The ‘08 Farm Bill and Improving America’s Diet
Jun 2 at 4:04pm by Aileen
The 2007 Farm Bill - now the 2008 Farm Bill, was passed by both chambers of Congress, vetoed by President Bush, then the veto was overridden by both houses and is now the ‘Law of the Land’. Politically, the bill isn’t perfect, there is still too much pork and payments to rich agribusiness concerns for their poor farming practices, and not enough clarifying guidelines for biofuels production and organic farming.
But it’s a lot better than no bill at all, which would have kept the last support bill in place for the foreseeable future. The new bill has incentives to clean up residue discharges in important watersheds, and supports for best practices in crop rotations, cover crops and low-chemical input farming. It’s still strong on commodity production (corn, wheat, rice), but does put some real support into farmer’s market promotions and expansion of organic markets. It does somewhat limit subsidies to near-millionaire commodity farmers, requires more fresh fruit and vegetables to be available in schools, increases food stamp benefits as tied to the price of food, allots priority funding to research into the bee die-off situation, and supports rural enterprise and microenterprise investments.
Research into the “typical American diet” and its relationship to serious health issues and obesity informs us that Americans eat way too much junk and not nearly enough healthy food. Which, in a country that rations health care by income level and allows insurance companies to exclude people who actually need health care, would seem to be an important issue to address with education and real food availability in public institutions such as schools.
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ScienceDebate2008 Update
Apr 8 at 3:03pm by Aileen
The team at ScienceDebate2008 reports that this cycle’s Presidential candidates have declined to engage in a debate on science policy issues on April 18th in Philadelphia. While not surprising - these are professional politicians trying to sell themselves to a largely science-illiterate public - the importance of staging such a debate with national media coverage has not diminished in the least.
The next target will focus on the Oregon primary venue in May. For the effort ScienceDebate2008 has forged a working relationship with PBS’s NOVA science series and NOW on PBS weekly news program for cosponsorship. NOW host David Brancaccio will moderate, supported by a panel of internationally recognized scientists everyone can agree upon. Three possible dates have been proposed to the campaigns.
Because science is so important to our society and to the livability of our abused planet, it is hoped that the candidates will agree to debate the science issues on one of the possible dates. Again, due to personal ignorance of many of the issues, each candidate should be allowed to bring their primary on-staff science advisor and be able to consult that advisor about details. Simply reading position statements drafted by their campaigns should not be considered sufficient grasp of the issues for the next leader of the free world.
If you would support the effort you can contact the candidates’ campaigns in favor of the initiative. Letters to the editor of local and regional newspapers can also help drum up public interest. And you can contact the debate team from the initiative’s website at ScienceDebate2008.
Invitations Sent, Date to Be Announced…
Feb 21 at 11:11pm by Aileen
Will the Candidates Show?
Government leaders, university presidents, leading scientists, engineering leaders, business executives, American innovators have been making the call loudly and with some help from NPR, MSNBC, the New York Times and Time Magazine as well as increasing numbers of other media outlets. Now that both the Democratic and Republican fields of potential Presidential candidates are down to two apiece, it’s time for Science Debate 2008 to happen.
The invitations to the candidates have been sent, the debate will be held at the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia before the Pennsylvania primary on April 22. Thus far none of the candidates have responded that they will commit. While we all know that issues of science and technology are usually handled by advisors who have knowledge of the subjects, it would be nice to get a feel for whether the candidates for our country’s highest office have a basic grasp of those issues and a defensible position on policy. Or find out if all they’re good for is to mouth sound bites their handlers feed them.
If you’re interested in what you may be able to do to help convince them, visit the Science Debate 2008 website and sign on. And it wouldn’t hurt to write to the campaigns and request the candidates’ participation while you’re at it.
A Candidate Debate on Science and Technology?
Dec 18 at 6:06pm by Aileen
They’re calling it Science Debate 2008. It’s a grassroots initiative to petition for a Presidential candidates forum specifically about issues of science and technology. The list of science bloggers in the Blogger Coalition is impressive, and represents almost all of Seed Media Group’s ScienceBlogs stable. The list of initial signers includes Nobel Prize laureates, academics, corporate CEOs, congresscritters, political science policy advisors, journal editors and regulatory agency veterans.
I heard about the initiative from Steven “DarkSyde” Andrew’s front page post announcing it over on Daily Kos on December 10th. He called for bipartisan and independent science bloggers to sign up, so I emailed the group through their form and offered my support. I didn’t get a reply and I’m not listed as a supporter, but I’m going to talk about it anyway.
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