26 October 2001

PROF PHILIP STOTT: MAN RETREATING WITH PANTS ON FIRE?

Great organic site with up-to-the-minute news portal: www.organicTS.com,
and don't forget the delightful www.planorganic.com

***

Now here's a funny thing. Organic-bashing GE-promoting Pants on Fire award winner, Prof Philip Stott - organiser of the infamous Seeds of Opportunity conference, has newly worked over his pro-biotech website and somewhat bizarrely, given the name, turned it over entirely to stuff about global warming!

Even Stotty's 'hilarious' Real Green Dictionary, which famously dismissed Europe's largest conservation organisation, the RSPB, as a bunch of "nerds", appears to have gone. See John Vidal piece below for more on the wit and wisdom of Philip Stott.

Of course, needless to say, Stott's as obnoxious on Climate as ever, but whither that notorious enthusiasm for GE?  Clearly something is afoot. Can't believe the old reprobate's changed his spots!

Site also describes Stott as 'Prof Emeritus' which would suggest, would it not, that he may have (been) retired from SOAS. Surely bio-geography students can't have finally tired of all those courses on the post-modernist deconstruction of environmentalism + web design?!

For stott's rot: http://www.probiotech.fsnet.co.uk/
"Fill your mind with cant."

For stott's pants: https://members.tripod.com/~ngin/pants4.htm

Some biotech PG Tips: "Boiling a kettle is a dangerous task; yet it produces that refreshing cup of tea. Biotechnology is no different."
https://members.tripod.com/~ngin/319.htm

Some dodgy connections:
https://members.tripod.com/~ngin/rightwing.htm

'The independent university researcher has to be like Caesar's wife, always above suspicion' - Prof Philip Stott

"It is evident that Professor Stott has abandoned his role as a serious scholar and has become a cheerleader for the biotech industry." - Peter Montague, Director of the Environmental Research Foundation

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The Guardian June 6, 2001
John Vidal

Philip Stott, professor of bio-geography at the University of London, has had a fine week, chairing a major biotech fest which was (surprise, surprise) sponsored by the US embassy and attracted many of the world's most vociferous proponents of the technology.

Stotty, despite saying that he "comes from the left", maintains a rabidly pro-industry, anti-environmentalist website (www.probiotech.fsnet.co.uk) which seeks to wittily deconstruct critics with new definitions.

Some examples:

"Global Warming - a political idea to hammer the use of the car and prevent all further industrial development".

"Greenpeace - a fun opportunity for mainly upper class climbers who are out for a laugh, but who still want to feel good".

Lost Tribe - "a group of folk in a tropical forest who can be romanticised and patronised but who must not want electricity or TVs."

Philip Stott - "An alarming academic who knows how to argue George Bush's case and should be taken with a strong pinch of salt" (sorry, that one is entirely fictional, but in the spirit of Stotty's site).