lynas, mark

guk but BS? blames china for fail?https://.theguardian.com/environment/2009/dec/22/copenhagen-climate-change-mark-lynas=revkin // shillenberger:<div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">=</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a href="https://financialpost.com/opinion/the-rubber-duckies-lost-in-desmog">https://financialpost.com/opinion/the-rubber-duckies-lost-in-desmog</a></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style=""><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">no lnx vid?</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">FP Comment</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The Rubber Duckies: Lost in desmog</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Author of the article:Terence Corcoran</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Publishing date:Jun 17, 2011  •  June 17, 2011  </div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Article content</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">By Terence Corcoran</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">A s of just before press time, desmogblog — the perpetually agitated website that can find Exxon Mobil and other corporate conspirators behind the slightest criticism of climate policy or science — had not yet acknowledged Climategate 2, namely the Greenpeace/IPCC/Pachauri/renewable energy industrial complex takeover of IPCC energy policy.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="">These green conspirators managed to produce an IPCC energy report claiming that 80% of the world’s energy by 2050 could come from — surprise! — renewables. As British environmentalist Mark Lynas wrote when he learned of this latest IPCC systemic ethical meltdown, he asked readers to imagine this: “An Exxon Mobil employee … serves as a lead author on an important IPCC report looking into the future of fossil fuels. The Exxon guy and his fellow lead authors assess a whole variety of literature, but select for special treatment four particular papers — one produced by Exxon Mobil. This paper heralds great things for the future of fossil fuels, suggesting they can supply 80% of the world’s energy in 2050, and this headline is the first sentence of the ensuing IPCC press release, which is picked up and repeated uncritically the world’s media.</div><div style="">
</div><div style="">“Pleased, the Exxon employee issues a self-congratulatory press release boasting that his paper had been central to the IPCC effort, and urging the world’s governments to get on with opening up new areas to oil drilling for the benefit of us all.”</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">How will desmogblog respond? No doubt they will find a way. Meanwhile, their Rubbur Duckie for consistency in the pursuit of junk science is in the mail.</div></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">11 21 ggl srch</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style=""><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Climate Science Denier Patrick Moore Under Attack ... - DeSmog  https://www.desmog.com › 2016/04/07 › climate-scienc...</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Apr 7, 2016 — British environmentalist and author Mark Lynas, who is also pro-nuclear energy, weighed in too, describing Moore as “just a predictable ...</div><div style="">Climate science denialist <a href="https://www.desmog.com/patrick-moore" data-wpel-link="external" target="blank" rel="external noopener noreferrer" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: none;">Patrick Moore</a> is all about “consensus building.” We know this because it says so on his <a href="http://www.webcitation.org/6ga3sqkxW" target="blank" rel="noopener external noreferrer" data-wpel-link="external" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: none;">biography at the think tank</a> Frontier Centre for Public Policy.   And so, fresh from delivering a <a href="http://www.desmog.com/2016/03/14/coal-lobbyists-euracoal-paid-patrick-moore-dinner-climate-science-deniers-eu-officials-and-european-parliament-members" data-wpel-link="internal" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: none;">coal-funded talk in Brussels</a> where he told the audience to “celebrate CO2”, the Canadian has been out doing a bit of that “consensus building” in his own unique way.   In recent days, Moore has accused respected climate scientist Ken Caldeira of “fakery”, called him a “jerk” and then told a fellow nuclear power advocate to “GFY”.   The nuclear advocate in question was Australian energy and climate consultant Ben Heard, who had engaged Moore on social media. He’s written a <a href="http://decarbonisesa.com/2016/03/30/friends-like-moore/" data-wpel-link="external" target="blank" rel="external noopener noreferrer" style="background-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: none;">blog about the exchange</a>.   British environmentalist and author Mark Lynas, who is also pro-nuclear energy, weighed in too, <a href="https://twitter.com/mark_lynas/status/715629383369801729" data-wpel-link="external" target="blank" rel="external noopener noreferrer" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: none;">describing Moore as</a> “just a predictable right-wing anti-green contrarian”.   When <a href="http://www.desmog.com/2016/03/14/coal-lobbyists-euracoal-paid-patrick-moore-dinner-climate-science-deniers-eu-officials-and-european-parliament-members" data-wpel-link="internal" target="blank" style="background-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: none;">DeSmog UK</a> gave Moore the chance to respond to a story showing he had been paid by coal lobbyists to deliver a talk, his response was “bugger off”.<h3 style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 1.5rem; margin-bottom: 1.5rem; line-height: 1.2;">Who is Patrick Moore?</h3>For those that don’t know, <a href="https://www.desmog.com/patrick-moore" data-wpel-link="external" target="blank" rel="external noopener noreferrer" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: none;">Patrick Moore</a> is often described as a former senior member of Greenpeace, even though he left that organisation 30 years ago.   Since then, he has spent his time being an advocate for nuclear power, GM crops, <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/environment/georgemonbiot/2010/dec/02/sumatra-rainforest-destruction-patrick-moore" data-wpel-link="external" target="blank" rel="external noopener noreferrer" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: none;">forestry</a> and, apparently, burning as much coal as you can get your hands on.   In a <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com.au/entry/monsanto-roundup-patrick-moore_n_6956034.html?section=australia" target="blank" rel="noopener external noreferrer" data-wpel-link="external" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: none;">French television interview last year</a>, Moore told a journalist that the pesticide glyphosate was not a carcinogen and was so safe, “you could drink a whole quart of it and it won’t hurt you”.     Moore was then immediately offered the chance to drink a glass by the interviewer, which he declined. “I’m not an idiot,” he said.   Moore is a long-time climate science denialist and claims, against all credible scientific institutions, that there is “<a href="https://twitter.com/EcoSenseNow/status/692799155123523584" data-wpel-link="external" target="blank" rel="external noopener noreferrer" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: none;">no proof</a>” that the extra CO2 in the atmosphere (about 40 per cent more than there was before the industrial revolution) is causing any global warming.<h3 style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 1.5rem; margin-bottom: 1.5rem; line-height: 1.2;">Acidification denial </h3>In April 2015, <a href="http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:LGh8oEBeA84J:www.theaustralian.com.au/opinion/put-the-acid-on-great-barrier-reef-doomsayers/news-story/196fe4ff3971485f176d4fdc755c2c87+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=au" data-wpel-link="external" target="blank" rel="external noopener noreferrer" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: none;">Moore wrote a column for The Australian</a> newspaper claiming that ocean acidification, caused by adding CO2 to the atmsophere mostly from burning fossil fuels, wouldn’t be a problem for the oceans and the species that live in them.   In typical conspiratorial style, Moore even claimed the science of ocean acidification had been “invented” around the year 2005.   Moore has no academic publishing record at all on ocean acidification (or much else in the last 20 years), so it was no surprise that he got things badly wrong.   Several of the world’s leading scientists on ocean acidification, including one who had apparently begun studying the issue a whole five years before it had even been “invented”, tore Moore’s claims to pieces.   Moore’s column was “ill informed and highly misleading”, “very wrong”, “BS” and “nonsense”, the scientists <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/environment/planet-oz/2015/apr/16/ask-the-real-experts-about-ocean-acidification-not-climate-science-deniers" data-wpel-link="external" target="blank" rel="external noopener noreferrer" style="background-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: none;">told me for The Guardian</a>, who explained in painstaking detail why his analysis was flawed.   But this didn’t stop Moore making the same claims in a subsequent <a href="https://fcpp.org/sites/default/files/documents/Moore%20-%20Ocean%20Acidification%20Alarmism.pdf" data-wpel-link="external" target="blank" rel="external noopener noreferrer" style="background-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: none;">research paper</a> ”<a href="https://fcpp.org/sites/default/files/documents/Moore%20-%20Ocean%20Acidification%20Alarmism.pdf" target="blank" rel="noopener external noreferrer" data-wpel-link="external" style="background-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: none;">Ocean ‘Acidification’ Alarmism in Perspective</a>” for the Canada-based Frontier Center for Public Policy (FCPP), where he is chair of the think tank’s “Energy, Ecology and Prosperity Program”.   Oddly, the paper carried a disclaimer that the views expressed “do not reflect the opinions” of the center, “its Board of Directors, staff and/or donors” despite it being written by one of its own.   According to FCPP, its papers are “rigorously researched by the most credible experts in their field”. They also claim to run their own “peer review” system for their reports.   This is just as well, because Moore thinks that actual peer reviewed scientific journals are ruled by a “warmist ideology”.   This appears to be a pattern for Moore. When challenged, respond with a mixture of abuse, name-calling and conspiracy theories.   So when a group of students walked out of a speech he gave at a US college last year, he <a href="https://www.desmog.com/2014/10/23/climate-science-denialist-patrick-moore-tours-australia-after-comparing-students-taliban" target="blank" rel="noopener external noreferrer" data-wpel-link="external" style="background-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: none;">compared them to the “taliban”</a>.   There’s Moore’s “consensus building” skills on display again.Image: Patrick Moore gives evidence to the US Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, February 2014</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">----</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Comedian Robin Ince Quits Science Museum Climate Event ...https://www.desmog.com › 2021/03/10 › comedian-rob...</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Mar 10, 2021 — ... and Mark Lynas also stepped down over the museum's oil sponsorship. ... Speaking to DeSmog, Ince said he had initially hoped to use his ...</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Mark Lynas - http://desmog.uk/2015/09/29/breakthrough-insti...https://hi-in.facebook.com › posts· Translate this page</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Mark Lynas Facebook ?? ??. ... Mark Lynas, profile picture ... DESMOG.UK. Everyone Warned the Breakthrough Ecomodernists To Avoid Toxic Owen Paterson ...</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Mark Lynas - http://desmog.uk/2015/09/29/breakthrough ... - Facebookhttps://www.facebook.com › ecomodernist › posts › htt...</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">A group calling themselves the 'ecomodernists' were warned not to make their British debut alongside prominent UK climate denier Owen Paterson. Share.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The Rubber Duckies: Lost in desmog | Financial Posthttps://financialpost.com › opinion › the-rubber-duckie...</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Jun 17, 2011 — As British environmentalist Mark Lynas wrote when he learned of this latest IPCC systemic ethical meltdown, he asked readers to imagine ...</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Who's who - ScienceForSustainabilityhttps://scienceforsustainability.org › wiki › Who's_who</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Apr 8, 2021 — Along with three other persons who have been involved with the environmental movement, Chris Smith, Mark Lynas and Chris Goodall, ...</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Fossil fuel industry's climate denial campaign dates back four ...https://independentaustralia.net › environment-display</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">By DeSmog Blog | 23 January 2021, 3:30pm | comments |. To protect their profits, the fossil ... (Reference: Six Degrees of Climate Emergency - Mark Lynas).</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">COP24: Naturalist Attenborough urges climate meet to tackle ...https://www.carbonbrief.org › daily-brief › cop24-natu...</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">DeSmog UK Read Article ... Mark Lynas, CNN Read Article. Environmental author Mark Lynas argues in an opinion piece for CNN that the Paris Agreement will ...</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">ENVS 1574: Engaged Climate Policy in the US: Rhode Island ...https://watson.brown.edu › csl › imce › syllabiPDF</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Complete one targeted and well-researched pitch for DeSmog, details TBA. These may also be ... Geographic documentary, based on the book by Mark Lynas.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The Rough Guide to Climate Change - Google Books Resulthttps://books.google.com › books</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Robert Henson · 2011 · ?Science</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">... Watch (Rick Piltz)www.climatesciencewatch.org DeSmog Blogwww.desmogblog.com Roger PielkeJr.'s Blogrogerpielkejr.blogspot.com Mark Lynaswww.marklynas.org ...</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">=see usrtk on entine and pam ronald uc davis monsanto funding...=https://usrtk.org/tag/pamela-ronald/
CORNELL ALLIANCE FOR SCIENCE IS A PR CAMPAIGN FOR THE AGRICHEMICAL INDUSTRYPosted on September 23, 2020 by Stacy MalkanThe Cornell Alliance for Science (CAS) is a public relations campaign funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to train fellows around the world, especially in Africa, to promote and defend genetically engineered crops and agrichemicals in their home countries. The group based at Cornell uses its academic-sounding name and affiliation with an Ivy League Institution to try to gain credibility, but CAS has a long history of spreading inaccurate and misleading information.
The Gates Foundation has spent $22 million since 2014 funding this PR effort. This fact sheet documents inaccuracies, deceptive tactics and corporate partnerships of CAS and people affiliated with the group.  The examples described here provide evidence that CAS is using Cornell’s name, reputation and authority to advance the PR and political agenda of the world’s largest chemical and seed corporations.
INDUSTRY-ALIGNED MISSION AND MESSAGINGCAS launched in 2014 with a $5.6 million Gates Foundation grant and promises to “depolarize” the debate around GMOs. The group says its mission is to “promote access” to GMO crops and foods by training “science allies” around the world to educate their communities about the benefits of agricultural biotechnology.

Pesticide industry group promotes CAS 
A key part of the CAS strategy is to recruit and train Global Leadership Fellows in communications and promotional tactics, focusing on regions where there is public opposition to the biotech industry, particularly African countries that have resisted GMO crops.
The CAS mission is strikingly similar to the Council for Biotechnology Information (CBI), a pesticide-industry funded public relations initiative that has partnered with CAS. The industry group worked to build alliances across the food chain and train third-parties, particularly academics and farmers, to persuade the public to accept GMOs.
CAS messaging aligns closely with pesticide industry PR: a myopic focus on  touting the possible future benefits of genetically engineered foods while downplaying, ignoring or denying risks and problems. Like industry PR efforts, CAS also focuses heavily on attacking and trying to discredit critics of agrichemical products, including scientists and journalists who raise health or environmental concerns.
WIDESPREAD CRITICISMCAS and its writers have drawn criticism from academics, farmers, students, community groups and food sovereignty movements who say the group promotes inaccurate and misleading messaging and uses unethical tactics. See for example:
Experts in agroecology withdraw from Cornell Alliance for Science Agroecology Webinar, citing bias — Community Alliance for Global Justice (9.30.20)Messengers of Gates’ Agenda: A Case Study of the Cornell Alliance for Science Global Leadership Fellows Program, by AGRA Watch, Community Alliance for Global Justice (8.7.20)Students Should Continue to Question the Ethics of the Cornell Alliance for Science, by Fern Anuenue, Hawaii Alliance for Progressive Action, Cornell Daily Sun (11.19.19)Mark Lynas slammed for exploiting African farmers’ images to promote GMOs, African Centre for Biodiversity press release (2018)Mark Lynas’ unauthorized use of farmer’s images in misleading and unethical tactics to promote GM crops in Tanzania, report by Eugenio Tisselli, PhD, and Angelika Hilbeck, PhD. (2018)Seeds Of Neo-Colonialism: Why The GMO Promoters Get It So Wrong About Africa, statement by the Alliance for Food Sovereignty in Africa (2018)6 ways this Ivy League university is acting like a PR firm for junk food, GMOs and pesticides, by Sophia Johnson, Salon (2017)New York Farmers Call for Cornell to Evict the ‘Alliance for Science,’ Bioscience Resource Project press release (2016)The GMO Debate: One Student’s Experience of Pro-GMO Propaganda at Cornell University, by Robert Schooler, Independent Science News (2016)Gates-funded Cornell Group Misfires in Protest of Vandana Shiva, USRTK (2016)Why is Cornell University hosting a GMO propaganda campaign? by Stacy Malkan, The Ecologist (2016)Gates Foundation Backed Pro-GMO Cornell Alliance for Science On the Attack, Corporate Crime Reporter (2015)The War on Genetically Modified Food Critics, by Timothy Wise, Food Tank (2015)EXAMPLES OF MISLEADING MESSAGINGExperts in genetic engineering, biology, agroecology and food policy have documented many examples of inaccurate claims made by Mark Lynas, a visiting fellow at Cornell who has written dozens of articles defending agrichemical products in the name of CAS; see for example his many articles promoted by the Genetic Literacy Project, a PR group that works with Monsanto. Lynas’ 2018 book argues for African countries to accept GMOs, and devotes a chapter to defending Monsanto.
Inaccurate claims about GMOsNumerous scientists have criticized Lynas for making false statements, “unscientific, illogical and absurd” arguments, promoting dogma over data and research on GMOs, rehashing industry talking points, and making inaccurate claims about pesticides that “display a deep scientific ignorance, or an active effort to manufacture doubt.”
“The laundry list of what Mark Lynas got wrong about both GMOs and science is extensive, and has been refuted point by point by some of the world’s leading agroecologists and biologists,” wrote Eric Holt-Giménez, executive director of Food First, in April 2013 (Lynas joined Cornell as a visiting fellow later that year).  
“disingenuous and untruthful”
Africa-based groups have critiqued Lynas at length. The Alliance for Food Sovereignty in Africa, a coalition of more than 40 food and farming groups across Africa, has described Lynas as a “fly-in pundit” whose “contempt for African people, custom and tradition is unmistakable.” Million Belay, director of AFSA, described Lynas as “a racist who is pushing a narrative that only industrial agriculture can save Africa.”
In a 2018 press release, the South Africa-based African Centre for Biodiversity described unethical tactics Lynas has used to promote the biotech lobby agenda in Tanzania. “There is an issue definitely about accountability and [need for] reigning the Cornell Alliance for Science in, because of the misinformation and the way that they are extremely disingenuous and untruthful,” Mariam Mayet, executive director of the African Centre for Biodiversity, said in a July 2020 webinar.
For detailed critiques of Lynas’ work, see articles at the end of this post and our Mark Lynas fact sheet.
Attacking agroecologyA recent example of inaccurate messaging is a widely panned article on the CAS website by Lynas claiming, “agro-ecology risks harming the poor.” Academics described the article as a “demagogic and non-scientific interpretation of a scientific paper,” “deeply unserious,” “pure ideology” and “an embarrassment for someone who wants to claim to be scientific,” a “really flawed analysis“ that makes “sweeping generalizations“ and “wild conclusions.” Some critics called for a retraction.
A 2019 article by CAS fellow Nassib Mugwanya provides another example of misleading content on the topic of agroecology. The article, “Why traditional agricultural practices can’t transform African agriculture,” reflects the typical messaging pattern in CAS materials: presenting GMO crops as the “pro-science” position while painting “alternative forms of agricultural development as ‘anti-science,’ groundless and harmful,” according to an analysis by the Seattle-based Community Alliance for Global Justice.
“Particularly notable in the article are strong usages of metaphors (e.g., agroecology likened to handcuffs), generalizations, omissions of information and a number of factual inaccuracies,” the group said.
Using Monsanto playbook to defend pesticidesAnother example of misleading industry-aligned CAS messaging can be found in the group’s defense of glyphosate-based Roundup. The herbicides are a key component of GMO crops with 90% of corn and soy grown in the United States genetically engineered to tolerate Roundup. In 2015, after the World Health Organization’s cancer research panel said glyphosate is a probable human carcinogen, Monsanto organized allies to “orchestrate outcry” against the independent science panel to “protect the reputation” of Roundup, according to internal Monsanto documents.

Monsanto’s PR playbook: attacking cancer experts as ‘activists’
Mark Lynas used the CAS platform to amplify the Monsanto messaging, describing the cancer report as a “witch hunt” orchestrated by “anti-Monsanto activists” who “abused science” and committed “an obvious perversion of both science and natural justice” by reporting a cancer risk for glyphosate. Lynas used the same flawed arguments and industry sources as the American Council on Science and Health, a front group Monsanto paid to help spin the cancer report.
While claiming to be on the side of science, Lynas ignored ample evidence from Monsanto documents, widely reported in the press, that Monsanto interfered with scientific research, manipulated regulatory agencies and used other heavy-handed tactics to manipulate the scientific process in order to protect Roundup. In 2018, a jury found the that Monsanto “acted with malice, oppression or fraud” in covering up the cancer risk of Roundup.
LOBBYING FOR PESTICIDES AND GMOSAlthough its main geographical focus is Africa, CAS also aids pesticide industry efforts to defend pesticides and discredit public health advocates in Hawaii. The Hawaiian Islands are an important testing ground for GMO crops and also an area that reports high exposures to pesticides and concerns about pesticide-related health problems, including birth defects, cancer and asthma. These problems led residents to organize a years-long fight to pass stronger regulations to reduce pesticide exposures and improve disclosure of the chemicals used on agricultural fields.
“launched vicious attacks”
As these efforts gained traction, CAS engaged in a “massive public relations disinformation campaign designed to silence community concerns” about the health risks of pesticides, according to Fern Anuenue Holland, a community organizer for Hawaii Alliance for Progressive Action. In the Cornell Daily Sun, Holland described how “paid Cornell Alliance for Science fellows — under the guise of scientific expertise — launched vicious attacks. They used social media and wrote dozens of blog posts condemning impacted community members and other leaders who had the courage to speak up.”
Holland said she and other members of her organization were subjected to “character assassinations, misrepresentations and attacks on personal and professional credibility” by CAS affiliates. “I have personally witnessed families and lifelong friendships torn apart,” she wrote.
OPPOSING THE PUBLIC’S RIGHT TO KNOW     CAS Director Sarah Evanega, PhD, has said her group is independent of industry: “We do not write for industry, and we do not advocate or promote industry-owned products. As our website clearly and fully discloses, we receive no resources from industry.” However, dozens of emails obtained by U.S. Right to Know, now posted in the UCSF chemical industry documents library, show CAS and Evanega coordinating closely with the pesticide industry and its front groups on public relations initiatives. Examples include:
CAS played a key role in trying to discredit a public records investigation by U.S. Right to Know to obtain information about the pesticide industry’s partnerships with academics. According to Monsanto documents released in 2019, Monsanto was deeply worried about the USRTK investigation and planned to try to discredit it as an attack on “scientific freedom” — the same messaging CAS used in a in a public petition opposing the investigation.CAS partnered on the petition with Biofortified, a group that lobbied against pesticide regulations in Hawaii at the behest of a pesticide industry trade group, while claiming to be independent.The Monsanto PR plan to counter the USRTK investigation suggested having a Monsanto executive reach out to Rob Horsch at the Gates Foundation to ask for assistance with the effort.CAS Director Sarah Evanega was a Trustee in 2017 of the International Food Information Council, a food and chemical industry-funded PR group that defends sugar, food additives, GMOs and pesticides.More examples of CAS partnerships with industry groups are described at the bottom of this fact sheet.  
ELEVATING FRONT GROUPS, UNRELIABLE MESSENGERSIn its efforts to promote GMOs as a “science-based” solution for agriculture, Cornell Alliance for Science has lent its platform to industry front groups and even a notorious climate science skeptic.
Trevor Butterworth and Sense About Science/STATS: CAS partners with Sense About Science/STATS to offer “statistical consultation for journalists” and gave a fellowship to the group’s director Trevor Butterworth, who built his career defending products important to the chemical, fracking, junk food and drug industries. Butterworth is founding director of Sense About Science USA, which he merged with his former platform, Statistical Assessment Service (STATS).
Journalists have described STATs and Butterworth as key players in chemical and pharmaceutical industry product defense campaigns (see Stat News, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, The Intercept and The Atlantic).  Monsanto documents identify Sense About Science among the “industry partner” it counted on to defend Roundup against cancer concerns.
Climate science skeptic Owen Paterson: In 2015, CAS hosted Owen Paterson, a British Conservative Party politician and well-known climate science skeptic who slashed funding for global warming mitigation efforts during his stint as UK Environment Minister. Paterson used the Cornell stage to claim that environmental groups raising concerns about GMOs “allow millions to die.” Pesticide industry groups used similar messaging 50 years ago to try to discredit Rachel Carson for raising concerns about DDT.
Lynas and Sense About Science: Lynas of CAS is also affiliated with Sense About Science as a longtime advisory board member. In 2015, Lynas partnered with climate science skeptic Owen Paterson Paterson also Sense About Science Director Tracey Brown to launch what he called the “ecomodernism movement,” a corporate-aligned, anti-regulation strain of “environmentalism.”
INDUSTRY DEFENSE IN HAWAIIIn 2016, CAS launched an affiliate group called the Hawaii Alliance for Science, which said its purpose was to “support evidence-based decision-making and agricultural innovation in the Islands.” Its messengers include:
Sarah Thompson, a former employee of Dow AgroSciences, coordinated the Hawaii Alliance for Science, which described itself as a “communications-based non-profit grassroots organization associated with the Cornell Alliance for Science.” (The website no longer appears active, but the group maintains a Facebook page.)
Social media posts from the Hawaii Alliance for Science and its coordinator Thompson have described critics of the agrichemical industry as arrogant and ignorant people, celebrated corn and soy mono-crops and defended neonicotinoid pesticides which many studies and scientists say are harming bees.
Joan Conrow, Managing Editor of CAS, writes articles on her personal website, her “Kauai Eclectic” blog and for the industry front group Genetic Literacy Project trying to discredit health professionals, community groups and politicians in Hawaii who advocate for stronger pesticide protections, and journalists who write about pesticide concerns. Conrow has accused environmental groups of tax evasion and compared a food safety group to the KKK.
Conrow has not always disclosed her Cornell affiliation. Hawaii’s Civil Beat newspaper criticized Conrow for her lack of transparency and cited her in 2016 as an example of why the paper was changing its commenting policies. Conrow “often argued the pro-GMO perspective without explicitly mentioning her occupation as a GMO sympathist,” wrote journalism professor Brett Oppegaard. “Conrow also has lost her journalistic independence (and credibility) to report fairly about GMO issues, because of the tone of her work on these issues.”
Joni Kamiya, a 2015 CAS Global Leadership Fellow argues against pesticide regulations on her website Hawaii Farmer’s Daughter, in the media and also for the industry front group Genetic Literacy Project. She is an “ambassador expert” for the agrichemical industry-funded marketing website GMO Answers. Like Conrow, Kamiya claims pesticide exposures in Hawaii aren’t a problem, and tries to discredit elected officials and “environmental extremists” who want to regulate pesticides.
STAFFERS, ADVISORSCAS describes itself as “an initiative based at Cornell University, a non-profit institution.” The group does not disclose its budget, expenditures or staff salaries, and Cornell University does not disclose any information about CAS in its tax filings.
The website lists 20 staff members, including Director Sarah Evanega, PhD, and Managing Editor Joan Conrow (it does not list Mark Lynas or other fellows who may also receive compensation). Other notable staff members listed on the website include:
Gregory Jaffe, Associate Director of Legal Affairs of CAS, is also the Director of Biotechnology for Center for Science in the Public Interest where he draws a $143,000 salary plus benefits. CSPI opposes GMO labeling and Jaffe argues that “Americans should embrace” the current crop of genetically engineered foods.Jayson Merkley, one of 10 members of the CAS training team, worked as a social media consultant for March Against Myths Against Modification, a project of the industry partner group Biofortified. For an example of misleading messaging involving Merkley, see 2016 post, Gates-funded Cornell group misfires in protest against Vandana Shiva.The CAS advisory board includes academics who regularly assist the agrichemical industry with their PR efforts.
Pamela Ronald, a geneticist at UC Davis, has ties to chemical industry front groups and PR efforts that claim to be independent; she co-founded and served on the board of Biofortified, and set up the industry-tied Genetic Literacy Project and its founder Jon Entine with a platform at UC Davis. Ronald receives industry payments for speaking engagements; see $10,000 invoice to Bayer and $3,000 invoice to Monsanto.Alison Van Eenennaam, a cooperative extension specialist at UC Davis, argues for deregulating genetically engineered animals she is developing. She is a key outside spokesperson who has worked with the agrichemical industry on various PR efforts to oppose regulations and transparency.Cornell Professor Tony Shelton was one of several professors recruited by Monsanto to write pro-GMO papers that were published by the industry front group Genetic Literacy Project with no disclosure about Monsanto’s role. Shelton created a controversy when he asked his students to taste a pesticide, ostensibly as a stunt to promote GMOs.GATES FOUNDATION CRITIQUES  ...<div>=....</div>
<div style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large">FOOD EVOLUTION GMO FILM SERVES UP CHEMICAL INDUSTRY AGENDA</div><div style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large">
</div><div style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large">Posted on February 4, 2018 by Stacy Malkan</div><div style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large">This post has been updated with reviews of Food Evolution: </div><div style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large">
</div><div style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large">Letter from 45 academics: “Food Evolution deserves to be called out for what it is: a piece of propaganda“</div><div style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large">Letter from University of Minnesota research scientists: “The Food Evolution movie is agribusiness propaganda“</div><div style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large">NYU Professor Marion Nestle: Food Evolution is a “slick piece of GMO industry propaganda” … “I have asked repeatedly to have my short interview clip removed from this film. The director refuses. He believes his film is fair and balanced. I do not.” Follow up post by Marion Nestle: “A win for GMO trolls: this blog no longer accepts comments“</div><div style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large">Michael Pollan: “My experience and take much the same” and “This movie is funded by industry“</div><div style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large">UC Berkeley Associate Professor Alastair Iles: “No evolution in thinking in Food Evolution“</div><div style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large">UC Berkeley Professor Miguel Altieri: “Food Evolution is propaganda for public support of GMOs“</div><div style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large">Doug Durian-Sherman, PhD: “Food Evolution Supports GMOs, but Not Science” Part 1 and Part 2</div><div style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large">Vice article: “This Documentary Wants to Teach People About GMOs, But Experts Call It Propaganda“</div><div style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large">Alternet by Stacy Malkan: “Neil deGrasse Tyson Owes Fans a More Honest Conversation About GMOs“</div><div style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large">
</div><div style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large">
</div><div style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large">By Stacy Malkan, 6/19/2017 </div><div style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large">
</div><div style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large">Some industry messaging efforts are so heavy-handed they end up highlighting their own PR tactics more than the message they are trying to convey. That’s the problem with Food Evolution, a new documentary by Academy Award-nominated director Scott Hamilton Kennedy and narrated by Neil deGrasse Tyson.</div><div style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large">
</div><div style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large">The film, opening in theaters June 23, claims to offer an objective look at the debate over genetically engineered foods, but with its skewed presentation of science and data, it comes off looking more like a textbook case of corporate propaganda for the agrichemical industry and its GMO crops.</div><div style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large">
</div><div style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large">That the film’s intended purpose was to serve as an industry-messaging vehicle is no secret. Food Evolution was planned in 2014 and funded by the Institute for Food Technologists, a trade group, to culminate a multi-year messaging effort.</div><div style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large">
</div><div style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large">IFT is partly funded by big food corporations, and the group’s president at the time was Janet Collins, a former DuPont and Monsanto executive who now works for CropLife America, the pesticide trade association. IFT’s President-Elect Cindy Stewart works for DuPont.</div><div style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large">
</div><div style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large">IFT chose Kennedy to direct the film, but he and producer Trace Sheehan say they had complete control over the film they describe as a fully independent investigation into the topic of GMOs including all points of view.</div><div style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large">
</div><div style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large">The film’s credibility suffers from their choice to embrace only the science and scientists who side with the chemical industry players who profit from GMOs and the chemicals used on them, while ignoring science and data that doesn’t fit that agenda.</div><div style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large">
</div><div style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large">The Monsanto Science Treatment</div><div style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large">
</div><div style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large">The clearest example of the scientific dishonesty in Food Evolution is the way the film deals with glyphosate. The weed killer chemical is at the heart of the GMO story, since 80-90% of GMO crops are genetically engineered to tolerate glyphosate.</div><div style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large">
</div><div style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large">Food Evolution reports that the increase in glyphosate use due to GMOs is not a problem, because glyphosate is safe. Two sources establish this claim in the film: a farmer says glyphosate has “very, very low toxicity; lower than coffee, lower than salt,” and Monsanto’s Robb Fraley – in response to a woman in an audience who asks him about science linking glyphosate to birth defects and cancer – tells her that’s all bad science, “it’s pseudoscience.”</div><div style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large">
</div><div style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large">All science raising concerns about glyphosate is “pseudoscience,” says Monsanto.</div><div style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large">
</div><div style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large">There is no mention of the carcinogenicity concerns that are engulfing Monsanto in an international science scandal, or the many farmers who are suing Monsanto alleging they got cancer from the company’s glyphosate-based Roundup herbicide.</div><div style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large">
</div><div style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large">There is no mention of the 2015 report by the World Health Organization’s cancer agency that classified glyphosate as a probable human carcinogen, or California’s decision to add glyphosate to the Prop 65 list of chemicals known to cause cancer, or the peer-reviewed studies that have linked various adverse health outcomes to glyphosate and Roundup.</div><div style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large">
</div><div style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large">Instead of an objective look at the evidence, Food Evolution gives viewers the full Monsanto science treatment: any science that raises concerns about the possible health risks of agrichemical products should be ignored, while studies that put those products in a favorable light is the only science worth discussing.</div><div style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large">
</div><div style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large">Double Standards in Science and Transparency</div><div style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large">
</div><div style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large">Equal treatment of interview subjects with different points of view would have helped the credibility of Food Evolution. Instead, the film paints the GMO critics it features as dishonest or out to make a buck off the organic industry, while leaving out key details about its pro-industry sources.</div><div style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large">
</div><div style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large">In one scene, the film’s main character, UC Davis professor Alison van Eenennaam, frets that appearing onstage with a Monsanto executive at a debate could sully her independent reputation. Viewers never learn that she used to work for Monsanto, or that she holds several GE patents which suggest a financial interest in the topic at hand.</div><div style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large">
</div><div style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large">Pro-industry scientist Pamela Ronald, another key science source, gets the hero treatment with no mention that two of her studies have been retracted. Yet viewers are hammered with news that a study by French scientist Gilles-Eric Séralini – which found kidney problems and tumors in rats fed GMO corn – was “retracted, retracted, retracted!”</div><div style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large">
</div><div style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large">The film leaves out the fact that the study was subsequently republished, and was retracted in the first place after a former Monsanto employee took an editorial position with the journal where it was originally published.</div><div style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large">
</div><div style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large">The “Africa Needs GMOs” Narrative</div><div style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large">
</div><div style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large">In another neatly spun narrative, Food Evolution takes viewers on an emotional journey to the developing world, and along another favorite industry messaging track: rather than focus on how genetic engineering is used in our food system now – primarily to convey herbicide tolerance – we should focus on how it might possibly be used in the future.</div><div style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large">
</div><div style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large">With plenty of airtime and dramatic tension, the film examines the problem of banana wilt, a disease killing staple crops in Africa, and leads viewers to believe that genetic engineering will save the crop, the farmers and the community.</div><div style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large">
</div><div style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large">Maybe. But the film neglects to mention that the savior GE technology is not yet available and might not even work. According to a paper in Plant Biotechnology Journal, the resistance shown in the lab is robust but may not be durable in open fields.</div><div style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large">
</div><div style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large">The film is “fundamentally dishonest.”</div><div style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large">
</div><div style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large">Meanwhile, a low-tech solution is working well and looks like it could use some investment. According to a 2012 paper in the Journal of Development and Agricultural Economics, farmer field schools, which help growers acquire hands-on knowledge of techniques to prevent banana wilt, led to lower infection rates and high crop recovery in Uganda. Results from farmer field schools “have been remarkable,” according to the UN.</div><div style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large">
</div><div style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large">The solution doesn’t warrant a mention in Food Evolution.</div><div style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large">
</div><div style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large">“It’s fundamentally dishonest of the film to tout a GE solution that may not even work, as the scientists themselves acknowledge,” said Michael Hansen, senior scientist at Consumers Union, “while failing to point out another way to control the problem that works very well, but doesn’t involve selling a product to make money.”</div><div style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large">
</div><div style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large">Did Monsanto have anything to do with Food Evolution?</div><div style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large">
</div><div style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large">Monsanto and allies were discussing plans for a documentary in late 2013, according to emails obtained by US Right to Know. The emails do not contain evidence linking those discussions to Food Evolution, but they do establish Monsanto’s desire for a film that sounds surpassingly similar to the one Kennedy created.</div><div style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large">
</div><div style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large">Monsanto’s Eric Sachs wrote in Dec. 2013 to a group of PR advisors, “there is clearly a lot of interest to pursue a documentary film. Importantly, the consensus was that Monsanto’s participation was welcome, particularly in the planning phase.”</div><div style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large">
</div><div style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large">He recommended a January 2014 planning call. Jon Entine of the Genetic Literacy Project stepped up to take the lead, and mentioned he had “gotten a personal pledge of $100,000 from a private business person if we can get” (the rest of the line is cut off). Entine also has a connection to the Institute for Food Technologists; he spoke about “anti-food activism” at IFT’s 2012 annual meeting.</div><div style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large">
</div><div style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large">Another person mentioned in the Monsanto emails, Karl Haro von Mogel – who had discussed with Sachs “the downsides of a film funded by the ‘Big 6’” and suggested “what would matter more than their money is their participation” – was interviewed in Food Evolution, and was also involved in filming one scene, which suggests some behind the scenes coordination with the filmmakers.</div><div style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large">
</div><div style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large">In reaction to the emails, Kennedy wrote on Twitter: “@foodevomovie has had ZERO $ or INPUT from #Monsanto. We are fully transparent & happy 2 have fact-based dialogue.”</div><div style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large">
</div><div style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large">He said in an interview, “that email exchange had absolutely nothing to do with our project whatsoever … we hadn’t even committed to making the film with IFT at that date in 2013.”</div><div style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large">
</div><div style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large">The people in the email exchange were not involved in filming or advising, he said, and Karl Haro von Mogel “was a subject in the film and had no involvement or influence on any creative/editorial decisions on the film at any point in the production. Also it may be useful to point out that the email conversation you reference occurred long before we ever even knew Karl or any of these people.”</div><div style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large">
</div><div style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large">Sneak Peek Behind the Scenes</div><div style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large">
</div><div style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large">Another email exchange obtained by US Right to Know offers a peek behind the scenes at the narrative development in Food Evolution. The exchange depicts Kennedy’s search for examples to feature for “us/developing world need GMO.”</div><div style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large">
</div><div style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large">“Any other ‘us/developing world need GMO’ you can give me names of aside from oranges? Shintakus lettuce?” Kennedy asked. Producer Trace Sheehan responded with a list of GMO products including drought-tolerant rice, allergy-free peanuts, carcinogen-free potatoes … “and then button with Golden Rice.”</div><div style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large">
</div><div style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large">When Kennedy pushed for “the top GMO crops currently in use, and what countries,” Mark Lynas of the Cornell Alliance for Science wrote, “Really Bt brinjal in Bangladesh is the only one that is truly GMO in and is in widespread operation.”</div><div style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large">
</div><div style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large">The film’s frame-driven reporting ignores that detail about the lack of operational GMO solutions, and doesn’t mention that the closer example, vitamin-A enhanced Golden Rice, still isn’t available despite huge investments and years of trials, because it doesn’t work as well in the field as existing rice strains.</div><div style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large">
</div><div style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large">What is propaganda?</div><div style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large">
</div><div style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large">In a scene that is supposed to convey scientific credibility, Food Evolution flashes the logo of the American Council on Science and Health at the very moment Neil deGrasse Tyson says there is a global consensus on the safety of GMOs. It’s a fitting slip. ASCH is a corporate front group closely aligned with Monsanto.</div><div style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large">
</div><div style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large">The ACSH logo scene also appears in the background in this 2-minute clip from a recent Climate One debate, as Kennedy pushed back against the suggestion that his film is propaganda.</div><div style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large">
</div><div style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large">“How do we determine what is propaganda?” Kennedy asked. “I say one of the ways we do it is (to ask), are results asked for, or results promised? I was not asked for results and I did not promise results. If you have a problem with the film, the problem lies with me.”</div><div style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large">
</div><div style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large">This review originally appeared in Huffington Post and has been reprinted in Alternet. </div><div style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large">
</div><div style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large">See also: Stacy Malkan’s follow-up article, Neil deGrasse Tyson Owes Fans a More Honest Conversation About GMOs than Food Evolution. “Interviews with several other GMO critics who appear in the film, or were asked to be in it, corroborate the picture of a strange process involving sneaky filming, selective editing, misrepresentation and lack of disclosure about the film’s funding.”</div><div style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large">
</div><div style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"> Food For Thought, GMOs   Alison Van Eenennaam, American Council on Science and Health, Cindy Stewart, Cornell Alliance for Science, CropLife America, Dupont, Eric Sachs, Food Evolution, Genetic Literacy Project, GMO, Institute for Food Technologists, Janet Collins, Jon Entine, Karl Haro von Mogel, Mark Lynas, Monsanto, Neil deGrasse Tyson, Pamela Ronald, Robb Fraley, Scott Hamilton Kennedy, Trace Sheehan, UC Davis</div><div style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large">...</div>=820</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">=</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Six_Degrees:Our_Future_on_a_Hotter_Planet">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Six_Degrees:Our_Future_on_a_Hotter_Planet</a></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style=""><div id="mw-content-text" lang="en" dir="ltr" class="mw-content-ltr" style="direction: ltr;"><div class="mw-parser-output" style="">Six Degrees: Our Future on a Hotter Planet (358 pages), <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISBN(identifier)" class="mw-redirect" title="ISBN (identifier)" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">ISBN</a> <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:BookSources/978-0-00-720905-7" title="Special:BookSources/978-0-00-720905-7" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">978-0-00-720905-7</a> is a 2007 (2008 in USA) <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-fiction" class="mw-redirect" title="Non-fiction" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">non-fiction</a> book by author <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Lynas" title="Mark Lynas" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Mark Lynas</a> about <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_warming" title="Global warming" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">global warming</a>. The book looks and attempts to summarize results from scientific papers on <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_change" class="mw-redirect" title="Climate change" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">climate change</a>.<div id="toc" class="toc" role="navigation" aria-labelledby="mw-toc-heading" style="background-color: rgb(248, 249, 250); border: 1px solid rgb(162, 169, 177); padding: 7px; display: table;"><input type="checkbox" role="button" id="toctogglecheckbox" class="toctogglecheckbox" style="direction: ltr; position: absolute; opacity: 0; z-index: -1; display: none;" /><div class="toctitle" lang="en" dir="ltr" style="text-align: center; direction: ltr;"><h2 id="mw-toc-heading" style="margin: 1em 0px 0.25em; padding: 0px; overflow: hidden; border: 0px; line-height: 1.3; display: inline;">Contents</h2><label class="toctogglelabel" for="toctogglecheckbox" style="cursor: pointer;" /></div><ul style="list-style-image: none; margin: 0.3em 0px; padding: 0px; list-style-type: none;"><li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-1" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Six_Degrees:Our_Future_on_a_Hotter_Planet#Contents" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">1Contents</a></li><li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-2" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Six_Degrees:Our_Future_on_a_Hotter_Planet#TV_show" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">2TV show</a></li><li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-3" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Six_Degrees:Our_Future_on_a_Hotter_Planet#2020_Update" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">32020 Update</a></li><li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-4" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Six_Degrees:Our_Future_on_a_Hotter_Planet#See_also" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">4See also</a></li><li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-5" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Six_Degrees:Our_Future_on_a_Hotter_Planet#References" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">5References</a></li><li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-6" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Six_Degrees:Our_Future_on_a_Hotter_Planet#External_links" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">6External links</a></li></ul></div><h2 style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 1em 0px 0.25em; padding: 0px; overflow: hidden; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(162, 169, 177); font-weight: normal; line-height: 1.3;">Contents[<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Six_Degrees:Our_Future_on_a_Hotter_Planet&action=edit&section=1" title="Edit section: Contents" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none; white-space: nowrap;">edit</a>]</h2>The first chapter describes the expected <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Effects_of_global_warming" title="Effects of global warming" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">effects of climate change</a> with one <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Celsius" title="Celsius" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">degree celsius</a> (1 °C) increase in average global temperature since <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pre-industrial" class="mw-redirect" title="Pre-industrial" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">pre-industrial</a> times.The second chapter describes the effects of two degrees average temperature and so forth until Chapter 6 which shows the expected effects of an increase of six Celsius degrees (6 °C) average global temperature. The effects are also compared to <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paleoclimatology" title="Paleoclimatology" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">paleoclimatic</a> studies, with six degrees of warming compared back to the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cretaceous" title="Cretaceous" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Cretaceous</a>.[<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Citation_needed" title="Wikipedia:Citation needed" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">citation needed</a>]Special coverage is given to the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Positive_feedback" title="Positive feedback" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">positive feedback</a> mechanisms that could <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abrupt_climate_change" title="Abrupt climate change" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">dramatically accelerate climate change</a>. The book explains how the release of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methane_hydrate" class="mw-redirect" title="Methane hydrate" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">methane hydrate</a> and the release of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methane" title="Methane" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">methane</a> from melting <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Permafrost" title="Permafrost" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">permafrost</a> could unleash a major <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extinction_event" title="Extinction event" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">extinction event</a>. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_cycle" title="Carbon cycle" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Carbon cycle</a> feedbacks, the demise of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coral" title="Coral" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">coral</a>, the destruction of the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amazon_rainforest" title="Amazon rainforest" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Amazon rainforest</a>, and extreme <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desertification" title="Desertification" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">desertification</a> are also described, with five or six degrees of warming potentially leading to the complete <a href="https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/uninhabitable" class="extiw" title="wikt:uninhabitable" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">uninhabitability</a> of the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tropics" title="Tropics" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">tropics</a> and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subtropics" title="Subtropics" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">subtropics</a>, as well as extreme <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_scarcity" title="Water scarcity" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">water</a> and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_shortage" class="mw-redirect" title="Economic shortage" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">food shortages</a>, possibly leading to <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_migration" title="Mass migration" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">mass migration</a> of billions of people.<h2 style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 1em 0px 0.25em; padding: 0px; overflow: hidden; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(162, 169, 177); font-weight: normal; line-height: 1.3;">TV show[</h2>A <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Geographic_Channel" class="mw-redirect" title="National Geographic Channel" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">National Geographic Channel</a> TV programme,"Six Degrees Could Change The World"<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Six_Degrees:Our_Future_on_a_Hotter_Planet#cite_note-1" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[1]</a> was produced after the book won the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Society_Prizes_for_Science_Books" title="Royal Society Prizes for Science Books" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Royal Society Prize</a> in 2008.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Six_Degrees:Our_Future_on_a_Hotter_Planet#cite_note-2" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[2]</a><h2 style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 1em 0px 0.25em; padding: 0px; overflow: hidden; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(162, 169, 177); font-weight: normal; line-height: 1.3;">2020 Update[</h2>In April 2020, the author published a rewritten and updated version of the book: Our Final Warning: Six Degrees of Climate Emergency (<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISBN(identifier)" class="mw-redirect" title="ISBN (identifier)" style="background: none; text-decoration-line: none;">ISBN</a> <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:BookSources/978-0008308551" title="Special:BookSources/978-0008308551" style="background: none; text-decoration-line: none;">978-0008308551</a>).<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Six_Degrees:Our_Future_on_a_Hotter_Planet#cite_note-3" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[3]</a><h2 style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 1em 0px 0.25em; padding: 0px; overflow: hidden; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(162, 169, 177); font-weight: normal; line-height: 1.3;">See also[</h2><ul style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); list-style-image: url(" w="w" skins="skins" vector="Vector" resources="resources" skins.vector.styles="skins.vector.styles" images="images" bullet-icon.svg="bullet-icon.svg" d4515="d4515" margin="margin" em="em" px="px" padding="padding"><li style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Age_of_Stupid" title="The Age of Stupid" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">The Age of Stupid</a></li><li style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_migrant" title="Environmental migrant" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Environmental migrant</a></li><li style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tipping_point(climatology)" class="mw-redirect" title="Tipping point (climatology)" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Tipping point (climatology)</a></li><li style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_issues_with_coral_reefs" title="Environmental issues with coral reefs" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Environmental issues with coral reefs</a></li></ul><h2 style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 1em 0px 0.25em; padding: 0px; overflow: hidden; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(162, 169, 177); font-weight: normal; line-height: 1.3;">References[<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Six_Degrees:Our_Future_on_a_Hotter_Planet&action=edit&section=5" title="Edit section: References" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none; white-space: nowrap;">edit</a>]</h2><div class="reflist" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-bottom: 0.5em; list-style-type: decimal;"><div class="mw-references-wrap"><ol class="references" style="margin: 0.3em 0px 0px 3.2em; padding: 0px; list-style-image: none; counter-reset: mw-ref-extends-parent 0 list-item 0; list-style-type: inherit;"><li id="cite_note-1" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em; counter-increment: mw-ref-extends-parent 1; counter-reset: mw-ref-extends-child 0;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Six_Degrees:Our_Future_on_a_Hotter_Planet#cite_ref-1" aria-label="Jump up" title="Jump up" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">^{</a> }<a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R_pb1G2wIoA" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: url(" w="w" skins="skins" vector="Vector" resources="resources" skins.vector.styles="skins.vector.styles" images="images" external-link-ltr-icon.svg="external-link-ltr-icon.svg" b4b84="b4b84" right="right" center="center" no-repeat="no-repeat" padding-right="padding-right" px="px">Six degrees could change the world</a> on <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/YouTube" title="YouTube" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">YouTube</a></li><li id="cite_note-2" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em; counter-increment: mw-ref-extends-parent 1; counter-reset: mw-ref-extends-child 0;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Six_Degrees:Our_Future_on_a_Hotter_Planet#cite_ref-2" aria-label="Jump up" title="Jump up" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">^{</a> }<cite class="citation web cs1" style="font-style: inherit; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="https://royalsociety.org/awards/science-books/all-shortlisted/" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: url(" w="w" skins="skins" vector="Vector" resources="resources" skins.vector.styles="skins.vector.styles" images="images" external-link-ltr-icon.svg="external-link-ltr-icon.svg" b4b84="b4b84" right="right" center="center" no-repeat="no-repeat" padding-right="padding-right" px="px">"Shortlisted entries"</a>. royalsociety.org. The <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Society" title="Royal Society" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Royal Society</a>. Retrieved 2014-04-11.</cite><span title="ctx_ver=Z39.88-2004&rft_val_fmt=info%3Aofi%2Ffmt%3Akev%3Amtx%3Ajournal&rft.genre=unknown&rft.jtitle=royalsociety.org&rft.atitle=Shortlisted+entries&rft_id=https%3A%2F%2Froyalsociety.org%2Fawards%2Fscience-books%2Fall-shortlisted%2F&rfr_id=info%3Asid%2Fen.wikipedia.org%3ASix+Degrees%3A+Our+Future+on+a+Hotter+Planet" class="Z3988" /></li><li id="cite_note-3" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em; counter-increment: mw-ref-extends-parent 1; counter-reset: mw-ref-extends-child 0;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Six_Degrees:Our_Future_on_a_Hotter_Planet#cite_ref-3" aria-label="Jump up" title="Jump up" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">^{</a> }<a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="https://www.marklynas.org/2020/06/new-book-our-final-warning-six-degrees-of-climate-emergency/" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: url(" w="w" skins="skins" vector="Vector" resources="resources" skins.vector.styles="skins.vector.styles" images="images" external-link-ltr-icon.svg="external-link-ltr-icon.svg" b4b84="b4b84" right="right" center="center" no-repeat="no-repeat" padding-right="padding-right" px="px">Book announcement/promotion</a> (independent source needed)</li></ol></div></div><h2 style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 1em 0px 0.25em; padding: 0px; overflow: hidden; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(162, 169, 177); font-weight: normal; line-height: 1.3;">External links[<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Six_Degrees:Our_Future_on_a_Hotter_Planet&action=edit&section=6" title="Edit section: External links" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none; white-space: nowrap;">edit</a>]</h2><ul style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); list-style-image: url(" w="w" skins="skins" vector="Vector" resources="resources" skins.vector.styles="skins.vector.styles" images="images" bullet-icon.svg="bullet-icon.svg" d4515="d4515" margin="margin" em="em" px="px" padding="padding"><li style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20070313192347/http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/science/article1480669.ece" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: url(" w="w" skins="skins" vector="Vector" resources="resources" skins.vector.styles="skins.vector.styles" images="images" external-link-ltr-icon.svg="external-link-ltr-icon.svg" b4b84="b4b84" right="right" center="center" no-repeat="no-repeat" padding-right="padding-right" px="px">What will climate change do to our planet?</a>, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sunday_Times" title="The Sunday Times" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">The Sunday Times</a>, March 11, 2007. Summary of some of the book's key scenarios.</li><li style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2007/apr/23/scienceandnature.climatechange" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: url(" w="w" skins="skins" vector="Vector" resources="resources" skins.vector.styles="skins.vector.styles" images="images" external-link-ltr-icon.svg="external-link-ltr-icon.svg" b4b84="b4b84" right="right" center="center" no-repeat="no-repeat" padding-right="padding-right" px="px">Six steps to hell</a>, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Guardian" title="The Guardian" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">The Guardian</a>, 23 April 2007. Summary article by the book's author.</li><li style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><cite class="citation web cs1" style="font-style: inherit; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/Lyna" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: url(" w="w" skins="skins" vector="Vector" resources="resources" skins.vector.styles="skins.vector.styles" images="images" external-link-ltr-icon.svg="external-link-ltr-icon.svg" b4b84="b4b84" right="right" center="center" no-repeat="no-repeat" padding-right="padding-right" px="px">"After Words interview with Lynas on Six Degrees, March 15, 2008"</a>. c-spanvideo.org. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C-SPAN_Video_Library" title="C-SPAN Video Library" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">C-SPAN Video Library</a>. February 5, 2008. Retrieved August 10, 2016.</cite><span title="ctx_ver=Z39.88-2004&rft_val_fmt=info%3Aofi%2Ffmt%3Akev%3Amtx%3Ajournal&rft.genre=unknown&rft.jtitle=c-spanvideo.org&rft.atitle=After+Words+interview+with+Lynas+on+Six+Degrees%2C+March+15%2C+2008&rft.date=2008-02-05&rft_id=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.c-spanvideo.org%2Fprogram%2FLyna&rfr_id=info%3Asid%2Fen.wikipedia.org%3ASix+Degrees%3A+Our+Future+on+a+Hotter+Planet" class="Z3988" /></li></ul></div></div><div id="catlinks" class="catlinks" data-mw="interface" style="background-color: rgb(248, 249, 250); border: 1px solid rgb(162, 169, 177); padding: 5px; margin-top: 1em; clear: both;"><div id="mw-normal-catlinks" class="mw-normal-catlinks"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help:Category" title="Help:Category" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Categories</a>: <ul style="list-style: none none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; display: inline;"><li style="margin: 0.125em 0px; display: inline-block; line-height: 1.25em; border-left: 0px; padding: 0px 0.5em 0px 0.25em;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:2007_non-fiction_books" title="Category:2007 non-fiction books" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">2007 non-fiction books</a></li><li style="margin: 0.125em 0px; display: inline-block; line-height: 1.25em; border-left: 1px solid rgb(162, 169, 177); padding: 0px 0.5em;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:2007_in_the_environment" title="Category:2007 in the environment" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">2007 in the environment</a></li><li style="margin: 0.125em 0px; display: inline-block; line-height: 1.25em; border-left: 1px solid rgb(162, 169, 177); padding: 0px 0.5em;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Climate_change_books" title="Category:Climate change books" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Climate change books</a></li><li style="margin: 0.125em 0px; display: inline-block; line-height: 1.25em; border-left: 1px solid rgb(162, 169, 177); padding: 0px 0.5em;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Climate_change_films" title="Category:Climate change films" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Climate change films</a></li><li style="margin: 0.125em 0px; display: inline-block; line-height: 1.25em; border-left: 1px solid rgb(162, 169, 177); padding: 0px 0.5em;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Documentary_films_about_global_warming" title="Category:Documentary films about global warming" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Documentary films about global warming</a></li><li style="margin: 0.125em 0px; display: inline-block; line-height: 1.25em; border-left: 1px solid rgb(162, 169, 177); padding: 0px 0.5em;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:National_Geographic_Channel_original_programming" title="Category:National Geographic Channel original programming" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">National Geographic Channel original programming</a></li></ul></div></div></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a href="https://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/06/13/a-film-presses-the-climate-and-security-case-for-nuclear-energy/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">https://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/06/13/a-film-presses-the-climate-and-security-case-for-nuclear-energy/</a></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><p class="story-body-text" itemprop="articleBody" times="times" new="new" roman="roman" serif="serif" max-width="max-width" px="px" color="color" rgb="rgb" style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 1.4375rem;">“<a title="Nuclear power documentary Pandora's Promise" href="https://www.pandoraspromise.com/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">Pandora’s Promise</a>” is a provocative and important new documentary making the case for nuclear power as a safe and large-scale substitute for fossil fuels. There’s a flaw in the film’s approach that undercuts its mission, but I still see it as vital viewing and a refreshing new direction in a tired old battle over the shape of America’s energy future.<p class="story-body-text" itemprop="articleBody" times="times" new="new" roman="roman" serif="serif" max-width="max-width" px="px" color="color" rgb="rgb" style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 1.4375rem;">The film, which opened in New York City Wednesday night and expands to <a href="https://pandoraspromise.com/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">15 cities on Friday</a>, was bound to generate strong reactions among people long opposed to this energy source. In a discussion that I moderated after <a href="https://www.riverkeeper.org/news-events/events/other-events/film-screening-of-pandoras-promise-at-jacob-burns/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">a screening Monday night</a> at the Jacob Burns Film Center in Pleasantville, N.Y., <a title="Robert F. Kennedy Jr." href="https://www.law.pace.edu/faculty/robert-f-kennedy-jr" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.</a>, flatly told the director, <a href="https://robertstoneproductions.com/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">Robert Stone</a>, that the film was an “elaborate hoax” and a “big lie."<p class="story-body-text" itemprop="articleBody" times="times" new="new" roman="roman" serif="serif" max-width="max-width" px="px" color="color" rgb="rgb" style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 1.4375rem;">what’s fascinating is that not all foes of nuclear energy are in attack mode. A case in point is <a title="Terry Tempest Williams" href="https://www.coyoteclan.com/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">Terry Tempest Williams</a>, a cancer survivor, anti-nuclear campaigner and ferociously expressive writer on nature and human nature. In The Nation this week, she engaged in a long and fascinating dialogue on the film with <a href="https://markhertsgaard.com/can-nuclear-power-save-the-climate/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">Mark Hertsgaard</a>, a journalist echoing Kennedy’s derisive view. You can read a pivotal excerpt from Williams’s take below. In the magazine, she criticizes Stone for the film’s dismissive treatment of critics of the nuclear industry (I concur) but still calls the film “compelling” (I concur).<p class="story-body-text" itemprop="articleBody" times="times" new="new" roman="roman" serif="serif" max-width="max-width" px="px" color="color" rgb="rgb" background-color="background-color" style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 1.4375rem;"><p class="story-body-text" itemprop="articleBody" times="times" new="new" roman="roman" serif="serif" max-width="max-width" px="px" color="color" rgb="rgb" style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 1.4375rem;">The film, like a host of documentaries these days — from “<a href="https://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/06/21/a-muckraker-targets-onshore-drilling/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">Gasland</a>” to “<a href="https://asiasociety.org/video/policy/cove-discussion-louie-psihoyos" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">The Cove</a>” — has a strong point of view and pulls no punches. It centers on a Greek chorus of liberal greens who’ve come around to embracing the atom, including <a href="https://longnow.org/people/board/sb1/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">Stewart Brand</a>, the author of “<a href="https://www.wholeearth.com/issue-electronic-edition.php?iss=1010" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">Whole Earth Catalog</a>” and “<a href="https://e360.yale.edu/feature/stewart_brands_strange_trip_whole_earth_to_nuclear_power/2227/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">Whole Earth Discipline</a>,” and <a href="https://www.marklynas.org/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">Mark Lynas</a>, the British environmental writer who wrote a popular global warming book, “<a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/Six_Degrees.html?id=QjGIP8cU8_AC" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Six Degrees</a>,” and “<a href="https://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011/jul/20/mark-lynas-god-species-review" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The God Species</a>.”</div>=http://ecowatch.com/2013/11/08/3-claims-pro-nuclear-film-pandoras-promise/
By Denise RobbinsCNN aired the pro-nuclear power film Pandora’s Promise last night, which propagated three <a href="http://mediamatters.org/research/2013/11/07/myths-and-facts-about-nuclear-power/196793" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">common myths</a> about <a href="http://ecowatch.com/category/news/energy-news/nuclear-energy-energy/" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">nuclear</a> power: it suggested the environmental movement’s “scare tactics” are what has inhibited nuclear power, claimed nuclear power is cheaper than <a href="http://ecowatch.com/category/renewable-business/" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">renewables</a> and downplayed complications from nuclear waste. This led to a generally one-sided story, which has led to <a href="http://grist.org/climate-energy/some-thoughts-on-pandoras-promise-and-the-nuclear-debate/" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">criticism</a> from many reviewers.Here’s how the film Pandora’s Promise propagated nuclear power myths:1. Claimed Nuclear Energy Is Cheaper Than Renewable EnergyThe enormous cost of building nuclear power plants is a key inhibiting factor for the energy source. Despite receiving <a href="http://mediamatters.org/research/2013/11/07/myths-and-facts-about-nuclear-power/196793#cost" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: color 0.2s linear 0s; background: transparent;">immensely greater</a> subsidies than renewable energy from the beginning of its development, nuclear energy is still not competitive with fossil fuels in the U.S., and new wind energy is estimated to be <a href="http://mediamatters.org/research/2013/11/07/myths-and-facts-about-nuclear-power/196793#cost" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: color 0.2s linear 0s; background: transparent;">less expensive</a> than new nuclear generation. Yet the Breakthrough Institute’s Michael Shellenberger asserted that nuclear power is “a much more economical alternative to very expensive solar panels or very expensive wind turbines that require backup power.” He also dismissed renewable energy and energy efficiency, one of the <a href="http://mediamatters.org/research/2013/08/01/myths-and-facts-about-energy-efficiency/195171#benefits" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">cheapest</a> ways to address climate change, as a “<a href="http://mediamatters.org/embed/clips/2013/11/08/32831/cnn-pandoraspromise-11082013-renewable" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">religion</a>.”Renewable energy prices have actually been dropping while the costs of nuclear are <a href="http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2011/04/06/207833/does-nuclear-power-have-a-negative-learning-curve/" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: color 0.2s linear 0s; background: transparent;">on the rise</a>—as nuclear power has scaled up in France and the U.S., so have the costs of power plant construction. Meanwhile, solar prices have dropped <a href="http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2013/10/06/2717791/cost-pv-cells-solar-power-grid-parity/" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: color 0.2s linear 0s; background: transparent;">99 percent</a> in the last quarter century, and solar and wind energies are <a href="http://cleantechnica.com/2013/08/30/solar-and-wind-power-to-be-cost-competitive-without-subsidies-by-2025-according-to-new-study-from-the-national-renewable-energy-laboratory/" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: color 0.2s linear 0s; background: transparent;">predicted</a> to be cost-competitive with fossil fuels—without the use of subsidies—by 2025.2. Blamed Environmentalists For Preventing Nuclear DeploymentPandora’s Promise focused on opposition to nuclear power from some in the environmental movement. In the film, author Mark Lynas even compared anti-nuclear activists to global warming deniers. However, this narrative paints a misleading picture: the lack of nuclear expansion in the U.S. comes down to a simple case of economics. Currently, nuclear power <a href="http://mediamatters.org/research/2013/11/07/myths-and-facts-about-nuclear-power/196793#environmentalists" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">cannot compete</a> with gas-fired power. As the libertarian Cato Institute’s Jerry Taylor <a href="http://mediamatters.org/research/2013/11/07/myths-and-facts-about-nuclear-power/196793#environmentalists" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">explained</a> that there’s “zero evidence” that environmental opposition is preventing new nuclear power plants, a myth that he said has been purported by nuclear advocates who “like to dodge the cost estimates.”3. Whitewashed The Issue Of Nuclear WasteAlthough nuclear power has potential to become a major power source, it comes with baggage. The U.S. has accumulated more than <a href="http://www.nbcnews.com/id/42219616/#.UnvRhvl4zKc" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: color 0.2s linear 0s; background: transparent;">70,000 metric tons</a> of spent nuclear fuel, and continues to accumulate  2,200 tons per year, yet CNN’s documentary made light of this waste—Lynas claimed that nuclear waste is “not an environmental issue.”The Associated Press <a href="http://mediamatters.org/research/2013/11/07/myths-and-facts-about-nuclear-power/196793#risk" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: color 0.2s linear 0s; background: transparent;">reported</a> that the nation “has no place to permanently store the material, which stays dangerous for tens of thousands of years.” Most of this waste currently “sits in water-filled cooling pools like those at the Fukushima Dai-ichi” at the power plants themselves, some of which “contain four times the amount of spent fuel that they were designed to handle.”The film also failed to mention leaks that currently challenge the upstate New York power plant, Indian Point. According to the <a href="http://www.ucsusa.org/" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">Union of Concerned Scientists</a>, the plant <a href="http://www.ucsusa.org/nuclear_power/nuclear_power_risk/safety/ltr-to-nrc-on-leak-at-indian-point-u2.html%20" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">experiences</a> consistent leaks during refueling, though the Nuclear Regulatory Commission did not act on this. The scientists <a href="http://www.ucsusa.org/nuclear_power/nuclear_power_risk/safety/ltr-to-nrc-on-leak-at-indian-point-u2.html%20" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">called</a> the status quo of nuclear waste cleanup “untenable,” yet CNN’s documentary barely glossed over this ongoing issue.Visit EcoWatch’s <a href="http://ecowatch.com/p/energy/nuclear-energy-energy/" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: color 0.2s linear 0s; background: transparent;">NUCLEAR</a> page for more related news on this topic.cited in shiva nyer hit:
Next up as a prosecution witness is Mark Lynas, who Specter describes

as a repentant ex-opponent of biotechnology. Speaking before the Oxford

Farming Conference a while back, he said, “For the record, here and up

front, I apologize for having spent several years ripping up G.M. crops.

I am also sorry that I . . . assisted in demonizing an important

technological option which can be used to benefit the environment.”

Before his conversion, Lynas was identified by EuropeBio as a leading

candidate for a campaign they were mounting in defense of GM crops.

This is an industry coalition that includes Monsanto, Bayer, Dow, BASF,

Eli Lilly, and Dupont—a rogue’s gallery of biotechnology. Lynas claims

that they never made contact with him but at least they figured out that

he was their kind of guy. To give you an idea of his other credentials

on Green issues, he is a fan of nuclear power. Lyman was a featured

interviewee on the British Channel 4’s documentary “<a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/earthnews/8108090/What-the-Green-Movement-Got-Wrong-A-turncoat-explains.html">What the Green Movement Got Wrong</a>”

that aired in 2010. He told Telegraph readers where he was coming from:

“The documentary follows me as I visit Chernobyl, site of the world’s

worst nuclear disaster, and discover that wildlife in the area is

thriving, and that the effects of the radioactive contamination on

people are much less serious than previously thought.” If this guy is

speaking in the name of the Greens, we have to find another

color—rapidly....
srcwtch<div id="mw-content-text" dir="ltr" class="mw-content-ltr" style="direction: ltr; line-height: 22.4px;" lang="en">Mark Lynas is "a former anti-<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/GMOs" title="GMOs" class="mw-redirect" style="background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration: none;">GM</a> activist-turned proselytiser for biofoods."<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Mark_Lynas#cite_note-1" style="text-decoration: none; white-space: nowrap; background: none;">[1]</a><ul style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0.3em 0px 0.5em 1.6em; padding: 0px; list-style-image: url(" data:image="data:image" svg="svg" xml="xml" c="C" fxml="Fxml" version="version" d="D" encoding="encoding" utf-8="UTF-8" f="F" e="E" a="A" csvg="Csvg" http="http" fwww.w3.org="Fwww.w3.org" f2000="F2000" fsvg="Fsvg" width="width" height="height" ccircle="Ccircle" cx="cx" cy="cy" r="r" fill="fill" xmlns="xmlns" xmlns:data="data"><li style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;">Advisor, <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Artists_Project_Earth" title="Artists Project Earth" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">Artists Project Earth</a> <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Mark_Lynas#cite_note-2" style="text-decoration: none; white-space: nowrap; background: none;">[2]</a></li></ul><div id="toc" class="toc" style="background-color: rgb(249, 249, 249); border: 1px solid rgb(170, 170, 170); padding: 7px; display: table; zoom: 1;"><ul style="list-style-type: none; margin: 0.3em 0px 0.5em; padding: 0px; list-style-image: none;"><li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-1" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Mark_Lynas#Articles_and_resources" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">1 Articles and resources</a><ul style="list-style-type: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 2em; padding: 0px; list-style-image: none;"><li class="toclevel-2 tocsection-2" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Mark_Lynas#Related_SourceWatch_articles" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">1.1 Related SourceWatch articles</a></li><li class="toclevel-2 tocsection-3" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Mark_Lynas#References" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">1.2 References</a></li><li class="toclevel-2 tocsection-4" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Mark_Lynas#External_resources" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">1.3 External resources</a></li><li class="toclevel-2 tocsection-5" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Mark_Lynas#External_articles" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">1.4 External articles</a></li></ul></li></ul></div><h2 style="background: none; font-weight: normal; margin: 1em 0px 0.25em; overflow: hidden; padding: 0px; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(170, 170, 170); line-height: 1.3;">Articles and resources</h2><h3 style="background: none; margin: 0.3em 0px 0px; overflow: hidden; padding-top: 0.5em; padding-bottom: 0px; border-bottom-style: none; line-height: 1.6;">Related SourceWatch articles</h3><ul style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0.3em 0px 0.5em 1.6em; padding: 0px; list-style-image: url(" data:image="data:image" svg="svg" xml="xml" c="C" fxml="Fxml" version="version" d="D" encoding="encoding" utf-8="UTF-8" f="F" e="E" a="A" csvg="Csvg" http="http" fwww.w3.org="Fwww.w3.org" f2000="F2000" fsvg="Fsvg" width="width" height="height" ccircle="Ccircle" cx="cx" cy="cy" r="r" fill="fill" xmlns="xmlns" xmlns:data="data"><li style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Biotechnology" title="Biotechnology" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">Biotechnology</a></li><li style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Genetic_Engineering" title="Genetic Engineering" class="mw-redirect" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">Genetic Engineering</a></li></ul><h3 style="background: none; margin: 0.3em 0px 0px; overflow: hidden; padding-top: 0.5em; padding-bottom: 0px; border-bottom-style: none; line-height: 1.6;">References</h3><ol class="references" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0.3em 0px 0.5em 3.2em; padding: 0px; list-style-image: none;"><li id="cite_note-1" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Mark_Lynas#cite_ref-1" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;"><span class="cite-accessibility-label" style="top: -99999px; clip: rect(1px 1px 1px 1px); overflow: hidden; position: absolute !important; padding: 0px !important; border: 0px !important; height: 1px !important; width: 1px !important; -webkit-user-select: none;">Jump up↑</a> Gavin du Venage, "<a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.thenational.ae/thenationalconversation/industry-insights/technology/africa-modifies-its-stance-on-gm-crops" style="text-decoration: none; padding-right: 13px; background: linear-gradient(transparent, transparent) 100% 50% no-repeat, url(" data:image="data:image" svg="svg" xml="xml" c="C" fxml="Fxml" version="version" d="D" encoding="encoding" utf-8="UTF-8" f="F" e="E" csvg="Csvg" http="http" a="A" fwww.w3.org="Fwww.w3.org" f2000="F2000" fsvg="Fsvg" width="width" height="height" cg="Cg" transform="transform" translate="translate" crect="Crect" x="x" y="y" fill="fill" fff="fff" stroke="stroke" cpath="Cpath" m831.194="M831.194" h5.234v5.391l-1.571="h5.234v5.391l-1.571" z="z" m835.424="M835.424" l.022="l.022" fg="Fg" xmlns="xmlns" xmlns:data="data">Africa modifies its stance on GM crops</a>," The National, July 29, 2011, Accessed August 2, 2011.</li><li id="cite_note-2" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Mark_Lynas#cite_ref-2" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;"><span class="cite-accessibility-label" style="top: -99999px; clip: rect(1px 1px 1px 1px); overflow: hidden; position: absolute !important; padding: 0px !important; border: 0px !important; height: 1px !important; width: 1px !important; -webkit-user-select: none;">Jump up↑</a> Artists Project Earth <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.apeuk.org/who-are-we" style="text-decoration: none; padding-right: 13px; background: linear-gradient(transparent, transparent) 100% 50% no-repeat, url(" data:image="data:image" svg="svg" xml="xml" c="C" fxml="Fxml" version="version" d="D" encoding="encoding" utf-8="UTF-8" f="F" e="E" csvg="Csvg" http="http" a="A" fwww.w3.org="Fwww.w3.org" f2000="F2000" fsvg="Fsvg" width="width" height="height" cg="Cg" transform="transform" translate="translate" crect="Crect" x="x" y="y" fill="fill" fff="fff" stroke="stroke" cpath="Cpath" m831.194="M831.194" h5.234v5.391l-1.571="h5.234v5.391l-1.571" z="z" m835.424="M835.424" l.022="l.022" fg="Fg" xmlns="xmlns" xmlns:data="data">Who</a>, organizational web page, accessed April 5, 2012.</li></ol><h3 style="background: none; margin: 0.3em 0px 0px; overflow: hidden; padding-top: 0.5em; padding-bottom: 0px; border-bottom-style: none; line-height: 1.6;">External resources</h3><h3 style="background: none; margin: 0.3em 0px 0px; overflow: hidden; padding-top: 0.5em; padding-bottom: 0px; border-bottom-style: none; line-height: 1.6;">External articles</h3><ul style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0.3em 0px 0.5em 1.6em; padding: 0px; list-style-image: url(" data:image="data:image" svg="svg" xml="xml" c="C" fxml="Fxml" version="version" d="D" encoding="encoding" utf-8="UTF-8" f="F" e="E" a="A" csvg="Csvg" http="http" fwww.w3.org="Fwww.w3.org" f2000="F2000" fsvg="Fsvg" width="width" height="height" ccircle="Ccircle" cx="cx" cy="cy" r="r" fill="fill" xmlns="xmlns" xmlns:data="data"><li style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;">Gavin du Venage, "<a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.thenational.ae/thenationalconversation/industry-insights/technology/africa-modifies-its-stance-on-gm-crops" style="text-decoration: none; padding-right: 13px; background: linear-gradient(transparent, transparent) 100% 50% no-repeat, url(" data:image="data:image" svg="svg" xml="xml" c="C" fxml="Fxml" version="version" d="D" encoding="encoding" utf-8="UTF-8" f="F" e="E" csvg="Csvg" http="http" a="A" fwww.w3.org="Fwww.w3.org" f2000="F2000" fsvg="Fsvg" width="width" height="height" cg="Cg" transform="transform" translate="translate" crect="Crect" x="x" y="y" fill="fill" fff="fff" stroke="stroke" cpath="Cpath" m831.194="M831.194" h5.234v5.391l-1.571="h5.234v5.391l-1.571" z="z" m835.424="M835.424" l.022="l.022" fg="Fg" xmlns="xmlns" xmlns:data="data">Africa modifies its stance on GM crops</a>," The National, July 29, 2011.</li></ul></div><div id="catlinks" class="catlinks" style="border: 1px solid rgb(170, 170, 170); padding: 5px; margin-top: 1em; clear: both; line-height: 22.4px; background-color: rgb(249, 249, 249);"><div id="mw-normal-catlinks" class="mw-normal-catlinks"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Special:Categories" title="Special:Categories" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">Categories</a>: <ul style="list-style: none none; margin: 0px 0px 0.5em; padding: 0px; display: inline;"><li style="margin: 0.125em 0px; display: inline-block; line-height: 1.25em; border-left-style: none; padding: 0px 0.5em 0px 0.25em; zoom: 1;"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Category:Biotechnology" title="Category:Biotechnology" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">Biotechnology</a></li><li style="margin: 0.125em 0px; display: inline-block; line-height: 1.25em; border-left-width: 1px; border-left-style: solid; border-left-color: rgb(170, 170, 170); padding: 0px 0.5em; zoom: 1;"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Category:Genetically_Modified_Organisms" title="Category:Genetically Modified Organisms" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">Genetically Modified Organisms</a></li><li style="margin: 0.125em 0px; display: inline-block; line-height: 1.25em; border-left-width: 1px; border-left-style: solid; border-left-color: rgb(170, 170, 170); padding: 0px 0.5em; zoom: 1;"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Category:Agriculture" title="Category:Agriculture" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">Agriculture</a></li><li style="margin: 0.125em 0px; display: inline-block; line-height: 1.25em; border-left-width: 1px; border-left-style: solid; border-left-color: rgb(170, 170, 170); padding: 0px 0.5em; zoom: 1;"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Category:GMO_Proponents" title="Category:GMO Proponents" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">GMO Proponents</a></li></ul></div></div><h1 class="booktitle" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 21px; line-height: 19.2px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">High Tide: The Truth About Our Climate Crisis</h1><div>President Bush and his Administration have risen to the global warming challenge with responses ranging from obfuscation to pretense to outright denial...I'd like to issue each and every one of them a challenge. Come with me--see what I have seen--and try to understand what global warming really means for us and for our children. Leave Washington and travel to the places I have visited..."--From the Preface</div><div class="bookinfo_sectionwrap" style="margin-bottom: 2px; line-height: 19.2px;"><div style="margin: 0.2em 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a href="https://www.google.ca/search?tbo=p&tbm=bks&q=inauthor:%22Mark+Lynas%22" class="secondary" style="text-decoration: none;">Mark Lynas</a></div><div style="margin: 0.2em 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="margin: 0.2em 0px;">Macmillan, Jun 1, 2004 - <a class="secondary" href="https://www.google.ca/search?tbo=p&tbm=bks&q=subject:%22Nature%22&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0" style="text-decoration: none; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Nature</a> - 345 pages</div><div class="reviewaggregate hreview-aggregate" style="margin: 0.2em 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a href="https://books.google.ca/books?id=S5jTW4n7UooC&dq=Mark+Lynas&sitesec=reviews" aria-label="Average user rating - 1 star" style="text-decoration: none;"><span class="gb-star-on goog-inline-block rating" style="height: 13px; overflow: hidden; width: 13px; position: relative; display: inline-block; background: url(https://books.google.ca/googlebooks/images/stars/gb-stars-sprite-1.png) 0px -39px no-repeat;"><span class="gb-star-off goog-inline-block" style="height: 13px; overflow: hidden; width: 13px; position: relative; display: inline-block; background: url(https://books.google.ca/googlebooks/images/stars/gb-stars-sprite-1.png) 0px -26px no-repeat;"><span class="gb-star-off goog-inline-block" style="height: 13px; overflow: hidden; width: 13px; position: relative; display: inline-block; background: url(https://books.google.ca/googlebooks/images/stars/gb-stars-sprite-1.png) 0px -26px no-repeat;"><span class="gb-star-off goog-inline-block" style="height: 13px; overflow: hidden; width: 13px; position: relative; display: inline-block; background: url(https://books.google.ca/googlebooks/images/stars/gb-stars-sprite-1.png) 0px -26px no-repeat;"><span class="gb-star-off goog-inline-block" style="height: 13px; overflow: hidden; width: 13px; position: relative; display: inline-block; background: url(https://books.google.ca/googlebooks/images/stars/gb-stars-sprite-1.png) 0px -26px no-repeat;" /></a><a href="https://books.google.ca/books?id=S5jTW4n7UooC&dq=Mark+Lynas&sitesec=reviews" class="sbs-count secondary" style="text-decoration: none; white-space: nowrap; display: block;">2 Reviews</a></div><div class="plusone_sectionwrap" style="margin: 0.2em 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div id="___plusone_0" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border-style: none; float: none; line-height: normal; vertical-align: baseline; display: inline-block; width: 70px; height: 15px; background: transparent;"></div></div></div><div id="synopsis" style="padding-left: 141px; padding-right: 80px; line-height: 19.2px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div id="synopsis-window" style="height: 570px; overflow: hidden;"><div id="synopsistext" dir="ltr" class="sa">"President Bush and his Administration have risen to the global warming challenge with responses ranging from obfuscation to pretense to outright denial...I'd like to issue each and every one of them a challenge. Come with me--see what I have seen--and try to understand what global warming really means for us and for our children. Leave Washington and travel to the places I have visited..."--From the Preface

A glacier disappears high in the Peruvian Andes. Floodwaters surge across the English countryside. Ten thousand Pacific Islanders begin to evacuate their homeland. A dust storm turns day into night across the Inner Mongolian plains. These events may seem unrelated, but they are not. Even as scientists and other experts debate the specifics, climate crisis is already affecting the lives of millions.

In this ground-breaking book, Mark Lynas reveals the first evidence--collected during an epic three-year journey across five continents--about how global warming is hitting people's lives all around the world. From American hurricane chasers to Mongolian herders, from Alaskan Eskimos to South Sea islanders, Lynas's encounters and discoveries give us a stark warning about the even worse dangers that lie ahead if nothing is done.

High Tide's message is urgent and its revelations are at once shocking and inspiring--shocking as so few of us yet realize the magnitude of what’s happening, and inspiring as there is still time to avert much greater catastrophe. No one who reads this book will be able to look their children in the eyes and say "I didn’t know."

As global temperatures soar to record levels, Lynas bears witness to:

- CRIPPLING DROUGHT: China's Yellow River no longer reaches the sea for half the year, and villages across the north of the country are disappearing under advancing sand dunes

- BAKED ALASKA: Permafrost is melting, leaving houses, roads and whole forests sucked into the thawing ground. Winter is in retreat, leaving animals confused and Native Alaskan people without a livelihood

- DISAPPEARING GLACIERS: Every glaciated mountain range on Earth is experiencing massive ice losses. Montana's Glacier National Park has lost 100 glaciers in the last century; only 50 remain. Water supplies to hundreds of millions of people--from Peru to Pakistan--are threatened

- HIGH TIDES: Islanders on the tiny South Pacific nation of Tuvalu are already leaving their homeland as rising sea levels engulf their atolls. Today 70 percent of the world’s sandy shorelines are retreating; up to 90 percent of the beaches on the Eastern U.S. seaboard are eroding fast

- CATASTROPHIC FLOODS: English villagers now talk about a "wet season" rather than a winter. Heavier rainfall is now falling across the global mid-latitudes, from the continental U.S. to Russia, sparking devastating floods on an ever more frequent basis.</div></div></div>powerbase<div id="mw-content-text" dir="ltr" class="mw-content-ltr" style="direction: ltr; line-height: 19.2px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" lang="en"><table id="toc" class="toc" style="border: 1px solid rgb(170, 170, 170); padding: 5px; background-color: rgb(249, 249, 249);"><tbody><tr><td><div id="toctitle" style="direction: ltr; text-align: center;"><h2 style="margin: 0px 0px 0.6em; overflow: hidden; padding: 0px; border: none; width: auto; display: inline; background: none;">Contents</h2> [<a href="http://powerbase.info/index.php/Mark_Lynas#" class="internal" id="togglelink" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">hide</a>] </div><ul style="line-height: 1.5em; list-style-type: none; margin: 0.3em 0px; padding: 0px; list-style-image: none;"><li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-1" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="http://powerbase.info/index.php/Mark_Lynas#Background" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">1 Background</a></li><li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-2" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="http://powerbase.info/index.php/Mark_Lynas#From_anti_to_pro-nuclear" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">2 From anti to pro-nuclear</a><ul style="line-height: 1.5em; list-style-type: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 2em; padding: 0px; list-style-image: none;"><li class="toclevel-2 tocsection-3" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="http://powerbase.info/index.php/Mark_Lynas#Book" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">2.1 Book</a></li><li class="toclevel-2 tocsection-4" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="http://powerbase.info/index.php/Mark_Lynas#Pro-nuclear_film_on_BBC_ahead_of_EDF_and_UK_government_deal" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">2.2 Pro-nuclear film on BBC ahead of EDF and UK government deal</a></li></ul></li><li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-5" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="http://powerbase.info/index.php/Mark_Lynas#Publications.2C_Contact.2C_Resources_and_Notes" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">3 Publications, Contact, Resources and Notes</a><ul style="line-height: 1.5em; list-style-type: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 2em; padding: 0px; list-style-image: none;"><li class="toclevel-2 tocsection-6" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="http://powerbase.info/index.php/Mark_Lynas#Contact_Details" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">3.1 Contact Details</a></li><li class="toclevel-2 tocsection-7" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="http://powerbase.info/index.php/Mark_Lynas#Resources" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">3.2 Resources</a></li><li class="toclevel-2 tocsection-8" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="http://powerbase.info/index.php/Mark_Lynas#Notes" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">3.3 Notes</a></li></ul></li></ul></td></tr></tbody></table><h2 style="font-weight: normal; margin: 0px 0px 0.6em; overflow: hidden; padding-top: 0.5em; padding-bottom: 0.17em; border-bottom-width: 1px; border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-color: rgb(170, 170, 170); width: auto; background: none;">Background</h2>Mark Lynas and <a href="http://powerbase.info/index.php?title=Oliver_Tickell&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Oliver Tickell (page does not exist)" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">Oliver Tickell</a> are two journalists who helped draft a climate change scenario study of the <a href="http://powerbase.info/index.php/Stockholm_Network" title="Stockholm Network" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">Stockholm Network</a>.<a href="http://powerbase.info/index.php/Mark_Lynas#cite_note-0" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">[1]</a> Other authors include big oil management people (<a href="http://powerbase.info/index.php/BP" title="BP" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">BP</a> and <a href="http://powerbase.info/index.php/Shell" title="Shell" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">Shell</a>) apart from a few academics. The study claims a distance from climate sceptical research promoted by "U.S. think tanks" according to media reports on the scenario study, although the Stockholm Network itself has previously promoted climate scepticism itself.<a href="http://powerbase.info/index.php/Mark_Lynas#cite_note-1" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">[2]</a> The scenario study argues in favor of a radical departure from the political course taken so far (Kyoto) allegedly because the instruments are less effective than an alternative promoted in a "step change" scenario advocating taxation at the origin of the carbon chain. No information on distributional consequences are given, unfortunately. It is unclear who would carry the burden if this allegedly economic growth supporting alternative would be pursued, and the whole strategy may be primarily meant to help undermining the Kyoto diplomacy. Mark Lynas in any case has also written in favor of nuclear energy.<a href="http://powerbase.info/index.php/Mark_Lynas#cite_note-2" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">[3]</a><h2 style="font-weight: normal; margin: 0px 0px 0.6em; overflow: hidden; padding-top: 0.5em; padding-bottom: 0.17em; border-bottom-width: 1px; border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-color: rgb(170, 170, 170); width: auto; background: none;">From anti to pro-nuclear</h2><h3 style="margin: 0px 0px 0.3em; overflow: hidden; padding-top: 0.5em; padding-bottom: 0.17em; border-bottom-style: none; width: auto; background: none;">Book</h3>Blurb<dl style="margin-top: 0.2em; margin-bottom: 0.5em;"><dd style="line-height: 1.5em; margin-left: 1.6em; margin-bottom: 0.1em; margin-right: 0px;">Everything you thought you knew about nuclear power is wrong. This is just as well, according to Mark Lynas in Nuclear 2.0, because nuclear energy is essential to avoid catastrophic global warming. Using the latest world energy statistics Lynas shows that with wind and solar still at only about 1 percent of global primary energy, asking renewables to deliver all the world’s power is “dangerously delusional”. Moreover, there is no possibility of using less energy, he reminds us, when the developing world is fast extricating itself from poverty and adding the equivalent of a new Brazil to global electricity consumption each year. The anti-nuclear movement of the 1970s and 80s succeeded only in making the world more dependent on fossil fuels, he shows: its history is “not lit by sunshine,</dd></dl>but shrouded in coal smoke”. Instead of making the same mistake again, all those who want to see a low-carbon<h3 style="margin: 0px 0px 0.3em; overflow: hidden; padding-top: 0.5em; padding-bottom: 0.17em; border-bottom-style: none; width: auto; background: none;">Pro-nuclear film on BBC ahead of EDF and UK government deal</h3><ul style="line-height: 1.5em; list-style-type: square; margin: 0.3em 0px 0px 1.6em; padding: 0px; list-style-image: url(data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAAUAAAANCAMAAABW4lS6AAAAGXRFWHRTb2Z0d2FyZQBBZG9iZSBJbWFnZVJlYWR5ccllPAAAAAZQTFRFAFKM////QIUK9QAAAAJ0Uk5T/wDltzBKAAAAGklEQVR42mJgBAEGokgGBjBGBxBxsBqAAAMACHwALd5r8ygAAAAASUVORK5CYII=);"><li style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-24445371" style="text-decoration: none; padding-right: 13px; background: url(" data:image="data:image" png="png" base64="base64" ivborw0kggoaaaansuheugaaaaoaaaakcayaaacnms="iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAAoAAAAKCAYAAACNMs" aaaagxrfwhrtb2z0d2fyzqbbzg9izsbjbwfnzvjlywr5ccllpaaaafzjrefuef59z4ejadeiq1f36k7u5e7zkxeuqpacj3wk7unokvxvk9khnqh7by9hbdydhnxgjprlqflo4m2ggfyjhhjq8v4agfrgpqx3jtjqgbofmchga="AAAAGXRFWHRTb2Z0d2FyZQBBZG9iZSBJbWFnZVJlYWR5ccllPAAAAFZJREFUeF59z4EJADEIQ1F36k7u5E7ZKXeUQPACJ3wK7UNokVxVk9kHnQH7bY9hbDyDhNXgjpRLqFlo4M2GgfyJHhjq8V4agfrgPQX3JtJQGbofmCHgA" nakks="nAKks" jajfaaaaaelftksuqmcc="JAjFAAAAAElFTkSuQmCC" no-repeat="no-repeat" xmlns:data="data">Nuclear power support from former sceptic Mark Lynas</a>, BBC Daily Politics, 8 October 2013</li></ul>
<h2 style="font-weight: normal; margin: 0px 0px 0.6em; overflow: hidden; padding-top: 0.5em; padding-bottom: 0.17em; border-bottom-width: 1px; border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-color: rgb(170, 170, 170); width: auto; background: none;">Publications, Contact, Resources and Notes</h2><ul style="line-height: 1.5em; list-style-type: square; margin: 0.3em 0px 0px 1.6em; padding: 0px; list-style-image: url(data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAAUAAAANCAMAAABW4lS6AAAAGXRFWHRTb2Z0d2FyZQBBZG9iZSBJbWFnZVJlYWR5ccllPAAAAAZQTFRFAFKM////QIUK9QAAAAJ0Uk5T/wDltzBKAAAAGklEQVR42mJgBAEGokgGBjBGBxBxsBqAAAMACHwALd5r8ygAAAAASUVORK5CYII=);"><li style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;">Mark Lynas, Nuclear 2.0 Why Nuclear a Green Future Needs Nuclear, e-book</li></ul><h3 style="margin: 0px 0px 0.3em; overflow: hidden; padding-top: 0.5em; padding-bottom: 0.17em; border-bottom-style: none; width: auto; background: none;">Contact Details</h3><dl style="margin-top: 0.2em; margin-bottom: 0.5em;"><dd style="line-height: 1.5em; margin-left: 1.6em; margin-bottom: 0.1em; margin-right: 0px;">Website: <a rel="nofollow" class="external free" href="http://www.marklynas.org/" style="text-decoration: none; padding-right: 13px; background: url(" data:image="data:image" png="png" base64="base64" ivborw0kggoaaaansuheugaaaaoaaaakcayaaacnms="iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAAoAAAAKCAYAAACNMs" aaaagxrfwhrtb2z0d2fyzqbbzg9izsbjbwfnzvjlywr5ccllpaaaafzjrefuef59z4ejadeiq1f36k7u5e7zkxeuqpacj3wk7unokvxvk9khnqh7by9hbdydhnxgjprlqflo4m2ggfyjhhjq8v4agfrgpqx3jtjqgbofmchga="AAAAGXRFWHRTb2Z0d2FyZQBBZG9iZSBJbWFnZVJlYWR5ccllPAAAAFZJREFUeF59z4EJADEIQ1F36k7u5E7ZKXeUQPACJ3wK7UNokVxVk9kHnQH7bY9hbDyDhNXgjpRLqFlo4M2GgfyJHhjq8V4agfrgPQX3JtJQGbofmCHgA" nakks="nAKks" jajfaaaaaelftksuqmcc="JAjFAAAAAElFTkSuQmCC" no-repeat="no-repeat" xmlns:data="data">http://www.marklynas.org/</a></dd><dd style="line-height: 1.5em; margin-left: 1.6em; margin-bottom: 0.1em; margin-right: 0px;">Website:<a rel="nofollow" class="external free" href="http://www.stockholm-network.org/Conferences-and-Programmes/Energy-and-Environment/carbonscenarios" style="text-decoration: none; padding-right: 13px; background: url(" data:image="data:image" png="png" base64="base64" ivborw0kggoaaaansuheugaaaaoaaaakcayaaacnms="iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAAoAAAAKCAYAAACNMs" aaaagxrfwhrtb2z0d2fyzqbbzg9izsbjbwfnzvjlywr5ccllpaaaafzjrefuef59z4ejadeiq1f36k7u5e7zkxeuqpacj3wk7unokvxvk9khnqh7by9hbdydhnxgjprlqflo4m2ggfyjhhjq8v4agfrgpqx3jtjqgbofmchga="AAAAGXRFWHRTb2Z0d2FyZQBBZG9iZSBJbWFnZVJlYWR5ccllPAAAAFZJREFUeF59z4EJADEIQ1F36k7u5E7ZKXeUQPACJ3wK7UNokVxVk9kHnQH7bY9hbDyDhNXgjpRLqFlo4M2GgfyJHhjq8V4agfrgPQX3JtJQGbofmCHgA" nakks="nAKks" jajfaaaaaelftksuqmcc="JAjFAAAAAElFTkSuQmCC" no-repeat="no-repeat" xmlns:data="data">http://www.stockholm-network.org/Conferences-and-Programmes/Energy-and-Environment/carbonscenarios</a></dd></dl><h3 style="margin: 0px 0px 0.3em; overflow: hidden; padding-top: 0.5em; padding-bottom: 0.17em; border-bottom-style: none; width: auto; background: none;">Resources</h3><h3 style="margin: 0px 0px 0.3em; overflow: hidden; padding-top: 0.5em; padding-bottom: 0.17em; border-bottom-style: none; width: auto; background: none;">Notes</h3><ol class="references" style="line-height: 1.5em; margin: 0.3em 0px 0px 3.2em; padding: 0px; list-style-image: none;"><li id="cite_note-0" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="http://powerbase.info/index.php/Mark_Lynas#cite_ref-0" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">↑</a> Stockholm Network <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.stockholm-network.org/" style="text-decoration: none; padding-right: 13px; background: url(" data:image="data:image" png="png" base64="base64" ivborw0kggoaaaansuheugaaaaoaaaakcayaaacnms="iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAAoAAAAKCAYAAACNMs" aaaagxrfwhrtb2z0d2fyzqbbzg9izsbjbwfnzvjlywr5ccllpaaaafzjrefuef59z4ejadeiq1f36k7u5e7zkxeuqpacj3wk7unokvxvk9khnqh7by9hbdydhnxgjprlqflo4m2ggfyjhhjq8v4agfrgpqx3jtjqgbofmchga="AAAAGXRFWHRTb2Z0d2FyZQBBZG9iZSBJbWFnZVJlYWR5ccllPAAAAFZJREFUeF59z4EJADEIQ1F36k7u5E7ZKXeUQPACJ3wK7UNokVxVk9kHnQH7bY9hbDyDhNXgjpRLqFlo4M2GgfyJHhjq8V4agfrgPQX3JtJQGbofmCHgA" nakks="nAKks" jajfaaaaaelftksuqmcc="JAjFAAAAAElFTkSuQmCC" no-repeat="no-repeat" xmlns:data="data">Homepage</a>, accessed March 13, 2009</li><li id="cite_note-1" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="http://powerbase.info/index.php/Mark_Lynas#cite_ref-1" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">↑</a> Corporate Europe Observatory (CEO),<a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.corporateeurope.org/ThinkTankSurvey2006.html" style="text-decoration: none; padding-right: 13px; background: url(" data:image="data:image" png="png" base64="base64" ivborw0kggoaaaansuheugaaaaoaaaakcayaaacnms="iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAAoAAAAKCAYAAACNMs" aaaagxrfwhrtb2z0d2fyzqbbzg9izsbjbwfnzvjlywr5ccllpaaaafzjrefuef59z4ejadeiq1f36k7u5e7zkxeuqpacj3wk7unokvxvk9khnqh7by9hbdydhnxgjprlqflo4m2ggfyjhhjq8v4agfrgpqx3jtjqgbofmchga="AAAAGXRFWHRTb2Z0d2FyZQBBZG9iZSBJbWFnZVJlYWR5ccllPAAAAFZJREFUeF59z4EJADEIQ1F36k7u5E7ZKXeUQPACJ3wK7UNokVxVk9kHnQH7bY9hbDyDhNXgjpRLqFlo4M2GgfyJHhjq8V4agfrgPQX3JtJQGbofmCHgA" nakks="nAKks" jajfaaaaaelftksuqmcc="JAjFAAAAAElFTkSuQmCC" no-repeat="no-repeat" xmlns:data="data">Brussels think tanks persist in funding secrecy: ExxonMobil covertly funds EU climate skeptics</a>, December 2006, accessed March 13, 2009</li><li id="cite_note-2" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="http://powerbase.info/index.php/Mark_Lynas#cite_ref-2" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">↑</a> Mark Lynas, <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.newstatesman.com/environment/2008/09/nuclear-power-lynas-reactors" style="text-decoration: none; padding-right: 13px; background: url(" data:image="data:image" png="png" base64="base64" ivborw0kggoaaaansuheugaaaaoaaaakcayaaacnms="iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAAoAAAAKCAYAAACNMs" aaaagxrfwhrtb2z0d2fyzqbbzg9izsbjbwfnzvjlywr5ccllpaaaafzjrefuef59z4ejadeiq1f36k7u5e7zkxeuqpacj3wk7unokvxvk9khnqh7by9hbdydhnxgjprlqflo4m2ggfyjhhjq8v4agfrgpqx3jtjqgbofmchga="AAAAGXRFWHRTb2Z0d2FyZQBBZG9iZSBJbWFnZVJlYWR5ccllPAAAAFZJREFUeF59z4EJADEIQ1F36k7u5E7ZKXeUQPACJ3wK7UNokVxVk9kHnQH7bY9hbDyDhNXgjpRLqFlo4M2GgfyJHhjq8V4agfrgPQX3JtJQGbofmCHgA" nakks="nAKks" jajfaaaaaelftksuqmcc="JAjFAAAAAElFTkSuQmCC" no-repeat="no-repeat" xmlns:data="data">Why greens must learn to love nuclear power</a>, accessed March 13, 2009</li></ol></div><div id="catlinks" class="catlinks" style="border: 1px solid rgb(170, 170, 170); padding: 5px; margin-top: 1em; clear: both; line-height: 19.2px; background-color: rgb(249, 249, 249);"><div id="mw-normal-catlinks" class="mw-normal-catlinks"><a href="http://powerbase.info/index.php/Special:Categories" title="Special:Categories" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">Categories</a>: <ul style="line-height: 1.5em; list-style: none none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; display: inline;"><li style="margin: 0.125em 0px; display: inline-block; line-height: 1.25em; border-left-style: none; padding: 0px 0.5em 0px 0.25em; zoom: 1;"><a href="http://powerbase.info/index.php/Category:Climate" title="Category:Climate" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">Climate</a></li><li style="margin: 0.125em 0px; display: inline-block; line-height: 1.25em; border-left-width: 1px; border-left-style: solid; border-left-color: rgb(170, 170, 170); padding: 0px 0.5em; zoom: 1;"><a href="http://powerbase.info/index.php/Category:Climate_Change" title="Category:Climate Change" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">Climate Change</a></li><li style="margin: 0.125em 0px; 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Lynas is the author of several books on the environment, including High Tide, Six Degrees, and The God Species. His most recent publication, in July 2013, was the Kindle Single ebook Nuclear 2.0: Why a green future needs nuclear power. He is a frequent speaker around the world on climate change, biotechnology and nuclear power, and was climate change advisor to the President of the Maldives between 2009 and 2011. In October 2013 he was appointed a Visiting Fellow at Cornell University’s Office of International Programs at the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences. He is also a member of the advisory board of the science advocacy group Sense About Science, and is a member of the World Economic Forum’s Global Agenda Council on Decarbonising Energy, which focuses on sustainable energy to mitigate climate change.

Longer version:

Mark Lynas is the author of The God Species: How the Planet Can Survive the Age of Humans, published by Fourth Estate in July 2011. The UK paperback was published in February 2012 by HarperPerennial, while the US edition – The God Species – Saving the Planet in the Age of Humans – is published by National Geographic. Swedish, Dutch and other language versions are also available. He has previously written two major books on climate change – High Tide: News from a warming world (2004) and Six Degrees: Our future on a hotter planet (2007).

High Tide was longlisted for the Samuel Johnson Award for Non-Fiction, and short-listed for the Guardian First Book Award. Six Degrees was long-listed for the Orwell Prize in 2008, and won the prestigious Royal Society Prize for Science Books in the same year. Six Degrees became a TV hit for National Geographic, whose Six Degrees Could Change the World – voiced by Alec Baldwin – has been watched by tens of millions around the globe on the National Geographic Channel. The book has now been translated into 22 languages around the world.

In November 2009 Mark was appointed advisor on climate change to the President of the Maldives, Mohammed Nasheed, and was involved in the Maldives’ effort to be the first carbon neutral country on Earth by 2020, and its role in the international climate change process, until Nasheed was deposed in a military coup on 7 February 2012. His book Nuclear 2.0 was published as a Kindle Single in July 2013, topping the non-fiction sales chart for Kindle Singles in the UK.

He is a frequent speaker around the world on climate change, biotechnology and nuclear power. He has been a Visiting Research Associate at Oxford University’s School of Geography and the Environment, and is currently a member of the advisory board of the science advocacy group Sense About Science, and is vice-chair of the World Economic Forum’s Global Agenda Council on Emerging Technologies, which produces an annual top 10 list of the technologies with most potential to change the way we all live.

In October 2013 he was appointed a Visiting Fellow at Cornell University’s Office of International Programs at the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences. The responsibilities for this role include teaching on relevant Cornell courses, and advising on Cornell’s vital work on public sector biotechnology in developing countries to support environmental and food security improvements.

Mark lives in Oxford with his wife Maria and two children, Tom and Rosa. He enjoys mountaineering, horse-riding, hiking solo across Norwegian ice-caps, and Ultimate Frisbe

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<p style="margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;"><strong style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">In the final part of<span class="introtext" style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> The Repentant Environmentalist, Jonathan Matthews looks at how the <a href="http://www.spinwatch.org/index.php/issues/science/item/5450" target="_blank" title="PR" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: color 0.1s ease-in 0s; background: transparent;">bogus PR packaging</a> of Mark Lynas and his claims to have ditched ideology for hard science are part of a well established formula for attacking the environmental movement.

'For a lot of people, it was an 'Oh fuck' moment. They realised they'd been lied to, at a very profound level, by the very people they'd trusted.' That's what Mark Lynas <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2013/mar/09/mark-lynas-truth-treachery-gm" target="blank" title="Observer" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; text-decoration: none; background: transparent;">told</a> the<em style=" margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-color: transparent; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">Observer about his speech to the Oxford Farming Conference, in which he <a href="http://www.spinwatch.org/index.php/issues/science/item/5450" target="blank" title="apologised" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; text-decoration: none; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">apologised</a> for founding the anti-GM movement.

Lynas said he thought 'millions' had now seen the speech. But despite his new found celebrity, the <em style=" margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-color: transparent; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">Observer's profile painted him as a lonely figure - one of the 'few' with the courage to not just change their minds but to do so in public. He was also portrayed as if he were the victim of the environmental movement - a movement, the article said, that Lynas had been used to seeing 'as the brave, scrappy underdogs. But the more he looked, the more little David began to resemble Goliath.'

The <em style=" margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-color: transparent; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">Observer is far from alone in being entranced by the <a href="http://www.gmwatch.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=14627" target="_blank" title="narrative" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; text-decoration: none; background: transparent;">runaway narrative</a> of the environmental heretic who ditched ideology for hard science. But the portrayal of Lynas as the lone repentant environmentalist standing up to the green Goliath is in reality just the latest reincarnation of an all too familiar line of attack.

<strong style=" margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-color: transparent; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">The well trodden path

This winning formula has been exploited before in the GM debate, most obviously in the case of Patrick Moore, who ever since he was <a href="http://ngin.tripod.com/moore.htm" target="_blank" title="flown" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; text-decoration: none; background: transparent;">flown to New Zealand by the biotech industry</a> to promote GM to a Royal Commission, has helped generate countless articles about the 'Greenpeace Founder' who supports GM crops.

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Cornell gets $5.6 million to "depolarize" GMO debate

Published: 30 August 2014

GMO industry and its supporters are behind the campaign

Cornell University is embarking on a campaign to “depolarize the charged debate” around GMO – supported by a $5.6 million grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and with the GMO industry as its partners.

Pro-GM campaigner Mark Lynas is a fellow of Cornell.

http://www.marklynas.org/about/

Cornell has given him a platform to promote his pro-GMO views.

http://www.gmwatch.org/index.php/bills-test/14961

1. Is Cornell the go-to university for industry science?

2. New Cornell Alliance for Science gets $5.6 million grant

1. Is Cornell the go-to university for industry science?

By Tim Schwab

Food & Water Watch, 28 Aug 2014

http://www.foodandwaterwatch.org/blogs/is-cornell-the-go-to-university-for-industry-science/

Cornell University announced last week that it is embarking on a multi-million dollar campaign to “depolarize the charged debate” around GMOs. Can you guess who’s behind this effort? The biotech industry and its supporters.

The website for this project, the Cornell Alliance for Science, is pretty sparse, but it does note its pro-GMO partners, including the International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-biotech Applications (ISAAA), which is funded by Monsanto, CropLife, and Bayer.

This use of surrogates is par for the course with the biotech industry. Sometimes called the soft lobby, corporations routinely engage neutral-appearing scientists and impartial-sounding front groups to help advance their political and economic agendas. Food & Water Watch detailed the enormous amount of industry research coming out of our public land-grant universities in our 2012 report, Public Research, Private Gain.

Cornell is no stranger to this science-for-sale approach. Earlier this year, Cornell economist William Lesser took money from a biotech front group to produce a questionable analysis showing that GMO labeling will be very costly for consumers. While he noted that the study reflected his personal opinions, not those of Cornell, GMO supporters began publicizing the findings of “the Cornell study” in their campaign to defeat state-labeling initiatives around the country. Independent studies, meanwhile, show that GMO labeling will not increase costs significantly — and perhaps not at all.

Cornell’s newest foray into the GMO debate, the “Alliance for Science,” will add to the confusion and distortion in the public discourse around GMOs. Rather than trying to promote a civil, honest, impartial dialogue about GMOs — as you would expect from a university like Cornell — the school has chosen to partner with some of the biotechnology industry’s most prominent supporters and defenders.

Incredibly, the Cornell Alliance strenuously asserts its impartiality, calling it a “radical collaboration” of proponents and opponents of GMOs dedicated to “promot[ing] equitable access to safe, nutritious, and sustainably produced food.” Though that quote sounds an awful lot like Food & Water Watch’s mission statement, it isn’t, and we won’t be joining the alliance’s “radical collaboration.”

The role of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation in this effort should also be mentioned. Gates has awarded $5.6 million toward the Cornell Alliance, a mere drop in the ocean of the group’s pro-GMO “philanthropy”. The Foundation has tapped big names from the biotechnology industry to run its multi-billion-dollar agricultural development program, and, as Food & Water Watch showed in our report Biotech Ambassadors, Gates partners with biotech companies to develop GMOs for Africa — that African countries clearly do not want or need. The Gates Foundation has also invested tens of millions of dollars of its money into corporate agribusiness and biotech companies like Monsanto and Cargill.

At a time when the United States is clearly ready for a frank conversation about GMOs, evident in the state-level labeling ballot initiatives underway across the country, it is unfortunate that our most prominent philanthropists and universities would partner with industry to distort the public discourse. There is a vibrant scientific and public debate about the safety and necessity of GMOs in our food system that deserves a bigger public platform — sort of like what Gates and Cornell are trying to do, but without the obvious bias.

2. New Cornell Alliance for Science gets $5.6 million grant

By Stacey Shackford

Cornell Chronicle, 21 Aug 2014

http://www.news.cornell.edu/stories/2014/08/new-cornell-alliance-science-gets-56-million-grant

A new international effort led by Cornell will seek to add a stronger voice for science and depolarize the charged debate around agricultural biotechnology and genetically modified organisms (GMOs).

Supported by a $5.6 million grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the Cornell Alliance for Science will help inform decision-makers and consumers through an online information portal and training programs to help researchers and stakeholders effectively communicate the potential impacts of agricultural technology and how such technology works.

The project will involve developing multimedia resources, including videos of farmers from around the world documenting their struggles to deal with pests, diseases, crop failure and the limited resources available in the face of poverty and climate change.

“Proponents and opponents alike speculate whether biotech crops are of benefit to farmers, but rarely are those farmers engaged in the biotech discourse or their voices heard,” said Sarah Evanega, senior associate director of International Programs in Cornell’s College of Agriculture and Life Sciences (CALS), who will lead the project.

“Our goal is to depolarize the GMO debate and engage with potential partners who may share common values around poverty reduction and sustainable agriculture, but may not be well informed about the potential biotechnology has for solving major agricultural challenges,” Evanega said. “For instance, pro-biotech activists share a lot of the same anti-pesticide, low-input, sustainable-agriculture vision as the organic movement.”

Evanega and her team hope to help engage such potential partners and foster more constructive policies about biotechnology as a useful tool to address major agricultural challenges.

The grant will allow the Cornell Alliance for Science to host annual conferences, short courses and semester-long CALS certificate programs in biotechnology leadership, among other activities.

Evanega said the initial concept was informed by a February 2014 gathering at Cornell of 34 representatives from public sector and not-for-profit organizations in 12 countries that discussed a new vision for biotechnology communications.

“Like elsewhere in the world, African scientists still find it challenging to effectively inform the public about their work and its relevance to society,” said Barbara M. Zawedde, coordinator of the Uganda Biosciences Information Center at the National Agricultural Research Organization. “Our effective communication will enable African farmers and citizens to exercise their sovereign right of informed decisions on whether to adopt certain crops and technologies depending on their needs and priorities.”

In part because of its land-grant heritage, CALS regularly hosts forums and media events about various agricultural technologies and the role they could play in providing sustainable solutions to major global challenges.

“Biotechnology is a potential game-changer for farmers in less developed countries and an important tool in the toolbox for addressing global challenges, such as persistent poverty, a changing and erratic climate, and the challenge of feeding 9 billion people by 2050,” said Kathryn J. Boor, the Ronald P. Lynch Dean of CALS. “Improving agricultural biotechnology communications is a challenge that must be met if innovations developed in public sector institutions like Cornell are ever to reach farmers in their fields.”

Stacey Shackford is a writer for the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences.

==http://www.marklynas.org/2013/04/time-to-call-out-the-anti-gmo-conspiracy-theory/cornell talk (vid)I think the controversy over GMOs represents one of the greatest science communications failures of the past half-century. Millions, possibly billions, of people have come to believe what is essentially a conspiracy theory, generating fear and misunderstanding about a whole class of technologies on an unprecedentedly global scale.This matters enormously because these technologies – in particular the various uses of molecular biology to enhance plant breeding potential – are clearly some of our most important tools for addressing food security and future environmental change.I am a historian, and history surely offers us, from witch trials to eugenics, numerous examples of how when public misunderstanding and superstition becomes widespread on an issue, irrational policymaking is the inevitable consequence, and great damage is done to peoples’ lives as a result.This is what has happened with the GMOs food scare in Europe, Africa and many other parts of the world. Allowing anti-GMO activists to dictate policymaking on biotechnology is like putting homeopaths in charge of the health service, or asking anti-vaccine campaigners to take the lead in eradicating polio.[note // to rapist]I believe the time has now come for everyone with a commitment to the primacy of the scientific method and evidence-based policy-making to decisively reject the anti-GMO conspiracy theory and to work together to begin to undo the damage that it has caused over the last decade and a half.On a personal note, let me explain why I am standing here saying this. Believe me, I would much prefer to live a quieter life. However, following my apology for my former anti-GMO activism at my Oxford speech in January, I have been subject to a co-ordinated campaign of intimidation and hate, mostly via the internet.Even when I was at school I didn’t give in to bullies, and at the ripe old age of 40 I am even less inclined to do so now. Moreover, I have been encouraged by emails and other support from globally-renowned scientists who are experts on this issue, and who all said basically the same thing to me: ‘You think you’ve got hatemail? Welcome to my world’.I think these scientists are the unsung heroes of this saga. They carried on with their important work and tried year after year to fight against the rising tide of misinformation, while people like me were belittling and undermining them at every turn. I won’t mention names, but they know who they are. Some of them are here today, and I would like to give them my deepest thanks.So for me also there is also a moral dimension to this. The fact that I helped promote unfounded scare stories in the early stages of the anti-GMO movement in the mid 1990s is the reason why I now feel compelled to speak out against them. I have a personal responsibility to help put these myths to rest because I was so complicit in initially promoting them.My activism, which I wrongly thought of at the time as being ‘environmental’, has done real damage in the world. For me, apologising was therefore only the beginning. I am now convinced that many people have died unnecessarily because of mistakes that we in the environmental movement collectively made in promoting anti-GMO fear. With that on your conscience, saying sorry and then moving on is not enough. Some restitution is in order.Following a decade and a half of scientific and field research, I think we can now say with very high confidence that the key tenets of the anti-GMO case were not just wrong in points of fact but in large parts the precise opposite of the truth.This is why I use the term conspiracy theory. Populist ideas about conspiracies do not arise spontaneously in a political and historic vacuum. They result when powerful ideological narratives collide with major world events, rare occasions where even a tiny number of dedicated activists can create a lasting change in public consciousness.In the 1960s the conspiracy theories about Kennedy’s assassination reflected the profound feeling that there were shadowy people high up in the CIA and government who were subverting democracy, and fighting the Cold War by devious and deadly means. More recently, conspiracy theories about 9-11 reflected the hatred many on the political Left had for the Bush Administration.Successful conspiracy theories can do real damage. In Nigeria an outbreak of Muslim conspiracy theorising against the polio vaccination campaign there led to a renewed polio outbreak which then spread to 20 other countries just when the disease was on the brink of being entirely eradicated.In South Africa during the presidency of Thabo Mbeki the HIV/AIDS denialist myth became official government policy, just as the anti-GMO denialist myth is official European Union policy today. The result in South Africa was that hundreds of thousands of people were denied life-saving anti-retroviral treatments and died unnecessarily.The anti-GMO campaign has also undoubtedly led to unnecessary deaths. The best documented example, which is laid out in detail by Robert Paarlberg in his book ‘Starved for Science’, is the refusal of the Zambian government to allow its starving population to eat imported GMO corn during a severe famine in 2002.Thousands died because the President of Zambia believed the lies of western environmental groups that genetically modified corn provided by the World Food Programme was somehow poisonous. I have yet to hear an apology from any of the responsible Western groups for their role in this humanitarian atrocity.Friends of the Earth was one of those responsible, and I note that not only has no apology been forthcoming, but Friends of the Earth Europe is still actively promoting GMO denialism in the EU in a new campaign called Stop the Crop. Check out their Youtube video to see how they have learned nothing in ten years.Another well-known example is that of Golden Rice, genetically modified to contain high levels of beta carotene in order to compensate for the vitamin A deficiency which kills hundreds of thousands of children around the world and blinds many more every year. One study on the prospects for Golden Rice in India found that the burden of vitamin A deficiency could be reduced by 60%, saving 1.4 million healthy life years.Here the actions of Greenpeace in forestalling the use of golden rice to address micronutrient deficiencies in children makes them the moral and indeed practical equivalent of the Nigerian mullahs who preached against the polio vaccine – because they were stopping a lifesaving technology solely to flatter their own fanaticism.I think this campaign is shameful and has brought the entire environmental movement into disrepute, with damaging consequences for the very beneficial work that many environmentalists do. Greenpeace’s campaign against vitamin A-enhanced Golden Rice should therefore be cancelled, and I call on everyone concerned about children’s health to lobby Greenpeace and demand that this happens immediately and without delay.The anti-GMO campaign does not even have the benefit of intellectual coherence. If you truly think that herbicide-tolerant biotech crops are an evil plot by Monsanto to achieve a stranglehold on the entire world’s food supply, why would you also oppose all other non-patented and open-source applications of biotechnology, which have nothing to do with Monsanto, apparently without exception? This is like being against all computer software because you object to the dominant position of Microsoft Office.On a logical basis only a case by case assessment makes sense for deciding how any technology might best be applied. So if you think that Bt corn is bad for US farmers, despite all the evidence to the contrary, it shouldn’t necessarily follow that you also have to ban virus-resistant papaya, or oppose a blight-resistant potato in Ireland.This matters today more than ever because we are entering an age of increasingly threatening ecological scarcity. The planet is beginning to move outside the envelope of stable temperatures that we have enjoyed for 10,000 years, and into an age of instability and rapid change.Within just a year from now, global CO2 concentrations will break through the crucial 400 parts per million boundary, marking a change is atmospheric chemistry that is unprecedented for at least 3 million years.Moreover, we are now on a global emissions path which puts us on track for 4-5 degrees Celsius of warming by 2100, a transformation which will leave this planet barely recognisable and considerably more hostile to human and other life.But what about all those who say that global warming is a hoax, a product of thousands of scientists conspiring with governments and the UN to falsify temperature data and usher in a new age of global socialism?Well, I’ve spent more than a decade arguing with climate sceptics, and in the end I fall back on a single killer argument: that if an overwhelming majority of experts say something is true, then any sensible non-expert should assume that they are probably right.To make the point, here is the consensus position of the American Association for the Advancement of Sciences on climate change:<blockquote style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px 3em 0px 1.5em; border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); line-height: 23.04px; text-align: center;">“The scientific evidence is clear: global climate change caused by human activities is occurring now, and it is a growing threat to society. Accumulating data from across the globe reveal a wide array of effects: rapidly melting glaciers, destabilization of major ice sheets, increases in extreme weather, rising sea level, shifts in species ranges, and more. The pace of change and the evidence of harm have increased markedly over the last five years. The time to control greenhouse gas emissions is now.”</blockquote>Oh, but wait – the AAAS has also released another statement of consensus science on another area concerning us today:<blockquote style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px 3em 0px 1.5em; border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); line-height: 23.04px; text-align: center;">“The science is quite clear: crop improvement by the modern molecular techniques of biotechnology is safe… The World Health Organization, the American Medical Association, the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, the British Royal Society, and every other respected organization that has examined the evidence has come to the same conclusion: consuming foods containing ingredients derived from GM crops is no riskier than consuming the same foods containing ingredients from crop plants modified by conventional plant improvement techniques.”</blockquote>So, my suggestion today is that a sensible baseline position for environmentalists and indeed everyone else is to accept the consensus science in both these areas. Instead, you have the unedifying spectacle of so-called green groups like the Union of Concerned Scientists stoutly defending consensus science in the area of climate change, while just as determinedly undermining it in the area of biotechnology.Tellingly, the UCS utilises the exact same techniques as climate sceptics in its enduring and strikingly unscientific campaign against GMOs: it issues impressive reports based on strategic cherry-picking and only referencing its ideological allies in a kind of epistemological closed-loop, it pushes the perspective of a tiny minority of hand-picked pseudo-experts, and it tries to capture and control the public policy agenda to enforce its long-held prejudices.Many of the most influential denialists like those at the Union of Concerned Scientists sound like experts; indeed they may even be experts. Richard Dawkins tells a story about a professor of geology, who lectured and published papers about stratigraphy in hundred-million year old rocks whilst at the same time being a ‘young-earth’ creationist who really believed the world was only 6,000 years old. His pre-existing religious conviction simply overpowered his scientific evidence-based training.An even more striking example is Peter Duesberg, the leading light in the AIDS denialist movement, who is a professor of cell biology at the University of California in Berkeley.Many anti-vaccine campaigners, like Andrew Wakefield, started out as qualified medical professionals. This is why scientific consensus matters – it is the last line of defence we have against the impressive credentials and sciency-sounding language of those who are really on the lunatic fringe.Speaking of the lunatic fringe, someone else who claims scientific credentials is Vandana Shiva, probably the most prominent Indian anti-biotechnology activist, who incidentally draws much larger audiences than this one to her fiery speeches about the evils of Monsanto and all things new in agriculture. Shiva tweeted after my Oxford speech that me saying that farmers should be free to use GMO crops was like giving rapists the freedom to rape.That is obscene and offensive, but actually is not the half of it. Let me give you my all-time favourite Vandana Shiva quote, regarding the so-called terminator technology, on which she launches constant blistering attacks without once acknowledging the salient fact that it was never actually developed.<blockquote style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px 3em 0px 1.5em; font-style: italic; border-left-style: solid; border-left-width: 1px; border-left-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); line-height: 23.04px; text-align: center;">“The danger that the terminator may spread to surrounding food crops or the natural environment is a serious one. The gradual spread of sterility in seeding plants would result in a global catastrophe that could eventually wipe out higher life forms, including humans, from the planet”.</blockquote>Now, I’ve said and done some pretty stupid things in my time, but this one takes some beating. You don’t need the intelligence of a Richard Dawkins or indeed a Charles Darwin to understand that sterility is not a great selective advantage when it comes to reproduction, hence the regular observed failure of sterile couples to breed large numbers of children.As Shiva’s case so clearly shows, if we reject data-driven empiricism and evidence as the basis for identifying and solving problems, we have nothing left but vacuous ideology and self-referential myth-making. Indeed in many related areas, like nuclear power, the environmental movement has already done great harm to the planet, even as it has rightly helped raise awareness in other areas such as deforestation, pollution and biodiversity loss.Science tells us today that the coming age of ecological scarcity extends much further than just global warming. If we wish to preserve a semblance of current biodiversity on this planet, for example, we must urgently curtail agricultural land conversion in rainforest and other sensitive areas.This is why organic agriculture is an ecological dead-end: it is dramatically less efficient in terms of land use, so likely leads to higher rates of biodiversity loss overall. Maybe organic producers should be legally mandated to specify on labels the overall land-use efficiency of their products. I’m all in favour of food labelling by the way when it comes to something important that the consumer should have the right to know.Of course conventional agriculture has well-documented and major environmental failings, not least of which is the massive use of agricultural fertilisers which is destroying river and ocean biology around the world. But the flip side of this is that intensive agriculture’s extremely efficient use of land is conversely of great ecological benefit.For example, if we had tried to produce all of today’s yield using the technologies of 1960 – largely organically in other words – we would have had to cultivate an additional 3 billion hectares, the area of two South Americas.We cannot afford the luxury of romanticised but inefficient agricultural systems like organic because the planet is already maxxed out in terms of both land and water. Our only option therefore is to learn to do more with less. This is known as sustainable intensification – it’s about improving the efficiency of our most ecologically scarce resources.But remember, everything is changing. Food demand will inevitably skyrocket this half-century because of the twin pressures of population growth and economic development. We need to sustainably increase food production by at least 100% by 2050 to feed a larger and increasingly affluent global population.This is where the eco-Malthusians tend to pop up, illustrating another uncomfortable aspect of the anti-GMO philosophy. Let me share with you a rather revealing quote I read just a couple of weeks ago on Yale 360, from the US environmental writer Paul Greenberg, where he is lamenting the supposed wrongs of genetically engineered salmon. But forget the fish – when it comes to humans he says the following:<blockquote style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px 3em 0px 1.5em; font-style: italic; border-left-style: solid; border-left-width: 1px; border-left-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); line-height: 23.04px; text-align: center;">“If we continue to bend the rules of nature so that we can provide more and more food for an open-ended expansion of humans on the planet, something eventually will have to give. Would you like to live in a world of 15 billion people? 20 billion? I would not. And while it’s possible you will label my response as New Age-ish, I feel that GE food distracts us from the real question of the carrying capacity of the planet.”</blockquote>Well, I think that calling these sentiments New Age-ish is to give them far too much credit. I would actually call them misanthropic. What Greenberg seems to be suggesting here, as Paul Ehrlich did before him, is the denial of food to hungry people in order to prevent them breeding more children and contributing to overpopulation.Luckily this modern-day Malthusianism is wrong in point of fact as well as by moral implication. Firstly, the human population is never going to reach 20 billion. Instead, it is forecast to peak at 9-10 billion and then slowly decline.Secondly, although we are certainly heading for 9 billion people by mid-century, but that is not because people in poor countries are still having too many babies. The main reason is that children who are born today are much more likely to survive, and become parents themselves.It is a little-known fact that the global average fertility rate is now down to about 2.4, not far above natural replacement of 2.1. So pretty much all the increased population growth to 2050 will come from more children surviving into adulthood.And that is surely a good thing. I want to see child death rates in developing countries continue to plummet thanks to better healthcare, access to clean water and sanitation, and all the other benefits the modern world can and should bring to everyone.No doubt like all of you, I also want to see an end to the scourge of hunger which today affects more people in an absolute sense than ever before in history. It is surely an abomination that in 2013 we can all go to bed each night knowing that 900 million other people are hungry.This scourge affects children disproportionately – one third of child deaths are attributable to malnutrition. Among those who survive, nutrient deficiencies like iron, zinc and vitamin A can lead to cognitive impairment and other health problems, reducing a child’s life chances for his or her entire future.It is a truism to say that people are hungry not because there is a global shortage of food in an absolute sense, but because they are too poor to afford to eat. But it is a dangerous fallacy to suggest therefore that because the world on average has enough food, we should therefore oppose efforts to improve agricultural productivity in food insecure countries.In fact probably the best way to address rural poverty is to ensure that subsistence farmers the world over enjoy more reliable and increasingly productive harvests. This will enable them both to feed their own families and to generate a surplus to sell at a profit so their children can go to school.Is genetic modification a silver bullet way to achieve this? Of course not. It cannot build better roads or chase away corrupt officials. But surely seeds which deliver higher levels of nutrition, which protect the resulting plant against pests without the need for expensive chemical inputs, and which have greater yield resilience in drought years are least worth a try?And real-world evidence so far gives grounds for optimism. The use of Bt cotton in China has been shown to dramatically improve biodiversity, unlike broad-spectrum insecticides which kill everything, pests and predators alike. The Bt protein only affects the insects which bore into the crop, is entirely safe for us, and has led to insecticide reductions of 60% in China and 40% in India on cotton.The introduction of Bt brinjal in India, a project which I know people here in Cornell were closely involved in leading, would have dramatically reduced insecticide poisonings associated with that crop too, had the anti-GMO activists in India not succeeded in preventing its use.India today seems to be perched on a scientific knife-edge, with a vociferous lobby pushing dark-age traditionalism on the brink of permanently capturing the entire political and legal agenda. If they succeed, hundreds of millions of food-insecure Indians will be the losers.In Africa too there are a multitude of western-funded NGOs who all claim to be mysteriously protecting biodiversity by keeping cultivated plant genetic improvements permanently out of the continent. In many African countries GMOs are subject to the same kind of de-facto ban as is the case in Europe, leaving poorer farmers at the mercy of a changing climate and exhausted soils.However, a showdown is looming, because some of the most exciting biotechnology initiatives are now based in African countries. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is putting substantial funding into these efforts – such as improved maize for poorer African soils, a project which is looking to get yield increases of 50% even where fertiliser is not available or the farmer cannot afford to buy it.There’s also the public-private partnership called Water Efficient Maize for Africa, using biotech to produce drought tolerant corn specifically for African smallholders facing the challenges of a changing climate. There’s C4 rice, aiming to improve the photosynthetic capacity of rice and thereby dramatically increase yields.Another Gates-funded project is based at the John Innes Centre in the UK and aims by 2017 to have cereal crops which fix their own nitrogen available for farmers in sub-Saharan Africa. The list goes on: there’s biofortified cooking bananas in East Africa, and cassava fortified with iron, protein and vitamin A in Nigeria and elsewhere.I haven’t finished! There’s resistance to cassava brown streak disease, which is currently spreading rapidly and threatens the staple crop for two out of every five people in sub-Saharan Africa.And of course transgenic technology focused on conferring wheat rust resistance at the molecular level to head off the threat of a global pandemic which could otherwise threaten one of humanity’s most important staple foods.But if the activists have their way, none of these improved seeds will ever leave the laboratory. And this brings me, by way of conclusion, to the essentially authoritarian nature of the anti-GMO project.All these activists, strikingly few of whom are themselves smallholder farmers in Africa or India, claim to know exactly which seeds developing country farmers should be allowed to plant. Those which are not ideologically approved by self-appointed campaigners should be banned forever.The irony here is that predominantly left-wing activists, who are supposedly so concerned about corporate power, are determined to deny the right to choose to the most powerless people in the world – subsistence farmers in developing countries. In fact, this is more than an irony – it is a cruelty. And it is a cruelty which must stop, and stop now.HG Wells is often quoted as saying that civilization is a race between education and catastrophe. The New Yorker writer Michael Specter, who wrote a great book about anti-science movements called ‘Denialism’, updates this, writing that civilisation is a race between innovation and catastrophe.This is surely no more true than today, when civilisation is genuinely threatened by the twin catastrophes of climate change and ecological scarcity colliding with vastly greater food demand from a larger and wealthier population.The solution is the same one that it always was – innovation – the uniquely human capacity to produce new tools which has saved our species so many times before from apparently inevitable Malthusian collapses. Therefore if we reject innovation now of all times we make catastrophe not just likely but probably inevitable.This was indeed the warning the great Norman Borlaug left us with before he died. To quote:<blockquote style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px 3em 0px 1.5em; font-style: italic; border-left-style: solid; border-left-width: 1px; border-left-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); line-height: 23.04px; text-align: center;">“If the naysayers do manage to stop agricultural biotechnology, they might actually precipitate the famines and the crisis of global biodiversity they have been predicting for nearly 40 years.”</blockquote>In the final assessment only way that conspiracy theories die is because more and more people begin to wake up to reality and reject them. Then perhaps there comes a tipping point where what was once received wisdom becomes increasingly understood for the foolish nonsense that it always was.I think – I hope – that we are close to this tipping point today. And now, with just a little extra push, we can all join in consigning anti-GMO denialism to the dustbin of history where it belongs.- See more at: http://www.marklynas.org/2013/04/time-to-call-out-the-anti-gmo-conspiracy-theory/#sthash.gUAwaHGu.dpuf

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