It's unfortunate that they are giving credence to EWG as it damages the credibility of the article. EWG amounts to an anti-science pro-organic industry group that uses pseudoscience to push their agenda.
https://www.acsh.org/news/2017/05/25/dear-ewg-why-real-scien...
And yet.
This author's analysis of the EWG "Dirty Dozen" pesticide-residue-on-produce report -- https://www.forbes.com/sites/stevensavage/2018/04/10/the-inc... -- made me wonder about this source.
This author (Steven Savage) claims that: (1) there is evidence that non-organic produce contains more residue of the kind of pesticides which are only used on non-organic produce and not used on organic produce; (2) there is no evidence that the levels of pesticide residue found on non-organic produce are toxic to humans; (3) there is no measurement of the levels of residue of the kinds of pesticides used on organic produce on any produce; (4) there is no evidence that the kinds of pesticides used on organic produce are non-toxic to humans.
This author additionally claims that (5) the EWG report reports fact 1, ignores facts 2, 3, and 4, and uses this combination of facts which he says are misleading in order to assert that certain kinds of produce are more toxic to humans in their non-organic form vs. their organic form. His claims seem to agree with the literature to the extent that I'm able to understand it. As far as I can tell, every year EWG puts out a report which makes this assertion, every year it gets this criticism, and every year their report does not addres this criticism.
Having read this makes me somewhat more skeptical of the EWG's coverage of all topics, not just pesticide residue on produce but also active ingredients in sunscreen.
With all that being said, I currently mostly use sunscreen whose only active ingredient is zinc oxide, which is also the active ingredient in the diaper cream I use on our baby. I don't have any evidence that this is better or worse than using the stuff that kills the coral reefs. It's just convenient.
Granted this is just an opinion. EWG attacks conventional pesticides while ignoring organic practices (see their dirty dozen list). They cite the fraud scientist Seralini when attacking GMOs. Looking at them it's pretty clear they are an organic industry front group.
Personally I think we could achieve more by picking up some ideas from organic farming (e.g. more diversity to combat pests, better preservation of the soil) without demonizing all advances in agriculture like improved fertilizers or GMOs.
Lack of consistent standards, or authority to enforce mean it's essentially a rubber stamp.
Organically grown products are usually smothered in pesticides, since “organic” doesn't prohibit pesticides, just the more targeted and effective ones, forcing quantity to make up for quality.
In my own experience, organic fruits and vegetables at least taste much better.
> Second, organic produce requires more land, so it's unclear whether that scales to feed all people.
This isn't strictly true. In practice it has been, but it's not inherent to organic production in general but rather how it's been carried out so far. The agricultural system Permaculture addresses this directly and can yield on par with conventional farming.
> And third, many "organic" pesticides are not shown to be better for the environment than the non-organic alternatives.
This too isn't a strict requirement in organic farming, but I guess I'm arguing semantics here. To be more clear, non-conventional farming doesn't require pesticides.
Have you done blind taste testing? We already know that e.g. more expensive things taste better.
At least that's my understanding of Taleb's argument against GMOs.
I don't see how altering plants to produce chemicals is more dangerous than introducing new chemicals produced in a lab. We do the latter all the time, most chemicals we use in industrial processes are basically untested for safety (e.g. look at all the additives in plastics or textiles). GMOs can help reduce the need to pesticides and fertilizers so their use can help the environment. But due to overblown fears even completely harmless modifications like introducing new colors of flowers are treated as if they were literally the devil [1].
As with all new techniques it's probably good to be careful and test things for long term adverse effects, but the kneejerk reaction of GMO=dangerous does more harm than good.
[1] https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/05/how-transgenic-petun...
I don't think that's true. GMO only provides an average of 5% more production in the developed world, and that's what I've read from the studies cited on the Monsanto website, so presumably the studies which put them on the best light possible. It's a clear increase of revenue and production but it's not a game changer revolution either.
I'm interested in reading more about this perspective. Is this in one of his books? Or does he have articles about this somewhere?
This one: https://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/14/business/dealbook/another...
is more of a popular-science take and this one: https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B8nhAlfIk3QIbGFzOXF5UUN3N2c/... is a more rigorous analysis.
He also talked about his thoughts about GMOs on an econtalk podcast here: http://www.econtalk.org/nassim-nicholas-taleb-on-the-precaut...
X is bad for natural diversity. X has the potential to make it much easier to produce enough food to feed people. X might result in all insects, in particular bees, dying. The biggest danger of X is that it could trigger a positive feedback loop, a runaway process that ruins the world. Although X also happens naturally albeit at a much slower rate, we don't have enough understanding of X to ensure it's safe.
If X == "global warming", then X is bad. If X == "GMOs", then X is good. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I myself feel like there are plenty of legit discussions to have about GMOs, yet we cant have those discussions because of the startlingly large number of people that think GMOs will mutate YOU.
It is refreshing to see a comment on the topic that doesn't trigger a reflex laugh/sob.
Organic is less efficient requiring more inputs and land and can be argued is worse for the environment.
Organic uses pesticides yet they advertise themselves as not.
Worse utilization doesn't mean worse for the environment overall, especially considering the extreme damage conventional farming leaves on the health of the soil, as one example.
> Organic uses pesticides yet they advertise themselves as not.
I do think that it's frustrating the level of permissiveness that the term "organic" encompasses in the US especially, but pesticides aren't required for organic farming -- check out Permaculture.
Regardless, it seems clear to me the matter of organic vs non-organic is not as clear cut as the organic industry and their prolific passionate proponents would have us believe.