Inhaled nanoparticles – like those released from vehicle exhausts, in particular from diesel vehicles – can work their way through the lungs and into the bloodstream, raising the risk of heart attack and stroke.

The findings, published today in the journal ACS Nano based on research part-funded by the British Heart Foundation, build on previous studies that have found tiny particles in air pollution are associated with an increased risk of cardiovascular disease, although the cause remains unproven.

However, this research shows for the first time that inhaled nanoparticles can gain access to the blood in healthy individuals and people at risk of stroke. Most worryingly, these nanoparticles tend to build-up in diseased blood vessels where they could worsen coronary heart disease – the cause of a heart attack, state the authors:

“Translocation of inhaled nanoparticles into the systemic circulation and accumulation at sites of vascular inflammation provides a direct mechanism that can explain the link between environmental nanoparticles and cardiovascular disease”, they write.

Dr Mark Miller, Senior Research Scientist at the University of Edinburgh who led the study, said: “It is striking that particles in the air we breathe can get into our blood where they can be carried to different organs of the body.

“Only a very small proportion of inhaled particles will do this, however, if reactive particles like those in air pollution then reach susceptible areas of the body then even this small number of particles might have serious consequences.”

Meanwhile government delays publication of air pollution plan

The news of the link between air pollution and heart disease has been released just as the UK government has been  ordered back to the High Court in London tomorrow at 10.30 am to explain its refusal to publish its long-overdue Air Pollution Strategy. The coincidence can only be embarrassing to ministers.

Following legal action by non-profit environmental lawyers ClientEarth the court had ordered the government to publish the document by 4pm last Monday. But on Friday – after the court closed, and less than one working day before the judge-imposed deadline – government lawyers applied to defer publication citing “pre-election proprietary rules”.

Astonishingly, ministers claimed that it would be unfair on opposition parties to reveal their plans now, and that publication claiming must therefore be delayed until after the general election. The original plans had been dismissed by judges as so poor and ineffective as to be unlawful.

James Thornton, CEO of ClientEarth, said: “We are preparing our response to the government’s application. This is a public health issue and not a political issue. Urgent action is required to protect people’s health from the illegal and poisonous air that we are forced to breathe in the UK.

“This is a matter for the court to decide once the government has made its arguments because it is the government which has not met, and instead seeks to extend the court’s deadline for the clean air plan, to clean up our air.”

Why the reluctance to publish?

The government is currently failing to comply with its own pollution laws, which give efecct to the EU’s Air Quality Directive. A total of 37 out of 43 regions of the UK are in breach of legal limits for nitrogen dioxide.

It has been suggested that the real reason for the refusal to publish its new plans is that they may bear heavily on the owners of the diesel cars that are responsible for much of the problem in highly polluted urban areas – for example by restricting the access of diesel cars to urban areas, or forcing the early scrappage of vehicles. This could cost the government votes.

Another fear could be the enormous cost or an early scrappage scheme to taxpayers. For example, to pay £1,000 per car to compensate diesel car owners to scrap 1 million cars would cost a cool £1 billion. A more ambitious scheme to scrap 5 million vehicles with a £2,000 payment would cost £10 billion.

Alternatively the plans may be so feeble as to be little more effective as the last ones – demonstrating the government’s lack of concern for the premature deaths of tens of thousands of people every year – again, costing votes in the general election.

Figures obtained by Labour last week showed that more than 38 million people, almost 60% of the UK population, lived in areas where nitrogen dioxide concentrations were above legal limits. Children are especially vulnerable because exposure to the pollutant restricts lung growth causing long-term health problems.

How pollution reaches the heart and blood vessels

Around the world, air pollution is responsible for millions of deaths from heart attack and stroke each year. But how particles inhaled into the lungs can affect blood vessels and the heart has remained a mystery.

It is not currently possible to measure environmental nanoparticles in the blood. So, researchers from the University of Edinburgh, and the National Institute for Public Health and the Environment in the Netherlands, used a variety of specialist techniques to track the fate of harmless gold nanoparticles breathed in by volunteers.

They were able to show that these nanoparticles can migrate from the lungs and into the bloodstream within 24 hours after exposure and were still detectable in the blood three months later.

By looking at surgically removed plaques from people at high risk of stroke they were also able to find that the pollution nanoparticles accumulated in the fatty plaques that grow inside blood vessels and cause heart attacks and strokes.

Dr Nicholas Mills, Professor of Cardiology and a co-author of the work, said: “We have always suspected that nanoparticles in the air that we breathe could escape from the lungs and enter the body, but until now there was no proof. These findings are of wide importance for human health, and we must now focus our attention on reducing emissions and exposure to airborne nanoparticles.”

‘Government must put forward bold measures’

Cardiovascular disease – the main forms of which are coronary heart disease and stroke – accounts for 80% of all premature deaths from air pollution. The current findings add to a large body of evidence that inhaled particles can damage our heart and blood vessels in many different ways.

Professor Jeremy Pearson, Associate Medical Director at the British Heart Foundation, which part-funded the study, said: “There is no doubt that air pollution is a killer, and this study brings us a step closer to solving the mystery of how air pollution damages our cardiovascular health.

“More research is needed to pin down the mechanism and consolidate the evidence, but these results emphasise that we must do more to stop people dying needlessly from heart disease caused by air pollution. Crucially, individual avoidance of polluted areas is not a solution to the problem.

“Government must put forward bold measures to make all areas safe and protect the population from harm.”

But nanoparticle risks don’t stop with pollution!

The paper also makes it clear that ill-health from pollution is just one of the risks of environmental nanoparticles. “These findings have immediate relevance for the nanotechnology industry where a diverse range of engineered nanomaterials is being developed for an ever-increasing number of applications“, the authors write.

“The fate of engineered nanoparticles and effect on health following exposure are largely unknown, especially in relation to the cardiovascular system.

“These studies use gold nanoparticles; a commonly used nanoparticle and one that is being developed for clinical therapeutics. However, the biokinetics we observe here for gold, may also extend to other nanomaterials including those with greater surface reactivity.

“Different classes of nanomaterials vary greatly in their ability to cause inflammation and cytotoxicity, thus it follows that there will be marked differences in their impact on health in both occupational settings and in the wider community exposed to nanomaterials.

“While data is still relatively sparse, a number of studies suggest that pulmonary exposure to a range of different inhaled nanoparticles may promote cardiovascular disease. A better understanding of how nanomaterials cross physiological barriers, and their fate thereafter, will be vital to allow for a safe-by-design approach for new nanomaterials.”

Oliver Tickell is contributing editor at The Ecologist.

The paper: ‘Inhaled Nanoparticles Accumulate at Sites of Vascular Disease‘ by Mark R. Miller et al is published in ACS Nano DOI:10.1021/acsnano.6b08551.

Petition to UK government: ‘Release your air pollution plan!‘

The authors acknowledge funding from the British Heart Foundation, the Colt Foundation, the Dutch Ministry of Infrastructures and Environment and the U.K. Department of Health.

The Paris Agreement commits nations to limiting global warming to less than 2C by the end of the century.

However, it is becoming increasingly apparent that, to meet such a massive challenge, societies will need to do more than simply reduce and limit carbon emissions.

It seems likely that large scale removal of greenhouse gases from the atmosphere may be called for: so-called ‘negative emissions‘.

One possibility is to use waste material from mining to trap CO₂ into new minerals, locking it out of the atmosphere. The idea is to exploit and accelerate the same geological processes that have regulated Earth’s climate and surface environment over the 4.5 billion years of its existence.

Across the world, deep and open-pit mining operations have left behind huge piles of worthless rubble – the ‘overburden’ of rock or soil that once lay above the useful coal or metal ore.

Often, this rubble is stored in dumps alongside tiny fragments of mining waste – the ‘tailings’ or ‘fines’ left over after processing the ore. The fine-grained waste is particularly reactive, chemically, since more surface is exposed.

A lot of energy is spent on extracting and crushing all this waste. However, breaking rocks into smaller pieces exposes more fresh surfaces, which can react with CO₂. In this sense, energy used in mining could itself be harvested and used to reduce atmospheric carbon.

Speeding up the ‘slow carbon cycle’

This is one of the four themes of a new £8.6m research programme launched by the UK’s Natural Environment Research Council, which will investigate new ways to reverse emissions and remove greenhouse gases from the atmosphere.

The process we want to speed up is the ‘carbonate-silicate cycle’, also known as the slow carbon cycle. Natural silicate rocks like granite and basalt, common at Earth’s surface, play a key part in regulating carbon in the atmosphere and oceans by removing CO₂ from the atmosphere and turning it into carbonate rocks like chalk and limestone.

Atmospheric CO₂ and water can react with the silicate rocks to dissolve elements they contain like calcium and magnesium into the water, which also soaks up the CO₂ as bicarbonate. This weak solution is the natural river water that flows to the oceans, which hold more than 60 times more carbon than the atmosphere.

It is here, in the oceans, that the calcium and bicarbonate can recombine, over millions of years, and crystallise as calcite or chalk, often instigated by marine organisms as they build their shells.

Today, rivers deliver hundreds of millions of tonnes of carbon each year into the oceans, but this is still around 30 times less than the rate of carbon emission into the atmosphere due to fossil fuel burning.

But can we do it fast enough?

Given immense geological time scales, these processes would return atmospheric CO₂ to its normal steady state. But we don’t have time: the blip in CO₂ emissions from industrialisation easily unbalances nature’s best efforts.

The natural process takes millions of years – but can we do it in decades? Scientists looking at accelerated mine waste dissolution will attempt to answer a number of pressing questions.

The group at Cambridge which I lead will be investigating whether we can speed up the process of silicate minerals from pre-existing mine waste being dissolved into water. We may even be able to harness friendly microbes to enhance the reaction rates.

Another part of the same project, conducted by colleagues in Oxford, Southampton and Cardiff, will study how the calcium and magnesium released from the silicate mine waste can react back into minerals like calcite, to lock CO₂ back into solid minerals into the geological future.

Whether this can be done effectively without requiring further fossil fuel energy, and at a scale that is viable and effective, remains to be seen. But accelerating the reaction rates in mining wastes should help us move at least some way towards reaching our climate targets.

Simon Redfern is Professor in Earth Sciences, University of Cambridge.

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

A new study of Pennsylvania counties published today in the Journal of Environmental Protection shows for the first time that contamination from fracking kills babies.

The Marcellus shale area of Pennsylvania was one of the first regions where novel gas drilling involving hydraulic fracturing of sub-surface rock, now termed ‘fracking’, was carried out.

The epidemiological study by Christopher Busby and Joseph Mangano examines early infant deaths 0-28 days before and after the drilling of fracking wells, using official data from the US Centre for Disease Control to compare the immediate post-fracking four year period 2007-2010 with the pre-fracking four-year period 2003-2006.

Results showed a statistically significant 29% excess risk of dying age 0-28 days in the ten heavily fracked counties of Pennsylvania during the four-year period following the development of fracking gas wells. Over the same period, the State rate declined by 2%. They conclude:

“There were about 50 more babies died in these 10 counties than would have been predicted if the rate had been the same over the period as all of Pennsylvania, where the incidence rate fell over the same period.”

Radioactive water pollution to blame?

The Marcellus shale beneath Pennsylvania was one of the first areas where fracking began. Only 44 fracking wells were drilled before 2007, while 2,864 were drilled in 2007-2010.

The cause of the excess mortality is not proven in the study, however the authors point out that the fracking production process releases naturally occurring radioactive materials from shale strata which then contaminate groundwater.

These include radium, uranium, thorium and radon, an intensely radioactive gas which decays into radioactive ‘daughters’ with a half life of under four days. And as the authors write, fracking “involves the explosive destruction of large volumes of underground gas and oil retaining rocks and the pumping down of large amounts of what is termed ‘produced water’ which initially contains various chemical and sand additives.

“This produced water and backflow returns to the surface with a high load of dissolved and suspended solids including naturally occurring radioactive elements … The contaminated water has to be safely disposed of but this is often associated with violations of legal disposal constraints.”

Baby mortality related to exposure through water wells

In the five heavily-fracked counties in the northeast part of the state (Susquehanna, Bradford, Wyoming, Lycoming and Tioga), the number of deaths from 2003-2006 vs. 2007-2010 climbed from 36 to 60, a statistically significant rate increase of 66%.

The rate in the five counties in southwest Pennsylvania (Washington, Westmoreland, Greene, Butler and Fayette) rose 18%, from 157 to 178 deaths, though this increase was not statistically significant.

This divergence in relative risk between the heavily fracked NE and SW counties was initially perplexing, however the authors noticed the higher dependence on private water wells (potentially contaminated with frackiing fluids) for drinking water and other needs in the first region compared to the second.

In the NE group of counties , the number of water wells per birth ranged from 4.9 to 13.5, compared to 1.1 to 3 in the SW group of countries. Their chart of Relative Risk for early infant mortality after fracking (see image above right) plotted against ‘exposure’ defined as ‘water wells per birth’ on a county by county basis produced a straight-line graph – indicated a strong relation to increased mortality and exposure to groundwater.

Table: Water wells per birth and violations per annual birth in highly fracked Pennsylvania Counties.

They conclude: “The results therefore seem to support the suggestion that the vector for the effect is exposure to drinking water from private wells. This is a mechanistically plausible explanation. However the findings do not prove such a suggestion. We may examine other possible explanations for possible health effects which have been advanced.”

While radioactive pollution is carefully examined, the authors acknowledge alternatives including “the existence of chemical contaminants in the produced water” which they consider a “possible but unknown factor.”

Serious questions raised over health hazards of fracking

“A major component of early infant mortality is congenital malformation, e.g., heart, neurological, and kidney defects. These are known to be caused by exposures to Radium and Uranium in drinking water”, said Christopher Busby.

“Infant death rates were significantly high in highly-fracked counties in northeast Pennsylvania, those with the greatest density of private water wells, suggesting it is drinking water contamination driving the effect.”

Joseph Mangano added: “These results raise serious questions about potential health hazards of fracking, especially since the fetus and infant are most susceptible to environmental pollutants. This is a public health issue which should be investigated wherever fracking is being carried out or proposed.”

The result is expected to have significant insurance, investment, economic and downstream political implications in the US and other countries.

The study: ‘There’s a world going on underground-infant mortality and fracking in Pennsylvania‘ is by Busby C C and Mangano J J and published in the Journal of Environmental Protection 8(4) 2017. doi: 10.4236/jep.2017.84028

Dr Busby is the Scientific Secretary of the European Committee on Radiation Risk www.ecrr.eu and is Scientific Director of Environmental Research SIA, based in the Latvian National Academy of Sciences, Riga, Latvia. Busby’s CV can be found here.

Monsanto promotes its genetically modified (GM) crops and associated pesticides on the claimed grounds that they are needed to help ‘feed the world’.

But the five judges of the Monsanto Tribunal found that far from contributing to food security, Monsanto’s activities have “negatively affected food availability for individuals and communities.”

The judges of the Tribunal, held last October in The Hague, listened to the testimony of 28 witnesses from around the world whose health and livelihoods had suffered as a result of Monsanto’s products and activities.

The judges are all renowned for their expertise in human rights and international law issues. They were led by the Belgian Françoise Tulkens, former vice-president of the European Court of Human Rights.

Last week the Monsanto Tribunal judges announced their damning verdict, based on a number of considerations. First, the judges found that Monsanto had interfered with the ability of individuals and communities to feed themselves directly from productive land:

“Monsanto’s activities have caused and are causing damages to the soil, water and generally to the environment, thereby reducing the productive possibilities for the production of adequate food.

“Communal agricultural activities as well as forests that provide food resources are being devastated by the spread of genetically engineered seeds that use large amounts of herbicides like glyphosate. These activities by Monsanto are interfering with the right to produce food.”

Aims and scope of the Monsanto Tribunal

The verdicts of opinion tribunals such as the Monsanto Tribunal are not legally binding. Such tribunals are tasked with examining the rules of law applicable to problematic events or situations that directly affect and are of serious concern to individuals, groups, or society as a whole.

Their objective is twofold: to alert public opinion, stakeholders and policy-makers to acts considered unacceptable and unjustifiable under legal standards; and to contribute to the advancement of national and international law.

The Tribunal judges stated that they had no reason to doubt the sincerity or veracity of those who volunteered to testify before it. But, because their testimony was not given under oath or tested by cross-examination, and because Monsanto declined to participate in the proceedings, the Tribunal was not in a position to make findings of fact concerning the allegations of various company misdeeds.

Rather, for the purpose of answering the questions posed for the Tribunal’s consideration, the Tribunal assumed that the facts and circumstances described by the witnesses would be proven in a court of law.

Furthermore, the judges said that Monsanto is interfering with the right to food by denying peasant farmers access to seeds.

Farmers in countries that adopted GMO crops have seen their seed choices restricted. Non-GMO seeds are being withdrawn from the market, leading to a decreased choice of seeds.

The judges added that “use of GMOs all around the world is undermining the ability of farmers to access seeds and damaging agricultural production by communities. This situation is also affecting food sovereignty, which implies priority of people’s right to food and food production, rather than corporate interests.”

Under threat: biodiversity and fundamental human rights

Monsanto’s activities also threaten biodiversity, the judges said, as an increasing number of farmers use the same GMO seeds to grow the same monocrops: “By reducing crop biodiversity and local plants, Monsanto has interfered with the right to food and is moreover aggravating the risks of food security and undermining the resilience of local food production systems.”

Another dimension of the right to food that was exposed by the witnesses was the impact of GMO seeds on farmers’ property rights. For example, farmers who have not bought or intentionally used Monsanto’ seeds have had their fields or crops contaminated by GMOs.

In some cases, the judges added, farmers have been forced to pay royalties to Monsanto and have been unable to sell their products as organic or free from GMOs: “Monsanto has aggressively pursued intimidation tactics that have damaged the fabric of communities and caused great anxiety and mental affliction.”

In a blistering condemnation of patents on seeds, the judges said that these “are in contradiction with the principle of human right to food which guarantees access to nutrition, the basic need for every human to exist. Intellectual property rights should be rightfully respected, but when companies are taking hold of sources of nutrition, [this should be] under closer scrutiny.

Seed saving threatened by aggressive marketing of GMO seeds

The judges noted that the “aggressive marketing of GMO seeds” has “interfered with the right to food by forcing farming methods that do not respect traditional cultural practices.”

They explained, “Farmers that have fallen prey to Monsanto’s aggressive and misleading tactics have been forced to buy seeds every year and have lost the ability to save seeds. Since the advent of agriculture thousands of years ago, farmers have been saving seeds for cultivation the next season.

“This cultural practice has allowed for diversity and resilience in periods of drought or against pests. But the spread of GMO seeds by Monsanto has denied farmers the ability to practice agriculture according to their traditional cultural practices. A non-commercial seeds system must exist and expand, ensuring that farmers have the ability to preserve their traditional knowledge.”

Widening the perspective beyond Monsanto alone, the judges stated, “Today’s dominant agro-industrial model is highly problematic, not only because it is dependent on dangerous chemicals, but also due to its negative effects on climate change, its impact on the loss of biodiversity, and its inability to ensure food sovereignty.”

Monsanto’s activities could constitute ecocide

The judges considered whether Monsanto could be held liable for the crime of ecocide – defined as causing substantive and lasting damage to biodiversity and ecosystems, affecting the life and the health of human populations – if it were recognized in international criminal law.

They decided that the activities of Monsanto could possibly constitute a crime of ecocide, based on (among other actions):

• the company’s introduction of large-scale use of dangerous agrochemicals in industrial agriculture;
• the production and release of genetically engineered crops, which expose communities and individuals to the risks of increased pesticide and herbicide use;
• and severe contamination of plant diversity, soils, and water.

Another future is possible!

The judges pointed out that an alternative farming future to the agro-industrial model is not only desirable but also practical. Referring to the UN- and World Bank-sponsored IAASTD report on the future of farming, the judges said:

“A rise in organic agricultural practices in many places illustrates that farming with less, or without, pesticides, herbicides, and other dangerous chemicals is feasible. Studies have indicated that agroecology is capable of delivering sufficient yields to feed the entire world population and ensure that people are adequately nourished.”

In conclusion, the five eminent judges of the Monsanto Tribunal found that Monsanto has:

• interfered with people’s right to feed themselves from the land;
• contaminated soil and water, thus reducing the potential for the production of food;
• undermined farmer access to seeds by genetically modifying and patenting seeds, which cannot be saved but which have to be bought anew each year;
• promoted the growth of GMO monocultures, which damage biodiversity and undermine the resilience of local food production systems;
• introduced the large-scale use of dangerous agrochemicals along with the GM crops that depend on them, thus exposing people and the environment to increased amounts of health-threatening pesticides.

Most damning of all is the judges’ conclusion that none of these tragic developments are necessary, as the world can feed itself using agroecological methods.

Claire Robinson is managing editor at GMWatch, a public news and information service on issues surrounding GM crops and foods.

This article was originally published by GMWatch.

Monsanto promotes its genetically modified (GM) crops and associated pesticides on the claimed grounds that they are needed to help ‘feed the world’.

But the five judges of the Monsanto Tribunal found that far from contributing to food security, Monsanto’s activities have “negatively affected food availability for individuals and communities.”

The judges of the Tribunal, held last October in The Hague, listened to the testimony of 28 witnesses from around the world whose health and livelihoods had suffered as a result of Monsanto’s products and activities.

The judges are all renowned for their expertise in human rights and international law issues. They were led by the Belgian Françoise Tulkens, former vice-president of the European Court of Human Rights.

Last week the Monsanto Tribunal judges announced their damning verdict, based on a number of considerations. First, the judges found that Monsanto had interfered with the ability of individuals and communities to feed themselves directly from productive land:

“Monsanto’s activities have caused and are causing damages to the soil, water and generally to the environment, thereby reducing the productive possibilities for the production of adequate food.

“Communal agricultural activities as well as forests that provide food resources are being devastated by the spread of genetically engineered seeds that use large amounts of herbicides like glyphosate. These activities by Monsanto are interfering with the right to produce food.”

Aims and scope of the Monsanto Tribunal

The verdicts of opinion tribunals such as the Monsanto Tribunal are not legally binding. Such tribunals are tasked with examining the rules of law applicable to problematic events or situations that directly affect and are of serious concern to individuals, groups, or society as a whole.

Their objective is twofold: to alert public opinion, stakeholders and policy-makers to acts considered unacceptable and unjustifiable under legal standards; and to contribute to the advancement of national and international law.

The Tribunal judges stated that they had no reason to doubt the sincerity or veracity of those who volunteered to testify before it. But, because their testimony was not given under oath or tested by cross-examination, and because Monsanto declined to participate in the proceedings, the Tribunal was not in a position to make findings of fact concerning the allegations of various company misdeeds.

Rather, for the purpose of answering the questions posed for the Tribunal’s consideration, the Tribunal assumed that the facts and circumstances described by the witnesses would be proven in a court of law.

Furthermore, the judges said that Monsanto is interfering with the right to food by denying peasant farmers access to seeds.

Farmers in countries that adopted GMO crops have seen their seed choices restricted. Non-GMO seeds are being withdrawn from the market, leading to a decreased choice of seeds.

The judges added that “use of GMOs all around the world is undermining the ability of farmers to access seeds and damaging agricultural production by communities. This situation is also affecting food sovereignty, which implies priority of people’s right to food and food production, rather than corporate interests.”

Under threat: biodiversity and fundamental human rights

Monsanto’s activities also threaten biodiversity, the judges said, as an increasing number of farmers use the same GMO seeds to grow the same monocrops: “By reducing crop biodiversity and local plants, Monsanto has interfered with the right to food and is moreover aggravating the risks of food security and undermining the resilience of local food production systems.”

Another dimension of the right to food that was exposed by the witnesses was the impact of GMO seeds on farmers’ property rights. For example, farmers who have not bought or intentionally used Monsanto’ seeds have had their fields or crops contaminated by GMOs.

In some cases, the judges added, farmers have been forced to pay royalties to Monsanto and have been unable to sell their products as organic or free from GMOs: “Monsanto has aggressively pursued intimidation tactics that have damaged the fabric of communities and caused great anxiety and mental affliction.”

In a blistering condemnation of patents on seeds, the judges said that these “are in contradiction with the principle of human right to food which guarantees access to nutrition, the basic need for every human to exist. Intellectual property rights should be rightfully respected, but when companies are taking hold of sources of nutrition, [this should be] under closer scrutiny.

Seed saving threatened by aggressive marketing of GMO seeds

The judges noted that the “aggressive marketing of GMO seeds” has “interfered with the right to food by forcing farming methods that do not respect traditional cultural practices.”

They explained, “Farmers that have fallen prey to Monsanto’s aggressive and misleading tactics have been forced to buy seeds every year and have lost the ability to save seeds. Since the advent of agriculture thousands of years ago, farmers have been saving seeds for cultivation the next season.

“This cultural practice has allowed for diversity and resilience in periods of drought or against pests. But the spread of GMO seeds by Monsanto has denied farmers the ability to practice agriculture according to their traditional cultural practices. A non-commercial seeds system must exist and expand, ensuring that farmers have the ability to preserve their traditional knowledge.”

Widening the perspective beyond Monsanto alone, the judges stated, “Today’s dominant agro-industrial model is highly problematic, not only because it is dependent on dangerous chemicals, but also due to its negative effects on climate change, its impact on the loss of biodiversity, and its inability to ensure food sovereignty.”

Monsanto’s activities could constitute ecocide

The judges considered whether Monsanto could be held liable for the crime of ecocide – defined as causing substantive and lasting damage to biodiversity and ecosystems, affecting the life and the health of human populations – if it were recognized in international criminal law.

They decided that the activities of Monsanto could possibly constitute a crime of ecocide, based on (among other actions):

• the company’s introduction of large-scale use of dangerous agrochemicals in industrial agriculture;
• the production and release of genetically engineered crops, which expose communities and individuals to the risks of increased pesticide and herbicide use;
• and severe contamination of plant diversity, soils, and water.

Another future is possible!

The judges pointed out that an alternative farming future to the agro-industrial model is not only desirable but also practical. Referring to the UN- and World Bank-sponsored IAASTD report on the future of farming, the judges said:

“A rise in organic agricultural practices in many places illustrates that farming with less, or without, pesticides, herbicides, and other dangerous chemicals is feasible. Studies have indicated that agroecology is capable of delivering sufficient yields to feed the entire world population and ensure that people are adequately nourished.”

In conclusion, the five eminent judges of the Monsanto Tribunal found that Monsanto has:

• interfered with people’s right to feed themselves from the land;
• contaminated soil and water, thus reducing the potential for the production of food;
• undermined farmer access to seeds by genetically modifying and patenting seeds, which cannot be saved but which have to be bought anew each year;
• promoted the growth of GMO monocultures, which damage biodiversity and undermine the resilience of local food production systems;
• introduced the large-scale use of dangerous agrochemicals along with the GM crops that depend on them, thus exposing people and the environment to increased amounts of health-threatening pesticides.

Most damning of all is the judges’ conclusion that none of these tragic developments are necessary, as the world can feed itself using agroecological methods.

Claire Robinson is managing editor at GMWatch, a public news and information service on issues surrounding GM crops and foods.

This article was originally published by GMWatch.