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From the guardian

'Slavery' uncovered on trawlers fishing for Europe

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Shocking evidence of conditions akin to slavery on trawlers that provide fish for European dinner tables has been found in an investigation off the coast of west Africa.

Forced labour and human rights abuses involving African crews have been uncovered on trawlers fishing illegally for the European market by investigators for an environmental campaign group.

The Environmental Justice Foundation found conditions on board including incarceration, violence, withholding of pay, confiscation of documents, confinement on board for months or even years, and lack of clean water.

The EJF found hi-tech vessels operating without appropriate licences in fishing exclusion zones off the coast of Sierra Leone and Guinea over the last four years. The ships involved all carried EU numbers, indicating that they were licensed to import to Europe having theoretically passed strict hygiene standards.

"We didn't set out to look at human rights but rather to tackle the illegal fishing that's decimating fish stocks, but having been on board we have seen conditions that unquestionably meet the UN official definition of forced labour or modern-day slavery," EJF investigator Duncan Copeland said. A report on the abuses is published by the foundation today.

Its photographs and film of the areas in which the crews were working and sleeping show quarters with ceilings less than a metre high where the men cannot stand up. Temperatures in the fish holds on some vessels where men were being required to sort, process and pack fish for lucrative European and Asian markets were 40 to 45 degrees, with no ventilation, On some vessels the crews of up to 200 had little access to clean drinking water.


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From Popular Zcience

Fresher Water Elevated phosphorus levels in water, often traceable to pig-waste runoff, are a major contributor to algal blooms that steal oxygen from fish and render drinking water toxic. Mitch Romanowski This little piggy went to market. This little piggy stayed home. And this little piggy is genetically modified to poop less phosphorus, making it the most environmentally friendly pig in the world.

Like all animals, pigs' cells need phosphorus to make DNA, build cell membranes, and transport energy. But pigs can’t digest phytate, a phosphorus-heavy molecule in grains, so farmers fortify pig feed with pure phosphate or phytase, an enzyme that breaks usable phosphate off phytate. Still, pigs excrete nearly all the phosphorus they eat, and this washes into the ocean, where it feeds bacteria and algae that create oxygen “dead zones,” a major killer of marine wildlife.

The Enviropig is the first swine (a Yorkshire, to be exact) able to digest phytate on its own. The project started a decade ago when Cecil Forsberg, a biologist at the University of Guelph in Ontario, genetically modified pigs so that their salivary glands would secrete phytase. This allows the pigs, now in their eighth generation, to get their phosphate from grains alone, and to excrete about 40 percent less of it. Switching to Enviropig herds will be expensive for farmers, Forsberg says, but in the long run subtracting supplements will save $1.75 per pig annually—a windfall for a 100,000-pig farm. He is currently petitioning the U.S. Department of Agriculture and Health Canada for permission to serve Enviropig meat. “Unfortunately, it is illegal for us to do taste tests at this time, despite the temptation,” he says. “But I expect they’ll taste quite good.”

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FROM NEWS AU 



TINKER with the genetics of salmon and maybe you create a revolutionary new food source that could help the environment and feed the hungry.

Or maybe you're creating what some say is an untested "frankenfish" that could cause unknown allergic reactions and the eventual decimation of the wild salmon population.

The US Food and Drug Administration hears both arguments this week when it begins a two-day meeting on whether to approve the marketing of the genetically engineered fish, which would be the first such animal approved for human consumption.

The agency has already said the salmon, which grows twice as fast as conventional salmon, is as safe to eat as the traditional variety.

Approval of the salmon would open the door for a variety of other genetically engineered animals, including an environmentally friendly pig that is being developed in Canada or cattle that are resistant to mad cow disease.
Read more: http://www.news.com.au/technology/we-can-build-whatever-animal-you-want-to-eat-say-scientists/story-e6frfro0-1225927239022?area=technology#ixzz10tp4e5um
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Watch whole thing HERE
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From PhysOrg

Groundwater depletion rate accelerating worldwide September 23, 2010 Global map of groundwater depletion, measured in cubic meters of water per year.

In recent decades, the rate at which humans worldwide are pumping dry the vast underground stores of water that billions depend on has more than doubled, say scientists who have conducted an unusual, global assessment of groundwater use.

These fast-shrinking subterranean reservoirs are essential to daily life and agriculture in many regions, while also sustaining streams, wetlands, and ecosystems and resisting land subsidence and salt water intrusion into fresh water supplies. Today, people are drawing so much water from below that they are adding enough of it to the oceans (mainly by evaporation, then precipitation) to account for about 25 percent of the annual sea level rise across the planet, the researchers find.

Soaring global groundwater depletion bodes a potential disaster for an increasingly globalized agricultural system, says Marc Bierkens of Utrecht University in Utrecht, the Netherlands, and leader of the new study.

"If you let the population grow by extending the irrigated areas using groundwater that is not being recharged, then you will run into a wall at a certain point in time, and you will have hunger and social unrest to go with it," Bierkens warns. "That is something that you can see coming for miles."

He and his colleagues will publish their new findings in an upcoming issue of Geophysical Research Letters, a journal of the American Geophysical Union.

In the new study, which compares estimates of groundwater added by rain and other sources to the amounts being removed for agriculture and other uses, the team taps a database of global groundwater information including maps of groundwater regions and water demand. The researchers also use models to estimate the rates at which groundwater is both added to aquifers and withdrawn. For instance, to determine groundwater recharging rates, they simulate a groundwater layer beneath two soil layers, exposed at the top to rainfall, evaporation, and other effects, and use 44 years worth of precipitation, temperature, and evaporation data (1958-2001) to drive the model.

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We all remember those kids from Orwell's (BBC/ Zionist propagandist) 1984,  Well... welcome generation Z. 

Of course... the video makes no mention of any members of the oligopoly conducting our fate, just a blanket fuck you to anyone with no power whatsoever (other then their delusional "purchasing power".)

BUT...

Don't throw the baby out with the bathwater though people, the ecological issues are real, but fighting amongst ourselves and ignoring the big guys is exactly what they want us to do.

Just a question though... are they trying to make these videos as Orwellian as possible? I mean... You would think they would realize how it would be received... or maybe I am just giving people too much credit (in the sense that they would notice)?
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Garbage truck cameras give new meaning to trash TV
Tyler Anderson/ National Post

A garbage pile at the Dufferin waste management plant in Toronto. A new monitoring system in Kelowna, B.C., will keep tabs on how residents dispose of their trash

Officials in B.C.'s Okanagan Valley plan to use camera-equipped garbage trucks to film what gets dumped in order to make sure people are recycling properly.

Since the introduction last year of a three-bin system, providing garbage, recycling and yard waste bins, waste contamination has become a big problem, said Peter Rotheisler, manager of waste reduction at the Central Okanagan Regional District. While the system has helped to keep more material out of the landfill, it costs about $300,000 a year to pull out any materials in the wrong place.

The cameras will be able to record what is thrown out so city staff will have proof of bad behaviour.

"We' re not watching people.... We're looking for material types — paper, carboard, garbage — in the wrong spot," Mr. Rotheisler said.

Mixing things like cardboard, batteries or electronics in with the garbage will net a warning from the city, a fine of up to $100, or even the cancelling of curbside pickup, he said.


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