It is difficult to imagine the motivation of Russia in attacking Ukraine yet again. Thanks to European reliance in Russian natural gas and food, they probably felt untouchable.
If so, it was a reasonable gamble. After the last fight in Ukraine, Germany and Europe so desperately wanted to avoid conflict with Russia they ignored their own environmental laws and promised to fast-track a pipeline that went from Russia to Germany, bypassing Ukraine entirely. They were already buying a large percentage of their food from the east because, with a wave of the pen, a large amount of Russian food became "certified" organic - and Europe does no surprise spot testing to see if food really only uses ancient pesticides and genetic engineering techniques.
Now they cannot ignore Russia because the world will watch them be hypocrites, so even journalists are joining Team Science and calling on lawmakers to ignore the organic food fetish before the problem becomes critical. Writing in New Europe, managing editor Nicholas Waller applauds UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres in abandoning previous 'organic is ready to feed the world' rhetoric and recommending that science be back on the table. The pandemic forced farmers to take a hard look at themselves in Europe - they were deemed "essential" which instead felt like their lives were unimportant. They were told to work while government employees stayed home. But the rest of the world wanted to stay home also. The only country that weirdly listened to European environmentalists and went full organic, Sri Lanka, collapsed almost immediately.
That's evidence alternatives to agriculture are a nice gimmick for the rich but no more able to feed the world than Michael Pollan's backyard garden is. Like California's desire to curb natural gas emissions, the European demand to have 25 percent of of agricultural land farmed organically by 2025 has quietly disappeared.
And that would be a good thing.
Will European elites listen? History says no. While Europe protested American 'imperialism' in Iraq in 2003, they let 70,000 poor people die during a heat wave because electricity was too expensive for them to cool their homes. Poor people are even less valuable than immigrants to elites and the wealthy can afford organic labels just fine. But there is hope that may change.
Russia Has Europe In Such A Panic About Food Prices They're Embracing Genetic Engineering And Modern Pesticides
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