Earlier this month, 400 protestors destroyed a field trial of genetically modified Golden Rice in the Philippines. Aided by well-meaning but misguided organizations such as Greenpeace, such mobs are potentially destroying the opportunity to avoid 680,000 deaths each year.
It’s the left. That’s their goal.
Well meaning is to Greenpeace as democracy is to the NDP.
Golden rice is genetically engineered to contain beta carotene, which if memory serves is a vitamin A precursor. The purpose of golden rice is to prevent vitamin A deficiencies in the poor whose main diet is rice in the Far East. They’re lucky to get rice, from what I hear.
Childhood blindness is one of the main outcomes of severe vitamin A deficiency. Then after they go blind they usually starve to death, so 680,000 is probably on the low side for death toll.
Just so we are all crystal clear what the “protesters” are actually protesting.
The health-food fetish of modern times is one more face of the Greenie death cult, you ask me. Yet another reason why hippie punching is never wrong.
Do not tell them that they add vitamin D to milk or calcium to orange juice or b12 to soya milk. I think stupid is a better adjective to describe them.
Green is selling a simple message to simpletons.. Its vital to their fundraising efforts to appear in charge and resolute in their conviction.. Think of it as the political hump of fundraising power.. Solid easy to digest message that requires no thought pulls them up the hill.. At the top Greenpeace hands them a protest sign to jump on, for a fun and exciting protest ride back down to the bottom of the hill..
Lather, rinse and repeat.. Above all, keeping the problems and solutions in house so they can adjust reality to suit Green peace’s political and financial needs.. Yes, another leftist computer model pumping out junk science and politics..
The left in general have abandoned reality to play (make believe) in a sandbox of their own making.. With full control over what is a problem and what is a solution (cult) they get to practice shady business deals behind scenes.. In effect fixing the market (true power) for or against anybody they choose..
When you have built an intimidation machine on such a global scale a stupid golden rice isnt worth the time of day.. After all Uncle Bens has already paid their protection money years in advance..
Well, even though the oh-so caring leftist control-freaks are most disgusting by their very nature, just how big a world population do we want?
Do you not think that when there is no longer a way to feed the world population with natural food production that this is a sign to slow down the growth of our numbers and especially in very poor regions of the world where life is relatively miserable and often very short.
We are not obligated to keep every last human on this planet fed, each country is responsible for its own people, when we interfere, we mess with ‘natural order’ of life where nature decides the balance of life on earth.
A world that is completely dependent on growth to sustain itself, is a world heading for disaster. We love on a finite ball in space … We will eventually run out of ways to keep this silly project alive. In fact, I can see the coming disaster from my house.
It’s unfortunate that the issue of GMO food and crop diversity dangers has been taken up by extremist loons like Green Peace.
There is ample, and emerging, evidence to suggest the wide use of GM crops can cause adverse effects on non-GMO crop purity and also there are legitimate consumer concerns about the inadvertent and unpredictable pleiotropic effects of GM foods, which can result in health damaging effects.
The issue of GMO food safety and crop diversity needs open honest discussion. As it stands ow Big Agri is no different that big Pharma in producing dud products which are harmful due to inadequate or proper testing.
As usual the Collectivist left pushing their death, anti-science agenda on us. Particularly children. From abortion, to euthanasia of the handicapped.To destroying families Its all about the Children. Killing them.
This is about Marxism, not environmentalism.
ofaykat
and it has been shown that (and many in here whine jilted whores about birth rates)financial, social, and civil success stems the birth rate, so instead of letting them starve to death, help them be successful and the tides will turn, have you learned nothing from history??
reveRANT moonbeam, can’t help yerself can U, godda insert “abortion” or gayism, or atheism in every chance U git, doncha, jeezus boy, git a grip!!!!!!
As usual the scientifically/factually clueless line up to spread hysteria where it is not due – although GMO foods are largely unproven as fully safe anf they do represent a threat to crop diversity – golden rice is the ONE GMO food fully proven safe for consumption.
EnviroGenocidists see a new world where “huge” numbers of
“ordinary humans” have no place and will not be tolerated.
Their goal is a zoolike sparsely populated hinterland and
a few magical cities scattered around the world where the
brightest of the bright will be attended to by robots and
where necessary, a very limited number of human workers.
GM Golden Rice has one minor valid quibble at this time in
that vitamin production during its consumption also requires
the presence of some amount of meat protein in the meal to
provide feedstock material. While this is a minor drawback
likely to be solved by further research, it gives the greeny
veganinuts today something about which to express total horror.
Perverts……
Greenpeace is an hysteria-pimping, multinational corporation engaged in terrorism, propaganda and fundraising, all based on a fascist business model (corporate green theocracy). Utilizing the efficiency of the private sector, it attracts and provides media-legitimized cover for the old left while seducing the mindless with the faith-based green narratives it has helped become standard curricula for the institutional left. Greenpeace engages in acts of overt and covert war against humanity, science and capitalism – all for profit.
While helping to put such issues into perspective, Bjorn Lomborg has always been somewhat an apologist for the “environmental” movement, hence the obligatory qualifier, “well meaning”.
Golden Rice is Not a Hoax and Greenpeace May Have Committed a Crime Against Humanity
Excerpt:
“While Golden Rice was developed over ten years at the miniscule total cost of $2.6 million, in an extraordinary public-private partnership using funds donated by the Rockefeller Foundation, the Swiss Federation, the National Science Foundation, and the European Union, Greenpeace International alone annually spends $270 million annually, and upwards of $7 million each year specifically dedicated to burying Golden Rice and and many other food or crop developed using biotechnology.”
Replying to comment from NME666
“civil success stems the birth rate, so instead of letting them starve to death, help them be successful and the tides will turn, have you learned nothing from history??”
Yes I have learned much from history. Here’s what …. the vast majority of nations/countries of the world have never had wide spread prosperity. Most have always been plagued with tyrannical governments or tribal war or famine or disease … lack of medical care, lack of infrastructure, lac of rule of law, of rational economy, of free enterprise ….. AND MOST NEVER WILL DO BETTER.
The freedom and prosperity we have enjoyed in the Western World is a phenomenon that is fast disappearing under the weight of what now can be called tyrannical leadership from the left. It is impossible to micro manage a nation, but that won’t stop those twits from trying until we are all living under falling down bridges.
So …. to be rational about this state of humanity, one must turn off the phony compassion for a minute and realize that Planet Earth is a rough place to exist, but occasionally a portion of humanity exercises some logic and reason then go on to enjoy the fruits of freedom, hard work and peaceful co existence. There isn’t much of that left with the rise of the murderous negro yoots in America and the world wide violence courtesy of Islam. That is not to even bother mentioning the vapid leadership that is working to sink what’s left of us.
My point is that there is always enough to keep us busy in our own house without worrying about the Vitamin A ingestion rates of the Philippines where they such a large population that losing a few hundred thousand a year wouldn’t even be noticed.
My guess is that Lomborg understands that using non-aggressive/non-derogatory language and appealing to humanitarian instincts is important when communicating with liberals. Facts,figures and logical thinking fly over their heads but they do respond to emotional arguments. Everyone has their own way of reacting to events and if you want to persuade others then you have to talk to them in language they understand (without being condescending or manipulative). Conservatives, progressives and libertarians see the world differently. Jonathan Haidt has some interesting studies in this area. It’s fun to rant and demonize your opponents but it isn’t effective if you want to change their minds.
As for Golden Rice, it has been studied as much as possible and been found harmless. Beta carotene is not a dangerous compound and farmers can save and replant the seed.
BTW, the world is not running out of food. More food is grown on less acres and is more resilient to adverse condition because of technology. GMO is effective because it allows direct manipulation rather than selective breeding. Both agriculture and medicine will benefit. Will it be perfect? No, nothing is but if that is the threshold for advancement then scientific progress is doomed.
Population controllers advocates are the creepiest people on the planet? I can only imagine what kind of angry,bitter,twisted person one must be to wish death on others. *Now does anyone think that this approach would be effective when arguing with a person like ofaycat?*
Self-appointed “environmentalists” have no idea of the longer term consequences of their positions.
They don’t think that far ahead!
Doing a cost/benefit analysis requires numerical literacy.
Getting them to acknowledge scientific method is the challenge.
Utopian pastoralists, the urban kind, live in a fantasy world.
A much better headline would have been “400 protesters detained by Philippine military”, held indefinitely.
It’s funny, because when the fake meat came out the greenies were over the moon because it would end animal cruelty.
Franken food you ask? Of course not.
“Population controllers advocates are the creepiest people on the planet? I can only imagine what kind of angry,bitter,twisted person one must be to wish death on others.”
Marxists/communists have no problem with this.
Any time I hear an argument along the lines of “the world has to many people” I always wonder if those who are making that argument have children, and if so if they have sterilized them. Good for the goose good for the gander.
If your making that argument and have children you’ve proven yourself to be a hypocrite.
Why not take the argument to the honest conclusion, if the world has to many people now or sometime in the future, you want people to die and not have children. Not you and everyone you love, just other people. The first step to genocide is turning people into ‘the other’.
Arguments like, ‘they won’t have a good life anyway’ make me sick. People find joy and love even in the more impoverished conditions.
If you say the words “There are too many people in the world” it better be in your suicide note.
Well, I don’t think could have made more of a mess out of that sentence if I tried. The original thought was “Don’t you think population control advocates are the creepiest …” .
Anyway, isn’t NP columnists Diane Francis a population control advocate? I’m not sure it’s a right/left thing. It’s more of a superiority complex based on a really sick strain of elitism and/or ignorance of how things are actually improving in the third world because of innovation and discoveries in the developed world.
Funny how these freaks rail against GMO’s when most of our “heritage” foods origination in the “Fertile Crescent” (Mesopotamia)….probably GMO’s……there’s no evidence of recognizable “wild” varieties of such critters as wheat, barley, radishes surviving in the wild.
Yeah I know this is “Ancient Alien” noise but still…..
I once wrote a high and mighty pro-population control eco-warrior gaia worship post on a leftist board that ended with a sentence something like “.. and the time has come for concerned Earth citizens to lead by example and take their own lives.” , word wrapping so that “lives” was on a separate line.
It was a high point in my cyber guerrilla warfare career. If the furious replies had a sound, it was like a steamroller driving over bubble wrap.
Okay …. lookie here … I am not a population control advocate. It is not possible to control population. I merely pointed out that trying to save every single individual on this planet from being hungry or cold or whatever, is not a possibility. Even if there is enough to go around, it is never going to get distributed.
Population control is the same as thinking that we can actually control the climate. Most people cannot control themselves ….. just check out the tons of lard arses and druggies, and smokers running around talking about getting control of their bad habits but never doing it.
I do believe that there are far more people on this planet than would is comfortable for all, not just the elites. I don’t ever suggest that anyone should commit suicide or not have kids. I am suggesting that you take responsibility for feeding and housing those kids and yourself … or don’t bother, you will only be cluttering up the welfare offices we pay for.. Most of us don’t want to support other people’s families … we already do far too much of that, never mind Filipino families on the other side of the world.
Those of you who go nuts when someone like me says we could do will a smaller population, why not go spend a few months in Mexico city or Rio or one of the SE asian major cities and see what real overpopulation feels like and looks like. It’s easy to claim ‘every sperm is sacred’ from the comfort of your middle class western home, but life for millions is hell and there will never be a respite for them. We cannot save them so why waste time and money when we have a myriad of problems right here at home.
Remember, when you help someone they will always remember … the next time they need help … and that keeps happening once they know they have a sucker on line.
I hope someday Monsanto develops a GMO Maryjane….all the leftist heads would explode….gotta keep the weeds outa the weed!
Yes, she had an article in the Post about there being 6 billion too many people on earth. I sent her an email asking if she preferred Hitler’s or Stalin’s methods of correcting this. Needless to say I received no reply.
Glengarrian, exactly.
ofaykat
U moon walk real well, and no you have learned nothing from history, and I doubt you would learn anything if U ever went to one of the “big” cities. No one was helping the Flips as much as they were helping themselves ( which they tend to do were ever they may be) and large bus. was helping them , and other poor people because they will benefit their bottom line at some point in the future, it’s called capitalism. Maybe you should travel to some 3rd world nations, you may just learn something. As to helping ourselves, that often comes as an extension of helping others, we even let the poor fly, drive tractors, read, and many other such activities that they benefit from, but didn’t develop themselves. Try keeping up, capitalism is wonderfull, and brings us new toys.
Golden rice is a breakthrough on par with pasteurization.
Once people become more prosperous they tend to have smaller families and population plateaus or even declines.
For those saying there are too many people on the planet, could you please tell me what the correct number of people on the planet is and why?
At least one can read Revenant Dream’s posts clearly.
There is a reason why I will never call the left “progressive”. There is nothing progressive about starvation, lack of innovation or repeated insistences that the Earth will collapse at any minute and we must off people in order to let the whiter and more liberal of our number live in the manner to which they are accustomed.
ofay misses the big point, and then compounds his error by conflating unrelated issues with it.
Emperical evidence has shown repeatedly when women/girls are educated, that the birth rate falls. (This is, of course, why the Islamists don’t want their women going to school; they want them used simply as breeding stock.. but I digress.) This has happened in Western Europe, in South America, in Asia, and even in Africa. One can posit any number of reasons why this is so: the women are out of the breeding pool while they’re in school, they become more interested in career than children, they realize they can provide better for two children than they can for eight, they learn about and get access to birth control, etc. – take your pick.
I saw a quite brilliant TED talk a few years ago that concluded the world population would stabilize around 9 billion, as a result of converging factors: increasing education of women, reduction in child mortality, and reduction in premature deaths due to diseases (TB, malaria, etc.) and due to poor lifestyle (heart attack, stroke, etc.). Note that we have, so far, had very little success in extending the useful life span; we can keep people alive into their 80’s, 90’s, and even 100’s, but they are pretty much spent forces at that time. The speaker’s point was that birth rates would decrease, as would premature death, and we would achieve a more-or-less steady state.
These things occur irrespective of left or right wing, or secular or theocratic governments, as the following link shows: Dropping Islamic Fertility Here’s one excerpt: Fertility in Iran declined an astonishing 70% over the 30-year period, which Eberstadt says was “one of the most rapid and pronounced fertility declines ever recorded in human history.”
Given the enormous amount of food waste in North America and Western Europe, I’m confident we could support 9 billion on the planet. The real test will come when medical advances can extend the useful life span of a person from say 60 years (10-70) to 90 years (10-100). Then we’ll see if we can handle 13 billion people.
Replying to comment from NME666 and Kevin.
If you think Capitalism is spreading throughout the world and is going to raise all boats in the process, you are dreaming for sure. Capitalism is an alien concept in most of the world at certainly at the national levels.
America enjoyed a form a capitalism early on that worked well …. then government got more and more involved in everything and messed it up. So what we have now is actually State Capitalism … that is where the government picks the winners and the losers … just like Obama and GE and General Motors and Solindra etc. China practices this sort of Capitalism. The Elites of the world love that sort of thing … it’s like communism only with a cash cow.
Most the rest of the world can’t do capitalism because 1. they have no capital and 2. they will never be allowed the freedom to actually indulge in true capitalist ventures.
The control freaks who run most countries cannot let people be free to prosper. It’s human nature for people to be that way. That is why control freaks are all in government …. so they can control everything … it’s in their nature. Not enough attention is paid to human nature. You can actually make some predictions about people if you understand their nature. Those control freaks do not think about fixing anything or making anything better. They just enjoy power and privilege just the those Obamas and their pals. Any changes they make are designed specifically to give them more power … Obama care for example.
There is what is called the ‘human condition’ and that condition is never great and never will be. You can scold me all you like for stating reality. I am still right …. you envision a world of 9 billion living in prosperous harmony … all well fed and happy (that is very Disney dudes.) with about 4 billion university educated, abortion getting, man hating, marxist women all looking for a government job. That is what educated women do when they go to university. They will all stop having kids so they have more time to ski and shop …. who will pay for their retirement?
Do either of you know how many flushes a day it takes to clear the crap of 9 billion people …. how much electricity to heat and cool all those newly prosperous and educated folks all over the world … thanks to capitalism. Do you know how silly it is to even thing of this planet evolving to that idealistic point? I think you two are progressives who got lost on the internet and would here pretending to be conservative.
Okay, I am quite finished now. Nice chatting. Cheers,
Reality check …. on Earth it is still ‘big monkey rules’. Big monkeys are rarely benevolent.
Once again, the “oaf-ey cat” provides answer to questions not asked, and ducks the issue being discussed.
I showed evidence that birth rates are falling, mostly as a result of better education of women and better access to birth control. The reduction in child mortality which usually accompanies these means that most families do not have to have 6-10 childrent to ensure that one or two survive into their 40’s to take care of mom and dad (the original ‘pension plan’). You do not even address the issue, let alone refute it.
Then you invent arguments, such as “you envision a world of 9 billion living in prosperous harmony”. Where did I ever say anything like that? I said I think the world can support 9 billion people, but I said nothing about the living conditions, nor dis I say anything about how peaceably they would live. But you rail away as if I made these outlandish claims.
Then you leave reality aside, and throw out comments like “4 billion university education, abortion getting, man hating, marxist women”. I dare say there are a number of women here at SDA who are university educated, but share none of your three latter atributes. Your sweeping generalization is impossible to take seriously, let alone take time to dispute.
“Nice chatting”?! “Chatting” implies listening, which is clearly a skill you’ve yet to master.
Out.
I am speechless. Do you like, want more Chinese???
In the science centre in Toronto there is an experiment using mice in a closed area with enough food and water so that they never run out of either. The mice increase their population and a thriving colony is established. Then an amazing thing happens.The young males tend to group together and lose interest in the opposite sex and the females get to old for reproduction and the colony dies out with food and water never being a factor. They have done the experiment countless times with the same result every time. Maybe the population limiters should take heed of what is happening around the world and ponder their actions.