Published by the Center for a New American Dream

November 26
1999
A quarterly report on consumption, quality of life and the environment
No. 9, Fall 1999
Page 3
Letter from Hidden Connections: Crops, Cows, Cola and
Betsy Taylor
the Demise of Diversity
Page 4 By Dave Tilford
Sports for Sale

Page 5 W e know that consumer behavior affects the

environment. We just don’t always know
how. Some choices are obvious (choose a cleaner
Readers Respond
mode of transportation over a gas-guzzling sport
Page 6 utility vehicle and you have a direct, positive impact
on global warming). Other impacts are less easily
Online Discussion:
Kids and demonstrated. Consumer goods come to us via a
Commercialism convoluted global resource network, and the envi-
ronmental histories of the things we buy are
Page 8 not always apparent. The right choice
Goodwill Hunting is sometimes hidden from view.
We must constantly remind our-
Page 10 selves that everything connects back
The Bad, the Good to the planet. Tracing this connection
and the Truly to its point of origin can sometimes
Ridiculous lead to surprising discoveries. It can
also clarify the seemingly muddled
Page 11 choices we must make as we strive to
Buying Green: Milk remain part of an integrated ecologi-
Enviro News cal system—rather than attempt to
terium Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt). Applied externally
in small quantities, Bt is used by organic farmers as a
relatively benign, natural pesticide. When the Bt gene
is spliced into the corn plant, however, the toxin dis-
perses with the corn pollen onto neighboring plants,
including milkweed eaten by monarch caterpillars.
The corn was not bioengi-
neered to kill butterflies. It
was an unforeseen side effect
discovered after the corn was
released into the environment.
Another foreseeable side
effect: Heavy use of the Bt
corn—as well as other genetically-
altered Bt crops on the market, such as
cotton and potatoes—will make organic
application of Bt virtually useless. Over-
dosing on Bt accelerates an evolutionary
process by which only those genetic
strains of pests resistant to the toxin will
ANNA WHITE

live outside of it. survive and breed.

Page 12 Take food for instance. How
Resources would a person know that a can of
cola is tied to the fate of monarch butterflies?
Page 13 Or that a fast-food burger could be instrumental in
Fun Box reducing the genetic diversity of the crops we
depend upon?
Page 14
Take Action Plight of the Butterflies
Monarch butterflies make their annual migration
Page 15
from Mexico to Minnesota through the heart of the
Orwell’s Corner
Midwestern Corn Belt. Last May, the scientific jour-
nal Nature reported that over 20 percent of
American corn fields—including much of the Corn
Belt—are planted in varieties toxic to the butterflies.
This toxicity results from the fact that the corn has
been bioengineered to contain a gene from the bac-
Corn is a major American crop and
U.S.-produced grain helps feed the
world, so the decimation of the monarch popula-
tion may seem a small price to pay. Perhaps the
extinction of a butterfly species is nothing compared
to famine and hunger, but the butterflies may be an
alarm bell—a signal that we are tinkering with a
process we know little about and may not be quali-
fied to govern: the creation and release into the envi-
ronment of dramatically new life forms.
Europeans, in fact, have begun to rebel against
such genetic tinkering. Public opposition to geneti-
cally-altered foods led the European Union to require
labels on all genetically-altered products imported
from the U.S. American corn, in particular, has been
continued on page 2
 Hidden Connections
continued from page 1
singled out by Europeans. According to a recent article in
the New York Times, “There have been virtually no corn
exports from the United States because the genetically-
modified corn cannot be separated from the rest of the
crop, costing American farmers about $200 million a
year.” Some of the largest U.S. exporters have told pro-
ducers they will no longer accept genetically-altered corn
for export.
Within the U.S., the biotech industry vigorously
opposes labeling to identify genetic modifications.
American consumers feel otherwise. A survey of consumers
conducted by a Swiss drug company found that 90 percent
of Americans favored such labels. Half a million people
signed a petition to the Food and Drug Administration
(FDA) demanding mandatory labeling. Meanwhile, the
Center for Food Safety, a nonprofit advocacy group, has
filed a lawsuit against the FDA to reclassify genetic modifi-
cation as an additive that would require labeling.
Tw e n t i e t h C e n t u r y A g r i c u l t u r e :
P r o d u c t i o n Ve r s u s D i v e r s i t y
Transgenics—species altered in the laboratory to con-
tain the genes of unrelated species—are only the latest in a
series of 20th century “miracle” crops developed and mar-
keted partly in response to a burgeoning human popula-
tion. It is indeed critical that food production remain
ahead of population growth, and thanks to some of these
crops, it has. But these modern crops—from early corn
hybrids to Green Revolution wheat and rice varieties to
transgenics—are also responsible for tremendous amounts
of environmental damage. Most of these “high-yields” are
actually “high-responding”—to enormous influxes of pesti-
cides, herbicides, and fertilizers that disrupt ecosystems,
pollute waterways, and cause unsuspecting humans to
Organic Tips
✪ To learn more about genetic engineering, contact the Center for Food
Safety (a project of the International Center for Technology Assessment) at
www.icta.org, or call 202-547-9359.
✪ Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) connects local farmers with
local consumers, helping to develop a regional food supply and stronger local
economy. To find a source for locally-grown produce in your area, check out
the Community Supported Agriculture of North America website at
www.umass.edu/umext/csa, or call 717-264-4141 (ext. 3247).
✪ In the Winter 1998 edition of Enough!, we encouraged you to sign a
petition for mandatory labeling of genetically-engineered foods. It’s not too
late. Call 877-REAL-FOOD, or visit the Mothers for Natural Law website at
www.safe-food.org to sign the petition online.
2 ◆ FALL 1999
ingest chemicals with harmful side effects.
These miracle crops have also undermined their own
genetic base by displacing traditional, genetically-diverse
varieties developed over thousands of years that were used
as the foundations for the high-yield varieties. According
to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization,
75 percent of our agricultural diversity has been lost in the
past century. Farmers’ fields that once harbored genetical-
ly-diverse crops now brim with patented varieties, precisely
tailored and genetically specific. While pests evolve to fig-
ure out these chemically-supported monocultures, breeders
have fewer and fewer places to go for fresh genes. As
demonstrated with Bt corn, looking outside the species for
genetic materials can be risky business.
Losing Contact with Our Life Force
At a recent environmental conference in West Virginia,
the leader of a discussion group on food issues held up an
unopened cola can. He asked if anyone in the group knew
where it came from. He wasn’t asking for the location of
the nearest mini-mart. He wondered if anyone knew the
organic content of this sealed aluminum cylinder.
Opening the can, pouring the dark brown liquid into
a glass, you still couldn’t discern the cola’s organic make-
up. If you read the label, however, you might discover that
a primary ingredient (besides carbonated water) is corn, in
the form of corn syrup. Most likely, the corn came from
the same Midwestern Corn Belt planted in Bt corn. The
average American, according to the authors of Stuff, con-
sumes about 48 pounds of corn syrup a year. We drink
more sodas than we do water from the tap. Corn syrup, in
fact, is the second-largest use of American corn.
The primary consumer of corn in this country?
Livestock. Livestock, mostly cows, eats 60 percent of the
U.S. corn harvest, and 70 percent of the total American
grain harvest (40 percent of the harvest worldwide).
Converting grain to meat is an inefficient use of croplands.
According to Lester Brown in Tough Choices, a 10 percent
reduction in grain-fed livestock consumption by the
world’s affluent would free 64 million tons of grain for
direct human consumption, enough to cover 27 months of
population growth.
Regaining our Hold
So what does this have to do with butterflies? Simply
this: the compromises made to maintain global food secu-
rity might be viewed as a necessary Faustian bargain (sacri-
ficing our genes rather than our souls), but for the fact
that much of current food production represents misdirect-
continued on page 13

Hidden Connections
continued from page 2
ed effort—designed not to improve supplies but to cater
to manufactured wants, like sodas and fast-food burgers.
Some argue that if we lived in closer contact to and with
greater awareness of the food we eat—its origins, its life
cycles, its hidden costs—we would scale back on some of
the more damaging and less logical aspects of modern
agriculture. And we might be less eager to populate the
world’s agricultural fields with life forms ingeniously man-
ufactured, but not fully understood.
We can make better choices. The Consumers Guide to
Effective Environmental Choices, published by the Union
of Concerned Scientists (UCS), is a comprehensive “how
to” guide for consumers looking to reduce their environ-
mental impact. “The production of food for household
consumption is a very significant cause of environmental
problems,” note the authors. Two pieces of advice are
offered: 1) eat less meat; 2) buy certified-organic produce.
According to UCS, “[C]utting the average house-
hold’s meat consumption (both poultry and red meat) in
half and replacing it with the nutritional equivalent of
grains would cut food-related land use and common water
pollution—two of the three most serious environmental
consequences of food production—by 30 percent and 24
percent, respectively.”
On organic farming, UCS explains the difference in
impact and philosophy to modern industrial agriculture:
“Unlike industrial agriculture, which looks at the farm as
an outdoor factory, with inputs entering one end and out-
puts exiting the other, sustainable agriculture views a farm
as an integrated system made up of elements like soil,
plants, insects, and animals. Farmers who take a sustainable
approach reduce or eliminate traditional inputs, such as
pesticides and fertilizers. Rather than concentrate on a sin-
gle crop, they use crop rotations and other adjustments of
the agricultural system to manage problems such as pests,
diseases, and poor soil quality.”
To take advantage of this “integrated system” of
organic agriculture, we must employ the same system in
our own lives. The factory model of farming may boost
production, but it does not examine inputs and outputs,
and does not question the reasons behind the effort.
Boosting production to feed the world is one thing.
Boosting production to feed our appetite for unhealthy
food is quite another. Not only does it lead us away from a
sustainable system of agriculture, it leads us away from a
sustainable relationship with the Earth.
—Dave Tilford is Special Projects Director for the Center for
a New American Dream
FUN MORE FUN, LESS STUFF!
BOX
It’s easy to lose touch with simple
pleasures — like working with your
hands. Creating something from wood
is rewarding and fun!
Cr e a t i ve Ca r v i n g
here’s a timeless art and beauty to the craft of woodworking,
T from a carpenter shaving a plank with two hands, wood curls
feathering to the floor, to the rich gleam and sturdy quality of the
finished product. But today’s manufacturers, in an effort to meet
the surging demand of American consumers, have often forgotten
their legacy of craftsmanship and art, speeding goods off produc-
tion lines that are identical and cheap.
Product quality has also suffered in the modern, frenetic
world. With rock-bottom pricing for many goods, repairing
doesn’t make economic sense, and consumers feel little attach-
ment to the item—making it easier to simply toss in the dump if
it breaks. But there are ways to beat the “buy and chuck” men-
tality. Creating something with your own hands can be a truly
rewarding experience.
Durable, beautiful items can be crafted right at home
through the art of woodworking—using time-honored traditions
like turning, whittling and carving. From the warm, rich hues of
cherry to the clear grains of maple, wood offers a beauty and
function for everyone’s taste and purpose. Wood can be salvaged
from a variety of sites, and more and more places are selling sus-
tainably-harvested, certified wood, which eschews clearcutting and
other destructive forestry practices. Look for logos from the
Forest Stewardship Council, Scientific Certification Systems, or
SmartWood for eco-friendly options, and have fun!
Embracing woodworking doesn’t mean you have to invest in
loads of power tools or fashion a bedroom suite, either. If you’re
new to the art, start out small. How about whittling a custom key
chain? When your friends and relatives are sick of receiving key
chains for their birthdays, maybe you could move on to wooden
spoons. And if you don’t own tools of your own for the project,
you probably have a friend that does. For the woodworking
novice, here are a few resources to get you started.
Basic Bowl Turning, by Judy Ditmer ($12.95), offers tips and more
for beginning woodworkers.
The Woodworking Catalog (www.woodworking.com) features dis-
cussion forums, links to related sites, and an online magazine.
www.sculptor.org/wood.htm offers information on supplies and
links to local carving and wood-sculpting guilds.
—Pete Byer is a Research Associate at the Center for a New
American Dream
FALL 1999 ◆ 1 3