Depending on whom you ask, Fiona Fox is either saving science journalism or destroying it. That’s the lead in a Nature story on the person who heads up Britain’s Science Media center, which believes that scientists can have a huge impact on the way the media cover scientific issues, by engaging more quickly and more effectively with…Continue Reading…
Several years ago, well before Mark Lynas made his famous public apology for being an anti-GMO activist, I asked him in an interview to explain his change of mind. What prompted it, I wondered. His response: There was no “Road to Damascus” conversion, where there’s a sudden blinding flash and you go, “Oh, my God,…Continue Reading…
No doubt you saw the big, history-making news out of England yesterday. No, not this: I’m talking about the pro-GMO piece in the Daily UK’s Mail, (by David Rose, of all people) titled: The great GM food hysteria: Do you believe eating genetically modified crops is like dining with the devil? No wonder- that’s exactly what apocalyptic eco-zealots…Continue Reading…
When protests against the Keystone XL pipeline were heating up several years ago, some highly respected environmentally-friendly commentators scoffed (ever so politely). Opposition to the pipeline was “shortsighted” and counterproductive, Michael Levi wrote in a 2011 New York Times op-ed. The singular focus on Keystone was misplaced, Jon Foley has argued. Climate change-concerned greens disagree. “Keystone…Continue Reading…
I love this piece in the Guardian about GMOs, I really do. It’s so exquisitely disingenuous that you have to admire the writer’s chutzpah. Let’s start with this line (my emphasis): Why is it that some politicians and prominent scientists and “communications” agencies are so exclusively preoccupied with GM [genetic modification]? I can’t imagine that…Continue Reading…
Via Twitter, I learn that Nassim Taleb, author of the The Black Swan, a mega-selling 2007 book, has some interesting thoughts on biotechnology.
The news is coming fast and furious (literally) this week. Let’s start with the big Supreme Court rulings dominating headlines. Yesterday, the Supremes invalidated a key part of the U.S. Voting Rights Act, which President Obama characterized as as “setback” in the fight against discrimination. Today, in a 5-4 decision, the Supreme Court overturned a…Continue Reading…
In March, several green groups, notably the Environmental Defense Fund, formed a partnership with Chevron and other energy companies to, as the LA Times reported, provide more stringent standards for fracking of natural gas in parts of the eastern United States. The collaboration, which also includes several philanthropies, has been formalized with a non-profit organization called…Continue Reading…
I’m guessing that nobody at Monsanto has ever invoked the adage, “There is is no such thing as bad publicity.” The biotech giant, already a bogeyman to the anti-globalization/anti-corporate/anti-GMO crowd, has endured a particularly rough PR stretch of late. Last month, protesters from around the globe marched against the company. Then came news of Monsanto’s “rogue” GMO wheat,…Continue Reading…
There is much to recommend this article in the New Republic by Nate Cohn, starting with the sub-headline: Grappling with climate change nuance in a toxic political environment It is an ungrateful task to interrogate the complexities of climate change (which extend to the policy side of the equation) so props to Cohn for taking…Continue Reading…