Today much of Africa remains hungry—almost a third of sub-Saharan Africa is undernourished. Since the late 1960s Africa’s agricultural production has been in decline: Farm productivity has dropped and food imports have risen. African governments are complicit in the continent’s hunger because they have hindered their citizens’ ability to grow as much food as possible.

In Starved for Science: How Biotechnology Is Being Kept Out of Africa, Robert Paarlberg argues that Africa fails to feed itself in part because of the limited use of biotechnology and blames African governments and their European counterparts for that failure. Starved for Science explains how the increased use of genetically modified seeds would benefit African farmers—and stomachs—and explains why the use of biotechnology and other agricultural science is so limited in Africa.

Paarlberg, who teaches political science at Wellesley College, makes the case for science in agriculture by detailing the dramatic impact the vast changes in agriculture have had over the past few hundred years. The book focuses on the latter half of the twentieth century, when the Green Revolution swept through Asia and, through the use of technology, hugely bolstered agricultural production.

Africa desperately needs similar changes—yields per acre in some African countries are less than a tenth of yields in the United States. African farmers would gain greatly from better technologies and seeds. Unfortunately, government policies stand in their way.

Paarlberg blames developed-world biases for Africa’s lack of agricultural improvement, especially a bias against genetically modified (GM) foods that dramatically limits Africa’s ability to grow more. In part these biases stem from the developed world’s ability to feed itself without a strong emphasis on the agricultural sciences or GM foods. Officials can therefore indulge environmentalist crusades against agricultural progress without apparent cost.

The European Union, non-governmental organizations, and the United Nations all played a role in exporting these biases to Africa, although the local governments also deserve a share of the blame. Instead of helping African farmers grow bigger crops to feed more people, European governments are doing the reverse, actively working to strengthen regulations in African countries, making the approval and use of GM seeds more difficult, and subsequently decreasing the potential productivity of African farmers. The governments of Germany, the Netherlands, and Norway, for example, have funded efforts to promote anti-GM regulatory frameworks and deprive farmers of the best tools they have. Similarly, the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) exists not to help African farmers increase their output, but rather to increase the regulations that inhibit their farming.

Starved for Science makes a succinct case regarding the who’s and why’s of the barriers to Africa’s biotechnology use, but there are a few components of Paarlberg’s argument that could be stronger.

He spends little time discussing the specific problems that biotechnology can solve and the specific advantages of GM seeds. Although he details the possibilities of a drought-resistant seed, Paarlberg does not delve deeply into the successes of GM seeds in countries where they are currently being used, such as South Africa. With freedom to make their own decisions South African farmers are growing more food for themselves and their families and have enough extra to sell to others. Beyond increasing the local supply of food, having extra crops allows the farmers to increase the sizes of their farms, create jobs, start other businesses, and save money for the future.

The other incomplete aspect of Starved for Science deals with the incentives Africans face when debating growing GM crops. Even when they have the choice of using GM seeds they have to decide if it’s worth doing so, since European markets usually ban GM goods. The book would have been improved if Paarlberg had investigated the tradeoffs here more thoroughly.

Allowing free rein for biotechnology would be an important step toward eliminating the hunger that plagues Africa. The sad truth is that politics is apt to continue obstructing that and other avenues of progress.

Fred Singer is a scientist with impeccable credentials. He was the first director of the U.S. Weather Satellite Service, winner of the U.S. Department of Commerce Gold Medal Award, and a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Yet Singer represents quite a threat to government science these days in that he openly questions the validity of one of the weakest excuses for a governmental takeover of the world economy–global warming.

Singer begins this devastating critique with three incontrovertible points. First, the global-warming scare is completely a child of computer models–models that have never been verified by empirical data. Their predictions of future warning are more than doubtful.

Second, even if the modest warming now predicted by the models is occurring, the result is likely to be beneficial to human beings rather than harmful. What government science considers to be the major culprit, CO₂, is as essential to plants as oxygen is to animals. There have even been suggestions that a significant part of the success of agriculture’s “Green Revolution” can be traced to the mildly elevated levels Of CO₂ that we currently enjoy.

Third, CO₂ levels are quite low relative to past known levels, and they appear to have been mostly declining for the past 200 million years. In fact, there is no known scientific definition of what might represent a “dangerous” level of CO₂. Hence, there can be no objective scientific case made for its control. Indeed, some analysts contend that the earth is currently starved for CO₂ relative to the past historical levels of that gas.

Singer offers important data that cast doubt on claims that the atmosphere has warmed significantly, especially since the middle of this century. In particular, the “urban heat island” effect inflates ground-level temperature measurements taken near densely populated places. Once this effect is taken into account, we find that the years around 1940 were the warmest this century.

The author also discusses the distortions of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), whose report forms the basis for the recent Kyoto Conference. The IPCC’s Summary for Policymakers (which is what the press reads) did not faithfully represent the report itself, which is filled with doubts about man’s influence on global climate. After the report was circulated, a poll of atmospheric scientists indicated that an overwhelming majority felt that there was no clear evidence that the climate record of the past 100 years could be attributed to human activities.

Singer rebuts the global-warming scare stories bandied about in the media. A major one is that the seas will rise and inundate coastal cities. But 95 percent of the “greenhouse effect” is attributable to water vapor, and the effects of clouds on warming or cooling have never been accounted for in the computer models. Because of feedback effects, increased warming might lead to lower, rather than higher, sea levels. We simply don’t know.

An increase in tropical diseases in temperate regions is also predicted. Singer argues that it is not temperature that brings these plagues, but lack of sanitation and health facilities—two things that come with economic development. Guess what will be slowed down by attempts to “fix” global warming.

Singer’s book should be read by everyone who wants to be informed about the poverty of the science that purports to support global warming.