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Showing Original Post only (View all)I'm just going to leave this here quietly, then run like hell.... [View all]
http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2013/01/03/mark_lynas_environmentalist_who_opposed_gmos_admits_he_was_wrong.htmlLeading Environmental Activists Blunt Confession: I Was Completely Wrong To Oppose GMOs
By Torie Bosch
Posted Thursday, Jan. 3, 2013, at 2:27 PM ET
If you fear genetically modified food, you may have Mark Lynas to thank. By his own reckoning, British environmentalist helped spur the anti-GMO movement in the mid-90s, arguing as recently at 2008 that big corporations selfish greed would threaten the health of both people and the Earth. Thanks to the efforts of Lynas and people like him, governments around the worldespecially in Western Europe, Asia, and Africahave hobbled GM research, and NGOs like Greenpeace have spurned donations of genetically modified foods.
But Lynas has changed his mindand hes not being quiet about it. On Thursday at the Oxford Farming Conference, Lynas delivered a blunt address: He got GMOs wrong. According to the version of his remarks posted online (as yet, theres no video or transcript of the actual delivery), he opened with a bang:
I want to start with some apologies. For the record, here and upfront, I apologise 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 youll be wonderingwhat 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.
His honest assessment of his heretofore poor understanding of the issue continues for almost 5,000 wordsand its a must-read for anyone who has ever hesitated over conventional produce. To vilify GMOs is to be as anti-science as climate-change deniers, he says. To feed a growing world population (with an exploding middle class demanding more and better-quality food), we must take advantage of all the technology available to us, including GMOs. To insist on natural agriculture and livestock is to doom people to starvation, and theres no logical reason to prefer the old ways, either. Moreover, the reason why big companies dominate the industry is that anti-GMO activists and policymakers have made it too difficult for small startups to enter the field.
(much more at the link)
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Do you fully support the way Monsanto is genetically modifying food organisms?
Fumesucker
Jan 2013
#10
What's actually happening on the ground so to speak with Monsanto modified organisms.
Fumesucker
Jan 2013
#20
Lives saved by GMO's? Are you kidding? Anything & everything that Monsato claims
KittyWampus
Jan 2013
#32
Of course there are, but Monsanto goes after ANYONE they want, regardless
riderinthestorm
Jan 2013
#46
Do you only eat food that you have 100% knowledge of the chemical processes ...
Buzz Clik
Jan 2013
#21
Well, I know people have been eating unmodified versions of the foods I eat for centuries
RomneyLies
Jan 2013
#23
I certainly haven't said that, I think there is immense potential for good in GM
Fumesucker
Jan 2013
#45
People with food allergies have good reason to be leery of GMO's, till the producers can identify
pnwmom
Jan 2013
#48
"I discovered science, and in the process I hope I became a better environmentalist."
Buzz Clik
Jan 2013
#4
You want the most BASIC reason to oppose GMO's? Our food supply needs diversity for survival. GMO's
KittyWampus
Jan 2013
#24
If GMO were actually being used to better mankind rather than wring every last drop of profit
Fumesucker
Jan 2013
#6
Well, it might be because large numbers of baseless objections are a pain in the ass.
sibelian
Jan 2013
#96
End all organism and seed patents and close all present and future legislation.
NYC_SKP
Jan 2013
#11
So other than profit, what's the incentive for developing a better hybrid tea rose?
Major Nikon
Jan 2013
#64
People don't require GMOs to have a healthy nutritious diet of their own choosing.
HiPointDem
Jan 2013
#47
Climate change will soon begin to affect food production to a degree we can't ignore.
randome
Jan 2013
#75
The Effect of Glyphosate on Potential Pathogens and Beneficial Members of Poultry Microbiota In Vitr
dkf
Jan 2013
#78
The problem with GMOs is, and has always been, that we don't know what what will happen
Taverner
Jan 2013
#87
apologies to the scientists in this thread- MONSANTO IS EVIL AND GMO's are an INSIDIOUS DANGER!!!
farminator3000
Jan 2013
#97