'Fat tax' to save thousands of lives | Press Esc

'Fat tax' to save thousands of lives | Press Esc: "Governments could save thousands of lives by introducing a 'fat tax' on unhealthy foods, a group of Oxford University scientists reported in the journal Epidemiol Community Health, prompting a trades union to dismiss the idea as 'utter nonsense'.

Such a tax UK could prevent up to 3200 deaths from heart attacks and stroke every year in the UK alone, according to Oliver Mytton and his colleagues."

Here in New York the increased taxes on cigarettes more than doubled the price of cigarettes overnight. They said it was because of the health costs of treating smokers. Only obesity kills more people. I have always joked that there will soon tax the 1-dollar double cheeseburger at McDonald's, until it costs about 4 dollars. I guess it is coming...

I think the government just wants another way to turn a profit. With cigarettes, they now earn more than the manufacturer.

WorldNetDaily: U.N. leader: Darfur slaughter triggered by global warming

WorldNetDaily: U.N. leader: Darfur slaughter triggered by global warming:
"U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon blames the ethnic and religious violence in Darfur on global warming and insists more conflicts of this kind are coming because of climate change.

'The Darfur conflict began as an ecological crisis, arising at least in part from climate change,' Ban said in a Washington Post opinion column."

Whether an ecological crisis is to blame or not in Dafur, as the Earth warms, there will conflicts developing over the control of natural resources, especially water and food.

AlterNet: Environment: Colony Collapse: Do Massive Bee Die-Offs Mean an End to Our Food System as We Know it?

AlterNet: Environment: Colony Collapse: Do Massive Bee Die-Offs Mean an End to Our Food System as We Know it?: "What is so serious is not only that the bees themselves are dying off without a smoking gun present, but that most people have no idea of the role they play in the food supply at large. Commercial beehives pollinate over a third of America's crops, and that web of nourishment encompasses everything from fruits like peaches, apples, cherries, strawberries and more, to nuts like California almonds, 90 percent of which are helped along by the honeybees."

This is quite a disturbing phenomenon. In this article they mainly discuss the hives of commercial beekeepers, but this is also happening in the natural bee world. We could have serious problems if this trend does not change. Are our environmental practices to blame, or, possibly, our genetically engineered crops?