The environment was notably absent from Theresa May’s recent speech laying out her Brexit negotiating priorities. It was also rarely mentioned during the referendum campaign.

But worries that the UK could turn itself into a post-Brexit pollution haven have now been thrust front and centre by another often overlooked political actor: the European Parliament.

The parliament is often derided as a symbol of the Brussels’ gravy train, or more recently a boxing ring for UKIP’s MEPs. Yet it is an increasingly significant force in EU affairs, and has a long-held reputation for trying to enhance its own powers and for promoting greener policies.

Over the years, the parliament’s environment committee – a cross-party group of 68 MEPs – has led efforts to tighten car emissions, ban leaded fuel and the use of sealskins and, more recently, to secure strong climate change legislation.

It has also provided an entry point to the EU legislative process for less powerful actors like environmental campaigners, who struggle to have their voices heard by national policymakers or the European Commission.

EU Parliament can veto Brexit deal

But how and why will this institution make a difference to Brexit? The European Parliament’s consent is needed for any deal negotiated between the UK and the EU.

So not only does Theresa May’s government need to secure the support of 27 EU states for its final Article 50 deal, but also a simple majority of the 751 MEPs.

The parliament has now decided to flex its legislative muscles by outlining the areas it views as priorities in the upcoming negotiations. Maintaining environmental standards is apparently a red (or green) line for members of the chamber’s influential environment committee.

The committee’s paper “calls on the UK to continue to respect its environmental and climate change commitments”, adding: “Existing legislation which provides for commitments (financial, emissions reduction or of a political nature) cannot simply disappear on the day of Brexit and will require transitional measures.”

Crucially, air quality has been identified as a central issue for MEPs and is an area that the UK government continues to struggle with. Yet again, this year EU mandated air quality limits have already been breached in London and other urban centres (see photo).

But why would ‘Brussels’ care what kind of environmental rules the UK chooses to adopt post Brexit?

Dirty Britain would be a bad neighbour

There are two main reasons why UK environmental policy is of interest to its European partners. First, environmental pollution is transboundary: the UK gained its reputation as the dirty man of Europe in the 1970s and 1980s because its emissions from coal fired power stations led to acid rain in Scandinavia.

Its unpleasant habit of pumping raw effluent into the North Sea was also unwelcome. It is unlikely that our EU neighbours will want to see the UK return to its old habits of using prevailing winds and currents to dispose of unwanted waste in cost-efficient ways.

Second, environmental rules have major trade implications. EU policy was developed to even out differences across states, to prevent those with weaker environmental policies being able to secure competitive advantages. There are consequently good trade reasons for the EU to ensure that the UK maintains the same environmental standards.

No European country wants its farmers or carmakers, bound by restrictions on pesticides or emissions, to have to compete with a UK that relaxes such regulations or scraps them entirely.

The European Parliament can play a useful role in reminding EU negotiators of the importance of environmental regulations for the effective functioning of the single European market.

The parliament’s intervention adds another important voice to the Article 50 debates that may be useful to the Greener UK campaign that seeks to see UK standards maintained post Brexit.

Charlotte Burns is Senior Lecturer in Environmental Policy, University of York.

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

Coca Cola has been lobbying against plans for a new bottle collection scheme in Scotland designed to reduce plastic waste, according to an Energydesk investigation.

A leaked internal document from the firm reveals the company prioritised a “fight back” against EU moves to introduce deposit return schemes (DRS).

The schemes are designed to encourage consumers to return their drinks bottles by adding a small refundable charge at sale.

The DRS system has been shown to raise collection rates in Germany, Sweden and Denmark and is now being considered by other countries including Scotland.

But major drinks companies, including Coca Cola, are pushing back against the plans, arguing it could negatively impact their business.

Beyond the leaked plans, Energydesk has found evidence that Coca Cola has been lobbying Scottish politicians against DRS for years. The company also spent close to €1 million lobbying the EU commission, and met several times with politicians in Westminster.

Deposit return schemes work fine elsewhere – so why the problem?

Richard Lochhead was the Scottish Minister responsible for exploring DRS until May 2016. He confirmed to Energydesk that he had been approached by Coca Cola and other industry representatives several times.

Lochhead noted that the same companies were working with DRS schemes in other countries, saying: “I am puzzled as to why drinks companies that participate in successful deposit and return schemes in many markets around the world continue to resist new schemes being introduced in Scotland and elsewhere.”

“If we don’t introduce a deposit and return scheme in Scotland in the coming years and attach a value to items that are too often just thrown away, we’ll be missing out on all the benefits and too many valuable cans and bottles will continue to be a blight on our environment both on land and on our shores and in our waters.”

A Coca-Cola spokesperson said: “Our packaging is not only valuable, but is also essential for our business and vital for people to be able to enjoy our drinks. Any changes to policy around it are therefore important to us and so no one should be surprised that we closely follow these discussions.

“We meet with a wide range of organisations and individuals with an interest in a given topic, including politicians, Government officials, charities and campaign groups, to understand their latest thinking on policy issues.

“In Scotland, along with other drinks manufacturers, we have had several constructive meetings with the Government, policy makers, industry groups and NGOs to discuss plans to reduce littering and increase recycling.”

16 million plastic bottles going to waste every year – in the UK alone

As many as 16 million plastic bottles go unrecycled in the UK every day. The average household recycles just 270 of the 480 plastic bottles they use a year, according to campaign group Recycle Now.

Many of those bottles that are not recycled can end up littering our local environment, blowing into ditches, rivers and streams, and ultimately disfiguring our beaches and polluting the seas, with devastating impacts on marine wildlife.

DRS involves adding a small deposit to plastic bottles at sale, which is returned once the bottles are returned to collection points. In Germany, the introduction of a DRS led to 98.5% of refillable bottles being returned by consumers, according to Zero Waste Europe.

The scheme has been likened to the plastic bag charge which reportedly caused bag usage to drop dramatically across the UK.

However, drinks companies have been less than enthusiastic about the prospect of a DRS in Scotland. The leaked internal report from Coca Cola Europe includes a risk matrix which outlines possible EU policies that could impact the company’s business. Circled by the label ‘Fight back’ is a point marked ‘EU scheme for deposit system’.

The same document, and others leaked in the tranche, also revealed the company’s intention to push back against a proposed sugar tax amongst other initiatives.

‘Looking to force our hand’

Our investigation reveals Coca-Cola’s ‘fight back’ has, in fact, been going on for years. Documents released to Energydesk under Freedom of Information requests, show that representatives from Coca Cola have been lobbying Scottish ministers to drop the DRS scheme for at least the past two years

Coca Cola is part of industry group Packaging Recycling Group Scotland (PRGS). In January 2014 that group – including the Coca Cola’s Managing Director – met with then-Secretary of Rural Affairs Richard Lochhead to discuss the DRS plans. In that meeting was Simon Baldry, Managing Director of Coca-Cola Enterprises.

Almost exactly a year later the Coke’s VP of Public Affairs met again with Lochhead, accompanied by representatives from PRGS.

Lochhead’s briefing notes from that meeting, supplied through FOI, note: “PRGS will be seeking to force our hand on deposit return – and will be looking to leave the meeting with a commitment that it will be taken off the table as an option for consideration for the foreseeable future.”

As spokesperson from PRGS said: “PRGS represents a broad range of businesses whose customers could be impacted by the introduction of a deposit return scheme. The formulation of good policy requires government to hear the views of all parties and assess those views in relation to its policy objectives.

“The government has consulted charities, NGOs and business while considering the potential of a deposit return scheme. In common with others, PRGS has been happy to set out the issues and consequences we believe would arise.”

Lobbying across the UK

The lobby group tried setting up meetings with other politicians, including John Swinney, Fergus Ewing and Marco Biagi. But in each case they were told it was only appropriate to meet with Lochhead. However, Lochhead held strong.

Coca Cola then changed their target. A visit by SNP leader Nicola Sturgeon to a Coca Cola bottling plant in East Kilbride in July 2015, provided another opportunity for lobbying.

In a follow-up letter from PRGS to Sturgeon’s office, uncovered by The Ferret, the lobbying group notes that the issue of DRS was brought up during Sturgeon’s visit to the Coca Cola factory.

The letter goes on to argue that a DRS scheme would “cause expense and inconvenience to consumers, particularly vulnerable people; damage business and existing recycling and anti-littering initiatives … And increase carbon emissions and environmental impact.”

While DRS has been discussed for years in Scotland, it has not yet been seriously considered in England and Wales. However, last week environment minister Therese Coffey responded to a question about DRS saying the government is “developing a new litter strategy which may well address this issue.”

Coca Cola has also been talking to ministers in Westminster. Records show that in January 2016 they met with Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs representative George Eustice to discuss “the food and drink sector”.

Then in March 2016 Coca Cola and many other companies met with Rory Stewart, who was then DEFRA’s Parliamentary Under Secretary of State, to talk about the ‘circular economy’ which involves companies taking responsibility for waste products. Minutes for these meetings were not made available.

A Coca Cola spokesperson said: “We hold regular meetings with NGOs to update them on our progress towards delivering our current ambitions to boost the sustainability of our packaging and seek their advice on where we could improve things in future.

Only last week, we organised a round table with 15 expert organisations and campaign groups, including Greenpeace, to ask them what more they thought we should be doing to help improve packaging recovery and recycling in the UK.

“We support recovery and recycling of our packaging and we want to help find ways to ensure that less of it is littered and ends up in the sea. Whilst we support and participate in deposit schemes in some countries, in some cases we have believed a different approach could be more effective and more sustainable than DRS – and in the UK we have raised some concerns about the impact of a DRS scheme on household recycling rates.

“However, we are open to engaging in constructive dialogue and working with others to create effective, long-term solutions.”

Clarissa Morawski, Managing Director of Reloop, said: “The tactics used around the world by big business opponents of deposit systems are very familiar by now. They are always determined not to take responsibility for the litter the current approach generates, but they cloak this in concern for small businesses and local taxpayers, despite the evidence that both do very well out of such systems.

“Industry would much rather put a token sum into anti-litter media campaigns, as if that can solve the problem, than sit down and work with business supporters and other stakeholders to design systems that can work well for them.”

DRS could ‘increase our costs and reduce demand for our products’

In an published consultation on the Scottish deposit return scheme, Coca Cola argued against the idea of DRS. They warned that “no cost-benefit analysis has been undertaken” and that “Consumers don’t want it.” They also note: “Scottish businesses, such as ours, will be negatively impacted.”

In fact the concept of a deposit return scheme appears to be popular in Scotland. A Greenpeace survey, under taken by Survation, of a sample group of more than 1,000 people found that more than three quarters said they would support a deposit return system in Scotland. A different survey by Sky News found that across the UK, 60% of respondents support DRS.

Instead the company’s financial reports reveal that it was seriously concerned that DRS could impact its profits.

In Coca Cola’s 2015 Annual Report to the Securities and Exchange Commission, the company notes: “Changes in laws and regulations relating to beverage containers and packaging could increase our costs and reduce demand for our products.”

The report notes an increased interest in recycling and “beverage container deposits” and goes on to say: “If these types of requirements are adopted and implemented on a large scale in any of the major markets in which we operate, they could affect our costs or require changes in our distribution model, which could reduce our net operating revenues and profitability.”

But Coca Cola’s massive EU lobbying effort may prove fruitless

The latest EU Commission transparency register shows Coca Cola spent more than €900,000 lobbying the commissioner in 2015. That work involved at least 11 Coca Cola employees.

But the company also pushed for change through other groups. Nikolaus Tacke, Coca Cola EU’s Public Affairs Director, was appointed to the board of American Chamber of Commerce to the EU in March 2015.

Energydesk has learnt that as recently as December 2016, Coca Cola representatives were still meeting with European Commission ministers, to push for change on recycling issues and to discuss deposit return schemes.

Environmental campaigners argue the lobbying is unlikely to prove successful.

Samantha Harding, Litter Programme Director at the Campaign to Protect Rural England said: “The plastic lobbyists are frantically trying to shore up a sinking ship. People have woken up to the ridiculousness of using an indestructible product for single-use packaging. They see through the traditional status quo that allows producers to make what they like and to hell with the consequences.”

While Reloop’s Morawski noted that Coca Cola and other companies had put up similar resistance in other countries only to change message when schemes were implemented.

After implementation, she said, “Coca Cola and others often magically find it’s not a problem for them, or even that this approach helps them meet their environmental targets. I sense we might not be far off that moment across the UK.”

Maeve McClenaghan is a freelance journalist and Senior Investigator for Greenpeace UK whose reports regularly feature on Energydesk. See her website or follow her on Twitter @MaeveMCC.

Sign the petition: ‘I support the creation of a plastic bottle deposit return scheme‘.

Read the documents: Leaked report and lobbying FOI response

This article was orginally published on Greenpeace Energydesk.

The UN, the EU, the US Armed Forces and all the world’s major scientific bodies all agree that the climate emergency is the greatest threat facing humanity.

Meanwhile over 7 million people across the globe are dying every year from the air pollution caused by burning fossil fuels.

Yet Trump, with (as usual) zero factual evidence, believes that climate change is a “hoax” invented by China – who by the way have announced a $360 billion investment in clean renewable energy.

In a chilling statement on Monday, President Trump’s top environmental transition adviser Myron Ebell declared that the environmental movement is “the greatest threat to freedom and prosperity in the modern world.”

• So it is not authoritarian Russia;
• it is not communist China;
• it is not Islamic fundamentalist extremism;
• it is not the western corporate takeover of media and democracy;
• it is not global tax-evasion by the wealthiest 1%;
• and it is not the concentration of over half the world’s wealth in the hands of just eight men.

According to Trump’s adviser, all of these are nothing when compared to the threat to freedom posed by … envirionmental NGOs.

According to him, they are our greatest “threat” by working peacefully with civic society and democratic processes to protect people from being poisoned by lead from coal burning, mercury from oil burning, particulates from diesel burning or to protect the what remains of the natural world, with over 60% of it already shamelessly destroyed in just my lifetime.

This is dangerous perverted logic.

But why do I say chilling?

I say it because the oiligarchy of Exxon Mobil and the Koch brothers for whom Trump’s adviser is the spokesperson for, now control almost all the levers of power in the US, from the Presidency to Congress to Murdoch’s Fox News and most terrifyingly to the US National Security Council, the State Department and the intelligence services.

If Trump’s fascist propaganda succeeds in making environmental NGOs and peaceful campaigners the public’s top ‘enemy of freedom’, then all the huge resources of the US security services could rain down on them, a tiny taste of which we have seen at the North Dakota Pipeline Protection Camp.

So what aggressive war actions has Trump already taken?

1. Declared he would renege on the USA’s responsibilities to the global Paris Climate Treaty, humanity’s best last hope of averting the worst of the climate disaster.
2. Appointed the head of Exxon Mobil to head up US State Department, meaning that the oil industry now leads US global foreign policy, giving it the opportunity to trash climate action not only in Trump’s USA but across the globe.
3. Appointed a far-right extremist climate science denier to head up the destruction of the Environmental Protection Agency, and already issued a gagging order on all government employed climate scientists and banned any replacements for retiring scientists.
4. Announced he will slash energy efficiency standards for fossil fuel car manufacturers.
5. Removed all climate change references from the White House website.
6. Said he will support a resurgence in the criminally lethal coal industry, the single largest source of fossil fuel pollution and climate destroying carbon.
7. Pledged to renege on all US treaty commitments to fund climate change protection and adaptation funding for developing countries via the UN.

The list goes on …

Make no mistake!

• After the hottest year (again),
• after the hottest decade (again),
• with ice-caps melting before our eyes,
• with the permafrost heating up,
• with wildfires blazing across the world
• and with scientists stating that without truly urgent action, the planet faces temperature rises of up to 6C, which as they say is “incompatible with life as we know it”,

Trump has not just declared war on Muslims, but on humanity itself and the precious fragile remaining damaged ecosystems on which future generations depend.

Do what can we do? Today I would suggest six things to get started with:

1. Commit yourself to living as low a carbon lifestyle as you can practically achieve.
2. Email your MP urgently today, urging them to vote for an amendment today that would grant the British people the final say on Brexit Deal. The UK must stand united with the liberal democracies of Europe, against the Brexit / Trump climate destruction agenda. Really easy to do from this link.
3. Join the Advertising Action on Climate Projects campaigns to stop the climate action blocking media billoinaires climate denialism propaganda.
4. Support in whatever way you can, the peaceful climate activists and protests which are on the frontlines now, on the Keystone XL Pipeline, North Dakota Pipeline, Preston Road Fracking Protest (and others around UK), Risingup Heathrow Protests, Stop Killing Cyclists HM Treasury Protest on February 11th, etc etc …
5. Sign the huge petition calling for refusal of State Visit to war-mongering President Trump.
6. What ever other actions, you personally are moved to undertake.

This is the greatest war threat that humanity has faced. But together, we can take on Trump and the oiligarchies in Russia, US and across the globe and win.

The clean renewable energy industry that we created is now nearly a trillion dollar global industry, slashing costs year after year and now employing more people than the dinosaur fossil fuel criminals, even in the USA.

Yes we can!

Donnachadh McCarthy is an environmental campaigner and author.

Also by Donnachadh on The Ecologist.

Book: ‘The Prostitute State – How Britain’s Democracy Has Been Bought‘ is available as an E-book and paper (100% recycled).

Free ebook version of The Prostitute State, which explains in detail how Murdoch and the UK’s five far-right media billionaires are trashing the UK’s democracy, is available to Occupiers, Fractivists, Momentum / Green Party members, students and others who cannot afford to buy a copy by emailing contact@3acorns.co.uk.

Hazel Dormice, once widespread across the country are now restricted to the south and face further threats due to the loss of ancient woodland, climate change, clearance of hedgerows and a lack of coppicing.

As an arboreal species, dormice rarely descend to the ground apart from when they are hibernating and now a new study from Manchester Metropolitan University’s Dr Robyn Grant, Lecturer in Environmental Physiology and Behaviour, has shown how gaps in tree canopies are leaving these endangered creatures unable to cross between habitats using their hypersensitive whiskers.

Dr Grant recorded high-speed videos of dormice and their whisker movements using a camera that captures 500 frames per second, with the videos proving that gaps in the tree canopy are now a major problem for the dormice.

“Although dormice can jump quite large distances, when the gaps between platforms were larger than 10-15cm, the dormice started behaving differently – they would eat less of the food available to them and also spend more time travelling on the floor as opposed to the canopy,” she explained. “This behavioural change would put the dormice in danger as this species is vulnerable to threats on the ground.”

The total adult population of hazel dormice in the UK is now thought to number about 45,000, distributed among a variety of widely fragmented sites. The UK Mammal Society Dormouse Survey in 1984 showed the species has been lost from seven counties in north and east England in the last 100 years. Even in optimal habitats, population densities are less than 10 adults per hectare.

Large numbers still live on the Isle of Wight and although dormice are widely distributed in Wales, individual populations are small, scattered and isolated from each other. Building hedgerows, habitat corridors and dormouse bridges is critical to this species’ survival.

Carried out at the Wildwood Trust in Kent, Dr Grant’s research into this endangered species was published in the Journal of Comparative Physiology, and shows that dormice use active whisker sensing, with footage revealing that dormice actively and purposefully move their whiskers to gather relevant information from their canopy at night.

Like other rodents, dormice move their whiskers back and forth continuously in a motion called ‘whisking’ to navigate small gaps and to explore their environment.

Dr Grant adds: “Dormice are nocturnal and arboreal – meaning they spend most of their time in branches of trees off of the ground. Their movement within this canopy relies on their whiskers. Hearing, vision and smell also play a role in guiding them around their environments.”

The preservation of the dormouse is critical since these rodents are a ‘flagship species’, (meaning that careful management of dormice habitats will benefit a range of other species). They are also important as ‘bio-indicators’ as they are particularly sensitive to habitat and population fragmentation. Their presence should indicate that the area can sustain populations of other sensitive species

Get Involved

There are ways in which you can help to secure the future of the Hazel Dormouse. As they are fully protected by law they should never be disturbed but you could get involved in a local survey.

Total population size can only be estimated, based upon results from trapping, nest box surveys and reintroduction numbers but researchers say they would have a much better idea of how the species is doing if lots of people got involved with official nest box surveys.

The National Dormouse Monitoring Program is coordinated by the People’s Trust for Endangered Species (https://ptes.org/campaigns/dormice/) and training courses for handling are conducted at the Wildwood Trust in Kent (https://wildwoodtrust.org/wildwood-kent/conservation/conservation-courses).

So if you think there are dormice near you, you could start your own monitoring programme.

Dr Grant’s research was carried out in collaboration with the University of Sheffield and is funded by a British Ecological Society (BES) Research Grant. You can see footage from the new research here:

Video 1: Dormice using whiskers to climb: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZG38zbYAKOk 

Video 2: Successful jump: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LDSDNUcB90o

  Video 3: Struggling to cross a gap: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VgnffYYsVAs

You can read Dr Grant’s full study here.

This Author

Laura Briggs is the Ecologist’s UK-based reporter

You can follow her here @WordsbyBriggs

Alternative facts, indeed!

Less than two weeks into the presidency of Donald Trump it appears we are seeing the ushering in of a new era of twisted truths, fake news, and selective science.

That should be good news to the corporate spin doctors who are deep into a campaign now to try to combat global concerns about the world’s favorite weed killer.

Corporate spin is nothing new. Whether it’s cigarettes or sugar-laden sodas, the companies that make billions from such products employ a variety of strategies to promote the good and bury the bad. Some even outright lie while doing so.

But the tactics being unveiled by Monsanto and surrogates over glyphosate, the key ingredient in Monsanto’s Roundup herbicide and the lynchpin for the success of genetically engineered crops, are noteworthy for the depths of their deception.

The latest move, the formation of a group called Campaign for Accuracy in Public Health Research, (CAPHR) clearly promotes an agenda opposite to that which its name implies.

In the firing line – WHO and IARC independent scientists

Formed this month by the American Chemistry Council, whose membership includes Monsanto and other chemical industry titans, the group’s express purpose is to discredit the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), a unit of the World Health Organization made up of independent scientists.

An IARC scientific team declared in March 2015 that glyphosate was a probable human carcinogen after reviewing an extensive body of published research on the subject. Monsanto and friends have been harassing IARC ever since through a series of demands, threats and legal maneuvers, including lobbying the US House of Representatives to cut funding for IARC.

The new campaign takes the assault further. On the group’s new twitter account, set up on 25th January, CAPHR has posted a string of insults against IARC scientists, accusing the experts from prestigious institutions around the world of “making sensational claims”, drawing conclusions “that can’t be trusted”, and using “questionable methodologies”.

If CAPHR is to be believed, the public, lawmakers and regulators should not trust the epidemiology experts, toxicologists and other scientists who made up the IARC working group, which was led by an award-winning cancer expert from the National Cancer Institute.

No, they should look for unbiased information about the safety of the industry’s billion-dollar baby from the industry itself. The chemical industry campaigners are insisting that the people making money off chemical sales are more trustworthy than scientists who have made a career studying causes of cancer.

The rationale for the campaign is clear: It’s not about protecting public health, it’s about protecting corporate profits.

Calornia court told: ‘profits before people’

Monsanto said as much last week in a California court as it tried to block the state’s decision to require a warning on Roundup. Monsanto attorney Trenton Norris argued in court Friday that warning labels would hurt the company’s finances because many people would stop buying Roundup.

Fresno County Superior Court Judge Kristi Kapetan did not seem moved by the ‘profits over people’ message. She still must issue a formal decision, but said that California can require Monsanto to label Roundup as a possible cancer threat.

Protecting glyphosate is critical for Monsanto and other chemical industry giants now. Not only are glyphosate herbicides big sellers around the world, but the industry is in the midst of rolling out new genetically engineered crops designed to be sprayed with combinations of glyphosate and companion weed killers.

Monsanto has developed crops altered so that they tolerate being sprayed with glyphosate and dicamba, while Dow AgroSciences has developed crops tolerant of a new herbicide made of glyphosate and 2,4-D. The new biotech crops build on Monsanto’s glyphosate-tolerant portfolio of corn, soybeans, cotton, canola and other crops.

But even as the industry presses ahead with glyphosate-based technology, the chemical is under re-evaluation by both the European Union and the Environmental Protection Agency. And calls have been mounting for the chemical to be banned or severely restricted because of the cancer concerns and a range of other health and environmental concerns.

‘Monsanto knew’, say cancer plaintiffs

And there is also the not-so-small issue of the dozens of lawsuits filed against Monsanto alleging the company has long known Roundup could cause cancer but has hidden the facts from the public.

Those cases, brought by people from across the United States who have cancer or lost a loved one to cancer, have been consolidated in federal court in San Francisco where discovery is underway. Monsanto has so far turned over more than 7 million documents through that process.

Court records show that plaintiffs’ attorneys are building their cases around the IARC classification, while Monsanto is counting on the backing of the Environmental Protection Agency, which has stated that glyphosate is “not likely“ to be carcinogenic for people.

Just as Monsanto is trying to tear down IARC, plaintiffs are trying to discredit the EPA findings, saying Monsanto has unduly influenced the agency. On the same day that the chemical industry launched its anti-IARC campaign, US District Judge Vince Chhabria ordered each side in the Roundup litigation to submit briefs on how the work by both IARC and EPA is or is not relevant to the cases. The briefings are due on 8th February.

Clearly not content to allow a federal court to sort out who is right or wrong on glyphosate, the chemical industry’s championing of glyphosate includes a new promotional Twitter campaign #glyphosateisvital with postings proclaiming that the weed killer is essential to “maintain the production of safe, affordable food.” Or as another posting asserts, “Time is running out to lobby to save #glyphosate”.

The campaign is featured on the @glyphosate twitter account established immediately after the IARC glyphosate classification.

Who is really ‘anti-science’?

Embedded in the industry’s truth-twisting tactics is the characterization of anyone who gives credence to scientific research showing problems with glyphosate, or the GMOs that go with it, as “anti-science”.

It’s an effort to reverse reality and detract from the fact that it is industry backers, not industry critics, who deplore the findings of independent, peer-reviewed scientific research. “The pesticide industry recognizes it’s on the defensive”, said environmental lawyer Charlie Tebbutt. “It’s doing everything it can to transform reality.”

As the post-truth Trump team looks set to dismantle environmental regulations and the protections they bring to the public, it’s likely the chemical industry will only continue to elevate alternative facts. We all will need to work harder than ever to see through the spin.

Carey Gillam is a veteran journalist and Research Director for US Right to Know, a non-profit consumer education group. Follow Carey Gillam on Twitter @careygillam.

This article originally appeared on Huffington Post.

The environment was notably absent from Theresa May’s recent speech laying out her Brexit negotiating priorities. It was also rarely mentioned during the referendum campaign.

But worries that the UK could turn itself into a post-Brexit pollution haven have now been thrust front and centre by another often overlooked political actor: the European Parliament.

The parliament is often derided as a symbol of the Brussels’ gravy train, or more recently a boxing ring for UKIP’s MEPs. Yet it is an increasingly significant force in EU affairs, and has a long-held reputation for trying to enhance its own powers and for promoting greener policies.

Over the years, the parliament’s environment committee – a cross-party group of 68 MEPs – has led efforts to tighten car emissions, ban leaded fuel and the use of sealskins and, more recently, to secure strong climate change legislation.

It has also provided an entry point to the EU legislative process for less powerful actors like environmental campaigners, who struggle to have their voices heard by national policymakers or the European Commission.

EU Parliament can veto Brexit deal

But how and why will this institution make a difference to Brexit? The European Parliament’s consent is needed for any deal negotiated between the UK and the EU.

So not only does Theresa May’s government need to secure the support of 27 EU states for its final Article 50 deal, but also a simple majority of the 751 MEPs.

The parliament has now decided to flex its legislative muscles by outlining the areas it views as priorities in the upcoming negotiations. Maintaining environmental standards is apparently a red (or green) line for members of the chamber’s influential environment committee.

The committee’s paper “calls on the UK to continue to respect its environmental and climate change commitments”, adding: “Existing legislation which provides for commitments (financial, emissions reduction or of a political nature) cannot simply disappear on the day of Brexit and will require transitional measures.”

Crucially, air quality has been identified as a central issue for MEPs and is an area that the UK government continues to struggle with. Yet again, this year EU mandated air quality limits have already been breached in London and other urban centres (see photo).

But why would ‘Brussels’ care what kind of environmental rules the UK chooses to adopt post Brexit?

Dirty Britain would be a bad neighbour

There are two main reasons why UK environmental policy is of interest to its European partners. First, environmental pollution is transboundary: the UK gained its reputation as the dirty man of Europe in the 1970s and 1980s because its emissions from coal fired power stations led to acid rain in Scandinavia.

Its unpleasant habit of pumping raw effluent into the North Sea was also unwelcome. It is unlikely that our EU neighbours will want to see the UK return to its old habits of using prevailing winds and currents to dispose of unwanted waste in cost-efficient ways.

Second, environmental rules have major trade implications. EU policy was developed to even out differences across states, to prevent those with weaker environmental policies being able to secure competitive advantages. There are consequently good trade reasons for the EU to ensure that the UK maintains the same environmental standards.

No European country wants its farmers or carmakers, bound by restrictions on pesticides or emissions, to have to compete with a UK that relaxes such regulations or scraps them entirely.

The European Parliament can play a useful role in reminding EU negotiators of the importance of environmental regulations for the effective functioning of the single European market.

The parliament’s intervention adds another important voice to the Article 50 debates that may be useful to the Greener UK campaign that seeks to see UK standards maintained post Brexit.

Charlotte Burns is Senior Lecturer in Environmental Policy, University of York.

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

Coca Cola has been lobbying against plans for a new bottle collection scheme in Scotland designed to reduce plastic waste, according to an Energydesk investigation.

A leaked internal document from the firm reveals the company prioritised a “fight back” against EU moves to introduce deposit return schemes (DRS).

The schemes are designed to encourage consumers to return their drinks bottles by adding a small refundable charge at sale.

The DRS system has been shown to raise collection rates in Germany, Sweden and Denmark and is now being considered by other countries including Scotland.

But major drinks companies, including Coca Cola, are pushing back against the plans, arguing it could negatively impact their business.

Beyond the leaked plans, Energydesk has found evidence that Coca Cola has been lobbying Scottish politicians against DRS for years. The company also spent close to €1 million lobbying the EU commission, and met several times with politicians in Westminster.

Deposit return schemes work fine elsewhere – so why the problem?

Richard Lochhead was the Scottish Minister responsible for exploring DRS until May 2016. He confirmed to Energydesk that he had been approached by Coca Cola and other industry representatives several times.

Lochhead noted that the same companies were working with DRS schemes in other countries, saying: “I am puzzled as to why drinks companies that participate in successful deposit and return schemes in many markets around the world continue to resist new schemes being introduced in Scotland and elsewhere.”

“If we don’t introduce a deposit and return scheme in Scotland in the coming years and attach a value to items that are too often just thrown away, we’ll be missing out on all the benefits and too many valuable cans and bottles will continue to be a blight on our environment both on land and on our shores and in our waters.”

A Coca-Cola spokesperson said: “Our packaging is not only valuable, but is also essential for our business and vital for people to be able to enjoy our drinks. Any changes to policy around it are therefore important to us and so no one should be surprised that we closely follow these discussions.

“We meet with a wide range of organisations and individuals with an interest in a given topic, including politicians, Government officials, charities and campaign groups, to understand their latest thinking on policy issues.

“In Scotland, along with other drinks manufacturers, we have had several constructive meetings with the Government, policy makers, industry groups and NGOs to discuss plans to reduce littering and increase recycling.”

16 million plastic bottles going to waste every year – in the UK alone

As many as 16 million plastic bottles go unrecycled in the UK every day. The average household recycles just 270 of the 480 plastic bottles they use a year, according to campaign group Recycle Now.

Many of those bottles that are not recycled can end up littering our local environment, blowing into ditches, rivers and streams, and ultimately disfiguring our beaches and polluting the seas, with devastating impacts on marine wildlife.

DRS involves adding a small deposit to plastic bottles at sale, which is returned once the bottles are returned to collection points. In Germany, the introduction of a DRS led to 98.5% of refillable bottles being returned by consumers, according to Zero Waste Europe.

The scheme has been likened to the plastic bag charge which reportedly caused bag usage to drop dramatically across the UK.

However, drinks companies have been less than enthusiastic about the prospect of a DRS in Scotland. The leaked internal report from Coca Cola Europe includes a risk matrix which outlines possible EU policies that could impact the company’s business. Circled by the label ‘Fight back’ is a point marked ‘EU scheme for deposit system’.

The same document, and others leaked in the tranche, also revealed the company’s intention to push back against a proposed sugar tax amongst other initiatives.

‘Looking to force our hand’

Our investigation reveals Coca-Cola’s ‘fight back’ has, in fact, been going on for years. Documents released to Energydesk under Freedom of Information requests, show that representatives from Coca Cola have been lobbying Scottish ministers to drop the DRS scheme for at least the past two years

Coca Cola is part of industry group Packaging Recycling Group Scotland (PRGS). In January 2014 that group – including the Coca Cola’s Managing Director – met with then-Secretary of Rural Affairs Richard Lochhead to discuss the DRS plans. In that meeting was Simon Baldry, Managing Director of Coca-Cola Enterprises.

Almost exactly a year later the Coke’s VP of Public Affairs met again with Lochhead, accompanied by representatives from PRGS.

Lochhead’s briefing notes from that meeting, supplied through FOI, note: “PRGS will be seeking to force our hand on deposit return – and will be looking to leave the meeting with a commitment that it will be taken off the table as an option for consideration for the foreseeable future.”

As spokesperson from PRGS said: “PRGS represents a broad range of businesses whose customers could be impacted by the introduction of a deposit return scheme. The formulation of good policy requires government to hear the views of all parties and assess those views in relation to its policy objectives.

“The government has consulted charities, NGOs and business while considering the potential of a deposit return scheme. In common with others, PRGS has been happy to set out the issues and consequences we believe would arise.”

Lobbying across the UK

The lobby group tried setting up meetings with other politicians, including John Swinney, Fergus Ewing and Marco Biagi. But in each case they were told it was only appropriate to meet with Lochhead. However, Lochhead held strong.

Coca Cola then changed their target. A visit by SNP leader Nicola Sturgeon to a Coca Cola bottling plant in East Kilbride in July 2015, provided another opportunity for lobbying.

In a follow-up letter from PRGS to Sturgeon’s office, uncovered by The Ferret, the lobbying group notes that the issue of DRS was brought up during Sturgeon’s visit to the Coca Cola factory.

The letter goes on to argue that a DRS scheme would “cause expense and inconvenience to consumers, particularly vulnerable people; damage business and existing recycling and anti-littering initiatives … And increase carbon emissions and environmental impact.”

While DRS has been discussed for years in Scotland, it has not yet been seriously considered in England and Wales. However, last week environment minister Therese Coffey responded to a question about DRS saying the government is “developing a new litter strategy which may well address this issue.”

Coca Cola has also been talking to ministers in Westminster. Records show that in January 2016 they met with Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs representative George Eustice to discuss “the food and drink sector”.

Then in March 2016 Coca Cola and many other companies met with Rory Stewart, who was then DEFRA’s Parliamentary Under Secretary of State, to talk about the ‘circular economy’ which involves companies taking responsibility for waste products. Minutes for these meetings were not made available.

A Coca Cola spokesperson said: “We hold regular meetings with NGOs to update them on our progress towards delivering our current ambitions to boost the sustainability of our packaging and seek their advice on where we could improve things in future.

Only last week, we organised a round table with 15 expert organisations and campaign groups, including Greenpeace, to ask them what more they thought we should be doing to help improve packaging recovery and recycling in the UK.

“We support recovery and recycling of our packaging and we want to help find ways to ensure that less of it is littered and ends up in the sea. Whilst we support and participate in deposit schemes in some countries, in some cases we have believed a different approach could be more effective and more sustainable than DRS – and in the UK we have raised some concerns about the impact of a DRS scheme on household recycling rates.

“However, we are open to engaging in constructive dialogue and working with others to create effective, long-term solutions.”

Clarissa Morawski, Managing Director of Reloop, said: “The tactics used around the world by big business opponents of deposit systems are very familiar by now. They are always determined not to take responsibility for the litter the current approach generates, but they cloak this in concern for small businesses and local taxpayers, despite the evidence that both do very well out of such systems.

“Industry would much rather put a token sum into anti-litter media campaigns, as if that can solve the problem, than sit down and work with business supporters and other stakeholders to design systems that can work well for them.”

DRS could ‘increase our costs and reduce demand for our products’

In an published consultation on the Scottish deposit return scheme, Coca Cola argued against the idea of DRS. They warned that “no cost-benefit analysis has been undertaken” and that “Consumers don’t want it.” They also note: “Scottish businesses, such as ours, will be negatively impacted.”

In fact the concept of a deposit return scheme appears to be popular in Scotland. A Greenpeace survey, under taken by Survation, of a sample group of more than 1,000 people found that more than three quarters said they would support a deposit return system in Scotland. A different survey by Sky News found that across the UK, 60% of respondents support DRS.

Instead the company’s financial reports reveal that it was seriously concerned that DRS could impact its profits.

In Coca Cola’s 2015 Annual Report to the Securities and Exchange Commission, the company notes: “Changes in laws and regulations relating to beverage containers and packaging could increase our costs and reduce demand for our products.”

The report notes an increased interest in recycling and “beverage container deposits” and goes on to say: “If these types of requirements are adopted and implemented on a large scale in any of the major markets in which we operate, they could affect our costs or require changes in our distribution model, which could reduce our net operating revenues and profitability.”

But Coca Cola’s massive EU lobbying effort may prove fruitless

The latest EU Commission transparency register shows Coca Cola spent more than €900,000 lobbying the commissioner in 2015. That work involved at least 11 Coca Cola employees.

But the company also pushed for change through other groups. Nikolaus Tacke, Coca Cola EU’s Public Affairs Director, was appointed to the board of American Chamber of Commerce to the EU in March 2015.

Energydesk has learnt that as recently as December 2016, Coca Cola representatives were still meeting with European Commission ministers, to push for change on recycling issues and to discuss deposit return schemes.

Environmental campaigners argue the lobbying is unlikely to prove successful.

Samantha Harding, Litter Programme Director at the Campaign to Protect Rural England said: “The plastic lobbyists are frantically trying to shore up a sinking ship. People have woken up to the ridiculousness of using an indestructible product for single-use packaging. They see through the traditional status quo that allows producers to make what they like and to hell with the consequences.”

While Reloop’s Morawski noted that Coca Cola and other companies had put up similar resistance in other countries only to change message when schemes were implemented.

After implementation, she said, “Coca Cola and others often magically find it’s not a problem for them, or even that this approach helps them meet their environmental targets. I sense we might not be far off that moment across the UK.”

Maeve McClenaghan is a freelance journalist and Senior Investigator for Greenpeace UK whose reports regularly feature on Energydesk. See her website or follow her on Twitter @MaeveMCC.

Sign the petition: ‘I support the creation of a plastic bottle deposit return scheme‘.

Read the documents: Leaked report and lobbying FOI response

This article was orginally published on Greenpeace Energydesk.

The UN, the EU, the US Armed Forces and all the world’s major scientific bodies all agree that the climate emergency is the greatest threat facing humanity.

Meanwhile over 7 million people across the globe are dying every year from the air pollution caused by burning fossil fuels.

Yet Trump, with (as usual) zero factual evidence, believes that climate change is a “hoax” invented by China – who by the way have announced a $360 billion investment in clean renewable energy.

In a chilling statement on Monday, President Trump’s top environmental transition adviser Myron Ebell declared that the environmental movement is “the greatest threat to freedom and prosperity in the modern world.”

• So it is not authoritarian Russia;
• it is not communist China;
• it is not Islamic fundamentalist extremism;
• it is not the western corporate takeover of media and democracy;
• it is not global tax-evasion by the wealthiest 1%;
• and it is not the concentration of over half the world’s wealth in the hands of just eight men.

According to Trump’s adviser, all of these are nothing when compared to the threat to freedom posed by … envirionmental NGOs.

According to him, they are our greatest “threat” by working peacefully with civic society and democratic processes to protect people from being poisoned by lead from coal burning, mercury from oil burning, particulates from diesel burning or to protect the what remains of the natural world, with over 60% of it already shamelessly destroyed in just my lifetime.

This is dangerous perverted logic.

But why do I say chilling?

I say it because the oiligarchy of Exxon Mobil and the Koch brothers for whom Trump’s adviser is the spokesperson for, now control almost all the levers of power in the US, from the Presidency to Congress to Murdoch’s Fox News and most terrifyingly to the US National Security Council, the State Department and the intelligence services.

If Trump’s fascist propaganda succeeds in making environmental NGOs and peaceful campaigners the public’s top ‘enemy of freedom’, then all the huge resources of the US security services could rain down on them, a tiny taste of which we have seen at the North Dakota Pipeline Protection Camp.

So what aggressive war actions has Trump already taken?

1. Declared he would renege on the USA’s responsibilities to the global Paris Climate Treaty, humanity’s best last hope of averting the worst of the climate disaster.
2. Appointed the head of Exxon Mobil to head up US State Department, meaning that the oil industry now leads US global foreign policy, giving it the opportunity to trash climate action not only in Trump’s USA but across the globe.
3. Appointed a far-right extremist climate science denier to head up the destruction of the Environmental Protection Agency, and already issued a gagging order on all government employed climate scientists and banned any replacements for retiring scientists.
4. Announced he will slash energy efficiency standards for fossil fuel car manufacturers.
5. Removed all climate change references from the White House website.
6. Said he will support a resurgence in the criminally lethal coal industry, the single largest source of fossil fuel pollution and climate destroying carbon.
7. Pledged to renege on all US treaty commitments to fund climate change protection and adaptation funding for developing countries via the UN.

The list goes on …

Make no mistake!

• After the hottest year (again),
• after the hottest decade (again),
• with ice-caps melting before our eyes,
• with the permafrost heating up,
• with wildfires blazing across the world
• and with scientists stating that without truly urgent action, the planet faces temperature rises of up to 6C, which as they say is “incompatible with life as we know it”,

Trump has not just declared war on Muslims, but on humanity itself and the precious fragile remaining damaged ecosystems on which future generations depend.

Do what can we do? Today I would suggest six things to get started with:

1. Commit yourself to living as low a carbon lifestyle as you can practically achieve.
2. Email your MP urgently today, urging them to vote for an amendment today that would grant the British people the final say on Brexit Deal. The UK must stand united with the liberal democracies of Europe, against the Brexit / Trump climate destruction agenda. Really easy to do from this link.
3. Join the Advertising Action on Climate Projects campaigns to stop the climate action blocking media billoinaires climate denialism propaganda.
4. Support in whatever way you can, the peaceful climate activists and protests which are on the frontlines now, on the Keystone XL Pipeline, North Dakota Pipeline, Preston Road Fracking Protest (and others around UK), Risingup Heathrow Protests, Stop Killing Cyclists HM Treasury Protest on February 11th, etc etc …
5. Sign the huge petition calling for refusal of State Visit to war-mongering President Trump.
6. What ever other actions, you personally are moved to undertake.

This is the greatest war threat that humanity has faced. But together, we can take on Trump and the oiligarchies in Russia, US and across the globe and win.

The clean renewable energy industry that we created is now nearly a trillion dollar global industry, slashing costs year after year and now employing more people than the dinosaur fossil fuel criminals, even in the USA.

Yes we can!

Donnachadh McCarthy is an environmental campaigner and author.

Also by Donnachadh on The Ecologist.

Book: ‘The Prostitute State – How Britain’s Democracy Has Been Bought‘ is available as an E-book and paper (100% recycled).

Free ebook version of The Prostitute State, which explains in detail how Murdoch and the UK’s five far-right media billionaires are trashing the UK’s democracy, is available to Occupiers, Fractivists, Momentum / Green Party members, students and others who cannot afford to buy a copy by emailing contact@3acorns.co.uk.

Hazel Dormice, once widespread across the country are now restricted to the south and face further threats due to the loss of ancient woodland, climate change, clearance of hedgerows and a lack of coppicing.

As an arboreal species, dormice rarely descend to the ground apart from when they are hibernating and now a new study from Manchester Metropolitan University’s Dr Robyn Grant, Lecturer in Environmental Physiology and Behaviour, has shown how gaps in tree canopies are leaving these endangered creatures unable to cross between habitats using their hypersensitive whiskers.

Dr Grant recorded high-speed videos of dormice and their whisker movements using a camera that captures 500 frames per second, with the videos proving that gaps in the tree canopy are now a major problem for the dormice.

“Although dormice can jump quite large distances, when the gaps between platforms were larger than 10-15cm, the dormice started behaving differently – they would eat less of the food available to them and also spend more time travelling on the floor as opposed to the canopy,” she explained. “This behavioural change would put the dormice in danger as this species is vulnerable to threats on the ground.”

The total adult population of hazel dormice in the UK is now thought to number about 45,000, distributed among a variety of widely fragmented sites. The UK Mammal Society Dormouse Survey in 1984 showed the species has been lost from seven counties in north and east England in the last 100 years. Even in optimal habitats, population densities are less than 10 adults per hectare.

Large numbers still live on the Isle of Wight and although dormice are widely distributed in Wales, individual populations are small, scattered and isolated from each other. Building hedgerows, habitat corridors and dormouse bridges is critical to this species’ survival.

Carried out at the Wildwood Trust in Kent, Dr Grant’s research into this endangered species was published in the Journal of Comparative Physiology, and shows that dormice use active whisker sensing, with footage revealing that dormice actively and purposefully move their whiskers to gather relevant information from their canopy at night.

Like other rodents, dormice move their whiskers back and forth continuously in a motion called ‘whisking’ to navigate small gaps and to explore their environment.

Dr Grant adds: “Dormice are nocturnal and arboreal – meaning they spend most of their time in branches of trees off of the ground. Their movement within this canopy relies on their whiskers. Hearing, vision and smell also play a role in guiding them around their environments.”

The preservation of the dormouse is critical since these rodents are a ‘flagship species’, (meaning that careful management of dormice habitats will benefit a range of other species). They are also important as ‘bio-indicators’ as they are particularly sensitive to habitat and population fragmentation. Their presence should indicate that the area can sustain populations of other sensitive species

Get Involved

There are ways in which you can help to secure the future of the Hazel Dormouse. As they are fully protected by law they should never be disturbed but you could get involved in a local survey.

Total population size can only be estimated, based upon results from trapping, nest box surveys and reintroduction numbers but researchers say they would have a much better idea of how the species is doing if lots of people got involved with official nest box surveys.

The National Dormouse Monitoring Program is coordinated by the People’s Trust for Endangered Species (https://ptes.org/campaigns/dormice/) and training courses for handling are conducted at the Wildwood Trust in Kent (https://wildwoodtrust.org/wildwood-kent/conservation/conservation-courses).

So if you think there are dormice near you, you could start your own monitoring programme.

Dr Grant’s research was carried out in collaboration with the University of Sheffield and is funded by a British Ecological Society (BES) Research Grant. You can see footage from the new research here:

Video 1: Dormice using whiskers to climb: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZG38zbYAKOk 

Video 2: Successful jump: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LDSDNUcB90o

  Video 3: Struggling to cross a gap: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VgnffYYsVAs

You can read Dr Grant’s full study here.

This Author

Laura Briggs is the Ecologist’s UK-based reporter

You can follow her here @WordsbyBriggs

Alternative facts, indeed!

Less than two weeks into the presidency of Donald Trump it appears we are seeing the ushering in of a new era of twisted truths, fake news, and selective science.

That should be good news to the corporate spin doctors who are deep into a campaign now to try to combat global concerns about the world’s favorite weed killer.

Corporate spin is nothing new. Whether it’s cigarettes or sugar-laden sodas, the companies that make billions from such products employ a variety of strategies to promote the good and bury the bad. Some even outright lie while doing so.

But the tactics being unveiled by Monsanto and surrogates over glyphosate, the key ingredient in Monsanto’s Roundup herbicide and the lynchpin for the success of genetically engineered crops, are noteworthy for the depths of their deception.

The latest move, the formation of a group called Campaign for Accuracy in Public Health Research, (CAPHR) clearly promotes an agenda opposite to that which its name implies.

In the firing line – WHO and IARC independent scientists

Formed this month by the American Chemistry Council, whose membership includes Monsanto and other chemical industry titans, the group’s express purpose is to discredit the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), a unit of the World Health Organization made up of independent scientists.

An IARC scientific team declared in March 2015 that glyphosate was a probable human carcinogen after reviewing an extensive body of published research on the subject. Monsanto and friends have been harassing IARC ever since through a series of demands, threats and legal maneuvers, including lobbying the US House of Representatives to cut funding for IARC.

The new campaign takes the assault further. On the group’s new twitter account, set up on 25th January, CAPHR has posted a string of insults against IARC scientists, accusing the experts from prestigious institutions around the world of “making sensational claims”, drawing conclusions “that can’t be trusted”, and using “questionable methodologies”.

If CAPHR is to be believed, the public, lawmakers and regulators should not trust the epidemiology experts, toxicologists and other scientists who made up the IARC working group, which was led by an award-winning cancer expert from the National Cancer Institute.

No, they should look for unbiased information about the safety of the industry’s billion-dollar baby from the industry itself. The chemical industry campaigners are insisting that the people making money off chemical sales are more trustworthy than scientists who have made a career studying causes of cancer.

The rationale for the campaign is clear: It’s not about protecting public health, it’s about protecting corporate profits.

Calornia court told: ‘profits before people’

Monsanto said as much last week in a California court as it tried to block the state’s decision to require a warning on Roundup. Monsanto attorney Trenton Norris argued in court Friday that warning labels would hurt the company’s finances because many people would stop buying Roundup.

Fresno County Superior Court Judge Kristi Kapetan did not seem moved by the ‘profits over people’ message. She still must issue a formal decision, but said that California can require Monsanto to label Roundup as a possible cancer threat.

Protecting glyphosate is critical for Monsanto and other chemical industry giants now. Not only are glyphosate herbicides big sellers around the world, but the industry is in the midst of rolling out new genetically engineered crops designed to be sprayed with combinations of glyphosate and companion weed killers.

Monsanto has developed crops altered so that they tolerate being sprayed with glyphosate and dicamba, while Dow AgroSciences has developed crops tolerant of a new herbicide made of glyphosate and 2,4-D. The new biotech crops build on Monsanto’s glyphosate-tolerant portfolio of corn, soybeans, cotton, canola and other crops.

But even as the industry presses ahead with glyphosate-based technology, the chemical is under re-evaluation by both the European Union and the Environmental Protection Agency. And calls have been mounting for the chemical to be banned or severely restricted because of the cancer concerns and a range of other health and environmental concerns.

‘Monsanto knew’, say cancer plaintiffs

And there is also the not-so-small issue of the dozens of lawsuits filed against Monsanto alleging the company has long known Roundup could cause cancer but has hidden the facts from the public.

Those cases, brought by people from across the United States who have cancer or lost a loved one to cancer, have been consolidated in federal court in San Francisco where discovery is underway. Monsanto has so far turned over more than 7 million documents through that process.

Court records show that plaintiffs’ attorneys are building their cases around the IARC classification, while Monsanto is counting on the backing of the Environmental Protection Agency, which has stated that glyphosate is “not likely“ to be carcinogenic for people.

Just as Monsanto is trying to tear down IARC, plaintiffs are trying to discredit the EPA findings, saying Monsanto has unduly influenced the agency. On the same day that the chemical industry launched its anti-IARC campaign, US District Judge Vince Chhabria ordered each side in the Roundup litigation to submit briefs on how the work by both IARC and EPA is or is not relevant to the cases. The briefings are due on 8th February.

Clearly not content to allow a federal court to sort out who is right or wrong on glyphosate, the chemical industry’s championing of glyphosate includes a new promotional Twitter campaign #glyphosateisvital with postings proclaiming that the weed killer is essential to “maintain the production of safe, affordable food.” Or as another posting asserts, “Time is running out to lobby to save #glyphosate”.

The campaign is featured on the @glyphosate twitter account established immediately after the IARC glyphosate classification.

Who is really ‘anti-science’?

Embedded in the industry’s truth-twisting tactics is the characterization of anyone who gives credence to scientific research showing problems with glyphosate, or the GMOs that go with it, as “anti-science”.

It’s an effort to reverse reality and detract from the fact that it is industry backers, not industry critics, who deplore the findings of independent, peer-reviewed scientific research. “The pesticide industry recognizes it’s on the defensive”, said environmental lawyer Charlie Tebbutt. “It’s doing everything it can to transform reality.”

As the post-truth Trump team looks set to dismantle environmental regulations and the protections they bring to the public, it’s likely the chemical industry will only continue to elevate alternative facts. We all will need to work harder than ever to see through the spin.

Carey Gillam is a veteran journalist and Research Director for US Right to Know, a non-profit consumer education group. Follow Carey Gillam on Twitter @careygillam.

This article originally appeared on Huffington Post.