Free Republic

BioPiracy and Other Myths Saying "Yes Patents on Life" Ronald Bailey Cancun—"No Patents on Life," is one the most frequently heard slogans among anti-globalization activists at the World Trade Organization's 5th Ministerial meeting. It is part of a fierce fight over intellectual property rights. Who has the right to make pharmaceuticals and who has the right to grow genetically enhanced crop plants are hotly in dispute at the WTO conference. "Patenting of life forms must be prohibited in order to preserve biodiversity, food security and indigenous peoples' rights and protect them from corporate grip on genetic resources." declared a...

Poor Substitutes Trade is the way out of poverty Ronald Bailey Cancun—Naked bodies on the beach as a protest against the World Trade Organization greeted me on the front pages of the local papers when I arrived in Cancun. That was the lighter side of the "globalphobics,." as people here in Cancun call the anti-WTO protestors.. Today matters got serious. Poor people, small farmers, campesinos, peasants, and traditional fishers from all over the world were gathered together in a downtown gymnasium this morning to listen to fiery speeches by anti-globalization leaders. They were told by speaker after speaker that...

Cancun Delusions Subsidizing the poor to death Ronald Bailey Cancun, Mexico—The World Trade Organization's fifth ministerial meeting will get under way tomorrow here in this Caribbean resort fringed with white sand beaches. Hopping off of the airplane, I immediately rushed through police blockades to get to the anti-globalization "teach-in" being run by the International Forum on Globalization (IFG). I was anxious to hear what these passionate anti-globalizers would have to say about agricultural subsidies. Why? Because the most important achievement of this WTO ministerial would be substantial progress toward truly free trade in agricultural goods. This is the central...

<p>The two pipe bomb explosions at an Emeryville biotechnology firm last week were part of a surge of extremism by animal rights and environmental militants that activists predict will increase as fringes of the movement grow more frustrated with peaceful protest.</p>

<p>Emeryville -- UPDATE: An animal rights activist group called the Revolutionary Cells took responsibility today for planting a pair of pipe bombs that exploded early Thursday at the Emeryville biotechnology firm Chiron Corp., causing minor damage.</p> <p>In a statement posted on the Web site of Biteback Magazine, the previously unknown group said members had "descended on the animal-killing scum Chiron'' early Thursday. "We left them with a small surprise of two pipe bombs filled with an ammonium nitrate slurry with redundant timers,'' the statement said.</p>

<p>WASHINGTON -- Call it the latest salvo in the SUV wars. The Sierra Club calls it "Hummerdinger."</p> <p>On a new Web site, www.hummerdinger.com, the California-based environmental group attacks the Hummer H2 -- one of the stars in General Motor Corp.'s portfolio of sport utility vehicles -- as a backward-looking behemoth.</p>

The Government's environment watchdog has been investing tens of millions of pounds in oil companies and firms which have been sharply criticised for their records on green issues. The Environment Agency, which is in charge of flood protection, has invested £64m in oil firms which have been condemned for contributing to flooding by causing climate change. Last year the agency's pension fund invested £46m in BP Amoco – its largest holding – and £18m in Shell. Both firms have been fined large sums by the agency for polluting water with petrol or oil products. The watchdog also invested £19m in...

The Bush administration announced last week that it wants to allow aging, coal-fired power plants to upgrade their facilities without installing costly air pollution-control equipment. Environmentalists, politicians from Northeast states and their allies on Capitol Hill and in the media are going nuts. Sen. Edward Markey, D-Mass., said,"the Republicans new motto was to regulate softly and carry a big inhaler." It’s an amusing comment, but the real joke is the notion that the controversy is about clean air and public health -- it’s not. First, the Natural Resources Defense Council, the New York Times and other eco-handwringers gag reflexively on...

WASHINGTON (AP) - The Bush administration is proposing less emphasis on wildlife preservation and other environmental concerns when deciding how much logging or recreation to allow in the 192 million acres of federal forests and grasslands. Officials said Wednesday their intent was to improve the forest management rules approved by the Clinton administration two months before President Bush (news - web sites) took office. Democrats accused the administration of undoing environmental safeguards that protect forests and the wildlife within them. Eight senators and seven House members complained in a letter to Forest Service Chief Dale Bosworth that the new measures...

September 5, 2002 Lame-Duck Sec Gets Enviro-Raspberry Why disappointed ecomaniacs booed Powell By Ronald Bailey Johannesburg—"Shame on Bush," chanted 40 or so "delegates" from Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth as they attempted to disrupt United States Secretary of State Colin Powell's speech at the World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD). For those of us watching the speech in the Summit Media Center, it appeared through the distorted lens of TV as though some of the delegates representing national governments were actually heckling Powell; subsequent checking revealed that the hecklers were ideological environmentalists who had decided in advance they...

THE Earth Summit in Johannesburg approached collapse yesterday when European Union officials walked out of talks after failure to agree with the United States on the 14 pivotal issues, and the coalition of charities involved in the negotiations pulled out. Tempers among delegations were fraying last night, and there was growing speculation that the summit was in peril. Developing nations said that they would prefer not to sign any accord rather than agree to what was on offer. Charities said that the agreement being negotiated was a step backwards, and urged European governments not to sign. After negotiations between officials...

Still wrong after all these years Worldwatch misdiagnoses the planet again by Ronald Bailey The World Summit on Sustainable Development will convene in Johannesburg, South Africa, in September 2002. The World Summit is the 10th anniversary follow-up to the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro in 1992.At the Earth Summit, ideological environmentalism achieved considerable success in advancing its agenda for reshaping the world's economy. That Summit saw the adoption of the Framework Convention on Climate Change (FCCC), the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), and the incorporation of the precautionary principle in international treaties.In the 10 years since the Earth...

Florida growth regulators notified Collier County on Monday that they had signed off on landmark changes to the county's rural growth plan, but opponents are vowing a legal challenge. County commissioners approved new growth rules this summer in response to a 1999 order from Gov. Jeb Bush and the Cabinet that required the county to work with its citizens to come up with better environmental protections for its rural land. The rules apply to some 93,000 acres on the edge of Golden Gate Estates known as the rural fringe. Other changes, still under state review, would apply to almost 200,000...

<p>August 24, 2002 -- Wake up and smell the coffee?</p> <p>Maybe not in Brooklyn.</p> <p>Millions of java addicts think the aroma of freshly roasted coffee is heavenly, but to the City Department of Environmental Protection the "fugitive odors" from a 160-year-old coffee company are unlawful-air contaminants.</p>

Eco-Terror Expert Calls For Inquiry of Green Anarchists Marc Morano, CNSNews.com, Thursday, July 18, 2002 An expert on eco-terrorism is calling on the FBI to investigate an organization that is touting a nationwide tour to "destroy civilization" and raise money for convicted eco-terrorists, but a spokesman for the FBI's Domestic Terrorism Program said the agency is taking a hands-off approach for the time being. The Green Anarchy Tour 2002, currently traveling from Ashland, Ore., to Washington, D.C., advertises its participants as "anarchists," refers to police as "the fascist force we are up against" and calls convicted eco-terrorists "prisoners of war."...

Blessed Are The Poor With SpiritConko and Prakash Article in Tech Central Stationby Gregory Conko and Dr. C.S. Prakash June 25, 2002 This year's UN-sponsored World Food Summit just concluded with a grim reminder that the goal of cutting world hunger in half by 2015 set six years ago at the first Food Summit still seems far out of reach. This time, however, delegates agreed to meet the challenge of achieving genuine food security with a very potent tool: agricultural biotechnology. Biotechnology holds the potential to increase food production, reduce the use of synthetic chemical pesticides, and actually make foods...

Rancher Wins Fight for Rightsby Wayne Hage Rancher Wayne Hage's decade-long struggle for his property rights resulted in a significant victory this year in the United States Court of Federal Claims. On January 29, 2002, the United States Court of Federal Claims handed down a decision promising to have a widespread impact on the debate over western lands and property rights in general. It also has much to do with government accountability and the federal land management agencies that, under the color of law, have been carrying out a campaign of unlawful actions to harass ranchers and drive them...

This week’s eco-horror claim is that the most commonly used herbicide in North America supposedly deforms the sex organs of frogs. "Male frogs exposed to very low doses of a common weed killer can develop multiple sex organs, sometimes male and female, researchers in California have discovered," the Associated Press reported this week. A University of California team led by Dr. Tyrone Hayes reported in the April 16 Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences that concentrations of the herbicide atrazine as small as 0.1 part per billion caused the deformed sex organs. But let’s hold off on worrying about kissing...