In my previous post, I took issue with how Jerry Coyne crudely indicted an entire religion (Islam) based on the murderous actions of a few adherents. (And that was a perversion of the faith’s tenets, Islamic leaders say.) The way Coyne made his blanket generalization was lame. He referred to this passage in a CNN…Continue Reading…
As Reuters puts it: If the environmental movement has a high holiday, Earth Day is it. After four decades, the annual celebration of good deeds and eco-awareness in the United States is as meaningful to environmentalists as St. Patrick’s day is to the Irish. Both annual events are green and festive. One is a sanctioned…Continue Reading…
I was goofing around on Twitter today: I’m pretty sure all da GMOs, flame retardants & WiFi electromagnetic radiation cancel out my wind turbine syndrome. — keith kloor (@keithkloor) April 18, 2013 If you’re unfamiliar with that last reference, I refer you to my recent Slate piece:
What drives opposition to genetically modified crops? Well, there are a bunch of enduring myths, which Dan Charles at NPR did a nice job of debunking. But I think the reasons mostly come down to unfounded fear (frankenfoods!) and distrust/hatred of multi-national corporations (Monsanto!). One GMO critic has just revealed a reason I hadn’t…Continue Reading…
Jeremy Grantham is a fascinating dude. He is a highly successful capitalist who blames capitalism for killing the planet. If you’re familiar with this “connoisseur of [market] bubbles,” as the New York Times referred to him in a profile, it’s probably due to his increasingly Malthusian outlook. In 2011, he warned that “accelerated demand” from developing countries was depleting the…Continue Reading…
Adapted from the new book The Infinite Resource: The Power of Ideas on a Finite Planet by Ramez Naam What if there was a way to farm that spared the rainforests, cut down on toxins in our soil and waters, and provided healthier, more nutritious food? Sounds like organic farming, right? But actually, it’s GMOs….Continue Reading…
There’s an old saying, If you don’t like the weather in [insert your state] ____, just wait five minutes. Something similar could be said for climate change media coverage. For example, maybe you didn’t think much of a Telegraph story from a month ago, which warned that global warming was going to be catastrophic for the UK. Not…Continue Reading…
The biotech discourse is infected with a bugaboo spread by both fringe types and mainstream influentials. It is the belief that GMO foods are deadly or potentially harmful. Two illustrative examples of this mindset recently appeared on the same day.
When James Hansen, the newly-retired NASA scientist talks, people who care deeply about energy and climate change pay attention. For example, when Hansen says “game over” for the climate if Canada’s oil sands get developed, people take to the streets. When he publishes a study that says global warming has caused recent heat waves and…Continue Reading…
One of the first and best critiques I read of contemporary environmentalism appeared in a well known progressive magazine. The author took the green movement to task for its romanticization of nature and “its deep suspicion of all things technological.” He also criticized environmentalism’s demonization of biotechnology and the “crusade” waged against it, which he…Continue Reading…