I have heard that there is only one place that is more difficult to produce drinking water in California than Clear Lake, and that is the Sacramento Delta. Those poor bastards. Clear Lake has never been clear; a fact to which Livingston Stone, a fisheries biologist attested to in an 1873 report: It is aContinue reading “Clear Lake Jar Test”
Author Archives: Norm Benson
Don’t Fear That GMO Ear (of corn)
Poison is in everything, and no thing is without poison. The dosage makes it either a poison or a remedy. – Paracelsus I had a conversation on Twitter a while ago about genetically engineered crops. One of the last tweets said, “It’s not the genetically modified food that worries me … it’s the poisoning ofContinue reading “Don’t Fear That GMO Ear (of corn)”
EWG (Yawn) Trots Out Their Decades-Old List
From a media release by the Alliance for Food and Farming As they have done for the last 20 years, today the Environmental Working Group (EWG) issued its annual so-called “dirty dozen” list concerning pesticide residues and produce. In an attempt to re-spark interest in its list, EWG debuted a new fruit in the numberContinue reading “EWG (Yawn) Trots Out Their Decades-Old List”
Look for the Non-GMO Seal of Approval on the Package; it’s Your Sign of Assurance That You are Getting Lower Nutrition at a Higher Price.
Many [people, even those with digital watches,] were increasingly of the opinion that they’d all made a big mistake coming down from the trees in the first place, and some said that even the trees had been a bad move, and that no-one should ever have left the oceans. Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker’s Guide toContinue reading “Look for the Non-GMO Seal of Approval on the Package; it’s Your Sign of Assurance That You are Getting Lower Nutrition at a Higher Price.”
Let Me Tell You a Story
We love a good story. In fact, we are hardwired for stories.[1] [2] “And the elements of a good story are always the same,” says journalist Dan Gardner. “It has to be about people. And it has to have novelty, drama and conflict.”[3] “The elements of a good story are always the same. It hasContinue reading “Let Me Tell You a Story”
In Defense of (Processed) Food
New-agers are the sort of people who name their child Raspberry.
Organic Pesticides and Labels: Good for the goose and all that…
This caught my eye this morning: American Council on Science and Health President Hank Campbell was on the airwaves Saturday with host Mike Olson and an organic trade rep to talk about labeling GMOs. Most fun was when the organic trade rep sputtered at the notion that there should be complete transparency on food labelsContinue reading “Organic Pesticides and Labels: Good for the goose and all that…”
Foodites Rejoice: Campbell’s Right to Tell…and Sell
Hank Campbell, President of the American Council on Science and Health (and co-author of Science Left Behind), wrote an interesting (and intelligent) post at Science 2.0: “GMO Labeling Is A Smart Marketing Strategy.” He notes that “anti-science groups are hailing [Campbell’s announcement about labeling GMOs on their products] as a victory. US Right To Know,Continue reading “Foodites Rejoice: Campbell’s Right to Tell…and Sell”
Water is Free, Isn’t It?
“If people can’t trade water, then they just keep doing the same things that they’ve been doing.” – Reed Watson, executive director of the Property Environment Research Center (PERC) I live in California. You may have heard that it is in a major drought. At the end of the winter in 2015, the snowpack whichContinue reading “Water is Free, Isn’t It?”
What made you change your mind?
I’ve been pondering this lately, what makes you change your mind? Is it data? A well told story? Did you research and test hypotheses or something else? What eventually got you to accept that a view you held was not right? A paper published in Science called When contact changes minds: An experiment on transmissionContinue reading “What made you change your mind?”
Nullius in Verba 