I am pleased to announce a magnificent achievement for the American Council on Science and Health. One of America's best-known environmental sue-and-settle law firms, led by an elite litigator - besties with Erin Brockovich! - has cited us as the key reason that $1 billion in environmental groups has not managed to gain more ground in their campaigns against our food supply.
You're welcome, America.
To add to the prestige, legendary anti-science activist Gary Ruskin has personally singled me out as being the reason that he has not had more success convincing people they should in a panic about food that he is not paid to endorse.
Well, I appreciate the compliment but that is a bit much. Most of the credit for why policymakers, journalists and the public know it's safe to eat lunch despite his efforts is because of my predecessor, Dr. Beth Whelan. She was a tiny woman, but she left big shoes to fill.
Still, I am proud that a highly revered activist like Mr. Ruskin even knows my name. His group, U.S. Right To Know, is the crown jewel of the 300 groups that Organic Consumers Association funds in order to promote fear and doubt about farming. He gets more in one year from industry than Monsanto has ever given us in 39.
And yet they are the ones in a panic and scrambling to shore up their base.
They have reason to be concerned. Just this week, we had an anti-GMO effort in Oregon fail. Oregon! They usually make California look sane by comparison. Meanwhile, activists against pesticides in Illinois are engaged in a kind of "Pickett's Charge", hoping to force a vote on a bill to ban neonicotinoids pretty much everywhere in the state. They want to go out in a blaze of glory, mowed down by all of the science world who now recognize that the "beepocalypse" they tried to manufacture was just a myth.
Well, I can't really take credit for those big science wins either. Instead, I credit the March For Science, which I didn't even attend because it was too partisan for me. Still, it was not partisan enough for activists, at least compared to what the original intent was - and why groups like Greenpeace immediately signed on to finance it. Though it was originally supposed to be essentially anti-Trump (and anti-Republican) in its agenda, scientists instead demanded it be more pro-science. They originally only intended to advocate science they happen to like - doomsday narratives about global warming and chemicals in food. But scientists immediately began to ask why these marches did not support the consensus on vaccines, GMOs, energy, medicine and more, with the same fervor. In cities like Memphis, there were even two marches, because scientists broke away from political activists like Mr. Ruskin so they could have an actual march for science.
Rather than having some successes for their $1 billion in spending over the last year, these groups are suddenly staring at a culture that is tired of suffering "green fatigue" brought on by environmental groups that have instead revealed themselves to be astroturf. Our air is clean, our food is cheap, plentiful and safe, for the first time in the history of the world even the poorest people can afford to be fat.
Obesity is bad, but it's better than the opposite that environmentalists advocate. Not eating too many calories takes some cultural maturity, since every generation throughout human history worried about not getting enough food, but that problem can be solved. Overall, America is in the midst of a gigantic scientific Golden Age.
So this is the next stunt. Suing over a chemical no reputable science body has found to be harmful, but which California is bound by its own antiquated law to put a Prop 65 warning label on.
I'm honored. That a legal document singles us out (well, us and Genetic Literacy Project, but Jon Entine can write his own article) as being the secret sauce for why science academics, who environmentalists believe should be political allies against the nasty corporate world, instead overwhelmingly defend agricultural science, is a terrific compliment. And we are why $1 billion a year in anti-science activism is being stymied.
A billion dollars! You can see our Form 990. We are outspent 1,000 to 1 by these anti-science groups and yet their agenda is being held back.
This is terrific. I am not being sarcastic. Since I discovered this yesterday, I have been gushing about it to everyone I know.
Imagine what we could do if the odds were only 500 to 1. Imagine what we could do if we were even the size of NRDC, at $100 million, and the odds were only 10 to 1.
Well, that is the goal. I want to create a pro-science version of NRDC. At Greenpeace size I don't think it would be much fun, but $100 million is quite manageable while still having a personal relationship with our Board of Scientific Advisors, our scientists and doctors on staff, and our donors.
If you believe in that also, here is how you can help. If you can't make a tax-deductible donation, write a science article. Recommend us to your friends. Anything, it all adds up.
We've had 50 years of environmentalists encouraging chemical bans "at the drop of a rat" and terrifying people about breakfast, lunch and dinner. It's time to take America back from deniers for hire like Gary Ruskin and Sourcewatch and the rest of that $1 billion industry.
