MAIN EVENT. A Good Place to Get Started --- a.k.a "Table of Contents"
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MAIN EVENT. A Good Place to Get Started --- a.k.a "Table of Contents" |
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GM & TONY - On Saturday, 26th February of this year, British Prime Minister Tony Blair conducted an interview with the Independent about Genetically Modified foods (GM,) which the paper described as "a dramatic U-turn" by Blair, and Friends of the Earth viewed the interview as a "fantastic leap forward ... the 'Greening' of Downing Street."
The press and media in Britain are hailing it as a victory. Environmental groups are currently seeped in self-congratulations as their sterling work is starting to be paid off. The public, we are led to believe, can feel proud that their leader is addressing their fears. But with this euphoria, the last string of objectivity is being drained out of British life.
The anti-GM lobby feel they have the Prime Minister on their side now - as a weapon - firing down the scientists who wish to import GM foods. They have argued that environmental and human safety will be jeopardised by GM crops; the endorsement of their position by Blair, they feel, should spell an end to the likelihood of mass consumption of GM foods.
But is there any truth in this?
A year ago Blair, considerably more popular then than he is now, could afford to throw his political weight onto the scientist's side. He said he would eat GM crops and praised the potential benefits of them. However, he made it clear then: GM foods would have to pass vigorous safety tests before they could be allowed widespread consumption in the United Kingdom.
In the recent interview, Blair's actual proposed changes were twofold and minor. He called for more labelling of the GM foods sold in shops throughout Europe, and even more (but only slightly tougher) testing on those that are not (yet at least.)
Everything else he said was inconclusive and designed to drum up mass support by appearing on the side of the environmentalists, whilst not specifically being "anti- GM."
For example, his argument was: "Jobs and profit will never be more important than concern over human health and the environment. ... No GM crops will be grown commercially in this country until we are satisfied there will be no unacceptable impact on the environment. ... This Government's determination is to have an informed and balanced a debate as possible on GM food and crops."
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That is to say --- if one is to take the inference according to Tony Blair --- Tony Blair favours objectivity when all around him are losing theirs.
Much of the British press, in my view, has been so opposed to GM foods that they have been willing to sacrifice good investigative journalism in order to give publicity to the anti-GM case. By claiming that Blair's views are now revolutionary they have once against raised the sound and fury level, while signifying nothing. As Blair said a year ago, "There is an extraordinary campaign of distortion by parts of the media."
That segment of the British media has, as ever, been contributing towards the knee-jerk, Luddite attitude of Britain, by supporting environmental campaigners. There is an attitude prevalent in Britain, that also exists too a lesser degree in the rest of Europe and the US, which opposes technological innovations, presumably because people fear change. The hype surrounding the initial development of the Internet in the 1990's was minimal compared to the attention devoted to its criticism. For example, pornography on the net, or the obscene amounts some people were earning from it are always bigger stories in the media than the wealth of information to be found.
Practically every non-medical innovation since the Industrial Revolution has been received with noisy scepticism, from computers to cars, often by environmental campaigners.
Perhaps the majority of people are quietly satisfied with new inventions, but a loud and angry minority appears to have a monopoly over changing public opinion.
GM technology in the past produced insulin and has the potential to grow new crops in harsh terrain. It could also be highly dangerous. Yet the environmental campaigners oppose even the testing of GM foods, which could conclusively reveal how safe they are.
They want to put a shield over truth because they feel they know best. It has even come to the point that illegal and highly dangerous acts of sabotage, on crop fields and recently on a ship, by minority organisations such as Greenpeace have not been denounced by the larger environmental community.
These acts, in my view, have tacitly been supported by the British press.
This threatens democratic principles; a poll in 1999 in Britain found that over 85% of those asked opposed and would not eat GM foods, but less than one in two even knew what "GM" stood for.
The press has concentrated on the story that the claims of feeding the Third World by the scientists responsible are not in fact their true intentions. The true goal here, according to the press, is (of course,) making money.
Although that may be true, what innovation of the twentieth century was not about seeking profit? Is it fair to disregard the potentially beneficial ends of an experiment, particularly one as important as reducing worldwide hunger, because the means are disagreed upon? Or would it not be the fairest option to follow Tony Blair's comments, and make up our minds once an objective study has been concluded?
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