'Anti-GMO claims are myths' – former anti-GMO activist Mark Lynas

[ghosthunter]

'Anti-GMO claims are myths' – former anti-GMO activist Mark Lynas
By REGINA LAYUG-ROSEROAugust 28, 2013 8:11pm


Many people spend years defending a truth they believe in. Some are willing to lay down their lives and fight what they believe is a good fight.

For British author and environmentalist Mark Lynas, that fight was against genetically modified crops. But not anymore.

Fighting against GMOs

Mark Lynas at the media discussion titled, "Meeting the Challenges of Food Security with Biotechnology," organized by SEARCA, ISAAA, and ABSP, at the Dusit Hotel in Makati on August 23. All photos from the organizers
It was in 1996 when Lynas first learned about GMOs, according to an article on The Guardian. He became a member of an organization 'loosely called' Earth First! "By the time of Earth First!'s next gathering, GMOs had 'become the next big thing," said Lynas, who led the early workshops that spread the message further. "The people who consider themselves leaders in the anti-GM movement today, I trained them."

By 1997, Lynas was participating in the destruction of GM crops, what anti-GM organizations call “direct action."

Around the time of the London May Day riots of the year 2000, which he helped organize, Lynas began to have doubts. "I thought it was a disaster. Everything we'd been trying to achieve was undermined by all the violence and window smashing. It just alienated people. Tolerance and open-mindedness were qualities that people paid lip service to but were not really valued."

Conversion

Lynas is a historian and political scientist by education, and a journalist by training. "I moved from being an activist campaigner to a science writer," he said. "I began authoring books on climate change, beginning in 2004 with a book called High Tide, then another book called Six Degrees in 2007. Both of these books were based very much on a broad reading of the scientific literature. So each one has hundreds of references, mostly to peer-reviewed scientific papers."

"I was really in the process of writing my latest book, called God Species, that I changed my mind on this issue. I was starting a chapter on agriculture which I intended to be anti-GMO, and when I looked at all of the science across the board in all of the different journals, I found that there was no factual basis for what I previously believed. So the chapter ended up being kind of pro-GMO. The more I looked into it, the more I realized that biotechnology could be a major step forward in a positive direction for the environment."

All the science-based information he found was in complete opposition with what he had believed for years.

Lynas has received recognition as a science writer. "Six Degrees was made into a film by National Geographic. I received a prize from the Royal Society for science books. I was pleased to get recognition from the scientific community but at the same time I was still making statements against GMOs which had no scientific basis."

According to Lynas, anti-GMO claims are anti-science. "This is a very clearly anti-scientific agenda which is being advanced. There is no scientific basis to any of these rumors. People have been told that GM cassava and other crops will turn them sterile, will make their children homo***uals, some kind of Western conspiracy. And so these conspiracy theories, these lies are undermining the food security of innocent people."

In a live, televised debate in 2010, he defended GMOs and nuclear power. But he truly 'came out' with the truth about his conversion early this year, when he spoke at the Oxford Farming Conference—an event he previously denounced—and apologized for his actions.

"I apologize for having spent several years ripping up GM crops. I am also sorry that I helped to start the anti-GM movement back in the mid 1990s, and that I thereby assisted in demonizing an important technological option which can be used to benefit the environment," went part of his speech.

That speech became so controversial and widely read that his website, on which he had posted the full text, crashed.

Now Lynas speaks on the importance of biotechnology for food security, especially in worldwide efforts to cope with climate change.

source: 'Anti-GMO claims are myths' – former anti-GMO activist Mark Lynas | SciTech | GMA News Online

[K.I.L.L.]

There you go. Admittedly, I don't really mind genetically modified food and with the way the human population is consuming resources, scientifically developing food production is the only way to ensure food security.

[111prez]

Open your minds and read this book: "Tomorrow's Table: Organic Farming, Genetics and the Future of Food" by Pamela C. Ronald and Raoul W. Adamchak, Oxford University Press 2008.

In fact, you can even grow GMOs organically if you wish although the carbon footprint you are creating will have ill effects elsewhere plus the land resources needed is great.

[niky]

Completely unsurprising to everyone but anti-GMO fanatics.

[badkuk]

i think one concern with GMOs is that it may get out into the wild and possibly do some unforseen ecological damage.

Pero to be practical, i don't think we can avoid this for too long. Sana lang nga, wag lang ung me human gene.

[niky]

*double post*

[niky]

i think one concern with GMOs is that it may get out into the wild and possibly do some unforseen ecological damage.

Pero to be practical, i don't think we can avoid this for too long. Sana lang nga, wag lang ung me human gene.

That happens all the time with "regular" crops.

Crops which have been obsessively bred, hybridized and cross-bred over decades, centuries and millenia.

Crops which can lead to this:

Grass linked to Texas cattle deaths - CBS News

This was originally blamed on GMO... but it's really just a "hybrid" grass cultured from "Bermuda" grass.

Regular "breeding" and "hybridization" selects for desired traits, but carries with it the danger of increasing the chances of undesired traits... like excess cyanide production.

Think about that the next time you buy US-made apples and potatoes... both of which have high "natural" levels of cyanide, and which have been obsessively "cultured" for decades in the US.

Genetic modification gives the possibility of removing cyanide content completely while selecting for desired traits such as flavor and high yield.

Despite what conspiracy theorists may claim, GMO is safer than the "natural" methods of creating new crop varieties.

[Lew_Alcindor]

i think one concern with GMOs is that it may get out into the wild and possibly do some unforseen ecological damage.

Pero to be practical, i don't think we can avoid this for too long. Sana lang nga, wag lang ung me human gene.

I'm not anti-GMO but I recognize the potential risk.
There are two schools of thought which is basically a chicken-and-egg problem.

First, is the pre-cautionary principle which basically means it is better to err on the side of caution. If there is potential problem, stop it even if it just test planting. This is what anti-GMO activists use in addition to the usual propaganda.

On the other hand, we cannot fully determine the extent of the risk (if there is any) if we do not plant it in the real farm lots.

So the problem is which should be believe. Unfortunately for those for GMO, the Court of Appeals handed a decision against field testing of GMOs.

[jodski]

Ang irony for us relating for this topic... Foreigners training at IRRI as a base step moving forward to GMO goal. Samantalang tayo may shortage pa raw ng bigas...

[niky]

And when they get permission to test (IRRI), activists burn the fields. The arseholes.

I'm not anti-GMO but I recognize the potential risk.
There are two schools of thought which is basically a chicken-and-egg problem.

First, is the pre-cautionary principle which basically means it is better to err on the side of caution. If there is potential problem, stop it even if it just test planting. This is what anti-GMO activists use in addition to the usual propaganda.

On the other hand, we cannot fully determine the extent of the risk (if there is any) if we do not plant it in the real farm lots.

So the problem is which should be believe. Unfortunately for those for GMO, the Court of Appeals handed a decision against field testing of GMOs.

It's a dirty double standard. Farmers and researchers already "experiment" with regular hybriding and breeding... with the exact same results (again, except hybriding also magnifies some unwanted traits)

This is why scientists balk at the "GMO" labelling. It's completely misleading.