When a questionable story gets rolling and takes on a life of its own, you can usually count on journalists to check it out thoroughly. Not that debunking it necessarily puts an end to the matter, as we discovered with President Obama’s birth certificate and the global warming hoax cooked up by thousands of scientists….Continue Reading…
That’s the title of my latest post at the Yale Forum on Climate Change & the Media. Specifically, I discuss the controversy over genetically modified (GM) crops, and why there is no scientific basis for being opposed to them–especially if you care about the issue of food security in a warming world.
Did you know that a group of scientists whose work has stirred public controversy are under siege? That their findings are vehemently contested? That they are harassed by zealots and that some have endured death threats? No, not climate scientists or animal researchers. I’m talking about plant scientists working on genetically modified crops. The latest attack against them occurred this…Continue Reading…
Yesterday, I called attention to a deeply flawed article published online by The Atlantic, that used this study as a springboard to raise concerns about GMO foods. Biotechnology, like climate science, is prone to distortion by those who feel passionate about it. The debate on GMO’s and climate change is most heated and misrepresented on…Continue Reading…
I’m making a decree: Food columnists should no longer be writing about anything other than recipes and restaurants. When they stray from their area of expertise, what results is too often ugly and harmful to the public interest. For example, I’ve previously pointed out where some food writers go badly off the tracks. The latest…Continue Reading…
Bt cotton now helps to avoid several million cases of pesticide poisoning in India every year, which also entails sizeable health cost savings. This is not the sort of news you’re liable to hear about in anti-GMO quarters, where the concerns of the small farmer are righteously defended.
Europe’s latest bout of GMO phobia is captured in this Guardian headline: EU bans GM-contaminated honey from general sale In case you didn’t catch the tilt of the article, here’s the subhead: Bavarian beekeepers forced to declare their honey as genetically modified because of contamination from nearby Monsanto crops The thrust of this mind boggling…Continue Reading…
Kenya’s government has made a controversial move to allow the import of genetically modified (GM) maize from South Africa to fight hunger and starvation, even though GM crops cannot yet be legally grown in the country. Or, put another way, this news prompts Charlie Petit at The Tracker to remark: When people are starving, genetically modified…Continue Reading…
When you can grow more food using the same inputs of land, water and fertilizer, everyone — farmers, consumers, hungry people and anyone who cares about CO2 concentrations in the earth’s atmosphere — is better off. From a profile of an environmentally-minded owner of a California-based R & D biotech company, who says he wants…Continue Reading…
If you want to know why the old school, inflexible wing of environmentalism is rotting from within, look no further than this gem of a comment at Dot Earth: Keith Kloor, Mark Lynas, Steve Nordhaus, and Roger Pielke Jr. share several characteristics: rudimentary knowledge of climate change (absent any scientific discipline), a way with words,…Continue Reading…