Newly minted HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr stated that he will immediately focus on soil  restoration/agriculture. Pay attention, founders: with fewer dollars, both VC and governmental, going to climate change, it may be time to focus on a different shade of green, and if it makes you feel any better, Latest Arctic Ice Data Shows 26% Larger Than 2012 . As for global warming/climate change, a Former NOAA Scientist Confirms Colleagues Manipulated Climate Records, so it looks like we all won’t be dead by 2016, as Al Gore had predicted. Since many inconvenient truths seem to be surfacing of late, here are 10 times ‘experts’ predicted the world would end by now. And as many a failed founder will tell you, it’s hard to fix a problem that may not be as critical as we were led to believe, so focus.

Here’s one that is: Big Ag Treats Us Like Dirt: Why Kennedy Believes Regenerative Agriculture Can Make Americans Healthy Again.

Who exactly is Big Ag? “Four companies (Bayer, Syngenta, BASF, and Corteva) dominate the agricultural market, with Bayer controlling 18.2% of global agrochemicals and, together with Corteva, over half of U.S. retail seed sales for major crops, Mercola reported.

Bayer? Those good people who bring you aspirin?

And therein lies the rub. The twain have met, in the case with Bayer. The German drug company bought agrichemical giant Monsanto – the good people who brought you cancer-causing Roundup – back in 2018. As Mercola pointed out, “Pharmaceutical companies profit immensely by focusing on symptom management instead of curing underlying conditions. Chronic diseases like diabetes or hypertension, for example, have become lucrative markets, as patients often require lifelong medication rather than one-time treatments.

“Big Ag mirrors this approach. Farmers are locked into systems reliant on synthetic fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides, and genetically modified crops — inputs they must repurchase every season. Rather than restoring soil health or embracing regenerative farming, these practices perpetuate chemical dependency. (And fail to provide truly nutritious, health-promoting food).

As a result, “America is facing a health crisis. In the 1930s, just 7.5% of Americans suffered from chronic diseases. Today, that figure has surged by over 700%, with 60% of Americans now living with one or more chronic conditions. We are also fatter than ever — obesity rates have reached 40% and continue to climb.”

Meanwhile, Bayer profits are up, US lifespan is down, if you look at the science rather than the newly revealed Social Security rolls, where eight million Americans over the age of 130 are receiving monthly payment, including two over 240 years of age. Their dietary information not available and remember: we’re merely reporting. Don’t shoot the messenger.

This just in: Walnuts Are Drugs? “According to the FDA, yes! “Stating that walnuts, cherries or other natural food has health benefits is prohibited and even citing scientific research to that effect does not help. Such claims, the FDA avers, make those foods illegal drugs.”

In a world gone mad.

If you believe organic is the way to go…

“The industry thrives by making fraudulent claims about the foods we eat,” the Hoover Institute reported.

“The government’s involvement has been a hoax from the beginning, (re the certified organic labels) having nothing to do with agricultural sustainability, protection of the environment or food quality. When the organic seal was established in 1990, Secretary of Agriculture Dan Glickman emphasized the fundamental meaninglessness of the organic designation: “Let me be clear about one thing, the organic label is a marketing tool. It is not a statement about food safety. Nor is ‘organic’ a value judgment about nutrition or quality.” And the organic seal is a cynical marketing tool, because so many unsuspecting consumers are ripped off by the high prices of organic products, without palpable benefit.

“A prevalent “green myth” about organic agriculture is that it does not employ pesticides. Organic farming does, in fact, use insecticides and fungicides to prevent predation of its crops. More than 20 chemicals are commonly used in the growing and processing of organic crops and are acceptable under the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s arbitrary and ever-shifting organic rules. Many of those organic pesticides are more toxic than the synthetic ones used in ordinary farming.

“The organic and natural products special interests are spending billions of dollars a year in no-holds-barred advocacy and marketing activities to disparage modern farming methods and make fraudulent claims about the foods we eat—for no other purpose than to expand markets for their exorbitantly priced, often inferior, alternative offerings.”

It’s not at all easy to determine what’s true or real these days, given the upheaval that we’re seeing in Washington, but we have faith in you. Founders are a scrappy lot and thrive on discovery and reinvention. In other words, thinking differently. IF you’re still trying to distinguish fact from fiction in news reporting and the stories we’re being fed, chew on this: the #1 search in our nation’s capital at the moment is ‘criminal defense attorney.’

It’s literally time to find something new under the sun.

And if you believe that that’s a heavy lift, Researchers make game-changing discovery while experimenting with plastic replacements: “What if it’s possible to produce plastics without making them from petrochemicals and without the plastic breaking into microparticles that take forever to degrade? Well, researchers from Origin Materials … just announced it’s discovered a novel way to produce plastics using bio-based feedstocks, like sawdust, old cardboard, and wood chips. And that’s not all. While learning how to produce these kinds of bio-based plastics, the researchers also “stumbled on” a way to make traditional, petrochemical-based, single-use plastics much easier to recycle, according to a report by Forbes.”

Hopefully, this information will help to breed a new crop of entrepreneurs and two things to remember: 1.  this is all very much about sustainability. And 2. nothing’s off the table. Onward and forward.