#067 – Greenpeace Will Be Remembered in History as Monsters
The League of Nerds
Myles and James talk about one of the fantastic inventions of the modern era, the GMO Golden rice. This is a rice that produces vitamin A (actually make the precursor that the body turns into vitamin A). A recent Greenpeace video explains how they are ok with children going blind and over 600000 dying. Golden rice could be part of the solution to this complex issue of malnutrition in the developing world. AntiGmo groups however see its utility as a slippery slope into further uses of GMO products. At best this is cutting off your nose to spite your face at worst it is the wilful endangerment of people less fortunate. Millions of people are left blind due to vitamin A deficiency and over 600000 die each year. It is easy to be antiGMO when your bellies are full and your kids aren’t blind.
Myles Power 
You would want to talk to me? I’m not very interesting. I just have a lot of good quality links…
But does it mean I get some kind of TLoN cape + tights? I might do it for that.
DM me on twitter with the contact email for you.
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Yes do get Mem on that would be awesome, like having the entire internet on your show :)
Interesting discussion- especially your theory about Greenpeace having been so successful it is only left with extremists. It still doesnt really explain why they get so much support for supporting such blatantly monstrous policies.
I dont agree that they would not lose support if they changed their views on GMOs- they are in far too deep, as are most antis. People’s whole identity is tied up with being anti-GMO and it would be in-conscionable for this to change. More than that, there are other powerful NGO-corporate interests who also back anti-GMO namely the Organic industry and the Quack industry. Greenpeace would find themselves isolated and marginalised if they broke ranks.
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Great show guys.
I am currently on the ALLOW GOLDEN RICE NOW tour in South Asia with Patrick Moore (co-founder of Greenpeace) promoting Golden Rice to the countries who most need this solution.
We are also directing our scorn at Greenpeace who are opposed to Golden Rice, including a protest outside the Greenpeace office in Manila. We are visiting Bangladesh and India next.
Follow our tour here: https://www.facebook.com/goldenricenow?ref=hl
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I think this is the statement from IRRI, the developers of Golden Rice 2, which explains that they’ve had to go back to the lab due to low yields –
http://irri.org/golden-rice/faqs/what-is-the-status-of-the-golden-rice-project-coordinated-by-irri
“The first round of MLTs was conducted using one of the most advanced versions of Golden Rice: GR2 event “R” (GR2-R). This first round took place in 2012-13 to assess how well this version of Golden Rice would perform in different locations in the Philippines. Preliminary results were mixed. While the target level of beta-carotene in the grain was attained, average yield was unfortunately lower than that from comparable local varieties already preferred by farmers.
An important goal of the trials was to test whether the agronomic performance of the new rice variety would be acceptable to farmers. The initial results indicate that more research is needed, with greater focus on increasing yield. Based on these results, a decision has been reached to move forward from work solely focused on GR2-R to also include other versions of Golden Rice, such as GR2-E and others.”
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