Leap year: take a leap for Consumer Choice

Dear Friend of Consumer Choice!

It’s February, but this year it’s a little bit more special: 2020 is a leap year, which means that the shortest month of the year just got an extra day!

Customarily on leap years, and especially on leap day, we are challenged to take a leap ourselves. What’s the one thing we could all use more of? Money? Probably. Fun?  Sure. Time? Absolutely.  We could all use more hours in the day.  Every four years we kind of get our wish and are given the rare February 29th, a calendar anomaly and the time equivalent of found money: found time. Make the most of your extra day and do something special, fun, different, daring, brave, spontaneous, unexpected. Take a leap! 

Here are our latest updates and what the Consumer Choice Center team is doing with our extra time:

Changing policies and winning in Brazil

Excellent News for Brazilians: The telco regulator Anatel announced that vertical integration of foreign-owned PayTV and Streaming Companies are legal – What this means: Services like Netflix, Amazon Prime, but also traditional PayTV can continue offering their wide content to Brazilians.

This is the positive end of a 9 months campaign my Brazilian colleagues lead to allow choice and innovation in the Brazilian entertainment content market!

We are very proud of Andre Freo, Bia Nobrega, Ivanildo Santos Terceiro, Andrea Giuricin, and everyone else who helped to make this campaign a success. The Consumer Choice Center is delighted about this victory and we are confident that our campaign, reaching nearly 4 million consumers and meeting over 25 policymakers, has helped to get to this positive outcome.

Talking green farming using GMOs in London

On February 3rd, the Consumer Choice Center joined the Genetic Literacy Project and the British Conservation Alliance at the Adam Smith Institute in London to discuss “The Future of Food in a Climate-Changing World“. The event had over 60 attendees.

To learn more about Why GMO and Gene Edited Crops are more sustainable than Organic Farming, click here.

Leading the Cannabis Revolution in Davos

On January 23rd, we hosted our second Cannabis Conclave in Davos, Switzerland with over 100 attendees. It was a great event, with lots of social media echo and media hits. Thank you all who joined us over 1,500 meters above sea level to advance the legalization discussion internationally, for both medical and recreational cannabis.

You can listen to the Rebels of Davos special radio recording in Davos by Yaël Ossowski and David Clement here.

Launching the First Gene Editing Regulation Index

We launched in partnership with the Genetic Literacy Project the first Gene Editing Regulation Index. The index illustrates the existing differences in regulation for gene editing in plants, animals and humans and the frameworks for gene drives. It was created to help journalists, regulators, and policy-makers understand how their actions can help or stifle innovation. 

Our job as advocates for choice and science will continue to be making the case for the innovation principle – allowing scientists and scientific agencies to make determinations of efficacy and safety, and not being at the mercy of the theatre of our broken political process.

Where does your country stand? Find out here.

Going to LibertyCon Madrid

We are pleased to announce that we will be joining the Students for Liberty at the amazing LibertyCon in Madrid on March 7th.

Less than 14% of U.S. adults are now smokers, the lowest rate ever recorded. To talk about that and other Myths and Facts on Vaping, our Managing Director Fred Roeder and our Deputy Director Yaël Ossowski will be hosting a panel discussion on the topic of Harm Reduction.

Our European Affairs Associate, Maria Chaplia will also be at LibertyCon, joining a very interesting panel on feminism to talk about gender neutrality in trade agreements.

Don’t have tickets yet? Sign-up now for exclusive access to the latest ticket offer here.

Talking about Ridesharing Victory in British Columbia

The Uber battle in British Columbia continues. The provincial (FINALLY!) approved Uber, and Yaël Ossowski discusses with David Clement about Mobility in BC in the Consumer Choice Radio. 

Listen to the Consumer Choice Radio here.

Growing our team in Brazil

We are pleased to announce the newest member of the Consumer Choice Center branch in Brazil, Beatriz Nobrega.

As Brazilian Affairs Associate, she will help us spread the word of Consumer Choice in Brasilia. 

You can welcome her to the team here.

As you can see, we are using our leap year to advocate and push consumer choice in 2020. As always, you can help support our work by making a small donation or becoming a member! Please consider supporting consumer choice around the world.

Stay tuned for our spring updates and please keep supporting our work on Social Media!

Fabio Fernandes