Special GM edition of The Ecologist launches new campaign

[Guest guest]

IMPORTANT NEWS - Special GM edition of The Ecologist launches new

campaign

 

1.GM: Halt the Growing Threat

2.Growing concern

 

EXTRACT: " Take the information here and pass it along. Talk, argue and

debate, but most importantly act. Watch the films, vote in the poll,

download the brochure, participate in the write-to-your-supermarket

campaign and attend the conferences. You are powerful. You are

persuasive. Your actions can unshackle us from a GM future. Let your

voices be heard. " - Pat Thamas, Editor, The Ecologist

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1.GM: Halt the Growing Threat

Pat Thomas

The Ecologist Newsletter , 31 October 2008

http://www.theecologist.org/pages/archive_detail.asp?content_id=1987

 

Growing anxiety, growing concern, growing doubts, growing uncertainty.

If you are one of a growing number of people who want to be heard on

the subject of GM, and to find out how you can become involved in

keeping the future GM-free, here are some places to start.

 

GET READING

 

*The November edition of the Ecologist features a special GM foods

report with contributions from some of the leading scientists,

academics and campaigners in the GM arena. Based on the science, the

report challenges the current assumption that GM crops have what it

takes to feed, fuel and heal the world. Essential reading for anyone

who wants to understand the issues surrounding genetic modification.

Referenced versions of all the articles in the magazine will be made

available here soon. Read Pat Thomas, editor of the Ecologist's

editorial here.

 

*If you think GM food, engineered to contain higher levels of

nutrients is the answer to pressing problems of malnutrition, you may

wish to read this article, written by Professor David Schubert, a

professor at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in La Jolla CA,

and a molecular biologist with interests in the development of the

nervous system and the treatment of Alzheimer's disease and other

neurological disorders.

 

LOG ON

 

*A massive PR push is once more underway - thanks to the food crisis,

promoting GM foods as the way to feed the world. So a new campaigning

website - www.banGMfood.org - has been launched to provide a tool kit

for fighting back. The site includes easy-to-read downloadable

leaflets with all the latest evidence and up-to-date arguments on the

dangers of GMOs and why there are far better alternatives for feeding

the world. The site also has details of exactly who to contact to make

sure your views are heard, plus loads of links and other campaigning

information.

 

*The Ecologist has joined up with campaigning website greenvoice.com

to offer a wider forum for the GM debate. Log on to vote in the poll,

be heard and take action

 

WRITE TO YOUR SUPERMARKET

 

The GM-Free foods campaign is asking everyone to write to the major

supermarkets to urge them to continue to keep own-brand products GM-

Free (pressure from the Government and the biotech industry is making

the supermarkets think seriously about banding together to introduce a

united pro-GM front). Click here for details.

http://www.bangmfood.org/take-action

 

DOWNLOAD THE LEAFLET

 

You can download a short leaflet '10 Reasons Why We Don't Need GM

Foods' here.

http://www.bangmfood.org/images/stories/10reasons.pdf

 

More detailed information can be accessed at www.banGMfood.org

 

APPEAL TO YOUR MP

 

Suggest that he or she writes to environment secretary Hilary Benn to

request that government legislation and Defra's regulations be more

stringent surrounding GM produce. Follow the links on Friends of the

Earth's 'Say no to GM contamination' web page for a simple way to send

a letter to your local MP. See: www.stopgmcontamination.org

 

WATCH THE FILM

 

The World According to Monsanto

 

On 11 March, a documentary made by French journalist and film-maker

Marie-Monique Robin, The World According to Monsanto, was aired on

French television channel ARTE. Unsurprisingly, it has never aired in

the US, but you can view it on various sites on the internet. A good

place to start is YouTube: www.youtube.com/watch?v=CMleWZXhi6s

 

ATTEND THE CONFERENCE

 

Feeding the World. Are GM crops fit for purpose? If not, what then?

 

12 November 2008, London

 

The gauntlet has been thrown down by government for GM critics either

to 'put up or shut up' within the year. This conference will examine,

searchingly and honestly, the claims and counter-claims of one of the

most critical environmental issues of our time. It will tackle the GM

lobby and discuss how best to feed a hungry world.

www.feedingtheworldconference.org

 

SUPPORT THESE GROUPS

 

Friends of the Earth www.foe.co.uk

 

GM Freeze www.gmfreeze.org

 

GM Watch www.gmwatch.org

 

Soil Association www.soilassociation.org

 

Gene Watch www.genewatch.org

 

Genetic Food Alert www.geneticfoodalert.supanet.com

 

Institute for Responsible Technology www.responsibletechnology.org

 

GM SUPERMARKET CAMPAIGN

 

Keeping UK supermarkets GM-Free

 

Now that the GM-foods issue is again in the spotlight, please join the

GM-Free Foods Campaign* in writing to the major supermarkets to urge

them to continue to keep their own-brand products GM-Free (pressure

from the Government and the biotech industry is making the

supermarkets think seriously about banding together to introduce a

united pro-GM front).

 

[more details of what to do at www.banGMfood.org ]

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2.Growing concern

Pat Thomas

Editorial, The Ecologist - November edition

http://www.theecologist.org/pages/archive_detail.asp?content_id=1988

 

Genetically modified food. It's a big issue. So big that we have

turned over half of this month's magazine to it. Increasingly, we are

handed the notion that GM food is just like any other food, only

better, because of its almost magical power to solve our most

immediate crises of poverty, hunger, fossil-fuel depletion and climate

change. In a world where we are daily met with the grief of an

imploding financial system and the day-to-day hardships of making ends

meet, it's understandable to want to believe in such easy magic.

 

But GM isn't like switching to a low-energy light bulb. If it doesn't

work you can't take it back to the shop or, more importantly, remove

it from the environment. Because only a handful of large multinational

companies are behind its development (page 26), a GM future takes our

food supply out of the hands of individual farmers and puts it in the

grip of conglomerants, disconnected from the land and from those who

work and rely upon it. In this vision of the future our relationship

to land and food fundamentally changes; we are less resilient and more

dependent on others to feed us. These are complex issues of growing

concern.

 

What will become apparent as you read this special edition, written by

leading thinkers, academics and campaigners in the field, is that the

GM crops that promise increased yields (page 18), and drought- and

saline-resistance (pages 22 and 25) don't actually exist anywhere but

on the drawing board. What is more, these same traits can be achieved

through normal plant-breeding, and in many cases such plants will

outperform GM varieties. Normal plant-breeding also means bread and

butter today, rather than the jam-tomorrow promise of GM.

 

Why, then, the big political push for a GM solution? The answer lies

in the same faulty logic that says if you want to stimulate the

economy, start a war - only in this case the war is against the

natural environment. Much of biotech's money is spent on PR and spin

(page 30) that tells us Nature is letting us down by failing to

provide enough food, and fast enough, to feed a hungry world. Let us

be clear: it is humanity that has let its own kind down. The failure

to feed the world is a failure of political will and of free-market

economics. Indeed, none of the current crises we face is due to a lack

of technofood; that is why introducing GM crops - which have never

been evaluated for safety (page 21) - into an already volatile mix,

while ignoring the real causes of our problems, won't get us any

closer to solving our problems.

 

Sometimes people become frustrated with the Ecologist. They ask: 'Why

are you never satisfied? Why are you anti-science?' We are not anti-

science. We are only against the inappropriate or unnecessary

application of scientific principles and discoveries as a quick fix to

deeply rooted cultural, political and economic problems.

 

As with every issue of the Ecologist, this month's edition tries to

supply sufficient tools to help you tackle the big issues of the day

effectively, with integrity and intelligence, and perhaps most

importantly, to help others see the bigger picture too. Take the

information here and pass it along. Talk, argue and debate, but most

importantly act (page 37). Watch the films, vote in the poll, download

the brochure, participate in the write-to-your-supermarket campaign

and attend the conferences. You are powerful. You are persuasive. Your

actions can unshackle us from a GM future. Let your voices be heard.

 

 

 

For in a Republic, who is “the country� Is it the Government which is for

the moment in the saddle? Why, the Government is merely a servant—merely a

temporary servant; it cannot be its prerogative to determine what is right and

what is wrong, and decide who is a patriot and who isn’t. Its function is to

obey orders, not originate them.

Mark Twain