A few other things:

“certainly not if everyone in the world aspires to live the same way.”

Not everyone in the UK lives in the same way, or even aspires to. Globalisation does not have to end in a homogenous genetic soup.

“very eminent scientists, of the stature of Sir John Houghton and Jim Hansen”

I don’t know about Houghton, but there is some significant critique of Hansen out there. And I suppose that these scientists: http://www.inteliorg.com/US_Senate_Report_Over_400_Prominent_Scientists_Disputed_Man_Made_Global_Warming_Claims_in_2007.htm

…are all in the pocket of big business? Whereas the ones that work for the government are all kosher.

“Nor is it politicians who are driving this”

It is an intergovernmental panel. By definition it is driven by politicians.

This is one of the major critiques of the UN that comes from developing countries and academics: since it is funded by member states, it is directed by their national interests. Some have greater influence than others.

“GM is a genie it would be impossible to get back into the bottle.”

True, but it is already out of the bottle, as are cloning, AI and nanotechnology. There ain’t no going back.

See e.g. 200,000 GM trees planted in China, and the resulting confusion between two government departments, neither of whom would accept responsibility: those trees are now lost, and there are no records of where to find them.

This does not mean that it won’t do us a lot of good in the future, in the same way that plastics have revolutionised our lives – no matter how many bushes in Argentina have plastic bags in them as a result.

“GM will simply concentrate power over the whole of humankind in the hands of a very small number of huge corporations.”

Possibly, probably even, but so will carbon trading and carbon taxes. The difference is that few corporations ever went to war. And do you think those corporations don’t already have enormous power? I know one – Unilever – that does a lot of good with the power it wields.

So, are you just against corporations and skeptics, and pro-government and believers, or are your views more subtle than that?

It’s true that many people are very wary of GM crops. I don’t think this can be ascribed merely to anti-science-and-technology prejudice, as I suspect Matthew means to imply. First, the last 100 years has seen a number of cases where ‘wonderful’ new technologies have been used with abandon – asbestos, CFCs &c – and, arguably, plastic – only to prove much more harmful than we thought. In those two cases, we have managed to repair most of the damage, but GM is a genie it would be impossible to get back into the bottle. Second, it is not so much technology people mistrust, perhaps, as the big businesses that control and exploit it. GM will simply concentrate power over the whole of humankind in the hands of a very small number of huge corporations. I don’t think it’s any surprise that on both counts people are very wary of GM and the people who are talking it up without ever acknowledging the risks.

1) “If we do not alleviate climate change which is happening, then we will lose more land from active crop production due to global warming.”

This remains unconvincing. The assumption implicit is that man-made emissions will cause warming, which will cause further drought. But we know CO2 is a fertiliser. And we know that melting ice-caps will mean more water around. We also know that the predicted warming, without feedbacks, is about 1oC by 2100. So, a little warmer, more water and more fertiliser = LESS crops? I am unconvinced.

It should also be noted that advances in GM mean that we are likely to have drought resistant crops within a decade or two. But then, GM is all bad too, eh?

2) “since there would be less land given over to forests which reclaim the CO2 from the atmosphere”

This is simply incorrect. Much of the world’s natural CO2 emissions comes from rotting vegetation, such as is found on forest floors. There is no evidence that forests absorb more than they emit (please, enlighten me!). Tundra and wetlands are far superior net CO2 sinks… The kind of places you might find when ice starts melting.

3) “I’ve noticed a lot of 4×4 drivers use Ecover washing up liquid”

I wonder how you noticed..! Comparisons such as this are pointless and misleading. And not in the slightest bit hypocritical – that is a sad accusation.
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Also, you mention the Independent’s “Green” section… Did you note the article in this week’s Private Eye, that the Independent editor now has 16 dozen 42-inch plasma TVs adorning their offices, received in payment for a full page Currys advert?

Finally; a long way to go? Perhaps. But we have only been conscious of environmental degradation for two, maybe three decades. Maybe we should go about feeding, educating and providing sanitation to the wrold’s people before we get too depressed and guilty about enjoying the life we have?