European ‘green groups’ block science reform over independent advisor backing of GE research

It is, perhaps, not the best of times for Greenpeace. Many of its supporters are angered at the revelation that a senior executive has been commuting some 500 miles roundtrip to work by plane, which makes a mockery of the group’s campaign to reduce our collective carbon footprint; and there is now revolt inside the organization with over 40 staff signing a letter calling on Pascal Husting, the executive in question, to resign.

But all of this is a distraction from a much more unpleasant and significant hypocrisy, which Greenpeace has signed onto, along with eight other environmental groups: a campaign to abolish the position of Anne Glover, chief scientific advisor to the president of the European Commission.

Glover’s position “concentrates too much influence in one person, and undermines in-depth scientific research and assessments carried out by or for the Commission directorates in the course of policy elaboration,” the petition continues. But she has identified a signal weakness in this process, while laying out a process that will expand the role of science. Glover is, in effect, arguing for the devolution of whatever power she has into an independent institution that can give much greater voice to the scientific consensus.

All of this underscores why, to the politician and lobbyist, science is often no more than an ally when convenient, and disposable when not. Evidence is simply a figure of speech rather than something that emerges from the scientific method. And this is why there has an impassioned response to Greenpeace’s letter from scientific organizations, scientists, teachers and students across Europe.

Read the full, original article: Green groups go to war on scientific reform in Europe

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