One of the staples of immersion journalism are gimmicky stunts that lead Esquire’s A.J. Jacobs to read the Encyclopaedia Britannica from A to Z and follow every single rule in the bible for one year. The genre has its classics, such as George Plimpton’s Paper Lion, Ted Conover’s Rolling Nowhere and Newjack, and one of my favorites, Nickel…Continue Reading…
Several weeks ago, Whole Foods, the organic supermarket chain many people have a love/hate relationship with, announced that by 2018 any of its products containing genetically modified organisms (GMOs) would be labeled. A Bloomberg Businessweek article called the move “clever marketing” and said: Transparency is something worth paying for these days. I find it amusing…Continue Reading…
Why do environmental debates almost always turn into polarizing slugfests? Well, such debates focus on problems identified as significant threats to the planet and human welfare. People fight over how big (or negligible) a certain threat is and what the solution should be. The fiercest battles are between people who have different values, which turns into…Continue Reading…
Once upon a time, long before a recent wave of ideological zealotry drove the Republican party to cleanse itself of moderates, appeals for GOP comity were often couched in Ronald Reagan’s eleventh commandment: Thou shalt not speak ill of any fellow Republican In liberal and environmental circles, a similar dictate seems to now hold, with respect…Continue Reading…
In October, Dan Charles, NPR’s food and agriculture correspondent, wrote an excellent piece headlined: Top Five Myths of Genetically Modified Seeds, Busted There is one myth, however, that should have been included because of its widespread dissemination and emotive power. It is the one GMO myth that exploits real human tragedy and for that reason, I…Continue Reading…
The cover story in the April issue of Discover is about the anti-GMO movement in Europe. I found it interesting but also narrowly centered on the opposition in Germany. For example, the piece neglects to discuss, much less mention, a widely publicized event last summer involving a UK government sponsored research lab. This featured UK scientists mounting…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…
In a perfect world, every conversation we have about childhood vaccines, GMOs, alternative medicine, and global warming would be based on a set of facts agreed on by a majority of scientists working in those spheres. But we don’t live in a perfect world, so many conversations on the aforementioned subjects are often driven by…Continue Reading…
Does it matter if a social movement hitches its wagon to the wrong horse? For the food movement and its embrace of the GMO labeling cause, I argued yes in Slate, because it is predicated on junk science and blind, simplistic mistrust of multinational corporations…The pro-labeling camp wants people to believe that eating “frankenfood” is dangerous…Continue Reading…
What happens when the ideological agenda of crunchy granola food activists intersects with the religious agenda of anti-abortion activists? You get this (recycled, bizarro) nonsense from a Seattle-based organic food advocacy website: Biotech companies have been using aborted human fetal cells for testing the effectiveness of different flavoring agent in their products. Last year the news came out…Continue Reading…