 So much of Monsantos poison was spread in the past decade that weeds naturally developed a resistance to it.
By Jim Hightower
Rather than find ways to cooperate with the natural world, Americas agribusiness giants reach for the next quick fix in a futile effort to overpower nature. Their attitude is that if brute force isnt working, theyre probably not using enough of it.
Monsanto, for example, has banked a fortune by selling a corn seed that it genetically manipulated to produce corn plants that wont die when sprayed with the Roundup toxic weedkiller. Not coincidentally, Monsanto also happens to manufacture Roundup. It profits from the seed and from the huge jump in Roundup sales that the seed generates. Slick.
But Mother Nature, darn it, has rebelled. So much of Monsantos poison was spread in the past decade that weeds naturally began to resist it. As a Dow Chemical agronomist explained, The real need here is to diversify our weed management systems.
Exactly right! We need non-chemical, sustainable systems that work with nature and without genetically altered crops.
But, no, the Dow man didnt mean that at all. He was calling for more brute force in the form of Dows new genetically altered corn seed that can absorb Dows super-potent 2,4-D weedkiller, which it markets under the Enlist brand name. Use this stuff, he says, and nature will be defeated.
Wrong. Nature doesnt quit. The weeds will keep evolving and will adapt to Dows high-tech fix, too. By pushing the same old thing relentlessly, says an independent crop scientist, agribusiness interests ratchet up [Americas] dependence on the use of herbicides, which is very much a treadmill.
Its time to start listening to the weeds and cooperating with Mother Nature. To advance this common sense approach, a national coalition is backing a California Right to Know initiative requiring the labeling of genetically altered foods. To help, go to the Organic Consumers Association at www.OrganicConsumers.org.
Jim Hightower is a radio commentator, writer, and public speaker. Hes also editor of the populist newsletter, The Hightower Lowdown.
Distributed via OtherWords (OtherWords.org)
 Agate Beach, Oregon: Dock From Japan Tsunami Washes Ashore
By Jeff Barnard
This photo taken Wednesday, June 6, 2012 and supplied by the Oregon Department of Parks and Recreation, shows a large dock that washed ashore early Tuesday on Agate Beach, a mile north of Newport, Ore. The nearly 70-foot-long dock was torn loose from a fishing port in northern Japan by last years tsunami and drifted across thousands of miles of Pacific Ocean, a Japanese Consulate official said Wednesday.(AP Photo/Oregon Parks and Recreation)
When the tsunami hit the northern coast of Japan last year, the waves ripped four dock floats the size of freight train boxcars from their pilings in the fishing port of Misawa and turned them over to the whims of wind and currents.
One floated up on a nearby island. Two have not been seen again. But one made an incredible journey across 5,000 miles of ocean that ended this week on a popular Oregon beach.
Along for the ride were hundreds of millions of individual organisms, including a tiny species of crab, a species of algae, and a little starfish all native to Japan that have scientists concerned if they get a chance to spread out on the West Coast.
This is a very clear threat, said John Chapman, a research scientist at Oregon State Universitys Hatfield Marine Science Center in Newport, Ore., where the dock washed up early Tuesday. ...Its incredibly difficult to predict what will happen next.
State officials were considering plans to scrape all the living organisms off the dock and bury them in the sand, so they would not spread, Chapman said.
While scientists expect much of the floating debris to follow the currents to the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, an accumulation of millions of tons of small bits of plastic floating in the northern Pacific, tsunami debris that can catch the wind is making its way to North America. In recent weeks, a soccer ball washed up in Alaska, and a Harley Davidson motorcycle in a shipping container was found in British Columbia, Canada.
How the dock float 165 tons of concrete and steel measuring 66 feet long, 19 feet wide and 7 feet high turned up on Agate Beach, a mile north of Newport, was probably determined within sight of land in Japan, said Jan Hafner, a computer programmer in the University of Hawaiis International Pacific Research Center, which is tracking the 1.5 million tons of tsunami debris likely floating across the Pacific.
Thats where the winds, currents and tides are most variable, due to changes in the coastline and the features of the land, even for two objects a few yards apart, he said. Once the dock float got into the ocean, it was pushed steadily by the prevailing westerly winds, and the North Pacific current.
If you have leaves falling from a tree ... one leaf will be moving in a slightly different direction from another one, Hafner said. Over time, the differences get bigger and bigger and bigger.
Something similar is happening on the ocean.
After it came ashore, the Japanese consulate was able to track down the origin of the dock float from a plaque bolted to it commemorating its installation in June 2008. Deputy Consul Hirofumi Murabayashi said Wednesday from Portland, Ore., that it was one of four owned by Aomori Prefecture that broke loose from the port of Misawa on the northern tip of the main island during the tsunami.
Akihisa Sato, an engineer with Zeniya Kaiyo Service, the docks Tokyo-based manufacturer, said the docks were used for loading fish onto trucks. One of them turned up several weeks later on an island south of Misawa, but the other two remain missing.
Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., called on the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to redouble its efforts to track the debris, saying something as big as the dock could pose a danger to ships at sea.
NOAAs tsunami marine debris coordinator, Ruth Yender, said if the Pacific were shrunk to the size of a football field, something like the dock would be the size of a human hair, making it very difficult to monitor, even from satellites.
The dock tested negative for radiation, which was to be expected if the dock broke loose before the nuclear power plant accident triggered by the waves, said Chris Havel, spokesman for the Oregon Department of Parks and Recreation, which is overseeing removal of the dock.
Chapman said the dock float was covered with masses of algae, kelp, barnacles, mussels and other organisms. One square-foot area weighed nine pounds.
This is a whole, intact, very diverse community that floated across from Japan to here, he said. That doesnt happen with a log or a thrown-out tire. Ive never seen anything like this.
Of particular concern was a small crab that has run wild on the East Coast, but not shown up yet on the West Coast, and a species of algae that has hit Southern California, but not Oregon. The starfish, measuring about three inches across, also appears to be new to U.S. shores.
Its almost certainly true that most of the things on this have not been introduced to this coast yet, Chapman said. Were going to see more of these things coming.
Tom Cleveland, a housekeeping supervisor at nearby beachfront condominiums, said people curious to see it have been jamming up traffic at a beach parking lot.
Everybody and their brother has been here looking at it and checking it out, Cleveland said. Obviously, we knew things would be coming our way, but I didnt expect anything this size.
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