The World According to Monsanto

There’s nothing they are leaving untouched: the mustard, the okra, the bringe oil, the rice, the cauliflower. Once they have established the norm: that seed can be owned as their property, royalties can be collected. We will depend on them for every seed we grow of every crop we grow. If they control seed, they control food, they know it – it’s strategic. It’s more powerful than bombs. It’s more powerful than guns. This is the best way to control the populations of the world. The story starts in the White House, where Monsanto often got its way by exerting disproportionate influence over policymakers via the “revolving door”. One example is Michael Taylor, who worked for Monsanto as an attorney before being appointed as deputy commissioner of the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in 1991. While at the FDA, the authority that deals with all US food approvals, Taylor made crucial decisions that led to the approval of GE foods and crops. Then he returned to Monsanto, becoming the company’s vice president for public policy.

Thanks to these intimate links between Monsanto and government agencies, the US adopted GE foods and crops without proper testing, without consumer labeling and in spite of serious questions hanging over their safety. Not coincidentally, Monsanto supplies 90 percent of the GE seeds used by the US market. Monsanto’s long arm stretched so far that, in the early nineties, the US Food and Drugs Agency even ignored warnings of their own scientists, who were cautioning that GE crops could cause negative health effects. Other tactics the company uses to stifle concerns about their products include misleading advertising, bribery and concealing scientific evidence.

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Earthlings

Since we all inhabit the Earth, all of us are considered earthlings. There is no sexism, no racism, or speciesism in the term earthling. It encompasses each and every one of us, warm or cold-blooded, mammal, vertebrae or invertebrate, bird, reptile, amphibian, fish, and human alike. Humans, therefore, being not the only species on this planet, share this world with millions of other living creatures as we all evolved here together. EARTHLINGS is a feature length documentary about humanity’s absolute dependence on animals (for pets, food, clothing, entertainment, and scientific research) but also illustrates our complete disrespect for these so-called “non-human providers.” The film is narrated by Academy Award nominee Joaquin Phoenix (GLADIATOR) and features music by the critically acclaimed platinum artist Moby.

With an in-depth study into pet stores, puppy mills and animals shelters, as well as factory farms, the leather and fur trades, sports and entertainment industries, and finally the medical and scientific profession, EARTHLINGS uses hidden cameras and never before seen footage to chronicle the day-to-day practices of some of the largest industries in the world, all of which rely entirely on animals for profit. Powerful, informative and thought-provoking, EARTHLINGS is by far the most comprehensive documentary ever produced on the correlation between nature, animals, and human economic interests. There are many worthy animal rights films available, but this one transcends the setting. EARTHLINGS cries to be seen. Highly recommended!

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The Story of Stuff

But the truth is, it’s a system in crisis, and the reason it’s a system in crisis is it’s a linear system and we live on a finite planet, and you cannot run a linear system on a finite planet indefinitely. From its extraction through sale, use and disposal, all the stuff in our lives affects communities at home and abroad, yet most of this is hidden from view. The Story of Stuff is a 20-minute, fast-paced, fact-filled look at the underside of our production and consumption patterns.

The Story of Stuff exposes the connections between a huge number of environmental and social issues, and calls us together to create a more sustainable and just world. It’ll teach you something, it’ll make you laugh, and it just may change the way you look at all the stuff in your life forever.

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Global Warming or Global Governance?

They have not established that greenhouse gases are warming the earth. The IPCC is a political organization set up by the United Nations to provide evidence to support the framework convention on climate change, which has been signed by governments; it is entirely political. Interviews of climate scientists and biologists from numerous sources who explain, step by step, why Al Gore and the global warming alarmists are incorrect. In some cases, blatantly so. It also provides evidence that the global warming agenda is being funded with tens of billions of dollars as a mechanism to create global governance. Hear from congressmen, experts and even well-known news broadcasters how global governance puts global institutions that are not accountable to the American people in control of every aspect of our economy. The U.S. government is very close to making this a reality. Very close.

Every American, every citizen of the world, needs to hear the other side of the global warming story.

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Life Running Out Of Control

In the mid 1980s, scientists unlocked the genetic keys to manipulating our world. Suddenly everything seemed possible! There would be no more hunger or malnutrition; diseases would be vanquished and poverty wiped out. But twenty years on the situation looks very different. From the loss of biodiversity to health scares about GM food, the effects of genetic technology are prompting more and more debate. Our documentary this week is an intelligent look at both sides of the issue. Made for ARTE.

Across the world, multinationals like Monsanto are meeting with unexpected resistance to their genetically modified products. But are these concerns justified? Or are activists battling the forces of progress? Renowned filmmakers Bertram Verhaag and Gabriele Krober sets out on a global journey to explore the development of genetic technology. Spanning three continents and beautifully filmed, this high quality doc hears from the scientists, farmers and activists at the heart of the debate.

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Aerosol Crimes (aka Chemtrails)

This documentary produced by chemtrail researcher Clifford Carnicom is a must see and an excellent research tool. Five plus years into the operations has provided ample evidence in this 90min DVD that covers many topics. Over the years aerosol/chemtrail research has provided some leads but even more questions as to who and why the spraying occurs. It is clear jets are deliberately spraying the sky’s and it will not stop until enough people are aware and willing to stand up for the operations exposure and termination.

Contrails can and should form readily in clean, cold, and dry air. Normal clouds, on the other hand, require higher moisture levels and a particulate, or aerosol base, from which to develop. The radical transformation of our sky is a direct result of aircraft activity, now forces us to address an entirely new set of conditions.

Aircraft are now repeatedly dispersing materials into the upper atmosphere at flight altitude, roughly from 35,000 to 40,000 feet. These materials expand rather than evaporate and they usually transform into an unsightful haze that over the recent years has decreased our general visibility down to ground levels. One of the remarkable facts is that this commonly now occurs at various low levels of relative humidity, on the order of 30 to 40 percent, instead of the 70 percent or greater that is associated with cloud formation. And so we know now that these are not clouds in any conventional sense, they are indeed a unique and artificial creation that now crosses new thresholds in the atmospheric and geophysical sciences.

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The Battle of Chernobyl

It’s a documentary which analyzes the Thursday 26th April 1986 that became a momentous date in modern history, when one of the reactors at the Chernobyl nuclear power station in northern Ukraine, exploded. It was the most significant reactor failure in the history of nuclear power, a Maximum Credible Accident (MCA). The plant, just 20 km away from the town center, was made up of four reactor units each generating an output of 1,000 megawatts. The reactor in question exploded due to operational errors and inadequate safety measures and the meltdown was directly linked to routine testing on the reactor unit’s turbine generators.

The test required reactor activity and the thermal reactor output to be run down to a lower level. During the procedure, however, the reactor plummeted to an unexpectedly low and unstable level of activity. At this point, it should have been shut down; as the operators chose to continue with the test, the events subsequently proved to be catastrophic.

More than 200 people died or were seriously injured by radiation exposure immediately after the explosion. 161,000 people had to be evacuated from a 30 kilometer radius of the reactor and 25,000 square km of land were contaminated. As time went on millions of people suffered radiation related health problems such as leukemia and thyroid cancer and around 4,000 people have died as a result of the long-term effects of the accident.

Nobody was prepared for such a crisis. For the next seven months, 500,000 men will wage hand-to-hand combat with an invisible enemy – a ruthless battle that has gone unsung, which claimed thousands of unnamed and now almost forgotten heroes. Yet, it is thanks to these men that the worst was avoided; a second explosion, ten times more powerful than Hiroshima which would have wiped out more than half of Europe. This was kept secret for twenty years by the Soviets and the West alike.

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Patent For A Pig: The Big Business of Genetics

The American biotechnology firm, Monsanto, has applied for a patent for pig breeding in 160 countries. The patent is for specific parts of the genetic material of pigs which Monsanto’s genetic researchers have decoded. If this patent is granted, pig breeding would be possible with the approval of the company.

Farmers and breeders are naturally alarmed because these genes have long existed in the great majority of their pigs. Using DNA tests they can prove that there is no new invention in the patent applications but that, instead, granting this patent would be to allow a part of nature to fall into the hands of a single company.

Monsanto’s influence on the patent offices is huge. If the patent is approved, money will have to be paid to Monsanto for every pig in the world carrying this genetic marker. This has long been the case for certain feedstuffs, such as genetically modified maize. Many farmers in the US have already become dependent on the company.

It is not merely a question of money, however, but also a question of the risk posed to consumers. In America, as in Europe, cases of infertility in animals fed with genetically modified maize are becoming increasingly common. No-one yet knows what effects such products are having on humans.

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The Great Green Smoke Screen

Days after Live Earth partied for the planet, Dispatches reveals how attempts to buy our way out of climate crisis may not be delivering. Channel 4 News’ Science Correspondent Tom Clarke dissects the many ‘solutions’ to global warming – from carbon off-setting to green energy tariffs. Jetting off on holidays and mini-breaks – we’re increasingly turning to off-setting to alleviate our environmental guilt. It’s a boom industry, with dozens of new companies springing up each year to offset everything from weddings to babies’ nappies.

The UK’s biggest players have a collective turn-over in excess of £2m. And now big business is in on the act with Barclays, HSBC and Sky off-setting themselves and Dell and BP selling offsets to their customers. But are offsets really the answer in the fight against global warming? Clarke investigates a number of projects – from tree-planting in the UK to pig manure in Mexico – all of which are supposed to cancel out our carbon footprint. But do these projects stand up to scrutiny?

So what else should consumers consider? Green energy tariffs look appealing, but research commissioned for Dispatches shows they often don’t make a watt of difference. Carbon labelling is being talked up a storm, but scientists tell Dispatches that labelling may not be a credible reality for some time to come. One way of making a difference, Clark discovers, might be to take direct personal action to lower our own carbon emissions. But given the small amount of savings each of us can make as individuals, is that any more than a token gesture?

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Waste = Food

Man is the only creature that produces landfills. Natural resources are being depleted on a rapid scale while production and consumption are rising in na­tions like China and India. The waste production world wide is enormous and if we do not do anything we will soon have turned all our resources into one big messy landfill. But there is hope. The German chemist, Michael Braungart, and the American designer-architect William McDonough are fundamentally changing the way we produce and build. If waste would become food for the biosphere or the technosphere (all the technical products we make), produc­tion and consumption could become beneficial for the planet.

A design and production concept that they call Cradle to Cradle. A concept that is seen as the next industrial revolution. Design every product in such a way that at the end of its lifecycle the component materials become a new resource. Design buildings in such a way that they produce energy and become a friend to the environment.

Large companies like Ford and Nike are working with McDonough and Braun­gart to change their production facilities and their products. They realize that economically seen waste is destruction of capital. You make something with no value. Based on their ideas the Chinese government is working towards a circular economy where Waste = Food. An amazing story that will definitely change your way of thinking about production and consumption

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Natural World – A Farm for the Future

Wildlife film maker Rebecca Hosking investigates how to transform her family’s farm in Devon into a low energy farm for the future, and discovers that nature holds the key.

With her father close to retirement, Rebecca returns to her family’s wildlife-friendly farm in Devon, to become the next generation to farm the land. But last year’s high fuel prices were a wake-up call for Rebecca. Realising that all food production in the UK is completely dependent on abundant cheap fossil fuel, particularly oil, she sets out to discover just how secure this oil supply is.

Alarmed by the answers, she explores ways of farming without using fossil fuel. With the help of pioneering farmers and growers, Rebecca learns that it is actually nature that holds the key to farming in a low-energy future

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Flow – For Love of Water

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Irena Salina’s award-winning documentary investigation into what experts label the most important political and environmental issue of the 21st Century – The World Water Crisis.

Salina builds a case against the growing privatization of the world’s dwindling fresh water supply with an unflinching focus on politics, pollution, human rights, and the emergence of a domineering world water cartel.

Interviews with scientists and activists intelligently reveal the rapidly building crisis, at both the global and human scale, and the film introduces many of the governmental and corporate culprits behind the water grab, while begging the question “CAN ANYONE REALLY OWN WATER?”

Beyond identifying the problem, FLOW also gives viewers a look at the people and institutions providing practical solutions to the water crisis and those developing new technologies, which are fast becoming blueprints for a successful global and economic turnaround.

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We Feed The World

Every day in Vienna the amount of unsold bread sent back to be disposed of is enough to supply Austria’s second-largest city, Graz. Around 350,000 hectares of agricultural land, above all in Latin America, are dedicated to the cultivation of soybeans to feed Austria’s livestock while one quarter of the local population starves. Every European eats ten kilograms a year of artificially irrigated greenhouse vegetables from southern Spain, with water shortages the result.

In We Feed The World, Austrian filmmaker Erwin Wagenhofer traces the origins of the food we eat. His journey takes him to France, Spain, Romania, Switzerland, Brazil and back to Austria. Leading us through the film is an interview with Jean Ziegler, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food.

We Feed The World is a film about food and globalisation, fishermen and farmers, long-distance lorry drivers and high-powered corporate executives, the flow of goods and cash flow–a film about scarcity amid plenty. With its unforgettable images, the film provides insight into the production of our food and answers the question what world hunger has to do with us.

Interviewed are not only fishermen, farmers, agronomists, biologists and the UN’s Jean Ziegler, but also the director of production at Pioneer, the world’s largest seed company, as well as Peter Brabeck, Chairman and CEO of Nestlé International, the largest food company in the world.

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The Slow Poisoning of India

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The Slow Poisoning of India is a 26-minute documentary film directed by Ramesh Menon and produced by the New Delhi-based The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI). It deals with the dangers of excessive use of pesticide in agriculture. India is one of the largest users of pesticide in Asia and also one of the largest manufactures. The toxins have entered into the food chain and into our breakfast, lunch and dinner.

The film showcases startling case studies from Kerala where villagers in Kasaragod district are paying a heavy price as it has been exposed to pesticide spraying for many years. It talks of the health impacts in other parts of India and also on how the magic of the green revolution in Punjab is fading as land and water bodies have been poisoned.

But some farmers are bouncing back into better practices, and this is a silver lining shown towards the end. “Many farmers are now switching from chemcial to organic farming as they see that it is the only way out of getting into a spiralling whirlpool of debt created by the high cost of pesticides. Farmers like Tokia Modu in Warangal are waging a silent biological war against pests and are winning.

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A World Without Water

As less and less water is available, you have yet another problem being added and that is the problem of privatization. There are companies now saying ‘why don’t we bottle it, mine it, divert it, sell it, commodify it.’ That greed of privatization, I believe, will be much worse than climate change and everything else that has left us with the water crisis. The world is running out of its most precious resource. True Vision’s timely film tells of the personal tragedies behind the mounting privatisation of water supplies.

More than a billion people across the globe don’t have access to safe water. Every day 3900 children die as a result of insufficient or unclean water supplies. The situation can only get worse as water gets evermore scarce.

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Global Warming: Doomsday Called Off

In this eye-opening documentary viewers will discover how the most respected researchers from all over the world explode the doom and gloom of global warming. Humans stand accused of having set off a global climate catastrophe by increasing the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

Once all of these satellites were strung together, we could then look at the temperature change overtime, and the strange thing we found is that there is very little change in the global temperature. And this was a surprise because the surface temperature showed an increase, but this bulk of the atmosphere, the real climate system was not. And that then caused us to realize that the human effects of climate are likely not happening the way we think they are.

The prophecy of doom is clear and media pass on the message uncritically. Now serious criticism has arisen from a number of heavyweight independent scientists. They argue that most of the climatic change we have seen is due to natural variations. They also state that if CO2 is to play a role at all -it will be minuscule and not catastrophic! This story presents a series of unbiased scientists as our witnesses. We will hear their eloquent criticism of the IPCC conclusions illustrated by coverage of their research work.

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Bin Wars

Dispatches investigates whether the nation’s anger over fortnightly collections is justified, examining why the changes have been brought about and why they have resulted in a level of protest reminiscent of the petrol crisis of 2001.

Is the reduction in service necessary to improve our recycling rates as the government has claimed? Or are we facing a new threat to our health with mounting piles of rotting rubbish?

Using scientific analysis, this film provides hard facts about the bacteria breeding in our bins and investigates whether fortnightly collections are impacting on vermin populations.

Dispatches travels across the country to meet residents who are so incensed by the reduction in collections and the policing of their rubbish disposal that they are staging a variety of protests, including refusing to pay their council tax.

The film will examine the wider issues surrounding the disposal of rubbish including what happens to recyclable waste recycling rates in the UK and the reliance on landfill sites to deal with our domestic rubbish.

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Satoyama – Japan’s Secret Watergarden

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Each home has a built in pool or water tank that lies partly inside, partly outside its’ walls… A continuous stream of spring water is piped right into a basin, so freshwater is always available. People rinse out pots in the tank and clean their freshly picked vegetables. If they simply pour the food scraps back in the water, they risk polluting the whole village supply. However, carp can scour out even the greasy or burnt pans. They do the washing up in Satoyama villages. This traditional arrangement is called the riverside method. It’s used all over Japan. Cleaned up by the carp, the tank water eventually rejoins the channel.

Imagine a realm where the season’s rhythms rule, where centuries of agriculture and fishing have reshaped the land, yet where people and nature remain in harmony. Sangoro Tanaka lives in just such a paradise. At 83, he’s the guardian of one of Japan’s secret watergardens.

Over a thousand years, towns and villages have developed a unique system to make springs and water part of their homes. From inside their houses, the stream pours into Japan’s largest fresh water lake, near the ancient capital of Kyoto. This is a habitat so precious, the Japanese have a special word for it, satoyama, villages where mountains give way to plains. They are exceptional environments essential to both the people who maintain them and to the wildlife that now share them.

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Poison on the Platter

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Poison on the Platter, is an eye-opening film, made by Mahesh Bhatt and Ajay Kanchan, illustrating how all of our lives are gonna be (adversely) affected by genetically modified foods.

It is no more a farmer’s issue alone, it’s a matter of the consumers’ right to food safety. You and I wouldn’t even be able to separate/choose a normal Brinjal from/over a GM one, if Bt Brinjal – a GM crop produced by the mighty agri-MNC Monsanto – is let through by our corrupt regulatory body.

Let’s put up strong resistance, demanding a ban on GM food/crops for 5 years, until they are proven safe for human consumption by independent, long-term studies.

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The Coconut Revolution

This is the modern-day story of a native peoples remarkable victory over Western Colonial power. A Pacific island rose up in arms against giant mining corporation Rio Tinto Zinc (RTZ) – and won despite a military occupation and blockade. When RTZ decided to step up production at the Panguna Mine on the island of Bougainville, they got more than they bargained for. The islands people had enough of seeing their environment ruined and being treated as pawns by RTZ. RTZ refused to compensate them, so the people decided it was time to put an end to outside interference in the islands affairs. To do this they forcibly closed down the mine.

The Papua New Guinea Army (PNGDF) were mobilised in an attempt to put down the rebellion. The newly formed Bougainville Revolutionary Army (BRA) began the fight with bows & arrows and sticks & stones. Against a heavily armed adversary they still managed to retain control of most of their island. Realising they were beaten on the ground, the PNGDF imposed a gunboat blockade around Bougainville, in an attempt to strangle the BRA into submission. But the blockade seemed to have little or no effect. With no shipments getting in or out of the island, how did new electricity networks spring up in BRA held territory? How were BRA troops able to drive around the island without any source of petrol or diesel?

What was happening within the blockade was an environmental and spiritual revolution. The ruins of the old Panguna mine were being recycled… to supply the raw materials for the worlds first eco-revolution. A David and Goliath story of the 21st century, The Coconut Revolution will appeal to people of all backgrounds.

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