[Lonergan_l] just data for interpretation--or alarming facts?
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Jaray...@aol.com
Dec 14, 2009, 4:59:30 AM12/14/09
to loner...@skipperweb.org
Some data for interpretation and/or for further FS
dialectical-foundational specifications or action:
1)
____________________________________
Food giant's power tactics
Confidential agreements show tough terms for smaller companies
By CHRISTOPHER LEONARD, Associated Press
Dec. 13, 2009 |
Confidential contracts detailing Monsanto Co.'s business practices reveal
how the world's biggest seed developer is squeezing competitors, controlling
smaller seed companies and protecting its dominance over the
multibillion-dollar market for genetically altered crops, an Associated Press
investigation has found.
With Monsanto's patented genes being inserted into roughly 95 percent of
all soybeans and 80 percent of all corn grown in the U.S., the company also
is using its wide reach to control the ability of new biotech firms to get
wide distribution for their products, according to a review of several
Monsanto licensing agreements and dozens of interviews with seed industry
participants, agriculture and legal experts.
Declining competition in the seed business could lead to price hikes that
ripple out to every family's dinner table. That's because the corn flakes
you had for breakfast, soda you drank at lunch and beef stew you ate for
dinner likely were produced from crops grown with Monsanto's patented genes.
Monsanto's methods are spelled out in a series of confidential commercial
licensing agreements obtained by the AP. The contracts, as long as 30 pages,
include basic terms for the selling of engineered crops resistant to
Monsanto's Roundup herbicide, along with shorter supplementary agreements that
address new Monsanto traits or other contract amendments.
2)
The push for 350: Contradictions and carbon levels
By SETH BORENSTEIN AP Science Writer
As police cracked down on climate protesters, church bells tolled 350 times
Sunday to impress on the U.N. global warming conference a number that is
gaining a following, but is also awash in contradictions.
Conference negotiators went behind closed doors in talks to pin down an
elusive new pact on climate, talks in which the figure 350 looms as a goal for
true believers, but one that appears impossible based on progress so far.
It refers to 350 parts per million of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, the
highest concentration that some leading scientists say the world can
handle without sparking dangerous climate effects.
"It's the most important number in the world," said Bill McKibben, founder
of the environmental activist group 350.org. "It's the line between
habitability on this planet and a really, really desolate future."
Not everyone buys into that. But an entire environmental group has sprung
up around the number, pushing 350 as a goal, sporting it on T-shirts and
flags waved by throngs of protesters that marched to the conference center
over the weekend. About 100 nations at the U.N. climate summit have signed on
to the idea of heading for 350.
Actually, the world has lived with more than 350 for a while.
The last time the Earth had 350 ppm of carbon dioxide in the air was a
generation ago, in the fall of 1989. This year CO2 pushed over the 390 level.
When scientists started measuring carbon dioxide in 1958 it was 315.
END "data"
One possible implication as to "2)": the world is not as safe as it was
when BL was in his heyday. another as to "1)": possible further data for CWL
15, 21.
John
dialectical-foundational specifications or action:
1)
____________________________________
Food giant's power tactics
Confidential agreements show tough terms for smaller companies
By CHRISTOPHER LEONARD, Associated Press
Dec. 13, 2009 |
Confidential contracts detailing Monsanto Co.'s business practices reveal
how the world's biggest seed developer is squeezing competitors, controlling
smaller seed companies and protecting its dominance over the
multibillion-dollar market for genetically altered crops, an Associated Press
investigation has found.
With Monsanto's patented genes being inserted into roughly 95 percent of
all soybeans and 80 percent of all corn grown in the U.S., the company also
is using its wide reach to control the ability of new biotech firms to get
wide distribution for their products, according to a review of several
Monsanto licensing agreements and dozens of interviews with seed industry
participants, agriculture and legal experts.
Declining competition in the seed business could lead to price hikes that
ripple out to every family's dinner table. That's because the corn flakes
you had for breakfast, soda you drank at lunch and beef stew you ate for
dinner likely were produced from crops grown with Monsanto's patented genes.
Monsanto's methods are spelled out in a series of confidential commercial
licensing agreements obtained by the AP. The contracts, as long as 30 pages,
include basic terms for the selling of engineered crops resistant to
Monsanto's Roundup herbicide, along with shorter supplementary agreements that
address new Monsanto traits or other contract amendments.
2)
The push for 350: Contradictions and carbon levels
By SETH BORENSTEIN AP Science Writer
As police cracked down on climate protesters, church bells tolled 350 times
Sunday to impress on the U.N. global warming conference a number that is
gaining a following, but is also awash in contradictions.
Conference negotiators went behind closed doors in talks to pin down an
elusive new pact on climate, talks in which the figure 350 looms as a goal for
true believers, but one that appears impossible based on progress so far.
It refers to 350 parts per million of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, the
highest concentration that some leading scientists say the world can
handle without sparking dangerous climate effects.
"It's the most important number in the world," said Bill McKibben, founder
of the environmental activist group 350.org. "It's the line between
habitability on this planet and a really, really desolate future."
Not everyone buys into that. But an entire environmental group has sprung
up around the number, pushing 350 as a goal, sporting it on T-shirts and
flags waved by throngs of protesters that marched to the conference center
over the weekend. About 100 nations at the U.N. climate summit have signed on
to the idea of heading for 350.
Actually, the world has lived with more than 350 for a while.
The last time the Earth had 350 ppm of carbon dioxide in the air was a
generation ago, in the fall of 1989. This year CO2 pushed over the 390 level.
When scientists started measuring carbon dioxide in 1958 it was 315.
END "data"
One possible implication as to "2)": the world is not as safe as it was
when BL was in his heyday. another as to "1)": possible further data for CWL
15, 21.
John
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