At the final climax of one of the great gritty dramas of British Cinema, Get Carter, the anti-hero chases the villain to a lonely beach location where coal waste is being dumped into the sea. That was the tip site for Black Hall Colliery in County Durham – and both the pit and the dumping equipment has long since gone.

Over the thirty years since dumping stopped the coastline has recovered, and the whole length of that coastline is now promoted as a recreational area. The beaches of the north-east coast of England, once a metaphor for the dirty industrialism of Britain’s heavy industries – which Mike Hodges 1971 gangster film evoked – are clean.

Now there’s a new threat to this coastline, and the coast of the Firth of Forth in Scotland, from the latest iteration of the coal mining industry: ‘underground coal gasification‘ (UCG).

However, you might not see it called that.

In a move similar to the PR-inspired renaming of Windscale to Sellafield (as part of the Thatcher Government’s promotion of new nuclear plants), today you’re as likely to see UCG referred to as ‘deep gas winning’ – perhaps to avoid any similar reference the previous environmental disasters in its recent history.

Massive unconventional coal resources

For the last couple of years the environment movement has been busy with ‘fracking’ and its ecological woes. At the same time, quietly, and with no public discussion, the Government has been putting in place a system of licences and financial assistance to kick-start a UCG industry in Britain.

There’s an awful lot of coal underground – potentially trillions of tonnes under the North Sea – which are out of reach of conventional deep mining techniques. The ‘unconventional’ techniques of UCG allow access to this coal by drilling boreholes, gasifying the coal in-situ underground, and then bringing a mixture of gases – called ‘syngas‘ – to the surface.

Syngas is made up primarily of hydrogen, carbon monoxide, methane, and a whole range of other (often toxic) hydrocarbons and inorganic compounds, similar to the town gas produced in Britain from the early 1800s until the 1970s, which gave rise to some of the most problematic contaminated land sites in the country.

But the syngas from UCG isn’t suitable for supply via the gas mains of today. For that reason the gas would be burnt directly at the well head to produce heat and electricity, or it could be supplied to large industrial energy users.

Don’t confuse this process with integrated gasification, or the more polluting synthetic gas plants – UCG is something wholly different. Most fundamentally, while similar chemical process use steel pressure vessels to contain the reaction, UCG is essentially carried out in the open environment, albeit deep underground.

For that reason the toxic by-products of the process can move freely in the environment, back towards the surface, made buoyant by the heat liberated from the process.

UCG’s polluting past history

Irrespective of the risks, due to the potential resource which might be harvested, UCG is an attractive technology for economic pundits. What has confounded their optimism is that while various companies and governments have tried to get UCG working for over 80 years, most have ending in failure.

There are two small plants, in Uzbekistan and South Africa, but thus far they have not transparently report the impacts of their operations.

Trials in Britain during the 1950s, then the USA during the 1970s, then Europe during the 1990s, and most recently Australia during the 2000s, were abandoned – usually leaving behind a contaminated environment.

In the USA the trials caused varying levels of pollution and environmental contamination. The sites were declared ‘superfund’ zones to pay for their clean-up.

More recently all three test plants in Australia have shut due to concerns about environmental pollution, or the ability to safely decommission the site once operations ceased.

In Queensland the plant operators have been, or currently are in court facing prosecution for the pollution they have created. Linc Energy have also allegedly exposed workers to dangerous substances, and leaked documents claim irreversible damage to the environment.

Within the last few weeks it appears – following the discovery of high levels of hydrogen, carbon monoxide and hydrogen sulphide (components of UCG syngas) – that the Linc Energy site may have polluted the ground with toxic gases over a wide area.

The Queensland state government has declared a ‘no dig’ exclusion zone over 320 square kilometres of land to protect the public from the risk of exposure to the gas.

Now UCG is set to return to Britain

The return of UCG was ushered in under New Labour, and has been expanded by the Con-Dem government. From the end of the 1990s the Department of Trade and Industry had commissioned various reports on UCG, and its potential in the UK (note – in that last link, figure 2.5 on page 19 has a map of the ‘best’ areas for UCG development).

While there have been various abortive start-up companies formed in recent years, many of whom were issued UCG licences, today there are two leading players in the UK UCG industry:

Cluff Natural Resources, founded by Algy Cluff, Conservative Party supporter and former owner of The Spectator, is probably the most well financed – with the most advanced development project.

Cluff has a number of existing UCG licences granted by the Coal Authority, and has had new licences or license extensions granted this week.

In February Cluff signed a memorandum of understanding with the oilfield services company Halliburton to develop their licences. And they recently had a new share issue to fund the environmental and planning consultants required to submit the development applications required for their project.

Cluff initially plans to develop a pilot plant in Fife, beneath the Firth of Forth – despite vocal local concerns. Although Scotland has a fracking moratorium, as I outlined in a previous Ecologist article this does not apply to UCG developments.

Five Quarter – mining the public purse

The other major player in Britain’s nascent UCG industry is Five Quarter Energy – who have UCG licences along the north east coast and the Firth of Forth, and in Liverpool Bay.

From public accountability perspective, I think Five Quarter are the more interesting of the two.

While Cluff are a traditional ‘big money’ company, cultivating Algy Cluff’s connections to the City, Five Quarter have used their connections to get both grants and loan guarantees from the UK and European governments to fund their work.

The company also has strong connections to Newcastle University – which, given their science backgrounds, might make you believe that those involved ‘should know better’.

For example, one of the company’s directors, Robert Hull, is a recently appointed member of Newcastle University’s Council – but perhaps more significantly he’s a former European Commission mandarin.

It may be that his experience is paying off for the company. In 2012 the Department for Business put Five Quarter forward for an EU regional growth fund award – for which they received £15 million in 2013.

The Treasury guarantees their risky loan

That’s not the most significant issue of finance, however.

Under the Infrastructure (Financial Assistance) Act 2012 the Government is going to issue up to £40 billion in loan guarantees for ‘significant infrastructure projects’.

A large wad of that ‘theoretical’ cash is supporting the construction of a new nuclear plant at Hinckley Point, but a proportion is going to other projects around Britain.

Certain projects under this scheme have ‘pre-qualified’. For example, Ineos, wannabe developer of shale gas in Scotland, is getting a loan guarantee to build an ethane importation facility. And just above Ineos on that list of the ‘pre-qualified’ projects you’ll find:

“Five-Quarter Energy plant to process unconventional gas extracted from below the North Sea to create low-cost energy for British manufacturing and new jobs in the north-east of England.”

The actual figure for the guarantee has not been disclosed.

Without any debate, the public are guaranteeing Five Quarter’s loans to build its pilot plant – which they had hoped to begin building last year.

Given that the main political parties are all promising, at varying levels, to continue austerity economics after next election, the ‘pork barrel’ politics of guaranteeing such risky loans will offend many.

Professional people who ‘should know better’

In climate campaign circles there is a growing concern about ‘frackademics‘ – academics who assist the work of energy companies to aid fossil fuel extraction.

Another of Five Quarter’s directors is Paul Younger. He was a professor at Newcastle University who moved to Glasgow University in 2012 – and latterly opposed their decision to divest the University’s funds from fossil fuel investments.

He was also on the Scottish Government’s panel looking at the safety of shale gas in 2014, he’s a non-executive director of Algy Cluff’s geothermal company, and most recently stated that the SNP “fabricated” the reasons to support a ban on fracking.

He also co-authored a recent paper critical of the Government’s ‘traffic light’ system – recommended by the Royal Society in their 2012 report – to control the earthquakes caused by fracking.

The other former Newcastle academic on Five Quarter’s board is Dermot Roddy. Before joining Newcastle University as a professor of energy he ran the (recently closed) Petroplus refinery on Teeside.

When asked about ‘other environmental impacts’ during an interview, the only thing he talked about was the need for a “carbon management plan” – he said nothing about UCG’s challenging history of environmental contamination.

The other director of note is Mark Oddy. He’s the energy director of one of Five Quarter’s significant shareholders, the Buccleuch Group – the finance and property company chaired by the Duke of Buccleuch – who is also the UK’s largest private landowner, with interests in fracking in Scotland.

Objecting to the public’s expressions of concern

The chairman and CEO of Five Quarter is Harry Bradbury, a former high-flying professor of geology at Yale University who went on to become a consultant for companies such as Booz Allen Hamilton and AT Kearney.

Bradbury recently hit out at a petition run by 38 Degrees, stating in an interview that

“The wording of this petition is misinformed and scientifically inaccurate. It is scientific nonsense, high on emotion and absent of facts … It is alarmist. The petition makes unsubstantiated claims which have no bearing on the objectives or programme for Five-Quarter.”

Bradbury may have been justifiably nervous at the time. Reportedly Five Quarter is negotiating with investors at the moment to secure the cash to start their project.

However, you cannot objectively look at the history of UCG around the world, in particular the last decade in Australia, and believe that the process presents negligible hazards. The very fact that the chemical reaction takes place unconfined, within the natural environment, creates an inherent risk of serious environmental pollution.

I should note, Cluff has stated their their project in the Firth of Forth poses a “negligible risk“.

Which leads me to pose the question, which is more hazardous?: the UCG process itself? Or highly qualified individuals who should know about these inherent risks, and yet chose to ignore them in public, and rail against those who sough to raise them as a point of public debate?

National Audit Office: ‘We do not have full confidence … ‘

The text of the 38 Degrees petition concludes, “We don’t want our coastlines to die”. That is a highly apposite observation in relation to this region’s coastline.

A 1979 investigation of the impacts of waste disposal along the north east coast – carried out by the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (MAFF) – found the dumping of spoil and ash significantly damaged the local ecology of the North Sea. Additionally, much of that dumping took place unlawfully, over an area three times greater than had originally been permitted by the Government.

The truth behind the north east’s once dirty beaches? It wasn’t just harming the environment and local amenity – those in power were allowing it to do so outside of the law.

Today the Government is once more promoting an energy technology involving coal extraction which, if the results in the USA and Australia are a guide, risks contaminating the ecosystems of the North Sea once more. Yes, Five Quarter intend to bury the carbon. The question is, what will be the fate of all the other toxins that their process will generate?

And what is equally maddening is that the public are now, and as likely as not, will continue to pay for this to happen – and quite possibly to clean up the mess afterwards.

We have paid for Five Quarter’s grants through taxes. If, or given past experience, when Five Quarter’s test project goes wrong, a company with a small capitalisation is highly likely to liquidate itself. That being the case, the creditors will come calling for their money to the guarantor of Five Quarter’s loans – the UK Treasury.

A review of the infrastructure loans guarantee scheme was carried out for Parliament by the National Audit Office. Their recent report concluded that the Treasury does not consider the overall value for money of projects, and went on to state:

“We do not have full confidence in the reliability or completeness of market benchmarks used to measure actual risks to taxpayers.”

In the end, this is ecocide!

In reality though, what we’re talking about with UCG is some more visceral than mere financial risk – because ‘extreme energy’ isn’t just about excess pollution compared to our past energy sources.

Extreme energy requires extreme, high risk finance; and perhaps more importantly a political and regulatory process which turns a blind eye to those risks – as in the case of the historic dumping along the north east coast.

Like fracking, UCG is an ecocidal project: one which has clear potential for environmentally damaging outcomes. Yet those who should know better – for reasons of political, professional of financial expediency – recklessly choose to play down or ignore those hazards.

Paul Mobbs is an independent environmental consultant, investigator, author and lecturer, and maintains the Free Range Activism Website (FRAW).

A fully referenced version of this article is available on FRAW.

Three kinds of whale, six varieties of seal, the walrus and the polar bear all have these five things in common: they are marine mammals; they depend on the Arctic for their survival as species; they are vulnerable; and biologists know surprisingly little about them.

And since the Arctic is warming twice as fast as the rest of the planet, their future could become even more threatened as climate change increases habitat loss.

The stress, so far, is on the word ‘could’, as the first challenge is to establish the facts.

A global study team led by Kristin Laidre, principal scientist at the University of Washington Polar Science Centre in Seattle, reports in the journal Conservation Biology that marine mammals are “disproportionately threatened and data poor compared with their terrestrial counterparts.”

The narwhal, beluga and bowhead whales, the ringed, bearded, spotted, ribbon, harp and hooded seals, the walrus, and the polar bear are “particularly vulnerable due to their dependence on sea ice.”

Important predators – and valuable to local communities

All these animals make their living on the ice and in waters north of the Arctic Circle, and all are important predators. They are also important to indigenous and settler peoples in the frozen North as many can be legally harvested, and others are iconic tourist attractions. Either way, they help communities survive.

“These species are not only icons of climate change, they are also indicators of ecosystem health, and key resources for humans”, Dr Laidre says. “Accurate scientific data – currently lacking for many species – will be key to making informed and efficient decisions about conservation challenges and trade-offs in the 21st century.”

So the researchers set out on what they believe is the first comprehensive global review of what is known about the populations of these animals, and about the way their local habitats may be changing.

The study divided the Arctic into 12 regions and began to look at population numbers and trends, and the local pattern of seasonal change in the ice.

They identified 78 distinct populations of the 11 species, and began to assemble estimates of numbers. These range from millions for the ringed seals to a few hundred for the beluga whales of Ungava Bay in the Canadian Arctic.

In many cases, researchers had too little information even to make a guess about whether local populations of any species were stable, declining or increasing. In their table of the trends of the 11 species in the 78 populations, the word ‘unknown’ occurs more than 60 times.

Extended summers, contracting ice

They also charted profound reductions in ice cover. The sea ice naturally advances each winter, and retreats each spring, but because of global warming driven by human emissions of greenhouse gases released by fossil fuel combustion, the pattern of advance and retreat has changed dramatically.

By 2040, according to some projections, the Arctic could be more or less ice-free each summer. But change is already visible now. In most regions, the scientists found that the summer period was extended by between five and 10 weeks. In Russia’s Barents Sea, the summer ice period is now 20 weeks longer than it was 30 years ago.

This presents a threat to the polar bear, and to the seals on which they feed. “These animals require sea ice”, Dr Laidre says. “They need ice to find food, find mates, reproduce, and rear their young. It’s their platform of life. It is very clear those species are going to feel the effects the hardest.”

On the other hand, the whale species might benefit – at least for a while – from reduced ice cover. Open water could offer a wider feeding range and greater marine productivity, and therefore more food.

The scientists provide a set of general recommendations for biologists, local authorities, government agencies and international organisations concerned with conservation of Arctic marine mammals. They also have a message for the entire planet.

As Dr Laidre says: “We may introduce conservation measures or protected species legislation, but none of those things can really address the primary driver of Arctic climate change and habitat loss for these species. The only thing that can do that is regulation of greenhouse gases.”

The paper: ‘Arctic marine mammal population status, sea ice habitat loss, and conservation recommendations for the 21st century‘ by Kristin L. Laidre et al is published in Conservation Biology.

Tim Radford writes for Climate News Network

On the last law-making day of Parliament, MPs voted to dump democracy along with radioactive wastes.

There was no debate
 or even public vote in the lobbies of the Commons – voting was done by filling in 
a form. Incredibly MPs ‘voted’ 277 votes to 33 to dump democracy.

And in that act the dying Parliament gave birth to a monster – the adding of the geological disposal of radioactive wastes to the list of ‘Nationally Significant Infrastructure Projects’ (NSIPs). Or as we see it in Cumbria, wiping out democracy to dump nuclear waste.

There were no notices of the impending birth. No outraged opinion pieces by environment journalists. No national countryside or environmental groups galvanising their members.

English Heritage describe how the normal checks and balances of democracy are wiped away by undemocratic NSIP: “Planning permission, listed building consent, scheduled monument consent and conservation area consent amongst other are not required for Nationally Significant Infrastructure Projects.”

In other words hard won planning protections are null and void as is democracy, with the final decision on any future ‘geological disposal facility’ (GDF) taken by the Secretary of State alone

There is a predetermined government agenda with the UK government pledged to “implement geological disposal” and realistically only poor old nuclear compliant
 Cumbria is in the frame as nuclear patsy. Scotland is opposed to geological disposal while Wales has “reserved its position.”

So who decised the cunning plan?

Who’s idea was it to
 scrap democracy in order to dump nuclear wastes? Was the bright 
idea given to Government by the PR firm Copper Consulting?

Copper – a PR firm with offices in London, Bristol, Suffolk and
 most recently Cumbria, told the Department of Energy and Climate Change in 2013
 (following Cumbria’s decisive ‘No’ to a nuclear waste dump) that

“allowing local authorities to determine the outcome of a process
 which is designed to deliver a national Government policy may not be the most appropriate route. … local authorities are
 consultees rather than decision makers. A logical conclusion 
might therefore be to classify the GDF as an NSIP”

There is a revolving door between the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority and Copper. Ivan Stone – Copper’s former Executive Director is now the Stakeholder Engagement and Communications Director of Radioactive Waste Management (RWM) – the new arm of the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA).

And guess what – Copper have also just been awarded the PR job of selling new nuclear build and new nuclear wastes at Moorside to the public.

Intense local opposition that refused to lie down

Back in 1996 the government merely wanted to bury intermediate level wastes Now the plan is for more and bigger dumps of heat generating high level radioactive wastes.

And today under the new NSIP law there would be no scrutiny by a public inquiry such as the 1996 Nirex inquiry when Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth fielded dozens of experts. The 1996/7 planning inspector found Cumbria’s geology to be too complex for the burial of intermediate level wastes.

Today these big beasts of the green movement appear to have lost interest in these vital matters – leaving mainly grass roots  voices of opposition, local community groups with very limited resources like Radiation Free Lakeland, and No Nuclear Dumping.

Also raising an eyebrow have been lawyers Bircham Dyson Bell, who poiint out: “Of course this isn’t a random extension to the regime, the government has in mind the creation of one such facility, likely to be in Cumbria. It tried before but in January 2013 Cumbria County Council vetoed the project.

“It’s trying again and for obvious reasons has removed the ability for a county council to veto the process … Even if there is only one site that gets to the stage of a borehole, there should be at least two NSIPs – one for the borehole (and possibly more) and then one for the facility itself.”

Cumbria County Council have voted no to the geological dumping of nuclear wastes at least three times. So what does government do? It cunningly removes them from the equation. Over 75% of Cumbrian Parish Councils have voted no including Parishes like Beckermet, which contains half the sprawling Sellafield site. Now they are also removed from the equation. Simple!

Now the drilling of 100 exploratory boreholes up to 150 metres has started on greenfields and the river Ehen’s flood plain at Beckermet (see photo, top right).

These deep boreholes are billed as “exploratory” for the proposed ‘Moorside’ nuclear plant described by nuclear expert Arnie Gundersen (see video, above) as “Chernobyl on steroids” due to its serious design flaws.

There are a strong local suspicions that these 100 boreholes may also be a Trojan Horse for getting shot of nuclear wastes.

Fig leaf ‘test of public support’

The only thing standing between Cumbria and the “implementation of geological disposal” is a “positive test of community support.” Who that ‘community’ is and how the ‘positive test’ will be measured has not been announced by government. Nor do we know if even the most determined and vociferous public opposition would be respected.

New PR improved ‘stakeholder engagement’ is under way for meaningless “national geological screening“ – only a sites in Cumbria are in the frame – under the the freshly minted RWM, which is clearly following in the footsepts of the failed ‘Managing Radioactive Waste Safely‘ partnership (MRWS).

Until the government admits of the possibility that geological disposal will not protect this and future generations from radioactive wastes then ‘stakeholders’ are mere stooges.

Radiation Free Lakeland will hold the government responsible for libel if we are ever are described in government documents as “Stakeholders in the implementation of geological disposal”!

Radiation in our drinking water

Dr Ian Fairlie recently addressed a packed room in Keswick outlining how increased radioactivity in the environment from nuclear is “killing children.” We know this just as surely as we know smoking causes harm, but government will not admit it.

Too many Cumbrian children have already paid the price for continued emissions from Sellafield reprocessing. The industry and government of course will admit no liability, despite running a workers Compensation Scheme for Radiation Linked Diseases. This scheme is more about keeping legal actions out of the public gaze rather than genuine remorse for poisoning workers.

And the emissions don’t stop at the fence, as Dr Rachel Western pointed out to Leader of Cumbria County Council Eddie Martin in 2013:

“The nuclear industry concede that a nuclear burial site would
 definitely leak radioactive atoms that would get back up to the surface
 and into people’s drinking water and food – and so put them at risk of 
cancer. The numbers involved are mind blowing – for example: when the 
nuclear industry tested their leak rate calculations at a Uranium mine in 
Brazil, 
they underestimated the leak rate by 200 million.”

Ethicist Kate Rawles inadvertently hits the nail on the head in the NIREX paper of 2000: ‘Ethical Issues in the Disposal of Radioactive Wastes‘: “The judgment about geology rests on the values put on human life and health. If human health were not valued, the geological criteria would not be the same.”

Cue geological dumping in leaky Cumbria!

Does this cloud have a silver linings?

Dr Becky Martin has pointed to some silver linings among these strange times: “33 MPs said no potentially incurring the wrath of the party whip and the industry. So good on them! Considering only 53 voted for the fracking moratorium and the weight behind that campaign, that’s not a terrible show.

“We salute these brave people who are sticking to their principles and focusing on protecting their constituents rather than climbing the greasy pole. Tim Farron has been a vocal opponent of the order, but he was not present for the vote. Strangely, Jamie Reed MP for Copeland and former Sellafield PR man voted against the order. We didn’t see that one coming!”

Imagine If Jamie Reed MP’s great great grandfather and grandmother had gone along with the dumping of
 heat generating radioactive wastes deep under Cumbria. Would famous Cumbrian breweries be drawing their water from Lakeland watercourses?

Many scientists and geologists have good reason to think not.

Keeping heat generating nuclear wastes isolated from the biosphere is the
 biggest challenge for mankind and geological ‘disposal’ is a false and poisonous road that we are now careering down with no stop signs in sight.

Marianne Birkby is spokesperson Radiation Free Lakeland (RFL).

RFL is a voluntary organisation of local activists giving their own time and expertise freely. Any donations go directly to campaigning for nuclear safety.

Following on from the anti-GM activism of the late 1990s and early 2000’s, it is widely believed that there is a ban on GM foods in the UK.

However law changes in the EU, potential international trade law tie-ins via the upcoming Transatlantic Trade and Investment Agreement (TTIP) and the UK political climate combine to make us very vulnerable now to GM crops being grown here and more GM foods being imported. Lobbying by vested-interest agribusiness is a major factor throughout.

With TTIP, US agribusiness expects to get its GM products (human food, agricultural crops, animal feed and products from GM-fed animals) into the EU market. US/EU ‘regulatory harmonisation’ is core to TTIP. The fact that a reported 70% of US supermarket processed food contains GM is an indication of what harmonisation with the US on GM will bring.

EU citizens’ resistance to GM food is considered to be a ‘non-tariff barrier’ to trade. The World Trade Organisation disallowed an EU ban on GM. Now TTIP is intended to further overcome resistance.

However, as with much that is targeted in TTIP, this is happening through internal EU regulatory change, concealing how this addresses the demands of transnational corporations in TTIP negotiations.

The pro-GM UK coalition government has been the main promoter of TTIP in the EU, and is equally keen to open the UK to GM.

Enjoy (mostly) GM-free foods while they last!

In contrast to the US situation, the direct human food supply in the EU is still largely GMO free.

There are a few food products for sale in the UK with GM ingredients, which should be labelled according to EU labelling regulations – surveys show that around 40% of takeaway meals are cooked using GM cooking oils and while caterers are required by EU regulations to tell customers this, the majority do not.

Still, we currently have very little GM crop cultivation within Europe. There are some small scale field trials of GM crops in the UK, but none grown commercially.

There are already around 30 million tonnes of GM animal feed (predominantly GM soya and GM maize) imported into the EU each year – to feed pigs, poultry, dairy and beef cattle, as well as farmed fish.

Most UK supermarkets no longer guarantee their products are not from GM-feed animals. Food products from GM-fed animals are not labelled as such. Under TTIP, a shift to labelling products from GM-fed animals would be very likely to be subject to a corporate challenge under TTIP investor state dispute settlement (ISDS).

Labelling in relation to all GM food continues to be a political battlefield in the US, with agribusiness corporation Monsanto pouring in political funding to prevent GM labelling.

The EU’s changing GMO landscape

In the late 1990s and early 2000s activists donned white protective suits and removed GM plantings every time they were attempted with the UK leading resistance to GM in the EU. The result was a de facto EU ban on GM because people in the EU did not want it.

In the UK, a report called ‘GM Nation’, produced subsequent to government-sponsored debates around the country, showed strong public opposition to GM. A further survey in 2012 showed that this opposition had hardly lessened.

But in 2003, the US, Canada and Argentina made a formal complaint about the ban to the World Trade Organisation. In 2006 a WTO panel judged the EU ban to be ‘trade-restrictive’ and a breach of the EU’s trade liberalisation commitments.

The EU did not take the option of utilising the WTO appeal mechanism. Since then, there has had to be product-by-product assessment of GM crop and GM food entry into the EU.

Faced with the contradiction between the WTO ruling and EU public opinion, the EU bureaucracy and politicians have delayed applications, and the process has been very slow. But now, agribusiness corporations and GM advocates are pushing for the speeding up of the existing assessment mechanism, against the backdrop of a predefined TTIP aim of ‘regulatory harmonisation’.

This situation allows for claims that TTIP will not change EU laws on GM – an apparent, but essentially false, reassurance of ‘no change’.

In a further development, in January 2015 the European Parliament approved an EU Directive allowing individual member states to refuse the entry of a GM crop into their country after it has been accepted for entry into the EU generally.

What this means is that resistance at the EU level of entry will be weaker if member states can subsequently refuse a crop coming into their country. It should be noted that when there is not adequate agreement at the EU assessment level the decision-making passes to the corporate-influenced Commission.

The European Commission is now, it appears, similarly considering whether to change the import regime for the entry of GM crops, possibly to the same ‘member states choice’ regime. Assessments on new product imports are also imminent.

However, another shift is the recent publication of ‘Altered Genes, Twisted Truth‘, a book by US lawyer Steve Druker, showing the corruption of the science and of politicians in relation to GM (reviewed in The Ecologist).

Is GM food OK?

Many people still do not want to eat, or for their children to eat, GM food. Some people think that GM is okay if it means less use of chemicals. However, some GM crops are genetically engineered to withstand being heavily sprayed with herbicide chemicals. Thus a lot of chemicals are applied to the GM food / animal feed crop.

The EU has the ‘Precautionary Principle’ enshrined in the Lisbon Treaty – that is, products are not allowed unless proven to be safe. However the US operates to the so-called ‘sound-science’ approach, meaning that products are allowed unless harm is proven). ‘Proof’ comes from scientific testing, but industry funding for research is a major factor, as is the ‘revolving door’ between industry and regulator jobs.

So one issue is that science is an active knowledge system in which new discoveries are made almost every day, therefore scientific evidence is always incomplete and uncertain. The responsible use of scientific evidence, therefore, has to be precautionary.

This is all the more important for technologies such as genetic engineering, for which neither controls nor recalls are possible. Thus it is the precautionary principle that really is ‘sound’ science. With the TTIP ‘harmonisation’ element, though, the EU’s precautionary principle is coming under lot of pressure in GM product assessment.

But another issue, on another level, is that which Steven Druker exposes in his book. Rather than scientific research, his book is based on 15 years of research on fraud in relation to the scientific research on GM, in which the scientific community and politicians have been complicit.

The purpose of the fraud, says Druker, is “to confuse the public and erroneously convince people, politicians included, that the scientific foundations for creating GM staples for the world food supply was sound.”

The information from Steven Druker must be taken into account in any assessment of GM, for instance by the UK Food Standards Authority, which is currently very pro GM, and also been advised to be pro-TTIP (as a Freedom of Information request has revealed).

‘Co-existence’ of crops – a useful idiocy

The claimed possibility of ‘co-existence’ of GM crops with conventional crops and organic farming is a myth. Cross contamination is unavoidable. Scotland and Wales wish to be GM free. As an island country we can potentially minimise cross contamination from any GM crops grown on continental Europe.

GM crops and the chemicals used on them are potentially detrimental to wildlife, which are essential to food crop production and natural pest control.

In addition, chemicals produced for use with GM crops, such as the broadly-used ‘Round Up’ herbicide, for killing weeds but not the GM crop, is resulting in the growth of ‘super weeds’ that require ever more chemicals to be applied.

As well as food and animal feed, a large part of the North and South America GM crop is for biofuel, and ‘Bt cotton’, genetically transformed to produce insecticidal toxins, is grown in America, India, Australia and elsewhere.

Monsanto, along with BASF, Bayer, Dow Chemical Company, Dupont and Syngenta are the big Biotech Corporations, dominating the agricultural input market – i.e. the world’s seed, pesticide and biotechnology industries.

In the US, Monsanto has successfully kept regulation low by donating to politicians and promoting the appointment of people who work for them to positions within the US Government – the ‘regulatory revolving door’.

This is why Druker’s book is so important to the GM debate and whether we are debating the ‘science’ – in which case the wider range of factors must be taken into account, not just ‘trade liberalisation’ and corporate profits – or whether we are debating how corrupted is the scientific information we are receiving.

What now?

In the UK, the Conservative / Lib Dem coalition has been a pro-GM government, the main promoter in the EU of TTIP, and keen to open the UK to GM foods and crops. The Labour Party is also pro-GM, if less enthusiastically so.