More depressing news .... Weedkillers and pesticides

[Gerry Webster]

Sadly, like most pressure groups founded on reasonable principles it has become populated by zealots, power hungry egos and legions of the ill informed.

It would be good to see evidence for this claim.

[Gene Mirro]

I am also an environmentalist.  I believe overpopulation is at the heart of all our environmental issues.  The so-called environmental groups won't touch this issue, because they are afraid it will offend their "progressive" constituency.  Instead, they have morphed into marketers, spin masters, and control freaks.  In the US, we have groups that want gardeners to grow only those plants that grow native to their local area.  These people are crazy for control over other people's lives.  Talk to them; listen to them.  They are not rational.  They are like cult fanatics.

Any group that takes a report like this one and turns it into a doomsday tirade is not our friend.  They are using public ignorance about science to feather their own nest.  Like any bureaucracy, their first interest is job security.

[Gerry Webster]

Is this evidence? I think not for anyone with any kind of scientific qualification. It reads like a stream of  ad hominem abuse.

[Maggi Young]

I think it is evident that almost every journalist is prone to exaggeration for effect and it is doubtless true that some pressure groups do have extreme views and we can see  the hi-jacking of almost every organisation by those seeking to protect their jobs.
I would think that none of that negates the fact that environmental issues of all sorts do need to be brought to public attention somehow .
For instance, re the findings of weedkiller in humans - how many people are happy to use or have used around them  such chemicals, thinking that if they are on sale they must be safe? Is it not better to show people that humans are far from immune from the harmful  effects of such chemicals? It may be that the realisation of the possibility of a personal impact that may be needed to show how insidious the "creep" of these chemicals can be. There are an awful lot of people who think that none of the issues we see raised  by the likes of FOE have anything to do with them and cannot harm them -  I'm of the opinion that that is just not so and I think I'm not alone in thinking that.

[Maggi Young]

It reads like a stream of  ad hominem abuse.

Which is  never acceptable in the forum...........