In September, The UN Launches A Major Sustainable Development Agenda For The Entire Planet

United Nations General Assembly.The UN plans to launch a brand new plan for managing the entire globe at the Sustainable Development Summit that it will be hosting from September 25th to September 27th.  Some of the biggest names on the planet, including Pope Francis, will be speaking at this summit.  This new sustainable agenda focuses on climate change of course, but it also specifically addresses topics such as economics, agriculture, education and gender equality.  For those wishing to expand the scope of “global governance”, sustainable development is the perfect umbrella because just about all human activity affects the environment in some way.  The phrase “for the good of the planet” can be used as an excuse to micromanage virtually every aspect of our lives.  So for those that are concerned about the growing power of the United Nations, this summit in September is something to keep an eye on.  Never before have I seen such an effort to promote a UN summit on the environment, and this new sustainable development agenda is literally a framework for managing the entire globe.

If you are not familiar with this new sustainable development agenda, the following is what the official United Nations website says about it…

The United Nations is now in the process of defining Sustainable Development Goals as part a new sustainable development agenda that must finish the job and leave no one behind. This agenda, to be launched at the Sustainable Development Summit in September 2015, is currently being discussed at the UN General Assembly, where Member States and civil society are making contributions to the agenda.

The process of arriving at the post 2015 development agenda is Member State-led with broad participation from Major Groups and other civil society stakeholders. There have been numerous inputs to the agenda, notably a set of Sustainable Development Goals proposed by an open working group of the General Assembly, the report of an intergovernmental committee of experts on sustainable development financing, General Assembly dialogues on technology facilitation and many others.

Posted below are the 17 sustainable development goals that are being proposed so far.  Some of them seem quite reasonable.  After all, who wouldn’t want to “end poverty”.  But as you go down this list, you soon come to realize that just about everything is involved in some way.  In other words, this truly is a template for radically expanded “global governance”.  Once again, this was taken directly from the official UN website

1. End poverty in all its forms everywhere

2. End hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition, and promote sustainable agriculture

3. Ensure healthy lives and promote wellbeing for all at all ages

4. Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all

5. Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls

6. Ensure availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all

7. Ensure access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all

8. Promote sustained, inclusive and sustainable economic growth, full and productive employment, and decent work for all

9. Build resilient infrastructure, promote inclusive and sustainable industrialisation, and foster innovation

10. Reduce inequality within and among countries

11. Make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable

12. Ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns

13. Take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts (taking note of agreements made by the UNFCCC forum)

14. Conserve and sustainably use the oceans, seas and marine resources for sustainable development

15. Protect, restore and promote sustainable use of terrestrial ecosystems, sustainably manage forests, combat desertification and halt and reverse land degradation, and halt biodiversity loss

16. Promote peaceful and inclusive societies for sustainable development, provide access to justice for all and build effective, accountable and inclusive institutions at all levels

17. Strengthen the means of implementation and revitalise the global partnership for sustainable development

As you can see, this list goes far beyond “saving the environment” or “fighting climate change”.

It truly covers just about every realm of human activity.

Another thing that makes this new sustainable development agenda different is the unprecedented support that it is getting from the Vatican and from Pope Francis himself.

In fact, Pope Francis is actually going to travel to the UN and give an address to kick off the Sustainable Development Summit on September 25th

His Holiness Pope Francis will visit the UN on 25 September 2015, and give an address to the UN General Assembly immediately ahead of the official opening of the UN Summit for the adoption of the post-2015 development agenda.

This Pope has been very open about his belief that climate change is one of the greatest dangers currently facing our world.  Just a couple of weeks ago, he actually brought UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon to the Vatican to speak about climate change and sustainable development.  Here is a summary of what happened…

On 28 April, the Secretary-General met with His Holiness Pope Francis at the Vatican and later addressed senior religious leaders, along with the Presidents of Italy and Ecuador, Nobel laureates and leading scientists on climate change and sustainable development.

Amidst an unusually heavy rainstorm in Rome, participants at the historic meeting gathered within the ancient Vatican compound to discuss what the Secretary-General has called the “defining challenge of our time.”

The mere fact that a meeting took place between the religious and scientific communities on climate change was itself newsworthy. That it took place at the Vatican, was hosted by the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, and featured the Secretary-General as the keynote speaker was all the more striking.

In addition, Pope Francis is scheduled to release a major encyclical this summer which will be primarily focused on the environment and climate change.  The following comes from the New York Times

The much-anticipated environmental encyclical that Pope Francis plans to issue this summer is already being translated into the world’s major languages from the Latin final draft, so there’s no more tweaking to be done, several people close to the process have told me in recent weeks.

I think that we can get a good idea of the kind of language that we will see in this encyclical from another Vatican document which was recently released.  It is entitled “Climate Change and The Common Good”, and it was produced by the Pontifical Academy of Sciences and the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences.  The following is a brief excerpt

Unsustainable consumption coupled with a record human population and the uses of inappropriate technologies are causally linked with the destruction of the world’s sustainability and resilience. Widening inequalities of wealth and income, the world-wide disruption of the physical climate system and the loss of millions of species that sustain life are the grossest manifestations of unsustainability. The continued extraction of coal, oil and gas following the “business-as-usual mode” will soon create grave existential risks for the poorest three billion, and for generations yet unborn. Climate change resulting largely from unsustainable consumption by about 15% of the world’s population has become a dominant moral and ethical issue for society. There is still time to mitigate unmanageable climate changes and repair ecosystem damages, provided we reorient our attitude toward nature and, thereby, toward ourselves. Climate change is a global problem whose solution will depend on our stepping beyond national affiliations and coming together for the common good. Such transformational changes in attitudes would help foster the necessary institutional reforms and technological innovations for providing the energy sources that have negligible effect on global climate, atmospheric pollution and eco-systems, thus protecting generations yet to be born. Religious institutions can and should take the lead in bringing about that change in attitude towards Creation.

The Catholic Church, working with the leadership of other religions, can now take a decisive role by mobilizing public opinion and public funds to meet the energy needs of the poorest 3 billion people, thus allowing them to prepare for the challenges of unavoidable climate and eco-system changes. Such a bold and humanitarian action by the world’s religions acting in unison is certain to catalyze a public debate over how we can integrate societal choices, as prioritized under UN’s sustainable development goals, into sustainable economic development pathways for the 21st century, with projected population of 10 billion or more.

Under this Pope, the Vatican has become much more political than it was before, and sustainable development has become the Vatican’s number one political issue.

And did you notice the language about “the world’s religions acting in unison”?  Clearly, the Vatican believes that it has the power to mobilize religious leaders all over the planet and have them work together to achieve the “UN’s sustainable development goals”.

I can never remember a time when the United Nations and the largest religious institution on the planet, the Catholic Church, have worked together so closely.

So what will the end result of all this be?

Should we be concerned about this new sustainable development agenda?

Please feel free to add to the discussion by posting a comment below…

Dumpster Diving?

Have you ever thought about getting your food out of a trash can?  Don’t laugh.  Dumpster diving has become a hot new trend in America.  In fact, dumpster divers even have a trendy new name.  They call themselves “freegans”, and as the economy crumbles their numbers are multiplying.  Many freegans consider dumpster diving to be a great way to save money on groceries.  Others do it because they want to live more simply.  Freegans that are concerned about the environment view dumpster diving as a great way to “recycle” and other politically-minded freegans consider dumpster diving to be a form of political protest.  But whatever you want to call it, the reality is that thousands upon thousands of Americans will break out their boots, rubber gloves and flashlights and will be jumping into dumpsters looking for food once again tonight.

So is this actually legal?

In some areas, dumpster diving is considered to be legal.  In other areas, dumpster divers are technically breaking trespassing laws.  Although in most areas the police have so many other problems that they aren’t really concerned about cracking down on dumpster divers.

One of the biggest issues facing dumpster divers is safety.  Crawling around in back alleys and side streets in the middle of the night is not exactly the safest thing to do.  But the lure of large amounts of free food is enough to keep some people coming back over and over again.

During the recent economic downturn, the popularity of dumpster diving has exploded.  Today, there are dumpster diving meetup groups, dumpster diving Facebook groups, and even entire organizations such as Food Not Bombs that openly encourage their members to go dumpster diving.

If your family was going hungry, would you go dumpster diving?

You might be surprised at who is doing it.  Dumpster diving is not just for the homeless and the unemployed anymore.  A lot of people that have decent jobs have picked up on the trend.

Just check out the following example from a recent MSNBC article….

A programmer by day, Todd takes to the streets of North Carolina by night, digging through Dumpsters at drug stores and grocery stores all around his rural neighborhood.

“You would be simply amazed at what businesses throw out,” he said. “I’ve only had to buy two loaves of bread all year. … Last week I had a trunk full of cereal, cookies, chips and ramen noodles.”

Todd slinks in and out of smelly places with low-light flashlights to evade rent-a-cops who will shoo him away.  Most nights, his 14-year-old son comes along.

Dumpster diving has become such a prominent trend that even big television news networks are doing stories about it….

The truth is that dumpster diving is just another sign of the times.

Food prices continue to rise and this is putting incredible stress on the budgets of average American families.  We just saw another huge rise in food prices during the month of August.  Just check out the following data from a recent article posted on The Economic Policy Journal….

The index for finished consumer foods jumped 1.1 percent (13.2 percent annualized) in August, the third straight rise. Over thirty percent of the August advance can be traced to meat prices, which climbed 2.4 percent (28.8 percent annualized). Higher prices for processed poultry and eggs for fresh use also were major factors in the increase in the finished foods index.

If you are married and have a couple of children it can cost a lot of money to feed them every single month.  It is not hard to understand the allure of dumpster diving for people that are having a hard time making ends meet.

Other Americans are choosing to dumpster dive because they believe that it helps them live a simpler lifestyle.  There is a growing movement of people in America that are rejecting all of the “consumerism” that we see all around us.

Today, the average U.S. household has 13 different credit cards.  We are constantly being bombarded with ads that tell us that we need more stuff in order to be happy.

Well, a lot of people have decided that is a lot of bunk and they are doing whatever they can to simplify.

Other dumpster divers are absolutely horrified by how much food is wasted in America.

It has been estimated that 263,013,699 pounds of food is thrown out in the United States every single day.

Can you imagine?

We are probably the most wasteful nation on the planet.  With the number of hungry people in the world, it is absolutely criminal how much food that we waste.

So in that sense, it is probably a good thing that dumpster divers are saving some of that food from the landfills and are finding positive uses for it.

But what is going to happen when the economy gets even worse and we start seeing fights over the food that has been left in dumpsters?

In my recent special report about poverty in America, I noted that 46.2 million Americans are now living in poverty.  For now, the U.S. government is helping feed over 45 million Americans through the food stamp program, but what is going to happen once the social safety net starts to break?

The number of good jobs in America continues to decline, and thousands more Americans fall into poverty every single day.  Things have gotten so bad that other countries are actually making videos that make fun of our poverty.

This country is rapidly losing confidence in our leaders and hopelessness is spreading like wildfire.  Today it was revealed that Barack Obama’s disapproval rating has now set a new high of 55%.  Not only that, 62% of the American people disapprove of the way that he is handling the economy.  It turns out that they don’t really think much of the Obama jobs plan after all.

Unfortunately, even though our economy is rapidly falling apart and most of our leaders are either deeply corrupt or completely incompetent, most Americans are still way too apathetic.  If you can believe it, the American people spend a whopping 53 million minutes a month on Facebook.

Hopefully we can get more Americans to wake up.  Hopefully we can get them to understand that they need to get active, that they need to prepare and that they need to get their priorities in order.

Right now, dumpster diving is cute and fun and an interesting way to save money, but in the future there will be millions of Americans digging around in trash cans if we don’t get this economy turned around.

This country is rapidly changing, and not for the better.

Does The Gulf Of Mexico Oil Spill Mean That The U.S. Is Headed For Gas Lines, Higher Food Prices And A Broken Economy?

As the Gulf of Mexico oil spill crisis enters a third month, the economic impact of this environmental nightmare is starting to become clearer.  The truth is that the “oil volcano” spewing massive amounts of oil into the Gulf has absolutely decimated the seafood, tourism and real estate industries along the Gulf coast.  Not only that, but energy industry insiders are now warning that the chilling effect that this crisis will have on offshore drilling could precipitate a new 1970s-style energy crisis.  Considering the fact that the U.S. economy was already on incredibly shaky ground even before the oil leak, the last thing we needed was a disaster of this magnitude.  But it has happened, and the reality is that the long-term effects of this crisis are potentially going to reverberate for decades. 

The American people certainly have a negative view on the impact that this oil spill will have on the economy.  According to a new poll, about eight out of every 10 Americans expect the oil spill to damage the U.S. economy and drive up the cost of gas and food.

But is a new 1970s-style energy crisis really a possibility?

Could we actually soon be headed for blackouts and gas lines?

Well, former Shell executive John Hofmeister believes that is exactly what we are headed for….

“Within a decade I predict the energy abyss looks like brownouts, blackouts and gas lines.” 

In fact, Hofmeister claims that some of his fellow energy industry insiders expect things to be even worse than he is projecting in the years ahead.

Why?

Hofmeister says that the problem is the U.S. government….

“Our federal government, when it comes to energy and the environment, is dysfunctional, it’s broken, and it’s unfixable in its current form.”

Without a doubt, the oil spill will have a chilling effect on offshore drilling.  But does that mean that we are going to be facing a shortage of oil in the future?

Well, that is what the advocates of peak oil would have us believe. 

But the truth is that there are actually a TON of untapped reserves throughout the United States that could provide everything that we need for decades and more.

Nobody is really supposed to talk about it, but the reality is that there are massive deposits of oil in Alaska, the Colorado Rockies and in the Bakken formation in Montana and the Dakotas that are larger than anything found in Saudi Arabia. 

So we will only have an “energy crisis” if that is what oil industry insiders and the U.S. government want.

You see, the oil industry likes to keep the supply of oil down because it means much larger profits for them, and these days the folks in Washington D.C. like anything that causes the U.S. public to use less oil, so higher energy prices are just fine with them.

In fact, rather than focusing on getting the crisis in the Gulf solved, Barack Obama has been exploiting this oil spill to really push his economy-killing climate bill.  It seems like Barack Obama would do just about anything to foist his “cap and trade” carbon tax scheme on the American people. 

Energy issues aside, the impact that this oil spill is having on other areas of the Gulf coast economy is very significant.

For example, the Gulf oil spill is absolutely playing havoc with real estate prices in the region.

Real estate agent Linda Henderson recently put it this way….

“I can tell you that things have pretty much dropped to dead.”

After all, who is going to pay top dollar for beachfront property down there at this point?

Nobody.

Not only that, but obviously the oil spill is devastating the seafood industry in the Gulf as well.

The Wall Street Journal recently reported that the average wholesale price for Gulf brown shrimp has jumped by more than half since the crisis began.

In addition, oyster prices are up 33% since the beginning of the oil spill, and as oil continues to spew into the Gulf of Mexico the price increases are only going to become more dramatic.

In fact, many are wondering if the seafood industry in the Gulf will ever recover from all of this.

The truth is that fishermen in Cordova, Alaska are still struggling 21 years after the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill devastated the fishing industry in that area.

Some local shrimpers in Louisiana are already predicting that it will be seven years before they can set to sea again, but even that actually may prove to be too optimistic.

Some scientists are warning that the massive quantities of methane that are being spewed into the Gulf of Mexico from the “oil volcano” could create “dead zones” where oxygen is so depleted that literally nothing lives.

So if the oil continues to flow for several more months could very large portions of the Gulf of Mexico become dead zones?

That is a legitimate question at this point.

In addition, the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico is completely destroying tourism along the Gulf coast.

The truth is that nobody wants to visit places where the beaches are coated with oil and where breathing the air makes your kids want to gag.

Public Service Commissioner Benjamin Stevens recently described what this is going to mean for beaches in his area….

“You get hit by a hurricane and you can rebuild. But when that stuff washes up on the white sands of Pensacola Beach, you can’t just go and get more white sand.”

Hotel Owner Dodie Vegas was even more blunt in describing what this crisis means for her business….

“It’s just going to kill us. It’s going to destroy us.”

But not everyone has been ruined economically by this oil spill.

In fact, it turns out that BP CEO Tony Hayward cashed in about a third of his BP stock one month before the well on the Deepwater Horizon exploded.

Not only that, it has been revealed that Goldman Sachs sold 58% of its shares in BP between January and March of this year.

Isn’t it amazing how the elite always seem to have such perfect timing?

Even if Tony Hayward resigns as a result of this crisis, he is going to get a 10.8 million pound ($16 million) golden parachute.

No, the true losers in all of this are going to be those living along the Gulf of Mexico who have had their lives, their businesses and the beautiful environment around them destroyed.

We are literally watching an entire region of America slowly die, and Barack Obama still refuses to accept any of the international assistance that is being offered. 

If what is happening in the Gulf of Mexico is not enough to get the American people angry, then what will?  This crisis has been so badly mismanaged that it is absolutely mind blowing.  Let’s just hope that someone can find a way to stop the oil soon.

Why Has Barack Obama Refused To Accept International Help To Clean Up The Oil Spill In The Gulf Of Mexico?

As the crisis in the Gulf of Mexico enters a third month, many are now asking how in the world Barack Obama can keep refusing offers from other countries to help clean up the oil spill.  The truth is that cleaning up oil spills is not rocket science.  There have been massive oil spills in other areas of the world before and there are some folks that have some real expertise when it comes to cleaning them up.  But Barack Obama and BP have been stumbling around as if they are trying to reinvent the wheel.  So exactly what in the world is going on here?  When it comes to Obama’s approach to this crisis, there are really two options.  Either this is one of the most extreme examples of presidential incompetence in modern American history, or Barack Obama is using this crisis for a particular purpose (such as advancing a particular agenda).  In either event, Obama’s actions during this crisis have been completely and totally unconscionable.

The truth is that 13 different countries have offered to help clean up the oil in the Gulf of Mexico.

Barack Obama turned all 13 of them down.

So let’s get this straight….

We are dealing with the greatest environmental disaster in U.S. history by far, and yet we completely refuse any assistance?

What kind of insanity is that?

In fact, it is being reported that just three days after the Deepwater Horizon sank to the floor of the Gulf of Mexico the Dutch government contacted Barack Obama and offered to loan BP ships outfitted with special oil-skimming booms.  In addition, the Dutch had a plan to quickly build sand barriers to protect the vulnerable marshlands along the Louisiana coast.

Needless to say, those plans were not implemented.

According to one Dutch newspaper, the European oil companies that offered to help said that they could have completely cleaned all of the oil from the Gulf of Mexico in just four months.

But now Obama is telling us that the crisis in the Gulf of Mexico could last for years.

So what would keep Barack Obama from accepting international offers of help?

Well, Obama is using something called “the Jones Act” as an excuse.

Howard Portnoy recently described what is going on this way….

In order to accept the offers, which have come from Belgian, Dutch, and Norwegian firms that claim to possess some of the world’s most advanced oil skimming ships, Obama would need to waive the Merchant Marine Act of 1920 (P.L. 66-261). Also known as the Jones Act, the law requires essentially that all commercial acts conducted in U.S.-controlled waters be performed by “U.S.-flag ships, constructed in the United States, owned by U.S. citizens, and crewed by U.S. citizens and U.S. permanent residents.”

So why not simply waive the act? Other presidents have under similar circumstances. George W. Bush waived the Jones Act following Hurricane Katrina, allowing foreign ships into Gulf waters to aid in the relief effort.

The truth is that the Jones Act is not a barrier to receiving assistance at all and Barack Obama knows this.

There would be absolutely no problem with waiving the Jones Act in these circumstances.

So Barack Obama has no excuse.

Either he is completely and totally incompetent or he has been trying to make this crisis worse than it should be.

You see, this is not the first catastrophic oil spill in the history of the world.  There have been others, and we have learned quite a bit about cleaning up oil from those events.  Anthony G. Martin recently described what happened during one particularly brutal oil spill in 1993 and 1994….

In 1993 and ’94 the Saudis faced an oil spill of historic proportions in the Arabian Gulf as four leaking tankers and two oil gushers threatened to spur a catastrophic event that was 65 times worse than the Exxon-Valdez spill. 

An American engineer, Nick Pozzi, was part of a task force charged with developing a solution to the looming disaster.

Pozzi had used various methods to clean up oil spills prior to this event.  However, the time was short, and an effective solution was needed post-haste.

That’s when Pozzi decided that the huge, empty oil tankers, sitting in the dock, could be used to simply vacuum up the oil right off of the top of the water.

The result was that 85% of the oil was recovered.

In a recent interview with Esquire, Pozzi explained that cleaning up the oil in the Gulf of Mexico should not be that complicated….

Keep in mind that what supertankers typically do is they sit in the middle of the ocean waiting for all the traders to come up with the right price. When they feel that the price is right, the tankers that are full, they take off, and they can be anywhere in the world in a few days. Right now there are probably 25 supertankers, waiting for orders, full of oil. So all they got to do is come to Texas, in the Gulf, unload the oil, and then turn around and suck up all this other stuff and pump it onto shore into on-shore storage. It’s not rocket science. It’s so simple.

So why won’t Barack Obama and BP implement the “supertanker method”?

When asked about it they just brush it off.

Are they that incompetent?

Or is something else going on?

If this crisis had been handled properly, oil would not currently be blanketing our pristine Gulf coast beaches.

An increasing number of Gulf coast residents have become so frustrated that they have decided to take it upon themselves to stop the oil that is headed towards their homes and businesses.

But BP and the Obama administration have been running around trying to keep anyone else other than themselves from doing anything about this oil spill.  In fact, Barack Obama has authorized the deployment of more than 17,000 National Guard members along the Gulf coast to be used “as needed” by state governors, and BP is being allowed to use private security contractors to keep the American people away from the oil cleanup sites.

If they used as much energy cleaning up the oil as they are in keeping the American people away from the spill they might actually be accomplishing something.

Meanwhile, CBS News is reporting that there could be as much as 1 billion barrels of oil under the damaged BP oil well in the Gulf of Mexico and that it could keep flowing for more than a decade.

Apparently BP made one of the biggest oil discoveries in history, but the problem is that oil is now coming out of there at such high pressure that we simply do not have the technology to control it.

In addition, experts have discovered a massive gas bubble which is estimated to be 15 to 20 miles across and “tens of feet high” under the floor of the Gulf of Mexico.

So what in the world is going to happen if that thing blows?

Also, there are reports of fissures and cracks appearing on the ocean floor around the damaged wellhead.

If this thing goes from a “leak” to an “eruption” it could be a catastrophe beyond anything any of us could even imagine.

So let’s hope that nothing like that happens.

But there is another very serious threat that we need to keep an eye on.

Some environmentalists are now warning that North America could be facing years of toxic rain because of the highly toxic chemical dispersants that BP is using to control the Gulf of Mexico oil spill.  Because it is so poisonous, the UK’s Marine Management Organization has completely banned Corexit 9500, so if there was a major oil spill in the UK’s North Sea, BP would not be able to use it.  So BP really needs to start explaining why they are dumping so much of it into the Gulf of Mexico – especially since so much of it could end up raining down on us.

Meanwhile, Barack Obama and Joe Biden are busy playing golf and BP chief executive Tony Hayward has been busy watching his yacht race.

Well, considering the fact that Tony Hayward is set for a massive 10.8 million pound ($16 million) payout if he chooses to step down, perhaps he is not too concerned about exactly how things turn out.

As for Barack Obama, his main concern in all this seems to be advancing his climate agenda.  During a recent interview, Obama directly compared the current crisis in the Gulf to 9/11, and indicated that he believed that it would fundamentally change the way that we all look at energy issues from now on.  But the truth is that cleaning up the oil in the Gulf has nothing to do with the “cap and trade” carbon tax scheme that Obama is trying to foist on all of us.

What Obama needs to do is to accept all the help that is being offered, get everybody working together on cleaning up this mess, and find a way to stop all that oil from coming out of the ground. 

Until he makes some progress on those things, the American people are not likely to want to hear the first thing about all of the new taxes, rules and regulations that he is so eager to impose on all of us.

The Gulf of Mexico is literally being destroyed, and already this disaster has been so horrific that the effects will be felt for decades.  If Barack Obama cares one ounce about the American people he needs to start doing his job instead of playing politics with this crisis.

Will Genetic Modification Usher In A New Age Of Prosperity Or Will It Unleash Health, Environmental And Economic Nightmares Of Unprecedented Magnitude?

In recent years, scientists around the globe have made absolutely stunning advances in the field of genetic modification.  For decades, researchers have been decoding DNA and transplanting genes from one organism into another, but over the past decade things have been taken to a completely new level.  We now have “monster salmon” which grow three times as fast as normal salmon, corn that has been genetically modified to have a pesticide grow inside the corn kernel, cats that glow in the dark and goats that produce spider silk.  Those in favor of genetic engineering believe that such advances will help us feed billions more people, enable us to cure a vast array of diseases and will usher in a new age of unprecedented prosperity.  Those against genetic engineering warn that messing with nature could unleash health, environmental and economic nightmares beyond our wildest dreams.  So who is right?

Most Americans spend very little time thinking about genetic modification, but the truth is that this debate if of the utmost importance.  Some believe that improving upon nature is the number one key to a bright economic future, while others warn that messing with nature could not only destroy our economy but also literally destroy the earth.

But right now there are very, very few limits on what scientists can do when it comes to genetic modification, and many of them are running around like “kids is a candy store” modifying anything and everything that they can get their hands on.

The goal for many of these scientists is to produce plants and animals that are bigger, stronger, grow faster, produce more food and generally make life “better” for humanity. 

Most people don’t realize it, but genetic engineering technology is everywhere now.  In fact, you have probably eaten some genetically modified food recently without even knowing it.   

Today approximately 93 percent of all soybeans and approximately 80 percent of all corn in the United States grow from seeds genetically altered according to Monsanto company patents.

The population of the world is projected to hit 9 billion around the middle of this century, and scientists are hoping that further advances in genetic engineering will enable us to feed all those people.

So many researchers are “pushing the envelope” in an effort to create new creatures that can feed as many people as possible.  For example, one team of scientists recently created a genetically modified “monster salmon” which grows three times as fast as normal salmon.

Three times as fast?

That is impressive by any standard.

But are there dangers?

Well, yes.

For example, a stunning new study that was recently published in the International Journal of Biological Sciences has conclusively demonstrated the extreme toxicity of three genetically modified corn varieties produced by Monsanto.

According to the study, each of the three strains of corn tested cause serious problems in the kidneys and the liver.

Perhaps that could help to explain the absolute explosion of kidney disease in the United States.

Not only that, but prison inmates in Illinois are becoming seriously ill from all of the genetically modified soy that they are constantly being fed.

In fact, there are entire websites devoted to documenting the dangers that genetically modified foods pose.

Despite the potential dangers, the U.S. government continues to promote genetically modified crops as the solution to the global food shortage problem.

For example, the U.S. Department of Agriculture is attempting to downplay the risks of genetically modified alfalfa, a crop previously banned by numerous federal courts.

The truth is that the U.S. government is being completely reckless in promoting these genetically modified crops before sufficient research can be performed on them.

You see, once these genetically modified crops get out into the environment they can never be contained.  You can’t put the genie back into the bottle.

A perfect example of this occurred in Europe recently.  A genetically modified variety of maize banned in the EU was accidentally sown all across Germany.  But now that it has gotten out there and started spreading there is no way that it can ever be fully eliminated.

The reality is that we are monkeying around with life itself, and that is a power that we simply do not fully understand.

But as frightening as the genetic modification of our food supply is, what scientists are now doing with animals is even more alarming.

How so?

Well, the Canadian government recently approved the introduction of extremely bizarre genetically modified pigs into the Canadian food supply.  These new mouse/pig cross-species hybrids have been nicknamed “enviropigs” and are being touted as being much better for the environment.  This new “breed” of Yorkshire pigs was created by scientists in Ontario at the University of Guelph, who spliced in genes from mice to decrease the amount of phosphorus produced in their poop.

It all sounds very noble.  After all, who wouldn’t want to do something good for the environment?

But will eating mouse/pig hybrids be good for us?

Millions of Canadians will soon be eating them, and it is anticipated that approval for these “enviropigs” will be sought in the United States as well. 

Are you starting to get the picture?

And sometimes scientists genetically modify animals for no particular good reason at all.

For example, scientists have now created  a cat that actually glows in the dark.

Yes, seriously.

A genetically modified cat created by scientists named Mr. Green Genes was the very first fluorescent cat in the United States.

So does such a “creation” have any legitimate purpose?

Well, perhaps it could serve as a “night light”, but other than that there is no good reason for abusing cats like that.

What in the world are our scientists thinking?

They are pretty much running around doing whatever they want these days.

In fact, creatures that are a lot more frightening than fluorescent cats have already been created.

Have you heard of “spider goats”?

A Canadian company named Nexia is actually producing goats that are genetically modified to be part spider.

The genetic modification causes these “spider goats” to produce spider silk protein in their milk that is collected, purified and spun into incredibly strong fibers.

These fibers are reportedly more durable than Kevlar, more flexible than nylon, and much stronger than steel.

Apparently these fibers have some very valuable industrial and military applications.

Perhaps you have never heard of these spider goats.

Perhaps you are skeptical.

The YouTube video posted below contains a television news report that discusses these “spider goats” and features scientists describing exactly how they create these spider goats and what they are doing with them….

Okay, so they are recklessly genetically modifying plants and animals, but they would never do that to humans, right?

Wrong.

Scientists have begun breeding genetically modified pigs with a goal of providing organs for transplant to humans.  These genetically modified pigs actually have human genes in them

So these pigs are actually part human.

Does the idea of a pig/human hybrid bother you?

Well, perhaps they are being grown in your backyard.  These pig/human hybrids are actually being produced in the state of Missouri.

So could these pig/human cross-species hybrids ever end up in our food supply?

No?

You don’t think that they would ever do that to us?

Don’t be so certain.

The truth is that the FDA has already announced that the offspring of cloned animals could be in our food supply right now and that there is nothing that they can do about it.

Isn’t that comforting?

Science is not just crossing new barriers – they are obliterating them.

Our world is rapidly changing, and new species, new lifeforms and even new diseases are being created at a staggering pace.

Once upon a time, only the most highly advanced scientists in the field of genetic engineering would dare do this type of work, but now even college students are transplanting genes and creating new lifeforms.  In fact, a lot of “synthetic biology” startup companies are “developing” new plants, new animals and even new microorganisms in garages and basements.

So what will the result of all this genetic chaos be?

Will devastating new diseases be unleashed upon the world?

Will creatures that are incredibly dangerous to humanity be created?

Will we destroy entire ecosystems?

Could all of this genetic engineering actually cause massive crop failures and bring about a major worldwide food crisis?

Will we soon have creatures that are part human/part animal running around all over the place?

The truth is that we have entered into unknown territory, and the consequences of our actions could end up being much more severe than we ever thought possible.

So what do you think?

Do you think that genetic engineering will enable us to feed the starving masses, cure cancer and bring in an unprecedented era of economic prosperity?

Or do you think that genetic engineering will devastate our economy, our health and our environment?

Feel free to leave a comment with your opinion….

Who Died And Made BP King Of The Gulf Of Mexico?

There is one question that I would really like an answer to.  Who died and made BP king of the Gulf of Mexico?  In recent weeks, BP has almost seemed more interested in keeping the American people away from the oil spill than in actually cleaning it up.  Journalists are being pushed around and denied access, disaster workers are being intimidated and abused and now BP has even go so far as to hire an army of private mercenaries to enforce their will along the Gulf coast.  Are we suddenly living in occupied Iraq?  How in the world did a foreign oil company get the right to start pointing guns at the American people?  The last time I checked, BP did not own the Gulf of Mexico and did not have the right to tell the American people where they can and cannot go.  The truth is that BP could have avoided all of this by running an open, honest and transparent operation from the start.  They could have welcomed help from all sources, they could have tried to be open with the media, and they could have tried to be fair with the volunteers and rescue workers.  But instead BP has been conducting this whole thing as if we are living in a totalitarian dictatorship and they are the dictators.

Over the last several weeks, members of the mainstream media attempting to cover the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico have been yelled at, harassed, kicked off public beaches and threatened with arrest.  The Obama administration keeps promising “to improve media access”, but so far their promises haven’t seemed to make much difference.  In fact, a recent AP report detailed several recent highly disturbing incidents of journalist intimidation….   

  • On June 5, sheriff’s deputies in Grand Isle threatened an AP photographer with arrest for criminal trespassing after he spoke to BP employees and took pictures of cleanup workers on a public beach.
  • On June 6, an AP reporter was in a boat near an island in Barataria Bay when a man in another boat identifying himself as a U.S. Fish and Wildlife employee ordered the reporter to leave the area. When the reporter asked to see identification, the man refused, saying “My name doesn’t matter, you need to go.”
  • According to a June 10 CNN video, one of the network’s news crews was told by a bird rescue worker that he signed a contract with BP stating that he would not talk to the media. The crew was also turned away by BP contractors working at a bird triage area — despite having permission from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to enter the facility.
  • On June 11 and 12, private security guards patrolling in the Grand Isle area attempted repeatedly to prevent a crew from New Orleans television station WDSU from walking on a public beach and speaking with cleanup workers.
  • But it is not just the media that are being pushed around.  The Louisiana Environmental Action Network is reporting that BP is actually threatening to fire fishermen hired to help with the oil spill cleanup for using respirators and other safety equipment that wasn’t provided by the company.

    Seriously.

    The workers say that they are only using their own safety equipment because BP has not provided what they need.  It is a fact that a large number of rescue workers have already gotten sick enough to be admitted to the hospital, so it certainly makes sense that those working to clean up the oil would want to do whatever they can to stay safe.

    But no, BP has to be a bunch of jerks about the whole thing.

    Even the EPA says that workers need to be careful.  Hugh Kaufman, a senior policy analyst at the EPA’s office of solid waste and emergency response, made the following statement during an interview on Thursday….   

    “There’s no way you can be working in that toxic soup without getting exposures.”

    It’s not just the oil that is the problem.  The chemical dispersants that BP is using in the Gulf are even more toxic than the oil.  In fact, because it is so extremely toxic, the UK’s Marine Management Organization has completely banned Corexit 9500, so if there was a major oil spill in the North Sea, BP would not be able to use it

    But the Obama administration has allowed BP to dump over a million gallons of Corexit 9500, Corexit 9527 and other highly toxic dispersants into the Gulf of Mexico.

    Apparently the truth is that BP would rather disperse the oil so that the spill doesn’t look so bad even if it means creating an ecological disaster of nightmarish proportions.

    You see, these days BP does what it wants, and anyone who doesn’t like it gets pushed out of the way. 

    Monique Harden, the co-director and attorney at the New Orleans-based Advocates for Environmental Human Rights, is so outraged over BP’s behavior that she recently made the following statement….

    “BP should not be running the Gulf region like a prison warden, and we’ve got to stop that.”

    But rather than becoming more open and taking responsibility for their actions, BP has now hired private security contractors to keep the American people away from the oil cleanup sites.

    In other words, BP has brought in a horde of private mercenaries (just like the U.S. uses in Iraq and Afghanistan) to muscle the American people around.

    Yeah, we are really going to appreciate that.

    Doesn’t BP understand that the American people do not respond well to this kind of nonsense?

    In fact, it is being alleged that BP has actually attempted to manipulate the search results on sites like Google and Yahoo.

    They seem absolutely obsessed with controlling what we see and think.

    Perhaps what BP should be obsessed with is stopping the oil from shooting out of the ground.

    Meanwhile, BP execs are busy testifying in front of Congress and making half-hearted apologies. 

    Carl-Henric Svanberg, the BP chairman, has even apologized for referring to those affected by the Gulf of Mexico oil spill as “small people”.

    Isn’t that nice of him?

    While all of this is going on, BP is already trying to ensure that things go their way legally.  Back in May, BP requested that one particular judge be assigned to preside over all lawsuits related to the spill.  Well, it turns out that this particular judge gets tens of thousands of dollars a year in oil royalties and is paid travel expenses to attend oil industry conferences.

    Isn’t that convenient?

    But that is how the game is played these days.

    Meanwhile, the “oil volcano” on the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico continues to pump out a nightmarish amount of oil every single day.  BP is even admitting that oil is escaping from the leak at such high pressure that if they try to cap it the entire well may blow.

    So this crisis may keep getting worse for months.

    By the time this is over, will anything in the Gulf be left alive?

    Even now, hordes of dolphins, fish, sharks, crabs, rays and other sea creatures find themselves trapped between the rapidly advancing oil and the shore.  Unprecedented numbers are showing up just off the Gulf coast in an attempt to escape certain death, but once the oil reaches shore there will be nowhere else for them to go.  The tragedy will be unspeakable.

    Things did not have to turn out this way.  BP and the Obama administration could have done things much differently.  But they didn’t. 

    Now we all have to live with the results.

    16 Burning Questions About The Gulf Of Mexico Oil Spill That We Deserve Some Answers To

    The Gulf of Mexico oil spill is a national nightmare that seems to have no ending.  Every day new details come out that are even more shocking than what we learned the day before.  The truth is that life will never be the same in the Gulf of Mexico or for those who live along the Gulf coast.  Now Barack Obama has made a big Oval Office speech and has tried to convince all of us that he is in charge of the crisis.  Well, perhaps if he had tried to take decisive action a month ago the American people may have rallied around him.  But right now the BP/government response to this disaster remains completely and totally chaotic.  Nobody seems to be able to stop the leak, and BP has made the environmental nightmare far worse by dumping over a million gallons of highly toxic dispersants into the Gulf.  U.S. government officials are running around holding press conferences and waiting for BP to do something.  Meanwhile oil is pouring ashore and toxic gases are being detected at very alarming levels.  The biggest environmental disaster in U.S. history is also quickly becoming one of the biggest economic disasters and potentially one of the biggest public health disasters.   

    The truth is that the American people deserve some answers about what in the world is going on down there in the Gulf.  BP does not own the Gulf of Mexico and they have no right to keep the American people from seeing what is happening.  There are some very serious health and environmental questions that have been raised in the media recently, but both BP and the U.S. government are not giving us any answers. 

    But we need some answers.  People are getting sick.  Crops are dying.  Wildlife is being devastated.  Birds are flocking north by the thousands.

    But BP and the U.S. government continue to treat us as though we are on a “need to know” basis and that what we “need to know” is not much.

    Actually, much of what they have decided to tell us throughout this crisis has turned out to be lies anyway.

    The truth is that it is about darn time that someone started telling it to us straight.  

    The following are 16 questions about the Gulf of Mexico oil spill that we really need some answers to….

    #1) Barack Obama has authorized the deployment of more than 17,000 National Guard members along the Gulf coast to be used “as needed” by state governors.  So what are all of these National Guard troops going to be doing exactly?  Are the troops going to be used to stop the oil or to control the public?

    #2) Barack Obama has also announced the creation of a “Gulf recovery czar” who will be in charge of overseeing the restoration of the Gulf of Mexico region following the oil spill.  So is appointing a “czar” Obama’s idea of taking charge of a situation?

    #3) Because it is so incredibly toxic, the UK’s Marine Management Organization has completely banned Corexit 9500, so if there was a major oil spill in the UK’s North Sea, BP would not be able to use it.  So why is BP being allowed to use Corexit 9500 in the Gulf of Mexico?

    #4) It is being reported that 2.61 parts per million of Corexit 9500 (mixed with oil at a ratio of 1:1o) is lethal to 50% of fish exposed to it within 96 hours.  That means that 1 gallon of Corexit 9500/oil mixture is capable of rendering 383,141 gallons of water highly toxic to fish.  So why was BP allowed to dump 1,021,000 gallons of Corexit 9500 and Corexit 9527 into the Gulf of Mexico, and why aren’t they being stopped from dumping another 805,000 gallons of these dispersants that they have on order into the Gulf?

    #5) If these dispersants are so incredibly toxic to fish, what are they going to do to crops?  What are they going to do to people?

    #6) If the smell of the oil on some Gulf beaches is already so strong that it burns your nostrils, then what in the world is this oil doing to to wildlife that encounter it?

    #7) Is it a bad sign that birds from the Gulf region are flocking north by the thousands?

    #8) Why is BP being allowed to use private security contractors to keep the American people away from the oil cleanup sites?

    #9) Why is BP openly attempting to manipulate the search results on sites like Google and Yahoo? 

    #10) Why has the FAA shut down the airspace above the Gulf of Mexico oil spill?  What don’t they want the American people to see?

    #11) Senator Bill Nelson of Florida says that there are reports that there are additional ruptures in the sea floor from which oil is leaking.  If there are quite a few of these additional ruptures, then how in the world does BP expect to completely stop this oil leak?

    #12) Why are scientists finding concentrations of methane at up to 10,000 times normal background levels in Gulf waters?

    #13) At some testing stations in the Gulf of Mexico, levels of benzene have been detected at over 3000 parts per billion, and levels of hydrogen sulfide have been detected as high as 1192 parts per billion.  Considering that these levels would be highly toxic to humans, why hasn’t the general public been warned?   

    #14) Why are so many Gulf oil spill disaster workers showing up at local hospitals complaining of a “mysterious illness”?

    #15) If “70% or 80%” of the protective booms are doing absolutely nothing at all to stop the oil, then what is going to stop the millions of gallons of oil in the Gulf from eventually reaching shore?

    #16) It is being reported that the deepsea oil plumes are creating huge “dead zones” where all creatures are dying as they are deprived of oxygen.  If this oil spill continues to grow could the vast majority of the Gulf of Mexico become one gigantic “dead zone”?

    ***UPDATE***

    A reader named Stacy has posted a very alarming comment regarding what is happening in her area down in Florida that we wanted to share with everyone….

    We live in the navarre, florida area and in the past week almost every family we know has had vomiting and diarreha. This could just be anecdotal – maybe we just have a stomach bug circulating, but it is strange. We had a huge storm the week before it happened that blew in from the gulf so who knows.

    Also, the city of destin, florida has taken it upon themselves to close the destin pass with their own purchased boom and barges. This is an elite destination and they are not waiting around for bp and their hired prison workers to clean the beaches. Apparently, the coast guard was at the meeting and told the locals that they will face criminal prosecution, but they don’t care. They are protecting their million dollar properties.

    Obama To Use BP Oil Spill As An Opportunity To Push His Economy Killing Climate Change Bill

    Never one to to allow a “good crisis” to go to waste, Barack Obama is pledging to use the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico as an opportunity to push the U.S. Congress to pass his controversial climate bill.  In fact, during a recent interview Obama directly compared the current crisis in the Gulf to 9/11, and indicated that he believed that it would fundamentally change the way that we all look at energy issues from now on.  But the truth is that Obama’s climate bill is the same economy killing legislation that it was before the BP oil spill.  It would still drive gas and electricity prices through the roof, it would still cause large numbers of U.S. businesses to flee overseas, it would still be one of the biggest tax increases in U.S. history and it would still usher in an unprecedented era of climate fascism.  But now thanks to the BP oil spill there is suddenly a lot more momentum in Congress for doing something about energy and about “climate change”.

    Of course the truth is that carbon dioxide is not causing climate change and high levels of carbon dioxide are actually very good for the environment, but reducing carbon emissions has almost become a religion for radical environmentalists, and Barack Obama is absolutely determined to push through his “cap and trade” carbon trading scheme.  In fact, just as 9/11 completely changed the war that Americans viewed the fight against terrorism, Barack Obama sees the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico fundamentally changing the way that Americans see energy issues.  During a recent interview, Obama told Politico columnist Roger Simon the following….

    “In the same way that our view of our vulnerabilities and our foreign policy was shaped profoundly by 9/11, I think this disaster is going to shape how we think about the environment and energy for many years to come.”

    Not only that, but Obama considers it one of his greatest “leadership challenges” to make sure that we all “draw the right lessons” from the BP oil spill…. 

    “One of the biggest leadership challenges for me going forward is going to be to make sure that we draw the right lessons from this disaster.”

    So what are those “right lessons”?

    Well, apparently what we are all supposed to get out of this disaster are the lessons that Obama has been trying to “teach” us all along – that carbon taxes and cap and trade schemes are good for us.

    But Barack Obama is not the only one urging us to learn the “right lessons” from the BP oil spill.

    In a recent interview with ABC News, Microsoft’s Bill Gates also linked the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico with “climate change”.  Gates warned that if we don’t make the necessary changes soon that we will suffer severe consequences….

    “We’ll have more crises like the oil spill and we’ll have the supply disruption. We’ll start to see more and more effects of the climate problem.”

    But would the climate bill that Obama is pushing really save us from “climate change”?

    Of course not.

    But Barack Obama’s climate change bill would do the following things….

    *It would drive gas and electricity prices through the roof.

    *It would crush the already fragile U.S. economy by piling a bunch of new taxes and regulations on U.S. businesses.  Needless to say, large numbers of them would begin looking for greener pastures.

    *It would increase worldwide pollution by forcing companies out of the U.S. and into nations that have no restrictions on pollution whatsoever.

    *When you add up all of the overt and hidden taxes in the bill, it would represent one of the biggest tax increases in U.S. history.

    *Since every action we take involves the production of carbon emissions (including every breath that we take), it would open the door for an era of tyrannical climate fascism where the U.S. government literally monitors every aspect of our lives to make sure that we are being “eco-friendly”.

    But Barack Obama makes this climate bill sound like it is the greatest thing since sliced bread.  In fact, he continues to promise that the number of “green jobs” gained by this bill will far outweigh the number of other jobs lost.

    But is this true?

    Of course not.

    In fact, other countries that have tried a “cap and trade” scheme have experienced disastrous results.  For example, a leaked internal assessment produced by the government of Spain reveals that the “green economy” there has been an absolute economic nightmare for that nation.  Energy prices have skyrocketed in Spain and the new “green economy” in that nation has actually lost more than two jobs for every job that it has created.

    The unemployment rate in Spain is now hovering around 20 percent and the economy there is on the verge of complete and total collapse.  In fact, if the government of Spain does end up defaulting on their debts, it could make the financial crisis that has been unfolding in Greece look like a Sunday picnic.

    It should be obvious to anyone with a brain that a climate bill like the one Spain implemented will devastate the U.S. economy.  But facts haven’t gotten in the way of Barack Obama pushing his agenda before, so why should they now?

    However, it is not just Barack Obama that is pushing an agenda of trying to radically reduce carbon emissions.  All over the world, many of the global elite have joined forces with the radical environmentalists in an effort to “save the world” from the growing “threat” of carbon dioxide.

    And since each person on this planet is a source of constant carbon emissions,  many of those who truly believe in this radical environmental agenda consider the rapidly growing population of the earth to be the number one cause of climate change.

    You see, to those obsessed with “climate change”, just getting corporations around the globe to radically cut carbon emissions is not nearly going to be good enough.  The truth is that they know that in order to get carbon emissions down to where they want them to be, they are going to have to do something about the growing world population.

    To them, in the “war against climate change” anyone who breathes is the enemy.  In fact, according to an official UN report, no human can ever truly be “carbon neutral”.

    So please understand that for those obsessed with climate change, “carbon taxes” and “cap and trade” are just the beginning.  To truly achieve their goals, “one child policies” and “forced abortions” will also be necessary.

    So if Barack Obama does get his climate bill pushed through Congress and it does kill the U.S. economy, that would only be a “first step” for those truly dedicated to the radical environmental agenda.  What they have planned down the road is a whole lot more horrific.

    The Prepper's Cookbook