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Oppose GM Trees
September 24, 2006 - 10:39pm
[ 18 November 2006: Message edited by: gram swaraj ]
Hey! Responsible and ethical scientific and economic research BEFORE a new risky technology is pushed on to the market—a revolutionary concept. Well, someone's really got the right idea here!!!!
But I'm sure as shit floats we'll be hearing from Corporate America and the WTO about this statement soon enough (and I bet the Cons in Ottawa will, like the good lemmings they are, be on side with the boss).
GE trees. What the Hell's next?
With firefly genes in them or something like that.
The thing is I'm not opposed to legitimate honest research and exploration into these things.
In principle, genetic engineering and similar technology can do some very good things.
The problem is that much of this is patented under unaccountable profiteering corporations and governments that are more interested in using it as an exploitative tool like everything else they get their hands on. That is the main cause of all of the destructive effects of how this technology is used and implemented.
What's needed is again to find ways to democratize these organizations, as well as the research and patenting process, and make them more economically and ecologically sustainable and community-responsive and less capitalistic.
We need a planetwide moratorium on genetically modifying organisms, and on GMO research.
Of course, we have to be careful in any technological endeavour, including selective breeding. And perhaps special care is called for in the new kind of genetic engineering, i.e. the kind that manipulates genes more directly than selective breeding.
You can play with words all you want but that is not the same as inserting genetic material of viruses etc into plants.
ETA
It also did not result in sterile seeds so that 4 multinational giants can maximise their profits while at the same time taking yet a bit more of control away from peasants. I also doubt that governments spent massive amounts in corporate welfare to further selective breeding. They do precisely that for the ultimate benefit of big multinationals.
[ 27 September 2006: Message edited by: VanLuke ]
I don't have a link, but did read in some Greenpeace literature about how many rice farmers in India were having legal difficulties when a patented GMO strain of rice was very similar to the rice that they had developed over many generations of seed selection. One guess as to who would win that legal battle.....
And, Martha, you are right, selective plant breeding has been going on for centuries. In the plant world it is much easier to GM than in the animal world. The only difference is that horticulturalists use sex instead of micro-gene manipulation.
"GM trees, keeping our environment protected"
Sounds like an ad for Monsanto or something.
So human idiocy creates a problem for itself, and genetic modification is the only solution?
Not very creative. How about putting some education funds towards learning how to cultivate plants NATURALLY ie non-GM, and stop using our universities to subsidize GM companies, and brainwashing people like Sans Tache into thinking GM is some kind of miracle technology that will save the planet?
FYI, I am not a fan of Monsanto. Products like Wipe-Out are counterproductive. However, sometimes we need to help nature rebalance itself. With the recent infestations of soft/hardwood beetles, it might be necessary for genetic modification to save our native trees, unless there is another magic bullet out there.
Stop GM altogether. Don’t look for magic bullets.
“Problems cannot be solved at the same level of awareness that created them.” --Albert Einstein
How about a little respect for nature? Some patience? Even before GM technology came along, we did not know everything there is to know about plants and how they grow naturally, and we still don’t. The alternative is to help nature heal itself. Not by subjugation and invasive intervention, which is the paradigm that GM operates out of.
I am not dogmatic on many things at all, but am becoming convinced of the principled position of Vandana Shiva (here’s but one link) that all genetic modification is pure idiocy. Hubris. Greed.
How do you know what GMOs will fit in ecologically? Do you know how incredibly complex plants are, and how ignorant we are of this complexity? Precisely why do you think GM is some pinnacle of science, some kind of panacea? Genetic modification is a crime against 4.5 billion years of evolution. Putting confidence in GM is saying that we hairless little apes know better than nature how to make the basic code for living things. Consider: living things.
From Can't see the trees for the wood (Sampson & Lohmann, 2000), emphasis at end mine:
[ 22 November 2006: Message edited by: gram swaraj ]
Nature does not have a mild systematic progression with genetic mutation. It is quite explosive and fast moving when it happens. The whale is probably the best example of how nature can take a (seemingly) dead-end mutation and turns it into the world’s largest predator. Diversification will then develop them into different species. But, the first step from land dweller to totally amphibious creature happened almost overnight.
As for human genetic research, it is nothing that a preon, virus or bacteria couldn’t pass along at sometime. How do you think different species actually transform from one genome to another? Millions of years of evolution won’t change how many chromosomes you have in your cell’s nucleus. Genetic research on stem cells could save mankind from disease and even prolong our lives. Most of us would not be alive today if it weren’t for genetic research. GM is just the next stepping stone.
As for the invasive insect infestations, there is not cure. All areas where the Asian Long Horned Beetle is allowed to propagate unchecked, the broad leaf trees were wiped out. The coniferous beetle is also devastating to forests.
So all I am saying is that there may not be a choice, if we keep increasing international trade.
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I really tend to worry more about mankind than nature over the long run.
Tell us, how did Mother Nature repair the enormous "damage" done to the Earth's atmosphere some 2Ѕ billion years ago? You remember - when all those nasty cyanobacteria converted so much carbon dioxide into oxygen that the atmosphere killed off all those hydrogen and methane-loving critters that lived before?
I think you probably know that this was not WCG's meaning, M Spector. I don't even know WCG, and I'm pretty sure this was not his meaning.
(BTW, what's the "Magical Mystical Gaia Theory"? )
What's your point? You miss those critters? Nature does what it does under whatever circumstances, regardless of its benefits or detriments to species. Is there some state of "Perfect" it should adhere to for us? This is not exactly a compelling argument for state-sponsored, corporate-driven genetic intervention.
I don't think biotech research is inherently bad. I have no issues with pharmaceutical applications of biotech.
I do live in fear of the results of agricultural applications, however. If global warming doesn't destroy mankind, this very well might.
I do know that what he said was nonsense. Is that not what he meant? Is there any ambiguity in the words, “Nature has always fixed itself, it has done so throughout the course of geologic history.... I really tend to worry more about mankind than nature over the long run.” Are these not the words of a person who thinks that “nature” has always, throughout geologic time, somehow recovered all by itself from catastrophic changes caused by external factors or the devastation caused by living organisms on the planet? I happen to disagree with that view.
No I don’t miss them. And my point, if I must explain it to you, is that “nature” does not “always” “fix” itself, if by “fix” is meant undoing devastating environmental changes that have been caused by inhabitants of Earth, however small they may be.Gaia hypothesis
Aside from the points already made that refute your arguments, introducing GM technology is irreversible. If we find out that certain chemical agents, for example, are destructive to the environment, we can stop using them and the damage from those chemicals will eventually stop. There's no way to pull back genetically engineered organisims. Once they're introduced, they're out there forever, and if we're going to do GM research, we'd better make darn sure that it isn't going to have any adverse effects. Given the complexity involved in human genetics, I'm not convinced that such guarantees can be made, so I prefer that we just not did such research at all.
ETA: Genetic engineering and selective breeding are not the same thing at all. Selective breeding means taking a look at which combinations already exist in nature and choosing the ones we like for whatever purposes we desire. Genetic engineering involves artificially tampering with genetic material, creating something that isn't at all natural, and could open a Pandora's Box of problems.
[ 10 December 2006: Message edited by: Aristotleded24 ]
I've never seen any devastated environment where nature doesn't immediately being reasserting itself. It may not look the same as it did, but "the force that through the green fuse" etc, is inevitable, even, I am guessing, at ground zero of a nuclear bomb test. This is why I don't understand your point. You appear to be arguing that since we've messed things up so bad, we should try to replicate these lost eco-systems even with risky and untried technologies and frighteningly incomplete knowledge. I think this is the perpetuation of stupidity.
I am not arguing that it's really lovely to fly over British Columbia for example, and see range after range of scarred, bald mountainsides, but the solution here is pretty darn obvious: stop clearcut logging (you stupid f*cking forestry morons).
Nature always fixes itself. It may not replicate the destroyed eco-systems, but it always produces something, and if that something doesn't happen to be beneficial to the one species that consistently and willfully destroys these eco-systems over and over all over the planet, then I say: all the better.
The point is that what nature "produces" is not a "fix" in any meaningful sense of the term. Ecological damage cannot be "fixed" by some automatic self-healing process of nature. Nature does not fix itself; it changes and evolves. Those who can't adapt to it can't survive.
Meaningful to whom? Sorry, but I don't think "nature" cares all that much about "fixing" things or being "meaningful" to human ideation.
Nature is automatically self-healing. Time will tell as to whether anything gets "fixed", but I guess it begs the question: what is it that you need "fixed"? What would repaired ecological damage look like that isn't something nature would produce anyway? For whom is this being "fixed"?
Nature doesn't "change" or "evolve". It just does what it does whether you notice it or not, whether you measure it, assign value to it, or completely ignore it.
Hate to break it to you, but this is actually how "nature" fixes itself! A species that eats itself out of its own environment dies off or gets reduced.
And I never suggested that nature “cares” about anything. It was WCG, not I, who was ascribing magical powers to nature to fix itself.
That’s exactly the nonsense that WCG was spouting. What on Earth does it mean? That nature “automatically” repairs the damage we inflict on it? Do you have any evidence for this belief? Tell that to Chas. Darwin.I am also guessing that you're the only one here who is "offended" by WCG's completely innocuous, self-evident remark.
If you don't understand or agree how cells and organisms repair themselves, you might want to take a biology refresher course.
When you cut your finger, does the wound stay open and bleeding forever? Does it get infected and gangrenous such that you have to have it amputated or die? No, your body has its own ability to stop the bleeding (assuming you're not hemophiliac) and seal the cut.
When you mow the lawn, does the grass stay cut, never to grow back?
When you clearcut a forest, does the clearcut area stay barren forever? No, maybe cedars don't grow back there for a very long time, but weeds immediately begin to grow, followed by grass, bushes, other kinds of trees.
If you want to call this "magic", that's fine with me. We certainly don't have an explanation for this persistence of biological fecundity.
Yes, a particular eco-system is lost after it collapses. But "nature" doesn't stay hidden under the barren earth, afraid to face evil humanity. If it did, we'd be living in post-apocalyptic conditions now. Actually, we wouldn't be living. This is not an argument to excuse environmental degradation. WCG's comment about nature repairing itself is in the context of long periods of time, beyond that of a human lifetime. What is so difficult to understand about this?
Point being (*sigh*) that concepts of "change" and "evolving" and "fixing" are human concepts applied to nature in human observation of nature. Nature does not follow the concepts applied to it by human ideation. It just does what it does. "Change" and "evolution" are descriptions of what is observed in nature over periods of time.