Is It Time To Start Boycotting Whole Foods?
From Huffington Post:
John Mackey, CEO of Whole Foods: “No scientific consensus exists” re Climate Change.
I’ve been a big fan of Whole Foods’s CEO John Mackey for years.
I’ve talked with him twice on behalf of my elephant journal, and he’s agreed to an interview (which would sit nicely along our “Walk the Talk Show” videos with Deepak Chopra, Michael Pollan, Dr. Andrew Weil, Alice Walker, Arianna Huffington, Amy Goodman). I’ve defended WFM and Mackey through WildOatsGate, wherein Mackey denigrated the value of his rival on an online forum (while cloaked beneath a pseudonym, and throwing in a flattering comment about his own new haircut “he looks cute!”)
I urged the FTC to stop blocking WFM’s purchase of Wild Oats–though the consolidation was sad, Whole Foods had plenty of rivals left in the mainstream grocery chains who were, even then, selling more and more organics. I posted articles re: how Whole Foods no longer deserved its moniker Whole Paycheck. I gave Mr. Mackey kudos for honesty when he railed against Whole Foods’ own offerings, calling much of their offerings “junk.” And then, in an article that sat upon the home page of HuffPost for the better part of a week (traffic Mecca of the wwworld) and was picked up by the NY Times and Atlantic, I was a lonely “green” voice defending Whole Foods against progressive cries for a boycott after Mr. Mackey took on “Obamacare,” arguing in an infamous Wall Street Journal editorial that health care was not a right.
But I’m finally losing it, and he’s finally losing me.
The below excerpt is from a riveting profile in the January 4th New Yorker. It represents Mackey’s latest foot-in-mouth jaunt through self-delighted devil’s-advocate frankness:
January 6th, 2010 at 7:45 am
CHE –
Last I checked, “consensus” had two meanings; one is the general agreement among members of a group and the other is the process of achieving said agreement. I’m concerned about both these definitions w/ respect to “climate change.”
While I agree the most vocal scientists, pundits, and politicians say climate change is man-made, I’m skeptical their statistics saying 95% of scientists agree actually reflects the consensus.
Here’s why…
Professor Emeritus of Physics at the University of Connecticut, Howard Hayden, best summarized why so many scientists and average Americans are skeptical.
In his Oct 27, 2009 letter to the EPA, Professor Hayden raised several key issues. For example, if the science is settled which one of the twenty-some MODELS settled the science so that all the rest could be discarded along w/ the research funds that keep these MODELS alive? Moreover, the Professor pointed out that not a single climate model predicted Earth’s current cooling phase; this is why it’s now called ‘climate change’ and NOT ‘global warming’ – because Earth is currently cooling. Equally important, Professor Hayden explained that CO2 concentration has been as high as 8,000 ppm and this did NOT lead to a “tipping point” because, if it had, we’d not be here talking about it. The truth is, James Hansen and Al Gore are simply wrong on this point.
My perception is those who dare to question the so-called “consensus” are attacked in emotion-driven rants for simply questioning.
Let’s face it: most of us take the validity of “climate change” on faith, believing it is fact based on an objective methodology & empirical data. But as others have pointed out, those who seemingly have no faith that science & technology can build a safe nuclear power plant or produce a safe pesticide; appear to have breathtaking confidence that science & technology can forecast the weather, and for the next 100 years no less, even though the world’s “leading” climate change scientists could not even predict Earth’s current cooling phase.
I’ve followed “climategate” a fair amount and I’m appalled by the blatant misuse of the scientific method to provide the answer researchers at the Climate Research Unit of the University of East Anglia in Norwich, England are clearly predisposed to believing. Imagine the vitriol if it was discovered that a corporation building a nuclear power plant or producing pesticides was misusing science the way these “scientists” have. I’ve read the emails and they prove these “scientists” colluded to withhold information, interfered w/ the peer-review process to prevent dissenting scientific papers from being published, deleted emails and data to prevent unfavorable information from being revealed per Freedom of Information Act requests, and manipulated data to make the case for global warming appear stronger than it is.
I support John Mackey’s skepticism.
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