Green Options

There’s an organic garden on Barack Obama’s lawn. The First Family eats local, organic, and seasonal food.

So why did the President’s scientific advisory team for last fall’s election include Sharon Long, a former member of Monsanto’s board of directors?

And why did Obama recently appoint Barbara Schaal, a plant geneticist with connections to Monsanto, to his Science and Technology Advisory Council?

In the European Union, there is only one permissible genetically-modified crop — and that is Monsanto’s MON 810 engineered corn.  But current law allows individual countries to bar the production of genetically-modified crops, and the MON 810 ban has been gaining momentum throughout the continent. This is despite the European Union’s continuous fight to force GM production, such as in the recent failed attempt to overturn Austria and Hungary’s ban.

Late last month, Luxembourg joined Hungary, France, Austria and Greece in banning Monsanto’s corn.  According to Luxembourg’s Health Minister Mars Di Bartolomeo, studies addressing the grain’s safety have failed to “conclude that MON810 is completely innocuous”.

Yesterday, Germany brought the number of dissenting countries to six by also banning MON 810.  German Agriculture Minister, Ilse Aigner, went a step beyond Luxembourg’s position, and stated outright that she feels “there are just reasons to assume that the genetically modified maize MON 810 represents a danger for the environment.”

Hong Kong magnate Stanley Ho is at it again. Not formulating a “Ho Plan” for Hong Kong energy security that centers around wind power, as the growing similarities between him and T. Boone Pickens might suggest. Stanley Ho’s investment du jour, while on par with his recently established eco-trend, will not be in Asia. Rather, the biofuel play will be located off of the Western coast of Africa.

Geocapital, a Macau-based investment holding company started in 2007 and comprised of partner investors Stanley Ho and Jorge Ferro Ribeiro, is in negotiations with the Government of Cape Verde to install a biofuels research and development center on the African archipelago, Portugal’s Lusa news agency recently reported.

The pair hopes to take advantage of Cape Verde’s experience producing biofuels from jatropha, a crop that yields ten times the output of corn plants. Jatropha-based biofuel is considered one of the best candidates for future biofuel production, and has already been successfully tested as a substitute for jet fuel in commercial airplanes. The poisonous seed has a long history as a fuel source: in the early 1900s, it was exported to France and Portugal for use in streetlamps.

We’ve got used to roller-coaster oil prices, although it doesn’t stop panic buying at the pumps when gas prices are projected to rise, but roller-coaster food prices are something that hasn’t been seen in most of the developed world for many decades.

Here comes more dour empirical data.

Ongoing deforestation in countries such as Brazil, Indonesia and Malaysia has been further linked to the rising demand for biofuels, according to speakers at a recent meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS):

“If reduced U.S. soybean production results in a parallel increase in Brazilian soybean production, a potential net release of 1,800 to 9,100 Tg (trillion grams) of CO2-equivalents of greenhouse

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Lick a gummed envelope flap to seal it, and you’ve just tasted corn.  Lather up with shampoo, and you’ve got corn seeping in to your pores.  Brush your teeth, and you’ve got corn in your mouth.  Walk past the perfume counter in any department store, and you’ve just inhaled corn into your lungs.  The madness doesn’t end here.  Corn is everywhere.

For those of us with corn allergies, it’s not just the corn-on-the-cob and the hush-puppies that are the problem, thank you very much.  No, it’s the vitamin D in fortified milk, the food-grade wax coating fresh produce, the dextrose mixed into iodized salt, the citric acid used to rinse loose greens and baby carrots, and the cornstarch filler in baking powder. A friend of mine used to joke that I couldn’t even drink water, and that’s not far-fetched.  If you’ve taken a sip from a bottle of mineral-enhanced water recently, you’ve swallowed corn.

Corn is beginning to seem more and more like the has-been-that-never-was of the biofuel feedstock scene.  An inedible, weedy-looking plant called crambe is the latest competitor to come along and stick a fork in it.  Never heard of crambe?  Then you haven’t been spending enough time in North Dakota.

Yet another product has been added to the list of new and innovative things we can make from corn. Recently, Dupont Tate & Lyle Bio Products announced that, working in conjunction with Kilfrost, a major producer of de- and anti-icing fluids for aircraft, they have come up with a new de-icer derived from non-petroleum sources – namely, corn and sugar.

The downturn in the national economy has hit just about every major industry. And now it seems that ethanol is no exception. Yesterday, Archer Daniels Midland Co., or ADM, a major U.S. producer of ethanol, stated that ethanol production in the U.S. has dropped 21% since last year. Falling oil prices, a decrease in overall demand, and low profit margins are to blame.

It’s been a bad couple of weeks for processed foods.  On the heels of the peanut butter recall came the newsmercury-tainted high fructose corn syrup (HFCS).  And this, of course, has reopened the debate over HFCS.

Is it the cause of obesity in America?  Is it really the same as table sugar?  Is it an evil, liquidy villain complete with horns and a tail?  Regardless of how you answer those three questions, from a sustainability perspective alone, we should stop consuming so much HFCS.  Here’s why, and how you can cut down.

Mercury was found in nearly fifty percent of tested samples of commercial high fructose corn syrup according to an article published in the scientific journal, Environmental Health.

A separate study detected mercury in nearly one third of fifty-five popular brand name foods and beverages where HFCS is the first or second highest labeled ingredient.

According to David Wallinga, M.D., from the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy,

“Mercury is toxic in all its forms.  Given how much high fructose corn syrup is consumed by children, it could be a significant additional source of mercury never before considered.”