Biography

To my mind, anti-GM is a backward-looking, reactionary ideology, where you have a mythological, romanticized view of pre-industrialized agriculture being taken as the ideal.

The organic movement itself should embrace GM. The best applications of it mean that crops can be entirely pest-resistant by working in harmony with nature, which is after all what the organic movement is supposed to want. I don't see any a priori reason why the organic movement accepts mutagenic crops [coventional breeding] and not GM crops. Ultimately it comes down to to an aesthetic or even spiritual preference.

[on genetically modified organisms (GMOs] The GM debate is over. Three trillion meals eaten and there has never been a single substantiated case of harm.

[on having reversed his former negative position on GMOs] What I've done is difficult, and it's why so few political leaders ever admit making a U-turn. They need to build up an aura of invincibility, and people's belief in other people as leaders depends on this mirage. Fortunately that's not something I'm interested in. This isn't about me. It's about the evidence and the truth. My overall effort has been to try to crash out an environmentalist perspective that is fully supported by evidence where there's a scientific consensus. It's interesting: the GM denialism seems to come from the left, and is particularly motivated by an anti-corporate world view. The climate-change denialism tends to come from the right and is motivated by suspicion of government.

Remember that most of what the organic movement has claimed is not true. Their food is not more nutritious.It's not better for the environment. It's not safer for human health. So what is left? You're paying a premium which, as Nina Fedoroff said on my blog, is a massive scam.