If the AEI-funded studies on climate change and tobacco are wrong, point to the problems with the studies, not the funding.

That said, it’s a tough call on whether or not conventional agriculture is sustainable. The higher yields are important when you’re trying to feed so many, but less available food wouldn’t hurt many of us. And if it’s hanging, as you suggest, on the acceleration of global warming and fuel cost increases, it might turn out just fine at an economic level…if this cycle of warming has peaked, and we make the switch to biodiesel and cellulosic ethanol soon.

I think the real problem will be health problems associated with extended exposure to hormones, pesticides, and artificial ingredients.

That may be so, but consumers are also confused because those labels can be misleading. All “natural” means is that there are no artificial additives to the finished product. It says nothing about how the product was grown and/or raised. “Organic” can mean that it came from a large industrial farm that just doesn’t use pesticides or other chemical applications, but likely uses the “approved” pesticides. The soil could still be destroyed. Animals could still be crowded. “Free Range” just means that animals have ACCESS to open areas that don’t even necessarily have grass. They don’t have to leave confinement if they don’t “want” to.

I would be confused too, if I were a normal, uninformed consumer! So it’s not really so much the fault of the disinformationists as it is the fault of the regulating entities. Not that the agrigiants don’t try to get away with murder.

That old Gandhi quote works well here, too, “First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win.” Looks like we’re at the fighting stage, folks. Won’t be too long now before we’ll be able to see the promised land.

Despite what you wrote in your third paragraph, food will never be fair to animals as long as animals are murdered for their body parts.