We only want the earth

By Les Hearn The debate about genetically modified (GM) foods exploded in August 1998 when research scientist Arpad Pusztai, of the Rowett Research Institute in Aberdeen, announced that GM potatoes harmed experimental rats by making their livers and brains smaller and their spleens larger. A colleague showed that the gut lining was inflamed too. Responses fell into two categories: Pusztai’s boss and representatives of GM food companies criticised his work as not supporting his claims and Pusztai was suspended and silenced; opponents of GM foods seized on his statements with enthusiasm...

By Tony Twine The initial function of nuclear technology was not the generation of electrical energy for civil use but the (secret) production of bombs. Weapons production continues today in at least 10 countries worldwide, with another dozen more who are pulling out all the stops to join the nuclear club. In 1942, at the height of World War Two, the US government began the “Manhattan Project” supported by its British, French and Canadian allies, a crash program costing billions of dollars (even then), which involved almost all the world’s top physicists in a race to develop the atomic bomb...

Originally published in our 2000 pamphlet on environmental and climate politics, We only want the earth . On 22 December, 1988, in the north-western Brazilian town of Xapuri, in Acre state, Chico Mendes was assassinated. The leader of the local union of rubber tappers, active member of the growing Workers’ Party, and advocate of “socialist ecology”, Mendes was the sworn enemy of the landowners against whom he had fought and organised for workers’ rights all his life. His death was a tragedy, which received publicity all around the world. But his life was an inspiration. The rubber tappers are...