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How to Make Sure What You’re Buying is Cruelty-Free

by Valenci2942 Posted on March 31, 2016

Its unfortunate that cosmetic animal testing is still legal in the United States. Some countries banned the practice long ago (in fact, in 2013, the entire European Union made it illegal to sell any products whose manufacture had included cosmetic animal testing), but the U.S. is still trailing behind.

If you are passionate about reducing and preventing animal cruelty, chances are you do your best to avoid purchasing products from companies that perform animal testing. Theres more to shopping cruelty-free than simply relying on a label, though. Heres what you need to know in order to shop cruelty-free:

Look for the Leaping Bunny

The most reliable and well-known way to find cruelty-free products is to select items that feature the characteristic Leaping Bunny symbol (bonus tip: You can download the Leaping Bunny app, which allows you to quickly check whether or not a product is cruelty-free). Created and bestowed by the Coalition for Consumer Information on Cosmetics, this symbol shows that the product is distributed by a company you can feel good about supporting.

In order to earn the certification, companies must pledge not only to preclude animal testing internally, but also to only purchase their ingredients from other cruelty-free companies. They must promise not to sell to countries that make animal testing compulsory (Ill get to that in a minute), and must do thorough screenings and upkeep to ensure that none of their partners have begun animal testing practices. They must also commit to renewing their certification every year.

Shopping for products that have this certification is a really good way to avoid accidentally supporting companies that test on animals, becauseas I’m about to explainthings can get complicated.

Do Your Research on Parent Companies and Affiliates

Many, many companies that arent cruelty-free own all-natural product lines that claim to be. For example, while the popular toothpaste and personal care line Toms of Maine might not test on animals, it’s owned by Colgate-Palmolive, which is decidedly not cruelty-free. The same can be said of Clinique, which is owned by EsteLauder.

Some people believe that purchasing a cruelty-free brand from a large conglomerate can help shift the parent company toward better values, while others decide not to support the company or its affiliates at all. That decision is yours to make.

Get to Know Countries’Individual Animal Testing Requirements

The Chinese government requires that many cosmetic products be tested on animals before they can be sold to the general public. This means that if a cosmetic product is available in China, it’s most likely being tested on animals.

By contrast, no cosmetic products sold in the European Union can ever have been tested on animals. Buying a European-made product is a great way to know that your cosmetics are cruelty-free.

It takes a lot of time to sift through the information out there about animal testing. There are definitely signs that things are getting betterthe EU law and recent changes to Chinese laws are big victories for animal rights activists. But were not done yet! Make your voice heard by supporting companies that consider animals well-being. Be choosy about your cosmetic purchases, ask your favorite companies to take the cruelty-free pledge, and do your research about animal testing laws and issues.

Disclaimer: The views expressed above are solely those of the author and may not reflect those of Care2, Inc., its employees or advertisers.

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How to Make Sure What You’re Buying is Cruelty-Free

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Would You Like a Little Wood Pulp with Your Pizza?

by LeonBarszcz28 Posted on February 21, 2016

You wouldn’t normally sprinkle sawdust on your pizza. But what if it’s on the packaged grated cheese you use when you top off the sauce?

That doesn’t sound particularly appealing. But it turns out, it’s pretty common. Lots of companieseven some of the organic onessell pre-grated cheese in a plastic bag or tub that’s been dusted with something called “cellulose” to help keep the cheese dry and fluffy so it won’t clump together.

That cellulose, which is basically plant fiber, can be derivedfrom different kinds of plant materials, but the most common is wood pulp. Manufacturers grind up the wood, extract the cellulosic fibersthe saw dust, if you willand add it to the cheese.

This isn’t a particularly new practice. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration signed off on using cellulose to keep cheese loose in part because they say that the fiber passes through our stomachs and intestines without being absorbed.

However, now the FDA is investigating manufacturers who claim their product is, for example, “100% Parmesan Cheese” because it probably contains wood-based cellulose.

“Organic Valley does use cellulose in our shredded cheeses,” Elizabeth Horton of Organic Valley, told National Public Radio. “It’s a pretty standard anti-caking agent” that helps prevent the bits of cheese from clumping together. So does Lucerne. I have a package of grated Lucerne Parmesan cheese in my refrigerator, and the words “powdered cellulose” are clearly listed with the other ingredients.

Jon Bodner, who works for a company that provides cellulose to food companies, says that the cellulose isn’t really saw dust. But he acknowledges that the industry is looking for cellulose sources that come from plant foods, like corn stalks, leaves and husks or even sugar beets, rather than wood.

One problem that could arise in the event that non-wood plant crops are used to produce cellulose is that they could come from GMO plants. Consumers don’t seem to want to consume GMO-tainted foods, so adding GMO-derived cellulose to the cheese would probably not be too popular.

At least on my packaged cheese, the powdered cellulose was the second-to-last ingredient on the package, so the amount of dust is not huge.

But all things considered, I’d much prefer to eat just cheese without any cellulose added.

It’s easy enough to grate my own cheese when I need it, either using a metal hand-held grater or the grating attachment on my food processor.

There are threeother benefits of grating my own cheese.

First, it will be fresher. A regular brick of cheese usually expires long before packaged cheese. Why not grate your own for a fresher, more delicious taste?

Second, I can avoid the excess plastic packaging that grated cheese comes in if I grate my own. At my grocery store, grated cheese comes either in a plastic bag or in a plastic tub. Either way, that’s more plastic to have to throw away and add to the growing problem of plastic build up in the environment.

Third, buying non-grated cheese is usually cheaper than buying the grated stuff because you’re not paying for the packaging or the energy and labor costs of grating the cheese at a factory.

Here on out, I plan to buy bricks of cheese at my deli counter. Have them wrap them in butcher paper or even put them in a container I bring from home. That way I still get fresh cheese, but skip the plastic trash.

Related
Top 20 Frankenfoods to Avoid
Is Processed Food Safe? FDA Doesn’t Know

Disclaimer: The views expressed above are solely those of the author and may not reflect those of Care2, Inc., its employees or advertisers.

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Would You Like a Little Wood Pulp with Your Pizza?

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Fur Farming: The Unnecessary Cruelty that Needs to End

by dellvshplaptopsforcollege Posted on February 4, 2016

The term fur farming refers to the entire trade of capturing, slaughtering and skinning animals for the purpose of selling the pelt. Some of the horrors of fur farming include the following: animals are often caught in leg traps that cause severe injury. In many cases, these wounds are left untreated. In addition, the creatures are kept in cages until the fur is intended to be sold. Examples of these cages have been recorded and the results show confined, excrement-filled living quarters in which the animals are made to eat and sleep. Due to injuries or illness, animals have perished inside of their cages. Nevertheless, animals continue to live in the presence of a decaying neighbor. These horrific conditions may make a person wonder why fur farming is necessary. The short answer isits not.

Before the times of man-made cloth, fur and leather was a necessity in order to stay warm during the winter months. Today, renewable fabrics like cotton, hemp and bamboo are being used ubiquitously in clothing production. The need for animal fur is no more. However, fur farms remain in production all across the globe to deliver fur pelts strictly for fashion purposes.

What animals are farmed?

Rabbits, wild cats, coyotes, wolves, mink, ferrets, foxes and many other animals are involved in the fur farming industry. A lack of regulation on the types of animals bought and sold leads to an almost infinite amount of animals being caught and used in fur clothing items worldwide. Regrettably, even animals that arent being targeted are trapped and killed every year including hunting dogs, raccoons, squirrels, gophers, birds and even domestic cats and dogs.

How are animals caught/slaughtered/skinned?

The most commonly used trap in the United States is the steel-jaw leghold trap. This trap consists of a pressure plate in the center of the trap and two jaws on the outside (often with spikes or teeth) that clamp down on a captured animals limb. Of course these traps are immensely strong and will often break the creatures limb in the process. Fur farms that export a significant amount of product may have hundreds of traps out at any given time. Therefore, traps may go unchecked for days or weeks on end. This means that a severely injured animal may be left to bleed to death due to their injury sustained from these outdated traps.

With very little regulation in regards to fur farming, animals are often killed in a myriad of ways. Bludgeoning, hanging, bleeding to death and even skinning alive have all been performed as viable means to end an animals life (Caution – videos provided are real, but are very disturbing). Although, as mentioned previously, injuries caused by trapping often also lead to infection and eventually death.

Whats the truth about faux fur?

The fact of the matter is that fake fur is not always fake. Many countries around the world have little to no regulations on fur farming. This means that furs which the U.S. deems appropriate to sell and label as fur may be different than other countries. Of course, the U.S. has banned the sale of cat and dog fur, but because of the false labeling of products in other countries, this fur is still being distributed. Investigations into fur trade in countries such as China have resulted in some disturbing findings (Again, the videos provided are very graphic and shocking). Domestic cat and dog fur can be labeled as faux fur according to Chinese regulations.

The one and only way to be certain clothing does not contribute to animal cruelty is to ban fur farming. For the time being, no one can be sure that their faux fur was actually made with animal friendly materials. Whats more, wearing fur (even trim or faux fur) as a fashion statement encourages the slaughter of millions of animals around the world each year. Fur is no longer a necessity. With the amount of affordable renewable resources at our disposal, there is no justifiable reason to maintain fur farms any longer. Many animal friendly organizations stand against the sale of any type of fur. One such example is the Make Fur History campaign. The group offers educational materials, alternate clothing options and easy ways to take a stand against fur farming.

Photo Credit: Dzīvnieku brīvība

Disclaimer: The views expressed above are solely those of the author and may not reflect those of Care2, Inc., its employees or advertisers.

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Fur Farming: The Unnecessary Cruelty that Needs to End

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Federal Court to EPA: No, You Can’t Approve This Pesticide That Kills Bees

by DavidPigdon Posted on September 11, 2015

Mother Jones

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On Thursday, a federal appeals court struck down the Environmental Protection Agency’s approval of a pesticide called sulfoxaflor. Marketed by agrichemical giant Dow AgroSciences, sulfoxaflor belongs to a class of pesticides called neonicotinoids, which have been implicated by a growing weight of evidence in the global crisis in bee health. In a blunt opinion, the court cited the “precariousness of bee populations” and “flawed and limited data” submitted by Dow on the pesticide’s effects on beleaguered pollinating insects.

Before winning approval for sulfoxaflor back in 2013, the company hyped the product to investors, declaring that it “addresses a $2 billion market need currently unmet by biotech solutions,” particularly for cotton and rice.

US beekeepers were less enthusiastic—a group of national beekeeping organizations, along with the National Honey Bee Advisory Board, quickly sued the EPA to withdraw its registration of sulfoxaflor, claiming that the EPA itself had found sulfoxaflor to be “highly toxic to honey bees, and other insect pollinators.”

Thursday’s ruling, a response to that suit, took their side. It applies only to sulfoxaflor, which Dow markets as a foliar spray on a variety of crops, including cotton, soybean, citrus, stone fruit, nuts, grapes, potatoes, vegetables, and strawberries. It has no bearing on the EPA’s equally controversial approval of other neonics like clothianidin and imidacloprid, which are widely used as seed treatments on the two most prominent US crops: corn and soybeans.

But Greg Loarie, an attorney for EarthJustice who argued the case for the beekeeper’s coalition, told me that the decision has broad significance because the ruling “makes clear” that when the EPA is assessing new pesticides, it must assess robust data on the health impacts on the entire hive, not just on individual adult bees.

In its opinion, the court rebuked the EPA for approving sulfoxaflor despite “inconclusive or insufficient data on the effects…on brood development and long-term colony health.” That’s a problem, the court added, because pesticides can cause subtle harm to bees that don’t kill them but that “ripple through the hive,” which is an “interdependent ‘superorganism.'” Indeed, many independent studies have demonstrated just such effects—that low-level exposure to neonics is “sub-lethal” to individual bees but compromises long-term hive health.

“The EPA doesn’t have that hive-level information on very many insecticides, if any,” Loarie said.

And in the case of sulfoxaflor, the agency didn’t try very hard to get that information. In January 2013, because of major gaps in research on the new chemical’s effect on bees, the EPA decided to grant sulfoxaflor “conditional registration” and ordered Dow to provide more research. And then a few months later, the agency granted sulfoxaflor unconditional registration—even though “the record reveals that Dow never completed the requested additional studies,” the court opinion states.

In an even more scathing addendum to the court’s main opinion, Circuit Judge N.R. Smith added, “I am inclined to believe the EPA…decided to register sulfoxaflor unconditionally in response to public pressure for the product and attempted to support its decision retroactively with studies it had previously found inadequate.” The judge added, “Such action seems capricious.”

Sulfoxaflor’s twisted path through the EPA’s approval process isn’t the first time the agency has green-lighted a neonicotinoid pesticide under dodgy circumstances, as I showed in this 2010 piece on clothianidin, a widely marketed pesticide marketed by Dow’s European rival, Bayer.

In 2013—the same year the EPA approved sulfoxaflor—the European Union placed a two-year moratorium on clothianidin and two other major neonics, citing pollinator health concerns. For a study released last year, the US Geological Survey found neonic traces in all the Midwestern rivers and streams it tested, declaring them to be “both mobile and persistent in the environment.” In addition to harming bees, neonics may also harm birds and fish, Canadian researchers have found.

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Federal Court to EPA: No, You Can’t Approve This Pesticide That Kills Bees

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Marijuana industry struggles with devastating wildfire season

by LaurenSylvester Posted on September 1, 2015

Marijuana industry struggles with devastating wildfire season

By on 1 Sep 2015commentsShare

The burners may have left for Black Rock City, but there’s still a lot burning on the West Coast. From Central Washington’s blazes to the wildfires ravaging the tinderbox we call California, the Pacific Coast is on fire. Across the U.S., wildfires have claimed over 8 million acres of land. When combined with water restrictions and severe drought, the fires can be devastating — especially for anyone whose livelihood depends directly on the land. Which brings us to another type of burner: weed farmers.

While some growers haven’t been affected by the fires, “others haven’t been so fortunate,” writes Madeleine Thomas (a former Grister!) over at Pacific Standard. In Northern California, many budding bud operations are starting to feel the burn:

Timothy Anderson, the purchasing manager for Harborside Health Center, a medical marijuana dispensary based in Oakland, California, says most of his suppliers are located in the lower end of the the Emerald Triangle, an area comprising three counties at the tip of Northern California. The Emerald Triangle’s economy is largely dependent on marijuana growers, who have a reputation for producing some of the country’s best bud, including sought-after strains like Mendocino Purps and Humboldt Headband.

Some of Anderson’s suppliers haven’t been able to get their product to market due to road closures. Others are situated in the midst of the blaze’s danger zone, but, according to Anderson, remain reluctant to leave their farms to nature’s mercy just yet. Evacuating runs the risk of losing a farm not only to wildfire, but to neglect. No one is around to check key irrigation lines or reservoirs, he says—daily reminders that the state is still in the midst of one of the worst droughts in memory. Water isn’t just a lifeline for most marijuana growers these days; it’s also a luxury.

“I had one of my contract farmers, with whom we work with very closely, who lost an entire farmstead,” Anderson says. “He lost a house, a barn, an outbuilding, and had to lay off his employees at that facility for the season as well.”

East of the Cascades in Washington, where the dry climate is a double-edged sword (“prime not only for weed farming, but also for massive wildfires,” writes Thomas), the story is much the same. And as the poorly contained fires creep closer and closer to weed fields, growers have begun to voice concerns about the indirect effects of the wildfires, as well. Residual smoke can seep into a marijuana plant’s flowers — altering the smell and taste of the weed — and light-blocking smoke and haze can cause plants to flower early, triggering the need for an early harvest.

A burning marijuana field won’t get you high, though, unless you’re standing right at the edge of one and actively “gulping up smoke.” In which case, you know, it might be time to look at your choices.

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West Coast Weed Farms Are Lighting Up

, Pacific Standard.

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Marijuana industry struggles with devastating wildfire season

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Nerds and Hacks Unite! You Have Nothing to Lose Except Your Chains.

by IsabellASV Posted on August 27, 2015

Mother Jones

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David Roberts has a long post at Vox about tech nerds and their disdain for politics. He highlights one particular tech nerd who describes both major parties as “a bunch of dumb people saying dumb things,” and jumps off from there:

There are two broad narratives about politics that can be glimpsed between the lines here. Both are, in the argot of the day, problematic.

The first, which is extremely common in the nerd community, is a distaste for government and politics….a sense that government is big, bloated, slow-moving, and inefficient, that politicians are dimwits and panderers, and that real progress comes from private innovation, not government mandates. None of which is facially unreasonable.

The second is the conception of politics as a contest of two mirror-image political philosophies, with mirror-image extremes and a common center, which is where sensible, independent-minded people congregate.

There’s about 4,400 more words than this, so click the link if you want to immerse yourself.

But I have a little different take on all this. The truth is that politics and tech are the same thing: inventing a product that appeals to people and then marketing the hell out of it. Back in the dark ages, this was a little more obvious. Steve Wozniak invented, Steve Jobs sold. It was so common for tech companies to be started by two people, one engineer and one salesman, that it was practically a cliche.

The modern tech community has lost a bit of that. Oh, they all chatter about social media and going viral and so forth. As long as the marketing is actually just some excuse for talking about cool new tech, they’re happy to immerse themselves in it. But actually selling their product? Meh. The truly great ideas rise to the top without any of that Mad Men crap. Anyway, the marketing department will handle the dull routine of advertising and….well, whatever it is they do.

Politics, by contrast, leans the other way. Inventing new stuff helps, but the real art is in selling your ideas to the public and convincing your fellow politicians to back you. It’s all messy and annoying, especially if you’re not very socially adept, but it’s the way human beings get things done.

Well, it’s one of the ways. Because Roberts only tells half the story. As much as most tech nerds disdain the messy humanness of politics, it’s equally true that most politicians disdain the eye-rolling naivete of tech nerds. You wanna get something done, kid? Watch the master at work.

In politics, you have the wonks and the hacks—and it’s the hacks who rule. In tech, you have the nerds and the salesmen—and it’s the nerds who rule. There are always exceptions, but that’s the general shape of the river.

But guess what? The most successful nerds have always been the ones who are also willing to figure out what makes people tick. And the most successful politicians have been the ones who are willing to marry themselves to policy solutions that fit their time and place. That doesn’t mean that nerds have to slap backs (Bill Gates never did) or that successful politicians have to immerse themselves in white papers (Ronald Reagan never did), but wonks and hacks and nerds and salesmen all need each other. The political hacks and the tech nerds need to get together and get messy. And more important: they have to genuinely respect each other. When that happens, you have a very, very powerful combination. So get to work.

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Nerds and Hacks Unite! You Have Nothing to Lose Except Your Chains.

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The Almond Board Is Now Advertising on NPR Stations

by RoslynCranswick Posted on July 25, 2015

Mother Jones

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I recently heard a spot on KQED, San Francisco’s NPR affiliate radio station, that caught my attention. “Support for KQED comes from the Almond Board of California. The water needs of almond trees are not unique among trees, and almond growers are committed to innovation and water efficiency. More at almondsustainability.org,” read a radio host.

The defensive tone might be due to the unwanted press almonds have been getting, from Mother Jones and others, about how much water almonds use in drought-ridden California. The state accounts for 80 percent of the world’s almond production, and each almond takes about a gallon of water to grow. All told, growing the crop takes as much water in a year as Los Angeles homes and businesses use in three years. Over half of the almonds produced in California are exported abroad.

Now, it appears that the Almond Board of California, the trade group representing growers of the $6.5 billion crop, has gone on the offense, sponsoring messages through National Public Media, NPR’s sponsorship branch, on five NPR affiliates in San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Sacramento. In San Francisco, the ads appear to be running during peak driving hours, during Morning Edition and All Things Considered.

When asked in an email about the reason for the ads, the Almond Board’s Stacey Humble said, “The radio spots were developed more recently to serve our California communities’ need for more recent, accurate research and information reflecting the almond industry’s innovation and commitment to sustainable growing practices.”

An Instragram shot from the Almond Board’s Shark Week campaign.

The ads coincide with other Almond Board PR pushes over the past month. In late June, the Board announced that it would spend $2.5 million on research devoted to sustainable farming practices, including projects targeting water management and honeybee health. It also launched an oddly elaborate Shark Week campaign in the beginning of July, featuring the adventures of a shark who’s stopped being preying on people after he discovered the wonders of the crunchy snack.

On the website publicized in the radio ad, entitled “Get the Facts about Almonds and Water,” the Board argues that acre for acre, almonds use about the same amount of water as other fruits and veggies, and almond growers have cut water use per pound of product by 33 percent in the past two decades.

Despite their water use, almonds are more popular than ever, with Americans eating two times the amount of almonds per year as they did just seven years ago. But the continued drought has leaders in the industry worried—particularly as crop production is declining slightly despite increased acreage.

“The biggest concern for almond users continues to be the impact of ongoing drought on California almond production and how long it could be before sufficient water is available to reverse the downward yield trend,” read a recent Blue Diamond report. Increased demand and shorter supply is causing almond prices to soar. “Almonds a year ago were priced at about $3.30, and we thought that was an exorbitant price,” said Stephen Smith, the CFO of Hain Celestial, a food company that sells almond butter and almond milk. “And here we are looking at prices in the mid-$4 range.”

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The Almond Board Is Now Advertising on NPR Stations

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Why Do Americans Love Tech Startups More Than Europeans?

by DamianMoulds Posted on July 10, 2015

Mother Jones

Jim Pethokoukis muses again today about the relative success of tech startups in America vs. Europe. He notes that apparently Europe is getting better in this regard, but still lags the US, and offers a few conventional reasons for the US advantage (plenty of capital, lots of talent, risk-loving culture, etc.) and then adds a few other possibilities from comments. This one in particular struck me:

Startups need customers. My experiences is American businesses are generally more likely to take a chance on a new company’s product if they think it will be advantageous, even if that company might not be exactly stable. I say generally, because it is certainly not universal. I was in the past deeply involved with another startup in the U.S. that generated most of its revenue from the UK for its first several years because for this particular market the major players in the UK were more change-seeking than their counterparts in the US. Ironically, this was largely because we addressed some pain points related to labor and energy that were not as painful for similar companies in the U.S.

Back when I was in the tech biz, we introduced a new version of a product we’d been selling for several years. It was already reasonably successful in Europe, though still a bit of a tougher sell than in the US. But the new version was a problem. It worked well. It introduced new capabilities that were pretty useful. And it was basically just a plug-in to the original product. All of that was fine. The product itself was not the problem. Its name was the problem.

No, this is not a funny story about accidentally naming something “cow dung” in Croatian. It was all in English. The problem was this: our new product added the ability to support remote users via the internet, so we called it AC Internet Server (AC being the original product name). Our European distributors and sales force were aghast. They told us no one would buy it if it had “Internet” in the name.

We in marketing were nonplussed. This was 1999, not 1990. Everyone wanted internet versions of existing products. Hell, they wanted them even if internet connectivity didn’t make sense for a particular product. It was hot and new. When we were brainstorming names for the new product, we were willing to consider just about anything. The only rule was that “Internet” had to be in the name somewhere.

But in Europe—in 1999—they wanted no part of that. To them, the internet didn’t suggest hot and new. We were told in no uncertain terms that it suggested fragile and unreliable.

Now, in retrospect, you can certainly argue that Americans went overboard on all things internet in the late 90s. But even in retrospect, I’m still gobsmacked that a lot of large European companies were unwilling to get on the bandwagon at all. Not for anything mission critical, anyway. And this despite the fact that internet connections were roughly as good and as cheap in Europe at the time as they were in the US. This wasn’t a problem of outdated infrastructure.

But there you have it. European companies do seem to be less willing to roll the dice and try something new that might not be fully ready for prime time. Americans, for better or worse, seem almost gleeful about it. Sometimes that spells disaster. But over the long run, it means that (a) our startups do indeed have a bigger pool of potential buyers and (b) new technology gets a quick trial by fire and then gets adopted rapidly if it works. Even when this produces lots of epic failures like pets.com, it probably works out better for everyone in the long run.

Is this still true of European companies? Are they generally less willing to adopt new technologies? Are they generally less willing to buy products from startups with an uncertain future? I don’t know. This all happened 15 years ago and I have no experience since then. Feel free to chime in via comments if you have something to add.

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Why Do Americans Love Tech Startups More Than Europeans?

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Will This New GMO Potato Take Off? McDonald’s Has Spoken

by ZacTzbnwtiujmn Posted on November 14, 2014

Mother Jones

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Would you be excited to pluck a bag of precut, gleaming-white potato slices from supermarket produce bin—fresh not frozen, and ready to throw in the pan or the FryDaddy?

Your answer may decide the fate of the “Innate” potato, which has been genetically engineered to resist browning and to contain less of the amino acid that turns into acrylamide—a probably human carcinogen—when potatoes are fried at high temperatures. Developed by the agribusiness giant J.R. Simplot, a major player in the $3.7 billion American potato market, the product won approval last week from the US Department of Agriculture (USDA). The reason you can currently only buy frozen precut potatoes is that they turn brown quickly. The Innate solves this, uh, problem.

To understand why the success of the new potato will hinge on your desire for convenience, a little background is in order: Simplot is one of the three massive companies (alongside ConAgra and McCain Foods) that buy potatoes from farmers, process them into French fries—as well as tater tots, spiral fries, and wedges—freeze them, and distribute them to companies ranging from fast-food giants to supermarket chains.

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Will This New GMO Potato Take Off? McDonald’s Has Spoken

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The US Will See 50 Percent More Lightning Strikes, Thanks to Global Warming

by heloltiki554 Posted on November 13, 2014

Mother Jones

By now we’re familiar with some of the scarier potential impacts of climate change: Floods, fires, stronger hurricanes, violent conflicts. Well, here’s a new one to add to your nightmares. Lightning strikes in the continental United States will increase roughly 12 percent for every degree Celsius of global warming, a study published today in Science finds. If warming continues unchecked, that could translate into a 50 percent increase in lightning by the end of the century—three strikes then for every two strikes now. (On average, there are currently about 25 million strikes per year.)

Does this mean an increase your odds of getting struck by lightning? Technically yes, I guess, but I wouldn’t worry about that. Instead, the increase matters because lightning strikes are the principle cause of wildfires, which are already predicted to become more severe due to global warming. In one 24-hour period in August, lightning in Northern California started 34 wildfires. The study doesn’t make any specific predictions about wildfire activity, but knowing about future lightning conditions is an important part of that equation.

Lightning is notoriously hard to account for in climate models, because the models can only represent large-scale atmospheric forces like wind speed, moisture, and temperature; they can’t show relatively small electric pulses, said Anthony Del Genio, an atmospheric scientist for NASA who was not involved with the study. So to get a sense of how lighting patterns will change in future climates, scientists have to rely on “proxies”—third-party forces they can model that have a known relationship to lightning. Early lightning studies in the 1990s, for example, made inferences based on how the heights of clouds—thought to be one contributor to lightning patterns—are expected to change with global warming, Del Genio said.

But lightning is a complex phenomenon that still isn’t fully understood by atmospheric scientists, so proxies have mostly proven to be imperfect for one reason or another. As a result, the Science study explains, previous estimates for how lightning will change with global warming range from an increase of 5 percent to and increase of more than 100 percent for each degree of temperature rise. Not very informative.

This study presents a new proxy for lightning—a proxy that author David Romps of the University of California-Berkeley thinks is much stronger than any of the previous ones. It’s actually a combination of two proxies: precipitation and “CAPE,” a standard measure of the kinetic energy clouds hold as they rise in the atmosphere. Lightning is the product of electrical charges caused by ice particles of different densities colliding in clouds, so Romps chose factors that would be necessary for lightning to occur: Enough precipitation to form ice, and enough upward energy to keep the ice suspended.

Taken together, those proxies accurately predicted 77 percent of actual lightning strikes observed in the US in 2011 by a national web of electromagnetic sensors. That result, Romps said, is a sign that these proxies are “doing a remarkably good job” of representing lightning patterns.

The video below shows the data Romps used to compare his hypothesis to observed lightning strikes, here represented as red dots. The original was over five minutes long—with one second for every day of the year—so we sped it up a bit.

The next step was to use data from 11 existing climate models to find out how precipitation and CAPE are predicted to change with global warming. Although Romps said the correlation between warming and CAPE is still being studied, all 11 models predicted it would increase by the end of the century. In other words, global warming will probably produce clouds that have stronger upward momentum. Combine that with predicted precipitation and, according to Romps, you get a sense of how much more lightning we can expect to see.

In this study, Romps’ dataset paints its predictions with a broad brush; the data isn’t detailed enough to know how lightning will change in specific parts of the country, or how the frequency will change in different seasons. But Del Genio says that the study advances our understanding of which weather forces contribute most to lightning. What’s more, he says, Romps’ work give us a strong indication of what lies ahead.

See the article here:  

The US Will See 50 Percent More Lightning Strikes, Thanks to Global Warming

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