George Will Attacks Environmentalists

By Rich Kozlovich Origianlly published in 2008, RK

I have been away for a couple of days and so I haven't been able to do my searches, read the information, organize it or post it. I should be back in form this coming week. The most highly important event to take place this week was the Sackett victory over the EPA; with a unanimous decision coming from the Supreme Court.  This has, in my opinion, large long term ramifications.

 I am working on an article dealing with this, and I have been told that there is more behind this story than is commonly known involving the state of Idaho; but I haven’t been able to verify the information. I have sent an e-mail to a local blogger in Idaho to see if what I have been told is true and asked them to contact the Sacketts. I haven't heard back yet. At any rate, this video is from 2008! That is the beauty of truth. It stays truth forever. As a result…that's how it becomes traditional wisdom.

 

'GMO Free USA' Attacks World-Famous Biochemist Bruce Ames

 By Alex Berezow — September 21, 2018  

 

Microbiologists and toxicologists are quite familiar with the Ames test. It is literally textbook science that is taught to students all over the world.
 

The Ames test is brilliant in its simplicity. It was designed to assess how mutagenic (and therefore, potentially carcinogenic) a chemical might be. The test uses a bacterial strain that was purposefully mutated so that it is unable to grow on Petri plates that lack a particular nutrient. Every once in a while, bacteria spontaneously mutate back (so called "revertants") and are able to grow again. This is the natural background rate of mutation.


In the Ames test, this natural background rate of mutation is compared to what happens in the presence of a specific chemical. If the chemical is a mutagen, it will increase the rate of mutation; if it is not, the mutation rate will not change. And it's easy to see if a chemical is a mutagen: More bacteria will grow.
(See figure. Credit: Wikipedia/Histidine)

As mentioned above, this test is so well-known, that it is taught to students and employed in laboratories all over the world. The inventor, biochemist Bruce Ames -- who was once an advisor to ACSH -- is a world-famous and award-winning scientist who helped lay the groundwork for modern carcinogenicity studies. As a result, he is one of the most cited scientists in the world. He never won the Nobel Prize, but he probably should have.

GMO Free USA Attacks Bruce Ames

None of that matters to the anti-GMO crowd, however. A man who is internationally lauded for his contributions to science is entirely written off. "We aren't impressed by industry apologists," GMO Free USA said.

Industry apologist? What did Dr. Ames do to deserve that smear? Nothing. He believes that people shouldn't worry about trace chemicals in their food or the environment. He once wrote a paper underscoring this: 99.99% of the pesticides we eat are made by the plants themselves.
For the crime of using evidence-based science to tell people to calm down, he's been painted as a villain by the anti-GMO movement.

Do Not Debate the Deliberately Ignorant. Defeat Them

It's one thing to debate a person who doesn't know any better. At least in theory, they can be convinced once they are shown the error in their thinking. But it's an entirely different matter debating a person who is deliberately and maliciously ignorant.

How do you debate somebody who insists against all evidence that 2 + 2 = 17, vaccines cause autism, and GMOs cause cancer?

I've come to the unfortunate conclusion that it is simply not possible. Some people are entirely immune to facts and knowledge. They cannot be reasoned with. So, the solution is not better science communication or more education funding, as is commonly asserted.

No, the solution is just to defeat them. Defeat them politically, and defeat them financially. In the arena of ideas, we must ensure that anti-GMO, anti-vaccine, and other anti-science activists are resoundingly humiliated and their lies tossed into the dustbin of history.

Prof touts 'ecosexuality' as 'environmental activist strategy'

Zachary Petrizzo Aug 30, 2018

 A St. Mary’s College of Maryland professor published a scholarly article exploring how “queer environmentalism” and “ecosexuality” can make environmentalism more appealing.

Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies professor Lauran Whitworth wrote “Goodbye Gauley Mountain, hello eco-camp: Queer environmentalism in the Anthropocene,” a study which seeks to convey the “effectiveness of queer environmental ethics in the Anthropocene, a word increasingly used to describe the anthropogenic destruction of ecosystems that marks our current geological era.” The academic journal Feminist Theory published the article.

"Many ecosexuals encourage erotic encounters that are not just nature-friendly but with nature itself."
 

“What do ecosexual encounters with nonhuman nature offer current discussions of environmental ethics?” she asks. “Can ecosexuality’s posthumanist tendencies queer our speciesist modes of belonging and foster an environmentalism that is not foundationally anthropocentric nor steeped in ‘reproductive futurism’?”

“Ecosexuality celebrates the carnal and grotesque, particularly in some of its campiest moments,” Whitworth explains, offering the example that some “wedding performers wear dildos outside their clothing and don costumes that accentuate and exaggerate their genitalia.”...........To Read More.....

Maybe the Collectivists Will (Un)Breed Themselves Out of Existence

September 10, 2009 by Dan Mitchell @ International Liberty

(Editor's Note:  Although this is a "Blast From the Past", nothing has changed.  The thoughts and concepts are still the same nine years later.  If I'm still alive in nine years and republish this article all the thoughts and concepts would still be applicable.  RK)

The UK-based Telegraph reports that some outfit called the Optimal Population Trust is suggesting that people should have fewer babies to fight supposed global warming (or climate change, or whatever they’re calling it now). This is a reflection of the people-are-bad mentality that seems disturbingly common among enviro-statists:

The report, Fewer Emitter, Lower Emissions, Less Cost, concludes that family planning should be seen as one of the primary methods of emissions reduction. The UN estimates that 40 per cent of all pregnancies worldwide are unintended. …Roger Martin, chairman of the Optimum Population Trust at the LSE, said: “It’s always been obviously that total emissions depend on the number of emitters as well as their individual emissions.

 

Reading this article, though, reminded me of another article from a British paper. As this story from the Daily Mail explains, some radical environmentalists are deliberately choosing to sterlilize themselves to avoid having kids:

Had Toni Vernelli gone ahead with her pregnancy ten years ago, she would know at first hand what it is like to cradle her own baby, to have a pair of innocent eyes gazing up at her with unconditional love, to feel a little hand slipping into hers – and a voice calling her Mummy. But the very thought makes her shudder with horror. Because when Toni terminated her pregnancy, she did so in the firm belief she was helping to save the planet. …Incredibly, so determined was she that the terrible “mistake” of pregnancy should never happen again, that she begged the doctor who performed the abortion to sterilise her at the same time. He refused, but Toni – who works for an environmental charity – “relentlessly hunted down a doctor who would perform the irreversible surgery. …”Having children is selfish. It’s all about maintaining your genetic line at the expense of the planet,” says Toni, 35. “Every person who is born uses more food, more water, more land, more fossil fuels, more trees and produces more rubbish, more pollution, more greenhouse gases, and adds to the problem of over-population.” …Toni is far from alone. When Sarah Irving, 31, was a teenager she sat down and wrote a wish-list for the future. …Most young girls dream of marriage and babies. But Sarah dreamed of helping the environment – and as she agonised over the perils of climate change, the loss of animal species and destruction of wilderness, she came to the extraordinary decision never to have a child. “I realised then that a baby would pollute the planet – and that never having a child was the most environmentally friendly thing I could do.” …Mark adds: “Sarah and I live as green a life a possible. We don’t have a car, cycle everywhere instead, and we never fly. “We recycle, use low-energy light bulbs and eat only organic, locally produced food. “In short, we do everything we can to reduce our carbon footprint. But all this would be undone if we had a child.”

 

Think about what this means. If the nut-job environmentalists persist in not having kids, that almost surely means the world’s population will gradually become more sensible about these issue since mommy and daddy enviro-statist won’t be raising little interventionists to plague future generations.

Sounds like a win-win situation for everyone.
 

This Is How All Government ‘Works’

From the raging wildfires to the fracas over Department of Motor Vehicle lines, California policy makers aren’t about to learn the right lessons.

Steven Greenhut August 9, 2018

During one of my first fire seasons in Southern California nearly two decades ago, my neighbors and I received a notice from the county fire department warning us to keep our lawns cut and watered and to clear vegetation away from around our houses. We all had a vested interest in not having our properties burnt to a crisp, so we maintained them pretty well. But the notice caught my attention because my street backed to undeveloped acreage, which was the county’s responsibility to maintain. The dried weeds were as tall as corn stalks, thus leaving fields of tinder.

On behalf of my neighborhood, I contacted the fire department. Nothing happened. I stopped by the firehouse. No one ever showed up at our neighborhood. I called the county’s weed abatement agency, which assured us they’d handle it (but never even asked for the address). I made many calls to the fire department’s offices, but to no avail. Finally, I called my county supervisor and within 24 hours the property was crawling with fire officials. Within a week, the property was cut thanks to getting a powerful elected official involved.

This story is a reminder of how government “works.” ..............To Read More

Dear EWG, Why Are You Shaking Down Companies to Get on Your 'Verified' List?

By Josh Bloom — June 1, 2017
 

We all have our strengths and weaknesses. This holds true for individuals, companies, and NGOs. Let's focus on the Environmental Working Group. Although their science is generally appalling, they sure have marketing down to an art. 

This can, in no way, be more apparent than the group's new program (scam?), which is called EWG Verified™. It's actually very clever. Let's say that you own a company whose label doesn't contain the names of enough scary sounding ingredients that are not in that product. Then how will you get people will pay extra (for no good reason) to buy what you're selling? How can you step it up? Pay off EWG, and the next thing you know—bang! You're on their list of "verified products." Cool! And if you don't, well, then you're hosed. Because you and all of the other companies that sell stuff that isn't EWG Verified™ are going to look like you're putting Sarin gas in the mouthwash. EWG is nothing if not consistent. If you look at the ingredients on it "EWG Unacceptable List," pretty much all of them either 1) cause cancer, or 2) are endocrine disruptors. .....To Read More....

Dear EWG, Cinnamon Rolls Aren't Toxic

By Ana-Marija Dolaskie — June 2, 2017

 

The Environmental Working Group (EWG) loves ratings and listicles. Just take a look at their recent guide to the best and worst sunscreens, or their list of top pesticides consumers should avoid. But they must not love delicious baked goods, since they also go after cinnamon rolls, muffins, and donuts — and the supposed culprit isn't new nor surprising.

This time, the EWG zeroed-in on propyl parabens — derivatives of p-hydroxybenzoate — which they claim act as endocrine disrupters in humans. Endocrine disrupters is a term often used by activists when concrete scientific data fails to show a connection between chemicals and toxicity or carcinogens. The EWG even gives a detailed list of food items that contain propyl parabens, like Sara Lee's cinnamon rolls, Weight Watchers' cakes, and Weis' chocolate candies. In fact, the list is about the only thing they got right in their campaign since propyl parabens indeed are present in these foods. And for good reason.......To Read More.....

Dear EWG, This is Why Real Scientists Think Poorly of You

By Alex Berezow — May 25, 2017

The Environmental Working Group (EWG) uses an authoritative sounding name to peddle scientific half-truths and outright fabrications. Along with Greenpeace and PETA, it is beloved by activists but detested by scientists.

Several years ago, George Mason University surveyed 937 members of the Society of Toxicology, an association of professional toxicologists. Nearly 4 out of 5 (79%) of those responding said that EWG -- as well as the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) and Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) -- overstate the health risks of chemicals.

Despite this vote of no confidence in EWG by the scientific community, the organization manages to scare enough people to operate a $12.5-million budget. Telling people that unseen dangers lurk in their food and inside their homes is a lucrative business.........  Read More

The great diesel disaster shows how badly wrong-headed environmentalism can harm the planet

No one has claimed responsibility for the Great Diesel Car Scandal and almost certainly no heads will roll

James Delingpole @ The Spectator

Who do you think was responsible for Europe’s biggest environmental disaster of the past three decades; one that caused more widespread damage and killed more people than even the nuclear accident at Chernobyl?

Was it a) greedy and selfish capitalists, probably linked to Big Oil, riding roughshod over the stringent health and safety regulations our wise, caring politicians have designed to protect us and our natural environment?

Or b) an alliance of fluffy green activists, campaigning journalists and virtue-signalling politicians, united on a noble mission to save the planet from the greatest environmental threat it has ever known?

If you guessed b) then you may appreciate why we climate sceptics are experiencing such schadenfreude right now. For years we’ve been vilified by the powerful green lobby as nature–loathing, anti-science ‘deniers’ in the pay of sinister interests. Now it turns out that the real bad guys (as some of us have been saying all along) are those worthy greenies.

I’m talking about the Great Diesel Car Scandal, which has exacerbated all manner of illnesses from asthma, autism and dementia to respiratory problems, heart disease and cancer, driven city air pollution to levels sometimes higher than Beijing’s, and caused tens of thousands of premature deaths across the EU.

No one has claimed responsibility for it and almost certainly no heads will roll. But this was an avoidable, completely man-made disaster: the consequence of a state-orchestrated, tax-incentivised, EU-wide drive from the early 1990s onwards to replace petrol car engines with diesel ones, organised in the belief that it would reduce CO₂ levels and thus help spare the planet from the horrors of man-made global warming.

And so it has. One expert calculation says Europe’s mass switch to diesel means that in the next half century, global warming may be as much as four thousandths of a degree Celsius less. Unfortunately, it also dramatically increased the production of more evidently harmful substances such as nitrogen oxides (NO_x) and particulates (soot particles), with consequences we are all now ruing.

How did our politicians ever fall prey to such lunacy? Why did no scientists warn them? And why did our fearless media not hold them to account? You know why already: because such was the clamour of the times, as it has been for at least three decades. Once a culture has made up its mind that a harmless trace gas is public enemy number one, the potential for suicidal regulatory idiocy is limitless. As one of the few who has been right pretty much all along about this, I’m not asking much. In fact the only thing I want (apart from my bronze equestrian statue, somewhere discreet, like maybe on the fourth plinth in Trafalgar Square) is for the people responsible to acknowledge their mistakes and begin undoing them as quickly as possible.

This, after all, was the thing that first got me interested in the whole environment/-energy field. As a keen wild swimmer, hill-walker and naturalist, I couldn’t understand why we were allowing our matchlessly beautiful countryside to be blighted — effectively turned into industrial zones — by ugly, environmentally destructive wind turbines. Well, one awkward question led to another, and soon, quite contrary to any life plans I’d made, I found myself being traduced by every-one from BBC Radio 4 comics to the president of the Royal Society as the very emblem of anti-environmental ignorance and wickedness.

My grovelling apology from these people can wait: I’m really not holding my breath. What I do feel very strongly, however, is that none of those involved in the green disasters of our time — not the BBC’s pop-science presenters, not all those politicians who signed the Climate Change Act, many of whom (that’s you, Greg Clark) still defend its nonsensical principles, not the toffs doing nicely out of the wind subsidies on their estates — should be allowed to save face. Their errors must be confronted now and dealt with now; not in five or ten years or 20 years, when everyone has moved on.

The other day I emailed two of the environmentalists I most respect — Matt Ridley and the Greenpeace co-founder Patrick Moore — for suggestions as to what great green causes Donald Trump could get behind to counter the inevitable eco-propaganda that he doesn’t care about the planet. We came swiftly to the conclusion that almost all the major environmental problems in the world right now are the result of environmental policy.

Beside the Great Diesel Car Disaster you have: forests cut down to create ‘biomass’ for power stations such as Drax; primary rainforest replaced by palm-oil plantations for biofuels; upland landscapes ravaged and millions of birds and bats killed by wind turbines; birds frazzled by solar arrays; forests in America’s Pacific north-west rendered sterile by legislation designed to protect the spotted owl.

Then, of course, there’s the human cost: the malnutrition and high mortality caused by the greens’ war on GM produce such as golden rice; food shortages and poverty caused by the diversion of agricultural land to biofuels; lower living standards created by the enforced rejection of cheap fossil fuel in favour of ‘renewable’ energy; fuel poverty deaths caused by artificially inflated ‘clean’ energy prices.

A few years ago I wrote a book called Watermelons with the subtitle ‘How Environmentalists Are Killing The Planet, Destroying The Economy and Stealing Your Children’s Future’. It wasn’t a provocation. It was no more than the truth. The greens and their useful idiots in politics, business and the media have got away with doing far too much damage for far too long. They are not the good guys. What they have done is evil. It is time the guilty parties made amends.