Author Archives: DanielJoseph

Attention Sunday Shows: Here Are 5 Republicans Who Won’t Lie to Your Viewers About Climate Change

by DanielJoseph Posted on January 29, 2015

Mother Jones

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On Wednesday, I wrote about a new Media Matters for America study that shines a light on a big problem with how TV news shows cover climate change. Scientists overwhelmingly agree that humans are warming the planet, but Media Matters found that the highly influential Sunday morning talk shows often feature misleading talking points from global warming skeptics. Frequently, these segments turn into bizarre debates between those who accept science and those who reject it.

On NBC’s Meet the Press, for example, almost two-thirds of the climate coverage last year included “false balance,” according to Media Matters. Fox News Sunday and ABC’s This Week had similar problems:

The Media Matters study drew the attention of Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii). In a press release, he slammed the news networks for misleading viewers “by framing the facts of climate change as a ‘debate.'” He urged them “to stop creating a false debate about the reality of climate change and engage in the real debate about how we can solve it.”

This presents something of a dilemma for the Sunday shows. Interviewing elected officials from both sides of the aisle is a big part of the reason these programs exist in the first place; they can’t host a debate about climate policy and invite only Democrats. At the same time, however, global warming denial is so ingrained on the right that it’s becoming increasingly difficult to find Republicans who can talk about the issue without misinforming viewers. The Media Matters report cites a couple examples of this: Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) saying on Meet the Press that there’s no scientific consensus on climate change, and North Carolina Gov. Pat McCrory (R) saying on This Week that “the big debate is how much of it is manmade and how much it will just naturally happen as Earth evolves.”

Fortunately—thanks to Schatz—TV bookers now have a handy list of GOP senators who acknowledge the scientific facts surrounding climate change and who, presumably, can participate in an intelligent discussion of what should actually be done about the problem. Last week, Schatz introduced legislation declaring it the “sense of Congress” that climate change is real and that human activity contributes significantly to it. Five Republicans voted in favor of Schatz’s amendment: Lamar Alexander (Tenn.), Kelly Ayotte (N.H.), Susan Collins (Maine), Lindsey Graham (S.C.), and Mark Kirk (Ill.). The other 49 voted no.

There’s plenty of room for disagreement on policy matters, of course. Alexander and Graham, for example, have called on the Obama administration to withdraw its proposed greenhouse gas emissions rules, the centerpiece of the president’s climate plan. But if the networks are looking for Republicans who can speak accurately about the science, at least now they know where to find them.

(Disclosure: I used to work at Media Matters.)

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Attention Sunday Shows: Here Are 5 Republicans Who Won’t Lie to Your Viewers About Climate Change

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Is 2014 the "Tipping Point" for the GMO Labeling Movement?

by DanielJoseph Posted on September 29, 2014

Mother Jones

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Is this the year that voters will finally insist on knowing which supermarket foods contain genetically modified organisms? Activists in Oregon say the momentum is on their side for a GMO labeling initiative on the November ballot. “The electorate in Oregon has a greater awareness of this issue than in other states,” says Sandeep Kaushik, a spokesman for Yes On 92, as the initiative is known. “We are approaching a tipping point.”

Read “How Dr. Bronner’s Turned Activism Into Good Clean Fun”

In 2002, Oregon became first state to try and pass a GMO labeling initiative—Measure 27 lost by a margin of more than 2 to 1. But the more recent initiatives in California and Washington suffered far narrower defeats, despite a barrage of attack ads bankrolled by biotech, grocery, and ag conglomerates. Washington’s I-522, the most expensive ballot measure in state history, lost by barely 1 percent—a mere 19,000 votes.

Oregon may now be poised to finish what it started: A poll released in July by Oregon Public Broadcasting put support for GMO labeling at a whopping 77 percent. Even if it wins, Oregon probably won’t be the first state to require disclosure. A labeling bill approved in April by the Vermont Legislature takes effect in 2016, assuming it doesn’t get overturned by a lawsuit. Maine and Connecticut have also passed GMO labeling laws, though they’re contingent upon further regional support. Such laws are common outside the United States, and this year alone, according to Slate, 25 states have proposed 67 pieces of legislation related to GMO labeling. But the Oregon prop (and possibly a similar one in Colorado) would be the first directly enacted by voters—a major PR victory for the movement against GMO foods.

Despite the unpopularity of GMOs with consumers, the debate over their health and environmental impacts is far from settled. While the commercialization of GMOs has triggered few health complaints, long-term studies on the chronic health effects of GMOs have been sparse. Pest- and herbicide-resistant GMO crops have boosted yields around the world, benefiting farmers and the poor, but they have also spawned chemical resistant “superbugs” and “superweeds.”

The labeling campaigns are designed to bypass the thorny scientific debate by reframing the issue around the consumer’s “right to know.” This idea polls extremely well with voters, but not so well that it can’t be overcome by an avalanche of spending on political ads. For instance, 66 percent of Washington voters supported I-522 in the summer of 2013, yet some $22 million in spending against the measure whittled support down to 49 percent by Election Day. A similar phenomenon is under way in Oregon, where a poll released by a Portland TV station last week showed that voter support for the labeling measure has fallen to 53 percent, with 16 percent undecided.

Advocates for Oregon’s I-92 remain optimistic, however. While rural areas of Washington and California are strongly opposed to labeling, that’s less the case so far in Oregon, where GMO contamination incidents have angered farmers and two rural counties have banned cultivation of GM crops. The Oregon measure is also well timed: Young voters, who tend to support labeling, didn’t turn out to vote last year in Washington, but Oregonians will cast ballots this year on a pot legalization initiative, which is seen as a potential magnet for the non-AARP crowd. Anti-GMO activists, for the first time, are also funding a registration drive to target young voters.

For now, at least, I-92’s backers have raised more money than its opponents, but nobody expects that advantage to last. In Washington, the anti-GMO crowd was outspent 3 to 1, and the chasm would have been even wider were it not for the heavy involvement of a few organics companies, notably Dr. Bronner’s Magic Soaps, which is shoveling money at the Oregon effort.

Unlike its opponents in Big Food and Ag, Dr. Bronner’s hasn’t entered the fight to retain its own bottom line, at least not directly—GMOs don’t play much of a role in the soap business. Yet the company has become a fascinating model for how genuine corporate activism can increase sales and create a fiercely loyal customer base, as I noted last year in a profile of David Bronner, the family business’ idealistic, third-generation CEO. About half of Dr. Bronner’s profits go towards activism. “If we are not maxed out and pushing our organization to the limit,” he asked me at the time, “then what are we doing?”

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Is 2014 the "Tipping Point" for the GMO Labeling Movement?

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