THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
An Online Journal of Political Commentary & Analysis
Volume X, Issue # 164, July 4, 2008
Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
Government Committed to & Acting in Accord with Conservative Principles
Ensures a Nation's Strength, Progress, & Prosperity
GREENS ADD FOOD PRODUCTION TO THEIR HIT LIST
By Dennis T. Avery
ENVIRONMENTALISM & AGRICULTURE: THE IMPACT OF THE ENVIRONMENTALIST MOVEMENT ON EUROPEAN FOOD
PRODUCTION -- ENVIRONMENTALISTS DEMAND SHARP REDUCTIONS IN EUROPE'S PESTICIDE USE, REDUCTIONS THAT WILL
CUT IN HALF THE CONTINENT'S CROP PRODUCTION -- THE EUROPEAN UNION, UNDER PRESSURE FROM THE
ENVIRONMENTALISTS & GLOBAL WARMING ALARMISTS, PLANS TO RADICALLY TIGHTEN ITS REGULATION OF PESTICIDE
USE, A POLICY DECISION BASED ON THE THEORETICAL RISKS DREAMED UP BY GREEN IDEOLOGUES & APOSTLES OF THE
THEORY OF IMMINENT CATASTROPHIC CLIMATE CHANGE CAUSED BY HUMAN ACTIVITY
FULL STORY:
British diesel is a self-inflicted $12 per gallon, biofuels have nearly doubled British food prices, and 40 percent of the
United Kingdom's electrical power will be shut down over the next six years. Now, the same Green alarmists, who warn
of man-made global warming while the planet cools, demand sharp reductions in Europe’s pesticide use. That will slash
Europe’s crop production in half during a global food emergency.
Is Green really the world’s way forward?
Europe’s Large Combustion Plant Directive will shutter 17 big generating plants in the U.K. alone for emitting too much
carbon dioxide (CO2). Never mind that the earth has not warmed as the global warming alarmists predicted — and
actually has been cooling for 16 months, in defiance of the computer climate models.
Until now, the European Union has regulated pesticides based on their contribution to producing food — balanced
against the farmer’s relatively small risks of using them. Henceforth, however, pesticide permissions will be radically
tightened, based on theoretical risks dreamed up by the environmentalists and global warming alarmists.
Britain’s Pesticide Safety Directorate says conventional agriculture will become impossible in much of Europe. Farming
costs will soar and yields will fall. Is this simply the old Green demand for population control — through famine?
Have the pest protection chemicals been quietly killing off European citizens? Actually, Europeans are living longer than
ever, and should add 5 years to their lifespan by 2050 — unless they starve after the crop protection chemicals are
cancelled.
Have all Europe’s birds and butterflies died off, due to pesticide spraying? Actually, biologists are finding increasing
biodiversity across the E.U. as vegetation, butterflies, birds, mussels, fish, and mammals all take advantage of the warm
and moderate “interglacial” climate we’ve had since the end of the Little Ice Age. Global temperatures increased only 0.2
degrees Celsius from 1940 to 1998, and recently have dropped back more than 0.5 degree Celsius.
Why, then, cancel the insecticides that allow us to control the plant-munching bugs, the termites, and the roaches; the
fungicides that suppress the fungus so prevalent in Europe’s rainy crop fields; the herbicides that control the weeds,
which otherwise steal half the sunlight, moisture, and soil nutrients from the crop plants?
Organic farmers claim they can feed the world, but Denmark’s high-level Bichel Committee reported in 1999 that an
all-organic farming mandate would cut Danish food production roughly in half. The University of Michigan said, in 2007,
that organic farming could triple world food output — but the study’s lead author was a fully-qualified geologist with
no farming experience.
Humanity has recently enjoyed some of the most comfortable weather in the history of the planet. The Modern Warming
should last several more centuries, at least, with less than 1 degree Celsius of further temperature increase. The only huge
run up in temperatures is found in the unverified computer models.
We have massively increased global food production, despite warnings from generations of Greens that farm science was
“dangerous.” Bill Gates is trying now to extend Norman Borlaug’s Green Revolution to feed Africa as well. Meanwhile,
declining Third World birth rates indicate a peak human population about 2040, followed by a long, slow decline in human
numbers as trade and technology spread affluence worldwide.
Is life too good? Is that why we feel compelled to make it more difficult?
LINKS TO RELATED TOPICS:
Agriculture, the Economy, & Human Welfare:
Policy Issues Relating to Food Production
Political Environmentalism Versus Human Progress & Prosperity:
Policy Issues Relating to Energy, Environment,
& Natural Resources
The Earth's Natural History, Global Climate Changes,
& the Future of Human Life & Civilization on the Planet:
Science, Ideology, & Public Policy
Political Economy -- Philosophies, Systems, & Public Policies:
Government, the Economy, & Economic Prosperity
Dennis T. Avery is a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute in Washington, D.C., and is the Director of the Institute's Center for
Global Food Issues (www.cgfi.org). Formerly he was a senior policy analyst for the United
States Department of State, where he won the National Intelligence Medal of Achievement. He is the co-author, with
atmospheric physicist Fred Singer, of the book, Unstoppable Global Warming: Every 1500 Years (Blue Ridge Summit,
Pennsylvania: Rowman & Littlefield, 2006). Avery's book, Saving the Planet With Pesticides and Plastic: The Environmental
Triumph of High-Yield Farming (Washington, D.C.: Hudson Institute, 1995), continues to be popular as a readable overview
of realistic agriculture for the future and for today. Readers may write Avery at Post Office Box 202, Churchville, Virginia, 24421.
Email: cgfi@hughes.net
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THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
An Online Journal of Political Commentary & Analysis
Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
Conservative & Free-Market Analysis of Government, Politics & Public Policy, Covering Political, Legal, Constitutional, Economic,
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Conservative Government Ensures a Nation's Strength, Progress, & Prosperity