How enviro groups choose causes to champion

[Sue.Darcey, Pesticide Report <sdarcey@erols.com>]

Brent,

Thanks for your message.  Because I follow pesticide issues
obsessively, I am aware of FOE's recent report on genetic engineering,
as well as the ongoing food fight between the biotech industry and
Greenpeace, FOE and other environmental activists over the safety
of, and issues raised by, genetic engineering of our food supply.
In fact, I would have to be living under a rock not to be aware of
your most recent salvo in the fracas between Monsanto et.al., and
environmental activists over Biotech.

You guys do an excellent job at getting a lot of attention from
the mainstream media, congratulations.  You've now got every major
news outlet in America, Canada and Europe focused on the issues
associated with the growth of Bt crops. Additionally, all the
agricultural trade news and pesticide chemical information sources
I peruse daily, trolling for pesticide news tips, are choked with
stories about how some more caterpillars in studies have died after
being exposed to Bt pollen, or how some indignant group of protesters
has shut down another grocery store or fast food outlet suspected
of carrying products contaminated with genetically engineered food.

But there is something that has puzzled me over the past five years
as I've watched this Biotech controversy evolve, and that is this:
why aren't you focusing on the good old fashioned convential
pesticide problems here and abroad that pose much more of an obvious
risk to human health and environmental safety than the risks posed
by Bt corn, potatoes and soybeans?

With all the straightforward acute poisonings, deaths, illnesses,
ground and surface water pollution and environmental damage that
conventional pesticides can cause, why has your group and Greenpeace
decided to focus your limited resources and energies on a technology
that will, in a worst case analysis, aggravate some people's food
allergies and hasten insect resistance to Bacillus thuringiensis?

I really, really don't understand , nor do I get all the hoopla
you've been able to generate....

Please tell me what was behind FOE's decision to take up this
pesticide-related cause, while ignoring others.

Sue Darcey, Pesticide Report