Midnight Oil

Subject: Arctic World
From: "Tom" <tr_espen@yahoo.com.au>
Date: 24/07/2011, 10:55 am
To: powderworks@yahoogroups.com.au

Hey, does anyone remember the lyrics to "Arctic World"?

... "I don't want to grow anything in my heart ... I don't want to breathe that Smithsonian air ... There is nothing that grows in their Arctic world..."

Maybe that's why PG criticised biotechnology in a newspaper (Sydney Morning Herald?)  piece on Queensland, which later appeared in a collection titled "Political Blues".

PG (formerly of Midnight Oil) pointed out how the search for biotech foods was disingenuous, to say the least, when the West has mountains of subsidised food sitting around, while people are starving. Even more importantly, the planet's ecosystem only has so much it can give, so its limits and balances will control how much food it can churn out. Also, the new organisms are unpredictable, like General Electric's "Micus" organism, to eat oil spills, that was never released because it could have multiplied and ended up in the engine of every car in the world.

Greenpeace (which PG was a board member of, for a bit) states that Australia is the first country in the world to test GM wheat on humans.

Is that because we have had a full and frank debate about it in Australia?

Or maybe it's because our politicians are especially free from corrupting influences, such as those in the UK (Mr Murdoch owns 70% of Oz metro papers - only 40% in the UK), and so can be trusted heaps?

Or could it be because Australian politicians, overall, haven't really addressed this issue?

Incidentally, did anyone else ever hear the rumour that the Oils went all "Secret Squirrel" and privately gave $40,000 to the Aust. Conservation Foundation, in relation to genetic engineering?

The political stuff the Oils talked about, and did, sometimes at the expense of the advancement of their musical career on commercial radio in particular, is a big part of the reason why their music meant so much then, and still means so much today.