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03-02-2005, 01:31 PM | #1 |
The urban Jane Goodall
Join Date: Jan 2004
Location: Florida
Posts: 3,012
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The damn hippies are at it again...
http://www.reason.com/rb/rb030205.shtml
Attack of the Killer Crops? Activists still trying to scare poor farmers with bad science Ronald Bailey Activists are again trying to frighten poor people in developing countries by claiming the U.S. is poisoning them with genetically modified food. Never mind that 280 million Americans have been eating biotech-enhanced crops for nearly a decade with zero evidence that it has caused anyone so much as a sniffle or a bellyache. Friends of the Earth tested samples of corn and soybean distributed both commercially and as aid to several Central American countries, to see if they contained genetically modified varieties. They really needn't have bothered, since it's public knowledge that 85 percent of U.S. soybean acreage and 45 percent of its corn are sown in biotech crop varieties that are resistant to pests and herbicides. What would be surprising is if they found no genetically enhanced corn or soybeans in food shipments from the States. The activists merely went through the motions of testing the crops to place a scientific façade on their latest biotech scare. ...snip... The world's poor farmers recognize this, even if the anti-biotech activists who claim to speak for them don't. Thousands of poor Indian farmers nearly rioted in 2002 when the Indian government, spurred on by activists, was poised to destroy the genetically modified pest-resistant cotton they had planted. Faced with this farmer revolt, the Indian government backed down. The subsequent crops of biotech cotton performed spectacularly, boosting yields as much as 80 percent, reducing pesticide use by 70 percent and increasing farmers' cotton-related income fivefold.
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I have gained this from philosophy: that I do without being commanded what others do only from fear of the law. - Aristotle |
03-02-2005, 01:43 PM | #2 |
whig
Join Date: Apr 2001
Posts: 5,075
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ah reason, that bastion of unbiased discussion. There are a number of issues with GE crops. Particularly for 3rd world farmers one of the most serious is that it makes them entirely beholden to corporations like Monsanto, seed cannot be saved, they become entirely dependant. As for the no side effects....there's been some interesting cases over time, modifications of production of growth hormone in fish caused massive deformities and behaviour changes, modified yeast for alcohol production suddenly started producing toxins. Most of the techniques used in GE are, compared to the complexity of the systems they are modifying, rudimentary and companies like Monsanto have proven themselves to be distinctly caviller about environmental safety. Good things can and may comes out of GE but there are very notable dangers, pretending there are no downsides or risks is no better.
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Good friends, good books and a sleepy conscience: this is the ideal life. - Twain |
03-02-2005, 02:02 PM | #3 |
The urban Jane Goodall
Join Date: Jan 2004
Location: Florida
Posts: 3,012
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Oh I know. It's just that it's so much fun to pick on the hippies.
Until more GE crops get out there for testing, as well as so other companies can study (or reverse engineer) them it's going to be hard to have concrete, legitimate study.
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I have gained this from philosophy: that I do without being commanded what others do only from fear of the law. - Aristotle |
03-02-2005, 02:05 PM | #4 |
whig
Join Date: Apr 2001
Posts: 5,075
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well I didn't expect any better from the beloved Reason either, I'm with you that far. It's easy enough to have a study, there's plenty around, most risks are species dependant, some might not be noticeable for a long time, time will tell.
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Good friends, good books and a sleepy conscience: this is the ideal life. - Twain |
03-02-2005, 02:46 PM | #5 |
Goon Squad Leader
Join Date: Nov 2004
Location: Seattle
Posts: 27,063
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Hippie rebuttal
Hey TS:
Have you noticed trends like this? I went into a Best Buy this holiday season and I saw a nice little inkjet printer for less than $10!! Wow, I thought. That's a twentieth of what I would/could have paid a year or so earlier for comparable technology. Neato! As I checked out a little more, I learned that the ink refills were more than $40 and would last for only a couple of reams of paper. So owning one of these beasts meant that my upfront costs were spectacularly low, but the ongoing care and feeding costs were much higher. (I guess I should have bought 20 of the printers and scavenged the ink cartridges...another story) The manufacturers were protecting their investment. How about this: the new Napster compares $10,000 to have a new ipod full of songs to $15 for a flash mp3 gadget with the same quantity of music. How can they do it? Well, it turns out you only rent the music, and the $15 is an ongoing monthly subscription fee. You're not buying the music, just paying to listen to it, certainly a different spin on the conventional thoughts about portable music. These are just two examples where a company takes an idea for a product or service and ac-sen-chu-ates the positive and eliminates (rather, hides in plain sight) the negative. You want color print? Buy me. You want to roll with the Rolling Stones? Buy me. In both cases the real cost comes later. Yah, I know, caveat emptor. Fine, point taken. But these are well established business models, for things that are clearly discretionary. But things like soybeans and cotton do not fall into such categories. When a company makes the investment, major investment, in a product technology like GM crops, it has a corporate imperative to seek a return on that investment. When that imperative is obscured and ingnored by the glare and blare of the front-end benefit, (70% increase in crop yields, 20,000 songs for $15, etc) I see a conflict coming, this kind of conflict. And this and this and this. I tried not to compare this to a drug dealer and have conceded to my baser instincts. "Hey man, first taste is free!" Just today I saw an ad for "Bad Credit Refinancing of Second Mortgages--4 offers in 60 seconds". What about America's long term (no end in sight) petro-chemical dependency issues? Don't get me started on Global Warming... This whole behavior of low cost, low pain right now -- high cost, high pain later is pervasive and NOT in our long term best interest. I do not want to curse our future generations with the prospect of being enslaved to the corporations that could/should/would withhold their daily bread. That is Not Right. Don't misunderstand me, I am no luddite (although I have on sunny summer days been inexplicably unable to find batteries for the kid's GameBoy or the PS/2's power adapter...) There are real, tangible, desirable benefits to most technological advances. Unsurprisingly, that's why they call it Progress. But to march onward without consideration of what lies ahead is not progress, it's just mileage. To discard inconvenient data, to ignore context and disregard consequences while pressing the technical accelerator to the marketing metal is like riding along with Al Pacino in Scent of a Woman. You might not crash and burn right away, you will need clean drawers right away, but you've got to stop and let someone who can see take over the driver's seat if you want to get safely to your destination.
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Be Just and Fear Not. Last edited by BigV; 03-02-2005 at 02:57 PM. Reason: messed up title |
03-02-2005, 07:47 PM | #6 |
Macavity
Join Date: Jan 2005
Location: A Black Box
Posts: 157
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Well - in the face of that -
I was merely going to add the comment that GE crops often result in monoculture. Instead of growing several different strains of rice, for example, the third world farmer grows only one - the latest and greatest GE species. That's nice until a pathogen outsmarts the scientists (yes, viruses are smarter than scientists as anyone who has the flu can attest). If a disease sweeps through an agricultural crop where farmers are growing different strains, some varieties will prove more resistant than others and the entire food supply will not end up being wiped out. However, if you are growing only one variety of a grain and your neighbors are only growing that variety and, in fact, your entire country is growing that one same variety, you are pratically begging to become the center of attention for the next famine relief effort.
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Macavity, Macavity, there's no on like Macavity, He's broken every human law, he breaks the law of gravity. - T.S. Eliot, Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats |
03-04-2005, 09:50 AM | #7 |
Professor
Join Date: Jan 2001
Posts: 1,788
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Monocultures aren't caused by or restricted to GE. Neither is non-viable seed. Modern hybrids produced the old-fashioned way result in the same issues.
Not that Monsanto (or whoever owns the GE crop division now) isn't a bastion of corporate evil. They ARE the people who bought a Supreme Court decision which says that if some of their pollen gets on your crop and results in fertile offspring, you're violating their patent. |
03-04-2005, 08:48 PM | #8 |
The future is unwritten
Join Date: Oct 2002
Posts: 71,105
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The only hope for the third world is to develop pancake trees so the natives can pick fresh pancakes and tap syrup from the trunk.
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The descent of man ~ Nixon, Friedman, Reagan, Trump. |
03-04-2005, 09:17 PM | #9 |
Radical Centrist
Join Date: Jan 2001
Location: Cottage of Prussia
Posts: 31,423
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Monsanto are also responsible for a version of Roundup that they spray on little Colombian children and make them sick.
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03-04-2005, 09:17 PM | #10 |
Constitutional Scholar
Join Date: Dec 2002
Location: Ocala, FL
Posts: 4,006
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It's utterly laughable that this group of people has a problem with such a logical, fact-filled, intelligent, thoughtful, and unbiased magazine like Reason.
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"I'm completely in favor of the separation of Church and State. My idea is that these two institutions screw us up enough on their own, so both of them together is certain death." - George Carlin |
03-04-2005, 10:52 PM | #11 |
Read? I only know how to write.
Join Date: Jan 2001
Posts: 11,933
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When do we get GM marijuana? One that DEA paraquat cannot harm.
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03-05-2005, 01:11 AM | #12 | |
The future is unwritten
Join Date: Oct 2002
Posts: 71,105
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Quote:
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The descent of man ~ Nixon, Friedman, Reagan, Trump. |
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03-05-2005, 01:16 AM | #13 | |
The future is unwritten
Join Date: Oct 2002
Posts: 71,105
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Quote:
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The descent of man ~ Nixon, Friedman, Reagan, Trump. |
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03-05-2005, 09:26 AM | #14 | |
King Of Wishful Thinking
Join Date: Jan 2001
Location: Philadelphia Suburbs
Posts: 6,669
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Quote:
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Exercise your rights and remember your obligations - VOTE!I have always believed that hope is that stubborn thing inside us that insists, despite all the evidence to the contrary, that something better awaits us so long as we have the courage to keep reaching, to keep working, to keep fighting. -- Barack Hussein Obama |
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03-05-2005, 11:28 AM | #15 |
lobber of scimitars
Join Date: Jul 2001
Location: Phila Burbs
Posts: 20,774
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I think that needs to be added to the growing smiley collection ...
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wolf eht htiw og "Conspiracies are the norm, not the exception." --G. Edward Griffin The Creature from Jekyll Island High Priestess of the Church of the Whale Penis |
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