In America, radical environmental groups get something of a cultural free pass. 

It's understandable, because America is a two-party country. Due to that, otherwise scientifically literate Democrats will rationalize the anti-vaccine, anti-GMO and anti-nuclear members under their umbrella as being 'anti-corporate' while scientifically literate Republicans don the same blinders about climate science and denial of evolution.

But climate change is not going to kill anyone for decades and evolution acceptance makes little difference at all in science literacy, much less saving lives. Demonizing food and medicine has real-world implications right now, as we have seen in anti-science progressive hotbeds like California and New York and in countries where children are dying or going blind. Internationally, Golden Rice has been vilified for reasons that make little sense, it is a vitamin-enriched, open source product that is as well-tested as anything in the history of the world.  Big Green needs a steady diet of things to alarm members about so somehow Golden Rice became a target.

Because...because...precautionary principle!

No one stands up to them in any real way - the right has no credibility among their membership and the left doesn't want to alienate them, since we have elections every two years -  so they can write warning letters to corporations telling their CEOs they are going to be personally liable in lawsuits if they oppose any climate change policies and there is little complaint. Imagine the backlash if Republicans wrote the same thing to people about their science policy. 

Other countries are less forgiving. New Zealand and Canada pulled the tax-exempt status of the $360 million empire known as Greenpeace. Yes, the country where Greenpeace began now contends that organization has no “public benefit” for Canadians.

India went even further, essentially accusing them of funding insurgency, the same way the Obama administration incites rebellion in Syria. Writing at Town Hall, Paul Driessen, author of Eco-Imperialism, notes that Greenpeace and other groups have been actively blocking energy projects in a country where the equivalent population of the entire United States has no electricity.

Instead of getting power plants, they have to burn dried feces and wood for cooking and heat. How is that better for the environment? If President Bush had implemented those policies, how many petitions would Union of Concerned Scientists have created? Their complaints about the anti-science policies of the Obama years are still sitting at zero.

That is not eco-justice, it is not fairness or tolerance or compassion, it is a human rights violation. But instead of taking a stand, like Canada and India and New Zealand, the US has reversed Bush-era policies in places like Africa and now penalizes the 700 million people there with no electricity - because of the administration's climate change policy.

Holding Greenpeace Accountable by Paul Driessen, TownHall.com

Image credit: http://allowgoldenricenow.org/