The Ebb and Flow of American Opinions on Global Warming
November 05, 2009
NaturalNews
by: Paul Louis, staff writer
Fewer Americans are convinced of a scientific basis for global warming, according to a recent report from Pew Research Center for the People & the Press. The survey of 1500 people questioned showed only 57% are certain that there is a scientific basis for global warming, compared to 77% in 2006.
This alleged drop in global warming awareness detected by the survey has occurred despite reports with visuals of icebergs and icecap sections crumbling into arctic and Antarctic waters over the last three years. In addition, ocean temperatures were recorded at their highest last summer.
Andrew Kohut, the director of this survey for The Pew Research Center, considers the results as a product of too many other issues concerning Americans. “The priority that people give to pollution and environmental concerns and a whole host of other issues is down because of the economy and because of the focus on other things,” Kohut asserted.
However, Jon Krosnick of Stanford University takes issue with the Pew poll itself. He maintains that 80 percent of Americans believe the earth is warming, a percentage that his studies report as consistent since 1997. Krosnick considered the Pew report “implausible” adding there is nothing that could have caused it.
Only a day before the report’s release, 18 scientific groups confirmed the global warming issue to Congress as the Senate was preparing to review a proposed “Cap and Trade” policy passed by the House earlier this year.
Cap and Trade would be the driving force for reducing green house gases. Cap refers to regional restrictions on how much of those emissions will be allowed. Trade refers to the practice of buying, selling, or trading for permits to exceed individual emission caps while maintaining the region’s limit.
Other climate change possibilities include reforestation for more conversion of carbon dioxide to oxygen. The plan on paper is for planting 18 million acres of trees on rural land by 2020 in three areas, the Southeast, the Great Lakes, and the Corn Belt. Land owners would be able to sell excess carbon permits to power plants in as part of the Cap and Trade policy.
Some argue that this is taking valuable farm land away, increasing food prices. Others, including Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack, welcome the possibility of climate-change action helping forests. “We have our own deforestation problem right here in the U.S. of A,” he said. “Just keeping forest as forest is a significant challenge.”
Beef Recall: E. Coli Kills Two
November 2,2009
Reuters
* CDC says total of 28 cases, 16 hospitalizations
* All but three cases are in U.S. Northeast
* Illness connected to recall of Fairbank Farms beef (Details on New York death; paragraphs 1, 3, 8 new)
An outbreak of food-borne illness, linked to dangerous bacteria in ground beef, sickened 28 people and may have caused two deaths in the U.S. Northeast, health officials said on Monday.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said all but three of the illnesses were in the Northeast and 18 were in the six New England states. A common strain of E. coli bacteria was involved so tests were under way to see if all of the reported cases have the same cause.
State officials said a death in New Hampshire was linked to the ground beef that is being recalled by Fairbank Farms of Ashville, New York. The New York State Health Department said a death in the Albany area from E. coli O157:H7 bacteria was being investigated to see if it is linked.
New Hampshire officials did not release information about the death in their state. The death in New York state last month involved an adult with underlying medical conditions, said the CDC. Two people were hospitalized in New Hampshire.
Fairbank Farms announced the recall on Saturday of 545,699 lbs (248,450 kg) of fresh ground beef products. The beef was produced in mid-September and probably was labeled for sale by the end of the month, said USDA.
The Agriculture Department, which oversees meat safety, said an investigation led it to conclude “there is an association between the fresh ground beef products and illnesses in Connecticut, Maine and Massachusetts.” USDA worked with state and federal officials in examining a cluster of E. coli O157:H7 illnesses.
A potentially deadly bacteria, E. coli can cause bloody diarrhea, dehydration and, in severe cases, kidney failure. The very young, the elderly and people with weak immune systems are the most susceptible to foodborne illness.
USDA said it would examine Fairbank Farms’ food safety plan this week.
A string of food-borne safety scares led the U.S. House of Representatives to pass legislation this summer to require more inspections and oversight of food manufacturers and would give the government new authority to order recalls.
The Fairbank Farms beef went to retailers including Trader Joe’s, Price Chopper, Lancaster and Wild Harvest, Shaw’s, a unit of Supervalu, BJ’s, Ford Brothers and Giant, a unit of Ahold , in eight states — Connecticut, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Virginia.
Pork Gets a Swine Flu Bailout
September 14, 2009 by Andrew
Filed under Government
September 11, 2009
TIME
By Jeffrey Kluger
If you’re in prison, now might be a good time to develop a taste for pork. The same is probably true if you’re in the military or in a public school. As part of a government effort to boost America’s hog farmers — who have identified themselves as the forgotten casualties of the H1N1 swine-flu epidemic and asked Washington for financial help — the Agriculture Department announced last week a $30 million purchase of surplus pork. That brings the federal total of pork purchases for fiscal 2009 to about $150 million, or close to $100 million more than last year’s figure for the same period. During a Sept. 10 morning press conference, Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack also said he would work with fellow Cabinet secretaries in the Defense, Justice and Education departments to encourage pork purchases on military bases, in prisons and in schools.
In addition, Vilsack took the opportunity to ask — indeed, plead — with the media to desist forever from use of the misnomer swine flu, which has been the cause of many of the pork industry’s woes. “It may seem silly,” said Vilsack, “unless you’re a pork producer. Then, you have to tell your family you can’t afford to pay the bills because you’re now selling your product for less than it cost you to produce it.”
It was soon after the first reports of the so-called swine flu emerged in the spring of 2009 that the already soft hog market practically collapsed. In China, a major consumer of U.S. pork, fully two-thirds of the 1.3 billion population stopped eating pork altogether, and Beijing responded with a ban on any pork produced in North Carolina, Iowa or Oklahoma. Russia and Ukraine followed with prohibitions of their own, and soon there were 27 countries that wanted nothing to do with any hog raised in America. Institutional buyers in the U.S. grew skittish too, as did big state and local consumers like school districts.
The U.S. government’s most recent pork purchase comes just a few weeks after the National Pork Producers Council and a consortium of governors from nine pork-producing states sent separate letters to the Agriculture Secretary requesting assistance. The council asked the USDA to lift the $300 spending cap on pork products for government food programs, and to spend at least an additional $150 million on pork products during fiscal year 2009; the industry also asked for $100 million to help survey herds for H1N1. In a similar letter from state governors, lawmakers requested that the government urge overseas markets to start buying U.S. pork again, and Vilsack said he would lean on the international trading partners who haven’t yet lifted their U.S. pork bans. “Among the ones who have been open to reason and logic,” he says tartly, “many of the barriers are already down.”
Of course, no H1N1 has been detected in any actual swine in the U.S., and even if it were, Vilsack stressed — his voice sometimes betraying a how-many-times-must-I-repeat-this weariness — people could not get sick by eating infected pork. H1N1 is not a hog-specific virus, Vilsack reminded reporters. “Swine flu has been present in the United States for 80 years,” he said. “But H1N1 is different. It’s a novel flu strain. Its genetic makeup is unique. The virus is connected to strains from three species — avian, human and swine. Unfortunately, the media gravitated toward the swine aspect of it. But that’s unfair and it’s not right.”
The Agriculture Secretary does concede that the absence of the virus among American hogs so far does not mean that the herds will remain clean. He reported government scientists have thus developed a master seed strain of H1N1 that they are making available to five veterinary-drug makers that can prepare vaccines to be rolled out if and when any herds come down sick. “By making the seed virus, we estimate we’ve saved two to four months of development time. We hope the manufacturers will now make the vaccine,” said Vilsack. The Agriculture Department is also stepping up surveillance efforts so that any infection in any U.S. herd will be quickly reported.
But beyond the government’s fiscal assistance, Vilsack maintains that the media still hold the greatest sway over potential U.S. pork consumers. “People hear the President or some other official say once or twice that pork is safe,” Vilsack said, “and then they hear the term swine flu on TV and the Internet 50 times in a single day.” The blame-the-media fallback is surely overstated, but for pork farmers trying to move the merch, less swine and more H1N1 in headlines will nonetheless be welcome.
Click here for the full report from TIME
