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>> CO2 is not totally destroying the environment :) Neither is a small increase in global average temperature

Wow You REALLY need to check your facts. Here are just a few of the many sources that contraidct you:

http://www.skepticalscience.co...

http://www.skepticalscience.co...

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05...

http://www.nature.org/ouriniti...

http://www.epa.gov/climatechan...

http://www.epa.gov/climatechan...

http://www.ifpri.org/publicati...

And one other thing I forgot to add:

Had they focused their modifications only on creating high yield and high nutrition crops

There is no single gene for yield. Yield is a factor of weather, soil fertility, moisture, biotic conditions like disease, pest and weed pressure, ect. You take away pest pressure, and you don't think yield won't go up? well, it kind of doesn't, not in developed countries anyway, where we were spraying pesticides to control pests. But in developed countries, things are very different. So, you really can't say they don't improve yield, or sustainability. Even the much maligned herbicide tolerant ones do.

Of course, higher nutrient crops don't fair any better than Monsanto's crops, perhaps they are hated even more, if the protesting is anything to go by. Which makes sense I guess...the claim that GMOs are all bad and there's no nuance whatsoever and therefore you should don't money to professional anti-GMO activists might look a bit silly when it is out saving even more lives. God forbid Greenpeace, Navdanya, OCA, and all those other greedy sociopaths put humanity before profit. Their actions have lead to more deaths than the anti-vaxxers.

One would think that agricultural lobbies worldwide, which are often quite politically powerful, would be screaming their heads off about climate change affecting crop yields. Have I simply failed to notice or have they been silent on the issue?

Does INTERNATIONAL FOOD POLICY RESEARCH INSTITUTE count?
http://www.ifpri.org/node/8438...

Mod parent up. He has much more on the ball than most of the signed-in "contributors".

CO2 is correlated with surface environment temperature increase. Experiment suggests the former causes the latter, but I don't think it is firmly establlished. There exists a theory that the increase in temperature forces dissolved CO2 in the ocean out of solution. There are also theories that there are built-in compensating factors in the environment. I am not necessarily pushing these minority theories in this context, but they should be mentioned.

I am also mindful that plants require oxygen as well as provide oxygen. The cycle is complicated.

I am puzzled by your claim about agricultural productivity. What I am finding is that "World agricultural production grew at an average annual rate of 2.4 percent between 2001 and 2010, close to its historical average growth rate since the 1970s of 2.3 percent per year. However, recent years demonstrate a period of accelerated growth that started around 1995, which, in turn, followed more than 20 years of gradually decreasing growth rates."

Growth rates of agriculture in high income countries have slowed (thought they are still positive). Those in transition and developing countries are much higher and have not slowed. Let's face it; the production of just about all physical goods is being exported from the U.S. at a high rate.

And these people, and these people, and these people, and these people, and these people, and all the other farmers who willingly buy them. But yeah, other than them, who needs crop improvement techniques?

Most issues below have been raised above. Many inaccurately, or incomplete.

Soil v dirt. It is my understanding that to grow anything, all that is needed is something for the roots to grab, and the appropriate chemicals, water and sunlight supplied. True, crop rotation can reduce the chemicals required (Nitrogen a good example, use sub-clover.)

Grain costs. Ethanol can be made from most organic matter. Grains of any type are good producers of ethanol. The production of ethanol for use as a fuel additive certainly appears to have driven up the cost of grains. For instance, look at a graph of "world grain prices" v time. ( http://www.ifpri.org/node/8436 ).

It does seem logical that higher grain costs would correlate very well with the increased starvation of people (especially children, about 6 million per annum) in the poorer parts of the world. (e.g. http://www.wfp.org/hunger/stats) There are reports that agricultural areas in third world countries are being bought up and utilized for ethanol production.

Just incidentally, Ethanol has a lower HCV (Higher Calorific Value) than petrol. (approx 30,000 MJ/Kg -v- 45,000 MJ/Kg.) This means that ethanol is only worth ~2/3 as much as petrol as a fuel, because it only does 2/3 the work. So for a (say) 10% mix (E10) the value per gallon or liter should be (0.9 + 2/3*.1)/1 ~ 0.967% of the straight (ULP) price. Or for each $1.00 paid for regular ULP, the price for E10 should be 3.3c less. For a 20% mix, (E20) the cost should be 6.7c per $1.00 less.

So there we have it. If you want to (1) help the farmers, (2) damage your car's engine, and (3) help the environment by (4) killing off millions of children in third world countries, then just vote to increase the mandated amount of ethanol in petrol.

This is one of the most misinformed comments I have ever seen on /. You clearly have no knowledge whatsoever about the Indian farmer suicide problem, which began years before Monsanto started selling GM seed in India, and is absolutely nothing to do with the company. The suicides are, according to most analyses I've seen, usually linked closely with widespread crop failures which follow monsoon drought seasons. It's a climate problem, not a Monsanto problem.

If you check your own source, it states: "monsoons leading to a series of droughts, lack of better prices, exploitation by Middlemen, all of which have led to a series of suicides committed by farmers across India." If the droughts were the main cause then prices would go up from lack of supply. Since prices are falling, the pricing problem is largely for other reasons, including middlemen like Monsanto.

And farmer suicide being the #2 killer in India? That's so stupid it hurts to read. If you check the WHO mortality data, you'll find non-communicable diseases and infectious diseases account for 9/10 of the top ten causes of death, with accidental injury being the 10th.

Again, if you check your own source, the WHO data is irrelevant since it's for all of India, not just farmers. If you check your Wikipedia source, this states that farmer suicides are increasing.

Please, in future, try not to comment until you have the slightest clue what you're talking about.

You would do well to take your own advice; but then apologists rarely do.

Additional sources: Monsanto in India and Vandana Shiva.

This is one of the most misinformed comments I have ever seen on /.

You clearly have no knowledge whatsoever about the Indian farmer suicide problem, which began years before Monsanto started selling GM seed in India, and is absolutely nothing to do with the company. The suicides are, according to most analyses I've seen, usually linked closely with widespread crop failures which follow monsoon drought seasons. It's a climate problem, not a Monsanto problem.

And farmer suicide being the #2 killer in India? That's so stupid it hurts to read. If you check the WHO mortality data, you'll find non-communicable diseases and infectious diseases account for 9/10 of the top ten causes of death, with accidental injury being the 10th.

Finally, patents do last for 20 years in the USA! Not 100 years.

Please, in future, try not to comment until you have the slightest clue what you're talking about.

Looking voer your links, link one comes from a report by 'Coalition for GM-Free India,' which I suppose I'd have to look over, but given that those claims contradict data and those organizations with GMO Free in the title rarely have a reputation of honesty (which I know is a poor argument but giving their report a quick look over doesn't really blow me away), it isn't high on my to do list. Link two is about resistance, and that has more to do with cultivation issues, in not unique to any strain of resistant plant, GE or not, so to call it a failure is not very nuanced or accurate. Third links is the same source as the first, and the fourth mentions that there has been a downward trend from earlier years, and even mentions Bt cotton as a reason.

Huber's work was never published. He made some pretty extraordinary claims, then never published his data, so if you are calling that important research, well, that isn't good. I can't really comment on it besides pointing out some of the absurdity and inaccuracy of his claims because there is nothing but claims, no fact, to talk about. You can not disprove him because he has nothing solid to disprove. The CSMonitor link isn't too hot either, failing to consider a number of important details. The Séralini study in the next link has been widely criticized for shoddy methodology and unsupported conclusions, including by the EFSA, FSANA, and the French HCB. Citing him does not advance your position among those who closely follow this topic, nor does citing Huber.

As for the next two links, it would not hesitate to believe them. I do not mean to imply that Monsanto does no wrong, especially with some of the chemicals they have produced in the past. The EPA link looks like they made made a mistake (since companies don't normally not brand their premium products). The bribery link is bad, although hardly unique for a company, and usually is unfortunately required to do business in certain places (not that this excuses it, just that you are talking about big business, not solely Monsanto). As for the last link, biopiracy is a stupid crime designed to get money from companies, and IIRC (it would be akin to me saying that because I live in an area where mayapple naturally grows that I deserve a cut from the profits of a company using the podophyllotoxin in mayappe to produce cancer drugs), Monsanto filed the proper paperwork, and someone else made the mistake elsewhere. Not really damning. The link in you second post looks like a mix of fact, science by jury (and a French one at that), and hot air (and naturally doesn't mention them doing things like compensating farmers in South Africa for their wrongly hybridized corn seed).

So, I stand by what I said. Most of the things out there about Monsanto are baseless. If they are so bad, base the accusations on fact. Also, since you bring up biodiversity, GE is a way of improving plants, biodiversity is what you grow. Two different things, and while you could accuse companies of reducing biodiversity, that is what agri

Because Monsanto has been so successful in India and South America, right?

They have been actually. Well, their seed has been anyway.

[citation needed]

Because some the reports that I've seen say agriculture production had already fallen due to negative climate change effects. For instance, this report says that many of California's tree crops may die off because the "winter chill" which protects the trees from some pests will no longer consistently occur. As I understand it, the reason that actual output hasn't fallen is because technological advancements are (so far) outpacing the negative climate related effects.

A warmer climate means you get a longer growing season in the northern areas that are already the most productive. This is good for places like the US.

I can't find it right now, but there was an article that said over 50% of the U.S. mainland was afflicted by either flooding or droughts this year. As the average temperature increases, the average amount of area covered by those conditions will increase. Neither condition is good for growing crops. It doesn't take much land area consumed by drought to negate all changes from a "longer growing season".

Near the equator in areas where it's already too hot for most cereal crops, additional CO2 will make tree farming much more profitable - trees grow better due to additional CO2 fertilization.

As far as I'm aware, additional CO2 has a negligible effect on plant growth, few plants are struggling to get more carbon, they tend to be limited by competition, pests, water, and sunlight first. Even in perfect greenhouse conditions, additional carbon dioxide seems to only boost growth by a few percent (~3%).

Further Reading.

China and India hold 2/3 of the worlds population. They both export food.

Right, because exporting food proves that you couldn't possibly have hunger problems domestically - just ask the millions who starved during the Great Leap Forward. And it's not like India has a serious hunger problem, either. Also, food is the only resource for which humans compete; no other problems can ever arise from or be exacerbated by overpopulation.

What free trade also does for third world farmers is encourage them to grow for export rather than for the local markets. There are countries with plenty of farms, but starving populations, because the farmers are growing fancy stuff for us rather than staples for their neighbors.

Show me a country that has solid private property rights and starving people. For example, the government owns all land n Ethiopia, and land cannot be bought and sold. Or Zimbabwe, which just split up all the major productive farms in the country and gave them to soldiers.

The path to agricultural development is that farms get large and then they can achieve economies of scale, including increasing productivity because they get big enough to be able to purchase capital items like tractors and combines. Even the non-owner farm workers earn more because they are more productive.

For example, in Brazil, only 21% of farms are under 2 Ha, meanwhile in Ethiopia it is 87%.

Meanwhile, while Brazil's first-quarter agriculture exports reach $27.2 billion which is more than the entire GDP of Ethiopia at official exchange rates, meanwhile Ethiopians brace for new famine

It's different. Most places in America, you can't live normally without driving. Sad, perhaps, but true.

First of all, I totally disagree with the premise of this post. Cars are a good thing. They allow people to travel and get a broader perspective, enjoy time with their families, communte to work, be more productive, etc. But enough of stating the obvious. It's true that they emit CO2, but were quickly solving this problem as we speak and hybrids cut the emissions down by a lot. I would not be surprised to see electric cars that actually work in the next 10 - 20 years.

...because you're probably the most obese people on earth, which doesn't get any better by you sitting in cars and at desks all day.

Incorrect. See this URL: here there are more overweight people in the Middle East, Latin America, and Easter Europe.

Secondly, you don't have much of public transportation because noone would use it.

Again wrong. In big cities like San Francisco, New York, etc...many people do use public transportation. Maybe the reason many americans don't is because they live in rural areas. It just doesn't make sense to have the rapid transit go out to the ranch. With such a huge amount of land and 300 million people, it's pretty spread out.

Our population density is *half* of yours, we pay about $6/gallon already.

Not sure where you live, but many countries tax gasoline excessively. That is most likely why you pay more for gas. This is very unfortunate, but it's not American's fault that your government is doing this.

According to the World Bank's World Development Report per-capita annual income in the poorest developing countries was the equivalent of USD$330 per year back in 1990, and has been increasing (not by much, but it has been increasing) since then.

water surface are of earth: 361,800,000 sq km

/ 100,000 cm/km (i.e. * 0.00001 km (1cm) )

= 3618 cu km

= 3,618,000,000,000 cu m

total worldwide usage of water per year is 169 cu km (1995)

assuming 100% efficiency, 20 times the total water currently consumed has to be filtered/processed to get one year of energy.

i really have dont have a clue what kind of energy requirements that alone would take, maybe specially designed ships could perform this task.

better double check my math