Imagine the scene in 14th-century Europe, as the continent was suffering under the bubonic plague, if a group of aristocrats had taken the side of the rats. What seems like a blueprint for a Monty Python sketch, or a skit on SNL during the days it dared to take risks, is not far from the world we […]
Congress is inept at making legislation precise – this fact has allowed consecutive administrations for decades to use federal agencies for their political goals. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is among those examples. Worse than the political implications are the real-life effects that a recent regulatory decision will have on consumers. The EPA has moved […]
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), in a move that considerably upsets farmers, is moving to essentially ban the commonly used pesticide atrazine. The agency is adapting the so-called concentration equivalent level of concern (CE-LOC) for atrazine from 15 parts per billion (which it had set itself in 2020) to 3.4 ppb — meaning that thousands […]
The conversation over pollinator health has sparked a heated debate on using crop protection chemicals. In Europe, both neonicotinoid pesticides (marketed since the 1990s) and its competitor sulfoxaflor (registered with the EPA since 2013) have been banned over concerns the insecticides adversely affect bee health. “Should other politicians vote down the (National Front’s) proposals on […]
The Environmental Protection Agency isn’t listening to farmers and its own scientific panel. In a move that is causing American farmers significant distress, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is effectively banning the use of the herbicide atrazine. The agency is lowering the so-called concentration equivalent level of concern (CE-LOC) to 3.4 ppb (parts per billion), […]
For the EU, former President Donald Trump’s international policy was seen as a major regression for global trade policy. When former EU Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker signed the EU-Japan trade deal in 2018 — abolishing virtually all tariffs — Europe sold the move as being in significant contrast to the protectionism taken in the United States. That said, many […]
Does shopping at upscale grocery stores make you a better consumer? Hardly. In fact, contrary to what you may already believe, organic food is not less efficient and thus more expensive. It is also worse for the environment. A study by the University of Melbourne in Australia shows that organic farming yields 43 percent to 72 percent […]
L’Union européenne semble avoir choisi de déformer la réalité de notre crise alimentaire. Comme ce ne serait pas un problème, elle fait même tout son possible pour l’aggraver… Des commissaires qui prétendent que nous avons une récolte record et que la situation est non seulement bien, mais excellente… cela nous fait indéniablement penser à La Ferme […]
I joined my colleague David Clement on Consumer Choice Radio this week! Listen in:
Pollinators are essential to our ecosystem; thus, a drastic decline in them would hurt not just nature around us but also humans. With that in mind, lawmakers around the globe have been worried about the effect of human behaviour on the sustainability of bee colonies. Environmentalists have been adamant that “bee-killing pesticides” are to blame, […]
Bill Wirtz 