Proof of Tory Support for Glyphosate

 Further to my last post,  I received a press release from Tory MEP for the South West, Julie Girling whose aim is to fight the 'needless farm ban':

' Julie Girling is leading Britain's Conservative MEPs in fighting moves to ban an important herbicide.
 She said: "Farmers need this product to protect arable fields and horticulture crops. It is also needed where there are large hard surfaces - airports for example - to tackle damaging weeds."
Scientists at the European Food Safety Authority have researched the substance thoroughly and found that glyphosate poses no unacceptable risk when used appropriately and is unlikely to pose a hazard to humans.Based on that advice, the EU Commission is proposing to renew authorisation, which is due to expire on June 30. However, MEPs on the Environment Committee passed a resolution objecting to the approval of glyphosate, leading to this week's vote of the full parliament.Mrs Girling said:"This product has been used for years and we are not going to stand by and watch over-zealous MEPs from the Left slip through a ban in the face of the science.
"This is a decision for member state experts. Parliament should let them get on with things. As MEPs we should support evidence based policy making. "In this case some anti-farmer MEPs are straying outside their remit and leaving the public open to higher food prices and scarcity issues"
 "We will not let them get away with it. We'll support fairness for farmers and consumers."

The US Center of Food Safety strongly disagrees with the European Food Safety Authority assessment.
'EFSA relied heavily on the glyphosate assessment conducted by German pesticide regulators, which was based on egregious violations of accepted standards for interpreting studies.  For instance, faulty statistical methods were used to reject clear evidence that glyphosate causes cancer in experimental animals.'

THE VOTE on 13th April

The Press release said:

 Given concerns about the carcinogenicity and endocrine disruptive properties of the herbicide glyphosate, used in many farm and garden applications, the EU Commission should renew its marketing approval for just 7 years, instead of 15, and for professional uses only, Parliament says in a resolution voted on Wednesday. MEPs call for an independent review and the publication of all the scientific evidence that the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) used to assess glyphosate.

Glyphosate should not be approved for use in or close to public parks, public playgrounds and public gardens, they add.

National experts sitting in the Standing Committee on Plants, Animals, Food and Feed (Phytopharmaceuticals Section) will vote to adopt or reject the Commission proposal by qualified majority in May. If there is no such majority, it will be up to the European Commission to decide.

Green MEP for the South West, Molly Scott Cato, is against the continued use of glyphosate.

Media blackout and Green options

How do most people find out about parties, policy issues and what’s going on in politics at the moment? Well, if you’re passionate about politics you probably read political blogs. You might go so far as to join a party – and that party will keep you informed with their take on things and the work they are doing. For most people though, it comes down to the media. Newspapers, television, radio. This is how we know what’s going on, what the issues are and what our options might be.

In order to have a decent democracy, we’ve got to have good information. You can’t make a good voting decision if you don’t know what’s going on. You aren’t going to make it to a party website to check out their policies if you don’t know the party exists. If you’re not much interested in politics in the first place, you might not want to go that far, you just want enough insight to make some choices.

At the last elections for councils and MEPs, about two thirds of people did not vote. We need to be asking why. How we talk about politics and how we get political ideas in front of people who feel intimidated, bored, or despairing in face of politics, is a big issue for anyone who cares about democracy.

If you mostly followed the BBC, you could be forgiven for thinking that UKIP were the only party out there some of the time and you’d have had no idea the Greens exist, much less how good the odds were you had a Green to vote for. Is that fair? We don’t think so! If all you hear from the media is the politics of hatred, fear and despair – and that’s my personal assessment of the mainstream right now – if that’s all you hear, why would you vote? Small differences of emphasis between the main parties and no real alternatives, versus the alarming UKIP brigade. Our local example announced herself to the world in a series of letters establishing that she doesn’t understand the difference between geographical climate difference, and climate change. It doesn’t inspire confidence, much less hope!

If a desire to blame and hate other people doesn’t get you out of bed of a morning, what else is there? This is why the silence around Green politics is so troubling. You can’t have a proper debate unless there are a range of options on the table. We’re being offered the same narrow choices, as though real alternatives could not possibly exist. They do.

If you’ve been uncomfortable with recent broadcasting, you can join the thousands of people who have already signed this petition of protest. Let’s open the media up a bit to some proper debates!

https://you.38degrees.org.uk/petitions/bbc-news-stop-this-media-blackout-of-the-green-party

Euro-MPs agree to phase out plastic bags

We were of course ahead on this one here in Stroud, as last autumn saw the start of the council’s STOP campaign aiming to cut back on disposable bag use. There’s an article here.

Now we’re delighted to learn that plastic shopping bags could become a thing of the past after Euro-MPs agreed to Green proposals to end their use, which creates massive amounts of waste and litter – as well as posing a danger to wildlife and spoiling the environment.

MEPs agreed that new rules proposed by the European Commission didn't go far enough, and called for mandatory targets to reduce bag use by 50% in three years and 80% over five, as well as requiring that shoppers pay for their bags.