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After eight years, campaigning on the issue of genetically modified organisms may be getting a little stale. But bio-fuels may have the credentials to become a fresh target for the environmentalists (600 words).

It is now almost eight years since the eco- mercenaries took up arms against genetically modified crops in a serious way. An incidence of grand standing in front of a television camera in August 1998 by a rogue researcher at the Scottish Rowatt Institute, and subsequent British press coverage, marked the start of earnest campaigning by Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth and other environmental groups.

The press, at the time, seemed to have squeezed as much as was possible out of the BSE, or mad cow, saga over the previous decade and so was ready for a new "bad news" story to swell their collective bottom line.

Certainly the initial information made available to the public by the researcher was a cause for concern. But the press and media seem too eager to get the story into print to check its authenticity. While no lesser authority than the Royal Society dumped on the researcher's information in May 1999, by then the perception of a health hazard was widely held. And the eco-mercenaries were committed to their campaign, even if they were ever concerned about its veracity.

It was, of course, ideal campaign material as it had several popular dimensions, was too complex for the general public to gain much of an understanding, and importantly the press had done the leg work in creating it as a high profile issue.

And so for the last eight years in the company of other issues such as climate change, nuclear power, disarmament, the state of the ocean and vanishing forests it has been a popular fund raising cause. That there is, and has been, no established proof of any damage to human health, the environment or anything else seems to be of little relevance. And indeed that discouraging of the use of genetically modified crops in the third world has unnecessarily extended mal nutrition seems of little concern to the mercenaries.

The question that must be raised is when will environmentalists quit flogging this particular dead horse issue. The answer is surely as soon as they have a suitable replacement.

The replacement will doubtlessly need to be high profile. It must be sufficiently complex so as to allow plausible "stories" to be created on a regular basis. And it would be helpful if the press and media had already raised substantial consumer awareness of the issue.

Such a candidate, the production of bio fuels, ethanol and bio-diesel, may be emerging. It has the profile - no lesser personage than US President George W. Bush is promoting it. It is sufficiently complex to facilitate the generation of confusion. For a start embedded objectives include fuel security, conservation, the environment and farm income support.

But whether the press and media has done enough to promote the issue is questionable. Earlier in the month, Greenpeace USA appears to have made an initial foray into the area when it staged a demonstration in Sao Paulo as Brazilian President Lula da Silva met with U.S. President Bush to discuss biofuels and ethanol. And it tied the issue to Brazil's disappearing rainforests, an existing campaign issue.

But we may have to wait awhile to learn whether the issue is a good one in the context of fund raising. As the demonstrations did not receive a great deal of press and media coverage, bio-fuels may escape for the moment much further attention from the eco-mercenaries.

March 14, 2007