by adam heckler

As of November 2008, the total estimated population of the planet Earth is 6.72 billion people. These people need food, and in vast quantities. Given that there is only a finite amount of resources available for food production, there is enormous pressure on producers to create food faster and more efficiently, but still safely. Thus, the agricultural industry has turned to science in search of ways to meet the ever-growing demand. Recently, industrial farmers have been able to produce and market larger amounts of beef faster than before due to hormonal implants. Some critics however, claim that this type of beef is not safe to eat, and that by using these hormones we have opened a version of Pandora’s Box.

These opposing forces have led to a large trade dispute between the US and the EU concerning hormone-treated beef. The EU insists that beef produced with these hormones is unsafe, and refuses to license it for sale in member nations. On the other hand, the US maintains that such beef is perfectly harmless and demands that the EU lower its existing trade barriers. Worse still, the debate seems unlikely to be solved in the foreseeable future, due in large part to a culturally-driven European distrust in scientific institutions. Combined with other factors, such as the fragmented nature of European food safety laws and the lack of a WTO mechanism for handling consumer-based protectionism, this phenomenon has perhaps immutably steeled Europe against US beef.

Interestingly enough, the US has not been without its own hormone scare, which actually preceded the current trade dispute by several decades. This particular hormone, diethylstilbestrol (DES), was discovered to be a carcinogen in the 1950’s. Its use in any part of the food supply was banned in the 1958 Food Additives Amendment. Three years later, however, the DES Proviso was passed, which essentially stated that DES use could continue if no hormonal residue was found in the cattle. Since the technology available at the time could not reliably detect this residue though, use of DES to make beef production more efficient continued unchecked. At one point, as many as 95% of US cattle producers used the hormone.

However, the increasing evidence that DES was a cancer-causing agent fueled further attempts to ban it until the hormone was finally pulled from the market in 1979. Although DES had been outlawed, other growth-promoting hormones eventually took its place. These newer hormones had been approved as safe for use by the FDA, with the backing of multiple scientific studies. Thus, by the time the current beef hormone dispute emerged, the large industrial farms prevalent in the US were already using hormones to make most of their beef. And Americans, trusting in the FDA to regulate their agricultural production methods, were well accustomed to eating it.

Putting the DES scare aside, the roots of the current hormone debate lie in the differences in agricultural policy between the European Union and the United States. Although the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) focused strongly on growing the world economy, agriculture was an exception to this rule for various reasons. First, developed countries often tend to romanticize the idea of farming because it was formerly a crucial part of that nation’s history. Hence, large subsidies are paid to “family farms” that have now been driven almost into extinction by larger, industrial farms. Second, the cost of subsidizing the agricultural sector goes up in correlation with increased agricultural trade and the accompanying competition. Lastly, many nations see preserving their own farming industry as vital to their national security; they would not like to be at the mercy of world agricultural markets when a war breaks out, for example.

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The Intertubes isn’t just lolcats and YouTube videos. There’s actually some really good stuff out there that will make you not only smarter, but generally more awesome as well. Here are five websites that you should be visiting:

TED

Short for “Technology, Entertainment, Design”, TED is an annual conference that brings together the worlds best thinkers to give 20-minutes talks on science, the arts, politics, culture, business, global issues, technology, and entertainment. They’ve had people like Al Gore, James Watson, and Jonathan Haidt come and talk, and they release a new video every week. TED is definitely the granddaddy of them all, so be sure to bookmark this website.

ScienceBlogs

As an invitation-only blog network and virtual community, ScienceBlogs is dedicated to enhancing the public understanding of science. As of March 2008, ScienceBlogs hosted around 70 blogs dedicated to various fields of research. Each blog has its own theme, specialty, and authors, and is not subject to editorial control. Authors are almost always scientists in industry, college professors, professional writers, graduate students, and post-docs.

BigThink

Billing itself as a public forum designed for interaction between users and scholars, BigThink has recorded thousands of hours of footage from interviews of numerous experts. This allows users to see what today’s leaders feel about broader issues, such as global warming and the two-party system. Users can respond to these ideas by posting their own videos or questions to experts, creating a conversation in the public sphere. It’s like YouTube for intellectuals.

Frontline

Originally an award-winning documentary program on public television, Frontline has expanded to include a deeply detailed website for each of its broadcasts. It publishes the full video of the show, extended interview transcripts, in-depth chronologies, original essays, sidebar stories, related links and readings, and source documents, including photographs and background research. Most videos are about an hour long, but some can be even lengthier. [previously]

The Long Now

Established in 1996, The Long Now Foundation is a private organization that seeks to become the seed of a very long-term cultural institution. It aims to provide a counterpoint to what it views as today’s “faster/cheaper” mindset by promoting “slower/better” thinking. To emphasize this, the group writes years using five digits instead of four: 02008 instead of 2008. Their seminars are available for free on their website or via podcast.

Ever since Mr. Obama’s now-infamous chat with Joe The (Unlicensed) Plumber, where he admitted that his tax plan was designed to “spread the wealth around”, his political opponents have tried to label him as a socialist. However, if you are at all familiar with the basic tenets of socialism, you know that this charge is both ignorant and ridiculous.

Obama’s proposed tax plan uses the progressive income tax, which basically means that the more you earn, the more you are taxed. This has been standard practice in the United States since 1913, and it is something that even Adam Smith, the godfather of the free-market economy, argued for. Obama will use it to give the middle class (those earning under $250k per year) a tax cut, while at the same time allowing the tax cut that President Bush gave the very wealthy to expire. So is that socialism? No.

Socialists believe that capitalism unfairly concentrates power and wealth among a small segment of the population, creating huge inequalities. Thus, they advocate the establishment of an egalitarian society, in which wealth and power are distributed more evenly. To do this, socialists argue for abolishing the free market and replacing it with state ownership and administration of the means of production.

It could be reasonably argued that Obama’s new tax proposal may “level the playing field” somewhat between the very rich and the poor, but that is not anywhere even close to the degree of equalization called for by actual socialists. And it’s not like the taxes paid by the rich will be funneled directly to the poor anyway. The increased tax revenue will go to fund things that everyone uses: schools, parks, hospitals, roads, and so on.

Obama will not set up a government agency to plan the economy. He will not nationalize industries or turn them over to the control of the workers. He will not require businesses to meet production targets. He will not outlaw profit. Obama only wants to regulate the market, not get rid of it. This is nothing more than regular Democratic liberalism, not socialism.

Don’t get me wrong, though; Obama’s policies will be far from perfect. But that being said, calling him a socialist does nothing more than display one’s breathtaking ignorance of simple definitions and pathetic susceptibility to fear-mongering catchphrases. So whether you agree with his plan or not, can we please move beyond childish name-calling?

Thank you.