konsolidace vizí... ekomodernismus jako pokračováni ekosystémové ignorance. nic proti precision fermentaci
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SCHWEPZGeorge Monbiot teams up with Mark Lynas and the ecomodernists to Reboot Food https://gmwatch.org/en/106-news/latest-news/20127-george-monbiot-teams-up-with-mark-lynas-and-ecomodernism-to-reboot-foodGeorge Monbiot recently tweeted that he was “excited to announce the upcoming launch of a radical new campaign I’ve been working on with RePlanet, called Reboot Food”. That campaign draws heavily on ideas in Monbiot’s latest book Regenesis, which champions “precision-fermentation” as a techno-fix for feeding the world on animal-free protein and fats while freeing up vast areas of farm land for rewilding. But Reboot Food also draws on the dubious agenda of those behind a new organisation called RePlanet, which is receiving a massive boost from Monbiot’s involvement in its campaign.
And Monbiot’s involvement is far from incidental. It has taken a lot of careful planning and already includes:
* a specially recorded RePlanet video titled “let’s have George explain it” on the Reboot Food home page
* Monbiot speaking at a special webinar marking the launch of the Reboot Food campaign
* Monbiot undertaking a live speaking tour that will take him to four different European countries, where his appearances will be hosted by RePlanet member organisations
The Reboot Food Manifesto not only calls for massive government investment in the “game-changing innovations in precision fermentation and biotech” that will produce “low-cost animal-free foods”, but for the legalisation of “gene editing, genetic modification and other new breeding techniques”, and for governments to “repeal organic farming targets and set land-use reduction and rewilding targets instead”. (That's the original wording, but “repeal organic farming targets” has since been softened to “suspend organic targets...” 15/11/2022)
Stopping governments promoting organic farming and getting them to deregulate genetic engineering are key current campaign goals of the pesticides lobby, which has been employing a wide variety of tactics to try and achieve them. That’s because the pesticide giants are desperate to undermine the European Union’s Farm to Fork strategy, which aims by 2030 to slash pesticide and fertilizer use and more than triple the percentage of EU farmland under organic management, as part of the transition towards a “more sustainable food system” within the EU’s Green Deal.
Having a leading environmental commentator like George Monbiot promoting and participating in a campaign that includes pushing genetic engineering and getting the EU’s organic farming targets repealed is a dream come true for the pesticide lobby. And Monbiot was challenged about the anti-organic element on Twitter by Rob Percival of the Soil Association, who asked, “Is a 25% EU organic target really a threat to the rewilding movement? In Regenesis you say the future of food is ‘ideally organic’ – what changed?”. Monbiot replied, “It’s not my project, but one that brings together a wide range of people with broadly similar interests. We won't all agree on every detail.” To which the author Jayne Buxton retorted, “That’s quite the cop out”.
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RePlanet’s first incarnation seems to have been in the Netherlands with Stichting Ecomodernisme Nederland, which later rebranded as RePlanet Nederland. The prime movers were a Belgian comms strategist called Rob De Schutter and a Dutch publicist, Hidde Boersma. Boersma, needless to say, calls himself “an ecomodernist” and gave a Ted Talk titled “It is time for ecomodernism”.
Boersma also helped author a book called Ecomodernisme (2017) whose other contributors also formed part of the Dutch ecomodernist foundation that became RePlanet Nederland. The book’s back cover lays out the group’s credo: “
There are no limits to growth. The earth can easily handle 10 billion people. Solar panels and wind turbines are a costly mistake, nuclear energy is the future. Organic farming will not feed the world, intensive farming will.”
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On RePlanet Nederland’s website they describe the future they dream of. It includes massive urbanisation – “more than 90 percent” of the world’s population living and working in “the city, compared to 50 percent in 2000. Surrounding the city are large farms full of genetically modified crops that achieve four times higher yields than at the beginning of the 21st century. Many of those farms are located in high-rise buildings clad with solar panels. In the distance you can see the cooling towers of a nuclear power plant…”
RePlanet Nederland’s cofounder Hidde Boersma has produced a film promoting GM crops, is planning another promoting GM mosquitoes, and has been trying to crowdfund yet another defending glyphosate. The latter he is co-producing with a farmer, Michiel Van Andel, who says he used to have, “a critical attitude towards chemical giants such as Bayer Monsanto, the producer of glyphosate” but “when he started researching the subject about six years ago, his opinion changed.