The UN Convention of Biological Diversity meets starting Monday, May 19, in Bonn to seek ways to preserve the diversity of animal and plant life in the face of challenges such as pollution and global warming. While some 200 governments, 5,000 delegates and several heads of state will gather in the German city of Bonn starting Monday to address the future of living species, it's doubtful they will say they can meet a goal set in 2002 to slow the rate of loss of biodiversity by 2010. UN experts say the earth is facing the most severe spate of extinctions since the dinosaurs became extinct. It's estimated that three species vanish every hour, largely as a result of human activity, such as rising populations, pollution and climate change. "We are at one thousand or even ten thousand times the speed of the natural extinction rate, purely because of human influence," Sigmar Gabriel, the German environment minister who will open the conference, told Deutsche Welle.
While some 200 governments, 5,000 delegates and several heads of state will gather in the German city of Bonn starting Monday to address the future of living species, it's doubtful they will say they can meet a goal set in 2002 to slow the rate of loss of biodiversity by 2010.
UN experts say the earth is facing the most severe spate of extinctions since the dinosaurs became extinct. It's estimated that three species vanish every hour, largely as a result of human activity, such as rising populations, pollution and climate change.
"We are at one thousand or even ten thousand times the speed of the natural extinction rate, purely because of human influence," Sigmar Gabriel, the German environment minister who will open the conference, told Deutsche Welle.
Monday 12 May 2008 In the debate over genetically modified organisms, many voices have made themselves heard - rarely those of cooks and vintners. Yet we are the ones principally impacted by the introduction of open field GMO into [French] agriculture. It is neither our calling nor within our field of competence to decide a scientific debate on the health security of GMO food. The studies conducted up until now remain contradictory and inadequate in their duration. That's why - like the government with respect to MON 810 corn - we defend the precautionary principle: no GMO on our tables or in our cellars, given what we presently know. The products of the earth are the basis of our profession and the foundation of our gastronomy. We have the good fortune to enjoy soils and soil products of exceptional quality and variety. We are free to choose those that we like for our wines and our dishes. The right to choose the contents of one's glass and one's plate is a fundamental right. This freedom and this choice is threatened today by GMOs and their inevitable consequences: industrialization and standardization of agriculture, soil deterioration and ground pollution, seed and flavor homogenization, destruction of biodiversity and threats to organic agriculture.
Monday 12 May 2008
In the debate over genetically modified organisms, many voices have made themselves heard - rarely those of cooks and vintners. Yet we are the ones principally impacted by the introduction of open field GMO into [French] agriculture.
It is neither our calling nor within our field of competence to decide a scientific debate on the health security of GMO food. The studies conducted up until now remain contradictory and inadequate in their duration. That's why - like the government with respect to MON 810 corn - we defend the precautionary principle: no GMO on our tables or in our cellars, given what we presently know.
The products of the earth are the basis of our profession and the foundation of our gastronomy. We have the good fortune to enjoy soils and soil products of exceptional quality and variety. We are free to choose those that we like for our wines and our dishes. The right to choose the contents of one's glass and one's plate is a fundamental right.
This freedom and this choice is threatened today by GMOs and their inevitable consequences: industrialization and standardization of agriculture, soil deterioration and ground pollution, seed and flavor homogenization, destruction of biodiversity and threats to organic agriculture.
Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel has inspired and enthralled millions but none who has craned in admiration of the "divinely inspired" work realises it was born out of base rivalry and petty jealousy. Five centuries after the artist signed the contract to decorate the Pope's personal chapel in the Vatican with scenes from the book of Genesis, the true story of how Michelangelo came to create one of his greatest works can be told. The artist was awarded the commission unaware that he was the target of a conspiracy hatched by Donato Bramante, the architect of St Peter's Basilica, and the painter Raphael, who persuaded Pope Julius II to oblige Michelangelo - a sculptor with little painting experience - to take on the commission. They believed that, faced with a work on such a vast scale, he was bound to fail and be humiliated.
Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel has inspired and enthralled millions but none who has craned in admiration of the "divinely inspired" work realises it was born out of base rivalry and petty jealousy.
Five centuries after the artist signed the contract to decorate the Pope's personal chapel in the Vatican with scenes from the book of Genesis, the true story of how Michelangelo came to create one of his greatest works can be told.
The artist was awarded the commission unaware that he was the target of a conspiracy hatched by Donato Bramante, the architect of St Peter's Basilica, and the painter Raphael, who persuaded Pope Julius II to oblige Michelangelo - a sculptor with little painting experience - to take on the commission. They believed that, faced with a work on such a vast scale, he was bound to fail and be humiliated.
Women who use mobile phones when pregnant are more likely to give birth to children with behavioural problems, according to authoritative research. A giant study, which surveyed more than 13,000 children, found that using the handsets just two or three times a day was enough to raise the risk of their babies developing hyperactivity and difficulties with conduct, emotions and relationships by the time they reached school age. And it adds that the likelihood is even greater if the children themselves used the phones before the age of seven.The results of the study, the first of its kind, have taken the top scientists who conducted it by surprise. But they follow warnings against both pregnant women and children using mobiles by the official Russian radiation watchdog body, which believes that the peril they pose "is not much lower than the risk to children's health from tobacco or alcohol".The research - at the universities of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) and Aarhus, Denmark - is to be published in the July issue of the journal Epidemiology and will carry particular weight because one of its authors has been sceptical that mobile phones pose a risk to health.
Women who use mobile phones when pregnant are more likely to give birth to children with behavioural problems, according to authoritative research.
A giant study, which surveyed more than 13,000 children, found that using the handsets just two or three times a day was enough to raise the risk of their babies developing hyperactivity and difficulties with conduct, emotions and relationships by the time they reached school age. And it adds that the likelihood is even greater if the children themselves used the phones before the age of seven.
The results of the study, the first of its kind, have taken the top scientists who conducted it by surprise. But they follow warnings against both pregnant women and children using mobiles by the official Russian radiation watchdog body, which believes that the peril they pose "is not much lower than the risk to children's health from tobacco or alcohol".
The research - at the universities of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) and Aarhus, Denmark - is to be published in the July issue of the journal Epidemiology and will carry particular weight because one of its authors has been sceptical that mobile phones pose a risk to health.
This instead:
I think he's refering to the Church of the Anunciation where Raphael was doing a fresco blatantly inspired by Michelangelo. Buonarroti dropped by, saw the plagerism and never bothered saluting Raphael again.
They found that mothers who did use the handsets were 54 per cent more likely to have children with behavioural problems and that the likelihood increased with the amount of potential exposure to the radiation. And when the children also later used the phones they were, overall, 80 per cent more likely to suffer from difficulties with behaviour. They were 25 per cent more at risk from emotional problems, 34 per cent more likely to suffer from difficulties relating to their peers, 35 per cent more likely to be hyperactive, and 49 per cent more prone to problems with conduct.
The Russian National Committee on Non-Ionizing Radiation Protection says that use of the phones by both pregnant women and children should be "limited". It concludes that children who talk on the handsets are likely to suffer from "disruption of memory, decline of attention, diminishing learning and cognitive abilities, increased irritability" in the short term, and that longer-term hazards include "depressive syndrome" and "degeneration of the nervous structures of the brain".
I wrote a diary, Be good, Be careful. Behave !!, which debunnked some of this twaddle, but Izzy's comment from that essay is still true
Men are allowed to make their own medical decisions and women are not, even when it's a matter of life or death. It's that simple. This alone -- that women aren't allowed to control their bodies or fates -- makes the system unequal, or "macho" if you will, regardless of who is enforcing it and for what reason (religion in this case)
