Posted by jamie -
21 May 2009 at 3:35pm -
0 Comments
Mr Potato Head makes an appearance in Amsterdam
It sounds like something that would have appeared on the late, lamented Eurotrash but giant potatoes have been spotted recently cycling through the Netherlands. However, it isn't an offbeat continental cultural outing, but a reminder to the Dutch public about the importance of organic farming and the perils of GM technology.
Posted by jossc -
3 April 2009 at 11:03am -
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Greenpeace China projects a climate change message onto Yong Ding Gate: Beijing, March 23 2009
The latest monthly slideshow of Greenpeace activities around the world has just been published, and it's been a busy time. Lots of action around climate change, as you'd expect, with big events in the US and Brazil, and a symbolic projection onto the Yong Ding gate in Beijing, China.
Posted by jamie -
23 September 2008 at 11:21am -
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Government wonks have once again been druming up support for GM food, the latest tub-thumping courtesy of science minister Ian Pearson. He's been saying that if engineered crops can be demonstrated to alleviate hunger around the world, then the great British public will be only too happy to see them being cultivated in our green and pleasant land as well.
Posted by jamie -
19 February 2008 at 1:00pm -
0 Comments
Yesterday, EU farm ministers voted on whether
to approve the use of new GM crops including a variety of potato developed by
chemical giant BASF. According to Reuters, they failed to reach a consensus
which is good in the sense that the proposed crops weren't approved, but bad
because the decision will now be passed back to the European Commission. The EC
is heavily pro-GM so it's likely that all five crops under consideration will
be approved with a nod and a wink.
Posted by jamie -
15 January 2008 at 4:28pm -
0 Comments
Sacre
bleu. At the end of last week, French president Nicolas Sarkozy took a stand against biotech giant Monsanto and banned a strain of GM maize which has previously been grown by French farmers.
Their MON
810 variety - according to AFP, the only type of GM maize currently being grown
in France - has been withdrawn after a committee of scientists, farmers and
politicians raised doubts over its continued use. Advocating the precautionary
principle, Sarkozy invoked an EU clause to stop Monsanto's maize being grown.
Posted by jamie -
8 January 2008 at 11:25am -
0 Comments
Those pesky biotech companies never give up. After recently spinning the line that GM crops can be used to safeguard food production from the ravages of climate change, their latest wheeze is to try and convince us that GM technology can help reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
Posted by bex -
30 October 2007 at 11:49am -
6 Comments
A tad belated but I just couldn't let this one pass. Last week, these words emerged from France's environmental policymaking forum:
"From now on, every major public project, every public decision will be judged on its effect on climate, and on its carbon cost. Each public decision will be judged on how it affects bio-diversity. The onus won't be on ecological decisions to prove their merit, but on non-ecological projects to prove they can't be done any other way. Non-ecological decisions must be taken as a last resort. It's a total revolution in the way we govern our country."
Posted by jamie -
2 July 2007 at 4:37pm -
0 Comments
With Blair's recent departure, recollections of 1997 in the media have been dominated by two things: his ascension to power and the Spice Girls. On the other side of the world in China, that same year was important for a couple of other reasons. Most famously, the lease ran out on a small but strategic piece of land called Hong Kong and the British Empire lost one of its last outposts as ownership return to the People's Republic of China.
But on that same piece of land, about the same time Chris Patten was bidding a teary farewell, something else significant happened (at least, we like to think it was) - Greenpeace China opened its doors. The importance of this particular office to the organisation can't be underestimated and, as this video shows, many of our campaigns can't help but take China's astonishing economic and social development into account. And with China now possibly the world's biggest emitter of carbon dioxide, the next ten years are going to be even busier over there.