HFO-1234yf, a climate-friendly alternative refrigerant for car air conditioning systems touted by environmental activists, may instead be a greater problem than the products they insisted was causing pollution.
On August 21st, from west coast to east the United States will be treated to a rare event; an eclipse of the sun. Not just a partial eclipse either. Through the entire arc, a swath of land about 70 miles wide will have a total eclipse. There's been so much excitement that social media has made "path of totality" part of the lexicon.
You'll be able to the agriculture documentary called "Food Evolution" on Hulu soon enough but for obvious reasons the filmmakers went to Netflix first. Though the streaming service has thrown $20 billion at everything, they had no interest in a pro-science documentary. They may have a good reason. Their media buyers and audience don't want science. Like all documentaries, it is a passion project so when disappointments happen, lots of speculation occurs among the fans. Some believe it's a conspiracy against science, like that Netflix is politically aligned with the groups who make their money scaring people about food. (1) Others like me give them a pass and say science documentaries are probably just not a draw for their audience.
We know that corporations go where their market is. Whole Foods sets up shop in wealthy, progressive counties while smaller companies like Monsanto market to rural farmers. What about fast food companies? The claims have been that since there are obese people near places where high densities of restaurants exist, the restaurants must cause the obesity. Less considered is that people might move to where more food choices are and where those are dense, such as in cities, people tend to be more educated.
Glyphosate, a component of the popular herbicide commonly known as Roundup in the United States, has been placed on California's Proposition 65 list, which requires a cancer warning label on it, despite the fact no regulatory body can find evidence it harms anyone or anything other than what it is supposed to harm, much less that it causes any cancer.
A bizarre diatribe published by the hard-left political fanzine Progressive.org came across my desk today. I even got a mention. I don't delve into politics much, I am a registered Independent and I voted for Clinton in the 2016 election, those are all known, but I run a non-partisan consumer advocacy non-profit and we don't do politics, so I was surprised anyone in a political site would even know who I am.Then I looked at the author: Paul Thacker.
Last night was the premiere of "Food Evolution", a documentary on the science in our dinner, and I saw it with a large audience for the second time.Wait, premiere? Second time? Which is it?It's both. And that is how it became a tale of two cities. And maybe even a metaphor for the two Americas we now live in.Two weeks ago I moderated a panel on communicating science and, more importantly, risk, at the University of Guelph, Canada's most prominent agriculture school. In the evening, there was a showing of "Food Evolution" in an auditorium there. I don't know how many people attended, it was packed, and before the movie there was a show of hands on how many people were okay with GMOs, how many distrusted them, and how many were unsure.
Since 2014, China has spent $4 billion on advanced agricultural science and is approving new technologies rapidly. Meanwhile, our food science regulatory system remains trapped in the 1980s, paralyzed by environmental lobbyists who buy full-page ads in the New York Times claiming they are "unsure", it just "needs more testing."
Attorney Patrick Murphy is representing infamous sue-and-settle environmental lawyer Stephen Tillery, senior partner and founder of Korein Tillery, as plaintiff in the court of Senior U.S. District Judge Phil Gilbert in a lawsuit against Advanced Analytics Consulting Group, who Tillery says he gave $500,000 to in order to have them come up with results he could use in litigation against minor league baseball, but did not.
President Donald Trump spent a great deal of his early days in the White House rolling back decisions made by his predecessor. That is the usual political stuff; President Barack Obama also did it to President George W. Bush. But there is one science policy initiative Trump has not touched so far — and shouldn't.That beneficial policy relates to modernizing how genetic alteration of organisms is approved.
You are about to hear a huge sigh of relief from the entire science journalism community, because Alan Alda, a man who can interview E.O. Wilson and Jim Watson with ease, who hosted the terrific Scientific American Frontiers, and founded the Alan Alda Center for Communication Science at Stony Brook University, has trouble communicating.
Solar energy, with tens of billions in subsidies to keep it afloat, now employs more people than the fossil fuel alternative it is irrationally pitted against in media - coal. Solar panels are fine for elites, just like organic food is - but like with organic food we shouldn't manipulate data to match our belief system.
Whole Foods lies to its customers. I have no problem stating that plainly, the evidence is right on their website and if their lawyers object to that, their fraudulent house of cards will come crashing down around them. It's well-known in the science and regulatory community but is often a shock to the public. Recently, I was giving a talk and an agriculture executive handed me a print-off from the Whole Foods website, their Organic landing page. A few things were highlighted. "Can that be right?" he asked.
