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 fter
years of playing offense, Greenpeace is now finding itself on the
defensive. In addition to pulling much of the anti-Bush administration
propaganda from its website, the group has failed to explain its
rationale for publicizing sensitive information on biological and
chemical toxins stored at thousands of U.S. industrial sites —
an exercise in fear-mongering that many of the group's critics saw
as an engraved invitation to terrorists. And Greenpeace is suddenly
getting the silent treatment from some erstwhile allies, who have
been alienated by the organization's unwillingness to recognize
the potentially adverse consequences of its actions.
Greenpeace
poses as a group interested in promoting better ecology based on
scientific analysis. But its real mission, as American University
professor Paul Wapner explains in his book
Environmental Activism and World Civic Politics, is "to
manipulate values, norms, and modes of discourse; it seeks to alter
people's conceptions of reality." In other words, it tries
to change culture as well as behavior.
Nowhere is
this more evident than in its campaign against biotechnology. The
environmentalist group has called for a global ban on the use of
biotech crops, while in the same breath acknowledging their potential
value. This, combined with the group's frequent vandalism of biotechnology
field-testing facilities, betrays a blatant disregard for scientific
analysis of the issue.
Greenpeace
persists in this stance despite the fact that many leading scientific
bodies have endorsed the use of biotechnology to aid third-world
countries. Ignoring these findings has cost Greenpeace some of its
top scholars. Dr. William Plaxton, who teaches biochemistry at Queens
University in Ontario, cited the group's attacks on biotechnology
as the primary reason for his departure last year. Similarly, Dr.
Barry Palevitz, who teaches botany at the University of Georgia,
scalded the group while departing in 1999, saying that "with
certain environmental groups not-so-subtly catalyzing the antitechnology
movement, much of the public is unaware that evidence that [biotech]
foods are unsafe is so far nonexistent...."
However, the
organization's greatest loss could be Dr. Bjorn Lomborg, Danish
professor of statistics and author of the critically acclaimed book
The Skeptical Environmentalist. Lomborg criticizes Greenpeace
for skewing the facts about biotechnology. Specifically, he says
in his book that biotechnology is one of many subjects in which
the negative rhetoric of Greenpeace doesn't comport with the facts.
Lomborg recognizes
that there are small, uncertain risks involved in allowing gene-spliced
crops to be marketed. He notes that these risks, which are well
understood by scientists, stem from the nature of particular products
that might be created — not from the process (genetic or conventional)
used to create them.
However, he
also acknowledges that there are definite risks involved in regulating
these crops. Because they have the potential to increase yields,
provide vitamin enrichment, and reduce demand for chemical pesticides,
stunting the growth of research and development on biotech crops
can only impose costs on consumers over time. Dr. Henry I. Miller,
a former Food and Drug Administration official, points out that
due to lobbying by radical groups like Greenpeace, the EPA uses
"an anachronistic approach that targets the techniques used
to create these organisms, rather than high-risk organisms or those
experiments likely to pose significant risk to public health or
the environment." Called upon by Greenpeace to impose a total
ban on these products, it is not surprising that the EPA has fallen
into this trap.
Greenpeace
may find a way to withstand the hits it has taken since September
11, but its campaign to impose an "ecological sensibility"
on society by fighting science can only last so long. Biotechnology
offers a way to produce more food and use fewer chemical pesticides
in the process. Since Greenpeace endorses these potential results
as objectives, it is unclear why the group continues to wage war
against scientists who do genetic research. It is only a matter
of time before people understand that radical environmentalist groups
are more intent on brainwashing people than in educating them about
scientific realities.
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