Posted on 02/15/2004 3:44:41 AM PST by Carbonsteel
If I were to tell you that the Congress of Racial Equality held a teach-in last month, and that among the featured speakers was one of the founders of Greenpeace, what would you suppose was the agenda?
Denouncing the policies of rich-world environmentalists whose policies mean suffering and death for hundreds of millions of destitute people in poor countries, especially in Africa. That's what.
Participants minced no words in their description of the event, and I intend to deliver them to you largely unminced as well, because they know what they are talking about and they've said it better than I ever could.
"We must put humanity back into the environmental debate," said CORE national spokesman Niger Innis. "We all want to protect our planet. But we must stop trying to protect it from bogus or illusory threats - and on the backs, and the graves, of the world's most powerless and impoverished people.
"The green movement imposes the views of mostly wealthy, comfortable Americans and Europeans on mostly poor, desperate Africans, Asians and Latin Americans. It violates their most basic human rights," he said.
Paul Driessen is the author of Eco-Imperialism: Green Power, Black Death (and a former member of the Sierra Club and Zero Population Growth). "Eco-imperialism perpetuates poverty and misery," he said. "It's hypocritical and immoral, unethical and socially irresponsible. Worst of all, it's lethal. It simply has to end" (information about the book is available on Driessen's Web site, www.eco-imperial ism.com/html/12.html).
Greenpeace co-founder Patrick Moore said that when he helped create Greenpeace in 1971, "I had no idea it would evolve into a band of scientific illiterates who use Gestapo tactics to silence people who wish to express their views in a civilized forum. I had no idea the movement would oppose genetic engineering and other programs that could benefit mankind - and adopt zero-tolerance policies that so clearly expose its intellectual and moral bankruptcy."
Want some specifics? Golden rice. This is rice that has had a daffodil gene added through genetic engineering, to help alleviate Vitamin A deficiencies that are common in areas where rice is a staple.
According to CORE's press release, "Every year, 500,000 children around the world go blind, as a result of vitamin A deficiency, noted Dr. C.S. Prakash, professor of plant genetics at Tuskegee University and a native of India. Two million die from problems directly related to this simple lack of a common vitamin, often because they are so malnourished they cannot survive the malaria, dysentery and other diseases that also afflict them. If people could eat just 1.5 ounces of 'golden rice' a day, they could eliminate these threats, Dr. Prakash pointed out."
In another article, "Battle for Biotech Progress" (at www.taemag.com/issues/ current_issue.asp), Moore said the tangle of red tape that environmentalists have imposed on any genetically modified crops guarantees that large-scale planting of golden rice will be delayed for at least five years. The cost of avoiding the insignificant risk of "a daffodil gene in a rice paddy" is the certainty that "another 2.5 million children will go blind."
Other examples? Genetically modified strains of soybeans and other crops allow farmers to use less herbicide. They are widely planted in the United States, without ill effect, but have been resisted elsewhere. In September 2003, the government of Brazil authorized the planting of genetically modified soybean seeds, essentially conceding that the thriving black market indicated that farmers considered it a superior product.
In China and India, the planting of Bt cotton, which produces a natural pesticide, allows farmers to reduce their use of chemical pesticides by 70 percent to 80 percent.
Moore believes, and I think he's right, that countering the steady drumbeat of disaster from self-proclaimed environmentalists such as his former colleagues requires much more aggressive campaigning of scientific progress. (Why should the Luddites get to call themselves "progressive"?) "Imagine an advertising campaign that showed graphic images of blind children in Africa, explained Vitamin A deficiency, introduced golden rice, and demonstrating how Greenpeace's actions are preventing the delivery of this cure," he suggests. Or one showing workers in developing countries applying liberal amounts of pesticides with no safety protection.
As it is, he says, "the activists are playing hardball" while the companies and organizations "are trying to project positive, clean and calming thoughts." That's not good enough.
"The environmental movement I helped found has lost its objectivity, morality and humanity," Moore said at the CORE teach-in. "The pain and suffering it inflicts on families in developing countries can no longer be tolerated."
If you want to join the opponents of progress, at least be honest about the costs.
It is a shame that the Eco-tally-ban groups around Yellowstone don't put all their effort into Greenpeace's battle against the worlds poor. It would be empowering for them to actually be killing people instead of merely killing economies by putting people out of business and out of jobs.
It is refreshing to hear a prominent environmentalist acknowledge the environmental movement's junk science (scientific illiterates) and use the term Gestapo tactics on someone other than George W. Bush.
| Daryl L. Hunter - Editor |
I don't think that we want this!
Sounds like another power gal that doesn't give a rats ass about infidelity!
| Daryl L. Hunter - Editor |
The environmentalist also have us MTBE gasoline additive to help clean the air for the children till it is learned the stuff leaks from storage tanks and ruins pristine underground drinking water.
What will they give us next?? What a bunch of losers.
Not a problem; I've done the same myself and appreciated getting the correct info.
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