I strongly consider myself an environmentalist and wonder how you came to these conclusions. I've a B.S. in environmental sciences and have worked in habitat restoration and urban sustainability for years. I am not a member of Greenpeace and disagree with many of their approaches to activism and promotion, as do many scientists in my field. Considering them to be a substantial component of the environmentalist movement is incorrect. The lunatic fringe is always the loudest.
You've basically listed all the well-known forms of renewable, intermittent energy, which are endorsed by almost everyone I know. Every form of energy is going to have a pros and cons list. Most environmentalists I know (avoiding all-inclusive since I never took a survey) seem to primarily oppose coal and mountain-top removal, fracking, and poorly researched nuclear installations.
Any "environmentalist" who strongly opposes solar energy sounds like they're talking out of their ass. When we remove finance from the argument (which is where most the cons and unknowns concerning solar power reside), we're left with what exactly? a) Reduced effectiveness from cloud cover and b) Increased ground cover and all relevant aspects. The net impact of ground cover with elevated panels appears to be minimal. It has been shown that temperate vegetation is still capable of growing underneath the panels and the impact of runoff seems to be negligible (if in the positive).
I was once an opponent of wind farms when they became rather popular in Europe, for the sole purpose that they didn't require environmental impact reports or completely botched it, because the original installations of the large turbines caused significant loss of bird life. I've never actually been opposed to the implementation of wind power generation, and believe integrating all renewable intermittent energies is a solid step towards sustainable society. I don't condone of blanket statements that forms of renewable energy are bad when it's only basis is the current technology.
Nuclear reactors is a very divisive topic for obvious reasons. Japan unfortunately became a model for more thorough assessments of risk. In a discussion with environmentalists, it would be difficult to persuade everyone in one direction, though most might oppose based on history of human error and oversight. I understand its efficiency and that has always put it far ahead other forms of energy, but a repeat of Japan is unacceptable and could kill nuclear support globally.
Now when it comes to GMO's, I speak primarily from the viewpoints of environmental health, business ethics, and my own bioethic conviction that life prevails over money. There is mounting evidence that Big Agra's behavior reflects no regard for the environment or individual. The potential benefits they extoll can just as quickly become disasters if mismanaged, and keeping the integrity of an ecosystem in the hands of a single human makes me queasy. I'm not entirely sure how a person can be surprised about the opposition towards GMO corporations or the organisms they engineer. Let's divide the opposing parties based on the values with some basis in fact.
1) Personal health (not knowing is unacceptable), belief in right-to-know, environmental impact concerns (biodiversity, ecological stability, invasive species)
2) Money.
I'm not including the conflated bag of bologna that GMO's will eliminate poverty and solve world hunger. Boastful yet brilliant claims to round up the millions of people who prefer false hope to harsh realities.
To me there is no debate on financial gain vs. global health. Halting all specifics so I can wax poetic: Jeff Goldblum became the most quoted actor in science when in stunning brevity he summarized nature at it's core: "life will find a way." Plants are very dangerous to toy with, because they reside at the lower areas of the food chain and don't require sexual reproduction. If you give one variety of plant extremely high resistances to every agricultural poison and complement that with high tolerance to drought and cold, you're engineering an armor-plated vegetable that can survive in some of the harshest climates and will out-compete organisms in areas with high biodiversity. We don't get a redo if we screw this one up.
Cross-pollination is not necessary for reproduction in all plants, so Big Agra is simply clouding people's vision with the false notion that Terminator technology is a reliable sterilization technology. Shouldn't we be questioning a corporation that overlooked a basic concept taught in first year biology? How can you be billionaires and not realize the alternatives to pollination. They manufactured Terminator, knowing darn well it's useless, simply as a PR move to show they tried.
Maybe it will be X years before a super-crop poses a threat to the natural environment, but even if X=200 why should making that decision be in any way acceptable?
Remember America has no law concerning unwanted seed dispersal, which are effectively intellectual property even when molded into the poop of an insect. Good luck in the job market if that turd of doom is dropped on your plot. They will either force you to sign over your farm under extreme pressure involving court fees and the strength of their legal team. There's really no point in fight a losing battle regarding intellectual property. There are no laws against unwanted seed dispersal, you possess their intellectual property, congratulations on being royally screwed. But hey let's support corporations that do this to innocent workers because my Safeway bill is cheaper.
Now to address the widespread misconception that GMOs are inherently good for the consumer. For basic points let's refer to this study:
http://www.ucsusa.org/food_and_agri...tic-engineering/environmental-effects-of.html
It's dated but the environmental impacts are unchanging and abundantly clear:
1) GMO crops have much higher resistances than naturally occurring plants. This increases their potential to become weeds. This is especially problematic because crops are domesticated varieties and rarely representative of the naturally-occurring species, so while finding ready-to-eat crops in the wild sounds nice, it poses a threat to other species as well as the genetic integrity of the naturally occurring variety, which brings me to numero dos.
2) Genes developed in laboratory are purely artificial and should not be allowed the risk of transferring to the natural species under any circumstances. This compromises the genetic code of a unique organism, putting it under serious threat, and reclassifying what was once naturally-occurring plants as invasive pests themselves.
3) Skipping since it's self-explanatory.
4) Increased defenses does not just pose risks to other plants, but to animal species as well. Since there is no guarantee that these crops will never spread, you're essentially saying it is okay to gamble as long as Monsanto benefits right now.
5) The most important bioethical question. Do you find it acceptable to play a game of Risk with the already fragile state of many ecosystems over pennies on the dollar?
One of the most significant events was the impact of Bt corn on honeybee colonies in Europe and the United States. Bt corn was linked to Honeybee Colony Collapse Disorder. Incredibly strong insecticides kill pollinators too, what a shocker. Why didn't Monsanto employ some sort of selective poison for pest control management if they started losing pollinators? Oh that LOL, well in the 90s Monsanto and Bayer came together to completely dismantle how corn's integrated pest management (IPM) enforced principles of control, not eradication. More Bio 101: it is unwise to completely eliminate pests, because they undergo increased selective pressures when the small population of survivors are all resistant. Individuals with no resistance or very low resistance must survive to dilute the gene pool and keep the pest population manageable. Pulling a Monsanto & Bayer by employing your strongest poisons and aiming for eradication is environmentally unsafe, which is explicitly stated in IPM's principles. It also directly led to a staggering increase in the price of honey. Economic wizards they are not.
That's why more than a half dozen countries have banned Bt corn, but they must be overreacting and glorious America has it all figured out, right?
The most recent arguments concerning GMOs came in the recent California ballot initiative (Prop. 37). It asked voters if they wanted some food products labeled for GMO content. The Big Six spent over $35M to defeat the initiative and saying your grocery bill will increase by a fabricated amount, predetermined by a sham firm that corporations hire to falsify numbers. The $400 figure was courtesy of the bullshit extraordinaires at Northbridge Environmental Management Consultants. They specialize in fabricating numbers to oppose initiatives that increase environmental awareness. In case you're wondering, since the Big Six couldn't bother with a reputable source for hard numbers on this issue, at least someone else did:
http://www.anh-usa.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/GE-Food-Act-Costs-Assessment.pdf
Why not cap their political contributions on Prop. 37 at twice what the proponents spent? Five times the oppositions amount just reeks of paranoia. It would have been a tactical and noble move to use that $35M temper tantrum in a good way, like redirecting that money to foreign aid funds and doing what you tell the people you should be able to do.
They prey on the hopes and dreams of Americans by saying their miracle crops will alleviate world hunger and eliminate poverty. No one ever mentions that the rehashed financial arguments in favor of GMO's are the ones of greatest concern to environmentalists because they pose the greatest potential environmental risks. All of these risks have irreversible and catastrophic results on biodiversity. Increased herbicide resistance, increased cold tolerance, increased drought tolerance, etc. these all have the potential to turn crops into buzz-saws with the potential to destroy not only wild species but other important crops too.
If Big Agra was so genuinely good, why are their lobbyists getting favorable corporate legislation sneaked in by shmoozing House pols:
http://www.motherjones.com/tom-philpott/2012/08/biotech-gmo-deregulation
There are plenty of valid reasons why we need to be cautious about the operations of the Big Six and their miracle crops. There are bans or regulations on GMO products in over 60 countries, but not America. Instead of employing the no-questions-asked, blind nationalism that has gotten us into environmental trouble before (the Dust Bowl), maybe we should err on the side of caution? It wouldn't kill us, but the other option might.
In closer, if they spend their afternoons canvassing and proudly exclaim that they would launch missiles at illegal whaling ships, they are not true environmentalists. Fanatics aren't deserving of that word. Non-violent but incessantly pro-active, OR BUST!