:00:03. > :00:13.BBC website of course. You can get to me and most of the team on
:00:13. > :00:19.
:00:19. > :00:26.not just in religion but in scientific debate as well. Take my
:00:26. > :00:29.guest today, Mark Lynas, a veteran green activist who led a campaign
:00:29. > :00:35.to vandalise experimental genetically modified crops. Well,
:00:35. > :00:39.that was then. Now he says GM technology is entirely safe and a
:00:39. > :00:45.necessity i necessity io feed the planet. He's made a similar U-turn
:00:45. > :00:55.on nuclear power as well. He said he has jumped ideology in favour of
:00:55. > :01:19.
:01:19. > :01:22.hard science. Is it really as Thank you very much. Let's start
:01:23. > :01:29.with your very high-profile recent renunciation of you're pretty much
:01:29. > :01:34.lifelong commitment to campaign against genetically modified food
:01:34. > :01:37.production. It is it fair to summarised by saying that you have
:01:37. > :01:43.concluded that everything you used to think was entirely wrong?
:01:43. > :01:47.the most part, yes. Unfortunately most of my objections turned out to
:01:47. > :01:51.be based on Urban myths which were endlessly recycled within the
:01:52. > :01:55.environmental movement, which I was obviously a part of. It came when I
:01:55. > :01:59.was advocating for climate change science as a writer on that issue
:01:59. > :02:03.and defending the scientific consensus on climate change when it
:02:03. > :02:07.was pointed out the scientific consensus on the safety of GM crops
:02:07. > :02:12.was just as strong and being argued by the same academic institutions
:02:12. > :02:15.and I was forced to change my opinion. I find it very hard to
:02:15. > :02:19.believe that your activism was based on nothing more than as you
:02:19. > :02:25.put it Urban myths. Let's not forget you were one of the leaders
:02:25. > :02:30.of the anti-GM campaign in the UK, you lead a sit in of the company,
:02:30. > :02:34.you lead a group of people that destroyed and tried to rip up GM
:02:34. > :02:39.crops in experimental test fields. That can't all been based on urban
:02:39. > :02:43.myth? This was 15 years ago in the mid- Nineties and this was a very
:02:43. > :02:47.new technology which was a powerful use of biology that haven't been
:02:47. > :02:51.done. There were genes being taken across the species barrier and we
:02:51. > :02:55.saw it as something potentially highly polluting and dangerous to
:02:55. > :03:00.the environment. But you can't have seen it that way just because other
:03:00. > :03:03.people told you it was so. You must have done some research? Believe me
:03:03. > :03:07.I didn't and nor did anyone else to my knowledge. You've got to
:03:07. > :03:13.understand how this works. When you're a campaigner you spend a lot
:03:13. > :03:17.of time with others like you and you live in an intellectual Buddle.
:03:17. > :03:22.I have written already that I haven't read a single peer reviewed
:03:22. > :03:26.scientific paper about biology or plant science in general until at
:03:26. > :03:31.least five or six years after we started this campaigning. My
:03:31. > :03:36.information came from Greenpeace and the green NGOs. That leaves
:03:36. > :03:40.your personal credibility in shreds? I'm not proud of having
:03:40. > :03:43.thought that way and having participated in a campaign which I
:03:43. > :03:48.think has done real damage and has spread a lot of misinformation,
:03:48. > :03:52.which is still informing public policy. Leave aside the specific
:03:52. > :03:57.issue, but you're ashamed of the entire approach that you took? Your
:03:57. > :04:01.complete lack of international rigour. I made a public apology to
:04:01. > :04:06.farmers in the UK and other countries about this. I went on the
:04:06. > :04:09.record in a speech to say I was sorry to contributing to starting
:04:09. > :04:15.his movement and destroying crops in fields. I met some of the
:04:15. > :04:18.individual farmers as well whose crops I did destroy. But you are
:04:18. > :04:22.after all Mark Lynas, your intellect presumably hasn't changed
:04:22. > :04:26.very much, if you were so wrong, incompetent and shallow in the past,
:04:26. > :04:32.why should we believe your any different now? All the more reason
:04:32. > :04:36.for me to change my mind. I'm not asking you to believe me as some
:04:36. > :04:41.sort of great scientific authority, I'm not a historian or biologist.
:04:41. > :04:46.What I've tried to do is to try and reacquaint myself with scientific
:04:46. > :04:48.consensus on this issue. If I'm going to defend peer reviewed
:04:48. > :04:53.science on climate change and deforestation and other
:04:53. > :04:57.environmental issues I have to the same on nuclear and Gian. I want to
:04:58. > :05:04.talk to you about the science as you see it and I try to understand
:05:04. > :05:06.it on GM and on nuclear. But before that I want to pick away a bit more
:05:06. > :05:12.at York and youth system. This doesn't seem to be about
:05:12. > :05:17.reinterpreting science -- your value system. It seems to be about
:05:17. > :05:23.a change in political and ideological mindset. As recently as
:05:23. > :05:29.2008 you said this about the hubris of mankind. "The technology is
:05:29. > :05:32.moving in entirely the wrong direction", specifically about GM,
:05:33. > :05:38."Intensifying the nature when we should be striving for a more
:05:38. > :05:42.holistic and ecological approach". Was that wrong as well? It was
:05:42. > :05:47.quite a lot of waffle and the comments on line underneath that
:05:47. > :05:51.article in 2008 in the Guardian forced me to look again at that
:05:51. > :05:56.issue. One of the people road, and I can remember the exact words, if
:05:56. > :06:00.you're against big corporations for opposing GM, are you against the
:06:00. > :06:04.wheel because of the automotive industry? There were logical
:06:04. > :06:08.fallacies underpinning that position. Your value system has
:06:08. > :06:13.changed. You used to worry about human beings playing God, now you
:06:13. > :06:16.think it is the right thing for people to do? It's not that. The
:06:16. > :06:21.principles underpinning my naturalism are the same principles
:06:21. > :06:26.I hold today. -- At dualism. I'm talking about environmental
:06:26. > :06:31.sustainability in general. You were talking about globalisation for a
:06:31. > :06:34.time, you wrote a very powerful piece in the late 1990s describing
:06:34. > :06:40.a powerful Coalition of multinational corporations on a
:06:40. > :06:43.collision course with strong social movements. The interests you said
:06:43. > :06:51.are utterly UN reconcilable. I don't know where you got that one
:06:51. > :06:55.from? It is from Her First stop white I am still pursuing
:06:55. > :07:00.sustainability as much as I can. Do you embrace multinational
:07:00. > :07:04.corporations? Not necessarily. One of the things I would love to see
:07:04. > :07:09.him the GM sector is a more open approach where public-sector
:07:09. > :07:13.scientists working on environmental technology and developing new crops,
:07:13. > :07:17.which can be offered to poor farmers patent free, without the
:07:17. > :07:21.fees that are generally attached, I would like to see more of that.
:07:21. > :07:25.want to come to patents and copyrights and how international
:07:26. > :07:30.firms focus on that to make money and improve their bottom line. A
:07:30. > :07:34.final personal thought, we have characterised this series of U-
:07:34. > :07:39.turns that you have made. You must have lost a lot of friends? It is
:07:39. > :07:43.fair to say I have lost a few friends. I'm still in touch with
:07:43. > :07:52.some people from those early days of the anti-GM movement. Do they
:07:52. > :07:57.say in all honesty, Mark, we feel a sense of betrayal? Some do say that.
:07:57. > :08:01.Others say we respect what you're doing and others have shared my
:08:01. > :08:04.transformation. What's interesting to me is how the mainstream
:08:04. > :08:08.environmental movement is not coming out and saying we're still
:08:08. > :08:12.anti-GM, there's been no comment from Greenpeace or other big
:08:12. > :08:15.environmental groups. I don't think I'm completely alone. There's been
:08:15. > :08:20.a wider transformation as people have become more acquainted with
:08:20. > :08:25.the science. We didn't know 15 years ago what we now know. We have
:08:25. > :08:30.had hundreds of independent studies about the safety of GM. So the
:08:30. > :08:36.jury's in but it wasn't back then. That brings us to the science, your
:08:36. > :08:40.adamant the jury's in. Is there a danger of Mark Lynas exercising
:08:40. > :08:46.some hubris right now, when you said in this big renunciation
:08:46. > :08:52.speech the other day, "The debate is over. We no longer need to
:08:52. > :08:57.discuss whether GM is safe."They are a lot of highly qualified
:08:57. > :09:02.scientists who still disagree with you, though? You have to look at
:09:02. > :09:04.the scientific consensus, the same as on climate change. For one
:09:04. > :09:09.example, the American Association for the advancement of Science,
:09:09. > :09:13.when the debate was going on about GM labelling in California, they
:09:13. > :09:23.made a clear statement that there's no evidence GM is any less safe
:09:23. > :09:25.
:09:25. > :09:30.than conventional crops. What about the concerned scientists? Some of
:09:30. > :09:34.the scientists who do work for it have come out against you. The
:09:34. > :09:39.original takeaway is that you have learned to respect the signs. If
:09:39. > :09:42.you have learned to respect the science, when people out there are
:09:42. > :09:51.very well-qualified to talk about plant biology and genetics in a way
:09:51. > :09:53.you are not and will never be a. They are doing what I'm complaining
:09:53. > :09:57.about, they have attacked the scientists when they make
:09:57. > :10:02.statements they disagree with on GM. If you're going to defend the signs
:10:02. > :10:06.and say there's a scientific consensus then you have to take it.
:10:06. > :10:10.-- the science. You can't pick and choose because it fulfils an
:10:10. > :10:15.ideological function to protect your positions from 20 years ago. I
:10:15. > :10:20.could change my mind today. I'm not a scientist, I can just read around
:10:20. > :10:27.the issue and try to make sense of it. What I see for example are
:10:27. > :10:30.geneticists like David Suzuki in Canada who said we have no idea
:10:30. > :10:34.what the long-term consequences of these genetic manipulations will be.
:10:34. > :10:38.Right now, he says, we're unwittingly part of a massive
:10:38. > :10:43.experiment. He is another environmental campaigner. You have
:10:43. > :10:46.got to be able to quote to mead scientists that are disinterested.
:10:46. > :10:51.A scientist who has a strong opinion is automatically
:10:51. > :10:56.discredited? They have got to be clear that they are independent.
:10:56. > :11:01.But you are dismissing campaigners even though they are scientists?
:11:01. > :11:08.I saw a climate change of scientist on the front line campaigning for
:11:08. > :11:11.an issue then I would take a second look at their work. John van DeVere,
:11:11. > :11:15.at the University of Michigan Department of the ecology and
:11:15. > :11:21.university biology. He says your speech and the ideas it was based
:11:21. > :11:26.upon a suggests, "Mark Lynas has discovered high school biology but
:11:26. > :11:32.now it is time for him to go to college". That is a throwaway
:11:32. > :11:35.rhetorical statement. He is a sign his to frankly is being somewhat
:11:35. > :11:39.contemptuous of your ability to grasp these issues surrounding
:11:39. > :11:43.genetic engineering and the genome -- scientist. But the real
:11:43. > :11:47.scientist doing genetic work have told me privately they are in
:11:48. > :11:54.support of this. I have had support from the Gates Foundation, the
:11:54. > :11:57.plant science groups in the UK, some GM workers. Even from the
:11:57. > :12:03.chairperson of the Board of the American Association for the
:12:03. > :12:08.advancement of Sciences. People in those reputable organisations, if
:12:08. > :12:13.they told me I was wrong, I would listen, not the campaign groups.
:12:13. > :12:18.Moore, Richard Long wanting, as a geneticist of some repute, who said
:12:18. > :12:23.recently that he compared the work on the genome that's obviously
:12:24. > :12:30.underpinning GM food production, he compared it to work we now have on
:12:30. > :12:33.the ecosystem where we know how the introduction of a new species
:12:34. > :12:38.can have unforeseen and catastrophic impacts on an
:12:38. > :12:45.ecosystem, the same can apply to a genome. Potentially but you have
:12:45. > :12:52.got to understand how it is done. We don't know yet? It is powerful
:12:52. > :12:59.technology and that's why it is all tested Independent they.
:12:59. > :13:05.Just as these effects only were seen over 20/30 years, we don't
:13:05. > :13:10.know the impacts of these genetic engineering of plants will be.
:13:10. > :13:13.that mean we should stop? We have got to feed and 1.5 billion more
:13:13. > :13:16.people in the next few years so we have got to take some risks and we
:13:16. > :13:20.have got to innovate and use the technologies that have become
:13:20. > :13:25.available because of the advancements science has given to a
:13:25. > :13:30.us. Let's move away from the dangers or otherwise of genetics,
:13:30. > :13:33.let's talk about the practical reality of whether genetically
:13:33. > :13:38.modified and engineered seeds and plants do actually boost your olds,
:13:38. > :13:42.as you say. Washington State University found that since 1996
:13:43. > :13:46.the use of herbicides have actually gone up. Your argument with
:13:47. > :13:56.suggested should go down because these new plants are much more
:13:57. > :14:09.
:14:09. > :14:13.The plant can protect itself. It has BT within the planned.
:14:13. > :14:18.Herbicide tolerance is different. The point of that is you can spray
:14:18. > :14:28.the crop and the crop remained undamaged. It depends on the
:14:28. > :14:30.
:14:30. > :14:34.chemicals you use. That is a very singular approach. It is not
:14:34. > :14:44.something that his particular X -- particularly exciting. I am more
:14:44. > :14:45.
:14:45. > :14:49.interested in reducing pesticide use. What about this. Grain crops
:14:50. > :14:54.have increased, much more than the yield boost we saw from the use of
:14:54. > :14:59.GM across North America. I don't think that is true. There was a
:14:59. > :15:02.trial in Australia recently which discovered the 30% yield. I knew he
:15:02. > :15:07.would come up with that but in North America at the boost is not
:15:07. > :15:11.the same. They are not intended to increase yields. If we are talking
:15:11. > :15:16.about herbicide tolerance, they have been intended to increase the
:15:16. > :15:19.ability of farmers to deal with weeds in the field. The pest
:15:19. > :15:24.resistance genes actually have increased yields because you get
:15:24. > :15:28.less damage from pests or you use insecticides. I am more interested
:15:28. > :15:32.in using what we have more intensely and sustainably, which
:15:32. > :15:36.means using less chemicals and improving yields. We do not have to
:15:36. > :15:42.expand far land and thereby destroy the rainforest. But what we see in
:15:42. > :15:45.North America, where GM crops are the norm, particularly corn and
:15:45. > :15:50.soya, we use more use of monoculture than ever before.
:15:50. > :15:54.don't want to see that. It is something we should improve on
:15:54. > :15:59.enormously. But the way that monoculture was done before, it is
:15:59. > :16:03.not as if the funds were going before they discovered GM corn,
:16:03. > :16:07.they were using vast quantities of chemicals, worse than the ones they
:16:07. > :16:12.are currently using. The point is to reduce and eliminate some of the
:16:12. > :16:20.more toxic pesticides. And you can do that with GM, because the plant
:16:20. > :16:26.can protect itself. This is what is important. The work done on GM
:16:27. > :16:32.wheat, which activists tried to destroy, the plant produced a
:16:32. > :16:36.pheromone. The aphids smelt danger and he did not have to spray it.
:16:36. > :16:40.The point is to develop applications that are sustainable.
:16:40. > :16:44.You keep using the word sustainable but in the end a lot of the logic
:16:44. > :16:50.from your argument depends on the notion that we can feed the nine or
:16:50. > :16:54.ten billion that will soon be upon us more effectively. I have not
:16:54. > :16:58.heard you get explain how that Matty Veale the blues to that you
:16:58. > :17:02.think is around the corner is going to happen. -- that massive deal to
:17:02. > :17:06.boost. If you think of threats farmers have to face, particularly
:17:06. > :17:10.in places like Africa, they would love to have more of drought
:17:10. > :17:15.tolerant crops, that would increase the yield in bad years. There has
:17:15. > :17:20.been talk of this magic crop for a long time. Where have we seen in
:17:20. > :17:27.Africa the use of drought tolerant crops? This is precisely why we
:17:27. > :17:30.need to have more work done on this. If you go to jail for ten years in
:17:31. > :17:38.Kenya if you develop bio technology outside of the laboratory. -- you
:17:38. > :17:44.can go to jail. We desperately need to focus Jehan innovation on
:17:44. > :17:48.applications which can be of benefit to poor farmers. -- Jian
:17:48. > :17:54.innovation. A final point. It is interesting you mention Kenya and
:17:54. > :18:02.the fact that they are not keen on GM. You criticised India as well.
:18:02. > :18:06.The Indian government. As you put it, you say the government in India
:18:06. > :18:10.is enthralled to backward looking ideologies. Isn't that a bit unfair
:18:10. > :18:14.and patronising, given India has some very well qualified scientists
:18:14. > :18:20.who have just come out and said they are not happy with where GM is
:18:20. > :18:23.going and they want to see some trials suspended? That would be
:18:24. > :18:28.patronising if I addressed that to the Indian government. I addressed
:18:28. > :18:35.it to a particular minister. Actually, the minister mac has been
:18:35. > :18:38.very positive and has helped lead this debate. -- Prime Minister. And
:18:38. > :18:47.the agriculture minister went on the record last week and said they
:18:47. > :18:52.desperately need GM in India. my point... They are the relevant
:18:52. > :18:57.people. But if you are opening an - - an important debate, that we have
:18:57. > :19:01.to listen to the signs. In India today, a lot of very important
:19:01. > :19:05.scientists still have grave doubts about GM and you can't dismiss that.
:19:05. > :19:10.I would not dismiss it if I was hearing it. Many scientists have
:19:10. > :19:13.contacted me, trying to get me to speak to them about this. I have
:19:13. > :19:18.had farmers' groups desperate for me to speak to them. I am more
:19:18. > :19:22.interested to listen to what they say in India. People contacting me
:19:22. > :19:30.from Punjab, where the birds are coming back because they are using
:19:30. > :19:33.less insecticides. And in fact an Indian farmers Group yesterday
:19:33. > :19:37.published in the Journal that they have sequenced the chick pea genome
:19:37. > :19:41.and can develop more desirable traits in that, which is important
:19:41. > :19:47.for South Asia. Switching to another issue upon which you have
:19:47. > :19:52.campaigned for many years. You have made it to turn. Nuclear power. You
:19:52. > :19:57.are against it, now you are for it. Was the motivation for that change
:19:57. > :20:01.because you we considered the signs all because you looked at the big
:20:01. > :20:05.picture of climate change, which you are very concerned about, and
:20:06. > :20:08.you decided that for pragmatic reasons you needed to find a way of
:20:09. > :20:14.changing your opinion on a power source which is low in carbon
:20:14. > :20:18.emissions? The latter. When you campaigned against nuclear power
:20:18. > :20:22.because it was not safe, you are not saying it is now safe? It is
:20:22. > :20:27.pretty much the safest option on the table. Some studies show it is
:20:27. > :20:32.safer than solar power. Hang on. Why did you ever campaign against
:20:32. > :20:37.it? I didn't really do that. I was in the environmental movement and
:20:37. > :20:43.everybody was against nuclear. Because your views are so loosely
:20:43. > :20:48.founded! Loosely held and strongly argued. I look back on the first
:20:48. > :20:51.couple of climate change books. -- looked back. I do not mention it at
:20:51. > :20:58.all in the first one and in the second one I said it was low carbon
:20:58. > :21:04.but it has these issues as well. Now that you have switched and you
:21:04. > :21:08.are for nuclear, because of the way you see the whole climate change
:21:08. > :21:12.problem, it seems to me again you are glossing over certain problems.
:21:12. > :21:17.For example, on the safety issue, he went to Chernobyl not long ago
:21:17. > :21:27.and he said, it is not so bad. Only 50 people died. He said when you
:21:27. > :21:32.were there, you saw birds, insects, like exploding. If you look at the
:21:32. > :21:36.scientific research suggesting, for example, up to 25,000 excess cancer
:21:36. > :21:41.patients by 2065, there is a real problem. Of course there is a real
:21:41. > :21:49.problem and I am not trivialising. What happened at to Noble is a
:21:49. > :21:53.catastrophe, with an enormous release of radiation. -- Chernobyl.
:21:53. > :21:56.It had no containment building. What happened there should never be
:21:56. > :22:03.repeated and should not have happened. Fukushima is on a
:22:03. > :22:10.different scale altogether. You -- they took a fish out of the senior
:22:10. > :22:16.Fukushima which had 2,500 times acceptable levels of contamination.
:22:16. > :22:20.That is also a serious problem. I spoke to refugees there. Nobody has
:22:20. > :22:26.received a dose of radiation from Fukushima which is likely to cause
:22:26. > :22:31.cancer, neither the public nor the workers who were involved. Again,
:22:31. > :22:35.if you can hear this without it seeming like I am trivialising it,
:22:35. > :22:43.it is imported to keep it in perspective. People die in coal
:22:43. > :22:48.mining disasters, when oil rigs blow up, all sources of energy have
:22:48. > :22:52.-- have issues. This has not happened at Fukushima. Nobody died.
:22:52. > :22:57.What I would say is that it seems to me you have made a massive
:22:57. > :23:00.journey from being a campaigner for whom politics is important, he now
:23:00. > :23:05.seemed to say politics should not count at all. But surely it counts
:23:05. > :23:10.a lot on nuclear issues, the Germans for example have withdrawn
:23:10. > :23:15.and it has become problematic in Japan. You can't dismiss people's
:23:15. > :23:19.feelings and fears. I don't dismiss them but what is happening in
:23:19. > :23:22.Germany, they are building more coal-fired power stations. They
:23:22. > :23:32.kill hundreds of people from pollution and it will increase
:23:32. > :23:33.
:23:33. > :23:37.their emissions. They'd just commissioned a new power station
:23:37. > :23:42.about five months ago that was opened by the Environment Minister.
:23:42. > :23:46.They are installing a lot of wind and solar as well, which is a good
:23:46. > :23:49.thing. I wish they were doing that and keeping the nuclear onboard
:23:49. > :23:56.because they could reduce their emissions. That is what the world
:23:56. > :24:02.needs, a reduction. Indeed, perhaps that is a controversial statement
:24:02. > :24:07.in itself. Finally, do you believe your new face in hard science is
:24:07. > :24:11.shared by the general public? -- face. Problem -- people have
:24:11. > :24:17.problems with risk analysis, what is most risky, what is good for the
:24:17. > :24:20.planet. I don't think organic food the planet. Some of these are