When environmentalists ditch their mantra. Ah, fun to watch!

"The lady doth protest too much, methinks" wrote the incomparable Shakespeare in Hamlet.  Ever since I came across that phrase in my early youth, I have always been über-suspicious about people who insist, almost evangelically, about their beliefs, whether it is about anti-homosexuality or religion or war or the environment.  And, if by some fortunate accident should the person's doublethink be exposed, mayhem ensues.

Remember, for instance, Ted Haggard?  Christopher Hitchens went through such a phase himself, when he broke away from his leftist colleagues and friends.  For the most part, they never forgave him for that sin, especially not after the golden boy that he was when in that camp.

For people like me, who think there is no better drama than the one that unfolds in real life, those are some really awesome moments.

I suppose for the big protesters, their entire identity is built on a certain set of ideas and even when they know it is false, they simply have no option but to keep saying and practicing those very ideas because, if not, their identity and livelihood collapse.  They are prisoners of their own ideologies.  That is one problem that, fortunately, I do not have!

A few years ago, Patrick Moore, who was the co-founder of Greenpeace, shocked the environmental world with his volte–face:

In the early 1970s when I helped found Greenpeace, I believed that nuclear energy was synonymous with nuclear holocaust, as did most of my compatriots. That's the conviction that inspired Greenpeace's first voyage up the spectacular rocky northwest coast to protest the testing of U.S. hydrogen bombs in Alaska's Aleutian Islands. Thirty years on, my views have changed, and the rest of the environmental movement needs to update its views, too, because nuclear energy may just be the energy source that can save our planet from another possible disaster: catastrophic climate change.

Moore now heads an energy coalition that champions nuclear energy, and freely admits to the mistake he helped propagate by lumping nuclear energy with nuclear weapons.

The latest in such "The lady doth protest too much, methinks" is Mark Lynas, who "spent years destroying genetically modified crops in the name of the environment."  Yes, he protested too much. Even with machetes:

Back in the mid-90s he'd belonged to a "radical cell" of the anarchist, anti-capitalist environmental movement. He was influential – a co-founder of the magazine Corporate Watch who'd written the first article about the evils of Genetically Modified Organisms [GMOs] and Monsanto, the multinational biotech company whose work with GMOs was to become notorious. He was a law breaker. He'd pile into vans with gangs of up to 30 people and spend nights slashing GM crops with machetes. He was angry. 

That was then.  "The lady doth protest too much, methinks" indeed!

And then a Damascene conversion!  Back in January, he spoke up:

My lords, ladies and gentlemen. I want to start with some apologies, which I believe are most appropriate to this audience. For the record, here and upfront, I apologise for having spent several years ripping up GM crops. I'm also sorry that I helped to start the anti-GM movement back in the mid-1990s and that I thereby assisted in demonising an important technological option which can be used to benefit the environment. As an environmentalist, and someone who believes that everyone in this world has a right to a healthy and nutritious diet of their choosing, I could not have chosen a more counter-productive path. I now regret it completely.

Reacting to that speech, The Economist politely said, "I told you so!"

His new position will be familiar to readers of this blog. “We will have to feed 9.5 billion hopefully less poor people by 2050 on about the same land area as we use today, using limited fertiliser, water and pesticides and in the context of a rapidly changing climate.” It will be impossible to feed those extra mouths by digging up more land, because there isn’t much going and because land conversion is a large source of greenhouse gases. Taking more water from rivers will accelerate biodiversity loss. And we need to improve—and probably reduce—nitrogen use (ie in chemical fertilisers) which is creating a dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico and eutrophication in fresh water. The only way of squaring this circle will be through the technology-driven intensification of farming—ie, GM.

It is not as if Lynas' conversion was a matter of one moment when the new year came around.  It was building up over the years, he says, starting with 1998:

He'd begun to notice a widespread denial in the people around him. The more he recognised it, the more it felt like hypocrisy. "Everyone thought of themselves as being tolerant and open-minded," he says. "But if you said something critical about them, you'd be in quite serious trouble."

Sounds familiar to me.

There is no way the believers will want their folks, especially an influential leader, to question their own beliefs.  Remember that wonderful scene in Monty Python's Life of Brian?

Lynas has been very critical of Greenpeace's policy towards a GM crop that's become totemic among campaigners. Golden rice is a crop that's been modified, by the insertion of the genes for the chemical beta-carotene, in an attempt to make it provide more vitamin A. "Vitamin-A deficiency is one of the leading causes of death in southeast Asia," says Lynas. "It's led to blindness and the death of about a quarter of a million people a year." Yet campaigners, including Greenpeace, lobbied against it.  Greenpeace insists golden rice is a "waste of money" and an "ineffective tool… [that] is also environmentally irresponsible, poses risks to human health and compromises food security". For Lynas, its stance is "just superstition. 

Finally, he can stop protesting too much.

My neighbor comments that I am a freaking tree-hugger, and it is true in so many ways.  I try to be ultra-careful when it comes to even using chemicals against bugs.  I mostly buy grains and vegetables, and occasionally chicken or beef, and cook my own meals.  I bring home the groceries in my washable bags.  I love the river that is close by, and love walking by its side.  The coffee I buy is certified that it was grown in environmentally safe conditions.  But, as much as my neighbor thinks that I am a tree-hugger, my arguments in favor of nuclear energy and GM pisses off people who believe they are out to save the planet.  I can only imagine their responses if they came to know that once for Earth Day I showed in a class the classic George Carlin routine on "Save the Planet."

The world will be much better off if only we can shed our ideological frames that distort our visions.  But then, that will mean going against what Shakespeare observed.  Maybe you are thinking Shakespeare was wrong.  Let me warn you--if anybody dares to argue that Shakespeare was wrong, then I shall protest too much! ;)

The Willamette River, in late September of 2012