I apologise for having spent several years ripping up GM crops. I am also sorry that I helped to start the anti-GM movement back in the mid 1990s, and that I thereby assisted in demonising an important technological option which can be used to benefit the environment.
As an environmentalist, and someone who believes that everyone in this world has a right to a healthy and nutritious diet of their choosing, I could not have chosen a more counter-productive path. I now regret it completely.
Hooray, he’s sorry! Now all the people who died for want of food can… oh wait.
Can he make monetary reparations, or is he anti-poor?
[end sarc tag]
Speaking of technological options to benefit the environment, don’t get too close to your eco-friendly CFL bulbs.
As I have riddled on SDA previously;
What’s the difference between an organic farmer and a regular farmer?
A ponytail.
I swear 9x out of 10 when those food contamination outbreaks happen, its always traced back to some organic operation run by hippies. Hippies are dirty. Why would one buy food from dirty people? The only organic stuff i eat is the tomatoes grown in my backyard.
“an organic farmer and a regular farmer?”
Good comment. Reminded me of when I first met hippie types who were going back to the land, or at least standing in a field. They babbled about the organic thing while turning out some really small, scabby fruit. I grew up in a fruit farming background and was shocked(!)by this attitude. I think I found it freakier than drug use…and not nearly as much fun.
Will it take him another 20 years to realize he’s wrong about global warming skeptics?
“To vilify GMOs is to be as anti-science as climate-change deniers, he says.”
So he’s chosen to accept some science, but not all, eh?
Mostly, we climate-change “deniers” accept the possibility of some small amount of anthropogenic global warming, but feel its importance is vastly over-rated, and really quite insignificant compared to naturally-occurring climate changes. A position we arrived at, curiously enough, by studying the science involved.
I remember a plant Science prof, some years agoi, reading out a list of scary sounding chemical names, then asking one of the students,.Would you eat that? she replied firmly, no way ! then he plopped a nice looking naval orange on the lectern and pointed out that was it’s chemical breakdown.
He could at least hang himself by a meat hook after confessing!
The article concludes: Now the question is, will his former anti-GMO fellows heed his urge to review the science—or will they call him a turncoat shill for Monsanto?
Well, I’m willing to give odds on how that one turns out…
It’s good that he’s seen the light on GM foods. However he’s still blind to to folly of climate change. Perhaps his scientific epiphany will cause him to review his position on that too.
When their historical epitaph is written, western environmentalists will be ranked with the nazis, communists, and huns for the wanton human death and destruction they’ve wrought, all on the poorest and most vulnerable of the planet. I would not expect for a minute the acolytes of the green death cult to examine the scientific bona fides of the various positions to which they cleave. Rather, these professional hucksters will simply redouble their efforts to spin their mendacious propaganda, and vilify critics and “heretics” who depart from their fold with the hysterical anger of parasites being plucked from their host.
Lynas is in for a rough ride from his former fellow travelers. But he is to be commended for his willingness to recognize the mistakes in his former beliefs and be swayed by the scientific method.
Now if he could turn that same level of scrutiny to AGW . . .
Aha, the scientists have spoken and therefore GMO’s are fine. But the scientists speak about many things, including climate change and SDA goes to no end of trouble to expose their inconsistencies and fallacies. As for GMO’s, the only people doing the science are the GMO companies and they don’t really pay attention to data which might inconvenience their marketing. Stupid.
Lies from Ras all over the place.
“the only people doing the science are the GMO companies”
Prove it, or shut your face.
“But the scientists speak about many things, including climate change”
And the science is far from unanimous.
“Now the question is, will his former anti-GMO fellows heed his urge to review the science—or will they call him a turncoat shill for Monsanto?”
The odds on that are 1-1. In fact,I would say they are 1 trillion to .000001 they will look at the science.
And I think Ras has added some LSD/meth to his orange juice.Provide 1,just ONE,link to your comment above. And no,the anti-GM food idjits,Greenpeace,WWF,or any others who would gleefully kill off millions of poor people(like Racheal Carson),etc does not count.
As he states “To vilify GMOs is to be as anti-science as climate-change deniers, he says.”
So the brainwashing has worn down but he still has a long way to go.
I’d call that a helf step in the right direction. Followed by a double stumble back into libtardness.
Why don’t they label GMO as such? There will be a screwup you watch. I’m not in favour at all. This technology is a long long was from regular cross-breeding.
Ludite, I know.
eastern paul
GMO’s have been with us for thousands of years, it’s just that new “methods” are being used to speed up the process
Investigators have determined that German-grown vegetable sprouts [from an organic farm in Lower Saxony] are the cause of the E. coli outbreak that has killed 29 people and sickened nearly 3,000, the head of Germany’s national disease control center said Friday.
One German organic farm has killed twice as many people as the Fukushima nuclear disaster and the Gulf Oil spill combined.
crickets.
Posted by: richfisher at June 10, 2011 1:33 PM
Mostly, we climate-change “deniers” accept the possibility of some small amount of anthropogenic global warming, but feel its importance is vastly over-rated, and really quite insignificant compared to naturally-occurring climate changes. A position we arrived at, curiously enough, by studying the science involved.
Exactly.
Of course the climate reality ‘deniers’ will always use the reductio ad absurdum argument.
A lot of nasty people on this blog. Too bad. SDA makes a lot of good points but attracts some unpleasant characters to her writings. I was pointing out a simple inconsistency: SDA rejects the theory of human-caused global warming even though the vast majority of the scientists in the world support this idea (I don’t); on the other hand, she accepts without question the opinion of some scientists that GMO products are fine. The fact is that the jury is still out on GMO products and the fact is also that most of the research done on their long term effects on human health and the environment has been done by the companies developing these products. If that sort of truth makes some SDA readers get apoplectic, well, they should get out a bit more and read some real books.
Organic by Penn&Teller Warning some F bombs
here
DrD You called it.
Sustainability, environmental responsibility, eco-friendly, soothing catchphrases, a cover for a desire to decimate the human population.
These are Secular Anti-humanists, they kill the weak first, thats why the poor world wide are getting starved and slavery is rising.
All the eco-friendly alternative power schemes, deny the poor reliable electricity( so they cannot store food safely) and burn food in automobiles, just eugenics coming?.
The poor know how to really recycle, they show these eco-nazis up as the vacuous posers they are.
The eco- righteous hate the poor and we see the results. No golden rice for the human lice?
Sarcastic curiosity
Is this the result of being raised in a home saturated with white liberal guilt?.
If my parents had been that idiotic I would probably hate brown poor people too , while being too pussy to admit it and so deal with it.
You are not well informed. GMO’s are not just another form of plant breeding. They involve gene splicing which means moving genetic material from one species to another.
Penn & Teller do organic Warning F bombs
here
Is anyone forcing you to buy organic food?
If not, why do you care what others choose to eat?
Like those who choose to eat toxin laced industrial meat, it’s their choice.
…or like those who prefer American beer. There’s no telling with some people’s ‘tastes’.
Why don’t they label GMO as such?
Exactly. Label GMO products and let the consumer choose, just like with organic food. However the fact that manufacturers of GMO food are reluctant to do so, makes me very skeptical of their intentions and motives.
Ras, I’m with you. I was skeptical when I was told Monsanto just was a big altruistic company who simply wanted to feed the world. The food might be okay–I’d have to read more and know who was doing the research. But the growing methods, the monopolies, the patents on genetic material, loss of bio-diversity–these continue to concern me and there is little in this article to reassure me.
I agree with you that genetic manipulation of the type involved in genetically modified crops is quite different from the plant-breeding techniques in the past of selecting for desired traits. To try to compare the two is attempting to make all this genetic manipulation sound natural and friendly–just “speeding” up the process. It’s possible to insert quite alien genetic material into everything now. We have glow-in-the-dark cats. We have corn modified to include the genes of a bacillus in order to poison plant pests. There was a failed experiment to try to introduce genes from an Alaskan fish into tomatoes to make them more frost resistant. Not all genetic manipulation is necessarily bad, but there are many unanticipated consequences.
So I’m still a skeptic. I don’t seek out foods that are labeled as organic. I don’t avoid corn and rice (but soy has always made me sick). And this article is still too one-sided (albeit on the “other” side now) to convince me.
Tests on foods labelled organic show significantly lower levels of pesticides, herbicides and other chemicals. That’s good enough for me. What others choose to eat is up to them.
Like many other things, organic farming is what you want it to be. If you think it is better, then it will be.
http://www.skepdic.com/organic.html
Could also be known as…follow the money.
Rita, Ras, the notion that GMOs involve cross-species transgenics is one of the most common baldfaced lies told about GMOs. If you’re repeating it, you instantly shoot down your credibility with anyone familiar with the actual science.
I thin that Daniel is wrong. Here’s a citation from a recognized public source of information (not from a conspiracy theory website or anything like that):
“The two primary methods of producing genetically modified plants from which food is derived, are transgenesis and cisgenesis. Transgenic plants have genes inserted into them that are derived from another species, whereas Cisgenic plants are made using genes found within the same species or a closely related one, where conventional plant breeding can occur.”
“GMO foods not served in Monsanto cafeteria”
“now it appears that even Monsanto’s own catering firm has no confidence in this new technology.”
http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/story/1999/12/22/gmfood991222.html
Without GMO crops there would be mass starvation all over the developing world. These crops are able to grow in previously low yield areas without massive infusions of chemical fertilizers.
The only starvation on planet earth now is caused by malfeasance and stupidity by governments.
GMO’s have also led to huge crop yields on good farm land thus reversing the slash and burning of forests for land. The jungles are growing back in.
Why don’t the sceptics ever consider these facts during their constant carping and bitching?
Oh right, they’ve never known hunger.
“Study Links GM Maize and Roundup to Premature Death and Cancer”
http://sustainablepulse.com/2012/09/19/criigen-study-links-gm-maize-roundup-premature-death-cancer/
You would rather millions of CERTAIN premature deaths by starvation, mauser?
Everything has a cost benefit, or do you never leave your bed due to fear?
Is there anything that doesn’t cause cancer ? Just being born is a guaranteed death sentence.
Daniel Ream (12:35)- Bt corn is a variant of maize, genetically altered to express the bacterial Bt toxin, which is poisonous to insect pests. In the case of corn, the pest is the European corn borer. Over the past couple years they have added traits against Corn ear worm, and Root worm.
Expressing the toxin was achieved by inserting a gene from the microorganism Bacillus thuringiensis into the corn genome.
This only one example. You might argue that mutations give rise to certain traits which turn out to be desirable. So the appearance of part of a bacillus gene into a corn gene might have occurred naturally. However, it fulfils the definition of transgenics to me: genes from different species combined together.
there is no world food shortage problem, just distribution and profit issues.
as for everything causes cancer,why worry: take a trip to Fukushima and breathe deep.
“researchers found that three varieties of GMO corn — Mon 86, insecticide-producing Mon 810, and Roundup® herbicide-absorbing NK 603 — are linked to organ damaged rats. ”
http://blog.friendseat.com/genetically-modified-crops-attack/
“in females, all treated groups died 2–3 times more than controls, and more rapidly. This difference was visible
in 3 male groups fed GMOs. All results were hormone and sex dependent, and the pathological profiles
were comparable. Females developed large mammary tumors almost always more often than and
before controls, the pituitary was the second most disabled organ”
http://research.sustainablefoodtrust.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/Final-Paper.pdf
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Huh? Am I reading this correctly that SDA is a fan of GMOs? GMOs are nothing more than a for-profit science experiment imposed on an unwitting and unwilling public. Is it a coincidence that the explosion of degenerative diseases like cancer, diabetes, autism, asthma, severe allergies, etc, directly tracks the rise of GMOs? No one can say they are safe because Monsanto refuses to release any test data (assuming they’ve done any tests) and the government lets them get away with it. By all means, feel free to eat as much of them as you like, but I’ll keep going to my farmers market where I can meet the farmer in person. Until, of course, our government shuts them down by executive order.