If you live along the coastal US, you are almost certain to be a wealthy progressive, which means you are almost certain to nod your head at President Biden's pledge to cut climate emissions by 2030.Yet progressive enclaves, which mean 9 of the 10 wealthiest counties in the US, are least likely to support climate-friendly plans that don't involve having poor people pay higher utility costs to subsidize solar panels for the rich. Writing in Reason, science journalist Ron Bailey notes that 18,000 megawatts of offshore wind power, on the coasts, are being tied up in federal environmental permitting battles, because either activists want concessions or residents don't want their expensive view affected, and any permit is a slippery slope to being overrun.

If you are in agriculture, you know that growing food using older pesticides and other inputs has a cost - more economic expense and more environmental stress. California is the only state that requires all pesticides, including those that lobbyists get put on the organic list, to be specified. Copper sulfate is certified organic because it is old, not because it is less toxic. It is known to be more toxic to aquatic invertebrates and have greater environmental persistence than products like atrazine.(1)To be effective you need to use 400% more of the legacy organic stuff. All for a tiny sliver of the public.

Is Senator Elizabeth Warren a Native American, as she routinely claimed she was when it helped her career? Actually, sure, in a world where anyone can identify any way they want it is logically (and increasingly legally) difficult to tell someone they can't feel like part of a group, especially if the history is limited to stories and scant archeology.(1)

Passed in 2010, the Affordable Care Act, commonly called Obamacare, went into full force in 2014 and remains controversial for a few reasons. First is, of course, skyrocketing costs, with premiums commonly up 300% while with the mandate forcing people to buy insurance removed meant under a million people unable to get insurance are now covered but half of everyone who doesn't otherwise have health insurance opting out.Second is that doctors hated it because it added a new layer of paperwork. It was up to medical staff to insure premiums had been paid because if they didn't do so, they were stuck without getting compensated. That is why nearly 70% of doctors won't accept ACA patients at all.

After Democrats passed the 2009 Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act, and the Obama administration tightened the noose even more, the smoking cessation and harm reduction movement outside Big Pharma products has been slowly strangled.

Environmentalists celebrated a huge milestone recently. An energy source they began to advocate after they successfully saddled lawsuit targets with the hydroelectric, natural gas, and biofuels they now sue to remove was able to power a whole country.Unfortunately it was only for 0.06% of the time people want electricity.That did not stop their political allies at NPR - your tax dollars at work! - from cheering, while absolutely being deceptive to the public in their headline. And then journalists wonder why the public trusts journalists down at the levels they trust Congress and other lawyers.

With Honest company stock down 83% in the last 18 months, co-founder Jessica Alba is making the media rounds to try and avoid a shareholder lawsuit. (1)Nothing wrong with that, she has a responsibility to make them money. Unfortunately, she is still trapped in 2012 when it comes to marketing. She thinks she can only win if she tears science down. Her appearance at the 2022 Makers Conference did more than just lie about her products being safer, she tried to suggest that she faced sexism getting the company launched.

Scotland proudly boasts that their $16 billion food and drink sector doesn't use any GMO crops. They say they are helping to "protect health and the environment" but that is actually an EU claim made by politicians - no science body has found GMOs are worse for health or the environment. Most importantly, they want to be able to sell their food as "organic" and charge a premium.Like Europe claiming they were switching to solar and wind while secretly relying more heavily on Russian conventional fuel, Scottish shoppers were only willing to be fooled as long as costs stayed normal.

Averages don't tell us much about actual people or individual risk. After all, the average man has fewer than two testicles and the average woman fewer than two breasts but that doesn't tell you anything about your risk of testicular or breast cancer.Though abused by epidemiologists hoping to become expert witnesses in lawsuits against companies (an alarming number of participants at both IARC and NIEHS), absolute risk tells us as as little as averages, because '10% more risk' is silly if the relative risk is 1 in a million. Yet IARC, the UN body claiming to be the world leader in epidemiology, uses suspect methodologies and bizarre doses to claim things like drinking hot tea or eating meat increase your risk of cancer.

In California, the legislature does very little except add new taxes and regulations onto consumers while doing photo-ops about how much leadership they are showing.In California outside pricey Sacramento buildings, it's less great. Already under the yoke of expensive electricity - poor people have to pay added taxes to subsidize million-dollar solar installations - and gasoline that is highest in the nation thanks to taxes, but now water is expensive also.The legislature and governor are considered so useless - like 'a monarch in England' useless - that everything important is instead done by direct voter referendum. In 2015, voters demanded more water storage and infrastructure and the government has done...nothing.