Julian Morris
With Roger Bate, Julian Morris was co-director of the environment and technology programme of the rightwing think tank, the Institute of Economic Affairs until 2001. He is now a member of its academic advisory board.[1]
Morris has been director of the International Policy Network (IPN) since 2001.[2] Bate was a Fellow there. Kendra Okonski is their communications director.[3] Morris is among the contributors to an IPN book edited by Okonski which attacks the Kyoto protocol. The book's other contributors include several who connect to Morris and who have been active in the GM debate - Martin Livermore, Barun Mitra and Philip Stott.[4]
Morris has been a key contributor to several BBC programmes raising questions about organic food. One of these programmes ('Counterblast', BBC 2, 31 Jan 2000) was presented by Roger Bate in his then role as director of the European Science and Environment Forum (ESEF). As far as viewers knew, Morris had no connection with ESEF, but an ESEF domain inquiry prior to the website's removal revealed that Morris was the site's administrative contact.[5]
This suggests ESEF may, like the IEA's Environment Unit, have been synonymous with Bate and Morris. Bate and Morris also co-edited a book, Fearing Food: Risk, Health and the Environment,[6] amongst whose contributors is Dennis Avery of the Hudson Institute. Avery has been at the heart of the anti-organic campaign. Bate and Morris appear unembarrassed by the dubious nature of Avery's claims, repeating them in the BBC programmes they contributed to and using them in a publicity stunt to launch their book.
Notes
- ↑ "Julian Morris", International Policy Network, accessed 5 February 2009.
- ↑ Ibid
- ↑ "Kendra Okonski", International Policy Network, accessed 5 February 2009.
- ↑ Kendra Okonski, ed., "Adapt or Die: The science, politics and economics of climate change", International Policy Network, 1st December 2003, accessed 5 February 2009.
- ↑ "Pro-GM scientists and the right", Norfolk Genetic Information Network, accessed 5 February 2009.
- ↑ J. Morris and R. Bate, eds., Fearing Food: Risk, Health and the Environment, Oxford: Butterworth-Heinemann, 1999.
