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The foolishness of opposing GM food and fiber crops from an environmental perspective as well as a human health perspective has been pointed out in many previous posts. The list of benefits is long, everything from reduction of wilderness converted to cropland, to reduced use of toxic chemicals. In each case both the environment and humans, especially agricultural workers and rural residents, benefit.
So, why do environmental posers work themselves into fits about GM? Some apologists claim that their motives aren't environmental so much as anti-capitalist. They oppose companies such as Monsanto or industrial agriculture. Their misdirected and ineffective opposition fails to consider that GM crops can and are being developed by many suppliers, not just large agribusiness companies, and the benefits accrue to even the smallest farmers, perhaps even disproportionately benefitting them compared to large factory farms.
Other apologists claim that the role of environmental groups is to be negative, not positive. They exist to find fault.
Environmental groups are frequently criticised for taking an excessively negative attitude towards the issues they are concerned about. Yet that should surprise no one, since it is after all not their function to promote new technologies, particularly those in the commercial sphere; that can be left the public relations experts.This is complete nonsense. Environmental advocacy is not merely organized doubting. It is a view of socioeconomic behavior that seeks to privilege environmental care and is as much or more about advocating good practices as warning about potentially harmful ones. Good environmental arguments establish the economic benefits of best practices as well as emotive, aesthetic or even quasi-religious beliefs.Rather, such groups are important in any society precisely because of their role in pointing out — and indeed in focusing on — either undesirable side-effects of scientific and technological progress that have been given insufficient attention, or potential dangers before they occur. If such groups had been stronger in the United States in the 1950s, the widespread ecological damage recorded by Carson might never have occurred.
Just as importantly, useful environmental advocacy is science based. The claim that If such groups had been stronger in the United States in the 1950s, the widespread ecological damage recorded by Carson might never have occurred is a-scientific as well as a-historical. Prior to the pesticides used in the 1950s truly dangerous arsenic and lead based insecticides were used. DDT, the main target of Carson and other uninformed opportunists, was so much better than older pesticides that it was used widely with huge benefits and comparative safety.
The issue for environmentalists isn't that there are no dangers with DDT use, or that there are no environmental consequences that should and could have been publicized, it is that the benefits of DDT use for the environment as well as human health should have been applauded while seeking to establish guidelines for best practices to avoid indiscriminate or unthinking use.
The primary intent of the editorial quoted above is to defend the media for complicity in the harmful acts of environmental groups.
It is not the role of the media to give equal prominence to all news about an issue, whether good or bad. The prominence given to a particular story will be based on a news editor's assessment of the potential interest of readers or viewers. Significantly, publications that have focused on providing only 'good' news seldom generate wide audiences (or sales).If it bleeds, it ledes. Sales are really all that matters to media companies. All true. But the statement is still false since it is just as easy to demonize environmental groups as technologies. It is only the biases of paleo-media that resulted in the attacks on technology. New media is demonstrating that every day and have had an impact in reshaping public consciousness about the predations of paleo-environmentalists.Blaming the media for giving higher priority to negative, rather than positive, stories about GM crops is therefore missing the point. Partly such criticism is frequently overstated; supporters of GM often exaggerate the relative balance between the two types of stories that appear in the media. Partly the coverage provided by newspapers reflects the type of information that people want to read about, particularly in a world where the potential dangers of science and technology are often downplayed.
None of this is a reason to feel complacent about the way that issues surrounding GM are covered in the media (or portrayed by environmentalist critics, which often comes to the same thing). As has been pointed out in the past in these columns, proponents of GM crops often have a valid point when they claim that coverage of the issue is often distorted.Again, complete nonsense. Bias is the real crime and objectivity has nothing to do with it. Accuracy isn't about objectivity. A commitment to accuracy for both the business benefits and the sheer joy of puncturing the inflated claims of posers would fuel all the passionate interest and inspired high-quality reporting one could wish for.But the real crime is not bias in itself. Indeed, it would be naïve to pretend that a journalist can (or should even pretend to) remain totally objective about the issues he or she is covering, and a passionate interest can often inspire high-quality reporting. In contrast, the worst distortions come when facts are reported inaccurately. For the wrong facts can never become the basis of good decisions, and truthfulness (whether in reporting or campaigning) is essential in a way that objectivity is not.
The decline of paleo-media as well as paleo-environmentalism is linked by their biases as well as their failures. This is newsworthy, a perfect subject for crusading journalists looking to feast on deflated posers and social criminals. Many are doing so. What real environmentalists should remember is that doubting isn't enough, even when it is doubting the doubters. Stick to the knitting, pay attention the the science and advocate good practices as well as warning about potentially harmful ones. Think both large scale and long term while finding immediate and local applications of principles that lead to improved futures.