Background image

terug

The eco-prince only gets it half right

The eco-prince only gets it half right

1     The sweeping gravel    

Phillip Oppenheim

‘If we all went organic,
we would have to cut
our calories by half.

    took our government a full
 drives outside his 40-  month to reveal the oilseed con-
 room mansion parade 70 tamination scandal last week -
 an Aston Martin, a Bentley  and then only after Sweden
5 Turbo and other brutish gas  issued an alert. In Canada, GM
 guzzlers. He routinely helicop-  crops have to be grown 800
 ters to London. Yet he lectures  metres apart from conventional
 the rest of us about using less of 75 ones. In Britain it is only 50
 the Earth’s resources. In short, a  metres. Suspicious? You should
10 hypocrite of whom ordinarily  be.
 we would take little notice. 8     We should therefore judge
 Except that the man in question  the prince’s views on their
 is a royal, so limo-loads of the 80 merits, not on his lifestyle.
 upwardly mobile ooze over him  Charles is the not-always-quite-
15 and love him for his drawing  right prince. Take organic food.
 rooms and fine organic gardens.  He was ahead of the game
2     It is almost too easy to knock  when it was eaten only by
 the Prince of Wales for what he 85 cranks. Now it gets you
 is: a mystical aristocrat who  wholesome respect and extra
20 talks in eco-babble but likes a  reward points at the checkout.
 decent slice of the good life for  But organic food is a rich man’s
 himself. After last week’s Reith45 scientists who pronounced at game: if we all went organic,
 lecture in which he opined that the outset that nuclear power90 we would have to cut our
 we should rediscover “a sense would become too cheap to calorie intake by half.
25 of the sacred”, one scientist, as meter. It turned out so expen-9     Genetic modification has its
 scientists will, condescended to sive that for years nobody dared pros and cons. GM ingredients
 suggest that His Royal Highness50 to calculate the real cost. in the food supplement try-
 should “go back to school to do5     However, it was the techno-95 ptophan are said to have caused
 more A-levels”. Our sympathies phobes who told us two decades 37 deaths and 1,500 disabilities
30 began to shift. ago that microchips would spell in the United States. A snow-
3     With divine timing, just as the end of employment. We drop gene made potatoes
 Charles was warning of the55 need science. It is just that the resistant to greenfly - but killed
 dangers of genetically modified matter in hand is too important100 ladybirds.
 (GM) crops, it emerged that to be left to the scientists.10     The prince seems reluctant to
35 honey had been contaminated6     We must be sceptical and acknowledge GM’s benefits.
 by GM pollen and GM oilseed demand safeguards over pro- However, GM crops can
 rape had been accidentally sown60 gress. That is supposed to be the produce more nutritious, lower-
 on 34,000 acres. That is a government’s job. Here Charles105 fat food. They can reduce the
 sizeable accident. articulates public concern in an need for pesticides and her-
440     Whom do we trust? The area where the government, bicides, they may help to save
 experts or the bohemian rich? alas, is not to be trusted. New the Third World from starv-
 GM crops, the lords of science65 Labour bends over backward to ation. What we need is more
 tell us, are one of our greatest please big business.110 research and safeguards, not
 hopes. But then it was the7     No surprise, perhaps, that it shooting from the cufflinks.
      
     'The Sunday Times'