Maybe his first report can be on how PepsiCo destroys local water supplies in the third world to satisfy their bottling needs.

I don't think I've ever seen a Pepsi in the third world. It's all Coke and Fanta.

@2: That explains all the wars they have.

I love the corporate rule we live under. It makes me feel like shopping for shit I don't need or want and that's probably bad for me.

Next you'll be telling me that I should reject the Exxon Climatology Fellowship™ offer to fund my research. How else am I going to pay for my groundbreaking work on sunspot activity?

Maybe Yale bought into all of those high fructose corn syrup is just like real sugar and totally healthy commercials running.

For all its high pretensions, Yale, like every other private college or university, is a business. And, as with any other business, money talks.

Krabapple: What is the atomic weight of Bolognium?
Martin: Delicious?
Krabapple: Correct! I would also have accepted snacktacular.

@1 - so, any reason why we're not complaining about hard liquor and beer providers?

Their products use even more water resources.

(pin drops)

(caveat - I've owned or do own shares in firms that make/sell coke, pepsi, soft drinks, water (!!!), beer, hard liquor, etc - green depends on how you measure impact and local resources)

I was all pissed off that your post was ill-informed about the structure of funding like grants, fellowships, and endowments for universities, but after going to the original post on change.org I found that there were other people also aware of what this fellowship really means and how to approach it without sounding like an alarmist.

I'll let one of the commenters at that article, one "J. Nathan Matias" articulate what I mean, and exactly how I feel about this being posted on the Slog (because I'm not a great writer):

"I subscribe to Change.org [or SLOG] because I appreciate how you reliably present thoughtful news which directs towards meaningful action. This post however is not an example of that.

A quick google search turns up information that the PepsiCo fellowship in Nutritional Science Research is intended to collaborate with a lab of 10 other researchers who are apparently trying to make their products more sustainable and healthy. That's not a token commitment. Furthermore, it's an endowment, which suggests that PepsiCo will have limited financial influence on the research going forward.

According to the press releases, PepsiCo is trying to overhaul their product line in the long run. And their current CEO, Indra Nooyi, appears working to transform the company (Pepsi Performance with a Purpose, Indra's talk on this initiative at the Yale School of Management)....

If we write Yale and urge them to reject this grant, we are saying that we distrust a corporation's ability to change- that PepsiCo has lost the privilege of access to the means of change.

There are plenty of other things we can urge PepsiCo to change now which are more direct and meaningful. We have to be willing to accept the realities of biomedical science research: in the quickest cases, it takes decades for research to reach consumers. So as we critique PepsiCo's current practice, surely it's best to encourage them in transformational research and hold them to task for how they handle this new direction."

Actually, this post by Lisa over at change.org also captures my sentiments:

"This is one of your posts that makes me want to unsubscribe. Pepsi is using their money to fund legitimate health research as well as other community causes. At a time when research funds are low, this is a glorious answer. The research doesn't promote Pepsi's product, but focuses on whatever the research area is with the supporting funds from Pepsi. As a health researcher, I am all for this. Most research is funded from the government with their guidelines. This is an opportunity to have much unbiased work accomplished. The extremists that place articles in Change.org take away anything credible you accomplish. They cut off their nose to spite their face, so to speak, and lose a lot of supporters. "

@10 - Yes, yes, I'm sure this kind of thing isn't really all that harmful, but you still gotta love the irony. PepsiCo makes some of the least healthful products around, and makes a fortune off it. Excuse me if I don't take their stated commitment to change their ways all that seriously. They'll do what's profitable, and there's nothing wrong with that, but they're not a health food company.