COMMENT from Roger Mainwood: Yesterday on RT America (a TV channel based in Washington) Mark Lynas was interviewed about the reaction to his Oxford Farming Conference speech on GM crops.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hu018hlyH1Y
Here is an extract:
RT America interviewer: "What have people's reaction been?"
Mark Lynas: "Well it's been fascinating actually. I was expecting, you know, bags loads of hate mail, and I have to admit there has been one or two, and the standard accusation that I've probably taken money from Monsanto, but I would say that has been outweighed a hundred times by supportive tweets, emails, and just the number of times the thing has been downloaded."
So, one or two hate mails. And yet at the same time as this was being broadcast in the US, Farmers Weekly was splashing with this lead story "Hate mail sent to pro-GM speaker Mark Lynas" [see story below]
http://www.fwi.co.uk/Articles/07/01/2013/137045/Hate-mail-sent-to-pro-GM-speaker-Mark-Lynas.htm
No figures are given in the article but no one reading it would imagine that it was just "one or two", especialy given the prominence that the story has.
Here is an extract:
"But he (Mark Lynas) warned that he was prepared to publish some of the hate mail online - including the names and computer addresses of those who sent it. "I don't want to play the victim here - I couldn't care less about the nutters really." He added:"'To everyone sending me hate mail: I may post your messages, emails and IPs in the public domain. Just so you know. ""
Hate mail should of course be condemned, and I do.
So too should pulling the wool over people's eyes. Mark Lynas on Twitter was bemoaning the lack of response to his Oxford Farming Conference speech amongst the UK media. The truth was there was nothing newsworthy in it that we haven't heard from him before. But his spirits were lifted when he tweeted excitedly (on 7th Jan) that he had seen the "First major response from a big green group to my GMO speech" - and it was favourable! The group in question he said was an organisation called "Nature Conservancy". Sounds good doesn't it - a bit like the old "Nature Conservancy Council" that we used to have in the UK. People should be aware though that it is actually a group based in the US that is backed by, amongst others, GM crop giant Monsanto as one of its Corporate Partners. A "big green group" Mark?
Later on another excited tweet came through that his speech was now trending at no. 2 on Fox News opinion. I would have kept that quiet!
NOTE from GMWatch: About a month ago Mark Lynas was asked at a talk he gave at the John Innes Centre, whether he received hate mail. He said he didn't. This might be thought quite surprising. In our experience, getting hate mail is quite a common feature of the GM debate!
Don't forget that over the last couple of years Mark has not only swapped sides on a whole range of environmental issues but has been regularly attacking those with concerns about intensive farming, GM crops, nuclear power, geoengineering, etc. etc. As one of those who knew Mark well when he was an environmental campaigner told us, "It feels like he's building his career by publically kicking again and again the community that used to support him and that perversely he still draws his supposed legitimacy from."
Mark was also very prominent in the controversial TV documentary "What the Greens got wrong?". Following the programme, we got emails from one of Mark's fellow anti-green contributors that called us, among other things, "a bunch of murdering bastards" that he hoped would "rot in hell."
http://www.gmwatch.org/latest-listing/50-2011/12932
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Hate mail sent to pro-GM speaker Mark Lynas
Johann Tasker
Farmers Weekly, 7 January 2013
http://www.fwi.co.uk/Articles/07/01/2013/137045/Hate-mail-sent-to-pro-GM-speaker-Mark-Lynas.htm
An award-winning environmentalist says he has received hate mail since speaking in favour of GM crops at the Oxford Farming Conference.
Abusive messages were sent to environmental activist Mark Lynas, who once spent several years ripping up GM crops, after he told conference delegates he was now in favour of the technology.
Mr Lynas told delegates he regretted starting the anti-GM crop movement during the 1990s - demonising a technology he now believed could and should benefit the environment.
His comments have infuriated GM opponents.
"The GM debate is finished," Mr Lynas said, adding that farmers should be free to grow GM crops, which could help feed the world's poor.
"We don't need to continue to discuss it. You are more likely to get hit by an asteroid than to get hurt by GM food."
The conference speech by Mr Lynas has been downloaded more than 130,000 times in the four days since he delivered it on Thursday (3 January).
But it angered environmentalists who remain opposed to GM crops - some of whom have pilloried Mr Lynas via email and social media, including Twitter.
One Twitter message was sent by the prominent anti-GM campaigner Vandana Shiva. It said: "Saying farmers should be free to grow GMOs, which can contaminate organic farms, is like saying rapists should have freedom to rape."
Mr Lynas replied: "Comparing me with rapists is disgusting and offensive. You are a reactionary fraud and an enemy of the poor."
Mr Lynas said he refused to be intimidated by the emails he had received. Supportive messages far outnumbered those criticising his conversion to GM crops, he added.
But he warned that he was prepared to publish some of the hate mail online - including the names and computer addresses of those who sent it.
"I don't want to play the victim here - I couldn't care less about the nutters really."
He added: "To everyone sending me hate mail: I may post your messages, emails and IPs in the public domain. Just so you know."
The speech has been criticised by the pro-organic Soil Association - although there is no suggestion that the organisation is behind any of the abusive messages.
Soil Association innovation director Tom Macmillan said Mr Lynas was right that improving agricultural productivity had an important part to play in feeding the world sustainably.
But "banging on about GM crops" was a "red herring," said Mr Macmillan, who also criticised pro-GM comments made at the conference by DEFRA secretary Owen Paterson.
"Farmers and the public have been promised the earth on GM yet the results to date have been poor," said Mr Macmillan.
"The UK government's own farm-scale experiment showed that overall the GM crops were worse for British wildlife."
US government figures showed that pesticide use had increased since GM crops have been grown there because superweeds and resistant insects have multiplied, Mr Macmillan claimed.
"Lynas, Paterson and other GM enthusiasts must beware of opening floodgates to real problems like this," he added.