Fears over hazardous foods are incomprehensible, a study released on Tuesday (16 September) by the Cologne Institute for Economic Research (IW) said.

The debate around TTIP has been surrounded by many evocative images - chlorine-washed chicken, hormone-treated meat, and genetically modified food.

Many observers believe TTIP's ratification could mean weaker and lower food standards. The IW, which has close ties to employers' associations, hopes the study will help demystify the issue.

"There is no scientific proof that chicken disinfected with chlorine can be hazardous to health," said IW director Michael Hüther, indicating assessments conducted by the German Federal Institute for Risk Assessment (BfR).

With increasing media attention given to the TTIP juggernaut, it was only to be expected that neoliberal propagandists will come to the rescue. But the above seems to be an attempt too weak and transparent.

_{*Lunatic*, n.
One whose delusions are out of fashion.}

The world's population is now odds-on to swell ever-higher for the rest of the century, posing grave challenges for food supplies, healthcare and social cohesion. A ground-breaking analysis released on Thursday shows there is a 70% chance that the number of people on the planet will rise continuously from 7bn today to 11bn in 2100.

The work overturns 20 years of consensus that global population, and the stresses it brings, will peak by 2050 at about 9bn people. "The previous projections said this problem was going to go away so it took the focus off the population issue," said Prof Adrian Raftery, at the University of Washington, who led the international research team. "There is now a strong argument that population should return to the top of the international agenda. Population is the driver of just about everything else and rapid population growth can exacerbate all kinds of challenges." Lack of healthcare, poverty, pollution and rising unrest and crime are all problems linked to booming populations, he said.

...Sub-saharan Africa is set to be by far the fastest growing region, with population rocketing from 1bn today to between 3.5bn and 5bn in 2100. Previously, the fall in fertility rates that began in the 1980s in many African countries was expected to continue but the most recent data shows this has not happened. In countries like Nigeria, the continent's most populous nation, the decline has stalled completely with the average woman bearing six children. Nigeria's population is expected to soar from 200m today to 900m by 2100.

... Coal-burning in the US actually peaked in 2007 and has dropped by an astonishing 21%.

This is the largest drop in coal use, in absolute terms, ever experienced by any country in all of history, and no, it is not "just because of shale gas". More than half of the reduced coal use has been replaced by renewable energy, dominated by wind power, and by reductions in power consumption.

... New data for the first half of 2014 shows, for the first time this century, an absolute drop in China's coal consumption. Though this is unlikely to be sustained in the very short term several experts have predicted China's coal consumption will peak due to the new policies, and this drop seems to be evidence of the approaching emissions peak. Levelling off coal consumption in China would halve the global CO2 growth rate, putting global CO2 emissions in line with IEA's new policies scenario. The dominant role China's coal use has played in global emissions growth now suddenly becomes a reason to be optimistic. ...

... For those concerned about tackling climate change this isn't a reason for complacency. This is an all hands on deck moment, akin to a moment when the crew of a stranded ship suddenly sees an unlikely, narrow passage to safer waters.

The task of peaking global emissions of heat-trapping gases is more urgent than ever, and the fact that the target is now finally within reach is a reason to redouble our efforts, for a major turning point in the battle to prevent climate chaos.

California is in a historic three-year drought, and recent photos taken in Northern California put a visual exclamation mark on the issue.

The images were captured in August by Justin Sullivan of Getty Images, in the same locations at Lake Oroville and Folsom Lake where the California Department of Water Resources took photos in July 2011.