Here’s something you don’t see every day. A leading environmentalist named Mark Lynas, who has long opposed GMOs (probably because evil big corporations like Monsanto are involved) actually took the time to study the science. Not only did he conclude that he was wrong, but he has apologized:
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 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.
Which means he is probably now seen as a “traitor” by the anti-GMO activists. To hard core believers, if you are one of them and you change your mind, you become a heretic and must be ostracized.
According to the article, it looks as if it may have occurred to him that humans are part of “the environment” too, and that without science, millions would starve:
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 there’s 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.
Of course, there are plenty of environmentalists who would just as soon doom people to starvation, because they think there are too many, and they see man as the enemy of the environment. (Just don’t expect them to publicly admit it.) The anti-human wackos are in an uneasy alliance with traditional style leftists who want to create a better world for humans, but such is coalition politics. One can hope that once in power (which they now are in the U.S.) they’ll be so busy fighting it out with each other that the won’t have as much time and energy to go after the rest of us.
It always surprises and encourages me to see common sense emerge in such unlikely places. I wish it happened more often.
But as the old saying goes, a conservative is a liberal who just got mugged, while a liberal is a conservative who just got arrested.
Comments
7 responses to “A traitor is an activist who thought things over and changed his mind”
[…] Deep Green Murderers Posted on January 5, 2013 1:30 pm by Bill Quick Classical Values » A traitor is an activist who thought things over and changed his mind […]
Read that (via one of my other 3 blogs) on Slate and checked the comments. Seems he MUST be a shill for Monsanto, no other reason except large checks is acceptable for changing his mind.
Science/data anyalysis? NO! Basic commonsense? NO! Only MONEY could make him speak that BLASPHEMY.
/sarcasm off. Or maybe /truth off – yes, they really DO not-think that way. BEEELIEEEVE or be excommunicated. The Catholic church tried that years ago (cf. Galileo. And lost.)
The more things change, the more they stay the same.
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I’m of two minds on that sort of thing.
On the one hand, good for him to get rid of his blinkers.
On the other hand, how about you blow me?
Read his earlier stuff, if you disagree with him you’re a tool of Big Pollution and obviously stupid, evil, you leave the toilet seat up and talk in the theater.
[…] that’s why I have a problem with fools like this guy, he’s discovered actual science and realizes that gen-mod foods are not The Debbil/Mama […]
hello ! 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”