Greenpeace destroying the CSIRO's plot of GM wheat designed to be healthier, with more fibre and a lower glycemic index (Image: ABC)
Greenpeace has been out destroying what was left of their credibility. Here in Australia their anti-GM campaigning has gone quiet the past few years, but it was back with a vengeance last week with the destruction of a field of wheat at CSIRO. I was happy to see our disgust (my friends and I had been having a little rant about it by email) enunciated by Wilson da Silva at Cosmos magazine in this opinion piece lambasting Greenpeace.
The Greenpeace I remember from when I was a child campaigned against deforestation, commercial whaling, French nuclear testing on Mururoa atoll [the French bombing of the Rainbow warrior was a bit before my time], and CFCs.
When environmental science collides with business interests, the environmental concerns are invariably derided and overlooked. Greenpeace was there to fight for, and raise public awareness about, the environment.
But of recent times all I seem to hear about them is campaigns against GM crops and nanotechnology. They don’t do it over specific concerns (and there are some worth raising); rather they take an ideological stance that derides all genetic engineering as dangerous ‘frankenfoods’ that will be harmful to human health. These arguments seem to arise from some sort of obtuse unscientific ideology, and clearly show they’re either completely ignorant of the biology they’re talking about, or wilfully whipping up public sentiment with false generalisations.
Perhaps most horrifying from an Australian perspective, was the wholehearted endorsement of the vandalism of CSIRO’s research from a Greens politician (the end of this ABC article). I don’t understand why they take all the environmental positions I want to endorse, like combating global warming, reducing deforestation, preventing extinctions, or taking sustainable levels of water from the Murray-Darling basin, and then add all these wacky ideologically driven positions without any scientific basis, which make these elements of Greenpeace and the Greens about as reality based as Tony Abbott.
Ironically, the tactics of scaremongering, and casting doubt on and misrepresenting the science are the same ones used so successfully by their big business opponents to cast doubt on global warming. Why on earth has protecting the environment degenerated into ideologically based nonsense that is no better than the nonsense produced by the ideological right’s (profit-driven) belief that it should be able to pollute and destroy with no restriction?
Genetically modified corn: If they were being consistent in their objection to genetically modified foods, then they wouldn’t eat any domesticated plants or animals at all (no wheat, apples, beef, rice, strawberries, etc). They have all been genetically modified from ancient wild forms by humans, who used artificial breeding to make massive changes to their genes, eg. for size, shape, taste, colour, reproduction, season of fruiting, etc. (Image: http://www.physorg.com/news4301.html)
Update 31/7/11: I’ve seen a few more articles on this being tweeted, so I thought I’d link to them in case you’re interested in the general response to this issue.
Criticising Greepeace: What’s next Greenpeace, burning books?,
CSIRO experiment destroyed by Greenpeace – right or wrong?, Must try harder Greenpeace.
And this one from a Greenpeace representative defending their actions.
Scientists from around Australia respond to the attack via the Australian Science Media Centre
Clancy James
19/07/2011
‘Sans Science’ is indeed the perfect forum to bring up Greenpeace right now… and I can tell you found it tough to write this without devolving into a long string of swear words!
Which leaves the question: do we know of any environmental groups which take an informed approach to conservation? Alternatively, the question could be phrased: “If wish to use reason and logic to solve environmental problems, what do you do?”.
What I think is sad is that so many ‘members of the public’ I’ve spoken to have bought into the scare-mongering. The three main arguments used by ‘normal’ people (ignorant of the exact science involved, but having no prior ideological standpoint other than the usual human fear of the unknown) have been:
A: that many people have gotten sick due to GM food before
B: human error in inspections could cause some ‘doomsday’ human genetic catastrophe
C: scientists/big corporations/governments cannot be trusted
How do we combat all that, when A is blatantly false, B is no more true for GM than for cars, medicine, bridges, and C is no more true for GM than for crossing the street?
What has everyone else found when discussing this with their families/friends?
sansscience
21/07/2011
I was discussing this with some friends and they seemed to have an opinion remarkably similar to yours…
In Europe, and especially England, there’s a historical background that’s often cited as the reason for this distrust of authorities saying ‘trust us, your food is safe to eat’ – scares like BSE.
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld199900/ldselect/ldsctech/38/3815.htm
http://www.sciencemag.org/content/285/5426/384.abstract
But this doesn’t explain the opposition in Australia, since we haven’t had major food scares.
Clancy James
19/07/2011
The only claim of anybody ever getting ill from a ‘GM-thing’ anything I could find on the net is:
“Ingesting products from a GM organism has already caused illness. The Showa Denko KK company produced the amino acid tryptophan as a dietary supplement from a GM bacterium that caused an epidemic of eosinophilia-myalgia syndrome in the US and Europe (Belongia et al, 1990). Although the product was 99.6% pure (Mayeno and Gleich, 1994), thirty seven people died within months and 1500 were permanently disabled before governments stopped counting (Anderson, 1999). The GM bacterium had produced several substances that were not fully removed during purification (Mayeno and Gleich, 1994).”
from the website: http://www.non-gm-farmers.com
And of course it’s due to bad purification, which can happen in any situation [most manufacturing processes involve some quality-related step which, if performed badly, could lead to death.]
Can anyone else find other ‘examples’ of claim GM-caused illness?
sansscience
22/07/2011
Noticed this article discussing GM crops, including their safety, you might find interesting http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/jul/21/gm-debate
David Hood
31/07/2011
A few quick points to make:
Greenpeace in Australia certainly hasn’t been quiet on this issue. There has been an active GE (GM) campaign for more than five years – for the most part this has been around the dubious labelling standards in Australia (and New Zealand) and defending Australian soil from the pollution of crops that have either been rejected by other nations and/or only been tested by multi-nationals with a vested interest in selling their seeds to Aussie farmers.
Secondly, genetic modification/engineering is *not* the same as crossbreeding or interbreeding different species or breeds of plants http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plant_breeding