Arguably our genetic engineering of grain crops that we grow in large monocultures contributed directly to the current ecological crisis. Because right after p

Arguably our genetic engineering of grain crops that we grow in large monocultures contributed directly to the current ecological crisis. Because right after putting too much carbon in the atmosphere, the next threat to the biosphere's stability is habitat loss to farm land and urban expansion. And one could take that argument a step further, by saying that instead of being forced to learn how to stabilize our population growth at a level the planet could support, these bio-engineering advances enabled our population to continue to grow at an unsustainable rate until it is now, potentially, beyond the carrying capacity of the planet. Meaning they may well have saved millions from starvation at the time - but could now contribute to the deaths of billions, the extinction of millions of species, and the collapse of the overall biosphere. Now, don't get me wrong, I'm open to engineering (both through traditional breeding and through modern genetic methods) as a part of the solution. But this writing off of concerns about it by pointing to past successes is absurd. We're talking about an extremely complex systems problem - the fact that our eagerness to grow our own numbers and control our environment has now caused us to push our planet's ecosystems to the brink of collapse - and that means we need to be extremely careful about how we go about solving it. And the safest solution is to rollback - not try to roll forward. Yes, it happens to be the one that has the highest cost for us in terms of changes to our way of life, but arguably it could lead to a much better (saner, healthier) way of life. But it also means a lot of people with power need to give up that power. And a lot of people who want the freedom to move fast and break shit with out having to think through the consequences will be forced to slow down and consider those consequences before they get to break shit.