This is a party that a disproportionate number of scientists likely voted for. This is the party that claims to have science on its side. Let me emphasize that the Green Party claims to inform its policies with the best possible science. For a political party to blindly propagate these ideas is irresponsible at best and, at worst, ideologically-motivated alarmism. The claim that GMOs are unsafe for human consumption is entirely unsupported and is a prime example of thinking informed by unscientific and purely emotional arguments. Perhaps as importantly, there is no proposed mechanism that can explain why any such link could exist. Just to be clear, there has never been a single reputable, peer-reviewed study that has found any link between the consumption of genetically modified foods and adverse health effects. Instead, these warnings urged me to take action against the “potentially serious threat” that GMOs pose to our personal health.
That all changed a few weeks ago when the bulletins began urgently warning me of the dangers of genetically-modified foods, and not simply the dangers that GMOs could pose to the environment. For a while, the incoming e-mail bulletins were mostly innocuous. Take for example the Green Party of Canada, whose mailing list I recently subscribed to. While recent political trends in North America have bred legislation that reflects the irrational arguments of the right, there is an emerging and alarming trend of legally indulging the irrational left. The key difference being that on the right end of the political spectrum, the enemy is generally perceived to be big government on the left, it’s big business. The aggressors? The far left.įor every young-earth creationist, climate-science denier, and opponent of stem-cell therapy, there is a GMO-protester, homeopathy enthusiast, and vaccine-a-phobe. In Canada, as in much of the US and Europe, science is under a coordinated attack on a second and much ignored front. Shameful to be sure, but this is not the war with which we concern ourselves here. Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s government is busy attempting to greenwash oil-covered wetlands, while simultaneously gutting funding for water quality monitoring, rendering impotent the national census, and prioritizing federal funding to favor research with direct industrial application. Emulating our southern neighbors, Canada’s conservative government is shamefully guilty of waging their own war on science.
And left leaning parties are often viewed as embracing scientific discovery and research-based policies, right?įor the sake of full disclosure, in addition to being a Harvard scientist, I’m an overly-apologetic, maple syrup swilling, citizen of America’s hat. Canadians? Canada is typically regarded as a left-leaning nation, when measured against the American political spectrum. But scroll down to the fifth entry and you’ll find, “ The Canadian War on Science”.
It’s a clichéd narrative, not to imply that it’s undeserved. You’ve just received 1,320,000,000 results in 0.28 seconds and, unsurprisingly, “ The Republican War on Science” is the top result.