Good old Bjorn Lomborg is up to it again.

http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2012/09/10/is-organic-food-worth-the-expense/organic-food-is-for-the-wealthy-not-the-poor

This time, however, I'm a huge fan of his cancer arguments. Let's recap his claims, I'll use F&V to denote fruits and vegetables:

(turning all F&V organic) = 20 fewer cancer deaths in the US
(decrease of 10% consumption of F&V) = 26,000 more cancer deaths in US
20 fewer cancer deaths = (all the US eating 1/1000th of an ounce of F&V per day)

Oh, large numbers. You're so crazy. Incidentally, the cancer from a 10% decrease in F&V is about the same amount of cancer coal power provides us with. The recent estimates from the Fukushima Daiichi meltdown predicts in the neighborhood of 300 cancer deaths. The funny thing about that kind of number though, is that you don't really get to tally up many deaths until you get to really really large population centers (like >1M people) which are over 20km from the plant that melted down. If we're looking at 100 out of 1,000,000 (which is a rate far higher than any really seen), then that could be countered by giving every man, woman, and child in that city 30 pounds of F&V.

But Bjorn's argument ignores the real argument for organic food - misinformation. Taken from the comments:

Quote :

" But please tell me how conventionally grown potatoes that have to spend 6 months in a warehouse off-gassing because of all the pesticides they're grown in is better for anyone, the planet than an organically grown potato? "

Holy hell! If I thought potato growin was such a toxic business I wouldn't eat them either.

9/12/2012 1:46:40 PM