change.org

Today I've been unsubscribing from some of the services of change.org, an otherwise useful organization that has recently been campaigning very vociferously on an anti-GMO theme. Here is the email I sent them to explain why I was unsubscribing:

Sorry, I agree that Monsanto are bastards, but -- as writer of a book on science denialism -- I'm unconvinced that GM crops are necessarily bad. I'm very sympathetic to the notion that these crops should be subject to proper scientific investigation -- as some but far too few have been -- but I think the blanket OMMIGOD WE'RE ALL GONNA DIE FROM THESE FRANKENSTEIN FOODS campaign is idiotic.

In the developing countries, they piss on the self-indulgent US because (among many other reasons) we protest in uneducated fashion about GM crops. There, they think any risks might be worth taking because the alternative is starving to death.

Personally I think all of us should be focusing on the consequences of using idiot GM pesticides like Monsanto's Roundup, about whose deleterious effects there has been copious published research, rather than on the average bag of GM edamame, which is almost certainly less harmful to you than that mercury-packed can of tuna you just ate.

I expect to hear nothing back, and certainly no positive response, from change.org. That's a tragedy, too.