SPOTLIGHT: Late last year, the European Union voted down a ban on glyphosate – a safe, effective weed killer used by farmers around the world. Afterward, Mark Lynas, an environmental journalist, denounced the activists who’d pushed hard for that ban.

BIG PICTURE: We think of environmentalists as selfless, virtuous, avenging angels. But green groups have morphed into multinational corporations with enormous budgets. Paying the salaries of all those lawyers and lobbyists requires an ongoing tsunami of financial donations.

The campaigns run by these perpetual outrage machines now have little connection to what’s reasonable or sensible. As Lynas declares in his article, “Europe Still Burns Witches,” the activists “were clearly not interested in whether glyphosate was actually harming anyone in the real world.”

Despite “the obvious perversion of both science and natural justice,” he says, they “very nearly got away with it.” In a few years time, when this decision gets revisited, they’ll have another kick at the can.

TOP TAKEAWAY: Environmental activists have their own agenda and their own bills to pay. What’s good for them and what’s good for our communities aren’t necessarily the same.

LINKS:

Seeds of Science: Why We Got It So Wrong On GMOs Mark Lynas

• Lynas’ article, “Europe still burns witches – if they’re named Monsanto“
• a list of in-depth, glyphosate-related blog posts by Belgian professor David Zarok, author of Risk-Monger.com
• Reuters’ Kate Kelland: “In glyphosate review, WHO cancer agency edited out ‘non-carcinogenic’ findings“

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