The Big Money Behind the Environmental Scare Movement –the attack on atrazine replays the alar scare
From Alex Avery via CGFI:
In April, the National Resources Defense Council issued an update in its all-out campaign to demonize and ban the herbicide atrazine. The scope of its attack shows that the NRDC has learned a thing or two from the 1980s, when it ginned up a successful campaign to demonize the apple growth regulator, alar.
After the alar ban, investigative journalist uncovered just how flimsy the science behind that scare actually was. In a recent update [http://biggovernment.com/rbidinotto/2010/05/17/son-of-alar-the-new-pesticide-scare-campaign/#more-121062], he says that “many people—echoing the rock group The Who—concluded that ‘we won’t be fooled again’ by environmentalist fear-mongers.”
Well, guess what . . . A lot of people are being fooled again.
In the NRDC report, “Poisoning the Well,” a reasonable person who knew nothing about atrazine would be alarmed, chocked full as it is with many pocket descriptions of studies alleging ill effects from atrazine on humans, wildlife and the environment. Such reports and the studies they publicize are routinely—and uncritically—the source of news stories that in turn do what they are intended to do: Inflame public opinion against atrazine, just as NRDC once successfully did against alar…
Please click here to read this article in full at cgfi.org.
Alex Avery is director of research and education with the Center for Global Food Issues at the Hudson Institute. Since joining the Center in 1994, Alex has represented the Center at the 1996 United Nations World Food Summit in Rome. The Center for Global Food Issues looks at agricultural policy from a global perspective, with reference to both economic and environmental impacts.
More information on the web:
http://www.cgfi.org/
http://www.cgfi.org/about/alex/
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