Owen Paterson MP, former Environment Secretary, climate sceptic and committed scourge of the ‘Green Blob’, is in South Africa promoting GM crops. Greenpeace has seen a press release issued on his behalf by a GM lobbyist, in which the following passage appears –
He castigated the fearmongering activities of Greenpeace, the anti-GMO activists… "Do Greenpeace supporters understand that they are truly wicked? It is eco-terrorism. It is witchcraft,” he emphasised.
Eco-terrorism and witchcraft. Crikey.
This latest accusation comes on top of many others Paterson has made since losing his ministerial position and blaming Greenpeace for his misfortune.
Greenpeace would therefore like to respond to some of the accusations made against us by Mr Paterson over the last year.
We do not practise witchcraft. Honestly. And we do not commit acts of terrorism – though we have been the victim of terrorism, when the French government bombed our ship and killed a crew member. We have not burnt Mr Paterson in effigy, and we would never do such a thing, despite his claiming we did. We did not destroy a rice trial in the Philippines, and we did not pay poor farmers to do so on our behalf, though we do have legitimate concerns about GM crops. We’d be happy to debate environmental issues and climate change with him, but for that debate to shed more light than heat, we’d need him to stick a bit more closely to the facts.
Greenpeace maintain that the real reason Paterson lost his job was his refusal to meet with his scientific advisors or allow his policies to be influenced by scientific research, cutting flood defence funding immediately before the UK’s wettest ever winter, and his difficulties with badgers.
That is all.
