MANY people think know that studies suggest that alcohol in moderation may promote heart health, and even ward off diabetes and dementia. But fewer people know that no study has ever proved a causal relationship between moderate drinking and lower risk of death, only hat the two often go together.

In other words, it is just as likely that moderate drinking is just something healthy people tend to do, not something that makes people healthy.

Dr. Tim Naimi, an epidemiologist with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, says that, “The bottom line is there has not been a single study done on moderate alcohol consumption and mortality outcomes that is a ‘gold standard’ kind of study -- the kind of randomized controlled clinical trial that we would be required to have in order to approve a new pharmaceutical agent.”

Alcohol has been tied to breast cancer, can lead to accidents even when consumed in small amounts, and is linked with liver disease, cancers, heart damage and strokes when consumed in larger amounts.

Some of the WEAKEST science we have is epidemiological observations, and that is precisely the type of science that has been used to support that drinking wine in moderation is healthy for you.

Additionally, to examine the effects of alcohol on the brain, researchers examined eight men and seven women who drank alcohol through a straw while lying in an MRI scanner.

Only 6 minutes after consuming an amount of alcohol equivalent to three beers, changes had already taken place in their brain cells, Live Science reports. Their brains began to run on the sugar in alcohol instead of glucose, the normal brain food.

The concentration of substances such as creatine, which protects brain cells, also decreased as the concentration of alcohol increased. Choline, a component of cell membranes, was also reduced. This probably means that alcohol triggers changes in the composition of cell membranes.

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The Judge who would cause no one any hurt

THE M.S. Liberhan Commission meant for enquiring into the traumatic events of December 6, 1992, need not have been appointed. The Honourable Judge has taken nearly 18 years and 48 extensions to produce a magnum opus to say essentially nothing more than what the newspapers had reported then.

The destruction of the Babri Masjid brought national shame and hit at the roots of the ethos that run through Indian pluralism, which indeed is the bedrock of the Constitution. It did not occur to the Judge, however, that the delay in passing the judgement on those culpable for the gory events of 1992 would itself be hurtful.

Lakhs of people were encouraged to go to Ayodhya with pickaxes, hammers and whatever; top leaders of the BJP and the Sangh Parivar camped at Faizabad to see the mosque being brought down brick-by-brick, little realising how serious was the damage they were inflicting on the concept of Indian nationhood.

The frenzied kar sewaks were full of passion, fanned by a serialised Ayodhya yatra led by none else than Mr Lal Krishan Advani and encouraged the parivar which believed in a different, and dangerous, concept of the Indian nation. And when the mosque had come down by the end of a traumatic day, there were celebrations in the BJP leaders’ camp at Faizabad.

Messrs Advani, Joshi, Kalyan Singh and Uma Bharati can thank Justice Liberhan for letting them off lightly. The Judge has avoided charging them even with a conspiracy for causing a grievous hurt to India.

While the Judge was plodding through his work, Mr Advani as Home Minister in the NDA government got out of the CBI’s charges by artful management, leaving his colleagues like Joshi and Uma Bharati to fend for themselves.

The BJP leaders L.K. Advani, M.M. Joshi, Uma Bharati and Kalyan Singh as also the RSS front organisations like the VHP and the Bajrang Dal, however, do come under a bad light in the report. But nothing more. Justice Liberhan has been like a surgeon whose hands tremble while the patient is on the operating table for dissection. He has been too afraid to face the truth lest he may be blamed for causing any hurt that may come to anyone because of his diligence.

The NDA government was not keen on Justice Liberhan coming out with his report.Any indictment of the BJP leaders and the Sangh Parivar, howsoever mild, would have been embarrassing for it and forced the BJP ministers to resign from the government. The UPA government did not tell the Judge to speed up his inquiry either, possibly because of the fear that waking up the ghosts of 1992 would worsen the communal situation on the ground.

Fears of both the NDA and the UPA may have led to an unspoken understanding that it was better for everyone not to rake up the events that made the country go through the shock of December 1992. The Judge conveniently went along with the wishes of whatever the ruling dispensation at the Centre was.

Justice Liberhan, meanwhile, can draw satisfaction that he has been able to submit his report in his and our lifetime and that it does no one any harm.

No wonder, it is said in the language of governance that committees and commissions are often appointed not to find the truth, or a solution, or for punishing the guilty, but only to defuse a situation. [Courtesy The Tribune]

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The future for farmers in America

FARMERS and those in the agriculture economy have a lot to lose as greenhouse gases increasingly trap more heat at the planet's surface. More than any other sector of our economy, farmers are hit hard by the extreme weather exacerbated by global warming -- floods, droughts, heat waves, and storms threaten their livelihood and our food supply.

At the same time, the one in 300 Americans employed in the $200 billion farming and forestry sector have tremendous opportunities in the shift to a clean energy economy. U.S. agricultural and forest lands sequester 903 million metric tons of carbon dioxide annually, absorbing 13 percent of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions, but U.S. agriculture also produces 413 million metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent emissions per year. If industrial agriculture engages in greener practices, then advanced biofuels, wind farms, biological sequestration and other sustainable practices can offer new jobs and billions of dollars of income to rural America. However, as climate and clean energy legislation moves to the Senate, many of the members most skeptical of taking action to curb greenhouse gas emissions and build a green economy hail from predominantly rural states. Oklahoma Sen. Jim Inhofe (R) continues to claim that global warming is "phony." Nebraska Sen. Ben Nelson (D) is "against" President Obama's climate agenda. And Arkansas Sen. Blanche Lincoln (D) has "a lot of concerns" with the American Clean Energy and Security Act passed last month by the House of Representatives.

The effects of global warming are already being felt by the nation's farmers, according to the U.S. Global Change Research Program. "The Midwest and northern Great Plains have experienced increases of more than 7ºF in average winter temperatures over the past 30 years," allowing "many insect pests and crop diseases to expand and thrive." "Precipitation has become less frequent but more intense," such as the spring 2008 flooding of the Mississippi River, which caused$8 billion in agricultural losses. "Three years ago in a drought that spanned more than a year, Texas lost $4.1 billion, a crop and livestock record for a single year," one of several billion-dollar droughts in the last 10 years. And the devastating droughts and heat waves continue, hitting our nation's top agricultural producers especially hard. Last month, "close to 4,000 head of cattle died in the extreme heat across 23 counties in central and eastern Nebraska." "Central and South Texas are in the midst of an epic drought that has sapped soils of their moisture, dried up stock ponds and turned cornfields from green to beige." California's "Central Valley farmers will receive an additional 100,000 acre-feet as part of a water loan to deal with the three-year drought plaguing the state" that "has turned fields into dust bowls and resulted in a spike in rural crime, high unemployment and low property values." Yet these disasters pale in comparison to projected trends if global warming pollution is not curbed. By the end of the century, the Southwest will be in permanent drought, the Great Plains will see average summer temperatures rise more than 10ºF, and heat waves in the Midwest will occur three times a year.

The House agriculture chair, Collin Peterson (D-MN), limited scientific oversight of agricultural offsets and included "a raft of provisions friendly to corn-based ethanol" in the clean energy act. The move blocked the EPA from calculating a biofuel's worldwide carbon footprint due to land use changes when determining its eligibility for federal subsidies. Sen. Tom Harkin (D-IA), chairman of the Senate agriculture committee, told E&E News that "EPA's got to get over their absolute rejection of ethanol. They've just got to get over it. And we're going to force them to get over it." Harkin explained that he is "reasonably happy" with Peterson's work: "We want no indirect land use, things like that in there -- there is no scientific basis for that." In fact, the connection between biofuels and indirect land use change is real, and the scientific understanding is robust. "These amendments run the risk of creating a subprime market in both offsets and biofuels," David Hawkins of the Natural Resources Defense Council testified before the Environment and Public Works Committee this week. "They seriously damage the environmental integrity of the bill, and they will undermine public confidence in the markets for both products." But other influential members of the Senate agricultural committee, including Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) and Kent Conrad (D-ND), strongly support the Peterson amendments. In fact, Conrad told E&E News he wants "more allocations or offsets" for the oil and coal industries in his state.

Unfortunately, these senators seem to be looking to continue unsustainable business practices instead of reaching for opportunities for clean energy reform. As Center for American Progress Senior Fellow Jake Caldwell reports, the Department of Energy estimates that if only 5 percent of the nation's energy comes from wind power by 2020, rural America could see $60 billion in capital investment. Farmers and rural landowners would derive $1.2 billion in new income and see 80,000 new jobs created over the next two decades. And the Congressional Budget Office has suggested that with the appropriate incentives farms and forests could ultimately absorb 50 percent of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions. Even though the Brookings Institution has found that the economic impact of a cap on carbon emissions to the agricultural sector is minimal, politicians continue to focus on the possible costs of change instead of the very real costs of inaction, promoting existing subsidies instead of spurring innovation through science-based standards. Although this approach serves the short-term interests of the industrial giants of the agricultural sector, it puts the security of America's food supply and the future of America's farmers at great risk.

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