Pulp Nonfiction

Forests, where sustainability meets the sandwich

Ducere, Usere, Cyclere

By: Josh Grenzsund

Posted: 6/4/08

Most people have no problem thinking of some forest products as items that belong in a pantry - like maple syrup or paper towels. However, it's not likely people think that part of the soft wood load on the back of a logging truck rolling down a muddy mountain road could end up in their salad dressing, cheese or ice cream.

I've had the pleasure to watch the harvesting of 80-foot conifers close up, and nothing in the blue-sweet smell of chainsaw exhaust, splintered pine and diesel fumes makes me think of food. Until recently I probably would have dismissed the claim that fir and pine doesn't just serve for newsprint and lumber but is also served up in many of our snacks and processed foods - even foods labeled "organic."

In investigating Oregon's forests and looking into the question of genetically modified and "Roundup® resistant" trees that are researched and developed at Oregon State University and then planted throughout the Pacific Northwest, I came across references to pulp mills and the production of cellulose for use as a food ingredient.

Disturbingly, modified and pesticide-resistant trees can be certified under the Sustainable Forestry Initiative, as the regulations allow each petitioner to define what factors in timber growth and harvesting should be considered in the certification process. Because SFI certification is marketed as the forestry equivalent of "organic," and because of how the key word "sustainable" has been branded in our cultural vocabulary, the public can often remain ignorant to the fact that an SFI-certified forest could likely be a pesticide-heavy tree farm.

Fast growing trees with a high survival rate are key to both timber and to pulp mills, and if GM trees are fed into pulp mills, then GM cellulose will be the product at the consumer end. But it is an invisible and USDA certifiably "organic" route for GMOs and arguably synthetic ingredients to enter our food.

Wood is used as a source for cellulose because wood is 50 percent cellulose. And cellulose has many industrial applications as well as dozens of uses as a food ingredient. According to the 2001 Technical Advisory Panel review of cellulose for the U.S. Department of Agriculture's National Organic Standards Board, "powdered cellulose may be added to bread to provide noncaloric bulk. It is also used in reduced-calorie baked goods to stay moist and fresh longer, and provide an increased content of dietary fiber."

Other very common uses include use as an "anti-caking agent, used in shredded cheese and spices, in frozen products to maintain texture through freeze - thaw cycles, barbecue sauces, frozen cheese lasagna, frozen guacamole, marshmallow topping, liquid diet products, sandwich spreads, [and] low calorie mayonnaise."

Cellulose also "replaces fats and oils" because it thickens food items and provides a "favorable mouth feel" that makes you think you're eating fat because of the improved "adhesion of sauces [and] salad dressings." Processed vegan products sometimes have cellulose in them to help give fuller and more satisfying textures.

These vegan and "organic" labeled products contain cellulose as a food ingredient even though turning a tree into microcrystalline cellulose (MCC) is a highly industrialized process in which "timber is debarked and cut into chips," according to the USDA TAP.

The document further describes how the chips are then "mechanically ground and then digested (cooked) chemically using either a sulfite or alkali process at elevated temperatures in pressure vessels or digesters." Also, "MCC production uses an additional step involving hydrolysis of the purified wood pulp, using hydrochloric acid to reduce the degree of polymerization."

Though this expensive processing is acknowledged in the TAP, cellulose is allowed as an ingredient in foods labeled "organic" for two main reasons:

First, there is no "non-synthetic" method of active cellulose production that can keep up with demand for this ingredient. Cotton can be used, but the infrastructure and processing plants do not exist.

Secondly, the TAP points out that "cellulose, powdered cellulose, and microcrystalline cellulose do not appear in 21CFR [Code of Federal Regulations] as regulated or GRAS [generally recognized as safe]." It's a catch-22, because it is not listed or addressed anywhere - not even on the National List of organic substances - "powdered cellulose is considered to belong in the 'prior sanctioned category' as a food addition in use prior to the passage of the Food Additives Amendment in 1958. It is considered 'grandfathered' and permitted (FDA, 1986)."

The TAP summary recommendation does prohibit synthetic cellulose, as derived from wood, in products labeled as "95 percent organic." However, for "70 percent organic" products, it is fully allowed.

If nothing else, a detailed critique and examination of USDA documents will draw attention to the highly ambiguous nature of the term and label "organic." Aside from the invisible allowance of synthetic cellulose, the National List of "synthetic substances allowed for use in organic crop production" - 7CFR 205.601(i) - lists streptomycin and tetracycline.

Awareness of these allowances should make you less trusting of the organic label. USDA "organic" certification is not a health-based or environmentally based process. It is one of argumentative rhetoric and economics.

The NOSB TAP was conducted not to certify cellulose as itself organic - the process is characterized as having "many environmental concerns" related to "caustics, sulfites, and bleaching agents" - but to demonstrate how it is necessary to allow synthetic cellulose into products labeled organic. A key example is how only cellulose added to shredded cheese will "keep the cheese from compacting into a non-saleable mass."

So on your next trip to the grocery store, check the ingredients of your favorite products for cellulose powder, sodium carboxymethylcellulose or solutions of xanthan or guar. Then thank a logger.

jgrenzsund@dailyemerald.com

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© Copyright 2008 Oregon Daily Emerald

Grinding to a Halt

In Halsey, sustainable practices don't always pay

Duceré Useré Cycleré

By: Josh Grenzsund

Posted: 5/28/08

Earlier this month the Pope and Talbot pulp mill in Halsey, 30 miles north of Eugene, closed suddenly. The mill had been operating since 1968.

Even with rumors of a possible last-minute buyout, about 180 people are now out of work as Chapter 7-bankruptcy liquidation proceedings take place.

This could be an anomaly, or it could be a symptom of recession and a weak U.S. dollar, but whatever the case, it is an example of a failure of an organization that attempted, or so it seems, to make itself a sustainable fixture in a community - socially, financially and environmentally.

It is curious to browse the Pope and Talbot Web site. It has not been updated to reflect the recent closures, so it looks like business as usual. Though most of the information proclaims the vitality of its operations and strategies, it also lists a live feed to the Pope and Talbot stock price - now at $0.03.

It is creepily voyeuristic to read the online remnant of this organization before it is completely mothballed in cyberspace. The corporate Web site praises its pulp business and its production of "bleached kraft pulp for newsprint, writing paper and tissue manufacturers." It goes on to proclaim that its mills "are a vital part of the communities in which we operate, with over 2,500 employees."

It may be just popular rhetoric to publicly posture as being vital to the local community and helping to stabilize the local society with a tax base and jobs, but Oregon has seen decades of reduction in timber-related businesses and jobs that has had a severe impact on communities.

An employer that leaves a small community suddenly will have significant impacts on that community. Pope and Talbot's Web page also describes how the company followed ongoing traditions that "ensure that we serve our customers, communities and shareholders through varying economic and profitability cycles." Financial sustainability is the key factor that allows businesses to remain in a community and to try and help provide the sort of social sustainability that many people are seeking, especially in these days of economic downturn.

As a resource-extraction company, Pope and Talbot also described its environmental philosophy. The Web site describes procedures and measures in forest management and industrial processes that seem to reflect the current atmosphere of concern with all things climate-and-environment-related. The company's short statement outlines how "environmental stewardship is more than a corporate philosophy - it is an operating strategy that extends from the forest to our manufacturing processes. We recognize that our future depends on sustaining and managing the health of the ecosystems supporting productive forest lands, as well as on utilizing environmentally responsible manufacturing processes in our cycle of success."

In addition to having operated in the Pacific Northwest since 1849, Pope and Talbot seems to have at least made fairly convincing efforts to be portrayed as a socially and environmentally responsible corporate individual. Despite this, and because timber jobs often get the short end of the stick in discussions about environmental conservation and ways in which human societies can exist without degrading ecosystems, it is easier to let timber jobs go.

There was recently a debate here at the University about whether or not the Holy Cow Café in the Erb Memorial Building should be awarded a new lease. The initial decision was one largely based on financial sustainability - the space was awarded to a business that was seen as better suited to be financially successful. However, given public sentiment and pressure, Laughing Planet Café turned down the lease, leaving Holy Cow the opportunity to add a revitalized financial performance to its credentials as a socially and environmentally sustainable business.

Maybe 30 miles is too far away for University students and Eugene residents to rally for the Halsey mill workers. But failing to recognize that the local mill helped provide our "newsprint, writing paper and tissue," as well as stable and sustainable jobs, would be a shame.

jgrenzsund@dailyemerald.com

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© Copyright 2008 Oregon Daily Emerald

It All Flows Downhill

Don't let our rivers become our waste deposits

Ducere, Usere, Cyclere

By: Josh Grenzsund

Posted: 5/21/08

I grew up about 30 miles from the crest of the Continental Divide in Western Montana. The way the land divided the waters and assigned each drop a destination to either the Pacific Ocean or the Gulf of Mexico fascinated my young mind.

One of my earliest memories is actually riding in the family car down the Columbia Gorge on one of those summer days when the stone walls magnify the heat like an oven. On that same trip we crossed the bridge at Astoria and I saw the end of the river where snow and rain near my home eventually flowed into the brine.

But these Columbian and Pacific waters were the waters from the other side of the mountain, as it were, because my hometown sat high in the east flank of the Rockies. The waters of the Boulder River, which flow through my hometown, follow a channel to the Jefferson, to the Missouri and on to the Mississippi and the Gulf of Mexico at New Orleans.

In Montana there's a social and geographic division between east and west, and though I lived firmly in the state's west, there was another social and geographic subdivision - "west of the divide" and "east of the divide."

In a place where the weather comes from the north and west, and the precipitation comes from the west, to be east of the divide meant to get only what could make it over the pass without first falling on the other side.

In the winter when I would petition the air for more snow, or in the summer when I would dream of rain, I would often stare longingly at the weather map and to points west adorned with cartoon snowflakes and raindrops.

At the same time I learned to appreciate what we did get. Though some years, like 1988, saw severe droughts, the 10 to 20 inches of precipitation each year kept us from being classified as a desert region in the almanacs.

By fishing and collecting berries and mushrooms I also realized that the water falling from the sky was the life of the place where I lived, and "just east of the divide" was still a really good place to be.

When I finally moved west of the divide, along the bank of the Clark Fork of the Columbia River, I also realized that being right up at the top of a watershed is a privileged location. The Clark Fork at Missoula is only about 120 river miles from its Continental Divide headwaters, but that entire length represents the largest superfund site in the United States.

Over a century of mining and smelting in Butte and Anaconda has polluted the entire river, and a recent removal of the Milltown Dam just outside of Missoula has temporarily increased the level of toxic metals flowing downstream.

Of course the Columbia is not the only river, even regionally, that carries the residue of industry in it. This last weekend thousands of us living on the banks of the Willamette River went out to our river to take in the hot sunshine and the cool water.

It's times like that when we can almost ignore the fact that a six mile stretch of the river, near Portland, is designated as a superfund site. But on my float from Alton Baker to the Beltline overpass I was reminded several times that the river is not just a place of recreation for humans or of habitat for non-humans, but also serves as an active and passive gravity-powered conveyor of waste.

We cannot see the industrial and agricultural wastes in the water, but at least three empty bottles floated past my kayak - not even a message in the bottles - and then at the takeout point I had to consider that it is not just the irresponsible tossing of trash into our streams that endangers our rivers and our health, but also even the most responsible disposal of our human wastes.

Just before the Beltline Bridge over the Willamette, there's the wastewater discharge for Eugene/Springfield Regional Water Pollution Facility. Here the air, and the water, smells like the sewage waste of about 215,000 people, and let me tell you, it smells like shit.

Like I said, this is a relatively responsible disposal of our wastes, as the wastewater division has a great facility and puts forth the energy to make sure the environmental impact of all our flushed crap is minimized, but when it goes back into the river it is still has a noticeable impact.

We all live downstream from someone else, and with this in mind, we should not accept crap in our rivers and continue to view rivers as our waste-conveyors. Advanced wastewater reclamation and recycling technologies are at our disposal, and we must work to make these the new standard.

jgrenzsund@dailyemerald.com

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© Copyright 2008 Oregon Daily Emerald

The political climate is roasting McCain

Oregon has its first awkward meeting with McCain

In My Opinion | Duceré Useré Cycleré

By: Josh Grenzsund

Posted: 5/14/08

What do you do when that guy who nobody invited shows up to the party? This past Monday that guy was Sen. John McCain and that party was the climate change hobbyhorse - dominated by Democrats.

McCain showed up in Portland to unveil his climate initiative, just as his rivals - Senators Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama - continued their assault on Oregon's voters. It's no mystery why Oregon is garnering so much attention from all three front-running candidates these days. Or maybe it is.

The knock-down drag-out race between Clinton and Obama has come down to Oregon's paltry 52 delegates carrying disproportionate symbolic and real political value, so we see why they are stirring up support in many of our bustling urban centers. But McCain, the "presumptive" Republican nominee, could really not care less about what Oregon's Republicans do with their primary vote.

McCain is here in Oregon not to stir up voter support, but to, as it were, "stir the turd" when it comes down to who can stand on the environmental plank in their platform come November.

Oregon's population has a reputation for taking pride in trying to hammer out a balance between economic, industrial, social and environmental needs. If you're going to say you stand for something, you'd best go to the place that embodies that concept in people's minds to make your declaration.

So, Oregon, meet Sen. McCain, rising environmental advocate, and Mr. McCain, meet Oregon, a place and collection of people who log, fish, farm, recreate, advocate and at times commit arson as part of their performance in what it means to be both socially and environmentally responsive. Regardless of what their beliefs may be, a lot of Oregonians think they own the truth, or at least one part of it, when it comes to sustainable living.

It was an awkward meeting, but one that was long overdue. In the formalities, between the lines, without asking directly, by insinuating himself, McCain is raising the question of who can not only take a stand on environmental and climate change issues, but who can "own" it.

None of us were born environmentalists. None of us have genetic codes that predispose us to giving a crap if we have clean water, healthy food and a stable place to call home. These are all concerns that develop in us as we are trained to react to our surroundings and as we learn to rationalize what may or may not be a logical and realistic connection between causes and effects.

McCain's leaf-turning performance, however, has put him into a position to rile up those activists who saw the connections between human activity and the environment some time before yesterday. To proclaim a concern for climate change so suddenly, then to present a plan that looks like a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a greenhouse gas emissions limitation and reduction plan smacks of opportunism.

So we've got a situation here where the New-Kids-on-the-Block in the climate change scene may be pulling a Milli Vanilli - peace be unto them. However, if McCain chooses to dance the populist dance, isn't that what we all want anyhow? How many times do environmental activists thrust themselves upon the mantra that it takes all of us to make a real difference and that we all have to take responsibility and change our policies and behaviors?

Well McCain, and if we are lucky, the Republican Party as a whole, will actually make the move.

When a movement gains strength and momentum because it has a rhetorical "other" against which to define itself and to demonstrate moral and ethical integrity, it feels like a defeat when that other decides to join the winning team.

If nobody in the U.S. openly proclaims that climate change has no human caused component and we need not make any adjustments, then where could environmental activists put their energy? Well, into solutions of course.

So, Sen. McCain, you may be lipsynching to get voters in the November election, but I'm going to interpret your moves as sincere, and more importantly as a massive success of climate change activists. The "there is no climate change" boat has sunk, and I am honored and excited to welcome you and all of your supporters aboard.

You may not have my vote, but in joining a rational and sustainable approach to our environmental challenges you certainly do have my support.

jgrenzsund@dailyemerald.com

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© Copyright 2008 Oregon Daily Emerald

AstroTurf green: nuclear power

Nuclear power's promises have history of imploding

Ducere, Usere, Cyclere

By: Josh Grenzsund

Posted: 4/30/08

Twenty years ago environmental activists were fighting nuclear energy tooth-and-nail. Now, according to surveys by Treehugger.com, and Grist, an online environmental journal, more than half of their readers favor giving fission another chance. What was recently the bane of a clean, safe and livable environment now represents salvation from global climate change.

The argument in favor of building new nuclear power reactors is simple, arguably effective and definitely well-publicized. If we had a nearly limitless, well-developed, greenhouse-gas-emissions-free power source, why would we not use it? The pre-packaged answer is that of course we have to. Logic demands it, because if you'd rather burn coal then the evildoers have already won.

What is left out of the sales pitch is any acknowledgment that the long industrialized road from uranium ore to controlled fission is one long story: material that is deadly to human life, that neighbors to reactors, like Chernobyl, risk catastrophe from fairly minor accidents, that the life span of a reactor facility is a matter of short decades and that the "spent fuel" will be extremely dangerous for 10,000 years after it's powered our flat screen TV and, if things go right, charged our mystical electric vehicles.

Yet fickle and conflicted average people are jumping on the nuclear bandwagon, as are many self-proclaimed environmentalists. Deluded by a fast-talking "solution" to the greenhouse gas emissions problem, it is akin to signing an adjustable rate sub-prime mortgage on our sky-domed home in the hopes that we'll find a solution to the stop-gap after this crisis passes.

The problem with problematic solutions is that over time they lose their solution-like characteristics and become simply problematic. We should not be willing to accept more nuclear-powered facilities as a solution to our energy and climate crises because they represent a short-term benefit with a long-term liability. We should not hold at the core of our electrified society a power source that is deadly and dangerous.

Such residual problematic qualities were evident in a decision earlier this month by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. They ruled in favor of the plaintiff in a case that claims radiation from Hanford facilities in south-central Washington caused cancer in employees and nearby residents. Hanford produced plutonium for weapons for more than 40 years, and Washington's only commercial reactor, Columbia Generating Station, is in the same neighborhood.

Even though the nuclear industry claims that processes are better and safer, the fact remains radioactive material is extremely deadly, expensive to work with and the lifespan of the waste dwarfs the lifespan of any facility. Despite this, the federal government supports the nuclear solution and is processing applications for new reactors to add to the more than 100 nuclear reactor facilities already in the U.S. As a solution to the waste issue, there is the plan to neatly centralize "all" radioactive wastes at Nevada's Yucca Mountain.

It sounds neat on paper, but in practice it is much messier.

Oregon's ill-fated Trojan facility was killed in 1992, about twenty years before its projected life span due to the release of radioactive steam. With Trojan came a total construction-demolition cost of about $900 million. Its core was sent to Hanford, the tower imploded, yet its spent fuel rods are still on the banks of the Columbia waiting in a pool of water for what may come next, be that Yucca, erosion or nothing.

Such messiness has the likes of Warren Buffet scrapping plans to back a new facility that had been planned near the Oregon-Idaho border. However, show me someone who holds contracts to store radioactive waste and I'll show you someone who knows how to leverage long-term investment against public health and public sentiment - and who supports more nuclear power facilities.

Because Oregon has a law that the public must approve new reactors, though two research reactors still operate in the state - at Oregon State University and at Reed College - and given the regional reliance on hydropower and a sentiment toward wind and solar power, there is little likelihood that we will have a new nuclear power plant in our state.

However, Eugene does draw some power from the Columbia Generating Station, and if an expansion occurred there, we would "benefit" from that. Also, plans for a new facility outside Boise would have regional implications if it were actually built.

Given the push to expand nuclear power's role in our energy spectrum, and given its apparent "emissions-free" status and our willingness to flip on the switch no matter where the electricity comes from or what wastes are made, it is a real possibility that nuclear power will effectively take up the "environmentally friendly" banner that most rationally thinking environmental activists would reserve for solar, wind and perhaps hydro-electric power.

jgrenzsund@dailyemerald.com

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© Copyright 2008 Oregon Daily Emerald

Nuclear renaissance blows (up the spot)

Those of you who recall the 1980s will no doubt remember not just the horrible day glow fashion and hideous hair but also the international specter of radiation that overshadowed daily life. Ionizing radiation, from a theorized nuclear holocaust or nuclear power reactor accidents, was at the top of media reports and at the top of public fears.

However, radiation, in and of itself, was neither a new nor unnatural phenomenon. Also, the life cycle of radioactive elements is not confined to the narrow sphere of weapons or energy and they continue to pervade our everyday lives – in manufacturing processes, in health care and even in your living room smoke detector.

In these ways, radiation is far from just an inconvenient environmental and social liability, it is part of our convenient modernity in which we seek to eradicate human suffering through a domination of nature, including the nature of the atom. Along the path from uranium ore to industrially, medically or militarily useful materials to radioactive waste, there is a dynamic mix of benefits, liabilities and economic opportunities.

The common perception is that if we avoid nuclear power facilities and research and testing sites that we’re generally safe from exposure to radiation. The reality is that we are all exposed to ration on an ongoing basis. Just by being on Earth, we come into contact with a certain level of ionizing radiation. The United States Environmental Protection Agency has even put together a system of radiation risk assessment that breaks conveniently allows people 360 millirems per year, or about one a day.

Twenty-six of those come naturally from cosmic sources and another 23 to 90, again without human cause, from the ground you walk on. You are also expected to ingest about 40 millirems of radiation from your food and water and calculated to breathe in an astounding 200 millirems from the alpha particles from radon gas. If you get medical x-rays you can expect to absorb about another 70 millirems annually. There are also a whole range of lifestyle factors that you may not expect to affect your millirem exposure, like porcelain crowns or false teeth, the mantels of gas lanterns and living in a stone, brick or concrete building.

The one that we all fear and had 80’s nightmares about – reactor meltdowns and fallout from the more than 500 above ground nuclear explosions between 1945 and 1990 – gives us only one millirem a year. That is about the same as the LCD display wrist watch that you wear.

This is not to say that certain locations and events, such as the 26 April 1986 accident at Chernobyl in Ukraine or the attacks on the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, on 6 and 9 August 1945 respectively, have not resulted in irrevocable and incomprehensible death, suffering and disfigurement. However, the environmental and social fallout from these events has not precluded the continuation, and even proliferation of nuclear and radiation technologies.

In many ways the first decade of this century is a renaissance for nuclear development, both as rumors of the United States’ efforts to develop small scale “bunker buster” nuclear weapons and as North Korea seems to have brushed the United States off its back with its combination of long range missiles and a demonstrated nuclear weapon test in October 2006. Also, Russia is helping Iran build a nuclear reactor as it continues with the development of its nuclear capabilities, whether those be aimed at electricity or weapons production and last August the United States signed a bilateral agreement with India regarding India’s “civilian” nuclear technology. And in the United States 17 companies are laying the groundwork to build 33 new nuclear reactors – possibly just the right solution for energy in a market in which oil will probably not see the low side of $100 a barrel ever again and biofuels continue to conflict with food markets.

If the question is “How do we ensure our military capabilities and our energy needs?” then the answer, for many, seems to be the same as last century – go nuclear.

In the shadow of this answer, we may also renew our nightmare scenarios, though they will now be lined with advanced radiation technologies like praseodymium-147 to measure the thickness of our textiles, americium-241 to detect smoke in our homes, californium-252 to measure moisture content in the fields where our food grows and iodine-131 for radiation therapy.

Further down the half life of these military, industrial, political and medical innovations, there are results both more curious and more sinister.

In Washington state, in the US, courts have ruled in favor of those exposed to radiation as a result of working at or living near the Hanford Nuclear Site, which produced plutonium for much of the US arsenal. Such a ruling opens the way for further “downwinder” cases related to nuclear weapons production and testing in the United States.

Radioactive waste dumps and tailings from uranium mining and processing are also a huge issue related to our dependence on radiation. The waste is often a fiscal liability and this translates into an environmental liability as well, as it has been dumped and abandoned around the world, from South Africa to Central Asia and the Sea of Japan.

Abandoned uranium mines, in Boulder and Basin, Montana, US and Bad Gastein Austria, have actually capitalized on the excess of radon gas and converted the liability to a part of their tourist economies as people come there for natural radiation treatments that are claimed to cure arthritis and other ailments.

However, the renewed proliferation of fission and fissile materials as solutions for political, energy, industrial and military predicaments will outstretch their useful lifespan. We’ll still be stuck with the deadly half-lives of these “advancements,” as more nuclear activity moves deeper into our communities, farmland, industry and foreign policy, and the only recourse will be to recalculate the recommended daily dosage of millirems: a 21^st century version of “day glow” fashion.

PETA chews the fat

PETA's meat support a hard change to swallow

Duceré Useré Clycleré

By: Josh Grenzsund

Posted: 4/23/08

It's official - the coldest day in hell since Charlton Heston made good on his promise to deliver a firearm in his cold dead hands: People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals announced it supports "meat."

Far from just supporting meat, PETA is promoting a $1 million prize for any organization that can produce and market volumes of in vitro meat by June 2012. In vitro meat is meat tissue grown in culture in a controlled environment rather than in an animal body in a pasture, lot, sty or cage.

The echoes of Heston and "soylent green" are creepily present in the challenge to produce the nondescript tissue mass, though we are told that the cultures will be bred from stem cells of animals that we already traditionally eat, like chickens, cattle and swine.

The New York Times reported that PETA founder Ingrid Newkirk has been "hoping to get the organization involved in advancing in vitro meat technology for at least a decade." However, the announcement has shocked PETA to its core as the "meat is murder" mantra will now be complicated by the idea that meat without skeletal, circulatory and nervous systems may not exactly be in a position to be murdered.

The Times further reported that Newkirk understands the move has initiated a "civil war" within PETA, with one PETA Vice President, Lisa Lange, maintaining the philosophy that "animals are not ours to eat," while Newkirk defends the support of body-less meat tissue in terms of actions that will lead to conditions in which "fewer animals suffer."

I am at once pleased, shocked and appalled by the announcement and the implications of separating our meat production from animals' bodies. The decision of what to eat has social, economic and environmental repercussions that need to be addressed. We have to consider the question of whether or not we should support further industrialization of meat-type food products, because in the answer we will at once betray and realize a belief in either pastoral or industrial narratives of utopian ideals.

PETA's problematic move only further complicates this discussion. In order to try to make itself relevant again, PETA has imposed its argumentative claim of animal ethics and rights directly into the midst of dialogue on livestock production's role in global climate change. Earlier this month there was an inaugural in-vitro meat symposium in Norway. The press surrounding this event seems to have provided the right conditions for PETA to impose itself in such a fashion and, in effect, attempt to hijack collective concern about climate change.

This is moxie beyond what I've come to expect from PETA, as they seem to have realized there's only so far that nearly naked models and undergrads - always women by the way, but that's a question for another time - can move PETA's social message of ethics. All such discussions always have to move into the marketplace and faux-meat has a relevance to the masses and the market that faux-fur can never garner.

The sheer brilliance of re-founding PETA upon such a paradox strikes fear deep into my heart.

My first fear is that environmental reactionaries could actually think that this is a good idea and that we should further isolate human existence and sustenance within an illusion that modern industrial utopia can be achieved. There is precedence for markets, activists and consumers to all jump on alternatives with a rapacity that outpaces logical thought - biofuels is the best current example, in the context of its unintended impacts on food supplies and prices.

My second fear is exactly the same market function that I often put forth in this column as an integral element in the success of an overall sustainable market, economy, society and environment. I fear that people will buy this stuff. No doubt they will.

There is already an appetite for mechanically separated, chopped and pressed meat tissue products, and this in vitro meat tissue could easily fill that processed food market. As far as bone-in products marbled with fat like my two favorite cuts of dead cow - the New York strip and rib-eye steaks - how to produce these without the mess, disease and emissions of the rest of the cow is a challenge that attendees to the Norway symposium have been discussing how to overcome.

At this point we're back to the urban myth that there are vats of chicken breasts somewhere in the mid-west, growing without the rest of the chicken. Given that utopia, or dystopia given your ideals, it's time to pick a side and, as always, vote with your dollar. On the one hand you can throw your faith in a pastoral ideal in which local and ethically slaughtered meats can serve as an answer to problems of unsustainable environmental, social and economic practices. On the other hand, you can decide that, given Earth's human population, further industrialization of meat tissue is a logical, even desirable step.

The philosophy embodied in either position, unlike Newkirk's meat tissue, cannot be separated from your personal behavior and choices and, subsequently, the future that we collectively realize. Like Newkirk says, in ethics and philosophy, this is war.

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© Copyright 2008 Oregon Daily Emerald