I remember the first wave of green consciousness, at least in my lifetime. It was in the late eighties and early nineties, following the 20-year fashion copying cycle. We were pseudo-hippies living a packaged re-enactment. In this spirit of new oldness, an opportunity arose for organisations that do good to capture the imagination of youth. It was in this environment that I became a member of Greenpeace.
I learned that it is bad to use fertiliser on crops, since the fertiliser pollutes the water supply. I learned that it is bad to put pesticides on crops, since they are indiscriminate killers, and besides they lead to super-pests. These things concerned my young mind. As I got older I was able to relax, seeing the developments in biotech making naturally pest-resistant crops, which fixed nitrogen into the soil and lasted longer on the shelf to boot.
Today I learned that GM crops are bad, thanks to a handy FUD pamphlet from our friends at Greenpeace. I am confused. If GM crops are a step towards reducing fertiliser and pesticide use, why are they bad? Because they aren’t nature’s original species. Well guess what? No crops are nature’s original species. They are all genetically modified through unnatural selection. Just because the modification was done in a less effient manner does not make it “natural”. Remember high school science? Remember Mendel’s pea plants? Greenpeace bloody don’t. I can’t respect and believe in the other causes of that organisation now that I see them for what they are, which is just another corporation.
I will stop ranting now, but when I am in Japan, I might reconsider that can of whale meat.
