A Zurich-based think tank asks: “Who is influencing the way we think today? Whose ideas are determining ours?” To answer that question, it teamed up with an MIT researcher to rank the world’s top 100 thought leaders of 2014. The Oxford dictionary defines a thought leader as someone “whose views on a subject are taken to be…Continue Reading…
I recently spoke at Cornell about the public GMO discourse–who has shaped it and how some commonly held perceptions have taken hold in the media. In one talk, I discussed the importance of thought leaders, such as Michael Pollan and Vandana Shiva. Pollan and Shiva are cultural icons who speak to (and on behalf of) people who…Continue Reading…
Earlier this year I explored how Monsanto, the world’s most successful agricultural biotech company, became the poster child for the anti-GMO movement. (The best book-length history of how this came to be remains “Lords of the Harvest,” by NPR’s Dan Charles.) What fascinates me–and undoubtedly infuriates anyone who works at Monsanto–is how hard it is…Continue Reading…
I knew I could count on Michael Pollan for this tweet: “No scientific consensus on GMO safety”: statement by European Network of Scientists for S and E responsibility http://t.co/2p3hqerMtV — Michael Pollan (@michaelpollan) October 21, 2013 Of course, there is a scientific consensus, just as there is for the safety of childhood vaccines and the…Continue Reading…
One of the maddening aspects of the GMO discourse is the conflation of industry concerns with science. The biggest example, of course, is the way Monsanto has become a proxy for anti-GMO sentiment. True, this dynamic is not unique to biotechnology. Debates on pharmaceuticals, energy, and agriculture revolve around multinational companies that are stand-ins for…Continue Reading…
Now that California voters have rejected the initiative to label genetically modified foods, the fight moves on to other states. Before we speculate on how those efforts might play out, let’s first be clear on what the fight is actually about. In a piece at Time, Bryan Walsh argues that the battle over [California’s] Prop 37 and…Continue Reading…
On election day tomorrow, the food movement will learn if it has curdled before living up to its hype. That would be a shame, for its future holds much promise. The growing popularity of farmers’ markets, the ballooning consumer appetite for organic everything, and the increasing attention paid to healthy diets (thanks Michelle Obama!) have…Continue Reading…