On the battlefield of global warming, too many scientists have done the bidding of Greenpeace
Story submitted by Walter Donway
The world’s top scientists are upset with Greenpeace, the worldwide nonprofit organization, with an annual budget of almost a quarter-of-a-billion Euros, which started in Vancouver in 1970 to defend “nature” against human beings. I mean, by that, to oppose, at every step, mankind’s use of reason, science, technology, engineering, and industry to adapt nature to satisfying man’s needs. To Greenpeace, this made man the freak of the Universe because all other species survive by adapting themselves to nature or dying out. Greenpeace co-founder, Dr. Patrick Moore, told Savvy Street: “When I left Greenpeace 15 years later they, and much of the environmental movement, were portraying humans as the enemies of the earth … I had to leave.”
Many of the world’s leading scientists are disappointed with Greenpeace. More than 107 Nobel-Prize-winning scientists have signed a letter urging—oh, come on, pleading—with Greenpeace to end its worldwide opposition to genetically modified organisms (GMOs). Pleading not in the name of science, however, but humanitarian concern for millions of children in the “developing” nations who go blind, and then die, of Vitamin-A deficiency. These children, say the Nobelists, could be saved if Greenpeace did not block a genetically engineered strain of rice, called “Golden Rice,” that would supply the deficiency. Not surprisingly, still courageously combatting the organization he helped to found, Patrick Moore is a leading advocate and proponent of Golden Rice.
“We urge Greenpeace and its supporters to re-examine the experience of farmers and consumers worldwide with crops and foods improved through biotechnology, recognize the findings of authoritative scientific bodies and regulatory agencies, and abandon their campaign against ‘GMOs’ in general and Golden Rice in particular,” the letter states.
Read this further excerpt from the letter sent to Greenpeace. It would seem to tug at the conscience:
“Greenpeace has spearheaded opposition to Golden Rice, which has the potential to reduce or eliminate much of the death and disease caused by a vitamin A deficiency (VAD), which has the greatest impact on the poorest people in Africa and Southeast Asia.
“The World Health Organization estimates that 250 million people, suffer from VAD, including 40 percent of the children under five in the developing world. Based on UNICEF statistics, a total of one to two million preventable deaths occur annually as a result of VAD, because it compromises the immune system, putting babies and children at great risk. VAD itself is the leading cause of childhood blindness globally affecting 250,000 – 500,000 children each year. Half die within 12 months of losing their eyesight.”
Nothing that man has created “occurs naturally.” Get off your butt and make a list, with the heading: “All I Have that Improves My Health, Comfort, Longevity, and Enjoyment of Life that is Not Found in Nature.”
Well, you old farts! Didn’t you ever read and grasp the mission of Greenpeace? You don’t have to hack the organization to find it. Greenpeace’s international web site will tell you. GMOs represent “genetic pollution.” Anything man creates is pollution:
“Genetic engineering enables scientists to create plants, animals and micro-organisms by manipulating genes in a way that does not occur naturally.” [Emphasis added.]
Follow the link to continue… http://www.thesavvystreet.com/scientists-plead-with-greenpeace-for-blind-dying-children/
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Greenpeace..
Why Greenpeace is popular is because there is an underlying truth in what they promote. To demagogue them is folly. Patrick Moore got an idea in his head that was sort of ok. It was. Now it is all wacky, in Greenpeace.
One must be surgical in separating the good from the bad and that exposes one to risk and reaction.
I see the good in GMOs and I see risks.
Now Moore has yet another idea in his head. It is again, getting all wacky. I see this issue as a projection of a disordered mind. He is determined to advance Golden Rice come what may! Just like his obsession with Greenpeace, he was determined to advance his cause come what may and look at the sh1t storm he created. Patrick Moore is incapable of regulating his mouth. He can’t empathize with normal people who have legitimate concerns. He is still a self righteous activist pushing his issue du jour. He wants it all his way.
He is on both sides of this.
He created Greenpeace and he is also pushing unrestrained distribution of GMO Golden Rice.
I think HE should take a breath and allow lesser confused and abrupt people guide the process of GOMs into the human food system. His is unreliable and capricious.
People have a right to know what they eat.
Greenpeace is popular because people love myths, tales of doom and imaginary enemies. They always have. Nothing sells like a Frankenstein tale. Considering how much GMO is already out there, arguing that it will destroy the planet is a bit like arguing CO2 will destroy the planet.
No. Nuclear accidents weren’t myths. Industrial waste wasn’t a myth. They are real. Greenpeace stands on legitimate issues and extrapolates into the mythology and extremism.
CO2 is a simply natural well-descibed gas with predictable behavior. To say that all GMOs made by all people and corporations in every country for all time is as simple, reliable and well understood as CO2 is absurd. We haven’t begun to see what form of genetic engineering is coming…. reality checker???!!
Paul Westhaver: I didn’t say they were. Even the co-founder of Greenpeace says the organization served a purpose in the beginning. They were too successful in fixing these problems, needed to find ways to continue the gravy train, so jumped into psuedoscience, which sells well.
CO2 is apparently not well understood or we wouldn’t have people trying to shut down every fossil fuel activity out there, regulate cow flatulence and return to 17th century living conditions. Plus, as you so aptly point out with GMOs, CO2 does not occur in a stand-alone system. Yet climate change “science” treats it as if it does, claiming it’s “well understood” even when included in an extremely chaotic system. That should be very concerning to you.
Genetic engineering will come no matter what. It’s like nuclear power. Once the door is opened, you can’t close it. That IS reality. You may be able to regulate it for a while, but you cannot stop it or close the door any more than you can unknow how to split an atom.
They also have a right to not be burdened by even more unnecessary, overbearing regulations imposed by an even more bloated bureaucracy. Or should have, at any rate.
Pursuing his new position with the same zeal as when he pursued his old position does not necessarily make Moore, or anyone else, unreliable or capricious. (The story of Saul of Tarsus comes to mind.)
“Pursuing his new position with the same zeal as when he pursued his old position does not necessarily make Moore, or anyone else, unreliable or capricious.”
Yes it does. He is the same person, with the same genes, the same upbringing, with the inclinations.
It is BECAUSE of his involvement with insisting of keeping the GMOs secret form the public that alarms me.
He is a fountain of egomaniacal will and havoc. HE is no different. Only his platform is changed.
I will ask you—do you want to let diabetics die because insulin is a GMO? There’s a just as much a chance of the Frankenstein mutation in the process that takes ecoli to insulin as any GMO food. So, do you want to let diabetics die?
Demagoguery “—do you want to let diabetics die because insulin is a GMO?”
Of course not. Shame on you for such absurd extreme conclusions.
The Label and IFU of any drug should be available to the patient (which it is) and the genetic engineering data should be disclosed to the patient so that they are informed. What is wrong with that?
I will ask again what I always ask in this type of discussion: Science says humans evolved as PART of nature. We are not aliens to Earth. How then, did something that evolved just like every single other organism on this planet get to be no longer a part of nature? That is simply impossible. Unless we are aliens. Are we?
From the Judeo-Christian religious perspective, humans are the stewards of creation, responsible for its care, but also free to benefit from our labor upon it. So from either perspective, Greenpeace’s position makes no sense.
Agreed. I left out the religious aspect since we are discussing science, but there are three options:
We’re aliens.
God made us and we are stewards of the earth.
We evolved.
None helps Greenpeace except the first.
“three options:”
No.
A scientist would acknowledge 2 more options.
4) we don’t know, and some day we will know,
5) we will never know
and Greenpeace is not helped even yet.
Well this one is wrong. If you actually read the real independent science GMOs are a total lie and a catastrophe. They’ve increased pesticide use, decreased yields and create super weeds and super bugs. And their number one pesticide disrupts the shikimate pathway in the bacteria of the human digestive tract leading to numerous health issues. So score one for greenpeace.
Typical greenpeace screed: Make lots of ill-defined unsubstantiated broad claims in a short space of time/text, wrapped in a thin veneer of scientific terminology with a few key words thrown in to deceive the uninformed.
Any one who wants to in this country is free to eat only what “occurs naturally.” Can I tell you something I have learned? That is a radical agenda and an infinitely fungible term. None of the following methods “occur naturally.” Organic activists assault systematically all applied science in raising food:
1. fumigation using methyl bromide
2. nitrogen fertilizers
2. potassium fertilizers
4. phosphorus fertilizers
5. mass produced tractors, steel products and fossil fuel
6. all fungicides
7. all herbicides and
8. all presently used broad and narrow spectrum pesticides used to kill insects, nematodes, rust, smut, blight, scab, etc.
9. all irrigation using dams and aquifers
9. all cultivars and varieties not native or local
10. all refrigeration
11. all preservatives which extend shelf life
12. all low cost and quick shipping
There is just the top 14. Nothing is ever enough for these wealthy Western Boomer organic activists until they eliminate and reverse every method of applying science, and only allow what “occurs naturally.” So never grow tired, and always fight them as they constantly engage in negative ad campaigns and regulatory assaults and the miseducation of children to get their way. They know that more than 25% of the world’s people are alive because of Nitrogen fertilizers. They hate that so much they declared atmospheric NO2 a pollutant, and now atmospheric CO2. As the good book says, Preserve me from the unjust and deceitful man, who devises iniquity by law.
Zeke, I am inclined to agree with you wrt natural vs unnatural synthesis methods. Particularly wrt engineered systems.
Reminder. I am not opposed to GMOs, just the clandestine implementation into the human food system. ergo labels, information, full disclosure.
Separately, and at the risk of being misunderstood in terms of scope, we humans are what we eat. We integrate complex nutrients into our very selves and in so doing epigenetically transmit information to our future generations.
Therefore, the presence of certain deliberate proteins influence our structure and function at a very fundamental level. That is something that ought not be tinkered with, without the knowledge of those affected.
“..certain deliberate proteins influence our structure and function at a very fundamental level.”
Means nothing. More greenpeace science-babble.
But I can agree with you about open labelling. (It’s not like most people read all the tiny labels on many OTC pharmacy products.) I just want the right to choose, same as you.
“Reminder. I am not opposed to GMOs, just the clandestine implementation into the human food system. ergo labels, information, full disclosure.” Paul Westhaver
What I want is labels, information, and full disclosure of organic practices.
This is including but not limited to:
1. using sawed off hoes and bent over workers for weeding
2. using extensive Bt spraying to control pests
3. using manure that may or may not be free of ecoli on row crops
4. spraying fungicides more than 9 times during the growing season
5. number of labor hours required per hectare (this will be in the hundreds) and whether immigrants were used
So Paul, I understand your point and I too am concerned that there is a lot of clandestine implementation into the American food market. I really do want people to know what they are buying, supporting, and eating. So labeling could be a very interesting way of raising awareness about the amount of cheap labor and waivers from protections that organic growers are bringing into our food market. I have said already, I do think this is partly behind the push for free movement of peoples. They will be trapped on organic farms — when a tractor and a litre of herbicide/acre could have done the job!
And I will also grant you that when we go to a supermarket, it is always nice to see “Russet potato,” “Granny Smith Apple” and “Beefsteak Tomato.” Chinook Salmon. That way you can buy your favorite. Knowing varieties is already a priority for most places, wherever practicable. It is not always practicable, and harms, expenses, regulations and increased operating expenses can and do kill small businesses all of the time. If we do not understand that as axiomatic, then we cannot discuss anything. But there are only 8 US gmo crops so it is not a hardship to know these and simply look for organic or other named varieties when buying corn, soybeans and potatoes. That potato I think is called “Innate,” because its transgenetic material is from other potatoes.
No indeed, let’s label the organics first.
Zeke,
I am ok with labeling organics first so long as GMOs (and everything else) is appropriately labeled too.
Ya gotta start somewhere, then, ratchet in.
Consider the logic of labelling omitted ingredients, definitions of “organics” and GMOs for that matter.
I think that information is relatively inexpensive now. 50 years ago, this would be impracticable.
Paul Westhaver,
I am content for organics to be required to label their products with the 5 vital disclosures I gave, plus any other waivers the organic growers received to exempt them from the minimum wage hikes that all other businesses were slammed with.
Because they do receive waivers from the ban on those illegal sawed off hoes in the state of CA.
Now I can also agree with your side of the isle on this: the FDA does not merit the trust it is given. There is every indication that the FDA is an arm of foreign companies which use it to fast track their products.
I say this not because of what appears to be rapid GMO approvals. I think the FDA is little more than a branch of the psych med industry, and a handful of mostly German companies, which are constantly peddling new psychotropic medications and flooding this country with drugs. This is an industry which is worth over 9 billion dollars a year. It is aided and abetted by the schools under the Boomer generation (which loves psychotropics), which now can even require kids be medicated, so that they will sit in rows and listen to…the wisdom of the Boomers.
So it is very well possible that it approves any GMO from Germany that comes down the pike, since the FDA’s pattern is to approve any psych med that comes down the pike.
So we may both see that there is a problem, but for different reasons. The FDA is very likely as defunct and corrupt as the IRS, the EPA, DOE, DOE, and DOJ.
Especially if one has a materialist worldview anything man is does is by definition natural as man cannot be separated from nature. There is no such thing as unnatural. By the way that makes climate change natural even if we did cause it.
I also see that there are recent reports of successful field trials of “Golden Rice” in Bangladesh, suggesting release possibly as early as 2018.
http://www.thedailystar.net/frontpage/vitamin-rice-now-reality-1305439
That won’t make greenpeace happy. Not at all happy, my precious.
Amazing – I just bought a packet of proton pump inhibitors made in Bangladesh.
But they don’t know how to grow carrots or make vitamin A capsules?
Weird, isn’t it?
My retarded prison colony of Australia isn’t capable of making a proton pump inhibitor. But for some reason we don’t need foreign saviors to engineer proprietary plants to solve our nutritional deficits.
Perhaps my purchase of Bangladeshi pharmaceuticals will help them afford to eat a better variety of food.
After that, require labeling of varieties of crops or the possible mix, without making the stores, farms, ranches, or the food processors liable for mistakes or failures to do so. No enforcement, no lawsuits, and an entirely good faith and voluntary effort which will allow us all to notice if favorite varieties are beginning to be shoved out by backroom deals with the sustainable crew.
you guys are so afraid of government but you aren’t afraid of corporations actually owning a copyright on your food? Newsflash guys- it’s GovCorp. Like a hand in a glove when they get as big as biotech anyway. GMOs do nothing but increase pesticide use! Reduced yields! Less nutrition! Poor soil health! Super weeds. They just give scientists a new way to wack off and corporations a new way to own your wallet. They are totally unnecessary and unneeded. That’s the real science. http://gmwatch.org/
As for golden rice a 25 cent Vit A pil works much better at curing blindness. My guess is that there are hardly any blind kids anyway. Probably a fake cause for fake food. Science is being faked for the global warming just it’s being faked for GMOs!! C’mon guys it the same mechanism. All for more control.
That’s the real science