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Scoop.it!
PIRatE Lab's insight:
Good article showing the ways folks attempt to misinform the public and an interesting discussion in the comments. Make sure to check out: https://www.desmogblog.com/center-accountability-science to get a sense of the author of this piece of propaganda. 
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[...] online activists rail against ingredients the CSPI lists as safe, and Big Food has taken notice. "If you look at when companies start replacing ingredients, it's when there's awareness from the public," said Keval Mehta, CEO of Inrfood, an online database of food ingredients. "The chemical makes white bread whiter, helps increase its elasticity, and is found in over 500 foods. [...] it also breaks down into a chemical that causes cancer, is banned in Europe, and is used to make shoe leather and yoga mats. According to the Pew Health Initiative, there are more than 10,000 food additives found in a typical supermarket. Michael Jacobson, executive director of the Center for Science in the Public Interest says that cutting domestic salt intake in half would save 100,000 lives per year. Snacks like potato chips tend to be cooked in vegetable oil. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services says BHA can reasonably be anticipated to be a human carcinogen. Companies have been taking this out of packaged foods for several years but it still appears here and there, says Michael Jacobson, of the center for Science in the Public Interest. Tocopherols, which on food labels get called "Vitamin E." Manufacturers can also pack food with nitrogen instead of air. Jacobson says it's unclear if food companies really need to find a replacement for BHA. Brominated vegetable oil keeps flavor molecules spread evenly throughout the drink. Two case studies have shown that individuals who drank large amounts of soda suffered serious health consequences that doctors attributed to brominated vegetable oil. Food scientists point out that removing it from the food supply could endanger consumers with mold intolerances. In an effort to develop "clean labels," some consultants have suggested removing potassium sorbate from salad dressings and adding "refrigerate after opening" to the label. Some bread brands seeking clean labels have use cultured wheat flour, as a substitute. Starbucks says it has developed a tomato-based dye to make its strawberry sauce look redder. The naturally occurring compound gives microwave popcorn its butter flavor. Workers at the plants that produced and used diacetyl came down with a condition known as bronchiolitis obliterans, a life-threatening and irreversible lung disease also known as popcorn lung. Kraft has decided to take dyes from some formulations of macaroni and cheese, Frito-Lay has taken dyes from Sun Chips and Tostitos, and if your Trix yogurt looks a little less nuclear, it's because General Mills has reformulated it to remove some artificial dyes. [...] some artificial food colors are also used in pharmaceuticals, cosmetics, sutures, and contact lenses.
PIRatE Lab's insight:
Another good example of how easily it is for misinformation, partial information, or innuendo are often at the heart of food/chemical worries. We see fewer of these things with issues in theoretical physics as most folks fell they do not have a good handle of the subject. But with food and eating: game on. We are all experts. And most of us experts don't like "chemicals."
We all need to be better informed and a "precautionary principal" approach is probably the better option in most cases. But all of this requires objective information and an educated consumer: not a internet meme or Reddit petition.
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Climate sceptics should stop attacking the science of global warming and have a “grown-up” debate, the Government’s most senior scientist has said
PIRatE Lab's insight:
How many times have I wanted to say this?
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For anyone wishing to take a look at what a misinformation (to be kind) campaign looks like, click here.
PIRatE Lab's insight:
A family member just sent me a text with the subject line "Is this true???" and a link to this posting. So I think it important that I respond with a posting on this story (making the internet rounds thanks to a calculated PR campaign).
The long and short of it is: "no this is not true."
While you can all read this and explore this for yourselves, I would point out that this propaganda blog is a central clearing house for oil-gas/coal industry apologists and is far from an objective or even intellectually honest source of information. There are many great folks in the petroleum industry, but this blog's author is not one of them.
Clues to show that the reality is far different from what is portrayed here:
1) No references for the data.
So you cannot verify the voracity to the data (or even know what is being represented...is this supposed to be satellite data? Is this ice of a minimum thickness? etc, etc.). Drilling down to the data (through several links) you get a poorly formatted text file which appears to come from an academic sites, but this is clearly not the data used to generate this graphic. At a minimum, lots of post prcessing of the data with tools most of the general public likely can't figure out would be needed. The idea is to give you the impression that this is real and "sciencey" so don't you go looking into this your ownselves. "Trust us."
2) Playing fast and loose with the facts (assuming these number are actually correct)/assuming you are an uncritical consumer of data.
For example, this graphic is intentionally misleading. What this is actually showing in the order of magnitude change from year to year NOT absolute extent as impled by the title/comments. One of the great aspects of climate change that most of the public is unclear about is the amount of noise being added into our global climate system by a more carbon-rich atmosphere. As we go forward, we will see (and indeed have already seen) major shifts from one year to the next. So last year's conditions are not necessarily predicitve of next year's outcome. This is one of the main reasons we think we are seeing various butterflies disappearing (the insects' lifecycles and those of their plant hosts/food are increasingly out of phase with one another, leading to failed recrecutiment of juvenile butterflies). Just eyeballing these data (again, assuming they are correct) shows that this is indeed happening here: the greatest swings in ice are in the last few years. So even this poor graphic actually makes the case that climate change IS HAPPENING and ushering major changes to our planet.
Everyone that studies climate cycles (or long-term dynamics of natural systems of any kind for that matter) compares conditions to long-term averages. For example a typical comparison is 1950-2000 or (in the case of sea ice) 1981 to 2010. Why wasn't this highlighted here? Oh right, these folks are trying to mislead you...
3) The author of this blog is a former producer for Rush Limbaugh and a former aide to one of the most science-fearing/anti-science Senators' we have had in recent year (Senator Inhofe). He is a frequent commentator for conservative news outlets, but no where else. While this is an ad honium attack, it is nevertheless true and (in this case of propaganda I believe) relevant to this particular subject.
4) This blog clearly has an agenda. While there is nothing wrong with having an agenda, we should always have our baloney detectors up when a decidedly non-expert in a technical subject (i.e. a non-scientist) wants to prove to us that he (they are most often hes and not shes) knows the correct answer to a technical issue. Particulalry when the person only uses cherry-picked "facts" that support his position.
For further reading, you can check out:
http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/
and
http://www.desmogblog.com/directory/vocabulary/4621
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By striking a single word from nuclear defense policy, Congress has put the U.S. at the verge of a space arms are
PIRatE Lab's insight:
This seems to be but one example of what happens when you decide to live in your own, synthetic and fact-free world.
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Climate change threatens one of the single most crucial ingredients at Nestlé, the world's largest food company.
PIRatE Lab's insight:
Wow. What an a*$#ole! This lack of reason and lack to a rational approach to this major challenge by what is supposed to be a responsible leader is disappointing.
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The first extensive study on the dark money that feeds the anti-climate change propaganda machine reveals that 91 organizations funded by 140 foundations have an annual income of over $900 million dollars with which to fight climate progress. Via pdeppisch
PIRatE Lab's insight:
It is clear these folks are getting a good return on their investments. At least in the short term. I can't help but think their grandchildren will be ashamed of this immorality/selfishness/anti-social behavior.
Oh, and those hundreds of millions driven into poverty, refugee camps, etc.? And the American taxpayer who will almost assuredly be forced into sprialing costs of the brushfires and military conflicts across the globe sparked and spurred on by climate change's impacts across the planet? They too might not be too keen on these "investments" in the coming decades.
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