For those of you who don't now who mark Lynas is I will save you the google. Mark is a journalist who is known for his role as a leading British environmental activist and principal opponent to genetically modified organisms (GMOs) in agriculture. He led the opposition to Monsanto and calls to ban GMO crops in Europe. He was widely succussful in his lobbying and influenced the perception of millions against GMOs in the 90s.
He is still an environmental activist. But these days; now older, wiser and having finally versed himself with the science, he is no longer an opponent of GMOs, but rather somewhat of an advocate.
Here is some of the transcript of his public apology.
To vilify GMOs is akin to climate change denial, because it ignores both the science which supports it, and takes a head-in-the-sand approach to the impending global food crisis. To feed the world - and here I am not just referring to the starving in Africa, but the exploding middle class in India and China who are demanding more and better-quality food - we must take advantage of all the technology available to us, including GMOs.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.
The current insistence on “natural”, organic, and food snobs now even demanding locally produced agriculture and livestock is to doom people to starvation. There is no scientific support for the potential benefits of non-GMO or locally grown and even the evidence for a benefit of organically grown food is extremely weak. On the other hand, the scientific evidence for an imminent starvation crisis is extremely strong.
One point that Lynas makes in is mea culpa, which i had not fully appreciated before is that 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. Here the damage has probably already been done and it will take a complete turn around, including direct government support in the form of grants, to rekindle the sort of innovation which arises from a competitive market, and which we will need to supply the food demands of this generation.
An honest and frank admission of wrong is rare in the world of environmental politics, but this really underscores the need for real, unbiased and well funded scientific research in informing policy debate.
