Policy and preposterism

Sun 11 Oct, 2009

Science or pseudo-science: environmental journalist Lenny Antonelli exposes the battle for the green movement’s soul

In the run up to the 2007 general election, former Green Party MEP Patricia McKenna appeared on Matt Cooper’s Today FM radio programme with Progressive Democrat Keith Redmond. Less then ten minutes into the discission, the topic of vaccination came up. McKenna said: “Many parents in this country have chosen not to vaccinate their children in relation to the MMR because of the links to autism.”

McKenna was referring to Dr Andrew Wakefield’s 1998 study of twelve autistic boys, which found traces of the measles virus in their guts. Wakefield suggested the virus could have have come from the vaccine, and consequently that MMR could cause autism.

The supposed link between MMR and autism had been a media sensation but by the time McKenna brought it up, Wakefield was a lone crusader: there is almost no evidence of any link between MMR and autism. General practitioner Michael Fitzpatrick has been critiquing Wakefield’s research since it was first published but it took a number of years for the tables to turn and Wakefield to replace Fitzpatrick as the lone crusader.

Today Wakefield is disgraced. Britain’s Sunday Times newspaper has even claimed that figures in Wakefield’s paper were altered before publication, and in the UK incidents of measles have increased 2 000 per cent in the last seven years as vaccination rates have plummeted.

McKenna’s fear of vaccination is just one example of an uncomfortable attitude towards science that pervades much of the environmental movement. While all Greens – and as I Green Party member I count myself among them ? are quick to point out that the vast bulk of scientific evidence supports the need for urgent action to prevent climate change, many are happy to ignore the evidence on issues like genetic modification, organic farming, and ‘alternative’ medicine.

Take that last issue: while not strictly an environmental one, ‘alternative’ medicine has become strongly associated with green thinking due to its emphasis on ‘natural’ rather than ‘synthetic’ solutions. Here is just one local example: the website of Cultivate – a leading environmental education service based in – features extensive references to alternative health and lifestyle practices but many of them are bogus.

One blogger who has written extensively on scientific hypocrisy in the environmental movement is Cork-based Graham Strouts, who blogs at zone5.org. In June of this year, Strouts reviewed the Transition Timeline, a guidebook to the ‘Transition Movement’, which encourages communities to reduce their reliance on fossil fuels through co-operation and creative solutions.

Green Party leader, John Gormley: which side will Irish greens take?
Photograph: David Ruffles

The book – based around an imagined future timeline in a town that is weaning itself off fossil fuels – includes the following text: “What used to be known as ‘alternative’ medicines were embraced, as practices like herbalism, acupuncture, massage and osteopathy became core pillars of public healthcare.”

In his review, Strouts says that while the Transition Movement is based on the ‘verifiable science of climate change and peak oil’, the only evidence employed when promoting alternative medicine is personal anecdote and pseudoscience. He writes, “[a]necdotes do not constitute evidence; if they did we would have to accept that global warming is not happening on the basis of it being rather cool today.”

Strout’s comments have sparked heated debate, as did other posts on organic agriculture and other issues close to the heart of many a green. Speaking to forth, Strouts said scientific hypocrisy is rife in the green movement.

“There are lots of people who apparently are not aware of this conflict, and will quote climate science but who will be anti-vaccination,” he said.

The failure of many greens to embrace science undermines the movement’s case on causes supported by genuine evidence. “Everything we know about climate change comes from scientists,” Strouts said. “Scientists who go out and measure things, who engage in the process of intelligent scientific debate and review, and whose findings have withstood challenges.”

He says some greens are, “blind to the fact that when they take an anti-science view on food or alternative medicine, they’re undermining the case for climate change.” The same goes for other environmental crises that are supported by strong evidence – such as the rapid loss of biodiversity and clean drinking water, Strouts says.

“A lot of environmental causes aren’t based on science at all,” Storuts adds. He cites organic food as an example, saying he was surprised at how vehemently many environmentalists attacked a recent UK Food Standards Authority study which found that organic food is nutritionally equivalent to conventionally-grown produce, rather than superior.

The green movement’s devotion to the organic standard seems based on a belief that anything derived from nature is better than anything ‘artificial’ or synthetic, or anything that contains chemicals – air and water being chemicals, of course. This conveniently ignores the fact that many plants produce toxins that are extremely dangerous; toxins which, in some cases, we have been able to control through the use agricultural technologies like selective breeding.

This isn’t to say that greens should blindly embrace GM crops, nuclear power or other old foes. These are complex technical issues with reasoned arguments for an against – but the evidence for both does suggest that, if properly regulated and controlled, they could both play some role in a world that is likely to face serious energy and food security challenges in future.

Nor is this to say that the entire green movement is scientifically compromised – a substantial section is motivated by a rational world-view. But a science/anti-science dichotomy divides the green movement – on one side are the new-age environmentalists motivated by spiritual and deep ecology, and on the other, the rational thinkers who are more interested in environmentalism as a component of social justice.

Though this split is not always readily apparent on the surface for those involved in the green movement, irrational support for alternative medicine and blind opposition to genetic modification and nuclear power damages greens’ credibility.