Thursday, September 18th, 2008
Mapmaking and conquest has a disturbingly close history. As indigenous people learned, the innocuous mapmaker may be followed by weapons, property claims and exploitation. So too for the recent rash of science projects using mapping
Thursday, August 21st, 2008
Written for The Ecologist – 20/07/2008 If radical vegan Ingrid Newkirk has her way, the nouvelle cuisine on vegetarian menus in five years time may be a big juicy steak. Newkirk, founder and president of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), has offered a $1 million prize to whoever can scale-up stem cell [...]
Tuesday, July 8th, 2008
Biofuels fuel global food crisis Toronto Star/star.com July 08, 2008 PAT MOONEY As G8 leaders meet this week in Japan, their ears will still be ringing from the bombshell dropped last week in a leaked World Bank report declaring that biofuels have forced global food prices up by 75 per cent, far higher than previously [...]
Friday, June 27th, 2008
Testimony of Pat Mooney Executive Director of ETC Group Before the Standing Committee on Energy, the Environment and Natural Resources-regarding Bill C-33 (the “Biofuels Bill”) Senate of Canada Wednesday, June 25, 2008 Thank you. I will begin by confessing that I am not an expert on biofuels. I feel as though my life has been [...]
Tuesday, May 6th, 2008
Review by Hope Shand, research director of ETC Group. —– In October 1996, a spokesman for Monsanto told Farm Journal why his company was buying up seed companies left and right: “What you’re seeing is not just a consolidation of seed companies, it’s really a consolidation of the entire food chain.” Today, Monsanto is the [...]
Wednesday, January 16th, 2008
Now that you can drive your ‘nano’ car, listening to your ipod ‘nano’ while wearing ‘nano’ sunscreen and ‘nano’ clothing, the UK’s largest organic certifier has just introduced the perfect nano-antidote – a ‘nano-free’ standard for consumer products. The Soil Association – one of the world’s pioneers of organic agriculture announced today that it is [...]
Sunday, December 9th, 2007
What do ocean-going yachts, space-traveling bacteria and synthetic life have in common? J. Craig Venter, of course. The self-styled genome tycoon has been busy pushing the boundaries on what may appear at first glance to be unrelated enterprises. Nothing could be further from the truth. A suite of recently uncovered patent applications lodged by Venter and his colleagues reveal not only an attempt to grab ownership over much of synthetic biology (see news release) but also a breathtakingly bold business plan for producing millions of new synthetic organisms per day. At the heart of this are plans for a new, automated process enabling rapid assembly of complete synthetic genomes – plans that, if realised, could render current genetic engineering techniques quaint and obsolete. Venter calls it “homologous in vitro recombination” or “combinatorial genomics.” ETC suggests it might be properly dubbed “shotgun synthesis” and it has the potential to blast apart current biotech practice.
Tuesday, September 18th, 2007
Esteriliza las semillas y amenaza la agricultura familiar y las costumbres tradicionales Este jueves fue desestimado por la Comisión de Medio Ambiente de la Cámara de Diputados, por 15 votos a 4, el Proyecto de Ley 268/2007 —redactado por el diputado federal Eduardo Sciarra (DEM – PR)— que busca modificar la Ley de Bioseguridad para [...]
Wednesday, September 5th, 2007
In the past, several multinational seed corporations have publicly pledged not to commercialize Terminator seeds – but, not surprisingly, there is intense industry pressure to overturn Brazil’s national law prohibiting suicide seeds. Bill number 268 (2007) in the Brazilian Congress proposes to: * allow research, registration and patenting of sterile seed technology; * allow commercialization [...]
Tuesday, August 7th, 2007
Below you will find a series of articles on biofuels, originally written in Spanish by one of ETC Group’s researchers. (Unfortunately, English translations are not always available). Biofuel production is currently a much-debated topic in Latin America. The prominent farmers’ organizations in the region believe that the production of biofuels will lead to further marginalization [...]
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(et cet er a) and other things; such as human rights, biodiversity, biopiracy, converging technologies, global governance and corporate concentration. An experimental growing plot for news, views and new ideas.
