Posts Tagged ‘Mark Lynas’

How the GMO Debate is Framed

The business journalist Marc Gunther has a really good article at the Guardian on yet another battle brewing on the GMO front. It’s about a food advocacy group’s campaign to stop McDonald’s from using new strains of a genetically modified potato, which as Gunther writes, are designed to deliver both environmental and health benefits. They…Continue Reading…

A Disturbance in the Green Movement

My favorite environmental heretic continues to be in the news. Earlier this month, the best profile of him yet appeared in the Observer. This week, Macleans publishes an interview with Mark Lynas, the UK environmental writer who is doing more than anyone these days to challenge greens on their ideological resistance to biotechnology. Here’s an…Continue Reading…

Mark Lynas Responds to His Detractors

It’s been almost a month since UK environmental writer Mark Lynas apologized for his prior anti-GMO activism. His speech, let’s recall, was an internet sensation. Many applauded Lynas’s change of heart (he is now firmly pro-GMO), plenty others jeered it, and more than a few rolled their eyes. And everyone has moved on except anti-GMO campaigners….Continue Reading…

Science Geeks Ready to Rumble

Anyone who believes that science, above all, should inform our debates on medical, health and environmental issues, will find much to agree with in The Geek Manifesto, a recently published book by Mark Henderson, one of Britain’s leading science communicators. As science writer David Dobbs writes in his foreward to the U.S. edition, The Geek Manifesto articulates…Continue Reading…

The Knotty Biotech Issue

The recent speech that Mark Lynas gave fleshing out his evolution on environmental issues–specifically his conversion on GMOs–continues to ricochet around the web. It’s a compelling story. If you’re just catching up, here’s a quick recap from Andy Revkin: The arc of Lynas’s fascinating career is in some ways neatly encapsulated by two acts at…Continue Reading…

Vandana Shiva Compares GMOs to Rape

Modern day heretics have it easy compared to their medieval antecedents (at least in the West). Denouncing dogma that they once propagated won’t get them tortured and burned at the stake. But they do stand a good chance of provoking hostile blowback, which is what Mark Lynas, the British environmental writer, has experienced this week….Continue Reading…

The Anti-Science Tent

The British environmental writer Mark Lynas gave a speech recently that opened with this remarkable mea culpa: I want to start with some apologies. For the record, here and upfront, I apologise for having spent several years ripping up GM crops. I am also sorry that I helped to start the anti-GM movement back in…Continue Reading…

The Green Heretic

Other than Stewart Brand, the U.S. doesn’t have any well-known environmentalist writers who dare to challenge conventional green wisdom. I suppose The Death of Environmentalism authors could qualify, but I consider them more wonky polemicists than writers. Andy Revkin might soon qualify, as he transitions from mainstream science reporter to environmental writer/teacher. In the UK,…Continue Reading…

Climate Critics That Won't Muzzle Themselves

Mark Lynas is digging in his heels and standing up for principle, or, if you’re inclined to view this escalating controversy over IPCC process and ethics, he’s being a handmaiden for the Dark Side in the endless climate wars. In his latest post, Lynas uses the analogy of an Exxon-Mobil employee being a lead IPCC…Continue Reading…