Greens found themselves in some awkward positions last week when the campaign to promote mercury laced compact fluorescent lamps met the inconvenient truth that the UN is demanding less mercury use.
I wonder how greens, those fearful, fragile creatures that get faint over the thought of a genetically modified tomato, can support geo-engineering, the attempt to stop ‘global warming’ by messing with the whole planet.
One of the principle green objections to GM foods is that once enhanced foods are in the ecosystem, there is no control over the process which may have unforeseen but totally scary consequences. Yet take a look at some of the geoengineering projects proposed or under way:
- Wind scrubbers to filter carbon dioxide from the air
- ‘fertilization’ of oceans with iron to encourage growth of plankton
- Petrification of carbon dioxide
- Deflection of sunlight from the earth through the use of a giant space mirror ‘spanning 600,000 square miles’
- Wrapping Greenland in a blanket
Unless greens can prove they know all the potential outcomes of each of these projects, they do not meet the standard of ‘do no harm‘ that they demand for GM foods. How inconvenient.
