong><span style="font-size:130%;">The animal rights group picked <em>Benetton, the Italian company whose name is often associated with sweaters</em>, as its first target. </span></strong></div><div align="justify"><strong><span style="font-size:130%;"></span></strong> </div><div align="justify"><strong><span style="font-size:130%;"></span></strong> </div><div align="justify"><strong><span style="font-size:130%;">It dispatched protesters wielding placards that read "Benetton: Baaad to Sheep" to picket stores and put up a billboard in New York City with the tag line "Did your sweater cause a bloody butt?"<br /></span></strong><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRyjD7c39NWkQMJkVjC52c1UF1F4dhrMVpLNs2HLLeLlb3mkLEgigpAgTxob4c6JH_HQj8aMt2N9YfZZCFWwUNL4jHjUE9iKBJ0X3baXibomh7-Hc0hYGIU_0vqLVjPR31yILbuDK7Hvo/s1600-h/Benetton+BAAD+for+Sheep.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5280012486528260450" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 267px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 400px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRyjD7c39NWkQMJkVjC52c1UF1F4dhrMVpLNs2HLLeLlb3mkLEgigpAgTxob4c6JH_HQj8aMt2N9YfZZCFWwUNL4jHjUE9iKBJ0X3baXibomh7-Hc0hYGIU_0vqLVjPR31yILbuDK7Hvo/s400/Benetton+BAAD+for+Sheep.jpg" border="0" /></a></div><div align="justify">It worked. <strong><span style="font-size:130%;">Benetton </span></strong>publicly came out in favor of phasing out mulesing. PETA has since had little trouble recruiting other clothing companies to its cause. After all, one European retailer says, who wants to be on PETA's radar screen?<br /></div><div align="justify"><br /></div><div align="justify"><strong><span style="font-size:130%;">Bad PR couldn't come at a worse time for the Australian wool industry. Production is at an 80-year low, a casualty of prolonged drought</span></strong>. Four years ago, Australian Wool Innovation, the industry's marketing, research, and development council, pledged to phase out mulesing by the end of 2010. <strong><em><span style="font-size:130%;">AWI has already sunk $13 million into researching options. These range from high-tech (genetically breeding wrinkle-free sheep) to the decidedly crude (surgical clips that cause folds of skin to wither and fall off).</span></em></strong> AWI Chairman Brian van Rooyen says he is confident "there will be alternatives to mulesing ready for adoption prior to 2010."<br /></div><div><br /><br /></div><div><strong><span style="font-size:130%;">STEPPING UP THE PRESSURE</span></strong> </div><br /><br /><div><div align="justify">Yet in the eyes of PETA and some retailers, the industry isn't moving fast enough. After H&M met with AWI at the start of the year, it decided to "direct our buying to mulesing-free merino wool because the company felt the phase-out of the practice was proceeding too slowly," says Ingrid Schullström, H&M's corporate social responsibility manager. Hugo Boss has held workshops with suppliers to increase the amount of wool sourced from unmulesed lambs. Both companies say they have been inundated with e-mails from consumers supporting the move to unmulesed wool. "Clearly, this is something that concerns many of our customers," says Schullström. </div><br /><div><br />Australia's 55,000 sheep farmers, meanwhile, are unhappy about being cast as barbarians.</div><br /><br /><div align="justify"><strong><span style="font-size:180%;">Mulesing, they say, is the best way to protect their flocks from an even worse fate: being chewed alive by maggots.</span></strong> Says Charles Olsson, a breeder in Goulburn, New South Wales: "We wouldn't perform this operation unless it was absolutely necessary." </div><br /><div>-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------</div><div> </div><div><a href="http://brandsofsports.wordpress.com/">http://brandsofsports.wordpress.com/</a></div><br /><div><strong><span style="font-size:130%;">Sports brands taking a stance</span></strong></div><div><br /> </div><div>Brands of Sports Weblog<br /><br /></div><br /><div>June 6, 2008</div><br /><br /><div></div><div>This appears to be something we are seeing more and more of in the industry.</div><br /><br /><div></div><div align="justify"><strong><span style="font-size:130%;">Adidas announced Wednesday that they are boycotting Australian wool and sheep that have been mulesed.<br /></div></span></strong><br /><div align="justify"><br /><strong><span style="font-size:130%;">Mulesing is viewed as an unnecessary way of taking wool from sheep and adidas communicated this in a letter to the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) in the United States declaring its position on the matter. </span><span style="font-size:180%;color:#000000;">[ADDIDAS, A EUROPEAN COMPANY SELLS OUT...]</span></strong></div><br /><div align="justify"><br />Fair play to adidas, they clearly have an agenda which appears to be addressing their production practices and appeal to consumers and their inner desire to do good. Only recently did they announce <strong><em>the grun collection which aims to better the environment by efficiently utilizing the natural resources of this world</em></strong>.<br /></div><br /><br /><div align="justify">Now a worldwide consumer movement, as they (consumers) demand brands to be transparent and to offer clarity on their stance on certain issues. The sporting goods industry appear to be taking this as a real top of agenda item, reacting fast and with real purpose. Yes, consumers still and will always demand value but they also want a brand ‘with’ values - values that they can relate to in every sense of the word. <strong><span style="font-size:180%;color:#000000;">[VERY FEW CONSUMERS CARE ABOUT THIS NONSENSE, CONTRARY TO WHAT THE PETA GROUP SAYS. IT'S ALL ABOUT PRESERVING BRAND REPUTATION AMID THREATS OF PUBLIC DISPARAGEMENT.]</span></strong><br /></div><br /><div>-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------</div><br /><div><a href="http://64.233.169.104/search?q=cache:nNRjrOBhE3wJ:vcr.csrwire.com/node/7447+hugo+boss+australian+wool&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=3&gl=us">http://64.233.169.104/search?q=cache:nNRjrOBhE3wJ:vcr.csrwire.com/node/7447+hugo+boss+australian+wool&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=3&gl=us</a></div><br /><div><strong><span style="font-size:130%;">Australia: Hugo Boss to Ban Wool Produced Using Mulesing</span></strong></div><br /><div> </div><div>CSRwire - Video Commentary & Research (<a href="http://vcr.csrwire.com/">http://vcr.csrwire.com/</a>)<br /></div><br /><div>By natalie </div><br /><br /><div>04/28/2008<br /></div><div><strong><span style="font-size:130%;"></span></strong> </div><div align="justify"><strong><span style="font-size:130%;">Hugo Boss has said that it will avoid wool for its fashion clothing chain from producers still using the practice of mulesing by 2010</span></strong>. The move prompted the Australian Wool Growers Association to say that it expected Australian producers to have largely moved towards alternatives to the practice within the two year deadline. Around 15 to 20 percent of the Australian wool farms producing 'superfine wool' supply Hugo Boss. </div><br /><div>------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------</div><br /><div><a href="http://www.abc.net.au/rural/nsw/content/2006/s2218817.htm">http://www.abc.net.au/rural/nsw/content/2006/s2218817.htm</a> </div><br /><div><strong><span style="font-size:130%;">Hugo Boss rejects mulesing</span></strong><br /><br /></div><br /><div>By Catherine Clifford<br /></div><br /><div>ABC Rural - New South Wales News</div><br /><br /><div>16/04/2008<br /></div><br /><div align="justify"><br /><strong><span style="font-size:130%;color:#000099;">Australia's wool industry is once again defending its efforts to find an alternative to mulesing, after European fashion giant, Hugo Boss, announced it will phase out its purchase of Australian wool from mulesed sheep.</span></strong></div><div><strong><span style="font-size:130%;color:#000099;"></span></strong></div><br /><br /><div align="justify"><strong><span style="font-size:130%;color:#000099;"><span style="font-size:180%;color:#000000;">[HUGO BOSS, ANOTHER EUROPEAN COMPANY, SELLS OUT...]</span></span></strong></div><br /><br /><div></div><div align="justify">The company, which has 1,252 stores in 105 countries, also says it will not support the use of clips as an alternative to the controversial practice.Mulesing is the surgical removal of skin from the rear of the sheep to prevent flystrike and the clips have been developed as an alternative to shut off blood flow to the skin, which effectively dies within 24 hours. After a period of time the clips and the skin fall off, or the clips can be removed. </div><br /><br /><div align="justify"><strong><em><span style="font-size:130%;">In a strongly-worded statement, the German-based retailer, which sources Australian wool for its classic Mens' collections, said it must disassociate itself from mulesing because the practice contravenes the company's corporate values</span></em></strong>. <strong><span style="font-size:180%;">[THIS IS CALLED 'PETA-WASHING'].</span></strong></div><br /><br /><div align="justify">The statement went on to say that if mulesing in Australia has not ended completely by 2010, Hugo Boss will refuse to purchase wool material from farms that perform mulesing, including from farms that employ what the company refers to as "clip mulesing".</div><div> </div><br /><div align="justify"><strong><span style="font-size:130%;">Spokeswomen Meera Ullal and Dr Hjördis Kettenbach say Hugo Boss considers clips to cause suffering, too</span></strong>.</div><br /><div align="justify"><br />"The clip is applied to the sheep's skin, there is no blood circulation, the skin dies and falls off so, for us in our understanding, it would be another form of mulesing," they say.<br /><br /></div><div align="justify">Hugo Boss says it has been involved in ongoing discussions with the Australian government and Australian Wool Innovation (AWI) for several years over the issue, stating it has repeatedly highlighted its desire to both parties for "more animal-friendly treatment of sheep".</div><br /><br /><div align="justify"><strong><em><span style="font-size:130%;">Ms Ullal said Hugo Boss hopes its announcement, to concentrate its purchases on non-mulesed wool, will set a clear example for the international retail and textile industry and bring new momentum to Australia's efforts to find a suitable, pain-free alternative to mulesing</span></em></strong>.</div><br /><br /><div align="justify"><strong><span style="font-size:130%;">Manager of the Australian Wool and Sheep Industry Taskforce, veterinarian Dr Norm Blackman, says the Taskforce is disappointed Hugo Boss has included clips in its statement on mulesing, saying, by definition, the two are very different</span></strong>.</div><br /><div>------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------</div><div> </div><div><a href="http://www.mallenbaker.net/csr/CSRfiles/page.php?Story_ID=2076">http://www.mallenbaker.net/csr/CSRfiles/page.php?Story_ID=2076</a></div><br /><div><strong><span style="font-size:130%;">Australia: Hugo Boss to ban wool produced using mulesing</span></strong> </div><br /><br /><div>Business Respect, Issue Number 126</div><br /><br /><div>16 Apr 2008<br /></div><br /><br /><div align="justify">Hugo Boss has said that it will avoid wool for its fashion clothing chain from producers still using the practice of mulesing by 2010 saying that such practices contravene the company's corporate values.<br /></div><br /><div align="justify"><br />The move prompted the Australian Wool Growers Association to say that it expected Australian producers to have largely moved towards alternatives to the practice within the two year deadline. At the moment, it said, farmers are using pain relief techniques whilst searching for viable alternatives.</div><div align="justify"><br /><br /><strong><span style="font-size:130%;">Around 15 to 20 percent of the Australian wool farms producing 'superfine wool' supply Hugo Boss.</span></strong></div><br /><br /><div align="justify">Campaign group People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) have been waging an ongoing struggle against Australian farmers to see an end to mulesing.</div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div>ITSSD Charitable Missionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00790887154748866904noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3226983982698422912.post-32224020381013377282008-03-24T20:41:00.000-07:002008-03-25T20:04:23.586-07:00EU, UN & Greens Target U.S. Industrial Agriculture For Structural Reform: Seek Regulation & Taxation to Lessen Global Warming & Other Enviro Impacts<div><a href="http://www.virtualcentre.org/en/library/key_pub/longshad/A0701E00.pdf">http://www.virtualcentre.org/en/library/key_pub/longshad/A0701E00.pdf</a><br /><br /><br /><strong><span style="font-size:130%;">Livestock’s long shadow Environmental issues and options</span></strong><br /><strong><span style="font-size:130%;"></span></strong><a href="http://www.fao.org/lead/images/fao_logo.gif"><img style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 81px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 82px" height="140" alt="" src="http://www.fao.org/lead/images/fao_logo.gif" border="0" /></a><a href="http://www.fao.org/lead/images/lead_logo.gif"><img style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 72px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 100px" height="189" alt="" src="http://www.fao.org/lead/images/lead_logo.gif" border="0" /></a><br /><strong><span style="font-size:130%;">LEAD (Livestock, Environment And Development) </span></strong><strong><span style="font-size:130%;">(a multi-institutional initiative of United Nations FAO - formed to promote ecologically sustainable livestock production systems)</span></strong><br /><strong><span style="font-size:130%;"></span></strong><br /><strong><span style="font-size:130%;"></span></strong><br />By H. Steinfeld, P. Gerber, T. Wassenaar, V. Castel, M. Rosales, C. de Haan - (2006)<br /><br /><br /><em><strong><span style="font-size:180%;">The livestock sector emerges as one of the top two or three most significant contributors</span></strong> to the most serious environmental problems, at every scale from local to global. The findings of this report suggest that it should be a major policy focus when dealing with problems of land degradation, climate change and air pollution, water shortage and water pollution, and loss of biodiversity. Livestock’s contribution to environmental problems is on a massive scale</em><br /><em></em><br /><br /><span style="font-size:130%;"><strong>Executive Summary</strong><br /></span><br /><br />"...A general conclusion is that improving the resource use efficiency of livestock production can reduce environmental impacts. <strong><span style="font-size:180%;color:#3333ff;">While regulating about scale, inputs, wastes and so on can help</span></strong>, a crucial element in achieving greater efficiency is the correct pricing of natural resources such as land, water and use of waste sinks. Most frequently natural resources are free or underpriced, which leads to overexploitation and pollution. Often perverse subsidies directly encourage livestock producers to engage in environmentally damaging activities. <span style="font-size:180%;color:#cc0000;"><strong>A top priority is to achieve prices and fees that reflect the full economic and environmental costs, including all externalities</strong></span>. One requirement for prices to influence behaviour is that there should be secure and if possible tradable rights to water, land, use of common land and waste sinks. <strong><span style="font-size:180%;color:#006600;">Damaging subsidies should be removed, and economic and environmental externalities should be built into prices by <span style="color:#ff0000;"><em>selective taxing of and/or fees for resource use, inputs and wastes</em></span></span></strong>. In some cases direct incentives may be needed."<br /><br /><br />...An important general lesson is that the livestock sector has such deep and wide-ranging environmental impacts that it should rank as one of the leading focuses for environmental policy...<strong><em><span style="font-size:180%;color:#ff6600;">there is an urgent need to develop suitable institutional and policy frameworks, at local, national and international levels, for the suggested changes to occur</span></em></strong>. This will require strong political commitment, and increased knowledge and awareness of <strong><span style="font-size:180%;color:#cc0000;">the environmental risks of continuing “business as usual”</span></strong> and the environmental benefits of actions in the livestock sector.<br /><br /><br /><strong><span style="font-size:130%;">(p.4) Introduction:</span></strong><br /><br /><br /><em><span style="font-size:180%;">"Livestock have a substantial impact on the world's water, land and biodiversity resources and contribute significantly to climate change...[T]he livestock sector occupies about 30% of the ice-free terrestrial surface on the planet. In many situations, livestock are a major source of land-based pollution emitting nutrients and organic matter, pathogens and drug residues into rivers, lakes and coastal seas.</span></em><br /><em><span style="font-size:100%;"></span></em><br /><em><span style="font-size:100%;"></span></em><br /><em><span style="font-size:180%;">Animals and their wastes emit gases, some of which contribute to climate change, as do other land-use changes caused by demand for feed grains and grazing land. Livestock shape entire landscapes and their demands on land for pasture and feed crop production modify and reduce natural habitats."</span></em><br /><em><span style="font-size:100%;"></span></em><br /><br /><strong><span style="font-size:130%;">(p. xxii)</span></strong><br /><br /><br /><em><span style="font-size:180%;">"...Policy measures that would help in reducing water use and pollution include full cost pricing of water [to cover supply costs, as well as, economic and environmental externalities], regulatory frameworks for limiting inputs and scale, specifying required equipment and discharge levels, zoning regulations and taxes to discourage large-scale concentrations close to cities, as well as development of secure water rights and water markets, and partipating management of watersheds."</span></em><br /><span style="font-size:100%;"></span><br /><br /><strong><span style="font-size:130%;">(p. 248)</span></strong><br /><br /><br /><em><span style="font-size:180%;">"...Practices that lead to the provision of environmental services, such as improved water quantity and quality, can be encouraged through payments to providers. <strong><span style="color:#ff0000;">Schemes of payment for environmental services [PES] rely on the development of a market for environmental services</span></strong> that have previously not been priced.</span></em><br /><em><span style="font-size:180%;"></span></em><br /><em><span style="font-size:180%;"></span></em><br /><em><span style="font-size:180%;">...Usually, PES schemes rely on external financial resources; however, the long-term sustainability of the mechanisms is often uncertain. Furthermore, the level of payment is often politically imposed and does not correspond to effective demand for services.</span></em><br /><em><span style="font-size:180%;"></span></em><br /><em><span style="font-size:180%;"></span></em><br /><em><span style="font-size:180%;">A few countries have specific legal frameworks for PES at the national or regional levels. Most of the existing PES schemes, however, operate without a specific legal framework. <strong><span style="color:#3333ff;">Some service providers <span style="color:#006600;">take advantage of</span> this legal gap to establish property rights for land and natural resources.</span></strong>"</span></em><br /><span style="font-size:100%;"></span><br /><span style="font-size:100%;"></span><br /><strong><span style="font-size:180%;">[IMAGINE THAT!! SOCIETIES BASED ON THE NOTION OF INDIVIDUAL RIGHTS AND FREE ENTERPRISE HAVE THE NERVE TO RECOGNIZE AND PROTECT PRIVATE PROPERTY IN LAND, NATURAL RESOURCES & LIVESTOCK!! HOW SHAMEFUL!!!]</span></strong><br /><br /><br /><span style="font-size:180%;"><strong>[THIS REPORT SETS FORTH AN AMBITIOUS UTOPIAN FRAMEWORK FOR A NEW SUPRANATIONAL GLOBAL WELFARE SYSTEM MODELED AFTER THE EUROPEAN UNION, THAT RELIES ON SUPRANATIONAL, REGIONAL & NATIONAL INSTITUTIONAL SUBSIDIES TO REFORM HUMAN BEHAVIOR. THE EUROPEAN UNION, THROUGH THE UNITED NATIONS, IS ATTEMPTING TO REACH INTO THE UNITED STATES, WITH THE HELP OF U.S. POLITICIANS & GREEN EXTREMIST GROUPS TO GOVERN EVERY ASPECT OF ECONOMIC LIFE. See, e.g., <em>Putting Payments for Environmental Services in the Context of Economic Development </em>(2006) UN FAO</strong></span><br /><span style="font-size:180%;"><a href="ftp://ftp.fao.org/docrep/fao/009/ah633e/ah633e00.pdf"><strong>ftp://ftp.fao.org/docrep/fao/009/ah633e/ah633e00.pdf</strong></a><strong> ; </strong></span><span style="font-size:180%;"><strong>From Goodwill to Payments for Environmental Services, World Wildlife Fund (WWF) (Aug. 2003) at: </strong><a href="http://www.unpei.org/PDF/budgetingfinancing/From-goodwill-payment-env-services.pdf"><strong>http://www.unpei.org/PDF/budgetingfinancing/From-goodwill-payment-env-services.pdf</strong></a><strong> ; <a href="http://www.panda.org/about_wwf/what_we_do/policy/macro_economics/our_solutions/pes/index.cfm">http://www.panda.org/about_wwf/what_we_do/policy/macro_economics/our_solutions/pes/index.cfm</a>]</strong>.</span><br /><span style="font-size:180%;"></span><br /><span style="font-size:180%;"></span><br /><strong><span style="font-size:180%;">[<span style="color:#ff0000;">IT IS INTERESTING HOW THE ACRONYM 'PES' CORRESPONDS TO THE PARTY OF EUROPEAN SOCIALISTS!!</span> <em>See</em> </span></strong><a href="http://www.pes.org/"><strong><span style="font-size:180%;">http://www.pes.org/</span></strong></a><strong><span style="font-size:180%;"> ].</span></strong><br /><span style="font-size:180%;"></span><br /><span style="font-size:180%;"></span><br /><span style="font-size:180%;"><strong>[THIS REPORT CONTAINS MANY CLEAR-CUT REFERENCES TO SUPRANATIONAL GLOBAL ENVIRONMENTAL REGULATORY GOVERNANCE TREATIES (<span style="color:#ff0000;">INSTITUTIONALIZD 'SOFT' SOCIALISM BEING EXPORTED BY THE EUROPEAN UNION) </span>THAT WOULD BE IMPLEMENTED AT THE NATIONAL LEVEL BY TREATY PARTY GOVERNMENTS. THE MENTION OF 'RESIDUES INTO RIVERS LAKES AND SEAS' IS AN INDIRECT REFERENCE TO THE VAST ENVIRONMENTAL REGULATION OF SOVEREIGN U.S. TERRITORY CALLED FOR BY THE U.N. LAW OF THE SEA CONVENTION].</strong></span><br /><br /><br /><br /><strong><span style="font-size:180%;">[While the report speaks of environmental damage caused by overgrazing and deforestation, it also speaks of the environmental damage encouraged by agricultural subsidy and liberal trade policies. <span style="color:#3333ff;">Yet, what is really at work is a hidden agenda of attacking American industrial agriculture, including crop farming, livestock farming and ranching, as 'UN'sustainable.</span> This has been one of the main arguments of Environmental Nongovernmental Organizations (ENGOs) in Europe for a long while. Unfortunately, <em><span style="color:#ff0000;">it will drive most small U.S. farmers in the livestock industry out of business and increase the U.S. unemployment rate, AND DIMINISH THE GLOBAL COMPETITIVENESS OF U.S. AGRICULTURE </span></em>. <span style="color:#3333ff;">U.S. policymakers and the incoming U.S. President must NOT fall prey to these economically & socially destructive ideas</span>].</span></strong><br /><strong><span style="font-size:100%;"></span></strong><br /><strong></strong><br /><strong><span style="font-size:180%;">[</span></strong>Interestingly, on page 224, the Report refers to <strong><span style="font-size:180%;color:#990000;"><span style="color:#3333ff;"><span style="color:#ff6600;">Europe's Precautionary Principle</span>, as "a principle used to link environmental concerns to decision-making [. It] calls for action to reduce environmental impact even before conclusive evidence of the exact nature and extent of such damage exists. The precautionary principle stresses that corrective action should not be postponed if there is a serious risk of irreversible damage, even though full scientific evidence may still be lacking.</span> <span style="color:#ff0000;">However, there is considerable debate about the usefulness of this principle among policy-makers; a common understanding is still missing."</span></span></strong> <strong><span style="font-size:180%;">]</span></strong><br /><br /><br /><strong><span style="font-size:180%;">[</span></strong>On page 50, the Report notes how,<strong><span style="font-size:180%;color:#660000;"><em> "Responding to consumer concerns, the EU has required that products containing genetically modified organisms (GMOs) be labeled so that consumers can identify them. In addition, the EU is pushing for GMO soybeans to be separated from other varieties so that those purchasing them for feed or as ingredients can make a choice".</em><span style="color:#000000;">]</span></span></strong><span style="color:#000000;"> </span><br /><br /><br /><strong><span style="font-size:130%;color:#000099;"><span style="font-size:180%;color:#000000;">[</span>Actually, to the extent this Report recognizes the debate over the Precautionary Principle, it is accurate. However, the Report fails to mention how Europe has used the Precautionary Principle both as a disguised trade barrier and also AS A MEANS TO UNDERMINE AMERICAN INDUSTRIAL AGRICULTURE:</span></strong><br /><br /><br /><em><strong><span style="font-size:180%;">“EU officials have frequently referred to the precautionary principle as a necessary “framework for learning in the face of uncertainty” and arguably have embraced it as a metaphor for protecting the European ‘way of life’ against the ‘Americanization’ of<br />European commercial and agricultural practices.12</span></strong></em><br /><br /><br /><span style="font-size:130%;"><strong><span style="color:#6600cc;"><em>12... The most recent of three workshops previously organized by the German Marshall Fund’s U.S.-European Biotechnology Initiative to discuss U.S. and EU views toward biotechnology explains a great deal about EU reliance upon the precautionary principle. An interpretative summary of this last dialogue (prepared by a European) is extremely revealing. “The EC official stressed that the political purpose of the European rules [about GMOs] was indeed to restore consumer confidence…‘Anything less than the regulations now being proposed would not restore consumer confidence and GM crops in Europe could fail’…One NGO representative was quoted as saying that, ‘Why can’t the Americans understand that this is not specifically about health and safety and labels and traceability; it’s a rebellion against industrial agriculture. We need to be talking about the emergence of new ways of farming which take social and environmental concerns into account, not just GMOs’…An important factor often omitted from the U.S. interpretation of the European conundrum is concern over the Americanization of European agricultural practices and food habits. This concern embodies dislike and fear of globalization in general…As one European…said, ‘There is a difference in what we want our countries to look like, not only with food but with all that goes with it.’ This ‘way of life’ statement echoed similar thoughts…one European said, ‘GM food was a concrete thing that gave us the feeling that the world was going to change radically with respect to food, control of food, and ultimately democracy’…The European consumer attitude to GMOs has evolved, not out of one or two big events such as growth hormones or ‘mad cow’ disease, but for many reasons that traverse the interdisciplinary spectrum of politics, science, economics, culture and social ethics.’” Peter Pringle, “The U.S.-European Biotechnology Initiative”, Workshop 3: Segregation, Traceability and Labeling of GM Crops – An Interpretative Summary of a Transatlantic Conservation About Biotechnology and Agriculture”, The German Marshall Fund of the United States (April 29, 2002), at pp. 3-8.</em><br /></span></strong><br /></span><br /><strong><em>See</em> Lawrence A. Kogan, “EU Regulation, Standardization and the Precautionary Principle: The Art of Crafting a Three- Dimensional Trade Strategy That Ignores Sound Science”, National Foreign Trade Council (Aug. 2003), at pp. 6-7. This document is accessible on the World Trade Organization website at: </strong><a title="blocked::http://www.wto.org/english/forums_e/ngo_e/posp47_nftc_eu_reg_final_e.pdf" href="http://www.wto.org/english/forums_e/ngo_e/posp47_nftc_eu_reg_final_e.pdf"><strong>http://www.wto.org/english/forums_e/ngo_e/posp47_nftc_eu_reg_final_e.pdf</strong></a><strong> .</strong> <strong><span style="font-size:180%;">]</span></strong><br /><strong><span style="font-size:100%;"></span></strong><br /><strong><span style="font-size:100%;"></span></strong><br /><strong><span style="font-size:180%;">[APPARENTLY, U.S. POLICYMAKERS HAVE ALREADY LOOKED INTO THE PAYMENT FOR ENVIRONMENTAL SERVICES SCHEMES OF THE EUROPEAN UNION AND HAVE NOT LIKED WHAT THEY HAVE SEEN]</span></strong><br /><strong><span style="font-size:100%;"></span></strong><br /><strong><span style="font-size:100%;"></span></strong><br /><br /><em><span style="font-size:130%;">"Further developments in agri-environmental policy in both the United States and<br />the EU will likely depend at least in part on outcomes from ongoing multilateral<br />agricultural trade negotiations. If these negotiations result in further restrictions on<br />trade-distorting domestic commodity support, farmers, ranchers, and policymakers<br />may view increased funding for green payments as an attractive alternative for<br />providing support to agriculture. If further restrictions are required, it seems more<br />likely that the United States and the EU will look at the other’s policies and<br />experiences more closely. If such an examination demonstrates that historic and<br />current differences are extensive and difficult to overcome, it may be that a broad and<br />imprecise definition of green payments will serve the interests of diverse parties who<br />participate in farm policy debates.</span></em><br /><em><span style="font-size:130%;"></span></em><br /><br /><em><span style="font-size:130%;">For U.S. policy, the status of these negotiations in early 2007, when crafting the<br />next farm bill is likely to start in earnest, will be particularly important because<br />designers of this legislation and interest groups will likely give the status and<br />direction of these negotiations strong consideration as they contemplate farm bill<br />options. If the outcome of the negotiations is uncertain while the farm bill is being<br />debated, this uncertainty will compound the intensity of the debate, and possibly<br />result in the inclusion of language in legislation giving the Department greater<br />flexibility in implementation.</span></em><br /><em><span style="font-size:130%;"></span></em><br /><br /><br /><br /><div><br /><div><br /><p><em><span style="font-size:130%;">Congressional discussion of green payments may become contentious for other<br />reasons as well. One source of that contention may be the translation of the concept<br />into policies and programs. Most interests involved in farm policy who have<br />expressed an opinion support the general concept of green payments. But as the<br />discussions become more specific, participants may find that they have different<br />views about program design, funding allocations, administrative responsibilities and<br />similar questions, making it difficult to hold together coalitions of supporters.</span></em></p><br /><br /><br /><p><em><span style="font-size:130%;"></span></em></p><br /><br /><br /><p><em><span style="font-size:130%;">Among the most difficult of these questions may be deciding whether such a program<br />should include a significant income support component and contribute to the “bottom<br />line” of each participant, or should it be limited to covering costs to install and<br />maintain conservation practices. </span><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-size:180%;"><strong><span style="color:#ff0000;">A related question may be deciding what is to be accomplished through a green payment approach. Some may view it as meeting<br />international obligations, and seek a minimal program with limited impact to current domestic efforts, while others may view it is a major new and positive direction in farm policy, and seek to make it large and far-reaching.</span></strong> </span>One aspect of discussing these options may be over whether payments should be based on cost-sharing for individual practices, which has a long history in agri-environmental policies, or on<br />the level of improved environmental performance that results from installing<br />practices.</span></em></p><span style="font-size:130%;"><br /><br /><br /><p><em><br /></em></p><br /><br /><br /><p><em>Consideration of green payments may also include a debate over questions of<br />scale. To this point, all conservation programs are implemented at the scale of an<br />individual farm. Green payments could include additional incentives for coordinated<br />and collective action that have much larger cumulative benefits than actions on<br />individual farms are likely to result in. Such programs could be designed around the<br />magnitude of the benefits that the group provides, and grow or shrink for all members of the group as the participation, and therefore the benefits, change.</em></p><br /><br /><br /><p></p><br /><br /><br /><p><br /><em><strong><span style="font-size:180%;color:#3333ff;">Differences between the United States and the EU in how green payments have been defined and translated into policy and programs may make consideration of EU agri-environmental policy as a model or source of ideas problematic</span>.</strong> </em></p><br /><br /><br /><p></p><br /><br /><br /><p><em><span style="font-size:180%;color:#006600;"><strong>Some aspects of EU policy, e.g., compulsory cross-compliance with agri-environmental measures as a condition for receiving price and income support, differ substantially from historical U.S. practice, in which cross-compliance has been far more sparingly<br />applied.</strong></span> </em></p><br /><br /><br /><p></p><br /><br /><br /><p></p><br /><br /><br /><p><em><strong><span style="font-size:180%;color:#ff6600;">Spending on agri-environmental programs in the United States has been relatively less than in the EU, both as a portion of total federal spending for agriculture and as an amount spent.</span></strong> </em></p><br /><br /><br /><p></p><br /><br /><br /><p><em><strong><span style="color:#990000;">Identifying sources of increased funding for agrienvironmental programs, even in the context of possible new WTO restrictions on other forms of farm support</span></strong>, might still be difficult given projected budget deficits. <strong>Even with new multilateral restrictions on farm subsidies, agri-environmental programs might compete unfavorably with the more conventional forms of farm support</strong> or with other WTO-compatible programs. </em></p><br /><br /><br /><p></p><br /><br /><br /><p><em>Apart from funding considerations, <strong><span style="font-size:180%;color:#3333ff;">a consensus for linking agri-environment and rural development with more traditional farm program measures has not emerged in the United States as it apparently has in the EU. So the extent to which EU agri-environmental policy could serve as a model or source of ideas for U.S. agri-environmental policy remains to be seen</span></strong>. <strong><span style="font-size:180%;">See</span></strong></em><strong><span style="font-size:180%;"> Congressional Research Service Report RL32624 "Green Payments in U.S. and European Union Agricultural Policy" at CRS-19-20, at: </span></strong><a href="http://www.nationalaglawcenter.org/assets/crs/RL32624.pdf"><strong><span style="font-size:180%;">http://www.nationalaglawcenter.org/assets/crs/RL32624.pdf</span></strong></a></span></p><span style="font-size:180%;"><strong>].</strong></span></div></div></div>ITSSD Charitable Missionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00790887154748866904noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3226983982698422912.post-84851449170401169832008-03-12T20:45:00.000-07:002008-03-12T20:53:45.271-07:00The French Reap What They Sow - Animal Group Madness & Soft Economic Sabotage<div><div><a href="http://www.labtechnologist.com/news/ng.asp?id=59101-eu-refuses-bid">http://www.labtechnologist.com/news/ng.asp?id=59101-eu-refuses-bid</a><br /><br /><br /><strong><span style="font-size:130%;">EU refuses bid to lift ban on animal cosmetics testing</span></strong><br /><br /><br />31-Mar-2005</div><br /><div></div><div></div><br /><div>The Advocate General of <strong><em><span style="font-size:130%;color:#000099;">the European Court of Justice has slammed moves by the French government to partially lift the ban on the testing of cosmetic products on animals</span></em></strong>.<br /><br /><br />The court advisors said that the proposed deletion of Article 4 (1)(i) of the EU Cosmetic Directive 76/678, wanted the marketing of animal-tested cosmetic products to be unconditionally permitted throughout the European Community.<br /><br /><br />The French government is seeking the annulment of the Directive's ban on animal testing of cosmetics and the sale of animal-tested products. The court's opinion followed the original hearing in the case brought by France on 18 January, and was rejected by the courts last week.<br /><br /><br /><strong><span style="font-size:180%;">Currently France has one of the biggest cosmetics industries in Europe, with names such as L'Oreal and Clarence and Clinique proffering some of the most successful and well-known brand names.<br /></span></strong><br /><br /><strong><span style="font-size:130%;color:#3333ff;"><em>The French government has been claiming that the current Directive against animal testing violated the principle of legal certainty because its scope was not adequately defined. </em></span></strong></div><div><strong><span style="font-size:130%;color:#3333ff;"><em><br /><a href="http://www.ispca.ie/content/eurogroup_logo.gif"><img style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 168px; CURSOR: hand" height="83" alt="" src="http://www.ispca.ie/content/eurogroup_logo.gif" border="0" /></a></em></span></strong><strong><span style="font-size:180%;">A lifting of the ban would have met with significant animosity from animal rights group</span></strong> and the general public, which has proved to be staunch supporters of moves to ban all cosmetics testing on animals in the past. </div><br /><div><br /><a href="http://www.ethicalcorp.com/ethicalsourcing2006/pics/logo_eurogroup.gif"><img style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 176px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 87px" height="87" alt="" src="http://www.ethicalcorp.com/ethicalsourcing2006/pics/logo_eurogroup.gif" border="0" /></a>Sonja Van Tichelen, director of <strong><span style="font-size:180%;">Eurogroup Animal Welfare Organisation</span></strong> said that the move to quash the French government's demands had the support of the EU citizens.<br /><br /><strong><em><span style="font-size:130%;color:#cc0000;">Furthermore Van Tichelen drew attention to the self interest motivating the French government's move, emphasizing the significance of the country's existing cosmetic industry as well as the fact that it currently has the largest amount of animal testing for cosmetic products.<br /></span></em></strong></div><div></div><br /><div><strong><span style="font-size:180%;">[YES. SELF-INTEREST IS GOOD IN THIS CASE - BETTER THAN KILLING AN ENTIRE INDUSTRY THAT CONTRIBUTES SIGNIFICANTLY TO THE ECONOMY!!]</span></strong><br /></div><br /><div><br />The final hearing for the French government's demands will be given by the EU Courts, but it seems likely that, following the recommendations of the Advocate General, it will be faced with a tough battle. </div></div>ITSSD Charitable Missionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00790887154748866904noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3226983982698422912.post-43162350633308420282008-03-06T19:31:00.001-08:002008-03-06T19:48:11.687-08:00FBI Testified Before US Senate Committee During 2005 About Transatlantic Animal Terrorist Threats to Life, Limb & Property<a href="http://epw.senate.gov/hearing_statements.cfm?id=247787">http://epw.senate.gov/hearing_statements.cfm?id=247787</a><br /><br /><a href="http://www.fbi.gov/congress/congress05/lewis102605.htm">http://www.fbi.gov/congress/congress05/lewis102605.htm</a><br /><br /><br /><strong><span style="font-size:130%;">U.S. Senate Committee on Environment & Public Works<br />Hearing Statements<br />Date: 10/26/2005<br /></span></strong><br />Statement of John Lewis<br />Deputy Assistant Director<br /><strong><span style="font-size:130%;">Federal Bureau of Investigation</span></strong><br />Eco-terrorism<br /><br />--------------------------------------------------------------------------------<br />Good morning Chairman Inhofe, Ranking Member Jeffords, and members of the Committee. I am pleased to be here again to discuss the threat posed by animal rights activists, and by the Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty, or the SHAC movement in particular.<br /><br /><br />I am here today to speak to you about <strong>how members of the animal rights extremist movement advance their cause by using so-called direct action against individuals or companies.</strong> <strong><em><span style="font-size:180%;">“Direct action” is criminal activity designed to cause economic loss or to destroy property or operations.</span></em></strong> I see disturbing signs of success in what they are doing and legitimate business is suffering. I will also touch on the limitations of existing statutes.<br /><br /><br /><strong><span style="font-size:130%;color:#ff0000;">It is critical to recognize the distinctions between constitutionally protected advocacy and violent, criminal activity. It is one thing to write concerned letters or hold peaceful demonstrations. <span style="font-size:180%;">It is another thing entirely, to construct and use improvised explosive or incendiary devices, to harass and intimidate innocent victims by damaging or destroying property, or other threatening acts</span></span></strong>. Law enforcement should only be concerned with those individuals who pursue their animal rights agenda through force, violence, or criminal activity. Unfortunately, the FBI sees a significant amount of such criminal activity across our investigations.<br /><br /><br />Let me begin with a brief overview of the <strong><span style="font-size:130%;color:#3333ff;">domestic terrorism threats</span></strong> that come from special interest extremist movements such as <strong><em><span style="font-size:130%;color:#009900;">the Animal Liberation Front (ALF) and the Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty (SHAC) campaign</span></em></strong>. Members of these movements aim to resolve their issues by using criminal “direct action” against individuals or companies believed to be exploiting or abusing animals, as well as other companies believed to be doing business with the target of their direct actions.<br /><br /><br /><a href="http://www.shac.net/images/generic/newbanner.jpg"><img style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 200px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="http://www.shac.net/images/generic/newbanner.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><a href="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/1/18/ALF_logo.svg/100px-ALF_logo.svg.png"><img style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 104px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 81px" height="113" alt="" src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/1/18/ALF_logo.svg/100px-ALF_logo.svg.png" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><strong><span style="font-size:180%;">The extremists’ efforts have broadened to include a multi-national campaign of harassment, intimidation and coercion against animal testing companies and any companies or individuals doing business with those targeted companies</span></strong>.<br /><br /><br /><strong><span style="font-size:180%;color:#cc0000;">This “secondary” or “tertiary” targeting of companies that have business or financial relationships with the principal target generally takes the form of fanatical harassment of employees and interference with normal business operations, using the threat of escalating tactics or violence.<br /></span></strong><br /><br />The best example of this trend is the Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty campaign, known as SHAC. <strong><em><span style="font-size:130%;color:#993300;">Since its inception in 1999, SHAC has conducted a relentless campaign of terror and intimidation specifically targeting Huntingdon Life Sciences, an animal research laboratory. SHAC’s overriding goal is to put HLS out of business, by whatever means necessary — <span style="font-size:180%;color:#ff6600;">even by violent means.<br /></span></span></em></strong><br /><br /><strong><span style="font-size:180%;">SHAC has targeted not just HLS, but companies that are affiliated with it. SHAC’s website publishes lists of these companies, ranging from pharmaceutical companies to builders to investors. SHAC has used a variety of tactics to harass and intimidate these affiliate companies, their employees, and family members, including bombings, death threats, vandalism, office invasions, phone blockades, and denial-of-service attacks on their computer systems.<br /></span></strong><br /><br />Unfortunately, this strategy has been quite effective. <strong><em><span style="font-size:130%;color:#33cc00;">Over 100 companies — many of them in the U.S. — have severed ties with HLS, including Aetna Insurance, Citibank, Deloitte & Touche, Johnson and Johnson, and Merck. SHAC’s current target list includes GlaxoSmithKline, Roche, Novartis, UPS, and multiple financial institutional investors</span></em></strong>. SHAC has targeted not only the facilities of these companies, but also their employees and family members.<br /><br /><br />However, when these companies or individuals are threatened or attacked, it is not necessarily the work of SHAC itself. There may be overlap in membership in extremist movements, which can make it difficult to identify the actual perpetrators. Also, in the past 18 months, a number of SHAC splinter groups have been created, which use SHAC tactics and focus on SHAC targets. This is most likely an attempt by animal rights extremists to continue the SHAC campaign while appearing to distance themselves from the SHAC organization. However, while the SHAC organization attempts to portray itself merely as an information service or media outlet, it is closely aligned with these groups, as well as with the Animal Liberation Front. <strong><span style="font-size:180%;">Many of the ALF’s criminal activities are directed against companies and individuals selected as targets by SHAC and posted on SHAC’s website.<br /></span></strong><br /><br />Let me give you several examples. <span style="color:#3333ff;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><strong>In August 2003, two improvised explosive devices detonated at the Chiron Corporation. A month later, an improvised explosive device wrapped in nails exploded at the headquarters of the Shaklee Corporation in California. <em><span style="font-size:180%;">The companies were targeted because they have ties to HLS</span></em></strong>.</span></span> The previously unknown “Revolutionary Cells of the Animal Liberation Brigade” claimed responsibility via an anonymous communique, which stated: “We gave all of the customers the chance, the choice, to withdraw their business from HLS. Now you will reap what you have sown. All customers and their families are considered legitimate targets...no more will all the killing be done by the oppressors, now the oppressed will strike back.” Following this attack, the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force in San Francisco identified and charged known activist Daniel San Diego in connection with the bombings. He is currently a fugitive from justice.<br /><br /><br />In another example, <strong><span style="font-size:180%;color:#cc0000;">last month an incendiary device was left on the front porch of a senior executive at GlaxoSmithKline in England. The executive was not home <em><span style="color:#660000;">when the bomb detonated</span></em>, but his wife and daughter were inside.</span></strong> Fortunately, no one was hurt. GlaxoSmithKline is one of SHAC’s main targets, yet it was the ALF that claimed responsibility for the attack. In a message posted on the Internet, activists wrote: “We realize that this may not be enough to make you stop using HLS but this is just the beginning. We have identified and tracked down many of your senior executives and also junior staff, as well as those from other HLS customers. Drop HLS or you will face the consequences.”<br /><br /><br /><strong><span style="font-size:130%;">That same week, British newspapers reported that a chain of children’s nursery schools had become a target of SHAC. Leapfrog Day Nurseries, a major provider of childcare in Great Britain, had a program that offered childcare vouchers to HLS employees</span></strong>. A spokesman announced that Leapfrog Nurseries had received letters from animal rights activists threatening physical force. One news account quoted a letter as saying: “Not only you but your family is a target. Sever your links with HLS within two weeks or get ready for your life and the lives of those you love to become a living hell.” <strong><em><span style="font-size:130%;">In order to ensure the safety of the children and their employees, Leapfrog Nurseries cut ties with HLS</span></em></strong>. Again, an extremist group other than SHAC is believed to be responsible for the victory — but by extension, it is also a victory for the SHAC campaign.<br /><br /><br />And most recently, <strong><span style="font-size:130%;color:#000099;">last month Carr Securities began marketing the Huntingdon Life Sciences stock. The next day, the Manhasset Bay Yacht Club, to which certain Carr executives reportedly belong, was vandalized by animal rights activists. The extremists sent a claim of responsibility to the SHAC website, and three days after the incident, Carr terminated its business relationship with HLS</span></strong>. These are just some of the examples of SHAC’s use of threats and violence to financially strangle HLS and permanently mar its public image. These examples demonstrate some of the difficulties law enforcement faces in combating acts of extremism and domestic terrorism. Extremists are very knowledgeable about the letter of the law and the limits of law enforcement. The SHAC website has a page devoted to instructing activists on how to behave toward law enforcement officers, how to deal with interrogations, and what to say — and not say — if they are arrested.<br /><br /><br />Extremists also adhere to strict security measures in both their communications and their operations. The SHAC website advises activists to “NEVER discuss illegal activity indoors, over the phone, or email...keep the discussion of illegal activity on a need to know basis only. This means working only with people you know and trust and discussing your action with the people you are carrying it out with and no one else.”<br /><br /><br />Despite the challenges posed by the cellular, autonomous nature of extremists and their high operational security, the FBI and its law enforcement partners have worked steadily to investigate and deter extremist activity. Our job is to protect all citizens from crime and terrorism, whether international or domestic in origin. We now have 103 Joint Terrorism Task Forces nationwide, which investigate and protect our communities from domestic and international terrorists. We have used a wide variety of techniques to investigate criminal activity conducted by SHAC, and have collected vital intelligence and evidence. And we are making progress.<br /><br /><br />In one example of a recent success, last May the FBI helped secure criminal indictments in New Jersey against the SHAC organization and seven of its national leaders, charging them with Animal Enterprise Terrorism, Conspiracy, and Interstate Stalking. They are known among animal rights activists as the “SHAC 7.” Last September, a federal grand jury returned a superseding indictment against the SHAC 7, charging them with Harassing Interstate Communications because of the posting of “target” information on the SHAC website, which continues to result in vandalism, harassment and intimidation of victim companies and their employees. Their trial is set for February 2006.<br /><br /><br />But despite successes such as this, the FBI’s efforts to target these movements in order to prevent and disrupt criminal activity have been hindered by a lack of applicable federal criminal statutes. This is particularly frustrating as we attempt to dismantle <span style="font-size:130%;color:#ff6600;"><strong><em>organized, multi-state campaigns of intimidation, vandalism, threats and coercion designed to interfere with legitimate interstate commerce, as exhibited by SHAC. </em></strong></span><strong><span style="font-size:180%;">While it is a relatively simple matter to prosecute extremists who have committed arson or detonated explosive devices, under existing federal statutes it is difficult, if not impossible, to address a campaign of low-level criminal activity like that of SHAC.<br /></strong></span><br /><br />In order to address SHAC’s crusade to shut down legitimate business enterprises through direct action, the FBI initiated a coordinated investigative approach, beginning in 2001. FBI field offices that had experienced SHAC activity worked closely with U.S. Attorneys’ Offices, the Justice Department, and FBI Headquarters to explore strategies for investigation and prosecution. First, we examined the idea of using <strong><span style="font-size:130%;">the existing Animal Enterprise Terrorism statute, as set forth in 18 U.S.C. § 43, which provides a framework for prosecuting individuals involved in animal rights extremism. In practice, however, the statute does not cover many of the criminal activities SHAC routinely engages in</span></strong> on its mission to shut down HLS. <strong><em><span style="font-size:130%;color:#33cc00;">The current version of the section 43 only applies when there is “physical disruption” to the functioning of an animal enterprise that results in damage or loss of property</span></em></strong>. But, as you have heard me describe, <strong><span style="font-size:130%;color:#ff0000;">HLS has been economically harmed by threats and coercion that did not ultimately cause property damage</span></strong>.<br /><br /><br />For example, <strong><span style="font-size:130%;">in 2004, SHAC targeted Seaboard Securities, a company that provided financial services to HLS. SHAC posted the phone numbers and addresses for Seaboard Securities’ offices on its website, and also provided detailed recommendations on how to harass the company. The SHAC campaign against Seaboard included phone blockades, office invasions and damage to property belonging to Seaboard Securities and its employees</span></strong>. In the wake of this pressure, Seaboard Securities severed its relationship with HLS in January 2005.<br /><br /><br /><strong><em><span style="font-size:130%;color:#3333ff;">Much of this activity cannot be prosecuted under 18 U.S.C. § 43 nor are there other federal criminal statutes that provide effective prosecutorial remedies</span></em></strong>. Moreover, even when section 43 does apply, the current penalty of up to 3 years in prison has failed to deter a tremendous amount of criminal conduct. The activities of SHAC frequently fall outside the scope of the statute, and because members are well-versed in the limits of the statute, they have tended to engage in conduct that, while criminal, would not result in a significant federal prosecution.<br /><br /><br />As we continued to examine these legislative challenges, <strong><span style="font-size:130%;color:#990000;">another option we considered was prosecution under the Hobbs Act (18 U.S.C. § 1951). Under this legal theory, prosecution was based on the premise that the subjects were engaged in an extortion scheme against companies engaged in, or doing business with, animal-based research</span></strong>. <strong><span style="font-size:130%;color:#ff6600;"><em>Victims were subjected to criminal acts such as vandalism, arson, property damage, physical attacks, or the fear of such attacks, until they discontinued their research or terminated their association with or investment in animal-based research companies such as HLS.<br /></em></span></strong><br /><br /><strong><span style="font-size:130%;">However, the Supreme Court’s 2003 decision in Scheidler v. National Organization for Women removed the Hobbs Act as an option. The decision states that such conduct by activists <em>does not constitute extortion</em> as defined under the Hobbs Act <em>unless the activists seek to obtain or convert the victims’ property for their own use</em>.<br /></span></strong><br /><br />The FBI would support changes to the statutes that will address the issue of secondary and tertiary targeting by organizations like SHAC. We will continue to work with our Department of Justice colleagues and the Congress to refine and amend existing statutes so that we may have more effective tools to address this growing crime problem.<br /><br /><br />Investigating and preventing animal rights extremism is one of the FBI’s highest domestic terrorism priorities. We are committed to working with our partners to disrupt and dismantle these movements, to protect our fellow citizens, and to bring to justice those who commit crime and terrorism in the name of animal rights.<br /><br /><br />Chairman Inhofe and Members of the Committee, I appreciate the opportunity to discuss the challenges we face in this area of our work. I would be happy to answer any questions you may have. Thank you.ITSSD Charitable Missionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00790887154748866904noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3226983982698422912.post-7068474386364079012008-03-05T08:04:00.000-08:002008-03-05T08:17:35.012-08:00There Are Lesser Forms of Economic Sabotage: See What Happens When Farmers Negotiate With Enviro-Extremists Which Politicians Can't Control?<a title="blocked::http://www.mcclatchydc.com/homepage/story/29306.html" href="http://www.mcclatchydc.com/homepage/story/29306.html">http://www.mcclatchydc.com/homepage/story/29306.html</a>
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<br /><strong><span style="font-size:130%;">Environmental group pulls out of Klamath River agreement</span></strong>
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<br />By David Whitney
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<br />McClatchy Newspapers
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<br />Posted on Monday, March 3, 2008
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<br />WASHINGTON — In a setback to efforts to end fighting over Klamath River water along the California-Oregon border, <strong><span style="font-size:130%;color:#ff0000;">the area's leading environmental group announced Monday that it cannot support a proposed $1 billion deal because it doesn’t provide enough help for salmon</span></strong>.
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<br /><div></div><a href="http://www.northcoastwaternetwork.org/logo/nec.gif"><img style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 172px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 143px" height="143" alt="" src="http://www.northcoastwaternetwork.org/logo/nec.gif" border="0" /></a>
<br /><div><strong><span style="font-size:180%;color:#006600;">The Northcoast Environmental Center</span></strong> said that the agreement, still in flux, guarantees water for up-river farmers in Oregon but gives no such assurances for endangered salmon trying to make their way up the 260-mile river to spawn. <strong><em><span style="font-size:130%;color:#cc0000;">The deal had been touted as benefiting both fish and farming when announced in January because it would compliment separate negotiations for a deal in which Portland-based PacifiCorp would remove a series of dams impeding fish passage.
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<br /><strong><span style="font-size:130%;">“This agreement would lock us in to supporting water allocations for agriculture that could result in stream flows so low as to cause extinction,” said Greg King, the center’s executive director. He said his group wants to reopen the water allocation talks, one of the stickiest parts of the deal.</span></strong>
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<br /></span></strong>The Arcata, Calif.-based NEC’s opposition, based on <strong><span style="font-size:130%;">scientific studies [??] </span></strong>it commissioned, will complicate, if not kill, the chances of a deal getting to Congress in time for enactment this year.
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<br /><strong><span style="font-size:180%;">[WAS AN OBJECTIVE SCIENCE-BASED RISK ASSESSMENT UNDERTAKEN??]</span></strong>
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<br /><strong><span style="font-size:180%;">“It’s disappointing,” said Craig Tucker of California’s Karuk Tribe, a leading advocate of the agreement. “It’s a big deal for congressmen like Mike Thompson.”</span></strong>
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<br /><strong><span style="font-size:180%;color:#000099;"><em>Thompson, a Democrat</em></span></strong>, represents most of the river in Northern California. <strong><span style="font-size:180%;color:#3333ff;">Tucker said it would be difficult for him to back a deal opposed by his district’s leading environmental organization.
<br />Thompson could not be reached for comment.</span></strong>
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<br /><strong><em><span style="font-size:130%;color:#663366;">The NEC announcement will put pressure on the 26 groups involved in the talks to amend key principles that have taken more than two years to draft</span></em></strong>. Talks resume Wednesday.
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<br />Glen Spain, who represents commercial fishermen in the talks, said his group agrees that fish-friendly changes will have to be made.
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<br /><strong><span style="font-size:130%;">[KOW-TOWING TO THE PUBLIC PRESSURE???]</span></strong>
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<br />“Clearly there are uncertainties about what the fish in the Lower Klamath River get out of this in the long term,” he said.
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<br /><strong><span style="font-size:180%;">On the other side of the bargaining table, interest is waning in re-examining the down-river concerns.</span></strong>
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<br /><strong><span style="font-size:180%;">[HAS AN ECONOMIC COST BENEFIT ANALYSIS BEEN UNDERTAKEN??]</span></strong>
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<br />Greg Addington, executive director of the Klamath Water Users Association, which relies on the federal irrigation water, said his bigger concern now is trying to shore up support among irrigators.
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<br />“I can’t spend more time on that,” Addington said of the NEC’s concerns. “I’ve got to spend time in my own backyard at this point.”
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<br />Time may be the bigger factor. Advocates of the deal are trying to get it wrapped up in the next month or so in order to get it through Congress and signed by President Bush before he leaves office next January.
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<br />King said it would be work for balance, not speed.
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<br />“We want those dams down,” he said. “But we also want to make sure that there is enough water for fish. We don’t want to sacrifice fish for an expedient agreement.”
<br />McClatchy Newspapers 2008 </div>
<br />ITSSD Charitable Missionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00790887154748866904noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3226983982698422912.post-1026148466844093602008-03-04T22:00:00.000-08:002008-09-08T10:32:00.048-07:00NYSE Finally Musters Courage to Defend Economic Freedom and Defy Animal Extremists<div><a href="http://www.upi.com/Security_Terrorism/Analysis/2006/12/29/analysis_nyse_defies_animal_extremists/5474/">http://www.upi.com/Security_Terrorism/Analysis/2006/12/29/analysis_nyse_defies_animal_extremists/5474/</a><br /><strong><span style="font-size:130%;">NYSE Defies Animal Extremists</span></strong><br /><br /><br />Analysis:<br /><br /><br />Published: Dec. 29, 2006 at 1:32 PM<br /><br /><br />By SHAUN WATERMAN<br /><br /><br />UPI Homeland and National Security Editor<br /><br /><br />WASHINGTON, Dec. 29 (UPI) -- The decision by the New York Stock Exchange to list a medical research company targeted by animal rights protestors on a new electronic market where shares can be traded anonymously is being hailed as a victory by animal researchers.<br /><br /><br /><strong><em><span style="font-size:130%;">Life Sciences Research, Inc.,</span></em></strong> <strong><em><span style="font-size:130%;">a Princeton, N.J.-based medical research firm that specializes in animal experiments announced just before Christmas that it had settled a dispute with the NYSE, and would be listed on the exchange's new all-electronic trading platform called Arca.</span></em></strong><br /><br /><br />"We're thrilled," the company's Chief Financial Officer Richard Michaelson told United Press International. "<strong>It is a totally anonymous trading environment,"</strong> he said of the new electronic exchange. "In our situation that is a big advantage."Life Sciences Research, Inc., is the parent of U.K.-based Huntingdon Life Sciences, and <strong><span style="font-size:180%;">has been targeted on both sides of the Atlantic by animal rights activists organized under the name Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty, or SHAC.</span></strong><br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgne3mUYdTOtSg6ZHZAZoLhLWAs1Y8hqZfzqvTEXRrv71KVDVNH6I0XHGHew_ZnbmnULFNSpZJA_2gpg4ncTKB2q59lF91P9WZ5m3HV666Un9eGr9hiXMXTDxY1WuKXGEE74AC0Zab8dIk/s1600-h/shac.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5243704487175551890" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgne3mUYdTOtSg6ZHZAZoLhLWAs1Y8hqZfzqvTEXRrv71KVDVNH6I0XHGHew_ZnbmnULFNSpZJA_2gpg4ncTKB2q59lF91P9WZ5m3HV666Un9eGr9hiXMXTDxY1WuKXGEE74AC0Zab8dIk/s400/shac.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><strong><em><span style="font-size:180%;">The protests, which included sometimes violent campaigns of harassment against individual employees of the company and other firms that did business with it, were so successful that NYSE pulled a planned listing on its main exchange last year</span></em></strong>, after market-makers and other financial service providers were threatened by activists.<br /><br /><br />As part of the agreement for the listing on Arca, Life Sciences Research, Inc., agreed to drop their case against the NYSE about the listing being pulled, Michaelson said.<br /><br /><br />The firm's share price rose 40 percent in the first day's trading, to more than $14, and closed Thursday at $13.75.<br /><br /><strong></strong><br /><strong>Journalist and animal rights sympathizer Will Potter told UPI that targeting the market-makers -- financial middlemen who promise to buy a company's shares at the prevailing price and make real-time trading possible on the pre-electronic NYSE big board -- had been a big step forward for SHAC campaigners</strong>, and was what had enabled them to scotch the planned listing.<br /><br /><br />"That was what got the (animal research) industry really freaked out," said Potter, "once the activists started to understand how important the market makers were... how the stock market actually worked... It was a real turning point.<br /><br /><br /><strong><em><span style="font-size:130%;color:#990000;">"Campaigners also targeted firms that provided financial, technical and other services to Life Sciences Research, and threatened to mount protests against the NYSE -- a tactic known as tertiary targeting.</span></em></strong><br /><br /><br /><strong><span style="font-size:180%;color:#ff0000;">In the UK, animal rights activists using similar tactics have successfully forced the closure of two businesses breeding animals for research</span>."</strong>That business savvy is the greatest threat they pose," Potter said of the animal rights movement, adding that the anonymity Arca provided would close off some of those options for campaigners.<br /><br /><br /><strong><span style="color:#ff6600;">A new law giving federal law enforcement additional powers to surveil and prosecute campaigners using harassment against animal researchers and companies that do business with them was signed by President Bush at the end of November</span></strong>, but the consensus among industry observers was that it was too early to tell how much difference it would make.<br /><br /><br />Jerry Vlasak, spokesman for the North American Animal Liberation Press Office, told UPI in a recent interview he believes the new law will lead to more "underground activity," such as vandalizing laboratories and releasing research animals.<br /><br /><br />"It's not going to make this thing go away," he said, "I don't think you're going to find anybody deterred." Indeed, he said, protestors who had stuck to legal tactics were now worried about being prosecuted under the new law and were leaning towards more militant forms of protest.<br /><br /><br /><span style="color:#3333ff;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><strong><em>The new law strengthens existing federal legislation, which protects animal researchers and other businesses using animals from "physical disruption." The act expands federal offenses under the law to cover campaigns of threats and intimidation that might financially cripple a company without any "physical disruption;" and increases penalties</em></strong>.</span></span><br /><br /><br /><strong><span style="font-size:130%;color:#993399;">It also expands the law to cover so-called secondary and tertiary targets -- companies who do business with animal enterprises -- and individual employees, neither of which were protected by the existing 1992 law</span></strong>. Federal law enforcement officials say the new powers will enable them to launch investigations, including electronic surveillance of telephones, web sites and e-mail, against small groups of militants who are exploiting loopholes in the existing legislation.<br /><br /><br />© 2006 United Press International. All Rights Reserved.This material may not be reproduced, redistributed, or manipulated in any form.</div>ITSSD Charitable Missionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00790887154748866904noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3226983982698422912.post-64008608131651123512008-03-04T21:40:00.000-08:002008-03-04T21:59:18.255-08:00NYSE Failed to Defend Capitalism Against Threats By Animal Activists<div><a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/4381374.stm">http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/4381374.stm</a><br /><br /><br /><strong><span style="font-size:130%;">NYSE 'caved in' on lab firm float</span></strong><br /><br /><br />The New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) has been accused of caving into threats from animal rights activists.<br /><br /><br />The claim came from Life Sciences, the US parent firm of animal testing group Huntingdon Life Sciences (HLS), at a US Senate hearing on "eco terrorism".<br /><br /><br />The company focused on the effect of the Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty campaign (SHAC) on businesses.<br /></div><div><br /><strong><span style="font-size:130%;">Life Sciences said it was "patently clear" the SHAC campaign had led the NYSE to postpone its share listing. </span></strong></div><div><strong><span style="font-size:130%;"></span></strong> </div><div><br /><a href="http://www.shac.net/images/generic/newbanner.jpg"><img style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 253px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 82px" height="55" alt="" src="http://www.shac.net/images/generic/newbanner.jpg" border="0" /></a><strong><span style="font-size:130%;">'Confidential'</span><br /></strong><br /><br />During the hearing, Life Sciences and the NYSE were questioned about the decision to postpone the company's listing minutes before its debut.<br /><br /><br /><em><strong><span style="font-size:180%;">It was patently clear to me that the only reason the NYSE postponed our listing was because of concerns about the Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty campaig Mark Bibi, Life Sciences' general counsel.</span></strong></em><br /><br /><br />NYSE representative Richard P Bernard apologised for the timing of the postponement, saying: "We got our cart before the horse."<br /><br /><br />However, he added that the reasons behind the decision were "confidential" but also pointed out that the exchange had the right and said that under SEC rules the exchange could "bring in other factors to determine a listing".<br /><br /><br />The exchange was still looking into the listing of Life Sciences, he said.<br /><br /><br />But Life Sciences' general counsel Mark Bibi told the hearing that when he met NYSE officials on 7 September - the day of its planned listing - they only spoke about a planned campaign by animal rights activists.<br /><br /><br /><strong><em><span style="font-size:130%;">"It was patently clear to me that the only reason the NYSE postponed our listing was because of concerns about the SHAC campaign," Mr Bibi said.<br /></span></em></strong><br /><br /><strong><span style="font-size:130%;">Threat pressure</span></strong><br /><br /><br />He added that the decision to postpone Life Sciences' listing only 45 minutes before its shares were due to begin trading had affected its stock price.<br /><br /><br />Its shares had stood at $17.50 on 6 September on the Nasdaq bulletin board, but since the postponement they have traded as low as $8. On Wednesday they closed at $12.25.<br /><br /><br />Huntingdon Life Sciences has been targeted for years by animal rights activists. <strong><em><span style="font-size:130%;color:#ff0000;">Senior executives have been physically attacked while others with links to the company have been subjected to serious intimidation </span></em></strong>- developments which led to the firm moving its headquarters from the UK to the US.<br /><br /><br />However, <strong><span style="font-size:180%;"><em>the aggressive campaign of harassment has continued across the Atlantic</em></span></strong>, according to reports.<br /><br /><br /><strong><span style="font-size:180%;">Traders buying and selling their shares were targeted and when Life Sciences applied for a listing on the NYSE, the exchange itself reportedly became the focus of animal rights activism</span></strong>.</div>ITSSD Charitable Missionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00790887154748866904noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3226983982698422912.post-58025147925829925622008-03-04T21:27:00.000-08:002008-03-04T21:36:29.234-08:00Pathetic PETA Publication Promotes Outdoorsmen Protest<a href="http://www.recordonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080226/SPORTS/802260355">http://www.recordonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080226/SPORTS/802260355</a><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><strong><span style="font-size:130%;">PETA attacks on outdoorsmen offensive</span></strong><br /><br /><strong><span style="font-size:130%;"></span></strong><br /><br /><strong><span style="font-size:130%;"></span></strong><br /><a href="http://www.americanchronicle.com/bioPics/author574.jpg"><img style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 186px; CURSOR: hand" height="70" alt="" src="http://www.americanchronicle.com/bioPics/author574.jpg" border="0" /></a> The war on parents who have introduced their children to the outdoors, be it fishing, hunting or trapping, continues unabated.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br />One group in particular, <strong><em><span style="font-size:130%;">PETA, has published "comic" books aimed at kids that depict a crazed-looking, knife-wielding woman hacking into a bunny under the title "Your mommy kills animals."</span></em></strong><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />It's hard to believe this kind of approach exists.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><strong><span style="font-size:180%;">The People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals think that hunting, fishing or trapping are shocking things for folks to do. </span></strong>So, PETA is opposed to trapping and feels it's OK with portraying your fur-wearing mother as a murderer.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br />It's a safe guess that outdoorsmen are not opposed to the following:<br /><br /><br /><br /><br />People who want to eat vegetables and not meat. You like carrots and beets instead of a good venison steak? Good for you.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br />People who do not want to hunt, fish or trap. It's not for everybody.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br />People who want to stop domestic animal cruelty. No hunter, angler, or trapper I know wants to see a domestic animal, such as a dog or cat, handled in a cruel way.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br />Outdoorsmen, however, are opposed to:<br /><br /><br /><br /><br />People who go to unbelievable and shocking ways to get their point across. Case in point: the PETA comic. Even if you don't like fishing or trapping, you'd have to find this method of swaying kids offensive.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br />People who are trying to legislate fishing, hunting or trapping out of existence.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br />People who are intolerant of other viewpoints and traditions. I know plenty of people who don't hunt, trap or fish. We respect that. However, they wouldn't think of imposing their own views on those that do.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><strong><span style="font-size:130%;">People who are prepared to use domestic terrorism to enforce their anti- (you fill in the blank) position. Ever hear of the Animal Liberation Front (ALF) or the Environmental Liberation Front (ELF)? The FBI and state police have.</span></strong><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />A person who thinks its OK to throw paint on someone's fur coat. You want to march against fur coats? Fine, but don't go to the extreme and cause harm to some else's property.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><strong><span style="font-size:180%;">Outdoorsmen need to be aware of what groups like PETA are doing as they press their attacks forward. The "mommy kills" campaign is just a part of an ongoing barrage conducted by those who want to arrest your right to hunt, fish and trap.</span></strong>ITSSD Charitable Missionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00790887154748866904noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3226983982698422912.post-87318448466808895292008-03-04T21:20:00.000-08:002008-04-20T08:07:09.547-07:00Fire ELFs Attack Homes Under Construction in Washington State<div><div><a href="http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/snohomishcountynews/2004258346_arsonelf04m.html">http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/snohomishcountynews/2004258346_arsonelf04m.html</a><br /><br /><strong><span style="font-size:130%;">New houses becoming popular targets</span></strong><br /><strong><span style="font-size:130%;"></span></strong><br /><br />By Hal Bernton<br /><br /></div><div>Seattle Times staff reporter </div><div><br /><a href="http://www.coxandforkum.com/archives/PollutedMinds-X.gif"><img style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 402px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 245px" height="148" alt="" src="http://www.coxandforkum.com/archives/PollutedMinds-X.gif" border="0" /></a></div><div> </div><div> </div><div> </div><div> </div><div> </div><div> </div><div> </div><div> </div><div> </div><div> </div><div> </div><div> </div><div> </div><div> </div><div><br /><a href="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/1/18/ALF_logo.svg/120px-ALF_logo.svg.png"><img style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 142px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 126px" height="126" alt="" src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/1/18/ALF_logo.svg/120px-ALF_logo.svg.png" border="0" /></a></div><div>The <strong><span style="font-size:180%;">Earth Liberation Front</span></strong> has its roots in the militant opposition to logging of old-growth forests. Beginning in 1996, an underground group launched more than a dozen arsons against targets that included the U.S. Forest Service, timber companies, a horse slaughterhouse, a car dealership and a University of Washington researcher believed to be genetically engineering poplar trees.<br /><br /><br />But in recent years, new housing developments popping up on the urban fringes have become the most high-profile targets claimed by the <strong><span style="font-size:180%;">ELF</span></strong>.<br /><br /><br /><strong><span style="font-size:130%;">Those attacks include a 2002 arson that destroyed a San Diego apartment complex and caused $50 million in damage, and a 2000 torching of a luxury housing development in Mount Sinai, N.Y. "If you build it, we will burn it,"</span></strong> was the graffiti left at the scene of the New York fire, according to The New York Times.<br /><br /><br />Other arsons claimed by ELF include fires that destroyed two houses under construction in a Snohomish County subdivision in 2004 and the torching of a house in Sammamish in 2005, according to Fred Gutt, an FBI special agent in Seattle. Those cases remain unsolved.<br /><br /><br />The early Monday morning arsons that destroyed three multimillion-dollar houses in Snohomish County appear to fit the pattern of targeting housing developments. <strong><span style="color:#6600cc;">A banner bearing ELF initials left at the scene attacked "McMansions" in rural areas.</span></strong><br /><br /><br /><strong><em><span style="color:#ff6600;">Federal investigators believe that these house arsons, like an earlier wave started in the 1990s, are carried out by small, secretive and very elusive cells.<br /></span></em></strong><br /><br />"Unlike a traditional crime family, there is a lack of hierarchy to penetrate," said Fred Gutt, an FBI special agent in Seattle.<br /><br /><br />In the late 1990s, the first ELF cell sounded downright cocky as they issued news release after news release claiming responsibility for attacks and explaining the perceived sins of the targets.<br /><strong><span style="font-size:130%;color:#ff0000;">After a March 2001 arson that burned 35 SUVs at a Chevrolet dealership in Eugene, Ore., an ELF communique announced the arrival of a new, more militant era</span></strong>, when the sins of the "rich who parade around in their armored existence" would no longer go unchallenged.<br /><br /><br />The FBI had few solid clues in these arsons until 2004, when they were able to pressure Jacob Ferguson, a key member of the early cell, to wear a recording wire to his meetings with other activists.<br /><br /><br />That investigation, known as "Operation Backfire," eventually resulted in the indictments of 18 individuals. An alleged ringleader of that group was Bill "Avalon" Rodgers, who committed suicide in Arizona after being taken into custody.<br /><br /><br /><strong><span style="color:#3333ff;">Rodgers was also a committed animal-rights militant, and carried out some of his actions on behalf of the Animal Liberation Front</span></strong>. The ALF in recent years has become much more visible and carried out several attacks against companies and individuals.<br /><br /><br />On Feb. 3, an incendiary device was left at the house of Edythe London, a UCLA scientist involved in primate research. An ALF message warned her, "We won't back down, ever."<br />Jerry Vlasek, who speaks on behalf of the ALF, said his group's actions have been on the upswing in recent years.<br /><br /><br /><strong><em><span style="font-size:130%;">The ELF's tactics have drawn criticism from more established environmental organizations. </span></em></strong><br /><br /><br /><strong><span style="font-size:130%;">"These people aren't environmentalists. They're criminals," said Trevor Kaul, director of the Cascade Chapter of the Sierra Club.</span></strong><br /><br /><br />In 2003, after ELF attacks on a car delaership and construction site in Southern California, the Sierra Club's national executive director Carl Pope, said his organization "condemns all acts of violence in the name of the environment." <strong>He pointed out that the Sierra Club contributed to a reward fund to help track down those who set fire to a Forest Service building in the Willamette National Forest.</strong><br /><br /><br />Hal Bernton: 206-464-2581 or <a href="mailto:hbernton@seattletimes.com">hbernton@seattletimes.com</a>.<br />Material from The Associated Press was used in this report.</div></div>ITSSD Charitable Missionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00790887154748866904noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3226983982698422912.post-44335261513588999132008-03-04T21:08:00.000-08:002008-03-04T21:16:53.309-08:00Tree Hugging Terrorism Arises From Frustrations, Experts Say<a href="http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/09/23/eveningnews/main574803.shtml">http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/09/23/eveningnews/main574803.shtml</a> <br /><br /><strong>Environmentalists Turn To Violence<br /></strong><br /><strong><br />Once Benign 'Tree-Huggers' Now Practice Economic Sabotage</strong><br /><strong></strong><br /><br />(CBS) It's been guerrilla warfare all summer out west, reports CBS News Correspondent Bill Whitaker.<br /><br /><br />The extremist Earth Liberation Front, or ELF, has claimed responsibility for a rash of fires in California, including a $50-million development in San Diego.<br /><br /><br />"The organization has never harmed a single person," said former ELF spokesman Craig Rosebraugh.<br /><br /><br />But, he says, <strong><span style="font-size:130%;">property destruction is a necessary tactic. The goal is economic sabotage, to try and inflict maximum damage to the entities that are destroying the natural environment. </span></strong><br /><br /><br /><strong><em><span style="font-size:180%;color:#993399;">And it's not just environmental extremists. Equally stealthy animal radicals</span></em></strong> also are turning up the heat with an escalating rampage of destruction.<br /><br /><br /><strong><em><span style="font-size:130%;color:#cc0000;">In all, these extremists claim more than $100 million of destruction across the country. </span></em></strong><br /><br /><br /><strong><span style="font-size:180%;">Animal rights activists bombed a Bay Area genetics lab</span></strong> and released 10,000 mink in Washington.<br /><br /><br /><strong><em>Now, environmental extremists are taking aim at a new target: SUVs.</em></strong> Hummers were torched near L.A., peppered with BBs in Houston and tagged in Santa Fe. "They're not making a point, they're just making people angry," a Santa Fe car dealer told Whitaker. "Driving a hummer, a $50,000 GM tool for the rich, getting 10 miles to the gallon -- that is violence.<br /><br /><br />Going in and torching those and getting rid of those is an act of liberation and should be applauded," Rosebraugh says. <strong><span style="font-size:130%;">Rosebraugh says years of peaceful protests failed to save the earth. He now considers the property attacks a better advertisement than a recruitment video</span></strong> he produced telling people to "take initiative, form your own cell and do what needs to be done to protect all life on this planet."<br /><br /><br /><strong><em><span style="font-size:130%;">San Francisco chef Laurent Manrique felt his family threatened when animal rights radicals defaced his shop and sent video of his wife and infant with the words, "we're watching" -- all because he serves goose liver</span></em></strong>. "It was like it was back in Alabama in 1935, 1940," he said.<br /><br /><br />"What's going on?" <strong><span style="font-size:130%;">The FBI says what's going on is pure and simple terrorism</span></strong>. "Those who've committed those crimes will find in the end they will be spending the rest of their productive lives in prison," warned Assistant FBI Director Ron Iden. The FBI, using surveillance video from the L.A. Hummer fire, says it's confident of an arrest. Rosebraugh says the underground cells are so diffuse, a few arrests won't stop them.<br /><br /><br />"There's definitely going to be more actions, because that frustration level continues to grow." Clearly frustration is growing on both sides.<br /><br /><br />©MMIII, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights ReservedITSSD Charitable Missionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00790887154748866904noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3226983982698422912.post-84286081377062761912008-03-04T17:58:00.001-08:002008-03-05T08:00:51.978-08:00Economic Sabotage IS Free Speech In The UK; Is It Now Also Free Speech In the US?<a href="http://www.itssd.org/Publications/Rural%20News%20--%20Rural%20News_co_nz.pdf">http://www.itssd.org/Publications/Rural%20News%20--%20Rural%20News_co_nz.pdf</a><br /><br /><div></div><div><a href="http://www.agbioworld.org/newsletter_wm">http://www.agbioworld.org/newsletter_wm</a><a href="http://www.agbioworld.org/newsletter_wm/index.php?caseid=archive&newsid=2380">/index.php?caseid=archive&newsid=2380</a> </div><br /><div><a href="http://www.monsanto.co.uk/news/ukshowlib.phtml?uid=9099">http://www.monsanto.co.uk/news/ukshowlib.phtml?uid=9099</a><a href="http://www.monsanto.co.uk/news/ukshowlib.phtml?uid=9099">/news/ukshowlib.phtml?uid=9099</a></div><div></div><div></div><br /><div><br /><strong><span style="font-size:130%;">Economic sabotage a form of free speech?</span></strong> </div><br /><br /><div>Date: 6/28/2005 11:23:15 AM<br /></div><br /><div></div><div></div><div><em>On June 10, AFP Greenpeace was fined 4,000 Euros Under a new Danish Anti-Terror Law for using an anti-GMO protest as a means of public intimidation. </em><em>Some, including the author of this piece, Lawrence A. Kogan, believe <strong><span style="font-size:130%;">other countries should follow Denmark’s example to discourage what UK Prime Minister Tony</span></strong> Blair’s previous government called 'economic sabotage'.</em></div><div></div><br /><div><br /></div><a href="http://www.compgov.info/UkFlag.jpeg"><img style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 200px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="http://www.compgov.info/UkFlag.jpeg" border="0" /></a> <a href="http://supportdenmark.com/FlagBig.png"><img style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 200px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="http://supportdenmark.com/FlagBig.png" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><div><em></em></div><br /><br /><div><br /></div><br /><div></div><br /><div></div><br /><div></div><br /><div></div><div></div><div></div><div></div><div>The UK government has been desperately trying to keep life science and biotechnology company jobs and investments in the UK.<br /></div><div><br />The five-year plan released earlier this year by the UK Department of Trade and Investment (DTI) suggests two possible reasons why such companies may be considering relocation - over-regulation and economic sabotage. According to UK trade and industry secretary Patricia Hewitt, the single biggest threat to the UK's "position as number two in the world on biotechnology is the threat of animal rights extremists, animal rights terrorists". And, a spokesman for the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry (ABPI) previously remarked how extremist campaigns were having an increasingly negative impact on R&D<br />investment in the UK and thereby ruining the industry.<br /></div><br /><div>According to ABPI figures, more than 100 abusive or threatening phone calls and other communications were made to companies engaged in animal research last year, almost three times the 38 for 2003. There were 177 cases of damage to company, personal and private property in 2004, up from 146 the previous year. A recent report appearing in the Daily Mail<br />further corroborates this trend. It found that, during the three months ended October 2004, forty-eight attacks were committed on property belonging to pharmaceutical companies and their employees, along with countless acts of abuse and intimidation (e.g., blockades) against these companies' suppliers. In addition, such groups have engaged in personal harassment of life sciences company investors, including threats to publish their names and home addresses on the web unless they sell their shares. In fact, "abuse from animal rights militants has prompted almost 5000 directors of medical research firms and their customers to seek Government protection."</div><br /><br /><div>Unfortunately, as a recent BBC radio broadcast has revealed, illegal vigilante acts such as these increasingly reflect the modus operandi as well as the raison d'etre of political pressure groups once more “sophisticated” attempts at legal or public “persuasion” have failed. As emphasised by one animal rights group protestor, "You don't pick a company unless you can close it down because otherwise you just make those companies stronger. So when they are chosen - they are finished."</div><br /><div></div><div></div><br /><div><a href="http://www.morayfoe.org.uk/_borders/top.ht1.gif"><img style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 134px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 137px" height="178" alt="" src="http://www.morayfoe.org.uk/_borders/top.ht1.gif" border="0" /></a> <a href="http://www.product-reviews.net/wp-content/userimages/2007/07/greenpeace-logo.jpg"><img style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 175px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 124px" height="127" alt="" src="http://www.product-reviews.net/wp-content/userimages/2007/07/greenpeace-logo.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><a href="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/fr/3/37/World_Wildlife_Fund_Logo.gif"><img style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 156px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 105px" height="158" alt="" src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/fr/3/37/World_Wildlife_Fund_Logo.gif" border="0" /></a><br /></div><br /><br /><div><br /></div><br /><br /><div><br /></div><br /><div></div><div>What is most disturbing about these activities, however, is that they do not reflect the aberrant behavior of only a small band of miscreants, as UK officials and the UK media would have the world believe. It is common knowledge that ideological extremism and criminal conduct are not entirely the province of animal rights advocates. Environmental extremism is also particularly well entrenched in UK and European daily life, where it has historically been the mainstay of such internationally recognised environmental groups as Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth, World Wildlife Fund and other more locally focused groups. Environmental extremists within these groups have widely disseminated misinformation to induce consumer fears and distrust of European regulators to gain credibility with the broader European public. They have employed strong lobbying pressure to shape national and regional precautionary principle-based environmental policies. And they have threatened business and personal reputations, engaged in personal harassment and physical intimidation and caused destruction of personal and business property in order to influence industry conduct. Each of the acts within this latter category of<br />wrongs arguably constitutes a type of criminally actionable economic sabotage or economic terrorism no less severe than the acts committed by the animal rights extremists and targeted by Tony Blair's proposed criminal legislation. That UK Ministers are still debating whether the offence should cover all extremists, not just the animal rights activists who are its principal<br />target, is nothing less than an acknowledgement of this sad but true fact.<br /></div><div><br />A good example of the type of economic sabotage engaged in by environmental extremists in the UK during the past five years involves genetically modified (GM) food, feed and seed. Extremist efforts have focused, since at least 1999, on terrorizing and causing economic loss to industry (biotech and pharmaceutical companies), farmers and scientists that dared to go forward with outdoor government-planned GM trials. Their ultimate goal was to stop the trials altogether, hamper government GM research efforts, and to block industry's development and distribution of GM products to British supermarkets and retail stores. The intended effect of such conduct was to deny the British public a potentially useful, and perhaps, essential new technology. The UK government had planned to conduct trials in 55 fields by the end of 2000 - 25 fields for maize and oilseed rape and 30 fields for either sugar or fodder beets. Additional farmscale trials were planned for 2001 and 2002. While government estimates had suggested that a total of 75 participating farms were needed to conduct a viable study, mounting Greenpeace pressure during this three year period made it difficult to recruit enough farms. As the Guardian reported in September 2000, of the 31 English and Scottish farms that had originally signed up for the trials, 26 were placed on a Greenpeace hit list, and two others pulled out due to local pressure.</div><div></div><div></div><div><br />The trials had been facilitated by the Supply Chain Initiative on Modified Agricultural Crops (SCIMAC), an industry group drawn from the plant breeding, agrochemical and farming sectors, whose objective was to ensure that the commercial introduction of GM crops in the UK is managed openly and responsibly. SCIMAC had drawn up a code of practice on the transfer of information about GM products along the supply chain and guidelines on the management of herbicide tolerant crops. While the UK government (DEFRA) initially welcomed this 4-year initiative, it did not, for political reasons, endorse outright SCIMAC's risk management guidelines.</div><div></div><br /><br /><div>Greenpeace-driven economic sabotage was catapulted into the public limelight following the non-guilty jury verdict rendered on September 20, 2000, at the criminal trial of Greenpeace UK executive director, Peter Melchett. Melchett and 27 other members of Greenpeace had been criminally charged on July 26, 1999, with raiding (trespass), damaging (vandalism) and trying to remove (theft) six acres of a GM maize crop that were being grown by local Norfolk farmers for seed company Agr-Evo Ltd (now the agrochemical company Aventis). At trial, Melchett successfully invoked the subjective facts-intensive defense known in Britain as “the Tommy Archer defense” which, as the Independent wrote, "relied on the jury accepting that the defendant genuinely believed that the action would prevent greater damage being done."<br /></div><div><br />In other words, the group's otherwise illegal actions were justified because the group “honestly” believed that it was responding to an even greater potential threat posed to the environment by the pollination of GM crops. As a result, environmental extremists believed they were given the green light to destroy the UK's GM crop research program, and along with it the crops themselves. This mindset was reflected in the remarks of Charles Secrett, director of Friends of the Earth UK: "As far as I can see this throws the door open for people to legitimately destroy GM crops that are about to go to pollen".</div><div></div><br /><br /><div>A number of additional attacks against GM crop trials followed the issuance of this verdict. The irony of these events was plain for all to see. Individual farmers had willingly participated in UK government planned GM crop trials facilitated by a cautious industry, which were intended to provide more information to the public about the potential scientific risks and benefits associated with herbicide-resistant crops. This was precisely the kind of information environmental extremists such as Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth had demanded all along but chose to ignore for political reasons. </div><br /><br /><div>These environmental extremists, however, were not satisfied until they could also disrupt and destroy the business relationships that existed along the British food supply chain. As early as the fall of 2000, the US Department of Agriculture had noted how Greenpeace-induced "hysteria surrounding genetically engineered (GE) food" had prompted pledges from a number of British supermarkets to phase out meat, eggs and dairy products from animals fed GM crops. In other words, Greenpeace was able to successfully shape consumer demand for GM products as well as influence producer and retailer supply of such products. This was achieved by promoting consumer misinformation and fear and by engaging in guerilla-type military tactics against companies, their employees and their suppliers. The goal was plainly and simply economic sabotage, at both a micro and macro level.</div><div></div><div></div><div></div>ITSSD Charitable Missionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00790887154748866904noreply@blogger.com1