Philip Stott in his own words

Philip Stott has contributed the following comments to the SourceWatch article about himself:

Hi Every One,

I am wryly amused by all this interest. Amazed really. Thanks to Bob and Gangle (sounds straight from 'The Lord of the Rings')for all their endeavours, and, of course, to my daemon (a la Philip Pullman) for her attempts defend me (see 'Discuss this page').

I thought I had better come public to make a few things nice and crystal clear:-

(a) I am indeed passionately anti-tobacco, and I have stated this recently on British television. The science on this, in my opinion, has been clear for a long time. I have also personally never smoked since a teenage affectation with a cigar when I was a foolish 18 years old! I believe the export of cigarettes to the developing world to be an evil process; (b) I have never received funding from any business or corporation. Nor would I! (My wife is somewhat sad about this); (c) I have never, to my knoweldge, given an interview to Monsanto; (d) I have been deconstructing 'environmentalist' narratives for far too long and I am now grey! (e) I am pro-organic agriculture (but not all the hype about it), pro-GM (but not all the hype about it), and pro-some forms of conventional agriculture (though recognising certain limitations), believing strongly in the widest possible agricultural 'toolbox'. I would like to see GM working within 'organic' systems (please don't try to force false dichotomies on people here at SourceWatch, or one might begin to doubt your own aims and impartiality); (f) I do indeed question the value of the Kyoto Protocol, and I do believe that adaptation though strong economies is the better way forward; (g) My analysis of the construct of 'rain forest' is a classic postmodernist and linguistic deconstruction (you seem to have missed the linguistic point completely); (h) I am as concerned about the environment as most, but I am not convinced by the religious zeal of 'environmentalism' - they are somewhat different (see Professor Anna Bramwell's famous books); (i) I will write for any reasonable outlet, left or right, if they do not edit my views and try to mould them to their own beliefs - this does not mean I am a Trotskyist-Socialist-Right Wing-Libertarian-Authoritarian or anything else. I stopped writing for Tech Central Station precisely because I thought it too 'American' for my output. You really must stop trying to 'tar' people by association; (j) Indeed, I have always voted Labour (except when I foolishly voted Liberal on a couple of occasions). I have never voted for a right-wing party, nor am I likely to do so; (k)I am totally independent and fiercely so. Perhaps I just don't fit your conspiratorial mind set! (l) And, indeed, I do not have a public e-mail because of the dire curse of spam, which I loathe. Once bitten, twice shy.

I could go on, but this is boring. I'm sure people have got better things to do with their time. Thanks anyway for the interest. I will, when I have a moment, honestly edit your piece, Bob (or, better still, you can just leave this up - in words that were written somewhere here, it is from the old horse's mouth), and I hope that will be an end of that.

• Please do not remove this corrective post in the meantime*, or I will indeed doubt what you are about.

Ciao and thanks to all,

Philip

Philip Stott in person. 20.15 GMT, Thursday, 11th December, 2003.