4 ms·

Farmers have already been pushing the genetic envelope of their crops for thousands of years simply by exerting evolutionary pressure towards bigger, tastier, a

Farmers have already been pushing the genetic envelope of their crops for thousands of years simply by exerting evolutionary pressure towards bigger, tastier, and more drought tolerant crops. Every time a farmer decided to grow more of the seeds from one healthier looking plant vs the other they pushed the envelope of the plant's genetics a little further. Look up some examples of what wild corn looked like several hundred years ago, versus how it looked at the start of the 20th century. This was all accomplished using natural processes and evolutionary pressure. Our biosphere has been a petri dish for thousands of years already. The farmers aren't scientists wearing lab coats but they have been modifying our plants' DNA, slowly and surely over thousands of years by propagating accidental mutations. The problem is that today we are reaching a point where our ecosystem is changing far faster than plants can adjust using 100% natural processes. Temperatures are rising faster than they have in millions of years, and the last time we saw such a dramatic rise in temperature it was accompanied by mass extinctions. At this rate if we still want to have food in 50 years we absolutely need to do some lab driven genetic modification to add more drought and heat tolerance (among other traits) to our crops. Otherwise we are looking at a future with at best greatly reduced food variety for the vast majority of the population, and at worst outright starvation for large portions of our population. Your comment is focusing on the worst possible application of GMO, but forgetting about the tremendously good applications of GMO. The solution to the problem is simple: you outlaw the negative applications, and you encourage the positive applications. If we don't get started on this soon then we are looking at a dark future where only the richest can afford to eat like we do today.

carapace 6y ago
> This was all accomplished using natural processes and evolutionary pressure. 1.) That's different than gene splicing in important ways. Personally, I don't like the argument that selection is no better than gene splicing. I don't want to get into the metaphysics of evolution, but i believe chopping and splicing DNA is fundamentally different than human-aided-natural selection. Even then, I'm not personally against genetic engineering applications, once we have done enough research to know what we're doing. We're constantly discovering new things about how ecosystems work (like the mycelium "wood-wide web" interconnections) so I find it irrational when folks insist that there no possibility of harm to introducing gene-spliced organisms. How can we know? Give it a few hundred years. My point is that rushing to applications is driven mostly by greed. Monsanto sells the poison and the engineered crops to withstand the poison, so you can add more poison (and Monsanto profits) and you have to buy their now-patented crops, you can't legally keep the seeds and grow your own (and again Monsanto profits.) The GMOs are just a tool to lock in the profits. And we all get to live with the effects of all that poison. Meahwhile, folks like Gabe Brown are growing plenty of food, turning a profit year after year, without any of that. 2.) The result of agriculture is arguably population growth, resulting (eventually) in our modern anthropomorphic climate change, which might just kill us all (or most of us.) So the jury is out, eh? I mean if the Earth goes the way of Venus then, yeah, agriculture will have turned out to be a bad idea. As in, "we never should have climbed down from the trees in the first place." Not to be a downer, I'm just saying. > At this rate if we still want to have food in 50 years we absolutely need to do some lab driven genetic modification to add more drought and heat tolerance (among other traits) to our crops. Otherwise we are looking at a future with at best greatly reduced food variety for the vast majority of the population, and at worst outright starvation for large portions of our population. I know of one geneticist who is breeding (not splicing) tomatoes in such a way as to come up with a super mother tomato plant, where every seed in every tomato on every plant will be a different variety. The idea is you grow a wad of these seeds in your locale and then develop your own "land race" tomato variety adapted to your local conditions. He's doing this in his backyard, no "lab driven genetic modification" needed. Now that's something in the grey area between pure natural selection and "mad scientist tinkering with God's handiwork", eh? Maybe he will cause some sort of massive natural disaster, some monster (like the Bradford pear[1]), but it's not in the same league as Monsanto's poison-tolerating beans. > Your comment is focusing on the worst possible application of GMO, but forgetting about the tremendously good applications of GMO. Like what? > The solution to the problem is simple: you outlaw the negative applications, and you encourage the positive applications. That's no solution at all if you can't predict the negative side effects of the applications, eh? The law has no oracle. Everyone involved thought the Bradford pear was a good thing. > If we don't get started on this soon then we are looking at a dark future where only the richest can afford to eat like we do today. FWIW, I'm into ecological/regenerative agriculture, and as long as people have access to land and seeds we can eat well. Even the effects of climate change can be mitigated. We don't need GMOs. [1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/magazine/how-we-turned-the-bradford-pear-into-a-monster/2018/09/14/f29c8f68-91b6-11e8-b769-e3fff17f0689_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/magazine/how-we-tur...
- moltar 6y ago
  > FWIW, I'm into ecological/regenerative agriculture, and as long as people have access to land and seeds we can eat well. Have you read the Sacred Cow or watch the doc yet? Great stuff! I’m glad this information is slowly starting to spill into the mainstream.
- NathanKP 6y ago
  > as long as people have access to land and seeds we can eat well. and > we are looking at a future with at best greatly reduced food variety for the vast majority of the population, and at worst outright starvation for large portions of our population. are not mutually exclusive statements. As global warming progresses, a lot of the seeds that we are used to being able to grow aren't going to grow anymore, and the land that we used to grow them on will be turning into a desert. Within 50 years there's going to be mass migrations and tremendous demand for the land that is still viable for growing crops. This is a situation where the rich will be able to survive, while the poor suffer. GMO definitely isn't the only solution, and it may not even be the best one but it is one field that we need to deeply investigate and try out if we want our species to survive with a similar standard of living to what we enjoy today.
  - carapace 6y ago
    > As global warming progresses, a lot of the seeds that we are used to being able to grow aren't going to grow anymore, and the land that we used to grow them on will be turning into a desert. We can find or develop new drought- and heat-tolerant varieties, like the tepary bean (Phaseolus acutifolius)[1]. More importantly, we can alter the climate directly though our patterns of agriculture and horticulture.[2][3] > Within 50 years there's going to be mass migrations and tremendous demand for the land that is still viable for growing crops. FWIW, there's a very interesting talk about that[4] and one of the take-aways is that we may well see e.g. Bangladesh unilaterally pursuing geoengineering solutions, not waiting for international consensus. > GMO definitely isn't the only solution, and it may not even be the best one but it is one field that we need to deeply investigate and try out if we want our species to survive with a similar standard of living to what we enjoy today. I'm not actually against genetic engineering, I just think we should wait a few hundred years, until we have a better idea of how life works -OR- some extra-terrestrial biospheres in which to experiment without risking Earth at all. In the meantime, I believe we already have all the biological diversity we need to tackle the coming challenges already, we just have to recognize and use it. In any event, the OP is BS propaganda, not science, eh? [1] "Phaseolus acutifolius, or the Tepary bean, is a legume native to the southwestern United States and Mexico and has been grown there by the native peoples since pre-Columbian times. It is more drought-resistant than the common bean (Phaseolus vulgaris) and is grown in desert and semi-desert conditions" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phaseolus_acutifolius https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phaseolus_acutifolius [2] "Greening the Desert II" > This half hour video documents the ongoing work of Permaculture Gurus, Geoff and Nadia Lawton, in the Dead Sea Valley. It begins with the famous original 'Greening the Desert' five minute video clip, and then continues into Part II, a 2009 update to the 2001 original. > When there’s no soil, no water, no shade, and where the sun beats down on you to the tune of over 50°C (122°F), the word ‘poverty’ begins to take on a whole new meaning. It is distinct and surreal. It’s a land of dust, flies, intense heat and almost complete dependency on supply lines outside of ones control. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9VGHoxpYlWQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9VGHoxpYlWQ [3] "Regreening the desert with John D. Liu" | VPRO Documentary | 2012 > Liu filmed the Loess-plateau in China. He witnessed a local population who turned an area of almost the same size as The Netherlands from a dry, exhausted wasteland into one green oasis. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IDgDWbQtlKI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IDgDWbQtlKI [4] Dr. Gwynne Dyer – Geopolitics in a Hotter World – UBC Talk Transcribed (Sept. 2010) https://spaswell.wordpress.com/2016/11/18/dr-gwynne-dyer-geopolitics-in-a-hotter-world-ubc-talk-transcribed-sept-2010/ https://spaswell.wordpress.com/2016/11/18/dr-gwynne-dyer-geo... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mc_4Z1oiXhY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mc_4Z1oiXhY > I talked–actually, the head of the Bangladesh Institute of Strategic Studies about this (you didn’t even know that existed, did you?). Well, there is one, it’s quite serious–run by a General, bright guy. I said, “have you heard about geoengineering?” and he smiled–seraphically–and he said, “Mmm. Yes. Your question?” > And I asked the question, “Do you think that this is something the Bangladesh government might want to do a little bit, before, let’s say, the US government or the Chinese government?” > He said, “yes it has crossed our minds.”–and then he stopped talking. There's a lot of other interesting information in that talk.

carapace 6y ago

> This was all accomplished using natural processes and evolutionary pressure. 1.) That's different than gene splicing in important ways. Personally, I don't like the argument that selection is no better than gene splicing. I don't want to get into the metaphysics of evolution, but i believe chopping and splicing DNA is fundamentally different than human-aided-natural selection. Even then, I'm not personally against genetic engineering applications, once we have done enough research to know what we're doing. We're constantly discovering new things about how ecosystems work (like the mycelium "wood-wide web" interconnections) so I find it irrational when folks insist that there no possibility of harm to introducing gene-spliced organisms. How can we know? Give it a few hundred years. My point is that rushing to applications is driven mostly by greed. Monsanto sells the poison and the engineered crops to withstand the poison, so you can add more poison (and Monsanto profits) and you have to buy their now-patented crops, you can't legally keep the seeds and grow your own (and again Monsanto profits.) The GMOs are just a tool to lock in the profits. And we all get to live with the effects of all that poison. Meahwhile, folks like Gabe Brown are growing plenty of food, turning a profit year after year, without any of that. 2.) The result of agriculture is arguably population growth, resulting (eventually) in our modern anthropomorphic climate change, which might just kill us all (or most of us.) So the jury is out, eh? I mean if the Earth goes the way of Venus then, yeah, agriculture will have turned out to be a bad idea. As in, "we never should have climbed down from the trees in the first place." Not to be a downer, I'm just saying. > At this rate if we still want to have food in 50 years we absolutely need to do some lab driven genetic modification to add more drought and heat tolerance (among other traits) to our crops. Otherwise we are looking at a future with at best greatly reduced food variety for the vast majority of the population, and at worst outright starvation for large portions of our population. I know of one geneticist who is breeding (not splicing) tomatoes in such a way as to come up with a super mother tomato plant, where every seed in every tomato on every plant will be a different variety. The idea is you grow a wad of these seeds in your locale and then develop your own "land race" tomato variety adapted to your local conditions. He's doing this in his backyard, no "lab driven genetic modification" needed. Now that's something in the grey area between pure natural selection and "mad scientist tinkering with God's handiwork", eh? Maybe he will cause some sort of massive natural disaster, some monster (like the Bradford pear[1]), but it's not in the same league as Monsanto's poison-tolerating beans. > Your comment is focusing on the worst possible application of GMO, but forgetting about the tremendously good applications of GMO. Like what? > The solution to the problem is simple: you outlaw the negative applications, and you encourage the positive applications. That's no solution at all if you can't predict the negative side effects of the applications, eh? The law has no oracle. Everyone involved thought the Bradford pear was a good thing. > If we don't get started on this soon then we are looking at a dark future where only the richest can afford to eat like we do today. FWIW, I'm into ecological/regenerative agriculture, and as long as people have access to land and seeds we can eat well. Even the effects of climate change can be mitigated. We don't need GMOs. [1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/magazine/how-we-turned-the-bradford-pear-into-a-monster/2018/09/14/f29c8f68-91b6-11e8-b769-e3fff17f0689_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/magazine/how-we-tur...

moltar 6y ago
> FWIW, I'm into ecological/regenerative agriculture, and as long as people have access to land and seeds we can eat well. Have you read the Sacred Cow or watch the doc yet? Great stuff! I’m glad this information is slowly starting to spill into the mainstream.
NathanKP 6y ago
> as long as people have access to land and seeds we can eat well. and > we are looking at a future with at best greatly reduced food variety for the vast majority of the population, and at worst outright starvation for large portions of our population. are not mutually exclusive statements. As global warming progresses, a lot of the seeds that we are used to being able to grow aren't going to grow anymore, and the land that we used to grow them on will be turning into a desert. Within 50 years there's going to be mass migrations and tremendous demand for the land that is still viable for growing crops. This is a situation where the rich will be able to survive, while the poor suffer. GMO definitely isn't the only solution, and it may not even be the best one but it is one field that we need to deeply investigate and try out if we want our species to survive with a similar standard of living to what we enjoy today.
- carapace 6y ago
  > As global warming progresses, a lot of the seeds that we are used to being able to grow aren't going to grow anymore, and the land that we used to grow them on will be turning into a desert. We can find or develop new drought- and heat-tolerant varieties, like the tepary bean (Phaseolus acutifolius)[1]. More importantly, we can alter the climate directly though our patterns of agriculture and horticulture.[2][3] > Within 50 years there's going to be mass migrations and tremendous demand for the land that is still viable for growing crops. FWIW, there's a very interesting talk about that[4] and one of the take-aways is that we may well see e.g. Bangladesh unilaterally pursuing geoengineering solutions, not waiting for international consensus. > GMO definitely isn't the only solution, and it may not even be the best one but it is one field that we need to deeply investigate and try out if we want our species to survive with a similar standard of living to what we enjoy today. I'm not actually against genetic engineering, I just think we should wait a few hundred years, until we have a better idea of how life works -OR- some extra-terrestrial biospheres in which to experiment without risking Earth at all. In the meantime, I believe we already have all the biological diversity we need to tackle the coming challenges already, we just have to recognize and use it. In any event, the OP is BS propaganda, not science, eh? [1] "Phaseolus acutifolius, or the Tepary bean, is a legume native to the southwestern United States and Mexico and has been grown there by the native peoples since pre-Columbian times. It is more drought-resistant than the common bean (Phaseolus vulgaris) and is grown in desert and semi-desert conditions" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phaseolus_acutifolius https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phaseolus_acutifolius [2] "Greening the Desert II" > This half hour video documents the ongoing work of Permaculture Gurus, Geoff and Nadia Lawton, in the Dead Sea Valley. It begins with the famous original 'Greening the Desert' five minute video clip, and then continues into Part II, a 2009 update to the 2001 original. > When there’s no soil, no water, no shade, and where the sun beats down on you to the tune of over 50°C (122°F), the word ‘poverty’ begins to take on a whole new meaning. It is distinct and surreal. It’s a land of dust, flies, intense heat and almost complete dependency on supply lines outside of ones control. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9VGHoxpYlWQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9VGHoxpYlWQ [3] "Regreening the desert with John D. Liu" | VPRO Documentary | 2012 > Liu filmed the Loess-plateau in China. He witnessed a local population who turned an area of almost the same size as The Netherlands from a dry, exhausted wasteland into one green oasis. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IDgDWbQtlKI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IDgDWbQtlKI [4] Dr. Gwynne Dyer – Geopolitics in a Hotter World – UBC Talk Transcribed (Sept. 2010) https://spaswell.wordpress.com/2016/11/18/dr-gwynne-dyer-geopolitics-in-a-hotter-world-ubc-talk-transcribed-sept-2010/ https://spaswell.wordpress.com/2016/11/18/dr-gwynne-dyer-geo... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mc_4Z1oiXhY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mc_4Z1oiXhY > I talked–actually, the head of the Bangladesh Institute of Strategic Studies about this (you didn’t even know that existed, did you?). Well, there is one, it’s quite serious–run by a General, bright guy. I said, “have you heard about geoengineering?” and he smiled–seraphically–and he said, “Mmm. Yes. Your question?” > And I asked the question, “Do you think that this is something the Bangladesh government might want to do a little bit, before, let’s say, the US government or the Chinese government?” > He said, “yes it has crossed our minds.”–and then he stopped talking. There's a lot of other interesting information in that talk.