Top all-time · #3568
Mark Lynas
Personal blog · marklynas.orgsciencepolitics
Mark Lynas's personal blog at marklynas.org covers science and politics. Since 2011, 22 different Hacker News readers have linked it 24 times, most often “How an environmental activist came to love GMOs”. It is still writing: the last post was on 2026-03-12, and you can follow it by feed.
Too few sampled comments (14) to say how often HN recommends it.?
Why HN links it
HN readers link Mark Lynas's blog for posts on GM food and farming, his argument that the Easter Island ecocide story is a myth, and Jared Diamond's rebuttals hosted on the same site.
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 14 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
Mark Lynas is the author of numerous books on the environment. His latest is Our Final Warning: Six Degrees of Climate Emergency.
Most-linked posts?
- How an environmental activist came to love GMOs6 people · 6 mentions · first linked 2013-01-04
- The Myths of Easter Island – Jared Diamond Responds (2011)5 people · 5 mentions · first linked 2011-10-30
- The Myth of Easter Island’s Ecocide2 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2011-10-30
What Hacker News says?
BTW there seems to be a development for some more sensible marking of GM foods beyond the GMO/non-GMO labeling which really tells you nothing of value. The idea with this is that you put much more information available: http://www.marklynas.org/2016/07/time-compromise-gmo-labelli...
Comment linking /2016/07/time-compromise-gmo-labelling/
on “How we're scammed into eating phony food”Submitted Amazon user feedback used for censorship as a story · 55 points
HN discussionInteresting, he also posts a response by Jared Diamond: http://www.marklynas.org/2011/09/the-myths-of-easter-island-... I had heard about the "JD is wrong, rats were the culprits" theory before and always wondered about JD's reaction.
Comment linking /2011/09/the-myths-of-easter-island-jared-diamond-responds/
on “Easter Island heads have bodies”Submitted How an environmental activist came to love GMOs as a story · 22 points
HN discussionI might be wrong, but I'm sure I read a detailed discussion somewhere about how they analyzed burial pits and found large amounts of cuts as if the flesh had been flayed and so on. Apparently they did detailed DNA analysis and even found human bone fragments in waste pits. I can't seem to find that discussion online right now. However I did find a rebuttal by Jared Diamond on the same site to this argument; http://w…
Comment linking /2011/09/the-myths-of-easter-island-jared-diamond-responds/
on “Easter Island heads have bodies”Submitted Climate activists should make a special effort to get the science right as a story · 2 points
HN discussionThat's a really captivating story with a strong message but it's far from obvious whether it happened, and whether it happened like you describe: http://www.marklynas.org/2011/09/the-myth-of-easter-islands-... Especially the claims of cannibalism seem a little far fetched.
Comment linking /2011/09/the-myth-of-easter-islands-ecocide/
on “Easter Island heads have bodies”Submitted Mark Lynas – Speech to the Oxford Farming Conference 2018 as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSure, why not? According to data from Wikipedia and e.g. this[0] compared to the handy reference chart[1], I should expect 2-3 times the background radiation, and at worst (at ~110 mSv/year), I'm barely hitting the lowest rate linked to increased cancer risk. Assuming I avoid the hottest spots, I should be entirely fine. (That does not take into account the possibility of suffering extra radiation damage and chemica…
Comment linking /2011/08/how-dangerous-is-the-fukushima-exclusion-zone/
on “Radioactive ruthenium from an undeclared major nuclear release in 2017”Submitted Prominent Anti-GMO Activist Mark Lynas Reverses Position as a story · 2 points
HN discussionThe descriptive comments here look like they come out of the "Two Degrees" chapter of Mark Lynas's 2007 book, Six Degrees .[1] Lynas summarized climate science as it was in about 2005, and organised the summary by temperature increase. Each chapter is named after its upper bound, so "Two Degrees" describes changes expected with the global temperature increase between 1 and 2 degrees. Lynas gives up after six degrees…
Comment linking /books/six-degrees-our-future-on-a-hotter-planet/
on “California's dry season is turning into a permanent state of being”Submitted The Myth of Easter Island’s Ecocide as a story · 1 points
HN discussionThat same site has published a response from Jared Diamond: http://www.marklynas.org/2011/09/the-myths-of-easter-island-... It seems far from established that the ecocide is a myth.
Comment linking /2011/09/the-myths-of-easter-island-jared-diamond-responds/
on “What Happens When Bitcoin Miners Take Over Your Town”Submitted Mark Lynas: truth, treachery and GM food (2013) as a story · 1 points
HN discussionThe myth of Easter Island’s ecocide : http://www.marklynas.org/2011/09/the-myth-of-easter-islands-...
Comment linking /2011/09/the-myth-of-easter-islands-ecocide/
on “What Happens When Bitcoin Miners Take Over Your Town”Submitted BBC dismisses anti-GMO complaints on Panorama documentary on Bt brinjal project as a story · 1 points
HN discussionI'm not a patent lawyer, so maybe I'm wrong and someone can correct me, but all this "how can you patent a seed" whining is bullshit. The Monsanto patents are for the method of using a particular herbicide in combination with the modified plant seeds. If you innocently get some Monsanto genes into your organic soybean seeds, then you would almost certainly not be infringing the patent any more than I could be infrin…
Comment linking /2013/01/lecture-to-oxford-farming-conference-3-january-2013/
on “How can I tell if a plant given to me is patented?”Submitted The Myths of Easter Island – Jared Diamond Responds (2011) as a story · 1 points
HN discussionThe Easter Island story told by Jared Diamond in Collapse is arguably a myth. Do you have any other examples? An alternate view of Easter Island includes these sorts of points: - Forests on Easter Island were largely killed by rats (an invasive species) and to (productively!) clear land for agriculture, not to make statues. - Civilization there grew and persisted and thrived even well after the trees were gone due t…
Comment linking /2011/09/the-myths-of-easter-island-jared-diamond-responds/
on “Why most resources don't run out”Being anti-"GMO" is as ludicrously anti-scientific as saying that evolution is a lie, except that not believing in evolution doesn't affect anyone else, whereas opposing "GMO" food leads to starving children. You can start here if you'd like to educate yourself: http://www.marklynas.org/2013/01/lecture-to-oxford-farming-c...
Comment linking /2013/01/lecture-to-oxford-farming-conference-3-january-2013/
on “Scientists develop 'superwheat'”The first well-done climate models by Manabe and Wethereld in 1975 found that a 2% reduction in solar radiation would cancel the effect of a doubling in atmospheric CO2 levels.[0,1] This problem has an engineering solution that should be implemented as soon as possible. Stop beating up people with guilt as a “solution” to reversing use of a resource has has become as essential as water. This tactic is as cynical as…
Comment linking /books/our-final-warning-six-degrees-of-climate-emergency/
on “Don't overstate 1.5 degrees C threat, new IPCC head says”For anyone who wants to start a interesting discussion with any Greenpeace supporters, here is an excellent speech by Mark Lynas, who successfully turned anti-GM into a popular political viewpoint in the 90s and now regrets it. http://www.marklynas.org/2013/01/lecture-to-oxford-farming-c... On the Golden Rice topic, http://news.nationalpost.com/2013/10/11/ex-greenpeace-presid... Story of an interesting protest!
Comment linking /2013/01/lecture-to-oxford-farming-conference-3-january-2013/
on “Is it “Wicked” to Oppose Genetically Modified Golden Rice?”For perspective, it's probably worth taking a look at some blog posts critical of this study, for example [1]. [1] http://www.marklynas.org/2013/06/gmo-pigs-study-more-junk-sc...
Comment linking /2013/06/gmo-pigs-study-more-junk-science/
on “A long-term toxicology study on pigs fed on genetically modified soy and maize [pdf]”
