First and foremost, what Mark Lynas did at this conference took a lot of courage. He stood up in front of hundreds of people, while also being recorded for the world to look back on and watch, and revoked his previous statements on Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs). He not only revoked his anti-GMO views, he even admitted to having regrets taking part in those views and fueling the anti-GMO movements in the past. On a personal level, I had much respect for Mark Lynas to be the bigger man and admit he was in the wrong, but with more knowledge he had corrected his ignorance and wished to make up for it.

While GMOs have been around for a little while now, they are still so hotly debated. To a degree, I agree that GMOs should be carefully monitored to ensure only good and healthy scientific advancements come from them, while also considering the consumers. However, I am constantly dumbfounded at how quickly some people are to be against GMOs. They act as if they will mutate your genes so drastically that something only in comic books or a science-fiction movie will begin to take place. If this were the case, we would have seen super heroes and villains running around in the real world many years ago. Ultimately, I am a man of science and logic, thus I seek to ask questions and understand. I refused to stay ignorant and uninformed about the subject until I could formulate my own opinion (and I am sure there is much I still do not know/understand, as science is always evolving). However, what Mark Lynas said in his video was that when he began to study environmental and other scientific issues, he found himself forming his new pro-GMO opinion, and ultimately defending himself in this new view against those uneducated in the science of it. It is truly amazing how quickly people by into the media and other non-scientific/non-proven “facts” about something such as GMOS.

What I found most fascinating about this entire speech, however, was early on when Mark Lynas discussed how the anti-GMO people are typically pro-organic. While organic is not a bad thing, some people are now beginning to study/question if organic farming is harming/setting back agriculture and having a negative effect on the planet. This shocked me, and I need to do more research into this myself to fully understand this newfound topic. However, it would be most ironic if GMOs were better than organics, while the media seems to spin it the other way around. Mark Lynas has proven in this video he has truely come to understand his wrong opinions on GMOs, thus proving that anyone can change their views if they are willing to learn the truth and admit when they are wrong, showing that knowledge and character go a long way in this world, all we have to do is stay open-minded.