In defense of GMOs

If anyone dare bring up any reservations about anthropogenic global warming or express concerns over possible side effects of vaccines they are castigated for not knowing or believing in science.

Somehow, those who most often point the accusatory fingers are most often those who themselves don’t believe in science, specifically the value of genetically-modified organisms (GMOs).

The deniers are everywhere.

For purely unscientific reasons (saying GMOs are the causes of everything from environmental mutations to lower intelligence) they forced the federal government’s hand in mandating labeling of GM foodstuff and still to this day constantly batter and demean the ag industry’s players who use GMO.  

It’s truly unfortunate because, in almost all cases, GMOs have proven to be a Godsend (or more accurately “Mansend”) for humanity and the environment. 

GMO crops are in almost everything. Genetic modification accounts for 95% of the soy bean output and 88% of the corn planted in the United State.

Their use has allowed for much higher yields (a 20% increase in global efficiency in just 20 years), larger and better looking fruits and vegetables, and a longer useful life for produce after harvest.

Those agricultural victories are an absolute necessity for human nourishment. Today, there are 795 million starving people on this planet. In the US alone, 1 in 10 Americans is deemed food insecure. Without GMOs cutting deeply into those sad numbers every year and bringing people out of starvation, where would we be in 2050 when the global population is projected to be 21% greater than it is now (9.3 billion versus 7.7 billion)?

Those people being nourished are also benefiting from advances brought about through genetic modification of crops. Consider that 250 million children in developing countries are subjected to Vitamin A deficiencies that lead to blindness among other ailments. Golden Rice, which is infused with bate-carotene, was produced to combat that. Millions of people have been saved by this GMO.

The anti-GMO crowd would like everyone to believe that GMOs are a scourge to the environment and a cause of global warming (what isn’t nowadays?).

They are anything but.

GMOs have reduced pesticide use by 37%. They allow the use of no-till farming which decreases erosion by 1 billion tons per year in the US, which also substantially decreases nitrogen and phosphorous runoff from farms. That same farming procedure also eliminates greenhouse gases: since 2015 American farmers have cut back on what is equivalent to 12 million cars off the road. 

The GMO witch hunt has to stop. It benefits no one to put the fear of GMOs into consumers who already can’t make smart food choices as it is -- more than two-thirds of US adults are overweight or obese, an outcome of choosing processed foods over produce, a situation that will be compounded by the war on fresh foods that might happen to have GMO origin.

Adding to that, your average consumer is incapable of telling good science from bad.

We need to leave that to the scientists to take care of.

In almost all cases, those bioengineers, nutritionists, and agriculturalists have done such great work that they cannot distinguish between GMOs and non-GMOs. And, neither can your body.

GMOs are safe, productive and the key to a brighter tomorrow for so many of this world’s hungry citizens.

From the 26 August 2019 Greater Niagara Newspapers and Batavia Daily News

The Trump Administration’s Plan Bee

Over the past 15 years, there has been a precipitous decline in honey bee populations. Most apiaries have seen their bee colonies decrease in size by 30 to 90 percent.

This past winter alone represented the greatest loss of bees since 2006 with a nearly 40 percent decline nationally. 25 percent had once been the maximum rate of mortality in northern states that had significant cold-weather die-offs.

Unfortunately, it’s not just a winter thing anymore. This century’s losses have been occurring everywhere and anytime -- during the spring and summer when temperatures are perfect and food is plentiful.

Scientists and beekeepers chalk it up to colony collapse disorder, a large umbrella of diagnoses that covers everything from parasitic mites to deadly pesticides.

It was determined in 2011 by independent studies released in prominent journals like Science and Nature that a primary cause of honey bee deaths was the family of pesticides known as neonicotinoids. In 2012, those findings were affirmed just across the border by Ontario’s Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs which discovered that 70 percent of the dead bees across the province showed exposure to neonicotinoids.

This nerve agent had been used in increasing abundance on corn since 2005 after entering the market in the 1990s (as recently as 2015 it was used on most all commercial corn in the United States). That timeline of pervasiveness aligns perfectly with the sudden decline in bee populations.

Produced by Bayer, Syngenta and Valent, neonicotinoids are applied directly to the seed and thus become a part of the adult plant, including the nectar and pollen upon which the bees feed. The chemical doesn’t kill bees outright, but it seriously impairs their development and behavior, which accounts for the inability of the bees to feed properly, maintain their colonies and replenish them through adequate reproduction. 

In response to this, in 2018, Canada announced a ban on the 2 of the 3 most popular forms of neonicotinoids used there. A gradual phase-in of the new standards won’t begin until 2021.  

A more powerful means of suppression happened in the European Union. There, neonicotinoids have been banned since 2018, which had followed moratorium in place since 2013.

It’s a different story here. There hasn’t been a similar sense of urgency.

Even though federal studies link neonicotinoids to colony collapse, including a report released by the USDA and EPA in 2013, the government didn’t plan to make any serious inroads until a major, multi-year study on the impact of neonicotinoids was made available from the EPA in 2018.

As out an outcome of that study and many more, the Trump Administration announced a ban of 12 neonicotinoids in May.

It was a win, but it was not big enough: Two of the substances made by Bayer aren’t even used in the States and 47 products containing the compound can still be used here (Fortunately, those nearly 4 dozen poisons have to be re-registered by 2022, so there’s still some time for beekeepers, farmers and environmentalists to have their say.)     

While the Trump Administration had made some progress that President Obama’s couldn’t with neonicotinoids (Obama’s ban on them on wildlife refuges only hardly addressed the larger problem) it’s still one step forward, two steps back with Trump and honey bees.

In early July, the Department of Agriculture announced it was suspending its collection of data regarding honey bee colonies, a critical report that allowed the USDA, beekeepers, and scientists to compare quarterly losses, additions, and movements and to analyze the data on a state-by-state basis. Without that data, we don’t know if bees are dying off or rebounding.

Then, weeks later, the Environmental Protection Agency rescinded a ban on bee-killing Sulfoxaflor saying it has a lower environmental impact because it disappears from the environment faster than neonicotinoids. Never mind that it still spends time in the environment and still has an impact.  

The indifference and laissez-faire attitudes expressed by Trump -- and Obama before him -- to the plight of bees is a national security issue. Without bees we would suffer significant losses in food supply and we’d have to get many fruits and vegetables from other countries.

That’s because bees do a lot more than make honey.

If bees were wiped out, or something close to it, fruits and vegetables wouldn’t get the pollination they need. Estimates show that the total loss of crops would exceed $20 billion per year. Just consider the 30 million bushels of apples produced here in New York every year. And then, on the other side of the country, there’s California’s almond crop which yields 80 percent of the worldwide almond production and is 90 percent dependent on bees (a rate of bee need identical to that required by cherries and blueberries).

It may be asking a lot for an administration that has loosened many environmental standards, but the Trump needs to deliver a Plan B for their Plan Bee. We need to have the tools to study their populations and we need the laws in place to prevent their poisoning and mitigate their population declines.

Without bees, our agricultural economy would be a mess and consumers wouldn’t be able to get the affordable, domestically-grown nourishment we need.

From the 19 August 2019 Greater Niagara Newspapers and Batavia Daily News   

Understanding New York’s gun storage law

Last Tuesday, Governor Andrew Cuomo signed into law new standards for gun storage.

The revised law amends section 265.45 of the penal law to provide that anyone who owns or has custody of a rifle, shotgun, or firearm and resides with anyone under 16 years of age – or will be visited by a child of the same age range -- shall not store or otherwise leave that weapon out of his or her immediate possession or control without having first securely locked the gun in a safe or rendered it incapable of being fired by using a trigger guard or similar means.

The author of the original bill, Democratic Senator Liz Krueger, said the bill addressed what she saw as flaws in the SAFE Act regarding storage and it was inspired by 12-year old Nicholas Naumkin, who, in 2010, was shot in the head by his 12-year-old friend at the friend's home while they were playing with a gun that the friend’s father owned. Nicholas died the following day.

In the bill’s narrative, Krueger also cited older statistics from the Centers for Disease Control which said, in 2010, 116 New Yorkers under the age of 19 were killed by guns (93 were homicides, 13 were suicides and 10 were undetermined).

The new rules goes into effect 60 days after the signing, so gun owns need to be prepared in a hurry if they weren’t already.

A conviction for violating the law could result in a penalty of a year in jail and a $1,000 fine (these are harsher punishments that came about from amendments to earlier drafts of the law). If guns are not secured when a child is visiting that home a gun owner could face a $250 fine.

It wasn’t noted in either scenario but one could likely assume that significant and/or repeated offenses could result in confiscation of firearms especially with the renewal standards now imposed on pistol permits (which we were told at their issuance were lifetime permits).

And, there’s the very real possibility of Child Protective Services possibly being involved in your lives.

So, there’s more than enough reason, beside safety, for gun owners to comply, even those who fall into the “it’s my guns, my rights and I’ll do what I want” category.

Remember, this is New York, where the second amendment is interpreted a little differently by the state. Having a cavalier approach can put you in some really serious trouble.

Many have asked about enforceability, more specifically: How would the police know if a gun wasn’t maintained in a locked manner? While sheriff’s deputies aren’t going to be doing random inspections of your home there are two things that could raise a flag: Word-of-mouth and social media.

Expect your child to say something about your firearms to peers or school personnel; it’s not out of the question to think young visitors will tell their parents they saw guns; and it’s too easy for pictures to be shared on Facebook showing guns improperly stored -- if someone has a grudge against you it’s too inviting for them to use a social media post against you (pictures don’t lie).

So, don’t think this rule can’t and won’t impact you, even if you have a strong culture of respect for guns in your family across all the generations.

My word of advice to my fellow gun owners: Comply. Not only is it the safe thing to do, it’s now the only thing to do. Don’t tempt the fates with your children and the law.

Depending on your needs, a gun safe can cost anywhere from $120 to more than $1,000. A trigger lock costs around $20. Lock-up the guns or lock the guns themselves. And, don’t forget your display guns – if you have a historic or limited-edition gun on your wall that could be fired lock the trigger on it even though you don’t consider it a live gun that you’d ever put to use.

I tell you this without the absolute guarantee this is sustainable law.

In District of Columbia v. Heller, heard in 2008, the Supreme Court of the United States ruled that safe storage laws were unconstitutional. According to the Court, there is an inherent right to self-defense which would be impeded by the implementation of storage laws (if you need a firearm you need it immediately, a criminal will never courteously wait for you to unlock it).

So, we’ll see. There’s a very real possibility the law will be struck down. But, it won’t be anytime soon. And, given Cuomo’s hatred for the current administration in Washington, he’d be certain to pull out all the stops.


From the 05 August 2019 Greater Niagara Newspapers and Batavia Daily News

How to see the real nighttime sky

If, like me and thousands of other readers of this newspaper, you live in the rural parts of the northern half of Western New York, you’re accustomed to some spectacular nighttime views. It’s invigorating (some folks even say it’s akin to a religious experience) to marvel at the cosmos, something that so few Americans have the chance to do. Only 20 percent of our population lives in rural areas, meaning 8 of every 10 people rarely if ever see the stars, especially in the volume that we do.

But, alas, even the magnificence of what we see is nowhere near perfect. It doesn’t matter if you live in the most remote locales of Niagara, Orleans and Genesee Counties -- you’re still missing out on thousands of stars for the same reason that the city folk do: light pollution.

Look off in the horizon and you may see a glow from a nearby village or city that obscures that portion of the sky. Now, imagine countless cities and towns around us, all pouring that much light and then some into the skies. This accumulated visual noise spreads into the night, creating a glow that extends far beyond its sources. The ability to see the faintest of stars, including the dense Milky Way, is affected and what we think is a true nighttime sky really isn’t close to that at all.

That’s a result of being surrounded by being near numerous cities, small (Lockport), medium (Buffalo and Rochester) and large (Toronto). We’re within 500 miles of 46 percent of the US population and 57 percent of the Canadian population. Imagine all of the lights used to illuminate their homes, the roads they drive on and the businesses that serve them. Rarely are the lights off even in the wee hours, meaning the sky glow over populated areas is relentless. In essence, a mammoth light umbrella covers most of us in Western New York.

To see how we compare against the few dark parts of the US (specifically areas of the Great Plains and the Rockies) refer to the awesome Dark Site Finder that can be found online at DarkSitefinder.com. The website has an interactive map that you can drag around the US and zoom in to specific communities. It shows in a varying range of colors how intense the light pollution is.

Looking at the map, you’d probably be surprised to find out that the Lake Ontario shoreline of Orleans County still can’t escape the lights emitted by Rochester and the Greater Toronto Area. The whole Northeast suffers from that same fate, we’re an absolute mess. The closest that we can get to perfection is in desolate areas located within the Adirondacks and Appalachia. Stargazers can find true dark skies within the NY’s Moose River Plains and PA’s Susquehannock State Forest, the latter of which is renowned for its celestial views facilitated by a quarter million acres of near-wilderness.

Even if you can’t trek into those areas, you can still revel in more accessible sites that have incredibly vivid displays. Vast areas in our Southern Tier, Northern Pennsylvania, the Adirondacks and the Catskill Mountains possess only trace amounts of manmade illumination (look for the dark green and blue hues on the map) and, therefore, nighttime skies that truthfully put ours around here to shame. In them, the stars seem endless and tightly packed while the Milky Way is actually, well, milky.

I’ve been fortunate enough to experience those sights on clear nights while camping and I compare the difference between them and rural Gasport’s skies to the difference between Gasport’s and that of Amherst’s retail neighborhoods; it’s really that significant.

So, if your family vacations ever take you to the aforementioned wilds, do yourself a favor and duck out to the Great Outdoors every cloudless night that you can. You’ll be amazed at the sights and you’ll get as near as possible to seeing the stars as they were when man first set foot on this continent.

From the 29 July 2019 Greater Niagara Newspapers and Batavia Daily News