Leading Activist Apologizes For Starting Anti-GMO Movement

#1

Leading Activist Apologizes For Starting Anti-GMO Movement
Monday, March 25th, 2013
Posted by Hawaii Reporter

By Mark Lynas - I want to start with some apologies. For the record, here and upfront, I apologize for having spent several years ripping up GM crops. I am also sorry that I helped to start the anti-GM movement back in the mid 1990s, and that I thereby assisted in demonising an important technological option which can be used to benefit the environment.

As an environmentalist, and someone who believes that everyone in this world has a right to a healthy and nutritious diet of their choosing, I could not have chosen a more counter-productive path. I now regret it completely.

So I guess you’ll be wondering – what happened between 1995 and now that made me not only change my mind but come here and admit it? Well, the answer is fairly simple: I discovered science, and in the process I hope I became a better environmentalist.

The GMO hysteria-Luddism has the potential to cause more needless death and suffering than Rachel Carson’s deadly legacy, the DDT ban. And as with those who have needlessly died of malaria and other insect-borne diseases, the people who will needlessly die or suffer of preventable malnutrition diseases will be mostly Latin Americans, Africans, and South & East Asians.

#2

I have always taken with a grain of salt the “genetically altered” issue. Nearly everything we eat is genetically altered. How many animals, fruits, and vegetables are exactly like they were when our ancestors started cultivating them. Even the people who use “antique” vegetables and save their own seeds - First, the “originals” of those were not straight from the “wild”; they were cultivated and cross-pollinated until a satisfactory product was arrived at. And even if you preserve and use only your own seeds, unless you protect them from outside pollination, and pollinate them by hand, you have no idea what pollen the pollinating insects have carried to them. The only products that will stay true to their origins are cuttings or grafts - and even then, sometimes, you can come up with a sport, which may relate back to an ancestor of the plant from which the cutting or graft came from. I rather think some of the things claimed for “genetically altered” products are not simply not possible. It is a matter of “splicing” wholly unrelated organisms, and I simply don’t believe that can be done successfully.

1 Like
#3

I am starting to hate acronyms, I always hated “Environmentalists” who spend all their time fighting for things that destroy the environment and harm the people who live in it.

2 Likes
#4

I might buy GMO foods just to annoy the anti-gmo people.

1 Like
#5

We should not rely on knowledge derived from science/scientific discoveries or processes in order to feed a hungry planet and/or enhance our quality of life. For example, should you develop chronic cardiac ischemia you are much better off seeking assistance from a witchdoctor steeped in Rachel Carson-like mythology/emotion and rattling bones, speaking in tongue and dancing around a fire than seeking out a classically trained cardiologist steeped in a scientifically based/tested body of knowledge and armed with modern diagnostic tools/processes. Yes, the earth is flat and socialism works - just listen to Elizabeth Warren.

To those Democrats/Progressives on this site I guess I need to point out I am being sarcastic.

#6

Granted, I didn’t read the entire article. However, I did read in the beginning where he admitted to being wrong, also, about 'Global Warming.
Then, after all that, he comes out with this?!

What you don’t have the right to do is to stand in the way of others who hope and strive for ways of doing things differently, and hopefully better. Farmers who understand the pressures of a growing population and a warming world.

{No comment. His words speak enough for himself.}

But at least he conceded that it’s the farmers who know how best to farm:

Who understand that yields per hectare are the most important environmental metric. And who understand that technology never stops developing, and that even the fridge and the humble potato were new and scary once.

Still, the “humble potato?” As if it’s some “lowly” crop? Beg pardon, but just what is so “humble” about a crop that feeds and sustains billions of people from hunger? Through all his “studies” did he not learn that a person can yield 250-300 POUNDS of potatoes out of a mere 30 potatoes?

Like I said, I skimmed much of the middle of the article. Did it mention anywhere how he plans to pay - or sincerely somehow make up for - all the destruction he caused?

—And just for the sake of it, you wouldn’t believe the number of arguments I fought in favor of GMO’s with people who you’d otherwise consider intelligent.

Then again, they’d be the same people who couldn’t make a solid argument as to why Monosodium Glutamate is bad for you.
I bring that up because they all belong in the Rachel Carson/DDT scare group. Which is confounding when its coming from people who, again, strike you as otherwise intelligent, and also, rant daily against “sheeple.”

1 Like