RE: New roots
November 21, 2010 at 8:43 am
(This post was last modified: November 21, 2010 at 8:48 am by thesummerqueen.)
No fair while I'm napping. The phone kept buzzing with updates.
I said environmentalists - of the tree-hugging, drum-beating sort, I should have specified. I wish I could find the article that stated that scientists had done a study that suggested their numbers might not have been what they thought, but quite frankly I'm tired and you're going to have to wait until I've had a shower and coffee before I continue my earch.
That's just your opinion against humanity in general. The fact is we're here - and more efficient use of the exisiting developed land, as well as making use of less viable lands through crops developed to grow in them, is the only way to feed starving nations.
The crops do - people like this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norman_Borlaug try their best to help out. Unfortunately, he recently passed away, and he has to fight against this: http://www.greenpeace.org/international/...-our-rice/
Of course - because much of the world is still undereducated and easy to scare with sciencey sounding talk that isn't science.
We have a problem: over burdened resources. Solution: modified crops that require less fertilizer (less polution on one level) and better yield (less burden on resources. Trying to see how this is less viable than letting people just starve to death, which I suppose would take care of everything but is cruel as only a well-fed, smug white elitist asshole can be. I've been hungry - and that was only the "I have one top ramen packet for the entire day" hungry. Not "I only have one for two days, or a week...or indefinitely" This is not America we're talking about, with food stamps and shit or even the western world with its beautiful climates made for an assortment of crops that could be grown in back yards. This is mostly the third world, where there are shitty climates with a need for drought or disease resistant strains of crops that could be produced faster and more powerfully in a laboratory than by some 'organic' method of breeding and waiting while people die.
GMO's are under way higher standards than crops that someone is breeding in their backyard and releasing into the wild. Again I stress that there has been "genetic modification" going on for thousands of years - it's called domestication. It's why the poodle next door doesn't look like the wolf I met at the zoo. Wild corn, or rather 'maize', looks nothing like what you get in the store. In fact, the crops you buy in the store wouldn't even survive in the wild (nor would most dogs - even when feral, they depend on human refuse rather than hunting - not true of cats or pigs oddly, and yet everyone hates cats...because they don't depend on us?). But we eat it because it's tasty and we've continually bred strains to make even more tasty sweet corn. And it's good! Laboratories create controlled testing environments where the reasons for a plant's successes or failures are much better understood than in someone's field. Also, plenty of accidents happen in nature through cross pollinization. You don't need humans for that. Arguing that us "forcing" nature makes us more dangerous than nature itself is ridiculous. No one needed to force nature to give humans allergies to certain things. That's nature's way.
That idea of forcing nature is an ideological issue, btw, and the heart of pretty much every argument against GMO's, paired with a deep mistrust for government and any seemingly run government institution. This isn't Pandora (from Avatar). The planet isn't something we can plug into to understand. There are people who are trying as best they can to save humans and the planet alike, but claiming that we can only do it by not touching the environment at all is bullshit. Even Native Americans, who people like to tout as the great nature conservators, practice controlled brushfires to aid the forests in natural cycles - that's human intervention. A sort of 'gardening' if you will. I'm sorry if people don't like it, but life is not Disney bullshit.
Patents are put on just about anything, including the tools people use when they garden - the seeds wouldn't be much different. One still has to pay the price for the patent included in the price of the shovel when you need to dig. You'll have to do the same for seeds. Introduce an economy where having the lowest price outside of that gains you the most customers, and no one will have an issue. But again, most of these people have a hatred of globalization and government.
Except when that government sends scientists into those same rainforests they are saving to search for medicines that are developed by big pharma to further alleviate suffering. By the way...insulin is a GMO. I'll tell my good friend that the government that is making it possible for her to live and teach disabled children and go out on the town with me occasionally shouldn't have developed it.
Also - not every botanical accident is a disaster.
Kudzu spreads like a disease down here, but futher understanding of its properties is giving rise to its use as fodder for livestock, and it's actually edible as salad greens for humans as well as jelly from its berries. Funny how people forget that when they talk about 'accidents'. Kudzu wasn't even modified.
Also: http://thesaltedslug.blogspot.com/2009/0...foods.html
(November 21, 2010 at 7:26 am)ib.me.ub Wrote:Wikipedia Wrote:by the University of Leeds, shows tropical forests absorb about 18% of all carbon dioxide added by fossil fuels.[17]
I said environmentalists - of the tree-hugging, drum-beating sort, I should have specified. I wish I could find the article that stated that scientists had done a study that suggested their numbers might not have been what they thought, but quite frankly I'm tired and you're going to have to wait until I've had a shower and coffee before I continue my earch.
(November 21, 2010 at 7:26 am)ib.me.ub Wrote: Well, I don't know much about GM crops, but I am for the Rainforests. I don't support any crops, GM or not, that are going to destroy the Natural Eco-Systems of the World.
That's just your opinion against humanity in general. The fact is we're here - and more efficient use of the exisiting developed land, as well as making use of less viable lands through crops developed to grow in them, is the only way to feed starving nations.
(November 21, 2010 at 7:26 am)ib.me.ub Wrote: It will, but do you really think this will ever happen in reality. As if the food produced goes to the correct place.
The crops do - people like this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norman_Borlaug try their best to help out. Unfortunately, he recently passed away, and he has to fight against this: http://www.greenpeace.org/international/...-our-rice/
Quote:Genetic Engineering does not feed the world. 99.5 percent of farmers around the world do not grow Genetically Engineered crops.
Of course - because much of the world is still undereducated and easy to scare with sciencey sounding talk that isn't science.
Quote:The problem is too many people, the polution they produce, and the resources they use.
We have a problem: over burdened resources. Solution: modified crops that require less fertilizer (less polution on one level) and better yield (less burden on resources. Trying to see how this is less viable than letting people just starve to death, which I suppose would take care of everything but is cruel as only a well-fed, smug white elitist asshole can be. I've been hungry - and that was only the "I have one top ramen packet for the entire day" hungry. Not "I only have one for two days, or a week...or indefinitely" This is not America we're talking about, with food stamps and shit or even the western world with its beautiful climates made for an assortment of crops that could be grown in back yards. This is mostly the third world, where there are shitty climates with a need for drought or disease resistant strains of crops that could be produced faster and more powerfully in a laboratory than by some 'organic' method of breeding and waiting while people die.
GreenPeace Wrote:We believe:
GMOs should not be released into the environment since there is not an adequate scientific understanding of their impact on the environment and human health.
We advocate immediate interim measures such as labelling of GE ingredients, and the segregation of genetically engineered crops and seeds from conventional ones.
We also oppose all patents on plants, animals and humans, as well as patents on their genes. Life is not an industrial commodity. When we force life forms and our world's food supply to conform to human economic models rather than their natural ones, we do so at our own peril.
GMO's are under way higher standards than crops that someone is breeding in their backyard and releasing into the wild. Again I stress that there has been "genetic modification" going on for thousands of years - it's called domestication. It's why the poodle next door doesn't look like the wolf I met at the zoo. Wild corn, or rather 'maize', looks nothing like what you get in the store. In fact, the crops you buy in the store wouldn't even survive in the wild (nor would most dogs - even when feral, they depend on human refuse rather than hunting - not true of cats or pigs oddly, and yet everyone hates cats...because they don't depend on us?). But we eat it because it's tasty and we've continually bred strains to make even more tasty sweet corn. And it's good! Laboratories create controlled testing environments where the reasons for a plant's successes or failures are much better understood than in someone's field. Also, plenty of accidents happen in nature through cross pollinization. You don't need humans for that. Arguing that us "forcing" nature makes us more dangerous than nature itself is ridiculous. No one needed to force nature to give humans allergies to certain things. That's nature's way.
That idea of forcing nature is an ideological issue, btw, and the heart of pretty much every argument against GMO's, paired with a deep mistrust for government and any seemingly run government institution. This isn't Pandora (from Avatar). The planet isn't something we can plug into to understand. There are people who are trying as best they can to save humans and the planet alike, but claiming that we can only do it by not touching the environment at all is bullshit. Even Native Americans, who people like to tout as the great nature conservators, practice controlled brushfires to aid the forests in natural cycles - that's human intervention. A sort of 'gardening' if you will. I'm sorry if people don't like it, but life is not Disney bullshit.
Patents are put on just about anything, including the tools people use when they garden - the seeds wouldn't be much different. One still has to pay the price for the patent included in the price of the shovel when you need to dig. You'll have to do the same for seeds. Introduce an economy where having the lowest price outside of that gains you the most customers, and no one will have an issue. But again, most of these people have a hatred of globalization and government.
Except when that government sends scientists into those same rainforests they are saving to search for medicines that are developed by big pharma to further alleviate suffering. By the way...insulin is a GMO. I'll tell my good friend that the government that is making it possible for her to live and teach disabled children and go out on the town with me occasionally shouldn't have developed it.
Also - not every botanical accident is a disaster.
Kudzu spreads like a disease down here, but futher understanding of its properties is giving rise to its use as fodder for livestock, and it's actually edible as salad greens for humans as well as jelly from its berries. Funny how people forget that when they talk about 'accidents'. Kudzu wasn't even modified.
Also: http://thesaltedslug.blogspot.com/2009/0...foods.html
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