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How Organic is your Organic?

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You pay more for your organic foods.  How certain are you that it is truly organic?

Organic Food Safety: Navigating Labels and Finding Local Sources

Analysis by Dr. Joseph Mercola

August 04, 2024

VIDEO LINK:    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VApvWG9gpk8&t=1341s

STORY AT-A-GLANCE

  • In my interview with organic industry watchdog Mark Kastel, we discuss how the organic food industry has grown significantly, but challenges remain with labeling integrity. Local, direct-from-farmer organics are generally more reliable than large-scale commercial organics sold in supermarkets
  • Imported organic products face issues of fraud and regulatory loopholes. “Group certification” allows large agribusinesses to avoid proper inspection, particularly affecting products like hazelnuts from Turkey
  • Nutritional considerations extend beyond organic certification. Even organic practices may not align with optimal nutrition, as seen in chicken feed choices and the debate between brown and white rice
  • Consumers can find authentic organic products by buying local, using online resources, checking certifier names, and looking for 100% grass fed and finished meat. OrganicEye provides valuable information for making informed choices

The organic food industry has grown tremendously over the past few decades, but concerns remain about the integrity of organic labeling and certification. In my eye-opening interview with organic industry watchdog Mark Kastel, he discusses the challenges facing organic consumers and farmers, offering insights on how to find truly healthy, ethically produced food.

Kastel co-founded The Cornucopia Institute, which celebrates its 20th anniversary in 2024, and is also executive director and founder of OrganicEye. He notes that while the 1990 Organic Foods Production Act was well-intentioned, its implementation has been problematic:1

“Congress, in 1990, passed the organic foods production act. It gave the USDA [U.S. Department of Agriculture] the responsibility to protect industry stakeholders, so farmers, ethical business people and eaters, consumers, protect them from unfair competition and fraud. And the legislation itself is really pretty solid and well-intended.

Unfortunately, like a lot of things that happen, it gets handed over to the bureaucrats in Washington and the political appointees of both parties. Something gets lost in translation.”

Kastel explains that, initially, the USDA was resistant to regulating organic food, viewing it as just a “marketing scheme.” However, as the U.S. organic food industry has grown to $61.7 billion annually,2 large agribusiness corporations have bought out many pioneering organic brands.

This has led to efforts to make organic certification less rigorous and more profitable. Globally, the organic industry is now a $205.9 billion industry, projected to reach a worth of $532.72 billion by 2032.3

The Two Faces of Organic

organic industry structure

According to Kastel, there are essentially two organic labels consumers encounter:

1.Local, direct-from-farmer organics — These include farmers markets, community-supported agriculture (CSAs) and independent local retailers who source directly from farms they know. Kastel states he’s found “virtually no fraud on that local level.”

2.Large-scale commercial organics — This includes major brands sold in supermarkets and big box stores. These products may come from overseas or large industrial operations with less oversight.

The graphic above, created by Phil Howard, a professor with Michigan State University,4 illustrates how big business has taken over many smaller organic brands. “It really is almost every major brand, and it’s very deceptive,” Kastel explains.5

“You’ll never see General Mills on Cascadian Farms breakfast cereals or Muir Glen tomato products, you’ll see Small Planet Foods. Doesn’t that sound nice? But Dean Foods bought the Horizon label that’s now been sold off a couple of different times … Smuckers is a giant. They own Santa Cruz juices and Knudsen juices.”6

Kastel emphasizes the benefits of buying local organic food: “You’re getting food that’s more nutritionally dense, fresher, more flavorful and your dollars stay in your food shed, they’re recirculating … we call this the multiplier effect.”7

The Challenge of Imported Organics

One of the biggest concerns in the organic industry is the integrity of imported organic products. Kastel explains, “We’ve helped break some major import fraud partnering with the Washington Post at one point. We’ve partnered with The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal.”8 He describes two main types of fraud:

1.Outright fraud or “organic alchemy” — Conventional products are relabeled as organic during shipping.

2.Regulatory loopholes — Large industrial farms exploit weak oversight, especially for animal products like dairy.

Kastel is particularly concerned about a practice called “group certification” for imports:9

“Instead of certifying every farm, instead of inspecting every farm, they will allow a group to band together and when that was conceived, even though it was still illegal when it was conceived, it was for very small landholders doing things like bananas, or chocolate or coffee on a half an acre.”

Now, he says, large agribusinesses are using this loophole to avoid proper inspection of their suppliers. Grower/producer groups started out as a way to help small farmers or indigenous groups in developing countries but have morphed to include commercial-scale farms that are escaping USDA oversight.

Only about 2% of the farmers involved in these grower/producer groups are being inspected annually, which means the vast majority — 98% — are not being inspected as frequently, if at all.

“Although almost universally complied with in domestic production, that system has completely broken down for imports,” Kastel said in a news release. “A large percentage of all foreign imports, making up a sizable amount of the organic food Americans eat, are coming from ‘producer groups,’ whose grower-members the USDA has exempted from the requirements to be certified.”10

For instance, an investigation revealed the USDA’s Organic Integrity Database lists no certified organic hazelnut growers in Turkey. Yet, the country is the leading importer of organic hazelnuts into the U.S., at prices close to conventionally grown hazelnuts.11

“We can grow hazelnuts in the U.S.,” Kastel says, “but they can’t compete with hazelnuts from Turkey, which come from these group certifications, where the farms are not even being inspected, and it’s forcing our Oregon nut growers out of business.”12

Nutritional Insights: Beyond the Organic Label

While organic certification is crucial, even organic practices may not always align with optimal nutrition. It’s important to look beyond the organic label to truly understand the health impacts of your food choices. This includes feeding practices, even within organic systems. For instance, feeding grains to chickens is a common practice on organic farms, but the ideal food for them would be insects and bugs.

It can be difficult to find enough insects for this purpose, but many organic farmers supplement with grains that are loaded with damaging omega-6 polyunsaturated fats. Truly health-conscious organic farmers should consider alternatives like sprouted peas or barley, which result in eggs with healthier fat profiles. Ideally, organic standards need to evolve based on our growing understanding of nutrition.

I don’t generally recommend consuming chicken, even if it’s organic and locally produced, due to its typically high linoleic acid content — the result of being fed grains high in omega-6 fatty acids. Ruminants (like cattle and sheep) are a better choice for meat consumption because ruminants have an additional digestive compartment with bacteria that can saturate polyunsaturated fats.

This allows ruminants to eat grains without accumulating high levels of linoleic acid in their tissues. Even a food as seemingly simple as rice has important nuances you should be aware of for optimal health. Kastel mentions eating brown rice, but I recommend white rice instead.

This is because the fiber in brown rice can negatively impact your gut microbiome, especially for people with insulin resistance, which is 99% of the population. Insulin resistance causes mitochondrial dysfunction, decreasing intracellular energy, which then impacts the ability of your gut to stay healthy.

White rice is a healthier option because it lacks the problematic fibers found in brown rice. However, no matter which rice you eat, it should be organic. As Kastel notes, rice cultivation is often chemically intensive. He also points out that both organic and inorganic arsenic can be present in rice, depending on the soil it’s grown in and past agricultural practices in the area.

How to Find Truly Organic Food and Take Control of Your Food Choices

By integrating these nutritional insights with broader discussions about organic certification and farming practices, you can make more informed dietary choices that support both your health and sustainable agricultural systems. The key takeaway is that while organic certification is a valuable starting point, truly health-conscious consumers need to dig deeper to understand the full nutritional impact of their food choices.

Generally, be cautious about embracing trendy alternatives like fake meat and instead focus on whole, organically produced foods. That being said, how can you find authentic organic products?

OrganicEye is an invaluable resource for anyone interested in making healthier food choices and understanding the organic food industry. The website offers a wealth of resources on organic food, farming practices, and industry regulations. Kastel and his team are not selling products; their mission is purely to educate and inform consumers. In addition, Kastel suggests doing the following to find organic, high-quality food:

1.Buy local whenever possible — Farmers markets, CSAs and independent stores that source directly from farms offer the highest integrity.

2.Use online resources — Websites like Local Harvest, Eat Wild and state agriculture department databases can help you locate nearby farms and markets.

3.Check certifier names — Cornucopia Institute plans to publish a list ranking organic certifiers by trustworthiness.

4.Look for 100% grass fed and finished meat — Be wary of misleading “grass fed” claims that don’t guarantee full grass finishing.

While the organic landscape can be confusing and sometimes deceptive, you have the power to make informed choices. By seeking out local sources, understanding labels, and staying informed about industry practices, it’s possible to find truly healthy, ethically produced food.

Take Action to Protect Organic Farmers and US Organics

After OrganicEye backed a federal lawsuit demanding that the USDA discontinue their practice of allowing foreign agribusinesses to inspect their own suppliers (a profound conflict of interest), the industry’s corporate lobby group, the Organic Trade Association (OTA), suggested that, if the USDA loses the lawsuit, they will simply go to Congress and lobby to change the law to legalize “group certification.”

Don’t let that happen! Federal law currently requires every organic farm to be certified and inspected annually by independent, accredited, third-party certifiers — not foreign corporations with a financial interest.

Please click the button below and invest two minutes of your time in sending a personal message directly to your congressperson and two U.S. senators, asking them to respect the spirit and letter of the law protecting organic farmers, ethical businesses and consumers. To leverage your voice even further, please forward and/or share this action alert with your friends, family and business associates on social media.

take action

from:    https://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2024/08/04/organic-food-safety.aspx?ui=f460707c057231d228aac22d51b97f2a8dcffa7b857ec065e5a5bfbcfab498ac&sd=20211017&cid_source=dnl&cid_medium=email&cid_content=art1HL&cid=20240804&foDate=true&mid=DM1611167&rid=89601619

Green Policies – OOPS – Not SO Much

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NASA Scientists: Green Agenda Policies May Be Causing ‘Global Warming’

August 4, 2024 Slay News and Nature 5

NASA scientists published a study in Nature claiming to have discovered the primary cause of (alleged) global warming in the past few years and attributed it to a climate/ green policy that decreased sulfur dioxide emissions. In 2020, the International Maritime Organization forced the sulfur content in shipping fuel to drop from 3.5% to no more than 0.5%. The process involved sulfate particles, formed from sulfur dioxide, which can mix with clouds and make them brighter, reflecting the sun’s rays back into space instead of heating the Earth. With a reduction in sulfur dioxide, there is less cloud brightening. The NASA researchers attribute 80% of recent global warming to the drop in sulfur dioxide emissions.

A group of NASA scientists is raising the alarm after a study found that globalist green agenda policies to supposedly fight “climate change” may actually be causing “global warming.”

The NASA scientists believe that efforts to supposedly cool the Earth, such as Bill Gates’s atmospheric aerosols experiments, are having the reverse effect and are dangerously warming the planet.

For decades, globalists have been promoting conflicting narratives in an effort to use the environment to push the public into accepting a collectivist agenda.

The 1970s saw scientists warning of a coming Ice Age in which “arctic cold and perpetual snow could turn most of the inhabitable portions of our planet into a polar desert.”

 

 

At the end of the twentieth century, it was the alleged threat of the exact opposite – “global warming.”

“Global warming” fear mongering then accompanied government campaigns urging the adoption of new regulations.

Then, at the start of the twenty-first century, when people were not fully embracing the fear of “global warming,” so-called experts ambiguously warned of “climate change.”

“Climate change” would conveniently cover all eventualities, including temperatures that sometimes went down.

This was especially convenient as science has long proven that Earth’s climate has been constantly changing over the last few billion years.

Now, NASA scientists claim to have discovered the primary cause of (alleged) global warming in the past few years: Green agenda “environmental ” policies.

Interestingly, they do not address the controversial question of whether or not global warming is actually occurring.

Specifically, curbs placed on sulfur dioxide emissions in 2020 by the International Maritime Organization (IMO) forced the sulfur content in shipping fuel to drop from 3.5 percent to no more than 0.5 percent.

Sulfur dioxide is one of the gases targeted by green activists as it is considered a pollutant contributing to acid rain as well as various respiratory problems.

Environmentalists appear, however, to have been taken off-guard by one consequence of the drop in atmospheric sulfur dioxide: a potential global increase in temperatures.

In their research paper, the NASA scientists note:

While IMO2020 [the new regulation] is intended to benefit public health by decreasing aerosol loading, this decrease in aerosols can temporarily accelerate global warming by dimming clouds across the global oceans. IMO2020 took effect in a short period of time and likely has global impact.

The process involved sulfate particles, formed from sulfur dioxide, which can mix with clouds and make them brighter.

These bright clouds then reflect some of the sun’s rays back out to space, so that less heat reaches Earth.

The scientists estimate that the drop in sulfur dioxide emissions means fewer bright clouds with the result, they claim, of a doubling (or more) of the warming rate:

Here we estimate the regulation leads to a radiative forcing of +0.2±0.11Wm−2 averaged over the global ocean.

The amount of radiative forcing could lead to a doubling (or more) of the warming rate in the 2020 s compared with the rate since 1980 with strong spatiotemporal heterogeneity.

They claim that we saw this rise in temperatures last year.

They attribute 80 percent of recent global warming to the drop in sulfur dioxide emissions:

The warming effect is consistent with the recent observed strong warming in 2023 and expected to make the 2020s anomalously warm.

The forcing is equivalent in magnitude to 80% of the measured increase in planetary heat uptake since 2020.

The study also mentions the implications for general weather patterns across the globe.

The scientists argue that the issue is making the weather more unstable, particularly this decade:

The radiative forcing also has strong hemispheric contrast, which has important implications for precipitation pattern changes … [and] can create significant perturbations in precipitation patterns.

Had they not been scientists from NASA, the media would probably have ignored the findings.

After all, a single corporate news outlet did not pick up a recent study revealing how carbon dioxide’s current and future impact on global warming is likely zero.

This time around, the study was published in Nature and picked up by no less than 120 news sites.

However, what the mainstream media outlets focused on was a tangential issue raised by the research findings.

The NASA scientists had mentioned in their work a process called marine cloud brightening which Bill Gates is championing.

This involves spraying sea salt into the clouds to create a similar bright-cloud effect to that created by sulfates, possibly cooling the planet.

In response, The Washington Post headlined its article, “Could spraying sea salt into the clouds cool the planet?”

In fact, it dates back to 1990 and has been investigated for almost two decades.

The Post did not make a single reference to the discovery that “carbon emissions” are not, after all, causing temperature increases.

No more did the New York Times, which hid the (partial) results of the study in an obscure paragraph tucked away in an article headlined, “Hanging by a Thread: U.N. Chief Warns of Missing a Key Climate Target.”

In fact, NYT omitted to mention that the study was conducted by NASA scientists, only mentioning that:

Other contributors [to global warming] might stick around for longer. In a study published last week, a team of scientists led by Tianle Yuan, a geophysicist at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, estimated that the planet could be experiencing additional warming right now for a counterintuitive reason: recent regulations that slashed air pollution from ships.

NYT then dashed back to the accepted narrative of normal, everyday human activity being the main driver of alleged “global warming,” stressing that:

To scientists, the foremost driver of warming remains clear: Atmospheric levels of carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide, the three most important human-caused heat-trapping gases, have continued their steady upward climb.

At current rates of emissions, it might only be five or so more years before humans have altered the atmosphere’s chemistry so significantly that it becomes extremely difficult to stop warming from surpassing 1.5 degrees Celsius, scientists have estimated

Evidently, NYT esteems the views of scientists from Imperial College London and other institutes more than the views of researchers from NASA.

Forbes, too, in an article titled, “Shipping Pollution Curbs Made Climate Change Worse, Controversial NASA Study Claims,” quotes random climate scientists who cast doubt on the study’s findings.

Perhaps the most intriguing aspect of the research findings is that they shouldn’t have been news at all.

The effects of sulfates in the atmosphere have been known for decades.

An article dating back to 1999 states:

… the effects of the sulfur dioxide from industry might be countering the greenhouse effect created by carbon dioxide …

When fossil fuels are burned, both carbon dioxide and sulfur dioxide are released.

As demonstrated in the ship tracks study, sulfate particles produced from sulfur dioxide create brighter clouds, which may cool the atmosphere.

Any light that is reflected cannot reach the ground and heat the surface of the Earth.

This means there is less heat for carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases to trap in the atmosphere.

This article was written by NASA scientists.

Today’s NASA scientists suggest in their study that the important question to address now is the “trade-off” between improving air quality and “global warming.”

They also imply that, in the future, scientists should exercise more caution in their efforts to control the climate, given the complex and often contradictory issues involved:

Read full article here…

Study published in Nature:      https://www.nature.com/articles/s43247-024-01442-3

from:  https://needtoknow.news/2024/08/nasa-scientists-green-agenda-policies-may-be-causing-global-warming/

Digital Earth Twin = Real Trouble for All

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‘Digital Twin’ Of Earth Being Created To Predict The Future, Micro-Manage Everything

AUGUST 2, 2024

You can run, but you can not hide. The humongous new AI data centers, satellite networks, ground sensors, cell phones, and all the data on earth will combine to create a “Skynet” scenario to control everything, and all life forms. Driven by a lust to get to “net-zero”, this will far exceed anything related to climate change.

This simulation of satellites has now largely been fulfilled, but plans for more launches are in the works. This blanket of surveillance will monitor every square inch of the planet as systems are layered on. As the industry graphic above depicts, the payload for Technocrats lie in the “interventions.” — Technocracy News & Trends Editor Patrick Wood

By: Frost & Symons via Euronews

How do you know when a small-scale farmer in Africa, Latin America or Asia has sufficiently adapted to longer droughts or shifts in traditional monsoon seasons?

The complexity of this question means it is often left unanswered, with funding for such adaptation in developing countries dropping to around just a quarter of total climate finance provided by developed countries.

Delegates gathering at the Bonn Climate Change Conference to prepare for this year’s UN climate talks will be anticipating such questions, with COP29 already dubbed the “finance COP”.

In Baku, Azerbaijan, later this year, countries are expected to discuss a new climate finance deal after reaching the target of $100 billion (€93.2bn) a year in finance for developing countries two years later than agreed.

Historically low-emitting countries across much of the Global South desperately need more financial support to improve their climate defences across key sectors such as agriculture.

Less than 1% of international climate finance was spent helping smallholder farmers adapt to climate change in 2021, with many forced to spend up to 40% of their own incomes to cope with floods, droughts and crop pests.

However, in addition to more finance, countries across Africa, Asia, and Latin America also need ways of measuring adaptation to direct investments more effectively.

The solution that works already exists

While efforts to transition to sustainable agriculture across Europe have sparked protests among farmers this year, adapting to the evolving impacts of climate change is already a matter of survival for those in the Global South.

One emerging solution is an adaptation index, which scores resilience to climate shocks to highlight where finance for climate adaptation is most needed. Such models can quantify levels of adaptation and preparedness, giving policymakers, development agencies, investors, and donors clear guidance on where and how to invest in adaptation finance.

Water scarcity is the most common climate risk for crop farmers in Guatemala and Honduras across the different commodities.

Adaptation indices, developed at a country or commodity level, complement other work to consolidate climate data and research, such as CGIAR’s Africa Agriculture Adaptation Atlas, which provides interactive data insights and forecasts.

This new methodology is already providing actionable insights to direct adaptation funding and have the best chance of increasing the resilience of some of the world’s most vulnerable communities.

Over the past two years, the first-if-its-kind Adaptation Equivalency Index (AEI) has been developed for Guatemala and Honduras by Heifer International, Conservation International and local partners, supported by the Global Environment Facility. Guatemala and Honduras have both ranked among the top 10 countries most affected by climate change over the past decade, with heavy rains, floods, droughts and hurricanes becoming more frequent and affecting agriculture.

The index ranks the adaptation levels of the countries’ major agricultural commodities: spices, cacao and coffee.

Evidence-based investment means tangible impact

What makes this index novel is that it starts off with the farmers themselves, identifying the real-world climate threats that producers are already experiencing and anticipating, as well as their capacity to adapt.

This work has already uncovered the fact that water scarcity is the most common climate risk for crop farmers in Guatemala and Honduras across the different commodities.

Read full story here…

Sourced from Technocracy News & Trends 

from:    https://www.activistpost.com/2024/08/digital-twin-of-earth-being-created-to-predict-the-future-micro-manage-everything.html

 

Messing With The Climate – What Can Go Wrong???

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Scientists Call for Geoengineering of Glaciers To Address Climate Change

Raw Egg Nationalist | Infowars.com
July 13th 2024, 5:45 am

A new scientific white paper calls for urgent research into geoengineering of glaciers in the Arctic and Antarctic

Geoengineering projects are being pursued across the globe in a bid to tackle climate change

The scientific community should urgently pursue research into geoengineering of glaciers, according to a new scientific white paper.

According to the white paper, research into geoengineering of ice sheets in the Arctic and Antarctic must be undertaken now, before humanity faces a catastrophic rise in sea-levels that could provoke panicked decision-making to halt it.

“Everyone who is a scientist hopes that we don’t have to do this research,” said Douglas MacAyeal, a professor of geophysical sciences and co-author of the paper.

“But we also know that if we don’t think about it, we could be missing an opportunity to help the world in the future.”

The white paper emerged out of two conferences held on geoengineering—deliberate interventions to alter the planet’s climate—at Chicago and Stanford University. The conferences were organized by the newly formed Climate Systems Engineering initiative at UChicago, which “seeks to understand the benefits, risks, and governance of technologies that might reduce the impacts of accumulated greenhouse gases,” according to a press release.

The scientists at the conferences advocated for two major types of geoengineering to be investigated. The first type consists of “curtains” moored on the seabed to prevent warm water from undermining ice shelves. The biggest threat to ice sheets is not warm air, but warm water,

The second type involves attempts to reduce the flow of meltwater streams that run off ice sheets. This could be achieved, for example, by drilling deep into glaciers, either to drain water from the glacier bed and prevent it from affecting the glacier, or to try and freeze the glacier bed artificially.

The report notes that both approaches are totally untested and their advantages and disadvantages, including potentially environmental disruption, are unclear.

The report calls for any investigation into geoengineering solutions to be conducted in an equitable manner, with input from all the world’s nations. This would involve “robust participation of sociologists, humanists, ecologists, community leaders, scientific and engineering governing bodies, international treaty organizations, and other relevant stakeholders in guiding the research.”

Geoengineering has received increasing coverage in the news in recent months, for good and bad reasons.

First, the good. In a welcome development, Tennessee became the first state in the US to ban geoengineering, including attempts to modify the amount of solar radiation reaching the earth, whether by using physical barriers in the high atmosphere, through spreading reflective chemicals in the sky, or by practices like cloud-seeding, which is used to increase the amount of rainfall over a particular area.

Now, the bad. It’s becoming clear that a shift is taking place in the scientific community and government, as the dangers of geoengineering are being reconsidered in light of the supposed “inevitability” of catastrophic climate change. Many influential figures now believe that the massive risks of geoengineering are worth taking, even if they only buy some extra time for even more sweeping changes to the global regime of carbon-emission reduction.

In February, The Wall Street Journal published a detailed report on three ongoing geoengineering projects taking place across the globe, with a mixture of government and private funding.

In Australia, researchers from Southern Cross University are releasing a brine mixture into the sky to create larger, brighter clouds that will reflect more sunlight and reduce local temperatures. The project is funded by the Australian government, universities, and conservation organizations.

In Israel, Stardust Solutions is testing a delivery system to disperse reflective particles at high altitudes, again to reduce solar radiation. The startup is currently testing the system indoors but will move to outdoor tests in the “next few months.”

And in the US, the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute plans to add 6,000 gallons of sodium hydroxide to the ocean off Martha’s Vineyard. They want to produce a “carbon sink” that sucks carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere and into the sea, storing it there. The U.S. government and private sources fund the project. The release of the chemical will require further approval from the Environmental Protection Agency.

Even more worryingly, private companies and individuals are experimenting with geoengineering, without government support or approval. In January 2023, a California startup called Make Sunsets admitted to launching test ballons in Mexico containing sulfur dioxide, a chemical that is of great interest to geoengineers because of its ability to reflect solar radiation in the atmosphere.

Although the test launches were greeted with anger by the scientific community and the Mexican government, the CEO of Make Sunsets, Luke Eisen, was unrepentant, and said that soon his company would start releasing as much sulfur into the atmosphere “as we can get customers to pay us” to release. The startup offers a “cooling credit” system on its website where customers can pay $10 for a gram of sulfur dioxide in a balloon’s payload.

from:    https://www.infowars.com/posts/scientists-call-for-geoengineering-of-glaciers-to-address-climate-change/

Guts and Grains

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The Hidden Harvest: Unveiling the Truth About Grains in Our Food System

Analysis by Ashley Armstrong
  • July 30, 2024
truth about grains in our food system

STORY AT-A-GLANCE

  • “Non-GMO” labeling does not mean chemical-free farming. These crops may still be treated with pesticides and herbicides. Many nonorganic grains are heavily sprayed with toxic pesticides like glyphosate just before harvest, a practice called desiccation
  • A recent study found glyphosate in 44 out of 46 organic and nonorganic gluten-free products tested, with some at alarmingly high levels
  • Glyphosate exposure can disrupt gut health by killing beneficial bacteria and promoting the growth of harmful bacteria. Consuming organic food has been linked to reduced cancer risk, according to a study published in JAMA Internal Medicine
  • The EPA’s acceptable daily intake for glyphosate is 7,000 times higher than European standards, raising concerns about regulatory oversight
  • Supporting organic and regenerative farming practices through consumer choices can help drive positive change in the food system

In an era where health consciousness is at an all-time high, many of us have become increasingly vigilant about the food we consume. We scrutinize labels, opt for organic produce when possible, and make concerted efforts to avoid processed foods. However, there’s a critical aspect of our food system that often flies under the radar … the production and processing of grains.

While many of us strive to make healthier choices, financial constraints often limit our ability to consistently purchase organic produce. (Check out the Environmental Working Group (EWG) “Clean 15,” the 15 produce items that had the lowest levels of pesticide residues, here).

However, when it comes to grains and grain legumes (wheat, oats, chickpeas, and more), the stakes are significantly higher. This overlooked component of our diet may be harboring more dangers than we realize, particularly when it comes to the use of pesticides and herbicides.

Unbeknownst to many consumers, numerous grains are heavily sprayed with toxic pesticides just before harvest, making the sourcing of organic grains, or at least knowing their origin, crucial for our health.

The Non-GMO Misconception

It’s important to note that organic agriculture isn’t without its flaws. While it generally involves fewer synthetic chemicals, some are still permitted. Moreover, organic farming often relies on tillage, a practice that involves mechanically manipulating the soil through plowing or cultivation. This process can be detrimental to soil health, degrading its structure, increasing erosion, and disrupting vital microbial populations.

A common misconception, however, is that “Non-GMO” labeling equates to chemical-free farming. In reality, this label merely indicates that the crops haven’t been genetically modified. It says nothing about the use of pesticides or herbicides during the growing process. This misunderstanding often leads consumers to believe they’re making a healthier choice when, in fact, they may still be exposing themselves to harmful chemicals.

While many people are aware that glyphosate and other toxic herbicides are used to control weeds, fewer realize that these chemicals are also employed as drying agents in some nonorganic farming operations — leading to higher levels of glyphosate in nonorganic products made from oats, wheat and other grains.1

This practice, known as desiccation, involves spraying crops with glyphosate 1 to 2 weeks before harvest to accelerate the drying process, allowing farmers to harvest sooner.2 It’s like giving crops a chemical spa day, except instead of coming out relaxed and rejuvenated, it comes out dead and potentially carcinogenic. Fancy!

The use of glyphosate as a pre-harvest desiccant has seen a dramatic increase in recent years. For example, even though wheat is not a GMO crop, glyphosate use on wheat has skyrocketed by 400% in the past two decades.3 This trend isn’t limited to wheat; it extends to a wide range of grains and legumes, including barley, oats, corn, soy, chickpeas, and more.

The practice of using glyphosate for crop desiccation can be traced back to Scotland in the 1980s. According to Charles Benbrook, Ph.D., farmers there struggled with uneven drying of wheat and barley crops. To solve this problem, they began using glyphosate to kill the crops shortly before harvest, accelerating the drying process.

And thus, the practice of spraying glyphosate on crops before harvest was born, soon spreading to other regions and crops. The use of glyphosate as a pre-harvest desiccant leaves chemical residues that are then processed into our food, significantly increasing our dietary exposure.4 While this practice isn’t universal, it’s particularly common in regions with short growing seasons and wetter harvests.

The Alarming Findings

Recent studies have revealed shocking levels of glyphosate in various grain products.5 The EWG conducted tests on popular breakfast cereals and snacks, finding significant amounts of glyphosate in many samples. The highest level was detected in Quaker Oatmeal Squares Honey Nut, which contained 2,837 parts per billion (ppb) of glyphosate — nearly 18 times the EWG’s benchmark.

Even more concerning, a study from March of this year6 tested 46 samples of organic and nonorganic gluten-free products for glyphosate and other pesticides.

The results were alarming: 44 out of 46 samples tested positive for glyphosate. The highest level was found in Banza Chickpea Pasta, at a staggering 2,693 parts per million (ppm), the highest amount ever recorded in human food by the lab conducting the study! (Also, some of the foods labeled as gluten-free in this study were found to contain gluten.)

banza

While glyphosate has been the focus of much research and public concern, it’s not the only chemical we should be worried about. The same study from March of this year that found high levels of glyphosate also identified 2,4-D, a component of Agent Orange, as the most prevalent pesticide in the samples. Products like King Arthur’s Gluten Free Flour and Milton’s Sea Salt Crackers were found to have the highest levels of pesticides.

Decimation of Our Guts

The health consequences of glyphosate exposure are becoming increasingly clear, with one of the most significant concerns being its impact on our gut microbiome.7

The suffix “-cide” in “herbicide” (and other similar terms like pesticide, fungicide, etc.) comes from the Latin word “caedere,” which means “to kill” or “to cut down.” Therefore, in the context of herbicide, “cide” indicates that the substance is designed to kill.

Glyphosate is designed to kill weeds and microorganisms in the soil, but our digestive systems contain trillions of microorganisms! Studies have shown that glyphosate can hinder the growth of beneficial gut bacteria while promoting the growth of pathogenic bacteria, leading to dysbiosis.8

“Glyphosate residues on food could cause dysbiosis, given that opportunistic pathogens are more resistant to glyphosate compared to commensal bacteria.”9

The Human Microbiome Project found that 732 out of 941 bacteria species in our gut have at least one copy of the gene that glyphosate targets. This means that 55% of our gut bacteria are sensitive to glyphosate, 38% are resistant, and 7% are unclassified.10 The potential for glyphosate to disrupt our gut health is, therefore, significant and concerning!

Regulatory Shortcomings

But don’t worry, folks. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has got our backs. They’ve set the acceptable daily intake of glyphosate in our drinking water at a level that’s only … checks notes … 7,000 times higher than the European standard. Because nothing says “We care about public health” quite like allowing a generous helping of herbicide.

For food, the EPA in the United States has set the Acceptable Daily Intake (ADI) for glyphosate at 1.75 mg/kg body weight/day, which is significantly higher than the standards in Europe (0.5 mg/kg) and Canada (0.3 mg/kg).11 Even more alarming is that these standards only consider direct glyphosate toxicity, completely overlooking its potential impact on gut health.

Adding to the complexity of the issue is what researchers call the “cocktail effect.” While glyphosate is the active ingredient in many herbicides, crops are often treated with a mixture of agrochemicals. The synergistic effects of these chemical combinations are largely unknown and unstudied, particularly concerning their impact on the gut microbiome. This gap in our understanding poses significant risks to human health!

Another often-overlooked aspect of pesticide exposure is the cumulative effect. Even if individual foods contain “safe” levels of pesticides relative to the EPAs standards, regular consumption of multiple foods with residues can lead to a significant total exposure over time. This cumulative effect is rarely considered in regulatory decisions or public health guidelines.

“While glyphosate is the active ingredient, food crops are desiccated with GBH, which contain compounds in addition to glyphosate. Complicating matters further is the fact that most GBH are proprietary and their ingredients and the relative percentages are unknown.

This ambiguity poses a significant challenge for researchers as they do not know what they’re working with, the amount present and the synergistic effects of these chemicals when combined. Additionally, crops are often treated with a proverbial ‘cocktail’ of agrochemicals, including other herbicides, in addition to glyphosate and GBH.

The cytotoxic effects of glyphosate appear to increase when combined with other herbicides, including Paraquat … This synergistic phenomenon suggests that relatively low glyphosate residues within our food supply could have serious consequences when combined with other commonly used agrochemicals.”12

As awareness of glyphosate’s potential harm grows, some farmers are turning to alternative chemicals like Dicamba. However, this shift doesn’t necessarily represent an improvement in terms of health or environmental impact. It merely replaces one potentially harmful chemical with another, perpetuating a cycle of chemical dependency in agriculture.

It’s crucial to understand that the widespread use of toxic chemicals in farming is not the fault of individual farmers, but rather a result of the broken agricultural system shaped by government policies and industry influences over decades. Farmers often find themselves caught in a challenging situation, pressured by economic realities, market demands, and agricultural policies that have long favored high-yield, chemically intensive farming practices.

The current system, largely shaped by government subsidies, research funding priorities, and regulatory frameworks, has created an environment where conventional, chemical-dependent farming is often the most economically viable option for many farmers.

Additionally, years of specialized education and industry messaging (and propaganda) have reinforced these practices, making it difficult for farmers to transition to alternative methods without significant support and systemic change. Many farmers are simply trying to survive in a system that wasn’t designed with long-term environmental and health consequences in mind.

The Way Forward

The prevalence of glyphosate in our food system is alarming, with the chemical even being detected in women’s breast milk,13 indicating its ability to bio-accumulate in the human body.

But we can reduce our exposure significantly by paying attention to where our food comes from (ESPECIALLY when it comes to grains). And the research now supports that reducing consumption of foods high in glyphosate can lead to significant health improvements.

A review conducted by the University of Washington found that agricultural workers who used glyphosate extensively were 41% more likely to develop Non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma during their lifetime compared to those who used it infrequently or not at all.14

Furthermore, a major study published in JAMA Internal Medicine revealed a significant reduction in cancer risk for individuals who consumed a diet rich in organic food.15

Conclusion

While sourcing organic produce isn’t always feasible, it’s crucial for consumers to be more aware of where their grains (wheat, oats, corn, rice, barley, chickpeas, etc.) or grain by-products (bread, baked-goods, cereal, crackers, etc.) come from. Just as many people advocate knowing your meat’s origin, the same principle should apply to grains and cereal crops.

It’s important to further emphasize that simply eliminating soy or wheat from one’s diet and choosing “gluten-free” doesn’t guarantee the elimination of glyphosate exposure, as many other nonorganic crops are desiccated before harvest.

For example, if you were regularly buying the Banza Chickpea pasta because you thought it was a healthier gluten-free option, you were unknowingly significantly increasing your glyphosate exposure.

Now, I know we’ve covered a lot of ground here, and you might be feeling a bit overwhelmed. You might even be eyeing your morning toast with suspicion, wondering if it’s plotting against you!

But remember, knowledge is power! And in this case, it’s the power to make better choices about what you put in your body. This will not be a “top-down” effort, as the government does not put public health first.

Instead, change will be from the “bottom-up” through consumer demand. Since public health is secondary to corporate interests, it is on us as consumers to educate ourselves about these issues, ask questions, and make informed choices about the foods we consume.

Organic is the better option relative to non-GMO for grains. However, the ideal solution would be sourcing from regenerative farms, although these can be harder to find.

Regenerative grain production involves minimal or zero chemical use and instead focuses on building soil health to produce healthy crops. This approach not only reduces chemical exposure but also improves soil health since tillage is not employed.

Supporting organic and regenerative farming practices and demanding transparency in food production from farmers, cooperatives, and food companies are crucial steps towards a healthier food system. It really is on us!

In the end, the question isn’t always just about what we eat, but about how our food is produced. By paying attention to these often-overlooked aspects of our food system, we can take control of our health and contribute to a more sustainable future for agriculture.

You can make a difference by supporting organic and regenerative farmers. Think of it as voting with your fork (or spoon). Every time you choose an organic grain product, you’re essentially voting against the chemical-based conventional farming system.

from:    https://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2024/07/30/truth-about-grains-in-our-food-system.aspx?ui=f460707c057231d228aac22d51b97f2a8dcffa7b857ec065e5a5bfbcfab498ac&sd=20211017&cid_source=dnl&cid_medium=email&cid_content=art1HL&cid=20240730_HL2&foDate=true&mid=DM1608961&rid=85574406

And Now They Are Coming for Beef

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Rancher Sounds Alarm on Mandatory mRNA Vaccines For Meat Supply

Infowars.com
July 13th 2024, 3:20 pm

USDA “did a trial with 500 pigs. Within the first couple of weeks they had about 100 of them die,” says rancher Trevor Cowley.

A rancher is warning of the government’s experimentation with mRNA vaccines on the U.S. meat supply, noting that 25% of the pigs that received the shots have died.

“The USDA came out with a study on pigs because pigs were the first to be trialed with the mRNA vaccines. They did a trial with 500 pigs. Within the first couple of weeks they had about 100 of them die,” rancher Trevor Cowley said on the “Real Business Owners” podcast last month.

“They analyzed the pigs after they had died…They were still finding traces of the vaccine inside the meat,” he added.

Cowley said the government is also using the bird flu outbreak to advocate for injecting beef cattle with more experimental mRNA vaccines.

Cowley also explained that the federal government pushed for mandatory ID chipping of cattle in response to the bird flu outbreak after failing to implement them earlier in the face of massive public outcry.

Watch the full interview:

from:    https://www.infowars.com/posts/rancher-sounds-alarm-on-mandatory-mrna-vaccines-for-meat-supply/
from:    https://www.infowars.com/posts/rancher-sounds-alarm-on-mandatory-mrna-vaccines-for-meat-supply/?__cf_chl_tk=ZdqqGxeRUYL17ORdcyPieXtZ52FBBKJqUlgwuleBYRk-1721844959-0.0.1.1-4138

You Will Be What They Want You To Eat

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Control the Food and you Control the People

by Meryl Nass

July 16, 2024

Dear Friends,

There is an apochryphal phrase that, despite its disputed source, probably everyone can agree with: “Control the Food and You Control the People.”

Our grandparents and great grandparents produced much of their own food in their gardens or on their farms.  Food choices in stores were limited, with little frozen food available and fewer fresh and canned foods for sale.

In 1850, 64% of American workers worked on farms.1 In 1900 there were still 6 million US farms, with an average size of 150 acres.2 By 1920, 30% of US workers still did farm work.3 But after World War 2, the US government adopted policies to reduce the number of farmers and expand the size of farms–for more efficiency, it was said.4 5 6 Today, only 1% of Americans work on farms7 and the number of farms has dropped by 2/3.

Most US farmland belongs to farms that are over 2,000 acres in size, or more than 3 square miles.  But along with efficiency came worsening food quality.  The so-called “Green Revolution” allowed farmers to apply chemical fertilizers, pesticides and herbicides while ignoring the overall fertility, quality and texture of their soils.  Depleted soils subsequently produced less nutritious foods, while accumulating low levels of neurotoxins and carcinogens.

Decades of consolidation of food production, processing and distribution has steadily increased the size and power of a small group of global agricultural corporations. Most of those companies are in turn members of the World Economic Forum (WEF) or its Food Action Alliance, and they are wielding unelected power to influence food production and distribution in the name of climate change, sustainability,8 health, and equity.9

For example, the WEF had this to say about food systems in 2022:

“In the face of volatile global shocks from conflicts such as the war in Ukraine, the COVID-19 pandemic, and extreme weather events, it has become more urgent than ever to transition food systems to a net-zero, nature-positive infrastructure that nourishes and feeds everyone.10

Net zero means “removing an equal amount of CO2 from the atmosphere as we release into it.”11 This has never been accomplished by any food system, and the implications could drastically reduce the food supply–yet it is said to be the reason we must change the way we produce food.

The WEF and other international entities have recently increased the intensity of this concerted push, most visibly in policies targeting the reduction or elimination of livestock and related farming activities.

Climate change as a justification to attack food production

Advocates of climate change urgency have steadily honed their concerns about agriculture. The WEF boldly proclaims:

With the food system responsible for a third of overall global CO2 emissions, attention on ‘climate-beneficial’ foods has been slowly but steadily increasing.

The US EPA disagrees with the WEF that agriculture plays such a large role in global CO2 emissions.12 Nor are the many CO2-lowering effects of regenerative agriculture (like sinking CO2 into the soil from the air) mentioned as offsets.

Organic and regenerative agriculture, in which topsoil is rebuilt through composting, “green manure” plantings that enrich the soil, and good forestry practices, can sequester more CO2 in the soil and trees than is lost through other agricultural processes. These could potentially achieve ‘net zero’– and increase the production of more nutritious foods and healthier soils, but are not being touted as solutions. One must ask then, is the goal really “net-zero” or is there another goal?

Numerous international agencies and NGOs have converged to accuse cows and farming of harming the climate. They offer technological rescues, to be provided by corporate WEF members. These include the United Nations Environment Program and AIM for Climate.

Like carbon dioxide, methane is a greenhouse gas that is said to contribute to global warming. Over 150 nations have signed the “Global Methane Pledge” to reduce methane emissions by 30% by 203013–and some are reducing dairy and beef cows because the gas produced in their intestines contains methane.  (Humans also expel methane.14)  Methane is released naturally from cracks in the earth, as well as from fracking and oil drilling–which were recently shown to release 5x as much methane as earlier estimates suggested.15 But it is the gas produced by cows that is the current target for methane reduction.

Issues that have not been satisfactorily addressed include:

  • whether our methods for measuring temperature in comparison to past decades provide accurate comparative results,
  • how the doomsday targets for temperature and CO2 were arrived at,
  • how members of the IPCC, an unaccountable body responsible for climate targets and projections were selected and retained,
  • since scientists worried about a coming ice age during the 1970s, doesn’t that suggest considerable changes in climate (both up and down) over relatively short periods of time,
  • what is the evidence that increased heat and increased CO2 are dangerous when both contribute to increased growth of plants,
  • while it was claimed that sea level rises would be catastrophic, what we are seeing in fact is evidence of small changes in sea level in both directions.

Health

WHO’s Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus stated that “a transformation of the world’s food systems is needed urgently, based on a One Health approach that protects and promotes the health of humans, animals and the planet.” We all want to protect animals and environment, as well as our own health, but it seems the obvious way to do that is to address the evils of factory farming and excess chemical additives used for crops and livestock, rather than a major transformation of what we eat.  Consuming large amounts of insect proteins, or lab-grown ‘meat,’ for example, will have unpredictable effects on health. Do we really want to perform these experiments on billions of people at once?

“One Health” is also being used as the justification to vaccinate fur farm workers against bird flu in Finland,16 even though there have been no human cases in Finland, the disease does not spread person-to-person, and everyone in the US who has developed bird flu in the past 2 years has had an extremely mild illness: conjunctivitis +/- symptoms of a cold. None were hospitalized or died. The excuse is that vaccinating people will allow continued farming of mink and foxes, which were culled last year due to alleged bird flu infections. Here is how Finland’s health department draws from “One Health” to wordsmith the need to give experimental vaccines, never before tested in humans, to farmworkers in expectation that an outbreak of bird flu might occur:

“This issue must be evaluated within a framework which considers the intricate interplay between the environment, animals, and humans. Recognising this interconnectedness and the vast array of environmental impacts of human activity is crucial, and our protective measures should consider the overarching goal of maintaining and enhancing planetary health.”17

Equity

Equity is repeatedly embraced as the justification to change the way food is allocated. The roster of corporate players at AIM for Climate proclaims “Diversity, gender equity, and inclusion are critical to the success of the mission.”   But real equity is allowing people to choose the food they eat, without interference, rather than restricting populations from accessing the foods they prefer and imposing new foods on them.

Animal Rights

The World Organization for Animal Health (WOAH) joined the plan to balance environmental demands against human needs for food through adherence to the loose “One Health” approach. At the same time, WOAH admits, “More than 75% of the billion people who live on less than $2 per day depend on subsistence farming and raising livestock to survive.”18

The world’s largest food producers, processors, and retail sellers are joined with governments and NGOs through the WHO, UN, WEF, and a plethora of interconnected organizations. Yet all these supposedly charitable organizations have become focused on reducing or eliminating livestock, despite the fact that the poorest peoples as well as the wealthiest rely on livestock for meat, dairy and for enriching the soil. The multinational organizations and food conglomerates want humans to convert to a state-specified diet comprised instead of synthetic meats, insects, and other novel food products manufactured by these companies, which have not previously been known for their concerns about our health.

Many question whether a group of global industrialists and politicians have either the expertise or desire to “improve the state of the world,” but there is no question that the proposed intention is to consolidate and control food production and distribution, thereby improving the state of member corporations’ profits. GMO crops and related chemical applications will be increased under the pretense of climate rescue, and synthetic meats will be favored in government food programs. Even more small farms will be shuttered.

This coordinated justification for global/government food control is presented in the name of sustainability, reducing global temperature, improving animal welfare, nurturing human health, and improving equity. However, there is no evidence it does even one of these things.

We do not intend to allow a small group of globalists to control global food production and thereby achieve control of the population.

This is why Door to Freedom will place a major focus on turning this agenda around. We will encourage government (at all levels) to support small farmers rather than industrial giants, to improve animal husbandry practices, to incentivize enhancing the soil and to achieve a much healthier food supply for all.

Our methods include education, policy development, and working for change at all levels of government.  We will use the same strategy we used to stop the WHO’s agenda.  Basically, once people understand what is happening and what is at stake, they refuse to go along–whether they are citizens or political leaders.

Our first large project will be a 2-day Symposium September 6-7 (online only, and I put in the wrong dates earlier) titled The Attack on Food and Agriculture, 2nd Annual. Please join us, support us, and work with us to heal our food systems and our planet.

My best wishes,

Meryl Nass, MD

  1. https://www.nytimes.com/1988/07/20/us/farm-population-lowest-since-1850-s.html
  2. https://www.census.gov/library/publications/1902/dec/vol-05-agriculture.html
  3. https://www.nytimes.com/1988/07/20/us/farm-population-lowest-since-1850-s.html
  4. https://www.ucsusa.org/resources/bigger-farms-bigger-problems
  5. https://www.agrariantrust.org/blog/butzs-law-of-economics/
  6. https://books.google.com/books?id=oL2v87Rx2QQC&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false
  7. https://usafacts.org/articles/farmer-demographics/
  8. https://www.foodactionalliance.org/home
  9. https://www.foodactionalliance.org/partners
  10. https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2022/02/food-systems-2022-outlook/
  11. https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2021/11/net-zero-emissions-cop26-climate-change/
  12. https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/overview-greenhouse-gases
  13. https://www.globalmethanepledge.org/
  14. https://citizensustainable.com/human-farts/
  15. https://www.npr.org/2022/09/29/1125894105/oil-field-flaring-methane-report
  16. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC11191420/
  17. ibid
  18. https://www.woah.org/en/what-we-do/global-initiatives/one-health/  

from:    https://merylnass.substack.com/p/control-the-food-and-you-control?publication_id=746368&post_id=146736206&isFreemail=true&r=19iztd&triedRedirect=true&utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email

OMG!!!! The Seas AREN’T Rising!!!!

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Shocker: NYT admits the seas only rise in some areas, and islands aren’t disappearing. And the “science” was looking at aerial photos over time. Duh.

Remember when the Maldives govt held a cabinet meeting underwater for publicity?

MERYL NASS
JUL 09, 2024

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2024/06/26/climate/maldives-islands-climate-change.html

On a wisp of land in the Indian Ocean, two hops by plane and one bumpy speedboat ride from the nearest continent, the sublime blue waves lapping at the bone-white sand are just about all that breaks the stillness of a hot, windless afternoon.

The very existence of low-slung tropical islands seems improbable, a glitch. A nearly seamless meeting of land and sea, peeking up like an illusion above the violent oceanic expanse, they are among the most marginal environments humans have ever called home.

And indeed, when the world began paying attention to global warming decades ago, these islands, which form atop coral reefs in clusters called atolls, were quickly identified as some of the first places climate change might ravage in their entirety. As the ice caps melted and the seas crept higher, these accidents of geologic history were bound to be corrected and the tiny islands returned to watery oblivion, probably in this century.

Then, not very long ago, researchers began sifting through aerial images and found something startling. They looked at a couple dozen islands first, then several hundred, and by now close to 1,000. They found that over the past few decades, the islands’ edges had wobbled this way and that, eroding here, building there. By and large, though, their area hadn’t shrunk. In some cases, it was the opposite: They grew. The seas rose, and the islands expanded with them.

Scientists have come to understand some but not all of the reasons for this. Which is why a team of them recently converged in the Maldives, on an island they’d spend weeks outfitting with instruments and sensors and cameras.

They were there to learn more about how the steady collision of blue waves and white sand does surprising and seemingly magical things to coastlines, both destroying land and extending it. Really, though, they were trying to answer a bigger question: If atoll nations aren’t facing certain and imminent erasure, then what are they facing? For having a future is not the same thing as having a secure future.

If, for instance, some of their islands become difficult to live on but others do not, then atoll governments will have to make hard choices about which places to save and which to sacrifice. In the places they save, they will have to plan for the long term about supplying fresh water, about creating jobs, about providing schools and health care and infrastructure. They will have to invent the best future they can with the limited resources they have.

In short, atolls might not be such outliers in this world after all. Look hard enough, and they start to look a lot like everywhere else…

To understand what had happened to the atolls since this acceleration began, two researchers, Arthur Webb and Paul Kench, decided to look down at them from above. The scientists collected aerial photos of 27 Pacific islands from the middle of the 20th century. Then, they compared them to recent satellite images. “I’m not sure we really knew what we would find,” Dr. Kench recalled.

Their findings caused an uproar.

The seas had risen an inch or so each decade, yet the waves had kept piling sediment on the islands’ shores, enough to mean that most of them hadn’t changed much in size. Their position on the reef might have shifted. Their shape might be different. Whatever was going on, it clearly wasn’t as simple as oceans rise, islands wash away.

Dr. Webb and Dr. Kench’s study, which came out in 2010, inspired other scientists to hunt for more old photos and conduct further analysis. The patterns they’ve uncovered in recent years are remarkably consistent across the 1,000 or so islands they’ve studied: Some shrank, others grew. Many, however, were stable. These studies have also added to the intrigue by revealing another pattern: Islands in ocean regions where sea level rise is fastest generally haven’t eroded more than those elsewhere…

from:    https://merylnass.substack.com/p/shocker-nyt-admits-the-seas-only?publication_id=746368&post_id=146418320&isFreemail=true&r=19iztd&triedRedirect=true&utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email

Who Is Pulling the Strings?

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Who is THEY? /Corey Lynn

Good summary of who runs the world with tons of links and references

MERYL NASS
JUL 05, 2024
(Here is the link to the full article at coreysdigs.com)

https://www.coreysdigs.com/global/who-is-they/

Here is just a little bit of this report:

People want names, so let’s start here. This is a big part of the hierarchy, leaving some unknowns hidden behind the Bank for International Settlements (BIS). In Corey Lynn’s 3-part report on Laundering with Immunity, it explains in explicit detail as to how and when BIS came about and how BIS and 63 central banks devised a plan to hold immunities and privileges. Shortly thereafter, in 1945 the UN was manifested by some of the plotters for this grand takeover, and immunities and privileges came right along with it the following day. This was the beginning of the control framework and how they would be able to carry out their agendas while operating entirely outside the law. All arms of the UN have these immunities and can extend them to organizations working with them. Long before the UN being established, the Organization of American States (OAS) was created. They too were the first to receive immunities and privileges, alongside the UN, as they work in conjunction with one another. And, they too can extend these immunities to organizations they work with. In addition to the banks, the UN and OAS, the Global Fund, Gavi, and WEF were also given these immunities, and numerous other key international organizations as well. In total, there are 76 international organizations that hold these immunities and privileges, and that’s on top of BIS and the central banks.

Whereas the UN and OAS hold treaties with a slew of countries giving them ironclad layers of protections, the other international organizations hold immunities, privileges, and headquarters agreements independently with each country who opted to do so, and there are many! The U.S. set the stage for this, doling them out to 76 organizations throughout every presidency except for Trump and Biden.

Read Laundering with Immunity to grasp the full scope of what these immunities and privileges entail. For starters, all of their archives are inviolable, their property and assets are immune from search and seizure, they are exempt from every kind of tax regular people pay, including property taxes, officers and employees are exempt from legal suits, employees and their family members can travel the world without checks from customs, military and police are not allowed to enter their headquarters, and much more.

Once people understand that THIS is the control framework – the structure that was created nearly 80 years ago so that they can operate outside the law and never be held accountable, it’s easy to see how all of the other pieces fall into place.

Who is THEY? That alone is the key list of 76 organizations, BIS, and 63 central banks at the top of the pyramid, bearing in mind there are wealthy, strategic players behind this pyramid whose names we may never know. Those leading these organizations are the key names purposefully put in a position of power to carry out specific agendas. Those key players move around within that group of organizations and sometimes head up affiliated organizations in order to maintain their strategy. Some of those agendas come straight from the pyramid organizations, while others are contracted out to their affiliates at NGOs, corporations, universities, lawmakers, governments, 3-letter agencies, news media, and private equity firms. For example, CIA agents often move into news media positions, FDA directors often move over to big pharma, CDC directors move over to Rockefeller Foundation or Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and so on.

They keep their key players in positions they need them in at specific times and then move them around to other leadership positions when they need certain actions carried out. Jim Yong Kim is a prime example of this, from co-founding Partners in Health to advising the Director-General of the WHO and Director of HIV/AIDS department, then fulfilling outcomes required at Harvard in various positions, on to President of Dartmouth College then to President of the World Bank – coincidentally resigning early in 2019, and now a partner at Global Infrastructure Partners. Kim has been instrumental in nefarious actions in Haiti, the AIDS agenda, vaccines, Covid contact tracing, pressuring countries in order to receive funding from the World Bank, and the climate agenda, and each position was timed right. It is no coincidence that BlackRock is acquiring Global Infrastructure Partners in the 3rd quarter of 2024. You can read more about Jim Yong Kim’s connections and involvement in Corey Lynn’s reports here, here and here. They have done an incredible job trying to bury his childhood and family. CEO of BlackRock, Larry Fink, also went above and beyond to hide his family connections and childhood, with a father who would appear to be a ghost. It’s understandable to want to keep family from the public eye when in high profile positions, but there is far more than meets the eye with these cats.

There are countless smaller companies who have had good intentions to provide great products and services to people or the land, but as they began to grow and gain attention, these corrupt organizations stepped in trying to co-opt them and eventually acquiring them. Whole Foods being gobbled up by Amazon is a good example of this. These organizations, including so-called billionaire philanthropists, are behind every major industry and “reimagining” it to essentially cut out everyone else from financial prosperity so that everyone can fall prey to their planned enslavement system.

Ultimately, Congress needs to revoke these immunities and privileges. Any lawmaker saying that the U.S. needs to defund the WHO (part of the UN) or the UN itself, clearly isn’t aware of this control framework because if they were, they would know that defunding isn’t going to solve anything…

 

 

FROM:  https://merylnass.substack.com/p/who-is-they-corey-lynn?publication_id=746368&post_id=146296117&isFreemail=true&r=19iztd&triedRedirect=true&utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email

What’s in Eggs and Where Can This GO?

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(Hmmmmm — Just thin about the potential of this in terms of eggs we actually eat)

The Incredible, Medical Egg

Genetically modified chickens that produce medicines in their eggs may be the drug factories of the future

BY DAVID BIELLO

The chicken egg has a storied history in medicine. Even today, millions of ordinary fertilized eggs are each punctured with a drill and injected with flu virus to make vaccines. Now, scientists at the same research institute that cloned Dolly the sheep have produced a genetically modified rooster whose female descendants lay eggs that produce medicines in place of a protein in egg whites.

Helen Sang of the Roslin Institute in Edinburgh, Scotland, and her colleagues used lentivirus to introduce a gene into freshly fertilized chicken embryos that trigger the production of various drugs rather than the protein ovalbumin, which normally makes up roughly 54 percent of egg whites. The researchers screened the resultant cockerels for one that produced the new gene in its semen. They then bred him with normal hens to produce a flock of chickens that carried the inserted gene thereby producing medicines in their egg’s whites.m

Tests of the flocks’ eggs showed that they could produce either miR24–a monoclonal antibody used in treating melanoma–or interferon b-1a–an immune system protein used against multiple sclerosis, among other things–depending on which gene was inserted. The chickens produce 15 to 50 micrograms per milliliter of egg white, the researchers found, and though this is not as efficient as the expression of ovalbumin, it is efficient enough to allow for subsequent purification into therapeutic drugs. “We would expect the transgene not to be as efficient as the endogenous gene it was based on as only some of the regulatory elements were used and the transgene may be inserted in the chromosome at a position that does not favor anywhere near maximal expression,” notes Roslin’s Adrian Sherman, who also participated in the research. “I’m sure there is potential for improvement.”

Chicken eggs may prove a better way to producepharmaceuticals than other genetically modified products (such as goat milk) that have been previously explored. Chickens are easy to raise, produce numerous eggs, and are cheap to keep. And, after raising five generations of the modified birds, the researchers have observed no adverse health effects, according to the paper published online January 15 in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA.

Even though the therapeutic proteins worked as intended during in vitro assays, it will be years before the process is ready to be used to produce drugs for human consumption, researchers say. Roslin’s chickens join a similar effort using stem cells developed by Origen Therapeutics. Regardless of which “biofactory” delivers drugs first, a new medicinal use for the venerable egg is now apparent.

from:    https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-incredible-medical-eg/