Activists aren’t asking for investigation into these problems – which calls their science, sincerity and integrity into question. Their track record on DDT and malaria underscores this modus operandi. The activists get money, publicity, power and phony solutions – and end up hurting the very things (bees and people) they profess to care so much about.
Enviros are exploiting bee’s colony collapse to ban pesticides. The evidence points elsewhere.
The EPA claims that ethanol, a fuel made from corn, has only a minimal impact on food prices. But Sam Kazman, general counsel for the Competitive Enterprise Institute, disagrees. . .
Having spent years collecting data on the condition of rivers and streams, and found these bodies of water needing additional “protection’ and “restoration,” the agency is making the case for action under the Clean Water Act (CWA). This four-decade-old statute already gives EPA vast powers to impose new regulations – none of them requiring the consent of Congress.
To the horror of growers from Florida to Oregon, the FDA is proposing strict new food-safety standards that many growers are convinced will put them out of business.
One would think these paradigm shifts would alter environmentalist thinking and government programs designed to replace “disappearing” oil and gas with wind, solar and biofuel energy. But hell hath no fury like an environmentalist scorned. Any attempt to revise laws, regulations or subsidies is met with derision, outrage, expanded rules and funding, and new allegations, grievances and justifications.
Society’s real problem is to feed that peak population without destroying the world’s wild fisheries, eroding all its cropland and plowing down most of its wildlife habitat to produce our food in the meantime.
About 50 years ago, the book Silent Spring, by Rachel Carson was published, and triggered an environmental debate that has been going on since then. Lot’s of articles are written about this these days, and, Cato Institute, among others, has published an essay collection. Carson passed away in 1964, and I do not for a [...]
Stanford University has just published a new study on organic foods—reporting that its physicians and nutritionists found no evidence that organic foods are more nutritious.
As his reality-challenged reelection campaign swung through drought-ravaged swing state Iowa earlier this month, Candidate-in-Chief Obama accused his new VP candidate nemesis Rep. Paul Ryan of being “…one of those leaders in Congress standing in the way “…of a farm bill that would “provide relief and certainty to U.S. farmers and ranchers.” He said, “So, [...]
You might remember the Back-to-Nature movement of the 70′s. That was a rather harmless way for people, longing for the genuine way of living, to move into the countryside to enjoy the splendor of bad, or no, plumbing. The thing this year is bee keeping. In the city.
Millions of Americans watched their evening news in horrified fascination. The Colorado Springs wildfire had doubled in size overnight, to 24 square miles – half the size of San Francisco – as 50-mph gusts carried fiery branches from exploding treetops across fire breaks, down Waldo Canyon and into fresh stands of drought-dried timber.
A new small business near Virginia’s picturesque Shenandoah Valley is threatened with extinction at the hands of county officials who are determined to twist the law in order to snuff out a local agricultural enterprise.
If you want to learn what farmers think (and need), talk to African farmers – not to bureaucrats, environmental activists or politicos at the Rio+20 United Nations summit in Rio de Janeiro. You’ll get very different, far more honest and thoughtful perspectives.
The earth has failed to warm at all for 15 years now, and American farmers are afraid of losing the “renewable fuel” mandate for corn ethanol—which has given them record crop prices and incomes since 2007. So, they’re proposing a new entitlement designed to ensure that they’ll never lose money again. Their proposed new federal farm bill would guarantee that farmers’ incomes don’t decline—and if future farm prices rise even more, the Feds’ guarantee would ratchet up too.
Good for Wal-Mart! Despite intense pressure by anti-biotechnology activists, the retailing giant didn’t cave in to demands that it “reject” Monsanto’s genetically engineered (GE) sweet corn (maize). Other retailers had capitulated to intimidation campaigns by Food and Water Watch, Greenpeace and similar anti-technology groups: McDonald’s, Heinz, Frito-Lay, Trader Joe’s, Whole Foods. So this rare display [...]
CHURCHVILLE, VA—Bjorn Lomborg and his Copenhagen Consensus have just joined one of the smallest clubs in today’s world: people who believe that high-yield farming is the path to a sustainable future for people and wildlife despite, and even because of, its pesticides, chemical fertilizers, irrigation dams, and blast-freezers. Lomborg, famous for his book The [...]
The Obama Administration’s anti-hydrocarbon ideology and “renewable” energy mythology continues to subsidize crony capitalists and the politicians they help keep in office – on the backs of American taxpayers, ratepayers and motorists. The latest chapter in the sorry ethanol saga is a perfect example. Bowing to pressure from ADM, Cargill, Growth Energy and other Big [...]
The Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) plans to allow a controversial blend of gasoline and ethanol to be sold in the U.S. could be headed for rough legal sledding. Federal appeals court judges recently heard a challenge to the Obama EPA’s approval of E15, a blend of 85 percent gasoline and 15 percent ethanol, to be [...]
by Einar Du Rietz Only weeks after the peculiar, entirely symbolical and possibly dangerous Earth Hour gimmick, it’s now the 42′nd Earth Day. Hard to be against the Earth, but I’ve never understood the tendency to use these events to suggest an ongoing conflict between the earth and humanity. CFACT International President David Rothbard comments: “Celebrate them [...]