MIRROR, MIRROR ON THE WALL: WHO IS THE PUREST GREENIE OF THEM ALL?

"Sustainable" versus "organic"

Shoppers attracted to organic fruits and vegetables but repelled by their bank account-busting prices may soon have an alternative. That's the hope of environmentalists, farmers and public officials pushing to certify, label and market produce grown according to a set of agricultural standards labeled as sustainable. Certified growers must meet requirements regarding soil management, water quality, wildlife protection and labor practices, as well as pesticide use. Supporters say the produce labeled as "sustainable" will be more affordable than organic fruits and vegetables. "We're trying to get to those consumers in the middle," said Cheryl Brickey, executive director of Protected Harvest, a Maryland-based nonprofit that certifies produce as being grown according to the practices. Brickey said too many Americans can't afford to pay top dollar for organic produce: "We're trying to break that barrier."

The group also will have to break into one of the largest produce markets in the country and faces opposition from a well-establish organic industry that doesn't welcome the competition. "These new eco-label and verification schemes tend to really just muddy the waters with questions," said Jake Lewin, a director of marketing at California Certified Organic Farmers, an organic certification and trade group. "It's not clear to consumers, 'What is this product and why should you want it?'"

This summer, Protected Harvest received about $500,000 in grants from state and federal agencies to help fund the labeling system. The money will support the development of standards for a brand of so-called sustainable tomatoes in California, billed as the 'Sacratomato' because the produce is grown in fields near the state capital. The group also has plans to certify sustainable strawberry, plum and nectarine farms. Seven vineyards already have the Protected Harvest certification.

The programs are modeled after the "Healthy Grown" potato, a sustainable russet grown in Wisconsin and certified by Protected Harvest. The group said there are 6,500 acres enrolled in that program, and farmers there used about 54 percent fewer toxic chemicals than the industry standard on that land. Bruce Rominger, a tomato farmer outside Sacramento, will be one of the first to grow the Sacratomato, which will initially be marketed to processing plants. He said he doesn't want his tomatoes to be niche products. He thinks the benefit of sustainable certification is that the label is designed to be practical and profitable for large operations.

Protected Harvest's certification program does not prohibit farmers from using synthetic pesticides [Naughty, naughty, naughty!] - one of the most notable differences between it and organic certification. Farmers are scored on their pesticide practices and are asked to do detailed research before applying chemicals. Less is better, but other factors are considered, Rominger said. "If you can't use chemical herbicide, you have to kill those weeds some other way," he said. "One way is to go out with a tractor and cut them out, but that costs you money, too, and you're burning diesel and you're stirring up the ground and could be causing erosion."

Much more here





Global Deaths & Death Rates Due to Extreme Weather Events, 1900-2004

Excerpt from an amazing posting on The Commons blog

We are constantly bombarded with claims that weather-related events will get worse over time, at least in part because of global warming. So one should expect that aggregate deaths and death rates due to weather-related extreme events worldwide would have trended upward in recent decades. But do they?

The following bar chart shows (approximate) aggregate trends in these critical measures between 1900 and 2004 for "weather-related extreme events", namely, droughts, extreme temperatures (both extreme heat and extreme cold), floods, landslides, waves and surges, wild fires and wind storms of different types.



Yes, there is a trend here, but is it upward?

This, of course, begs the question as to why, if the globe is warming, matters aren't getting worse?

Curves like this illustrate that due diligence requires that analyses and/or claims of future impacts should be accompanied, at a minimum, by checks of whether their future projections match with past reality. Of course, as your mutual fund advisor will tell you, "past results are not necessarily indicative of future performance." True, but one should have to reconcile the two, matching the past and the present with the future. And this goes not just for impacts (e.g., deaths and death rates) but also assumptions that feed into impacts assessments. For example, how reasonable is an assumption of 1 percent growth per year in carbon dioxide concentrations when historically it has averaged 0.40 percent per year from 1959 to 2004, during which period it only once exceeded 0.75 percent (year-to-year increase)?

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Many people would like to be kind to others so Leftists exploit that with their nonsense about equality. Most people want a clean, green environment so Greenies exploit that by inventing all sorts of far-fetched threats to the environment. But for both, the real motive is to promote themselves as wiser and better than everyone else, truth regardless.

Global warming has taken the place of Communism as an absurdity that "liberals" will defend to the death regardless of the evidence showing its folly. Evidence never has mattered to real Leftists

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