From GM Watch: Genetic engineer and ag journalist take down Mark Lynas

http://www.gmwatch.org/news/latest-news/16496-genetic-engineer-and-ag-journalist-take-down-mark-lynas

Lynas’s claims on GMO food safety are “unscientific, illogical and absurd”

It’s good to see knowledgeable commentators like genetic engineer Dr Belinda Martineau and ag journalist Alan Guebert commenting skeptically on Mark Lynas’s misrepresentation of the scientific and political reality of GM crops.

We have one comment on Guebert’s statement that EU member state’s GMO cultivation bans “are more about the next election than what’s next in science”.

EU member states’ attitudes towards GMOs are indeed in part political – as they should be – but in many cases they are also informed by strong scientific arguments.

Individual member states have submitted strong objections to EFSA’s declarations of safety for some GMOs and have invoked the “safeguard clause” provided by the European GMO regulations to ban the cultivation of these GMOs on their territory.

The safeguard clause allows a member state to ban the use or cultivation of a GMO based on risk to health or the environment.

While the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) and the EU Commission have disagreed with these bans, the member states concerned have argued them on scientific grounds.

Our own experience of talking to GMO regulatory experts in GMO-skeptical member states is that they have plenty of scientific concerns about the effects of GMOs on health and the environment.

These concerns are fuelled by the lack of long-term safety testing in animal feeding studies prior to regulatory authorisation and EFSA’s tendency to dismiss significant effects in animals fed GMOs by claiming those effects are not biologically significant – a concept which, however, has never been defined.

It’s doubtless true that scientific evidence of varying quality can be found to support whatever political stance a member state decides to take on GMOs. But that just proves that science doesn’t deal in absolutes. It’s rife with uncertainties and is confounded by such factors as who paid for the research, who framed the question it’s addressing, and how the data are interpreted.

Such scientific uncertainty is one good reason why decisions on whether to adopt GMOs must remain predominantly political – yet informed by rigorous science carried out in the public interest.

1. When food is genetically modified
2. Farm and Food: The sounds of science

Bangladesh: GM brinjal propaganda

Turning Bt. Brinjal failure into a propaganda of success

Since the beginning of the Bangladesh government clearance for field cultivation of GM food crop Bt. Brinjal, it has been a scandal. The genetically engineered crop failed miserably in the chosen farmers fields of Bangladesh, despite the careful selection and training of the farmers. Promoters of GMO adopted more scandalous options. They refused to review the experiment by the normative standard of strict scientific experiment and the international ethical standard of precautionery principle obligatory for potential hazards from GMOs. 

Lynas the fabricator

Mark Lynas accused of fabricating story in the New York Times

Despite the fact that his claim to being a founding figure in the anti-GMO movement has been roundlycondemned as completely untrue by a whole phalanx of (genuinely) leading figures in the environment movement, Lynas just keeps on making it. And no wonder. His remarkable conversionstory has won him the favour of the world’s richest man, Bill Gates, whose Foundation has set up a position for Lynas at Cornell, as part of the controversial Cornell Alliance for Science. This allows Lynas to do paid promotion of GMOs “to the exclusion of almost everything else”. And, as we have seen, his big conversion story is also his calling card with the world’s media.

It was very much to the fore in a recent New York Times piece entitled “How I got converted to GMO food”. This was taken apart in a series of letters to the NYT, which found fault with almost every aspect of the article. 

Mark Lynas y la ciencia mercenaria al servicio de Monsanto. Aportes al debate, por Carlos Vicente

http://www.biodiversidadla.org/Principal/Secciones/Documentos/Mark_Lynas_
y_la_ciencia_mercenaria_al_servicio_de_Monsanto._Aportes_al_debate

EXTRACTO:

Cuando hace 20 años se inició la publicación de la Revista Biodiversidad, sustento y culturas; allí se decía en relación al desarrollo de las nuevas biotecnologías: “Prometen un mejoramiento de las condiciones de la agricultura, con la creación de una nueva generación de semillas milagrosas. Sin embargo, las mayores inversiones en investigación en este campo, se están realizando en la creación de plantas resistentes a los herbicidas, no a las enfermedades. El acceso a los recursos genéticos está siendo monopolizado por unas pocas empresas multinacionales, a partir de la creación de patentes para semillas modificadas genéticamente y para las tecnologías asociadas.”

Todos estos temores se vieron confirmados en las últimas dos décadas y las consecuencias socioambientales superaron las peores previsiones y la dependencia de las corporaciones, el avance del monocultivo de soja ocupando el 60% de la superficie agrícola y los impactos en las comunidades ampliamente denunciados, son hoy una realidad incuestionable.

Sin embargo las campañas mediáticas para ocultar esta realidad se valen de todos los medios posibles para enmascarar los hechos y “vendernos” aquello que quieren imponer. Parte de esta batalla la libran utilizando a supuestos “arrepentidos” que luego de ser parte de movimientos ambientalistas tuvieron la “iluminación” y hoy día son defensores de los transgénicos. Mark Lynas es el más emblemático de ellos y en estos días lo hemos tenido en la Argentina haciendo campaña y asegurando que los transgénicos utilizan menos agrotóxicos y que son quienes alimentarán a la humanidad.

What should you do when Mark Lynas comes to town?

http://www.bioscienceresource.org/2013/02/what-should-you-do-when-mark-lynus-comes-to-town/

Published: February 28, 2013

Media celebrity and ‘renegade environmentalist’ Mark Lynas claims to have recently discovered science and now believes that GMOs are the key to a bountiful and sustainable future. BSR has compiled a list of recent articles from scientists and other experts who think he still has a lot to learn about science, food security, and genetic engineering.

As Lynas tours the world with his story, we suggest you share these articles with anyone who thinks they want to hear Lynas speak — they can help put the propaganda in perspective. The Mark Lynas scientific misrepresentations will be familiar to anyone who has heard Nina Federoff, Martina McGloughlin, Marc Van Montagu, and other industry-linked GMO proponents talk at universities or scientific conferences. For a list of other frequent speakers who present standard industry PR rather than a thoughtful scientific or social analysis of GMOs seehttp://www.gmwatch.org/myth-makers-m.

What You Need to Know When Mark Lynas Comes to Town

Discovering Science: Here’s an amusing article on Mark Lynas and his “discovery of science” by Professor John Vandermeer, University of Michigan.http://www.foodfirst.org/en/GMO+uproar+in+EU Vandermeer encourages Lynas to keep studying and describes some important areas of science he hopes Lynas will learn about in the future.

What links Biotech, Big Conservation, and Mark Lynas? Big Money. Eric Holt Gimenez (Food First) in Huffington Post: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/eric-holt-gimenez/of-myths-and-men-mark-lyn_b_2591502.html The views of Mark Lynas are nothing new. They are right in line with the biotech industry and “The Big Three” conservation organizations: the World Wildlife Fund, Conservation International and The Nature Conservancy. All peddle the myth that GMOs and industrial agriculture are necessary to “save the planet” and “feed the 9 billion.” Gimenez explores the links, debunks the myths, and discusses how GMOs threaten the small-scale mixed farming that actually feeds most of the world now.

Analysis from the Union of Concerned Scientists: For a discussion of some of the science that Lynas and other proponents of GMOs routinely get wrong, see Union of Concerned Scientists, Doug Gurian-Sherman, senior scientist, Food and Environment:http://blog.ucsusa.org/science-dogma-and-mark-lynas/ Gurian-Sherman’s article links to recent scientific studies and challenges standard myths from “GE reduces pesticide use” and “We need GE because no other methods can feed the world sustainably” to “Critics of GE are anti-science” and “Misguided regulations are stifling GE.”

More from scientists….This article critiques twenty-two Mark Lynas mistakes, one by one, with links to the supporting data at the end of the article. It encompasses a clear and thorough rebuttal of Lynas’s Oxford speech by Dr Brian John, Past Lecturer in Geography, University of Durham, 6th January 2013.http://www.gmfreecymru.org/pivotal_papers/lynas_school.html

Is the ‘Mark Lynas Great Conversion’ story just a propaganda exercise? In Part 1 of his SpinWatch article “The Repentant Environmentalist”, Jonathan Matthews (January 2013) discusses whether the Mark Lynas Oxford speech isn’t best understood simply as a PR narrative. http://www.gmwatch.org/latest-listing/52-2013/14614-the-repentant-environmentalist-part-1

Is the goal of Lynas to shut down scientific debate? In Part 2, Matthews examines Lynas’ reaction to scientific questions. He also fact-checks the numbers underlying the ‘science’ of Mark Lynas, including his ‘2 trillion GM food meals served and eaten‘ claim, and vets his ‘scientific sources’ which include EuropaBio and AgBioForum.http://www.spinwatch.org/index.php/issues/science/item/5461-the-repentant-environmentalist-part-2

How GMOs sell pesticides: Marcia Ishii-Eiteman from PAN North America discusses the actual effect of GMOs on pesticide use: http://www.panna.org/blog/debunking-mark-lynas-ge-myths

Does India need GMOs? Some thoughts from Indian Scientists and media: Dr. Suman Sahai:  http://governancenow.com/views/interview/it-scientists-who-are-asking-regulation-and-precaution Dr. Pushpa M Bhargava: http://governancenow.com/views/interview/science-we-go-evidence Dr. Vandana Shiva: http://www.outlookindia.com/article.aspx?283594 Indian media coverage:http://www.downtoearth.org.in/content/mark-lynas-and-demeaning-science

Lynas at Cornell — Advocate of science or anti-science: Lynas tours major pro-biotech universities like Cornell University in New York State, spreading misinformation and enhancing the already toxic anti-scientific atmosphere where any critical analysis or discussion of genetic engineering is angrily attacked or dismissed. Science requires open discussion, independent analysis, and a reliance on high quality data and experimentation. Anti-science relies on shutting down discussion, preventing research and analysis, personal attacks, name-calling, misinformation and disinformation.  http://www.gmwatch.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=14794

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Of Myths and Men: Mark Lynas and the intoxicating power of technocracy

http://www.foodfirst.org/en/Myths+of+GMOs

February 4, 2013
By Eric Holt-Giménez, Ph D, Executive Director, Food First
Read the original on Huffington Post.

Why do certain people and ideas suddenly capture the limelight while others go unnoticed? Others seem never to go away... The recent ascent of environmental writer Mark Lynas to prominence in the debate on genetically modified crops (GMOs) is a lesson in the power of myths.

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But the problem is not Mark Lynas.

Though he has been celebrated as a maverick environmentalist, in fact, his views on GMOs and mainstream science are compatible with the "Big Three" mainstream conservation giants: the World Wildlife Fund, Conservation International and The Nature Conservancy. Just like the monopolies that control the seed and chemical industry and the governmental agencies that provide them with the revolving doors they use to ensure industry-friendly policies, these global conservationists carefully select the science that advances their political and economic interests and ignore the science that calls their position--and their power--into question. All of them espouse corporate ideologies that dress up their assumptions as facts. Mr. Lynas' high profile conversion sheds no new evidence on the issues. It does, however, reinforce the myth-making power of the global technocracy.

The Big Three, for example, cling dogmatically to a theory called "Island Biogeography" that relates species richness (biodiversity) to "islands" of suitable habitat. Based in part on Darwin's observations in the Galapagos and tested with powerful biocides on islands in the Caribbean, the theory posits that species-rich islands exist in a species-inert sea that biologists call a "matrix." Over time, the islands in the matrix that are larger and closest to the mainland will have greater species richness than those are smaller and farther away. In modern-day, big conservationism, this theory is applied to forest fragments ("islands") in the "matrix" of agricultural landscapes that are assumed to be as biologically inert as the surface of the ocean. This drives the Big Three to acquire large nature reserves (often linking them with corridors) in order to preserve biodiversity. It also drives them to strike Faustian bargains with industrial agriculture: Big agriculture will support the Big Three's strategy to buy up land for nature reserves. In return, the Big Three will endorse Big Agriculture's new GMO technologies.

******

The monopolies in the fuel, chemical and agri-foods industries must dominate global markets and continually expand their land-based operations in order to ensure a 3% compound return rate to their shareholders. If they don't, their stock will fall. Staying in the game requires monopoly control of the world's seeds, inputs, grain and processing. For this purpose, applications drawn from the sciences of molecular biology and genetics are used to engineer GMOs. Contrary to industrial myth, genetic engineering is not science; it is engineering, based on particular branches of science. While the science of molecular biology can be quite complex and rigorous, the genetic engineering of seeds is actually somewhat blundering and imprecise... one reason it is so expensive. Genetics is also quite complex. Its application to crop breeding has produced high-yielding hybrids that require massive applications of fertilizers, herbicides and pesticides. The marriage of hybrids and GMOs results in a product that perfectly meets the needs of industry: a high-yielding seed that not only requires the chemical inputs these companies produce, it allows for the proprietary ownerships of the seed's genes, thus ensuring monopoly control over continental landscapes like the U.S. Midwest and the Brazilian Cerrado.

The myths linking Mark Lynas' environmentalism to GMOs have their origins in monopoly control, outdated conservation theory and hack engineering. 

Lynas, again

View PDF | Subscribe & Read Past Issues | OCA Homepage | Donate  ESSAY OF THE WEEK Mark Lynas: GMO Convert? Or Hired Gun? On January 3, Mark Lynas, British author of several books on global warming includingSix Degrees: Our Future on a Hotter Planet, told a sold-out audience at the Oxford Farming Conference in Oxford, England, that he was sorry. Sorry that he’d maligned genetically modified (GM) crops. Sorry that he’d “helped to start the anti-GM movement.” Sorry that he’d “demonized” a technology that could be used to “benefit the environment.” That’s right. An expert on global warming was now telling the world that genetically modified organisms (GMOs) and GM crops, with their billions of tons of pesticides and chemical fertilizers, with their large-scale monocultures that leave food crops vulnerable to drought, pests and disease, are good for the environment. How did a journalist, well-known for his work on climate change, become an impassioned advocate and spokesperson for the biotech industry? And an instant media star in the process? Is Lynas just a slick self-promoter willing to say anything for attention? Or did he sell his soul to the biotech industry? Read the essay

The Repentant Environmentalist: Part 1

http://www.spinwatch.org/-articles-by-category-mainmenu-8/46-gm-industry/5557

Jonathan Matthews, 30 January 2013 The author Mark Lynas, who used to oppose GM crops, recently wowed social media with a speech supporting them. There have been a number of excellent responses from scientists and others challenging his arguments - see here, here and here. But this article by Jonathan Matthews of GMWatch considers whether the speech isn't best understood as a PR narrative.

Science, Dogma, and Mark Lynas

Article by Union of Concerned Scientists blogger Doug Gurian-Shreman in response to Mark Lynas' recent outrageous statements about biotechnology.

TO READ THE WHOLE PIECE: http://blog.ucsusa.org/science-dogma-and-mark-lynas/

Excerpt:

I suppose it is hard for journalists to resist a good story: Mark Lynas, former green activist, has seen the light. The pronouncements of converted GM critic Lynas have garnered coverage from several respected media sources, despite often being misleading, wrong, or questionable scientifically.

Lynas’ main charge is that criticism of genetic engineering (GE) in agriculture is anti-science. His focus is on what he calls “the antis”—activists opposed to genetically engineered crops—but by setting up this straw man, and ignoring complex scientific concerns about GE while making summary judgments about its safety and value, he appears to be attempting to discourage real scientific debate.

What is especially disappointing, though, is the uncritical reception Lynas has received from several journalists like Andrew Revkin and Michael Spector. As University of Michigan ecologist John Vandermeer points out, Lynas’ pronouncements are sophomoric—they suggest a young student’s simplistic and sometimes incorrect understanding of science—and biased in their selectivity. That they have been received almost as gospel is surprising. The Economist called supportable criticism of Lynas, on GE and pesticide use, tendentious. Really? But dismissing debate is not?

Contrary to Lynas’ pronouncements, science does not proceed by fiat. His summary judgment on the debate about GE—that “it’s over”—is misinformed at best. One could pass this off as a rhetorical flourish, but the overall context of Lynas’ talk shows that he is quite serious. While there is broad consensus on climate science, there is anything but on many aspects of GE science. As anyone who has read my blogs or reports over the past several years knows, I have cited numerous solid peer-reviewed studies that question many aspects of the safety, impact, or sustainability of GE as it has been developed, and will probably continue to be developed.

I guess Lynas can be forgiven to some extent for asserting that the safety of GE for human health and the environment has been settled, since this is a common misconception, as I discussed inprevious posts at some length. He seems to be echoing equally mistaken utterances from what should be reliable science sources, like the board of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Professor John Vandermeer challenges Lynas on GMOs

Posted January 8th, 2013  

Neoliberal environmentalist Mark Lynas recently gave a talk at the Oxford Farming Association in which he apologized for once militating against GMOs. Now, after having discovered "science" has decided we need GMOs to feed the world. (http://vimeo.com/56745320 )

Anyone against GMOs, he claims, is anti-science because "the debate is over" and the "scientific consensus" has won... This is an all to familiar argument from the industry, and leads us to suspect that Lynas may have been recruited by EuropaBio's "Pro-GM Ambassador Programme." EuropaBio is.the very rich and vocal lobby association of GM companies in Brussels, that prepared an international outreach programme in 2011 to give a new impulse to GM crops in Europehttp://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/oct/20/europabio-gm-ambassado...

Lynas' rant is bringing a response from actual scientists. Dr. John Vandermeer from the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of Michigan comments on Mark Lynas' promising scientific conversion.

Guest blog by Professor John Vandermeer, Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Michigan at Ann Arbor:

http://www.foodfirst.org/en/GMO+uproar+in+EU

PANNA response to Lynas

http://www.foodfirst.org/en/GMO+seeds+not+the+answer

British Activist Spurs Conversation, Ignores Science on GE Crops

Posted January 16th, 2013  

January 9, 2013, PANNA at http://www.panna.org/

Oakland, CA – For more than a decade, Mark Lynas has been a staunch opponent of genetically engineered (GE) crops, but last week he announced he has changed his mind. Lynas’ position reversal has generated much attention, and has given a platform to the ongoing global conversation about the value of patented seeds, pesticides and the science behind the technology.

PAN Senior Scientist, Marcia Ishii-Eiteman, notes that GE crops have consistently failed to deliver on their promises to “feed the world,” and instead drive up the use of hazardous pesticides.

She issued the following statement:

“Lynas’ distortions regarding the vast body of science that informs today’s public policy debates around genetically engineered (GE) crops are disappointing. Lynas in no way speaks for the global community of scientists, health and development experts who have presented solid scientific evidence that GE crops have failed to provide the yield or nutritional benefits advertised by their manufacturers.* Instead, GE crops have driven a massive increase in herbicide use and an explosion of herbicide-resistant “superweeds” that now threaten biodiversity, public health, rural economies and farmers’ livelihoods.

Will this change? Unfortunately, the majority of ‘new generation’ GE crops developed by Dow and Monsanto —and currently in the USDA ‘pipeline’ awaiting agency approval — have been engineered to be used with older and more hazardous pesticides like 2,4-D and dicamba. These products have nothing to do with feeding the world, and everything to do with increasing pesticide sales.

The reality is that modern, state-of-the-art agricultural science, and farmers’ best practices, point us towards 21st century organic and ecological agriculture as among the most powerful approaches available to feed the world sustainably, particularly in the face of converging global climate, water and energy crises.”

* This critical assessment of GE crops’ disappointing results was the conclusion of more than 400 scientists and development experts from over 80 countries, who co-authored the World Bank and UN’s International Assessment of Agricultural Knowledge, Science and Technology for Development (IAASTD), the most comprehensive and rigorous assessment of agriculture ever to have taken place.

A lead author on the IAASTD, Ishii-Eiteman notes that after four years of assessing the evidence, this seminal report concluded that GE crops are unlikely to feed the world, but have in fact, tended to benefit transnational corporations far more than resource-limited family farmers.