03/August/20

 

The GMO promoter and member of the UK House of Lords, John Krebs, has made misleading claims for gene-edited crops in an interview with the BBC. In fact Krebs is making the same inflated claims for gene-edited crops as he made for first-generation GM crops. We deconstruct the hype and false claims. GMWatch

 

 

A federal review of existing data unveils an alarming trend for the western bumblebee population, which has seen its numbers dwindle by as much as 93% in the last two decades. Researchers say there are multiple factors at play that are contributing to the demise of the bumblebee, including pesticides, habitat fragmentation, a warming climate and pathogens. The Denver Channel

 

 

Common fungicides are the strongest factor linked to steep declines in bumblebees across the US, according to the first landscape-scale analysis. The surprising result has alarmed bee experts because fungicides are targeted at moulds and mildews – not insects – but now appear to be a cause of major harm. How fungicides kill bees is now being studied, but is likely to be by making them more susceptible to the deadly nosema parasite or by exacerbating the toxicity of other pesticides. The Guardian

 

 

So much seems unusual about this Conservative government: its constant disruptiveness; its preference for rhetoric over functional policies; and its mixture of brazen U-turns and cult-like discipline. It’s common to attribute some or all of these tendencies to the idiosyncrasies of Boris Johnson and Dominic Cummings, or the effects of Brexit, or the rise of rightwing populism. But there is a less noticed and more surprising factor at work, too. Today’s Tory government has adopted some of the style, rhetoric and preoccupations of a defunct radical sect, the Revolutionary Communist party (RCP). [GMW: For background on this sect and their role in hyping GM technology, see this.] The Guardian