Immediate Release
OPEN CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS
The Light Millennium - http://www.lightmillennium.org
Date: May 20, 2014 - Updated on May 28, 2014
E-mail: INFO@lightmillennium.org
CALL & FLYER as pdf and Flyer as jpg
Overview and Introduction
Freedom of Information in the Genetically Modified Age
Lack of transparency might be the worst problem of genetically modified foods

“Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.” -Article 19, Universal Declaration of Human Rights
"Technology/stewardship agreements required for the purchase of genetically modified seed explicitly prohibit research. These agreements inhibit public scientists from pursuing their mandated role on behalf of the public good unless the research is approved by industry. As a result of restricted access, no truly independent research can be legally conducted on many critical questions regarding the technology, its performance, its management implications, IRM (Independent Review Mechanism), and its interactions with insect biology. Consequently, data flowing to an EPA Scientific Advisory Panel from the public sector is unduly limited."
-26 Anonymous University Entomologists to EPA (Environmental Protection Agency), 2009
The Light Millennium is devoting an issue to two crucial interconnected themes:
1) the understanding of genetically modified foods in light of the United Nations' Post-2015 Sustainable Millennium Development Goals.
2) the understanding of genetically modified foods in light of the United Nations' sixty-six year old call for freedom of expression and freedom of information, from its 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Article #19.
Though genetically modified or GM foods would not hold up to the Sustainability Goals in the categories of food, agriculture, nor the environment, we would also like to focus on the guarantee of freedom of expression and freedom of information, which is also cited as necessary for a sustainable democracy. The Light Millennium sees freedom of information as encompassing not just the work of journalists, but that of scientists, academia, as well as people from all walks of life, and would like to call attention to the difficulties of those scientists trying to work outside of the industry, and to the lack of access between them and the general public.
We aim to explore all the multiple problems with GM foods, as well as the lack of transparency in the science, the industry, and in the decision making process that paved the way for the introduction of these foods. |
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Please visit www.lightmillennium.org (or click here) for an overview on the topic, and consider how you might contribute or participate. We are calling for works from scientists, independent researchers, farmers, environmentalists, writers, artists of all kinds, as well as regular folks, to share their thoughts, expertise, and/or their frustrations in dealing with the overwhelming question of genetically modified foods, how it affects us today, and how we can deal with them in the future with a realizable, carefully envisioned action plan.
To be published by the end of June, please send us your works by June 15, 2014 (extended).
Work will continue to be reviewed and published throughout the summer, including the first week of September, with a final deadline of September 8, 2014.
Send your submissions to:
INFO@lightmillennium.org
Content Coordinator for Issue 30 is Julie Mardin
Please kindly read the PUBLISHING POLICY and indicate that you will be complying with it: http://www.lightmillennium.org/lm_publishing_policy.html
MISSION of The Light Millennium: http://www.lightmillennium.org/lm_mission.html
CALL for Pdf version, please click
FLYER pdf & as jpg
Overview and Introduction
The Light Millennium (LM) is a non-religious, non-political, not-for-profit (501-c-3), non-governmental (NGO), independent public benefit multi-media and culture organization. The LM has become associated with the Department of Public Information of the United Nations effective on December 12, 2005. Formed in 2001, based in Queens, New York. On the Web since August 1999... We are for: Fostering World Peace, Freedom of Expression, Encouraging Intellectual Productivity, Girls-Women Rights, Cultural Diversity, Advancing Culture of Peace, and Global Connectivity... "YOU ARE THE SOUL OF THIS GLOBAL PLATFORM. & WE ARE FOR THE GREATNESS IN HUMANITY." WELCOME To ALL Ideas Except Those that Promote War, Religious Propaganda, or Discrimination...