Climate Bill Statistics & Food, Inc.

Creating confusion about the climate change bill.

This is The Environment Report. I’m Lester Graham.

The climate change bill that just squeaked through the House now goes to the Senate. Those opposed to the bill in the House argued last Friday that the it would make energy much more expensive. For example… Congressman Paul Broun, a Republican from Georgia says global warming is a hoax and the climate change bill would make energy much more expensive… hitting low-income people…

“People who can least afford to have their energy taxes raised by --MIT says by over 31-hundred dollars per family.”

Several members of Congress have used that three-thousand-one-hundred dollar figure. But as we noted back in April… that’s just not correct.

We talked to the author of that MIT study, John Reilly…

“They’re really kind of just misinforming the debate and trying to scare people with numbers that really aren’t accurate.”

Reilly says he’s written Republican leadership, telling them the numbers their citing from Reilly’s MIT study are wrong.

“The right number is actually 340 not three-thousand-one-hundred or something.”

And the Congressional Budget Office analysis indicates the cost to a family is even lower… like… one-hundred seventy-five dollars a year… or about the cost of a postage stamp each day.

But… in all likelihood… you’ll still hear that three-thousand one-hundred dollar figure used during the Senate debate too.

(((STING)))

This is The Environment Report.

A new film documentary hitting theaters now… looks at the underbelly of the food industry… and it’s disturbing. We’ve all heard about food recalls because of e-coli bacteria contamination… peanut butter, hamburger, spinach… the list is long.
The documentary Food Inc. looks at why that’s happening and reveals a lot more about our industrial approach to producing food.

“The industry doesn’t want you to know the truth about what you’re eating, because if you knew, you might not want to eat it.”

The film looks at how raising animals and growing crops have been industrialized from the farm to the grocery store. Food processors have relied more and more on technological and chemical fixes to food contamination problems and storage issues instead of questioning whether the assembly line factory, mass production approach is the best way of handling food.

Robert Kenner is the film’s producer/director. He says things can change. If people think about it… they actually vote with their forks three times a day.

“On some level, I think it’s going to be lead by moms who don’t want their children to be eating this food that’s making them sick.”

Kenner says these massive food recalls we’ve seen over the last several years are bad enough… but there’s a greater threat to our health.

“Obviously E-coli and things like that are very frightening, but ultimately it’s the everyday stuff that we don’t see such as the sugar, salt and fat that are making us fat. And that’s what I think needs to be changed most. That we get food that’s health and that we don’t subsidize food that’s making us sick.”

Food Inc. interviews farmers and food processors and some food industry critics, including author Michael Pollan. He says those foods subsidized by the government are the kinds of ingredients that are causing some of the leading health problems, such as early onset of diabetes and heart disease.

“All those snackfood calories are the ones that come from the commodity crops, from the wheat, from the corn, and from the soybeans. By making those calories really cheap, that’s one of the reasons the biggest predictor of obesity is income level.”

The Food Inc. documentary ends with some basic tips on what consumers can do… but like a lot of these big environmental issues… it’ll require some research and homework on your part.

You can start at our website… environmentreport.org.
I’m Lester Graham.