Jennifer Marohasy

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95 Percent Organic

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The Rich

Prince Charles and Camilla visited an organic farm near San Francisco over the weekend, and reader of this blog David Tribe made a few comments about organics on ABC Television Landline over the weekend.

I rather like this extract from the Landline commentary:

PRUE ADAMS: In Australia, there is no doubt organics is catching on among consumers and farmers. Still, it accounts for less than 1 percent of our agricultural output. Proponents point to little government support as one reason for its relatively slow growth.

BERNWARD GEIER: I must say – allow me to be critical for a moment although I’m a guest in your country – compared to other governments, Australia not only can do much more, it has to do much more, otherwise you will be left behind, because other governments have much more understood how important it is to support organic farmers, up to getting votes for doing the right thing because that’s what consumers want.

PRUE ADAMS: The organic sector is still rather a small niche in Australia and that’s where Dr David Tribe says it should stay.

DAVID TRIBE: I think in many areas, in many localities, it’s a great way of producing good quality food for rich people.

Prince Charles is rich enough to not only eat it, but also grow it.

Organic Tolerance

Interestingly under standards set by the National Association for Sustainable Agriculture Australia (NASAA), organic products are allowed 5 percent non-organic material and there are allowances throughout the standards for the use of non-organic inputs where it can be established that organic alternatives are not available.

GM Tolerance

But the organic growers want zero tolerance for genetically modified crops:

“Contamination of organic grain production is a very real possibility in Australia with this latest announcement. While the loss of premiums due to GM contamination might be arguable with conventional grains, it is a major reality with organic grains where premiums can be up to 100 precent above conventional prices.

BFA & ACO believe as a minimum that State Governments should:

1. Indemnify growers against loss of premium, cost of testing, liability for contamination costs down the supply chain

2. Introduce legislation to make seed companies strictly liable for any future sale or planting of contaminated seed

3. Seek to recover the cost of the contamination identified in Australia this year from the Seed Company(s) concerned

4. Reject any calls for pro GM industry groups to legalise contamination of up to 0.9 percent.”

In summary, organic can be only 95 percent pure, but a 0.9 percent contamination with GM is unacceptable?

Strict Liability

The Network of Concerned Farmers and organic growers have advocated the introduction of a ‘strict liability’ regime for GM crops. Mark Barber has just authored a significant report for Acil Tasman titled Managing genetically modified crops in Australia.

Barber makes the following comments concerning ‘strict liability’:

The Australian Government has chosen not to implement a strict liability regime for possible damage caused by GM organisms, and nor have the United States, New Zealand, Canadian or United Kingdom Governments.

Even so, the courts may be asked to consider the application of the principle of strict liability by a plaintiff. Strict liability is a tortious common law principle which imposes liability at law to a third party for the actions of another party, without proof of fault in their own actions. In other words, strict liability is liability regardless of fault, rather than without fault. The doctrine relates predominantly to matters of public and/or social policy importance. Its intention is to provide a safety net for compensation of activities, particularly those considered hazardous and inherently dangerous.

However, a former Chief Justice of the High Court of Australia, after
discussing a range of case law, concluded that the doctrine has “no place in Australian law”.

The Australian courts resistance to strict liability is also partly explained by the difficulty the courts may face in defining what an extra-hazardous activity is.

Defining GM crops as extra-hazardous would mean that the courts are over turning the OGTR [Office of Gene Technology Regulator] approval process.

In the US ‘there is no strict liability for harm caused by an abnormally dangerous activity if the harm would not have resulted but for the abnormally sensitive character of the plaintiff’s activity (Kershen 2002): it is reasonable to assume that this concept would be also be considered by the courts in Australia.

It may be difficult for the organics industry to claim damages under ‘strict liability’ on the basis that GM crops are ‘hazardous and inherently dangerous’ as it would be difficult to establish that these farmers’ tolerance of GM crops was not abnormally sensitive, given that other areas of their activities allow quite generous tolerances of the use of non-organic inputs in comparison.

Is GM Different?

According to Mark Barber:

The Australian Trade Practices Act, 1974 has little concern with the actions of farmers growing GM crops per se or with AP [adventitious presence*] tolerances, other than ensuring that farmers (or any other parties) deal with each other in a truthful and honest manner. The Act does become relevant when a specified claim (whether non-GM, GM-free or organic) by sellers is found to be misleading or deceptive, just as in any other commercial situation.

Marketing claims by sellers have to be able to be substantiated by an assurance or identity preservation system. This is why, for example, NASAA emphasises that organic production relates to a set of production standards, not product standards:
‘Organic products shall not be labelled as GMO free in the context of this Standard. Any reference to genetic engineering on product labels shall be limited to the production and processing methods themselves having not used GMOs.’

In any event, a claim that a product is GM-free, non-GM or organic would only be made when there is a clear economic incentive. However, as noted earlier, most analysis conducted on the impact of GM crops in Australia has concluded that there are few price premiums available in conventional markets for non-GM crops proven to be free of co-mingling with GM product.”

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* Inadvertent mixing of one grain with another is often referred to as ‘adventitious presence’.

The Cost of Kyoto or Coarse Language

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I’ve just received a few useful links.

The first email reads:

“Well, easy to see why Blair has done a U-turn on Kyoto if you read the following:

http://www.prnewswire.co.uk/cgi/news/release?id=157608

and this, too, is a good summary:

http://www.spiked-online.com/Printable/0000000CAE28.htm

But what still just astonishes me is that reality is only setting in NOW, in 2005. Sensible, balanced commentators were predicting all these costs at least 5 years ago, but the Kyoto juggernaut just rolled on nevertheless.”

And I have previously posted on the cost to New Zealand here, https://jennifermarohasy.com.dev.internet-thinking.com.au/blog/archives/000674.html .

Then I received something from a member of generation Y. The following link, also with future projections, is good fun if you don’t mind advertisements and some coarse language: http://www.funnyjunk.com/pages/world.htm .

Why Ban the Plastic Bag?

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In Australia good people now carry green bags to the supermarket and come away with their groceries in the green bags – rather than plastic bags.

I inspected my ‘Go Green’ bags this evening and found they are all made in China from polypropylene.

I googled ‘Go Green’ and discovered that 10c of every Go Green Bag is donated to the go Green Environment Fund which supports initiatives of Clean Up Australia, Landcare and Planet Ark. I wonder how much these charities will make this year out of the initiative?

There is a global campaign against plastic bags that seems to be really gathering momentum. I have learnt from WorldWatch that:

“Plastic bags start as crude oil, natural gas, or other petrochemical derivatives, which are transformed into chains of hydrogen and carbon molecules known as polymers or polymer resin.

The first plastic ‘baggies’ for bread, sandwiches, fruits, and vegetables were introduced in the United States in 1957.

In January 2002, the South African government required manufacturers to make plastic bags more durable and more expensive to discourage their disposal-prompting a 90-percent reduction in use.

Ireland instituted a 15c-per-bag tax in March 2002, which led to a 95-percent reduction in use.

In the early 1990s, the Ladakh Women’s Alliance and other citizens groups led a successful campaign to ban plastic bags in that Indian province, where the first of May is now celebrated as Plastic Ban Day. Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the Philippines, Taiwan, and the United Kingdom also have plans to ban or tax plastic bags.

Supermarkets around the world are voluntarily encouraging shoppers to forgo plastic bags-or to bring their own bags-by offering a small per-bag refund or charging extra for plastic.”

This is all very interesting information. But I am also keen to understand the extent of the environmental harm caused by plastic bags and the overall environmental benefit in switching to, for example, ‘Go Green’ bags.

Can someone provide me with some links or references?

I am particularly interested in any studies that quantify the impact of plastic bag use on the environment and the benefits of switching away from plastic bans?

Tony Blair Abandons Kyoto – Again

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Earlier in the week British Prime Minister Tony Blair addressed a conference which took place under the climate change agreement reached at the recent meeting of the G8* in Gleneagles, Scotland. This weeks meeting included energy and environment ministers from the G8 and also Australia, China, India, Brazil, Mexico and South Africa and senior official from United Nations organizations including the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

Tony Blair, once a champion of the Kyoto Protocol, seems to be increasingly acknowledging that the future lies less with the target-based approach to cutting greenhouse gas emissions, and more with promoting economic growth and encouraging the private sector to develop low carbon technologies.

Amongst other things, the conference delegates discussed:
1. The need to promote wider access to cleaner energy technologies and accelerate deployment,
2. That there is no shortage of appropriate technologies… the challenge is to create the incentives for private sector investment, and
3. The need for appropriate frameworks to provide incentives in R&D for the next generation of clean energy technologies, and to overcome the “valley of death” in which promising new technologies fail to achieve their commercial potential.

The Guardian has suggested this “undermines more than 15 years of climate change negotiations” and the same newspaper quotes Tony Juniper from Friends of the Earth commenting that “His [Tony Blair] role is pivotal. He’s the only leader who’s pushing climate change as an issue that has to be dealt with. So what he says is going to carry particular weight and he’s basically just rewritten the history of climate change politics.”

Australia and the US have refused to ratify Kyoto on the basis it will be very damaging economically while achieving very little in terms of reducing atmospheric carbon dioxide levels – China and India have ratified but are exempt.

Blair and the conference delegates appear to have really just built on the policy change articulated at the Gleneagles meeting held in Scotland early in July.

Interestingly this approach mirrors that proposed by the Asia-Pacific Partnership on Clean Development and Climate which was announced in Laos in late July at the Association of South East Asian Nations regional summit.

This group, comprising Australia, China, India, Japan, South Korea and the United States – which together account for nearly half of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions – propose to:
1. Develop, deploy and transfer existing and emerging clean technology,
2. Explore technologies such as clean coal, nuclear power and carbon capture,
3. Involve the private sector.

The Clean Development Partnership group was to meet in Adelaide this month but the meeting has been postponed.

While the US and Australia have been ostracized for not signing Kyoto, it seems we may have been right all along to not go down that blind alley which is perhaps Kyoto.

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*The G8 has its roots in the 1973 oil crisis and subsequent global recession. In 1975, the French invited the heads of state of six major industralized democracies to a summit. The participants agreed to an annual meeting organized under a rotating presidency, forming what was dubbed the Group of Six (G6) consisting of France, West Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States. At the subsequent annual summit in Puerto Rico, it became the Group of Seven (G7) when Canada joined. In 1991, following the end of the Cold War, the USSR (now Russia) began meeting with the G7 after the main summit – making 8. (adapted from Wikipedia)

Don’t Shoot Me

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Here’s another photograph from my trip to the Northern Territory of Australia (NT), view image (90KB). This crocodile had just snatched a barramundi for afternoon tea.

There was much talk in the NT about federal Environment Minister Ian Campbell’s decision to not support safari hunting of crocodiles.

Federal government approval is needed for the export of skins and heads. Of the 600 crocodiles culled each year, the NT government wants to let 25 be shot by overseas tourists who would apparently be willing to pay $10,000 for the privilege to shoot a croc – as long as they can take the head and skins home with them.

The Minister has said “No” on the basis that such a plan would send the wrong signal to the world, like that we don’t care about our wildlife.

I have been re-reading ‘At the hand of man: Perils and hope for Africa’s wildlife’ by Raymond Bonner (Alfred A. Knopf, New York 1993). Bonner writes about the early history of WWF and other conservation groups that have their origins in Africa in the 1950s and 1960s. WWF was launched in Tanzania in 1961. The panda symbol was just a symbol, that animal chosen in large part because it reproduced well in black and white. The African Wildlife Leadership Foundation (now known as the African Wildlife Foundation) was also founded in 1961 and by rich Europeans and Americans who were avid big-game hunters. They loved the big animals and wanted them protected, including so they could shot them.

For example, according to Bonner, Russel E. Train was an American tax court judge and avid big-game hunter, founder of the African Wildlife Foundation, first chairman of the White House Council on Environmental Quality, has been head of the Environmental Protection Agency and in the early 1990s was chairman of WWF in the United States.

WWF now supports a Russel E. Train Conservation Program.

I guess the point I am wanting to make, is that at least historically, safari hunting has been synonymous with conservation.

How to Improve the IPCC

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London-based critic of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) David Henderson has made some suggestions for reform of the IPCC process in a mini-report titled ‘Challenging the IPCC Monopoly: The Way Ahead’, Download file (104 Kb).

Henderson acknowledges the enormousness of the challenges facing the IPCC and its considerable achievements including in bringing together 2,000 specialists to write and publish “three massive and agreed reports covering the range of issues relating to climate change”. In achieving this Henderson notes that, “the IPCC has established itself in the eyes of its member governments as their sole authoritative source of information, evidence, analysis, interpretation and advice on a whole range of issues relating to climate change.”

That was perhaps the situation in Australia, but since Tim Flannery published the Weather Makers, well according to our federal environment minister, it now informs government policy on climate change issues. 🙂

And this was perhaps the situation prior to the publication of the House of Lords Select Committee Report and the recent US Senate Select Committee Hearings (mentioned in this earlier post).

Building on the momentum from the House of Lords’ Report, Henderson wants the IPCC process to:

1.Include more economists including the central economic departments of participating governments and/or for the OECD to prepare an economic assessment in the context of the upcoming fourth assessment report (due out in November 2007).

2.Replace the ‘peer review’ process Further to the peer review process, establish a formal audit procedure to sit behind ‘the science’ in the fourth assessment report. Henderson makes mention of the American Economic Review policy which requires that data and computer code in sufficient detail to permit replication by others be submitted as a precondition for publication of articles based on the same.

3. Support the publication of “an alternative and rival overall assessment to that of the IPCC”. Henderson provides as an example,the establishment by the US government in the 1970s of an alternative assessment by a small group of experts of the Soviet strategic threat in addition to advice provided by the “authorised established source” which was the CIA. The group of experts, which became known as ‘Team B’, apparently provided a useful report. Given the number of critics of the IPCC process – what about giving them an official role?

There are indeed many credentialed scientists and economists who could be brought in to provide an official counterpoint. Henderson suggests this be through “an international consortium of think-tanks”.

I prefer the idea of a small group of well qualified expert critics forced to work within the United Nation’s IPCC framework and with full access to the drafts of the developing fourth assessment report.

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I am reminded of a comment from Richard Epstein:
“When I’m confident I’m right, I want people to disagree with me out of hand. Otherwise, I run the risk of a kind of complacency which can lead to the loss of a cutting edge. I’m perfectly used to living in a world in which most people disagree.”

UPDATE No. 1
November 2nd, 1pm. I have received comment that David’s report (see link above) states that the audit process should ‘further’ rather than ‘replace’ the peer review process. I have modified the relevant paragraph accordingly.

UPDATE No. 2
November 2nd, 10.30pm.
Ian Castles has asked that I provide a link to the McKitrick paper title ‘Science and environmental policy-making: bias-proofing the assessment process’ TO DOWNLOAD FILE CLICK HERE (204KBS). Ian commented that, “As the initial postings on your site have immediately talked about the ‘hockey stick’ debate, and one of them has questioned whether David is ‘fair dinkum’ because he cites McKitrick, I think that it would be useful if you could provide a link to this paper by one of the two Canadians who initiated the debate. He provides a useful summary of the debate as it stood last April, and also gives some thoughts about improving the IPCC process.
Note that Ross quotes Australian Minister Ian Campbell (p. 287) & explains why Campbell (and the world’s governments) are wrong in assuming that the IPCC processes are rigorous.”

UPDATE No.3
November 3rd, 9.30am
David Henderson has emailed the following issues with my summary of his report (report can be accessed at link in above post):
1. You say that I ‘want the IPCC process’ to ‘Support the publication of an overall and rival assessment’. I don’t say this: I suggest that governments should set up such a mechanism, outside and independently of the IPCC. This is a fundamental point: the suggestions I make go beyond your summary description of them as ‘suggestions for reform of the IPCC process’.
2. I do not suggest that ‘an international consortium of think-tanks’ ‘could be brought in to provide an official counterpoint’. Only governments can take official action, and the idea of a consortium comes under my last heading of ‘The unofficial critique’.
3. I didn’t suggest that ‘more economists’ should be brought in ‘to prepare an economic assessment in the context of [AR4}’. What I say about improving the treatment of economic issues is not closely linked to AR4.