In a Slate piece several months ago, I explored the pro-nuke argument from an environmental perspective. Yesterday, Andrew Sullivan made the case succinctly: If your concern is climate change, and you believe that slowing or preventing it is your fundamental priority, then nuclear power should be high up on the list for energy-production. He was responding to…Continue Reading…
Guest post by Ramez Naam. Keith Kloor has graciously given me the opportunity to guest post here again. So let me cut to the chase: I support GMOs. And we should label them. We should label them because that is the very best thing we can do for public acceptance of agricultural biotech. And…Continue Reading…
Since I’m always on the lookout for helpful advice on how to talk to my friends about GMOs, this tweet caught my eye: Via @foodmythbusters: 7 Things To Tell Your Friends About GMO’s bit.ly/XHYD8G — Danielle Nierenberg (@DaniNierenberg) March 7, 2013 In her bio at the Worldwatch Institute, Nierenberg is listed as “an expert on…Continue Reading…
Science journalist Emily Anthes has a book coming out in March that I’m eager to read. Great title, cool cover! Virginia Hughes recently talked with Anthes about her book. Here’s an excerpt from that interview:
In recent years, we’ve seen episodic waves of hysteria over reports of brain tumors and other cancers allegedly caused by cell phones and WiFi. If I had to trace this legacy of electromagnetic fear back in time, I would credit a 1979 study in the American Journal of Epidemiology and a series of articles in the New Yorker (under…Continue Reading…
In recent years, there has been an outbreak of media stories on early childhood disease outbreaks. The press has reported a spike in cases of measles, mumps, and whooping cough in communities from Seattle to Vermont. In many of the stories, a cause-and-effect relationship to lower childhood vaccination rates has been explicit. (Some journalists, however,…Continue Reading…
As anyone who follows environmental discourse knows, sustainability is more than a popular buzzword. It’s a concept that frames all discussion on climate change, development, and ecological concerns. For example, today’s line-up of sessions at the annual American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) meeting includes a panel called, “Getting to Global Ecological Sustainability: Climate…Continue Reading…
Every movement has a discourse that is shaped by people who are passionate, committed, and forceful. Some feel so certain in their rightness that they try to control the discourse and purge those deemed insufficiently true to the movement’s cause. A political example of this would be today’s U.S. Republican Party, which, as David Frum…Continue Reading…
That’s not really a fair question, because they’re both vital. But if I was the administrator at a university and a foundation offered me funding to establish a program curriculum for one or the other–which would result in a mandatory class for all in-coming freshmen–I would choose news literacy. I’ll explain why in a minute….Continue Reading…
One of the big reasons why evidence-based arguments so often fail to persuade is that people turn to their own trusted sources for information. For example, I know that Vandana Shiva is peddling a load of horseshit about Indian farmers committing suicide en masse supposedly because of Monsanto and GMOs. (There’s a part of me…Continue Reading…