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Stewart Brand on 'Environmental Heresies'
FleaPlus writes "The MIT Technology Review has an article predicting where the mainstream of the environmental movement may likely reverse its collective stance in the next ten years. The four areas discussed are population growth, urbanization, genetically-engineered organisms, and nuclear power. The article is written by Stewart Brand, known for creating the Whole Earth Catalog, the WELL online community, and the Long Now Foundation. Brand also has some interesting comments regarding the sometimes-conflicting interaction between romantics and scientists in the environmental movement. There's an online debate between Brand and former DOE official Joseph Romm on TR Blogs." Frankly, unless humanity decides to undergo a massive collective personality change of not being consumption-focused, I don't see much other way around these particular issues. What we all need is an Arthur to keep us depressed and sleeping in darkened rooms to lower energy consumption.
Nuclear Power
I am an environmentalist. And I hate Nuclear energy. But it is not because of
its inherent dangers. It is not because of Three Mile Island and Chernobyl. It
is because Nuclear energy is not the solution.
Why not?
Uranium deposits are shrinking at an alarming rate. In a few decades time,
the cheap U ores would have run out, and the remaining deposits would absorb
more energy to extract a gram of U than that gram can ever hope give back.
Over reliance on Nuclear energy can easily turn us away from looking at
real alternatives. That's my gripe with Newkiller. Not some quasi-religious
aversion.
Investigate Rumsfeld, Tenet for Torture
"I don't much other way around this particular issue."
Do they even READ these things before accepting them?
Or maybe we need more "The Day After Tomorrow" scenarios.
Frankly, unless it decides to undergo a massive collective personality change of not being consumption-focused, I don't see much other way around this particular issue.
don't you mean marvin? the paranoid android?
The more radical the "radical environmentalist" is, the more unfounded BS they tend to spout.
Most incoherently written story ever.
Increasing demand for power and other resources isn't going away. Time to suck it up and deal with imperfect solutions.
Who do you get to be an expert to tell you something's not obvious? The least insightful person you can find? -J Roberts
I think this is part of the environmental religious focus. Man is inheritably evil and unnatural. We are as natural as any other animal. I think our consumption focus leads to progress. There are too many of us to go back to some agrarian past. We will need to use technology to sustain the population levels expected while we minimize our footprint. It won't be the undeveloped countries that to this. It will be the evil high-technology consumerist cultures that will develop the new technologies needed. The stinking hippie mankind-haters have no solutions other than a time machine to take us back to a past that never existed.
Whoops, I thought it was Martha Stewart releasing a new tree hugging hippy catalog.
The whole concept behind the environmental movement is that humans are unable to live symbiotically with Nature. No matter where we go, we act more as parasites that strip our host of life than as beneficial citizens of Nature.
1) Population growth: Humans are the problem. Despite the shrinking birth rate, this does not bode badly for Nature which will theoretically revive itself once we are not sucking nutrients out of the ground and burning it into the sky and water.
2) Urbanization: Cities are the largest contributors to localized pollution. Air quality, sewage overflows, and general griminess ooze from cities. I don't see how environmentalists could come around to see how cities are beneficial to the environment.
3) Genetically-engineered organisms: Knee jerk reactions defines the environmental movement. If they haven't listened to real science thus far, what will convince them otherwise?
4) Nuclear power: Ethical scientists have already converged on this as a plausible renewable energy source. Too bad the environmentalists haven't.
These are issues that are bugs so far up the asses of environmentalists that it is hard to believe that they could change their minds about them. I find it more likely that this one guy came to his senses and sees conservation as a constant management of the environment rather than as political capital. The problem is that the anomie of distancing himself from his old friends is too powerful and he finds himself trying to continue associating himself and his ideas with theirs.
The environmentalist aesthetic is to love villages and despise cities.
as part of his observation that urbanization is slowing population growth (which he contends is slowing growth).
Actually, my observation is exactly the opposite. I seem to hear more sympathy for packing everyone together than for spreading them out in the modern environmentalist rhetoric. That's why "sprawl" has become a cuss-word among this bunch.
For another example, look at the current opinion of Walmart. Just today I heard an NPR story about Walmart that criticized them for their environmental impact (pollution and rainwater runoff from their parking lots, plus the extra air pollution from people driving there, I guess).
I guess my point is that the "environmental movement" is a little conflicted; they apparently either like or dislike centralization and efficiencies of scale, depending on the context.
Have you read my blog lately?
Animal life came out of the oceans some 500 million years ago. For over half that time the land was dominated by dinosaurs. For perhaps 100,000 years the land has been dominated by humanity.
Yeah, we've done well.
Real Daleks don't climb stairs - they level the building.
Start your own news portal and steal all of slashdots readership. Good luck.
-73, de n1ywb
www.n1ywb.com
The only lasting solution would be a fusion reactor. Too bad the oil companies would never make profits on it, because then they might acutally encourage fusion reasearch. Right now, the massive oil companies are fighting fusion reactors with ever penny they earn.
... including the last paragraph on the second page that begins
How does the Slashdot Effect happen given that no slashdotters ever RTFA?
This is one issue that's always bugged the hell out of me about the wackier spectrum of environmentalists.
GM crops have the potential, hell, they're *necessary* for a great number of third world countries to be able to grow enough food to feed their people. And these guys are trying to stop that for the sake of nonsensical political motivations.
Then they go about using scare tactics, calling it "frankenfoods" and whatnot, as if there's something horrific about it. Excuse me, but we've been genetically modifying our crops for millenia. We've just gotten more sophisticated about it.
from the FA:
Now we come to the most profound environmental problem of all, the one that trumps everything: global climate change
I actually don't understand your comment
Stewart Brand got his biology degree from Stanford in 1960. He founded The Whole Earth Catalogue and cofounded The Well, the first electronic community. His books include the The Media Lab, How Buildings Learn, and The Clock of the Long Now. Today, he works primarily with Global Business Network and The Long Now Foundation.
From TFA!
I see that some catholic mods are deliberately trying to mod this down just because of the posters login name. This is an abuse of mod power. Come on mods. Get a hold of yourselves.
If it's not the illogical people that are against nuclear power, and don't understand things like "real life", it's the rich people with more money than sense.
There have been numerous stories about wind-power stations, or water-power stations being denied permission to be built, because rich people don't want to ruin their view of the ocean from their homes on the ocean. Damnit.
-Jesse
Nothing says "unprofessional job" like wrinkles in your duct tape.
Regardless of where you fall on the Social Security kerfluffle, there is one lovely bit of silver lining; here we see a leader thinking outside the box of his term.
Now, what we need is some intellectual judo to throw this outburst of leadership into other (possibly more) useful directions.
Folks, they never put seatbelts into cars until the likes of Ralph Nader proved that safety sells.
Hybrid cars, not these <expletive> SUVs (that Jesus surely would've eschewed) are what we should endorse.[1]
Focus on the facts, not the hormones. Disagree agreeably, compassionately, and, above all, think. Live in the now, but consider the longer term, please. While I like TFA in general, I wonder whether the polarization of the camps into granola heads/propeller heads that this sort of article can engender is helpful.
You will not be charged for this pep talk.
[1]For the record, I bought a PT Cruiser because the Honda model lacked cargo room when last I shopped.
Get thee glass eyes, and, like a scurvy politician, seem to see things thou dost not.--King Lear
Well, (from TFA) he has a degree in biology, and was involved in a Pentagon study on climate change. Oh, and he just got an article published in the Technology Review. You might have heard of it.
Also, eating muesli and selling organically grown tat (what's that?) doesn't disqualify someone from being an expert on these things, so quit the ad hominems.
What are YOUR qualifications by the way? Good Slashdot karma?
Being bitter is drinking poison and hoping someone else will die
My problem with a lot of environmental thought is its all tied up in a package of garbage ideas. Efficiency good, but technology bad. Walmart is EVIL! SUVs are EVIL! Globalism is evil! What's wrong with the Nature Conservancy approach? Buy up the land while trying to respect property rights. Look for approaches that make economic sense to the locals so they are sustainable. Be more efficient without hating SUVs or even nuclear power. Why does it all have to be tied to some lefty anti-capitalist, anti-globalist worldview?
Athletic Scholarships to universities make as much sense as academic scholarships to sports teams.
Too bad that people don't realise that coal based energy production is much more hazardous to inveroment...furthermore, it's not only about what people typically understand as pollution, but also also radioactive "waste"! (typical nuclear plant doesn't release them to biosphere; typical coal plant releases some amount of it - radioactive elements that were in its fuel) And meanwhile almost 100% of electricity here comes from coal, and worst of all, 2/3 of it is brown coal :/
And probably public will block construction of nuclear power plant, that is planned in the next ~10/15 years...
One that hath name thou can not otter
That's the entire intent of this article.
But it is becoming more and more obvious that the global warming emperor has no clothes.
We must be alert to the danger that public policy could become captive to a scientific-technological elite. - Eisenhower
Certainly, some environmentalists have financial motives but the majority do not. When scientists are concerned about global climate change, they are publishing these warnings in the hope of drawing attention to what they genuinely perceive as a serious problem. Ditto for polution concerns, supplies of natural resources, biological diversity and ecosystem damage. These are FACTS.
In contrast, the news releases from industry which make their way across television and newspaper spread absolute lies. Examples:
- there is no global climate change (flies in the face of 90%+ of scientific opinion)
- business can continue as usual without worrying about environmental factors (a hope, for short term business as usual)
- the economy can survive $100 oil
- nuclear is the solution to our energy needs
Here's the important point: a lot of scientists work for industry. So they have a distinct bias. In many cases they are providing reports for their employer. So next time you run into a scientific report, check the source... not all scientists are funded equally.OP
By 'well', do you mean using up the earth's resources to the point of our own extinction?
Dinos: "we died off after 300 Million years"
Joe Bob: "ha! We can beet that!"
This article describes a GMO rice that is herbicide resistant. Scientists spliced in a human enzyme that is very effective at crunching toxins to create rice that can withstand a wider variety of weed-killers. This lets farmers rotate their weedkillers to reduce the chance that the weeds evolve resistance.
The GMO rice provides two other important environmental benefits. First, the new enzyme is so efficient at detoxifying the herbicide that the resulting rice is relatively herbicide free (non-modified rice contains 20X more residual herbicide). Second, the GMO rice extracts herbicide from the soil, meaning less herbicide in run-off.
Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do.
Unless the odd grammar above somehow changes the meaning of the sentence, I think Marvin was who you were going for there...
As long as I'm nitpicking, when I think of "an Arthur" I think of http://www.thetick.ws/car8.html
Enviromentalists need to stop relying on guilt. They also need to start putting people ahead of their ideaologies. Banning DDT has killed tons of people, for example.
They also are home to people who are more anti-capitalism than pro-environment even though wealth creation will help protect the environment in the long run.
I think Stewart Brand has a lot to teach us. He had a knack for being the spark, the catalyst for many significant (though fringe) innovations in our cultural milleau. I wish he would take some time away from his long now (huh, 10,000 years is long?) and long bets (the intellectual pissing contest that shows off not how many interesting predictions you can make, but how much money you have) and write down some of his insights about how to make things happen, since that is what he is gifted at.
Or, Stewart, maybe you are reading and can point us to some recommended reading on this? TIA.
"radical conservation in energy transmission and use"
He says this like it's an insignificant thing. It's not. We literally throw away approximately 60% of the energy used to produce electricity as "waste heat". And this is at the power station itself (including nuclear)!
We then go on to use most of the 40% of the energy we have actually transmitted to produce more heat. It's not what could be classed as clever.
Changing this single inefficiency in our energy generation sector would do the job. It's not even particularly radical, the solution is a couple of hundred years old, it's just that until very recently it's been cheaper to just pump in more oil, gas or coal.
Deleted
On population, he points out that global population is close to leveling off and is declining precipitously in many countries. Why? Mostly it is the unprecedented worldwide migration from rural villages to cities, where having lots of children is less of an advantage. If those concerned with sustainability get out ahead of this trend and help guide it, it could be an environmental blessing. Cities put people close together, reducing their collective energy use. They free up rural areas for wildlife and wilderness (if protections are put in place).
Regarding biotech: There's truth to this, though it's slightly facile. It does, after all, matter that GM has been developed by giant corporations and has been used primarily for their benefit. But the idea that the technology itself is intrinsically bad ... that doesn't make much sense to me. As Brand says, the proper reaction for greens ought to be to appropriate the technology and use it for their ends, particularly since, embrace or no embrace, it's gonna spread. Open-source biotech seems like a promising way for GM to do some environmental good. Brand offers some scenarios.
Ultimately, I suspect that urbanization, GM crops, and nuclear power are inevitable. If all we do is stand on the sidelines shouting "no, no, no!" the process will proceed without us, guided by the worst actors. The smartest thing that those of us concerned about the health of humanity and the planet can do is get involved and try to steer toward an outcome that is equitable and sustainable.
Mentions Thomas Kuhn. This reeks of intellectual discourse, something that surely has no place whatsoever on /.
However note, a side-effect of stealing all of Slashdot's readership is a constantly slashdotted site...
So you're accusing the person of preparing a report for Congress on climate change without researching the topic?
The fact he has never studied any of these things is what disqualifies him.
Kind of like how Bush isn't qualified to be commander in chief?
Goodbye, Excellenet Karma
Pulp Audio Weekly - Geek News and Reviews
Comment removed based on user account deletion
The biggest polluting country in the world has a decidedly environmentally-unfriendly government running things, and it doesn't look like it's going to change anytime soon.
You mean Australia? The only reason the US is tagged as the world's biggest polluter is because the Kyoto protocol excludes greenhouse emissions from land-clearing.
This will never happen. Every single attempt to create a global consciousness is shot down/abused/misused/pilloried by every single other attempt at creating a global human consciousness.
Too many global human consciousnesses, fighting each other, pathetically. We need a Grand Uniter.
Aliens?
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
Warning: my post somewhat oversimplifies things, the point is that other countries have won special considerations in the Kyoto protocol that do not apply to the United States for various reasons. "World's biggest polluter" becomes a subjective title when the political definition of "pollution" keeps changing.
"killed TONS of people"?!
Do you mean one dozen over-weight americans or several dozen non-americans?!
If someone says he and his monkey have nothing to hide, they almost certainly do.
He wasn't paranoid, just depressed... "the end of the world... big suprise... It will probably all end in a huge explosion and still leave me behind... typical."
GM crops make a negligible difference to third world countries. The yields on GM crops are only marginally better than for regular crops, the difference is only significant for those huge agribusinesses who have tens of thousands of acres of the stuff.
It's war, corruption, disease and import tariffs which decimate the farming populations of third world countries. What they need is good stable government and fair trade with the developed world, not GM crops.
Deleted
will be the first thing reversed.
It's high time the top brass of the environmental movement admit that stopping Nuclear power was a mistake that has lead to greater devastation of the environment by coal plants.
Even the nuclear waste issue pales in comparison to the the ecological damage coal plants have caused and will keep causing until we replace them (finally) with much cleaner nuclear technologies like Pebble Bed. Coal of course has it's own waste issues.
The anti-nuclear power movement has been one of the best examples of the law of unintended consequences in our times.
"Their answer is "Not much," because they know from their own work how robust wild ecologies are in defending against new genes, no matter how exotic"
"The second greatest cause of extinctions is coming from invasive species, where no solution is in sight. Kudzu takes over the American South, brown tree snakes take over Guam . . ."
So why is kudzu a problem if wild ecologies are so good at defending against new genes?
My mind got changed on the subject a few years ago by an Indian acquaintance who told me that in Indian villages the women obeyed their husbands and family elders, pounded grain, and sang. But, the acquaintance explained, when Indian women immigrated to cities, they got jobs, started businesses, and demanded their children be educated.
When I read this I thought of Hillary Clinton's memorable tome, "It Takes a Village". In retrospect it was about a prescient as Bill Gates' "The Road Ahead". Did she get anything right?
an ill wind that blows no good
It seems that you just burn it directly. Oh well.
Deleted
First, it is inaccurate to say that all environmentalists are opposed to urbanization. That's just silly. Sprawl represents an enormous and unecessary destruction of resources and introduces inefficiencies in transportation and infrastructure. The urban dweller does not need to drive 20 miles in an SUV just to buy a gallon of milk.
I think the author is a bit confused here. The reactionary anti-urban mentality is not generally one posessed by those who are concerned with the world and society around them or the that of the future. Quite the contrary, it is the ultra-right, greed is good, conservative libertarians for whom a retreat from civilization to a private suburban or rurual hermatage most appeals.
It is not inconcievable that there be unintended effects of have GMO's, for instance some resilient crop could become a super-weed, disrupting other species. I don't know if this is likely. Nuclear power: Ethical scientists have already converged on this as a plausible renewable energy source.
Renewable? No. Clean? It depends.
The toad can't burp - and for some reason can't fart either, so it swells up and eventually explodes. --Anonymous Coward
1) Population growth: Humans are the problem. Despite the shrinking birth rate, this does not bode badly for Nature which will theoretically revive itself once we are not sucking nutrients out of the ground and burning it into the sky and water.
So... the solution to overpopulation is the end to the human race? We will always be "sucking nutrients out of the ground" as long as we continue to eat and/or live on Earth, which is basically as long as there are people. I'm not going to get into the actual feasibility of colonizing the rest of the solar system.
2) Urbanization: Cities are the largest contributors to localized pollution. Air quality, sewage overflows, and general griminess ooze from cities. I don't see how environmentalists could come around to see how cities are beneficial to the environment.
Not all environmentalists are civilization-hating Luddites who want to return to our hunter-gatherer roots. There are many who believe that it is possible to develop in a environmentally sustainable way. There are environmentalists who don't mind admitting that they value human life more than field mice.
3) Genetically-engineered organisms: Knee jerk reactions defines the environmental movement. If they haven't listened to real science thus far, what will convince them otherwise?
Show me the "real science" that proves all GMOs are safe. Yes, there may be no cause for alarm. Still, I think the burden of proof should be creators of these products and the governments that support them to prove that they are safe before they are widely used.
4) Nuclear power: Ethical scientists have already converged on this as a plausible renewable energy source. Too bad the environmentalists haven't.
Nuclear power may be a good addition to our range of power options. From what I have read, it is not ready to be a total replacement for other sources of energy. Also, it has been billed as safe before, before Chernobyl and Three Mile Island. Things rarely work out as well in practice as they do in theory.
It sounds like you believe that there is a single, unified environmental movement, and that it has only one set of beliefs. Furthermore, you seem to believe that the most extreme views represent the views of everyone. Sounds like you should try looking into what environmentalists are actually saying - not just reading news reports and jumping to conclusions.
These are not isolated, ignorant farmers who just plant corn. These farmers are doing their hardest to follow best practices and be competitve in the agri-industry, and honestly, they're still killing their land. Unless we make a big change in how soil quality is treated, our ability to produce food is going to take nose dive. It's simple.
And don't start on the vegetarianism rant. In North America, plant production with the overuse of petroleum based chemical fertilizer, herbicides and pesticides is what is killing soil - not grazing.
When will you realize that most people aren't as self-loathing as you are?
All Roundup Ready items must be Roundup Ready or you cannot plant there (roundup stays in the soil).
A greater reason for monoculture is cach crops. Because the GM foods cannot be seeded (for some good reasons, some bad) you must purchase their crop (see above, too), so you must produce for the affluent first world to buy the crops that before you fed yourself with.
So you pick one crop and go with it. It realises the highest profit. Next year, it also realises the highest cost.
D'oh!
Either think outside of the box or get buried in it.
"The Sage treasures Unity and measures all things by it" - Lao Tzu
Hell, I've been eating genetically engineered food since I was a kid. Cows have been engineered to be docile and tasty. Corn is essentially grass with incredibly huge kernels. The main issue is that previous methods are slow and random. The new ones are much faster.
To be fair, it's possible to put in genes that would take forever to express themselves via selective breeding (e.g. getting corn to produce fish oil). Some of these could trigger allergies or other unintended effects. Still, I'd rather see the environmental groups embrace this technology and recommend some base-level guidelines (e.g. when doing cross-species gene splicing, some basic safety tests are required).
Unfortunately I fear you've shot your whole argument with the stuff inside the parenthesis. I also fear that I need to alter it, for the worse:
The "real world" purpose for GM is to increase the profitability of those companies in that market.
That's the marketplace in action, and unfortunately reducing resources has little to do with it, unless the resources reduced are procured from a competitor. I suspect similar reasoning is why medical cannabis is has been an issue between the DEA and alternative medicine anecdotes. IMHO, it should be in FDA studies, but there's just *no profit* in it compared to synthetic drugs.
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
And that was nothing like a reasoned argument.
you are entirely entitled to your own incorrect opinion.
Ta.
I concider myself a soft enviromentalist, Population growth, well it's a problem in some countries in most of europe the population is in decline only kept up by economic migrants. I don't have much of a problem with urbanisation, but it'd be nice if we could have clean cities instead of dirty ones (comming from congested brittan I don't much like the car, and have no problem with keeping them out of city centers), Neuclear power, it won't last forever but for now it's looking like one of the best options.
But GM foods and other orgaisms, they do worry me a little bit, I'm just waiting till we see the roundup ready dandylion.
Also, it has been billed as safe before, before Chernobyl and Three Mile Island.
At some point, you guys are going to sound like people who won't set foot on a boat because "gosh darn, that there Titanic was supposed ter be unsinkubble!"
That's OK, I'll just sit over here and breathe radioactive carcinogen particles from coal combustion for awhile longer. Don't mind me.
"2) Urbanization: Cities are the largest contributors to localized pollution. Air quality, sewage overflows, and general griminess ooze from cities. I don't see how environmentalists could come around to see how cities are beneficial to the environment."
You hit the nail on the head.
Cities are localized sources of pollution.
Take New York City for example. Does it damage the environment more than 1,000,000 homes on quarter acer lots would? In a city you can reduce the use of cars more effectivly using mass transit. You have more resources to deal with waste disposal and power issues. 1,000,000 homes would probably eat up more than 1,000,000 acers of land once you figure in roads, shopping, services, and places to work. Thow in 1,000,000 septic systems, 2,000,000 cars, and a million lawns and you have a huge mess.
Read Asimov,s Caves of Steel. There they have just a few MASSIVE cities with most of the land free of people.
PS. Want to help the environment? Ban Golf Courses. Take a look at a map sometime and see just how much land they take up. Not to mention the water and chemicals that are used on them. They my look green but there really is no nature left on them.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
The only issue of significance is the di-morphic split between humans and Transhumans. All other issues are transitory and irrelevant.
Climate change in particular is the LEAST of our worries as it will take the longest time to occur.
Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!
urbanization: A concentrated population consumes less resources than a sprawling one. Transportation of people, goods, and resources is easier and more effecient. If you could simply move people from the suburbs and exurbs into currently vacant urban property you would see an enromous reduction in the consumption of resources to personal transportation, maintenance of oversized private hermatages, and a growth of local businesses at the expense of the mega-corps which also would reduce resources expended on transportation of goods. Our cities, for the most part, are not dirty and over-crowded, they are dirty and under-crowded. they suffer from decay, decline in property values, increasing numbers of boarded up houses and slums. They are over-crowded with cars and underpopulated with people. In a healthy urban core, the residents shouldn't NEED automobiles since they should be able to walk to the store and commute by public transit. Auto dependence is a sign of a dying urban core as local businesses die and crime rises.
1) Population growth will settle just as starvation, disease and other 3rd world issues will settle as those countries liberalize and develop their economies so they can distribute goods and services.
2)Cities are far more efficient places for people to live than suburbia. If there were no cities, land use and pollution would skyrocket as each person took his 40 acres and a SUV. Look at LA. That's what the entire east coast would be like w/o cities.
3)Genetically engineered food is better than no food...
4) Nuclear power is a no brainer to anyone except NIMBY types.
"Environmentalists" are politicians. Most of their organizations are basically just law firms. I equate them with oil execs. We really need more publically funded independent research in vertical solutions to improving the environment.
bp
Well, one reason is to consider our quality of life before we are wiped off the face of the planet (if that even happens). This kind of attitude is like saying "I'm going to die eventually anyway, so why bother keeping myself healthy and enjoying life?"
It is also unecessarily alarmist. Environmentalists are often accused of being hysterical - but most of them don't believe in this "apocalypse" scenario, like you do. Yes, we are upset about environmental degradation. Yes, people are suffering because of it. But only the most lunatic fringe believes in a sudden impending doom, or stocking up on shotguns for when the revolution comes, or the energy runs out. It's because environmentalists are interested in survival that they don't just give up in the face of overwhelming odds.
(OT: I always find it amazing how the political extremes on both right and left, adopt this "sudden extiction" rhetoric from opposite angles - religious and environmental)
Basically, we are perfectly capable of humans of adapting to changes in our lifestyles, and we are capable of slowing, and even reversing the damage we have done. We can survive and change if we want to. Sure, people don't like change, but I think most people would prefer survival to wallowing in our own filth, when they are faced with the inevitable.
Throughout history, there have been people who have predicted total doom, and those who predicted total utopia. I don't believe any of them have ever been correct. Meanwhile, most of us live in a difficult, complicated world that has many shades of gray - and do our best to cope with what we have. The visions of some future paradise or hell, are used to manipulate the dreams and fears of people, to draw them away from the difficult contradictions of reality.
... and then they built the supercollider.
It doesn't sound like the Africans are too concerned about starvation, either, huh? Maybe they should, like, do something about it, like every other civilization has had to at one point or another in its history.
humanity decides to undergo a massive collective personality change of not being consumption-focused
Not all cultures are obsecesed with consumption to the same level that the US is. Some western cultures have put, or are starting to put, more emphasis on quality of life, health, and happiness, than on quantity of toys.
Lefties need to stop talking about environmentalism and instead keep using phrases like "filth peddlers", against nature", "against cleanliness", or "companies who defile the holy planet". Get on FOX's propoganda channel and talk about how the "filth industry" is "graying our churches". Fight fire with fire.
or else my new child wouldnt be able to updated with the new Microsoft GP SP3 v11... this time without diabetes!!!
*jumps into the air*
not to self: find own DNA sequence and patent it... before THEY do....
The best education consists in immunizing people against systematic attempts at education. - Paul Feyerabend
I've been in the environmental movement for a few years now, there defintely is a lack of scientific perspective in some areas, but often policies are discounted as romantic because of people's superficial understanding of their concepts. Here is my disorganised response to the article, sorry for length :)
l iar.html
*I don't think many people predicted the problems of fossil fuel or chemical farming practices when they were first developed. GE involves living organisms and will be even more difficult to control once we discover such problems.
*The world produces far more food than we need to feed everyone. The problem is economics/distribution. GE foods mean farmers have to pay royalties on what they used to grow for free. Its a lie that the third world needs GE.
*The idea that ecosystems survive greatly different (genetically) organisms is ridiculous, introduced species have caused massive damage around the world already. GE makes much more drastic changes than this!
*I believe some environmentalists don't support nuclear power because the technology can be and is frequently used in furthering nuclear weapon tech. *Nuclear reactors are always a security risk, as Greenpeace managed to excellently show a couple of years back at Lucas Heights in Syndey, Australia (which recently had upgraded "security". Basically a bunch of peaceful activists walked, climbed and dropped into the area without any trouble. Armed terrorists would have no problems, especially if nuclear sites were widespread.
*They worry about the commitment for future generations to care for larger and larger amounts of nuclear waste safely.
"The few prominent environmentalists who have spoken out in its favor [..] Greenpeace cofounder Patrick Moore" - This guy is not really an example of an environmentalist anymore, more of a sellout, he works for the PR/logging industry...
http://www.fanweb.org/patrick-moore/
*You also still need energy to produce hydrogen, and worse the consumer feels the pollution is no longer to do with them!
*Population growth may be slowing, but the question remains can the planet support this pop once everyone starts using the amounts of resources the "fatter" countries do. I think this will remain an issue.
Some good ideas in this article though...
Just to add to this post... as someone who has worked in a nuclear reactor, I'd like to comment on the safety of nuclear vs. coal/petroleum industries. In addition to nuclear releasing far less pollution into the environment (and all its waste being very localized and contained), there is the issue of worker safety.
The nuclear industry is very well regulated. Worker safety (and radiation exposure) is meticulously monitored and recorded. Because the entire system is so paranoid and regulated, it is very safe. The most dangerous thing about working in a nuclear plant is conventional industrial accidents (like a crane falling on you). The risk increase due to the presence of nuclear power is minimal.
It is very strange that the public would be shocked and horrified if 10 people were killed in a nuclear power plant accident. However, many more than that are injured or killed every year in the coal/petroleum industry (think of fires on oil rigs, etc.) because this industry is far less safety-oriented. (It's also worth reminding that nuclear power is "more expensive" than other power sources mostly due to this level of regulation.)
The number of injuries/deaths in the nuclear power industry, per year, is small compared to other power industries (and indeed compared to most industries in general). So from the point of view of worker safety, nuclear (in its current, regulated form) is the best.
The purpose of this rice is to sell more herbicide. That's pretty much it. Better yield? Possibly. Nothing to do with feeding the third world though.
Deleted
You may have heard about the embargo? Long gas lines? Why, would the embargo hurt, if the US oil production didn't decline after the '70's? Answer: US domestic oil production has been in decline since the 1970's. Wake up, there will be plenty of oil, but no more cheap oil as global production is peaking. Can Saudi still provide swing capacity? Why is solar, wind and conservation a "rickety tripod" ? Does hydroelectric count as solar? (think hard here, what drives the water back to the resevoir?) Asteroids for uranium source? Can I get what you are smoking? I can't speak to U ore supplies, but oil has peaked in the US. This is a fact. What makes you think it won't peak in the other oil producing counties?
That should read Marvin, Not
"What we all need is an Arthur to keep us depressed and sleeping in darkened rooms to lower energy consumption."
So the environmentalists can all join VHEMT, and the rest of us can all wait a generation or two. An organism attempting to maximize its survival is about the most "natural" process you can find; why do environmentalists object to humans doing this? All other animals are trying to do the same thing all the time; it's not our fault they can't eliminate predators or affect environmental factors to the extent that we can.
On urbanization, Stewart's at least a decade behind the enviro orthodoxy -- mainstream enviro orgs (eg. Sierra Club) have long promoted denser cities -- in the US, cities produce less per-capita pollution, and consume less energy and land, than the equivalent scattered development.
I think the first markup I learned, was that the subject of the sentence is the proper word to be linked to the article or reference. Perhaps if you aren't sure, then use the entire sentence. Of course, if you're not sure what the subject is, perhaps you should revisit your original thinking.
I wonder how many people spent how much time meandering the mouse.
Words to men, as air to birds.
Ehrlich may have underestimated the ability of technology to increase food production on the short term but I think he was right in principle. It is my understanding that the large fish population in the Atlantic is a minor fraction of what it was only 30 years ago. That is an epic planetary die-off that has already occurred in an extraordinarily short time. World-wide human starvation hasn't been seen (yet) because we are still in the transition process of stripping the planet bare. Why do we need _any_ population increase to finish the job?
Haven't people heard the story about passenger pigeons:
"It was Alvin Jones who told us about the Pigeon Roost Prairie which was near the Jones homestead. He said so many pigeons stopped to roost in the pines in this are that they broke the limbs off the trees and the trees died, so there was a prairie there. There wasn't a living tree for 150 acres, and it was called Pigeon Roost Prairie. That was virgin pine timber they killed. The pigeons were almost as big as a chicken, not the homing pigeon; they were two or three times larger, about the size of a pheasant. Not thousands of pigeons but millions of pigeons! I tried to learn all I could about this pigeon migration. I was interested in it. It was something to think about. There would be so, many they would darken the sun for three days, all going north."
http://www.ulala.org/P_Pigeon/Texas.html
Aren't people curious about how primitive cultures were able to feed themselves with sharpened sticks? I suspect it was because going down to the brook to spear a carp was only somewhat more inconvenient than going down to the freezer to find something to thaw.
Like boiling frogs, the human lifespan is only 70+ years. Perhaps it is too short for people to actually experience ecological change and ingrain any feeling for the issue. As long as there is soylent green, some people will call it a balanced ecology. Others think more diversity is valuable.
The point is that the planet was already damaged by population and industry before anyone on Slashdot was born. We should be discussing whether we are at the planetary coup de grace stage, not congratulating ourselves on how population isn't a problem.
(AND, if we didn't have so many people, there would be one less argument for both GMO and nuclear.)
Wait a second. I will give you credit for what I believe are several valid points. I will also give you credit for at least one implied faulty belief.
You bust on people who buy SUVs instead of hybrids and then you use the excuse of cargo room for not buying one yourself. You cannot rationally impose a criteria on others (people should buy hybrids instead of SUVs) and then choose not to follow that criteria yourself (i.e. buying a PT Cruiser instead of a hybrid).
Who determines how much cargo room is enough for everybody? Certainly not you or me.
Ford's hybrid Escape seems to be a step in the right direction and I hope it is very successful for them. Part of the determination of that success will be consumer interest. Consumer interest is, in turn, driven (no pun intended) by building what some of us consumers want, i.e. a vehicle that has cargo space, 4-wheel drive, good fuel economy, etc.
I would love to have a mid-size SUV that had 30mpg fuel economy. I really don't care if it is hybrid, diesel, or something else as long as it is reasonably priced, reliable, and has maintenance cost no greater than conventional vehicles (give or take a bit).
What does harmful to the environment mean?
Letter To Iran
You are generous when giving us 100,000 years.
Civilization as we know it today started with the industrial revolution. We'll be lucky if it last beyond 400 years.
At some point, you guys are going to sound like people who won't set foot on a boat because "gosh darn, that there Titanic was supposed ter be unsinkubble!" If we're going to make that kind of comment, I could say: "at some point, you guys are going to sound like people who keep driving drunk because 'gosh darn, I made it home safe every other time!" Hardly addresses the point, does it? Just to clarify things, I was pointing out that there are reasons for caution, not claiming nuclear power should be banned for all eternity.
oversized private hermatages
How do you define oversized? I personally think there are a lot of benefits to living on a decent sized lot with space beyond that to boot! Personally, I tend to think the 1.25 acres I live on is a bit small and I've considered purchasing acreage around me.
Humans most certainly can live symbiotically with nature. Our ancestors did it for millions of years, and it's probably only in the past few thousand years that population and cities became problematic.
The question is, do we, with our modern technology, really want to become hunters and gatherers again, living in severely reduced numbers, such that the ambient food supply is always there replenishing itself?
Even in rural areas in developed countries (I live fairly rurally), we have modern grocery stores and a decent hospital. There are even three wal-marts in a 45-minute radius that are accessible. No, it isn't super-convenient, but we get by okay.
-- Microsoft is the most expensive commodity operating system and office suite vendor in the marketplace.
"And that is the problem with the environmental movement. I don't see the millions of environmentalists giving up electricity or their homes in the suburbs or the country."
That is a very trite response. It is a common tactic in a debate to immediately jump to an extreme position. People aren't being told to give up electricity, just use less and be more efficient. This should be a laudible goal by anyone's standards. To say "but you use it!" is an asinine response. We have to function in the society we are born in, that includes having to use a car and electricity. It doesn't mean we can't push for change.
It is by the juice of the coffee bean that thoughts acquire speed, the teeth acquire stains. The stains become a warning
His reliance on nuclear energy as the solution to the greenhouse emission problem betrays exactly the sort of lack of creativity just described. Natural ecosystems need not suffer substantial presence of intensive agriculture and global warming CO2 can be sequestered from the atmosphere in the process.
Agriculture need not be land intensive. In fact, it can be removed from the vast majority of existing ecosystems with a relatively minor amount of innovation in food processing and packaging.
On about 108 acres, Earthrise Farms in the Imperial Valley desert, California is producing 67kg of protein per square meter per year using relatively little water. This is better than 20 times the yield of soybeans and includes one of the broadest spectrums of amino acids of any known source of protein. The crop is spirulina, a blue green algae that is a source of nutrition at the base of the aquatic food chain. They have been doubling their production every 5 years but have limited themselves to a niche market in health food or "nutriceuticals". The primary technology they need developed to make this protein directly consumable by humans as a staple of the diet is removal of nucleic acids -- something that may be feasible as an extension of their centrifugal drying process. In any case, it is an excellent feed stock for animals and can displace many times its own acreage in conventional agricultural uses.
The late John Martin at Moss Landing hypothesized in 1987 that large sections of the tropical Pacific were ready to support ecosystems nearly as abundant as the oceans off the coast of Peru except for the lack of one key nutrient: Iron. In 1995, subsequent to his death, his team tested "the Iron hypothesis" by spreading a half ton of iron sulfate (available in huge cheap quantities as a byproduct of iron smelting) over a wide area of ocean. The south Pacific ocean turned from "crystal clear electric blue", virtually devoid of life, to duck pond green. They produced 25,000 tons of biomass for a factor of 50,000 gain from fertilizer to biomass. Once the ocean desert bloomed with phytoplankton, zooplankton, the next link up the food chain, began grazing. Had they kept going, zooplankton grazing fish could have been introduced, such as anchovies, but they terminated the ferti
Seastead this.
Didn't read the article, did you? Go find the paragraph about flouridation.
Let me lay this out in short sentences. Herbicide resistant crops need less herbicide. That's not good for the chemical companies, but bad. Simultaneously, it has a net positive impact on farmers, food, and the environment.
Let me explain by analogy. I'm not a farmer -- but I do raise roses as a hobby. As you no doubt know, rose bushes are fundamentally unhealthy organisms which only thrive with massive doses of fertilizer, insecticide, and herbicide, so those of us who raise them know all about this.
Except for one thing: what you think you know isn't true. Older roses do require lots of support to thrive. More modern roses, with their huge flowers and bizarre growth patterns...don't. They've been selectively modified to resist the blights and infestations that killed older plants. They use the calcium in the soil more efficiently, and so don't need as much. They're stunningly healthy plants, designed to be raised in low maintenance gardens by amateurs.
As a result, if I'd grew the modern frankenplants, I'd spend more on the plants to start with, but far less on chemicals.
The same kind of thing applies in frankenfood. If I raise glycophosphate-resistant wheat, then I can apply a glycophosphate-based herbicide to the fields in quantities sufficient to kill the weeds without affecting the wheat. Guess what? That's less than ten percent of the amount I used to apply to the fields. Traditional preemergence applications had to persist in the soil long enough to affect the broad-leaf weeds, which meant applying enough to resist washing away. Applying postemergence means applying only enough to kill the weeds that are there right now. Monsanto will sell me less herbicide than they used to...not more.
Should the environmental movement favor nuclear power?
Who cares!
The four subjects he raises are fringe distractions from the major policy questions which have the largest impact on our environment, which are merely a symptom of wider deficits in our nation's democratic culture.
Population growth is becoming a non-issue.
I favor nuclear power as long as the details are right - if the public is going to take all the risks, we shouldn't allow some private entity to reap the profits off of it.
I favor genetically modified organisms which are designed in a way that benefits farmers and/or the environment, rather than maximizing the profits of entrenched power.
Likewise, urbanization is fine if it leads to prosperity, but as a result of people being driven off of the land by thugs (e.g. Columbia) it is a bad thing.
The devil is in the details, as has always been the case. In ten years time the details may have changed enough that the present situation becomes unrecognizable; so I think trying to predict what we will be trying to do ten years from now is futile and silly.
This isn't to bash futurism generally - we can't know what to work towards now if we don't have some concept of what the future will be like. But trying to predict the future of activism? Waste of time.
The good and new comes from no quarter where it is looked for, and is always something different from what is expected.
WE R DEAD HA HA HA!!!
Look at LA. That's what the entire east coast would be like w/o cities.
What am I missing? I've lived on the East Coast and in the Southwest... I'd take many places in the Southwest over the East Coast cities any day!
Many of today's big enviromental issues are mostly about supply.
Enviromentalists go on about the problems associated with emissions from the current rampant energy use but personally I think of even more concern is whats going to happen in 50 years time when even optomistic estimates show oil completely running out (atleast for the next few million years!).
Even if their is any oil left in 50 years (or even in 25-30 years for that matter) it is likely to be so highly priced and with much of it reserved (e.g. for military use) 99% of us simply won't be able to drive cars or do anything which relies on car use (pretty much all of modern life in the USA).
People talk of hydrogen cars etc. but if it can't be done now, why would it suddenly be possible in 25 years time? After all the idea was around 25 years ago and very little progress has been made since.
The same goes for natural gas (the stuff used to heat houses etc.). If its all gone (or even nearly gone) in 60 or so years, how exactly are we going to warm our houses?
Enviromentalists go on and on about the damage the effects of current energy usage will effect our great grand-children but I in my early twenties and hope to be around in 25, 50, even 75 years time (if I'm lucky) and wonder how exactly the world is going to carry on being so 'modern' without any oil or gas?
You could likely splice off a version control argument, as the HDTV article on
Get thee glass eyes, and, like a scurvy politician, seem to see things thou dost not.--King Lear
I was under the impression that Marvin was a Marshin.
This sig has been removed pending an investigation.
Population is the most important issue in politics for me, so I read the section on this topic (but skipped the rest). I'm so tired of the descriptions of "doom and gloom" that will happen with low fertility rates and a shrinking population - these authors are a mirror image of the mistakes they claim that past environmental authors have made in predicting the future.
o rder/2127rank.html, you will see there are still quite a few countries that have fertility rates above 2.1. (By the way, saying 2.1 is steady state assumes an average infant mortality rate that is pretty high. If you want the human race to all move into a the modern industrialized world, something under 2.05 is required). Granted, I don't have the plots of all countries fertility rates over time and some of these countries near the top may be declining, but I see absolutely no way we can declare success now. I expected better out of Technology Review, the magazine where I first learned about fuel cells for automotive use.
There are some scientific facts on population that are rarely disputed:
1] The earth has a finite carrying capacity
Actual numbers will vary anywhere from 1 to 10 billion people, but it's obvious that constraints on food, water, energy, pollution sinks do constrain the number of us. My opinion is that the number is less than we are now, but we are getting by (some of us anyway) because of unsustainable oil and water use. Perhaps we could get by on renewable energy with around 2 billion people.
2] Large numbers of humans cannot leave the earth
There is no way we could move even 1/1000th the world population off the earth even if there was someplace to go. The resources/pollution needed to do this make it a non-starter for addressing population growth.
3] Adjustments need to be made to run an economy with a declining population growth
Not impossible, but obviously it is harder to operate a system that is shrinking instead of growing. Tricks like using lots of workers to support fewer retirees won't work. Any pyramid scheme seems great when you are on the growth side, but I'd prefer not to have the human race crash like a big pyramid scheme.
4] Fertility rates can be adjusted by government action
Coercive measures while espoused by some as necessary have been avoided in very successful transitions to lower fertility (e.g. Iran). We have less experience with going the other way, but some countries (e.g. Singapore) are trying incentives to raise the fertility rate. I see no reason that these rates can't be successfully adjusted if for some reason, 50 years from now, the world wide fertility rate dips down well below 2 and stays there so long that our population goes below 2 billion.
Now, back to the article:
In each country listed: Japan, Germany, Spain, Russia (I think) and Italy, they could stand to lose 30% of their population anyway. I think the U.S. is too crowded and Europe has much higher densities (and Japan is worse) in terms of population per arable land unit.
"It turns out that population decrease accelerates downward just as fiercely as population increase accelerated upward, for the same reason."
What does this mean? If you measure the increase or decrease of an exponential function (what he's talking abut here) as a percentage, then of course they have the same fierceness, but there is no concept of acceleration (percentage growth is constant). If you measure the amount in absolute numbers, then exponential increase is accelerating, but exponential decrease is always decelerating.
As far as fertility going down everywhere, we in the U.S. are now at 2.08 and this is going up (albeit slowly). We were closer to 2 about 5 years ago I think. If you look at http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/rank
Dara
But what if the herbicides you're using are 20 times stronger? That's the whole point. We're able to use stronger, more deadly herbicides on/in our crops than ever before. The liquid volume might be lower, but that's ultimately a meaningless number.
The fact that they are localized is the point of the argument.
If you graph pollution over area, a place like manhattan obviously generates significantly more waste than a small town or suburb. But if you divide that by population density, dense cities actually come out ahead! People in cities like SF or NYC live in smaller homes with more efficient heating, rely on public transportation or walking to get around, and focus resource delivery and consumption onto a very small area. Compare that to your typical suburb, where the average family's environmental footprint is a lot bigger.
RTFA: The success of the environmental movement is driven by two powerful forces--romanticism and science--that are often in opposition. The romantics identify with natural systems; the scientists study natural systems. The romantics are moralistic, rebellious against the perceived dominant power, and combative against any who appear to stray from the true path. They hate to admit mistakes or change direction. The scientists are ethicalistic, rebellious against any perceived dominant paradigm, and combative against each other. For them, admitting mistakes is what science is.
sig not ready: (A)bort, (R)etry, (F)ail.
While I agree that "the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil", and that I'd rather drink after an environmentalist than an industrialist, I have grown not to trust anyone's expressed motives.
It's not the financial motivation of environmentalists that is the problem, but their reflexive devotion to the cause. Many truly believe that disaster is impending, or even that we're currently living through it. An overlapping set are drawn to the movement because they get emotional mileage from striving for a Great Purpose. It's the thing that lends importance to their lives, and they cling to it with everything they've got.
Facts, perhaps, but the question is the degree of the problem and the overall impact of the solution.
TFA draws a line between scientific and emotional environmentalism, but there is certainly some overlap. As you state it, "when scientists are concerned about global climate change ...." An otherwise keenly analytical scientist with an emotional leaning to environmentalism studies the environmental aspect of a topic and finds that a disaster is impending.
Scientists also know on some level that the more sensational or controversial a finding the more their name gets around. Grants come in, articles are published, books are written, and careers are made.
We all have our biases, and we all are working an angle.
sigs, as if you care.
Hippies!
Over here. The article linked to at the bottom is more detailed and convincing than Raymond's blog entry - do read it.
At the very least, Kuhn has been wrong for the last hundred years or so. His major accomplishment was to give a name ("paradigm shift") to a phenomenon that had been going on for awhile in the art world - you get attention for your work by making it radically different from everything else. After the one-two punch of relativity and quantum mechanics, lots of people dreamed of making a "paradigm-shattering" discovery in the sciences, and a bunch of them did, in biology, paleontology, geology, etc.
Sure, scientists are human, and there are fads and fashions in research and publishing. But, swallowing Kuhn whole is well down the path towards deconstruction in the sciences, which I think should be vigorously opposed.
To a Lisp hacker, XML is S-expressions in drag.
Look up dwarf wheat sometime, and the difference it has made in the Indian subcontinent.
GM is little more than deliberately engineered advantageous mutation.
The REAL jabber has the user id: 13196
What you do today will cost you a day of your life
Changing it at the genetic level through fancy techniques is not incredibly different than isolating a strain for its characteristics and cross pollinating it.
Corn isn't anywhere near what its original form is, being modified for years and years to be the tall vegetable we're accustomed to.
You better watch out, there may be dogs about . .
you seem to have missed his point.
He was saying he use to use 100 gallons of pesticide A on traditional crops....with GM crops he now only uses 10 gallons of pesticide A.
Now if you go to pesticide B which is 20X stronger you would only be using HALF a gallon instead of 5 gallons....the GM crops still use less pesticide.
Renewable? No. Clean? It depends.
% 20and%20Breeder%20Reactors.htm
http://library.thinkquest.org/17940/texts/nuclear_ waste_future/nuclear_waste_future.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_reprocessing
http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/nucene/ fasbre.html
Renewable? YES! It's called reprocessing. We recycle the used radioactive material that comes out of a nuclear power plant and reprocess it in a breeder reactor to get more useable nuclear material. The result is more material suitable for a reactor and some (as in very little) low level radioative material that is much easier to hand and dispose of.
The original plan back in the 50's when we staretd using nuclear power was to use reprocessing on the fuel and make waste management easier. Carter nixed this. So as for "Clean? It depends." well, it still depends.
Here's some links on the matter, please actually read them, they give a better explanation than I can:
http://www.argee.net/DefenseWatch/Nuclear%20Waste
Fly me to the moon Let me sing among those stars Let me see what spring is like On jupiter and mars
If I was Monsanto's competitor, could I legally produce and release roundup-resistant weeds to nullify the benefits of roundup-ready soybeans?
___
It's the end of my comment as I know it and I feel fine.
Thanks for today's communist editorial on Prav...er, I mean slashdot. Try to spend more time on NOT POSTING DUPES than on front-page editorializing. OK? Thanks.
I mostly agree with what he said, but I think the biggest risk to humanity is our designing a disease (virus, bacteria, nanobot) that wipes us out. So doing research on microbes designed to wipe out targeted species, and making it open source and available to bored high school students, is something I'd very much like to avoid.
Or that from a net standpoint the US is a Carbon sink, not an emitter.
is actually what is accepted as having curtailed "natural" global population growth.
"Much has occurred in recent years to assuage the earliest anxieties of Zero Population Growth: abortion has not only been nationally legalized but declared a constitutional right; contraception has become ever more effective and widespread"
http://tinyurl.com/884ln
The author of this article assumes a great many things and reaches conclusions by really stretching. I do see his points, but also his bias. For an enviromentalist, he's sure looking more and more like an extremist.
Words to men, as air to birds.
I'm sorry but that old bogeyman that water is scarce is just plain wrong.
For one thing, water patterns will naturally shift over long periods of time across the globe. So some areas may get drier, but others wetter also. That will also cause a shift in population.
And even in areas that you think have a "water problem" really do not have a water problem. I live in Denver which has been experienceing years of drought. But how much did I pay for a whole month of water, watering plants as I wished and taking long showers whenever I felt like? I paid just $15 for that water.
Wake me when anyone on earth is paying as much for water as we do for gasoline right now. Wake me when lawns and plants with automatically timed sprinklers do not dot countries everywhere. Then I might agree someone has a "water problem". Right now people just have a "water inconvieninece".
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
2 points:
1. There have been few (2) major successes with GM crops: round-up ready (weed control) and Bt (pest control). I excpect both will be somewhat short lived as resistant weeds and pests evolve. Bt varieties seems particularly threatened as they seem to be somewhat overutilized. Conventional breeding techniques have and will likely continue to have greater success. We just aren't capable of rationally engineering biological organisms yet--and it may be a long time coming.
2. By no means is Nuclear energy renewable. Just like oil it takes a limited resource (uranium) and extracts energy from it leaving behind harmful waste products. Its major benefit is that it doesn't release carbon into the atmosphere. Its major problem is economic, when profit margins for nuclear are as good as coal etc. You will see more nuclear plants.
When I moved to an urban area, I recognized instantly that I was lowering my environmental impact. I do not drive, I take up less land, and I take advantage of economies of scale for shipping and distribution of goods. I also have more options for recycling and co-op purchasing. Environmentalists are opposed largely to suburban sprawl that destroys habitats, wastes water for lawns, and makes mass transit impractical.
Brand writes off environmentalists' opposition to GM crops and nuclear power as romantic, but an environmentalist would just as easily paint his glowing portrait of these technologies as naive scientific idealism. It's unfortunate that Brand is unwilling to see the highly rational thinking behind environmentalists' opposition to GM and nuclear power.
Food and power "shortages" are in large part economic, which is to say they're a distribution problem, or ultimately a political problem. As an environmentalist, I do not see an inherent or immediate need for GM crops or additional nuclear power. I'm aware that we could already feed everybody on Earth with existing agricultural technologies, but we lack the political and economic will. Further, I do not trust corporations sponsoring genetic research. They are motivated by profit, not by environmental conservation, and will gladly wipe out everything that can't sue them on their way to profitability.
Environmentalists have already seen corporations do massive damage to the environment, and there is no reason to believe that corporations have changed in any way. 50 years ago, scientists were using the same food shortage arguments to back the introduction of pesticides, hormones, and chemical fertilizers into the food chain. I would rather not see a repeat of DDT with GM crops, and as corporations gain legal impunity, I see no reason to trust them or the scientists in their employ. Rather, I would like to see an emphasis on organic, sustainable farming, with a slow, balanced introduction of GM species after careful scientific peer review and heavy governmental oversight. Unfortunately, we do not currently have the political structure to provide trustworthy governmental oversight of GM foods, and until we do, it would be better in my opinion to hold off.
As for nuclear power, there are better options that have been ignored or underfunded in favor of GE's and MIT's pet projects. Whether it's tidal generators, solar, wind power, or bioenergy, I think it's worth focusing first on technologies that don't produce toxic wastes that will be around for thousands of years and can be used to make weapons, no matter how "safe" they are. It's not that nuclear energy is heresy, it's that it looks like a poor stopgap measure when we're on the way to genuinely sustainable power. Rather than invest in a nuclear power problem, it would be better to promote sustainable power and conservation in the meantime.
How is more efficient to use the "100 year old solution" when the price doesn't reflect this?
By "efficient" he was talking more about a dramatic lessening of waste heat from energy generation - the cost is of course the reason why more efficient solutions haven't been applied. But when the costs get close the higher efficency systems have other intangible benefits that will probably lead to them being adopted sooner rather than later.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Are you saying that "for over half that time", the land was dominated by one single species of dinosaur? If not, I think I'll go ahead and count the successes of all mammals under what humans have accomplished.
"An organism attempting to maximize its survival is about the most "natural" process you can find; why do environmentalists object to humans doing this?"
"enviromentalists" is a big group, with a variety of positions, some of them looney. (Note that you can substitue pretty much any large political group as the quoted word in that sentence.) I consider myself an environmentalist, and speaking for myself, and at least quite a few others I know:
We do not object to humans attempting to maximize our survival; in fact, that is exactly what we are arguing in favor of. We think society currently tries to maximise quality of life in the (very) short term, at the expense of the long, or even medium term. Yes, humans can control enviromental factors to a far greater extent than animals, or even humans of previous generations, and that is a good thing. Perhaps we should think about how best to use that power, even if just to benefit ourselves.
There has already been a mild turn-around in the hyperactive NGO world view on global trade.
For example, Oxfam recently complained about the EU blocking Chinese textile imports.
Brand's piece is long on rhetoric and short on information. It presents a breathless technological romanticism which ignores the difficulties in all of the "hopeful" proposals that he makes, e.g. the use of GM bacteria to attack invasive species. The problem of specifically targetting a host with a live organism and limiting it to that host is not likely to be solved any time soon. Not even if Brand waves the magic wonder wand of "GM" over it. The history of environmental remediation is littered with the introduction of live parasites which would supposedly prey upon the unwanted pests, cause a population crash and then die out with the pest. Environmental remediationists are now trying to figure out how to get rid of the live parasites which are doing just fine and have _adapted_ and _evolved_. GM is a solution looking for a problem: the favorite supposed problem is the worldwide food shortage. This supposed shortage is a distribution problem. It is caused by deliberate economic manipulation by the developed nations. I don't have the time to go into the problems with his lauding of the automobile as now being some sort of wonder vehicle because the yuppie-next-door is able to get 30mpg in her Prius. Overall a fairly unimpressive article that would fit in well with the anti-scientific, irrational technological fetishism of middle-class liberals that don't want to admit that there are hard societal problems to solve.
Part of the flight to the suburbs has nothing to do with wide open spaces and SUVs. People want good government. In many cases cities have the most corrupt, most bloated, and least responsive forms of government. People want to be able influence their governments, direct their school boards, and get a personal callback when they ask for services. People want to know the names of their government officials and want the government officials to know their names. In many cases residents get that from suburban government where they don't from big-city governments. The city is great for the hip single that has very little need for government services, but many families flee what they see as over-priced, non-responsive government that fails to deliver quality education. Those that want us all to move back to the cities better deal with this reality.
Now, what effects those herbicides will have on the people eating said crops, I leave to the peanut gallery to debate. Just because the plant's immune doesn't make humans immune.
"Learning is not compulsory... neither is survival."
--Dr.W.Edwards Deming
The difficulty with the oversimplified explanations such as this is lost on those who see the problem as a clash with environmentalism and science.
It is easy to understand why there are many who like our Dancin Santa who seems to want to selectively use science to support their preconceptions. Unfortunately, ideology hardly makes for sensible environmental policy. To be sure, the notion that the need for conservation can somehow (mumbo jumbo hocus pocus) be equated with "political capitol" is a fanciful flight from reality. Although Dancin Santa and the arlticle writer have managed to list a few environmental challenges facing species occupying the planet. They fail entirely in understanding why such issues pose an evolutionary challenge to humans. It would seem that he sees environmentalism as a political issue, which it is not.
What is lacking is a clear scientific understanding of what the environment is. The environment that we recognize is the resultant interaction of several bilion years of evolution of organisms interacting with the physical (non-living environment). It is something that is dynamic and while subject to great platicity overall. Earth history reveals to us that such change only comes with a tremendous amount of natural selection and extinction.
Environmentalism arises from the clear scientific understanding that 1) there are a great many lifeforms on the planet besides humans, 2) that the interactions among these lifeforms and the physical environment is exceedingly complex, the result of billions of years of evolution and are not well-understood scientifically, except in broad outline, 3) we humans are entirely dependent on continued interdependencies of interaction for our own survial, often through poorly understood mechanisms, and 4) that humans are adversely affecting the ability of these lifeforms to survive, thereby threatening their own survival. Environmentalism is not about humans per se, it is about saving non-human species on which we depend and whose survival often requires a measure of the sacrificing of some human potential to accomplish that end.
We have only recently begun to appreciate the widespread changes than antropogenic effects are having on other life forms. There is simply far too little education about the subtle effects and the mechanisms of such change. The critical need for conservation does not come from "political capitol", which is little more than a euphemism for being able to force one's political will on others. Rather it stems from the loss of habitat and other changes, such as invasive species and environmental degredation due to pollution of all kinds that disrupt the natural limits of species within the population to reproduce and thrive as they have done in the historical past, as well as the creation of new habitats that are potentially suitable for organisms that may prey on us (yes there are tens of thousands of organisms that make their living at our expense, such as HIV and the Marburg virus). There is nothing in that history to suggest that natural will somehow theoretically "revive itself" after we are finished trashing it. To the contrary, the overwheliming evidence seems to suggest that the system will simply move to an entirely different equilbrium, never to return to the old one. The conundrum for environmentalism is that the "constant management" needed to save the current selection regime upon which we depend is an ideal that can only occur without human intervention of any kind. That is why decisions to open up wilderness preserves such as Anwar for oil drilling will ultimately prove to have disasterous consequences. Sure we will burn more fossil fuels and some will have made a lot of money, but ALL will ultimately be poorer for having done so.
It is impossible to tell what effect genetically introduced organisms will have in the long run, as they are a relatively new phenonenon. We can hardly answer without a signficant amount of testing to establish at what rate are such man-made gene
I'm wondering if all this work on GM foods, and selective breeding...while increasing shelf life...and less herbicides, have contributed to the lack of TASTE in foods? I mean, these days....tomatoes you buy in the store suck. No flavor...just bland, and watery or mealy. I didn't realize just how bad until about a year ago while visiting up northeast of the US...went to a farm that was having a festival...and they specialized in heirloom tomatoes...organically grown....real old fashioned stuff. Well, just eating a few samples of those tomatoes REALLY brought back memories of how I remembered how all tomatoes Mom bought at the store tasted....somewhere along the line...I think with breedeing, 'frankenfood' and such, they've forgotten the most important thing...flavor.
Same gripe I have about jalapeno peppers....I remember when they used to have some heat to them...but, some idiot has been breeding them for lack of heat. I swear, I've gotten some fresh ones, that weren't any more spicy than bell peppers. I've switched to serranos for now...at least they haven't bastardized those yet...
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
Make peace with nature? Mother nature started the fight and we intend to finish it. :)
Nuclear power is safe when it is done in the sun.
Otherwise it is not because people lie about it's safety and then pay consultants to promote this unsafe idea. Hence your post.
Pragmatism makes me understand that nuclear power is not safe. Also I understand how shills like you troll the web to promote this unsafe agenda.
I figure you are either in Washington or New York and that you work for a public relations firm.
Tell me I am wrong.
Roundup was already one of the most popular herbicide when roundup-ready corn hit the market. Prior to GM corn being available farmers were applying the herbicide 4-5 time in good years and upto 8 times in really bad years. By using roundup-ready corn and roundup together farmers apply the herbicide at most 3 times befor the corn is tall enough to kill off weeds on its own by preventing the weeds from receiving enough light. The net result for monsanto is $ from both the pesticide and the seeds. Now most farmers, even prior to the advent of GM crops didn't save seeds because they would miss out on the genetic improvements from year to year. Seed companies practiced intensive selection for production traits prior to using GM to improve plant quality. Genes native to the plants confering resistance to mold, insect infestation, and improved growth were combined via controlled polination for decades prior to the GM revolution. The net gain for producers is time. 1 application of roundup as opposed to 4 applications in good years and even better in bad years. As we all know time is money, and as someone who has worked on family run dairy farms, (tip: most large "Factory Farms" are family owned and operated) there are never enough hours in the day to manage animals, crops, employee's, maintenance and the ever increasing paper work needed to run a farm. saving that much time is worth the premium paid for the seeds. Land is finite. Most farms cannot get larger with out buy land off of competitors aready using it to grow the same crops, and often the land is more valuable for urban sprawl than agriculture. The best way to make more money is to improve the efficiency of production via less input costs, or increased production from the same land. Most of the posts i've seen on this page are from the "non scientist" members of the environmentalist movements. Being a tech person is not the same as devoting your life to understanding the problems facing agriculture and attempting to solve them. As a Scientist associated with this problem (i'm a phd student in animals science) I'm constantly frustrated by the ignorance western peopls have concerning their own food supply and the arrogance seen from people despite there admited ignorance. the article may or may not be correct on the other points. I'm not associated with those fields but I am qualified to comment on the validity of the GM topic and they are right on the money
Bureaucracy expands to meet the needs of the expanding bureaucracy.-Oscar Wilde
He was saying he use to use 100 gallons of pesticide A on traditional crops....with GM crops he now only uses 10 gallons of pesticide A.
No actually he's not. Read the original sentence again: If I raise glycophosphate-resistant wheat, then I can apply a glycophosphate-based herbicide to the fields in quantities sufficient to kill the weeds without affecting the wheat. Guess what? That's less than ten percent of the amount I used to apply to the fields.
He's saying that he can switch from 100 gallons of old-school "herbicide A" to 10 gallons of a glycophosphate-based herbicide. You couldn't switch to an even stronger B or C and achieve those results, because B or C would probably kill the crop since that wasn't what it was designed for.
Saying that he switched from 100g of A to 10g of A doesn't match his next line about 10g being enough to not kill the crop... in that case before GM resistance to herbicide his crop would have withered before he managed to dump 100g of it on his land.
The deal that is proposed lets wind mills be built and their is no fee or tax, just a blank check for a well-connected company to build hundred of windmills in a very public waterway.
There is a give-away to a well-connected few and just because it is wind power doesn't make it a good idea.
Why can't I build a windmill in Nantucket sound, or anyone? No, the powers that want the Nantucket sound windmill plan want it to go to private interests who will be given a very sweet deal.
It is a bad deal for Massachusetts.
*Sound of vomiting*
Because the power density of these sources is orders of magnitudes lower than what is needed. These are toys when what we need are engineering solutions.
Does hydroelectric count as solar? (think hard here, what drives the water back to the resevoir?)
Well numb nuts, by your bizarre reasoning I also come to the conclusion that petroleum is derived from solar power as well. Organic material is buried in sediments by the hydrologic cycle and heated in an anoxic environment to produce oil. Perhaps I should have clarified and say solar-electric.
Asteroids for uranium source? Can I get what you are smoking?
I point out that Uranium is abundant in the Solar System and is present in significant concentrations in metallic asteroids. Do you disagree with that? I thought it was important to stress this in considering Uranium a long term power source after terrestrial suppies are depleted. Got it?
an ill wind that blows no good
I have always felt that environmentalist should embrace urbanization. However, I feel that it is more important for industry to exist in urban settings then people. This is because when industries cluster in a single location it becomes immediately clear what the environmental effects of these industries will be. The combined results of these industries waste products can be seen much easier than those of decentralized and well insolated (by natural or artificial blinds) industries. The addition of people into the mix makes for incredible political force for change in industrial policies and practices. If you look at some the most tragic environmental disasters (such as Woburn, MA and Three Mile Island) they happened in places where the there was not as much political pressure for change because there were not as many people.
...about pretty much everything he's ever promoted.
Resource shortages, overpopulation causing mass famine, worsening pollution... he's been wrong about all of them, every time, over the course of decades.
What in the world would lead you to think he's right about anything *now*? Just the fact that he's promoting Global Warming is a great sign that it's not happening for the reasons he's pushing.
It's funny you mention golf courses. I was browsing around desert southwest cities on maps.google.com the other day, and found that golf courses are very easy to find down there ;) If you look at a desert southwest city from overhead, just look for the green spots - they're almost always either A) parks, B) sports fields (baseball, etc), or C) golf courses. Golf courses tend to be the largest.
"It felt almost as good as stealing cars from grandma." -- Margaret Thatcher, probably.
How's that for an "imperfect solution"?
Or is it merely inconventient?
I think the word you're looking for is 'naive.'
Actually, here in California, the tomatoes *last year* were better than what we have now. There was a nasty frost in the early spring that ruined a lot of tomato plants, and so we're stuck with late-sprouting crops and screwed-up tomatoes.
So at least at the source, a really yummy fresh tomato isn't unheard of these days.
Causation can cause correlation
Actually, this usually has more to do with harvesting things prematurely for long-haul shipment, and then force-ripening (with gas exposure, etc) just prior to sale. The fruit, or vegetable in question doesn't have as long to properly ripen and generate the compounds that we enjoy as the familiar mature tastes.
This is driven mostly by the demand from less well educated (in culinary terms) shoppers wanting to see/feel crisp-looking produce of every variety on the shelf through every season, or with their unwillingness to pay what it costs for the more immediate transportation of those same items if they were left to ripen on the vine/tree, etc. Spend a little more on the same varieties at a higher-end store, and you'll get your flavor back. But you'll also be burning more fuel, because the produce was probably flown to you (unless it's grown locally).
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
I don't know who modded you up, but you don't deserve it, as your logic is fundamentally flawed.
They're not going to dump herbicides with "wreckless abandon" because doing so takes time and money. Farmers, like most people, don't want to spend either unproductively.
Any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so.
Presently, there is low demand for nuclear fuel, one can expect that were demand to rise, more inexpensive sources would be located.
In any event, a 'stopgap' measure of 50-100 years worth (+150-300 years with thorium) is exactly what is needed while power sources that never run out are brought online (such as space based solar).
building and disposing of a safe nuclear powerplant requires so much energy, that they're not so terribly efficient.
This is exactly the problem the Pebble Bed technology solves.
Hey...you live in New Orleans too, eh?
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
is better than extrapolating from a sample of none, surely?
And you WERE saying "they all" and lumping them all in the extreme category.
"A number of leading biologists in the U.S. are also leading environmentalists. I've asked them how worried they are about genetically engineered organisms. Their answer is "Not much," because they know from their own work how robust wild ecologies are in defending against new genes, no matter how exotic."
vs.
"The second greatest cause of extinctions is coming from invasive species, where no solution is in sight. Kudzu takes over the American South, brown tree snakes take over Guam (up to 5,000 a square kilometer), zebra mussels and mitten crabs take over the U.S. waterways, fire ants and fiendishly collaborative Argentine ants take over the ground, and not a thing can be done."
So is introducing new species into the environment perfectly safe, or unstoppably dangerous? I'm not impressed.
whom do you prefer, Hitler or Stalin?
Hard to tell whether Brand is playing the devils advocate with his "spinning" or is an adscam man for the corporate elite and other neo-con elite (RC church and politicians) in the USA. First Brand tells us the world population is in drastic decline - but then does a somersault and says a population decline is bad for this planet. Michael Philips who ran Brand's foundation for awhile, did a study - Philips's study showed data from the USA federal government - the more kids - the more resources used - the more pollution created. That the best way to "save" this planet (besides making less money - unlikely!!!) was to not have kids or fewer kids. Simple. Then Brand says that more food needs to be produced using genetically modified plants because they produce more/faster. Wait a second! First he says the population is drastically declining - then says we need to find out faster ways to make more food. Seriously, Stewart your age is showing ... or is it age is bringing closer to the roman catholic church. There is no "scientific" proof that "modern" genetically modified food is "safe".
Yup must be a conversion to Catholicism - that the climate change is being caused by us little "ants" running around on the surface of this planet - that the earth is the center of the universe - you know heaven, hell , every egg gets a sperm - and all that other RC dogma.
the points that aren't strawmen.
Regarding long term waste storage, this is being handled for coal waste by letting it sit in the open and leach into the ground. The worst we do now with nuclear is a MUCH better solution (and yes coal waste is deadly and yes it is killing 10s of thousands of people as we speak).
Pebble Bed reactors can't melt down and the coolant doesn't become radioactive, these are concerns with old technology reactors (and theoretical concerns that have caused much more actual harm to happen from coal power plants--we didn't build nuclear because of what might happen, so we built coal despite what does happen, aren't we big smarties).
The environmental movement's war on peaceful nuclear power to stop proliferation is one of the biggest strawmen of all: stopping the US from building new nuke plants certainly hasn't done anything to stop proliferation of nuclear weapons, if anything it has made it worse since developing nations can't buy safe and monitorable nuclear plant technology from the US, they get it from Russia, China, and North Korea.
So we see the law of unintended consequences strikes twice: the Environmental Movement's war on Nuclear power in the US has led to an increase in proliferation of nuclear weapons and an increase in environmental degradation.
Woo hoo.
There's a bright side to this. As with PETA, over time people are becoming more and more skeptical of hard-core environmentalists who seem completely unwilling to modify their cherished views in any way, shape or form. They sound more and more like religious fanatics blindly following holy scripture than folks concerned with providing feasible and acceptable alternatives to perceived problems.
If they keep up the whacko "Gaia is the Earthmother! All hail Gaia!" approach eventually they'll marginalize themselves out of existence. I say let them destroy themselves.
Max
My god carries a hammer. Your god died nailed to a tree. Any questions?
is that the future will have a hogher proportion of pensioners than ever before. People who consume without putting back (at worst), or people who are not allowed to put back and starve (at another worst).
How will the future CEO's handle this? Compassion or by dropping them like a hot potato?
The nuclear industry is one of the most cautious I know of. Look at the redundant safety systems and the layers of steel and concrete (not to mention red tape) protecting all modern US, Canadian, and European nuclear plants and you'll agree: they're very cautious.
The main problems I have with GM crops are:
-it creates a vendor lock-in (Monsanto sells the poison and the plants)
- it creates a vendor lock-in (plants are (can be) genetically sterile to prevent spreading in the wild, but you cannot get your own seeds)
-they patent it, therefore it becomes expensive (no poor 3rd world farmer is going to be able to use it)
-if it is done like it currently is done it promotes chance that weeds will mutate to become tollerrant (never use only 1 attack mechanism in your poison).
The question is, do we, with our modern technology, really want to become hunters and gatherers again, living in severely reduced numbers, such that the ambient food supply is always there replenishing itself?
That certainly seems to be the extreme position. Of coure, the extremists seem to assume that their superior 'moral' position will somehow assure that they and their greenie friends will be the ones that survive the great die-off, while us evil consumer-types will be the ones that perish.
Max
My god carries a hammer. Your god died nailed to a tree. Any questions?
Actually, cities can be much more environmentally friendly than distributed residences.
Apartment buildings are much more efficient to heat and cool than single family houses. Density in cities means people have significantly shorter commutes and are much more likely to take public transportation, yielding huge benefits in engergy consumed and pollution generated. While cities are point sources for pollution, the overall pollution output of cities is less than if the same population was distributed, e.g. living in the suburbs.
There was a great story about this in The New Yorker last fall, maybe the october issue? Finding the reference is left as an excercise to the karma whore.
Of course not all GMO's are safe, not all of anything is safe. If I were to shoot you, unless some Real Scientist could prove you were safe, you'd be shot. As for TMI, I suspect that each coal-fired power plant, releases more radioactive material into the enviroment than TMI did. Each smoke detector will eventualy release more radioactive, fissile products into your local land fill than will ever be released in an accident transporting spent fuel rods to a waste repository or reprocessing plant.
.than your department store shelf.
You wouldn't believe the amount of training, proceedures and paper-work required to transport to transport one M8A1 chemical alarm because it contains the americium 241, the same stuff in your household smoke detector, and in less quantity
Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds
DDT is the best chemical yet created for killing of mosquitos. Banning DDT in the third world has allowed mosquito populations to grow. Mosquitos carry diseases such as west nile and malaria. West nile and malaria have killed many people. The envoronmentalists (not just ones in the US, either) caused DDT to be banned in order to recieve international aid (IMF, among others). Environmentalists banning DDT has caused mosqitos to infect people leading them to an early grabe. Thus, environmentalists have killed people. That is the logic being used. (NOTE: Not my opinion, I just know the logic behind this one).
Fly me to the moon Let me sing among those stars Let me see what spring is like On jupiter and mars
I wasn't disagreeing with you, merely making fun of my fellow overweight Americans! Sorry for any misunderstanding.
If someone says he and his monkey have nothing to hide, they almost certainly do.
Thanks for pulling this lame argument out of your ass, again.
There is a world of difference between combining two closely-related plants and combining a Soy plant with some fish genes.
Selective Breeding, Hybridization have been practices for thousands of years, but have always occured between closely related species. We have a pretty good idea how it works.
However, never before in history have we combined organisms from two entirely different kingdoms. It's a new field of study, the long term effects are largely unknown, and we need to be careful.
I'm not opposed to GMO foods outright. However, every time this discussion comes up some fuckwit tries to water down the argument with tghis 'selective breeding' argument.
94% of Repubs and 21% of Dems voted to renew the Patriot Act
But you're forgetting about the rare Golf Ball Weevil, a beetle which bores holes in lost golf balls and lays its eggs inside of them. The larvae gnaw upon the nutritious core of the golf ball, emerge, and then fly away to find new golf courses.
Cities just can't do that. They're too dense with humans to support sustainable ecosystems.
There are some zoos that are more humane than others and the more humane ones tend to have bigger habitats for their animals.
The other thing orbital space habitats buy you, aside from a place for technological civilization outside Earth's natural habitats, is time for humans to learn enough about themselves to humanely evolve themselves to a different mode of life entirely. Cramming humans into cities with our current ignorance of human biodiversity and nature is hubris. Worse, those who are most in a position to influence public policy are most adapted to urban environments and therefore are in a position of public trust and authority while they have an interest in cramming the more rural-adapted folks into environments where those folks are at a competitive disadvantage.
Seastead this.
I don't think I was giving you the kneee-jerk response. I merely stated that the purpose of GM is to give those companies higher profit. Where that also does better for farmers and food supply - in th e long term, great. But one should never make the mistake that those companies are doing this for the "greater good of humanity." As long as you know their motivation and can work with it, fine. But keep its limits and side-effects in mind.
As for round-up resistance, the thing that worries me most about it is that I keep hearing about "jumping genes" that move from species to species much more readily in plant and bacteria than in higher animals. It gives me just a bit of fear about how soon we'll have roundup-resistant weeds, and whether that will happen faster because we've put these designer genes into our crops. (Roundup-resistant weeds may also may happen slower this way, for the same reason that antibiotic effectiveness degrades when people quit after they feel better, rather than take the whole treatment. The knockout punch is best.)
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
Concidering that
1 forrestry companies plant, two to three trees for everyone harvested,
2 the trees that they plant are specialy bred to be more effiecent at producing the type of wood desired, unlike existing trees which furhter reduces the consumption of existing wild forrests
that recycling paper would actualy be a bad thing
Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds
The parent poster is right: 'herbicide resistant crops' mean crops that are resistant to herbicides (as opposed to being resistent to diseases).
Therefor, whether 'they' are 'going to' drop herbicides with reckless abandon will depend on the 'they' (note that some GM-users do exactly that, though), but in any case, it *does* mean one *can* dump large amounts of herbicides on the plants, without causing damage (to the plants that one is cultivating, that is).
Maybe you meant something else then 'herbicide resistent'?
--- "To pee or not to pee, that is the question." ---
Perhaps I'm ignorant, but are such strains as described above commercially available, and used right now? I'm unaware of any of the "riskier" GM derivatives being used in commercial ventures at this moment.
My point in the parent is simply: we've been doing GM for centuries at varying levels, and demonizing the whole process with a Luddite viewpoint of "GM is bad, mmmmmmkay?" is bogus.
P.S. it's normally bad form to add an ad hominem attack such as "fuckwit" as it tends to water down the idea that you're a thinking individual actually interested in debate.
You better watch out, there may be dogs about . .
I want to apologize for the harshness of my response. Most of that was intended for some others who had responded to your comment.
As for the possibility of resistance jumping, it is a legitimate concern. However, the gene used for roundup ready crops was discovered in the wild. Genetic researchers very rarely synthesize genes from scratch. More often they find a useful gene in one place and put it somewhere else, and since roundup had been used for a long time before roundup ready corn was introduced and the gene hadn't jumped species before there is not a strong argument for believing that it will happen now.
The reason that gene transfer is such an issue with antibiotics is due to the brevity of the generational period. some bugs can experience several generations in a single day, and microbiota transfer genetic material far more easily than plants. Each cell of bacteria is capable of becoming the progenitor of a new population. While the potential is there for plants, the likely hood of this happening isn't. The plants involved here reproduce sexually, and the only way a new gene can become the progenitor of a new population is if it is a seed. otherwise any modification to that cells genome die with that cell.
Bureaucracy expands to meet the needs of the expanding bureaucracy.-Oscar Wilde
Show me an alternative energy source, and I'll show you an 'enviromentalist' that is against it.
We can generate safe, relatively clean energy, but for every solution, there is a BANANA (Build Absolutely Nothing Anywhere Near Anything) with a reason why we shouldn't:
Hydro-electric energy is safe and clean. Sorry, the fish don't like it. Blow the dams.
Nuclear energy, as designed with current technology, is both safe and clean.
But the BANANA will scare you with tales of old technology and fourth-rate Soviet workmanship, and tell you the same will happen here.
Coal, with the new technology, is cleaner than it was, but it won't last forever. The BANANAs "may" be right on this one.
Wind power is clean, safe, and wind farms are cropping up in many places.
But, Green BANANAs think they are a threat to birds, and the vibrations may cause other problems.
And, dude, they don't look nice and they take up a lot of space.
Tidal power is being used in Japan and places in Europe. But, there's a Green BANANA objection there as well; they return to the fishies for that one.
We cannot progress as long as we are buying Green BANANAs, and I'd be willing to bet that the environment will further be harmed if we continue to listen to the unripe bunch as well.
Yes, and I live in Alabama. In can be over 90 and 99% humidity for over 100 days. I have summered here many years without A/C. But I'm young. I think that climate control as implemented in the US is very wasteful. Central heating and air, while nice, heats and cools a lot of empty rooms in the peoples' McMansions. And large office buildings are empty half the time (or more) yet are heated and cooled as if someone were there all the time. We need to think of better ways to live and work. I just don't think it was a fair comment that some of the alternate energy sources are "rickety". There are numerous examples of self sufficient homes. It costs alot, as much as some of the SUV's and cars that people drive, but unlike them, it would pay for itself. Large cities, are a whole different problem. Granted, I heat with natural gas, and sometimes I've been known to use a window unit A/C. But I have to wear a sweater at work (in a very cool office) in the summer. I think people have grown soft, but I guess it is only a sign that we are a prosperious nation. That gets cheap oil overseas. Things are the way they are because it has been the path of least resistance, I suppose. To do otherwise takes foresight and thought. I ride my bike as transportation as much as possible. We need (and in my opinion, should want) mass transit and more bike lanes. Fewer automobiles. We could simultaneously tackle obesity as well. But I'll have trouble getting the rednecks to give up their big ass trucks (the ones that need them are good ole boys BTW).
Yes, I know what I'm talking about, being as I grew up in New Jersey and spent enough time weeding our own hard-won tomatoes and working on the far more productive local farms.
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
Congratulations, you've just said the stupidest thing I'm likely to read all week. Consider understanding communism before you start using it as a blanket insult.
Oh, and I'm an environmentalist because I love America, not because I hate it. I appreciate its beauty and hate to see it whored off to industries whose goals are to produce product as quickly and cheaply as possible. If you think industry is capable of regulating itself when said regulation is against industry's prime interest, then you're very naive. Environmental restrictions are one of the few areas that governmental restrictions are required.
The classic glycophosphate herbicide is Monsanto Coroporation's "Roundup". Using them has nothing to do with newer and more deadly herbicides.
Surviving any mass die-off is a roll of the dice initially through plague and famine, followed by inevitable tribism and warlords, followed by a realization of "this sucks!", followed by a re-start of civilization, followed by the exact same sequence of posts to Slashdot II in a few thousand years.
-- Microsoft is the most expensive commodity operating system and office suite vendor in the marketplace.
Do they not recoup and produce more energy than was used to make them? Over the lifetime of the panel? We should also look at vegetable oil as an enegy source. Of course, a lot of people say that you need petrochemicals to grow them in the first place (like plants didn't grow before petrochemicals) There is a lot of fallow land in the US. Ethenol is an energy loss, hydro electric is established, nuclear, well I'm open to it. Cities are both simultaneously wasteful (the way we implement them) and have economies of scale going for them. Windpower needs wide open spaces, and wind of course. There are no easy answers.
Corn isn't anywhere near what its original form is, being modified for years and years to be the tall vegetable we're accustomed to.
In fact, corn has been so un-naturally selected it can't even breed on its own any more.
Simple economics. Farmers are in business to make money. When you are talking about 2000 acres, the cost of everything adds up. When you can turn the sprayer down to half the volume and get the same results as before because you can use a different, stronger poison, that appears on the bottom line.
The typical suburban lawn gets at much chemicals as a 20 acre field. Homeowners care about their green lawn more than the environment, and the cost is so cheap they don't care. Farmers are using much more expensive fertilizer (something that doesn't target their crops), applied more carefully.
Actually, I believe that with this plan you use less herbicide. If you have to use one certain kind because others will kill your crop, (which is true in many cases of GM) the only way to get rid of weeds is to give them larger and larger doses of weedkiller. This way you can just spray a small amount of a different kind and get the same or better effect.
What we should worry about is one company owning the rights to the pesticides and "locking farmers in" to using their seed and chemicals. But if you can easily buy weedkiller brand x and use it on this rice, then I have a hard time seeing a downside to it.
A strain of paranoid prevention can be worse than the disease, whate'er the intention.
-because if seeds migrate to a different farmer's plot of land who doesn't have the planting rights, they can be sued:
-because they are forced to pay for gm seeds over and over again:
(both of the above found here http://www.dailytexanonline.com/news/2004/11/18/O
-because they can be harmful to people economically and environmentally. http://www.globalpolicy.org/socecon/trade/gmos/
more information about gm foods/animals here: http://www.ornl.gov/sci/techresources/Human_Genom
and as for fluoridation, there are arguments for and against. i personally am against it, considering the information out there. http://www.positivehealth.com/permit/Articles/Den
http://www.health.gov.on.ca/english/public/pub/mi
i think he really downplays the risks that exist for the different issues he's touched on. maybe it doesn't spell out doomsday if we have corn that's built to withstand disease and whatnot, but what about a farmer who gets sued b/c that corn happened to pollinate some of his corn?
sure, if there's open source gm product patents, that's a start. still, it worries me.....
His first point, anout slowing demographics, is not very much debatable: it is as it is, and if it's in decline, it's in decline. Whether we will level out completely, or go down, or up again, is not as clear cut, however. The author gives as main reason that people go to cities, but I think this explanation is inadequate, and certainly not enough to explain the changing demographics.
It should be noted, for instance, that, during the middle ages, the amount of children born in cities were no less then those on the countryside. What did change, though, is the empowerement of women (also in matters of procreation) and social and medical advancements. THOSE are the real reasons why demographics go down. It also follows that, if, by some disaster or serious economic and scientific decline we would degrade into former levels of welfare and reduced possibility for the women to control any family planning, demographics would go up again. It is therefor not an absolute certitude that the world-demographics will continue to decline...this is only true as an extrapolation, if everything remains the same. However, it is exactly the danger of this sort of extrapolation that the author is (also) lamenting against.
As for GM crops, I fear he really simplifies the subject too much to be useful in making a rational decision about the pro's and cons. Basically, he over-optimistically only says the pros, while barely mentionning any of the cons - as if they were unimportant.
It should be noted however, that with living organisms, you can not simply test it out in the wild, and then expect to be able to put the genie back in the bottle when things go wrong. Once you contaminated an natural earea, and the contamination is a sufficiently advantage (in a darwinistic sense) to stay around in the genepool, there is no way in hell you can get rid of it completely, when it turns out it is damaging humans or other species.
Now, he's counterargument that those don't survive in the wild seems rather weak. In effect, some GM genes *already* have contaminated other 'wilde' crops, and it didn't sizzle out in the wild, on the contrary. So, maybe some GMs will not survive in the wild, but you can bet some will, however. And he, nor anyone else, can garantuee that such GM or hybrid crops can't be damaging or unhealthy to other species, including humans.
Also, the reductionist view of 'we're not doing anything else then what people have been doing for centuries' is somewhat misleading too. Yes, ppl have been breeding crops, and cultivated crops are not 'natural' in the sense that they occur in the wild...but it's an unfair analogy, because one is comparing oranges with apples. For instance, with GM, it is perfectly possible to make genemodifications between two completely different species of plants. In effect, those trans-species swapping of genes with GM, can be done between animals and plants. In all those centuries that 'we have always done that in breeding' I would like to see any example where this has been tried before. No; this is a totally new technique, with new possibilities, certainly, but also new consequuences (which we do know knothing about) and new dangers. You can't just shrug those of with claiming, falsily, that we've been using those techniques for millenia.
Apart from that, even purely economically, I doubt it has all those beneficial effects as the author claims it has or will have - more about that at the end.
The weather and nuclear fission...well, I agree with that part. I do think the greens are just dead wrong in their crusification of nuclear power. Sure, as the author says, it has it's problems of its own, but those are rzally miniscule compared to the far larger and imminent (and worldwide) threat of global warming. Fine if you shut those reactors down, IF YOU HAVE A VIABLE ALTERNATIVE - but, wishful thinking aside, there currently is none. The author correctly points out, that, even if you cobine all other alternatives together, you still will only have a fraction of
--- "To pee or not to pee, that is the question." ---
Coming from a large US farm background (2000+ acres of corn and soybeans) I can say the GM crops reduce fuel and chemical consumption in many ways.
For instance in the 70's, we used to run mechanical cultivators through the corn at least once and the beans 2-4 times to root out the weeds. (think big tractors). Now, my brothers don't even own a cultivator. They use spot treatments of Roundup and other chemicals to kill the weeds. And believe me, at the cost of Roundup, they experiment all the time with reduced concentrations, spot treatments, etc. Fewer trips, fewer chemicals, less cost to the farmer.
Jim Wildman jim@rossberry.com
I have a nuclear power plant 3 miles from my house. Everyone in town loves it. (when we think of it at all. We just know it pays a lot of taxes and you never see it) The big city in the state hates it and wants to close it down, even though it isn't in their backyard.
His following theories are so weak it would be easy to rebut them- would that only get me branded as a naive romantic? Like with the supposed Christians that tell me the devil gives people rational arguments to doubt (their version of) the true faith, I suspect there is no use arguing.
Nuclear energy will save us and the earth that rest on four pillars. Amen.
Information: "I want to be anthropomorphized"
Instead of focusing on the negative, environmentalists need to start telling us about the positives. For thirty years it's been one doom and gloom scenario after another. But this earthday PRI released their annual Earthday statistics paper. This year the US had the lowest recorded level of pollution ever. Why isn't this being hailed as a environmental victory? Our birthrate keeps going down year after year. Why isn't this lauded by Malthusian environmentalists? The US has more timber acreage than in any time in history, but no one knows about it. Why?
It's one thing to claim that there isn't a problem, but it's just as pigheaded to pretend the opposite that there has been no progress.
Don't blame me, I didn't vote for either of them!
Wait a minute, half the other anti-environmentalists on here are claiming that all trees are grown in tree farms therefore recycling paper isn't necessary. How could preserving national forests for owls and other creatures possible negativaly effect "tree farming"? You people need to get your anti-environmentalist attacks straight.
In any case, anti-environmentalists hate American and all it stands for and are quite willing to tell you how bad we are for trying to protect our country. The anti-enviromentalists like Limbaugh and jgardn really just want a Stalist state where rolling clouds of cancerous pollution choke the life and liberty from our democratic society. I'm not sure how the anti-environmentalists got to hate America so much, but the do and I, for one, won't stand by while they destroy our great land.
And Skippy was enlightened.
"Learning is not compulsory... neither is survival."
--Dr.W.Edwards Deming
Actually, here, as in several other parts of your message, you hit the nail on the head.
What degree of "proof" is needed? How "safe" is safe? What degree of risk are we willing to assume? Do the benefits greatly outweigh the risks?
Unfortunately, it seems as if too many people in the environmental camp cry out for absolute proof and zero risk. Since that is obviously an impossibility, they insist we do nothing.
A case in point are the casks developed for transportation of spent nuclear fuel. They drop them from 100 feet, run trains into them, and so on, and yet for some people they never seem to be "safe" enough.
It's not that it's not safe, it's just that it's a convenient delaying tactic.
Any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so.
You seem to miss the point. First of all, there is a difference between 'will' and 'can'.
Secondly, it is not inconceivable that some farmers will do so (and I believe, some already do exactly that). For instance, it can be out of habit, or a misguided sense of 'more is better'; so when a little bit of herbicide kills 60% of unwanted plants, they think a lot of herbicide will kill even more.
Or, for instance, the bad herbes get immune against it, and the farmer has to dump increasingly large amounts of herbicide on it to have the same result. Where this dumping had a former limit to the point where his cultivated plants also became affected by the herbicide, there is now no limit (or a much higher one), because his plants are 'herbicide resistant'. Which, logically, amounts to being able to dump a LOT more of herbiceds on the fields.
Point is, it IS conceivable (and not even farfetched) that farmers do exactly that, so the parent poster was right. They CAN (and some probably will) drop more herbicides on their fields then they used to.
--- "To pee or not to pee, that is the question." ---
They most certainly are not. Most have everything to do with money. People have made fortunes on being able to regulate the scarcity of resource supply. That covers the gamut of everything from Governments regulating logging rights to Exxon ensuring they make a profit.
They've been able to do this because of the relative difficulty and money involved in delivering these resources.
Sustainable economies are unatractive because of two reasons, they either remove the scarcity of obtaining the resource, thereby eliminating profit potential and undermining the market system itself (ie wind/tidal power), or they require a bit of a technological jump in order to be realized.
Solving the first problem requires nothing short of a revolution.
People talk of hydrogen cars etc. but if it can't be done now, why would it suddenly be possible in 25 years time?
It's amazing how things suddenly become possible when they are the only solution. Hydrogen cars are completely feasible today, it's just that there are more cost effective solutions avaiable. Once oil becomes 200-500% more expensive than it is today, the hydrogen cars will suddenly be "discovered".
Excep you have to feed citys how many tractor tralers of food and other things come into NY every day? If you cut out 10,000 cars with mass transit but have to replace it with 90,000 TT's having to bring food in from 1400 miles away is that saving? When you clear land for a high voltage power line is that localized pollution? When you make towns in upstate NY go away so you can put in a reservoir so the city has water is that less dammage?
Recombinant DNA techniques were developed from the life cycle of bacteria. Retro virus have long been known to transfer genes from wildly different organisms (ie Chicken Flu). Cross species gene trans-location has been occuring naturally. Lastly there is always mutation for the occurence of new genes.
Maize and dogs are two of Humanity's longest running genetic engineering experiments. A chihuaha, cocker spaniel, bull mastiff, and a wolf all have the same genetic ancestor. There are traits in modern (unenhanced via GM) corn that just do not exist in maize.
Caution is warranted in GM foods, but that is because the change happens so fast. Changes that might have taken a Mellineum to take effect, happen in a single generation.
Just a Tuna in the Sea of Life
Did you miss the part of the article that said that this rice actually removes herbicide from the ground? Once your weeds are killed the rice sops up the excess and processes it into harmless chemicals. The rice had 20x less herbicide in it than conventional rice, plus the growing medium had nearly zero of the applied herbicide in it, while with conventional rice, the growing medium still contained 25% of the orginial herbicide. One of the main problems of irrigating otherwise fallow croplands is that evaporation leads to concentration of the residual herbicides and fertilizers that are applied to the ground. These run off into lakes and streams, further polluting the environment. If we can eliminate herbicide runoff from this, then we should be behind this wholehartedly, regardless of if it sells more herbicide or not.
I already responded to this question.
Seastead this.
To be fair, nuclear power is a tricky beast. The main problem is the safe storage of the byproducts, which tend to be very nasty. The best I can see is dumping them into some subduction trench and let the earth itself recycle it (how's that for irony). All of these issues does add to the overall cost of things.
I have often heard the idea of subducting nuclear waste thrown around and, as a geologist, I have never heard of a worse idea. If you bury nuclear waste in a container in the upper layers of oceanic crust near a subduction zone you will be subjecting it to:
Immediate exposure to a corrosive salt water and increasing temperature environment
Increasing compressional stress due to accumulation of sediment and stresses in the accretion wedge.
Huge accoustical stresses from large earthquake in the decending slab.
Melting of the already leaking container within a few million years (at most) due to subduction.
Efficient aerial dispersal magma laced with radioactive goo through pyroclastic eruptions, lahars, and lava flows
Not really a good idea is it?
an ill wind that blows no good
" Except you have to feed citys how many tractor trailers of food and other things come into NY every day? "
The same amount of land would be needed for the spread out community. The distances would tend to be greater because of the lower density of the population. And you lose the ability to use more efficient methods like rail. If you look at energy per ton mile it goes something like this. Ship, Rail, Tractor Trailer/Jumbo jet, Car, and at the bottom small aircraft. It tends to use a lot more power to move lots of small shipments than a few large ones.
"When you clear land for a high voltage power line is that localized pollution? "
But you would have at lest the same amount of land cleared for power lines for a spread out community not to mention all of the right of way used for power poles that are underground in a large city. So yes it is localized in that it is smaller total footprint. Also you do not have to destroy the land to put up how voltage wires. While you may no t like the way they look the wild life really will not care much. They do not block migration paths.
"When you make towns in upstate NY go away so you can put in a reservoir so the city has water is that less damage?" We are talking impact on the environment so the destroying of a town is not a negative in this context.
You would still need a water system that would support 3+million people. So yes again it is no worse and probably much less of an impact than supplying the population spread out in single family homes. Also you have to look at the actual impact of the water system. The New York City water system is actually pretty low impact for the population it supports. The reservoirs create new ecosystems and are kept in pretty good condition. Now the LA/Southern California water system is a nightmare but then LA/Southern California is sort of the worst of all possible worlds a spread out huge population in an area that really can not support it.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
Your idea of taxing those in the 1st world countries into a less-modern lifestyle isn't a solution. FYI not everyone wants to go back to horse & carriage transport, iceboxes, oil-lamps and well water. Besides, that's not where the real demand is anyway. It's not due to "piggish consumption" -- much of the increased demand for power comes from the citizens of third-world countries who would like to better their lives with refrigeration for their food and homes, appliances to perform some of the cooking and cleaning chores, vehicle transportation and increasing development of industry.
Is this the same United Nations whose staff engaged in sexual abuse of defenseless refugees in Kosovo, Sierra Leone, Liberia, and Guinea?
Is this the same United Nations that accuses the United States of human rights violations while electing Libya to chair the Human Rights Commission?
And I am supposed to take a self-serving report from such a corrupt, self-serving organization seriously because????
We must be alert to the danger that public policy could become captive to a scientific-technological elite. - Eisenhower
SUVs are station wagons. What makes them better is that station wagons essentially became illegal due to the CAFE regulations. If we got rid of fleet fuel economy standards, station wagons would make a comeback in no time.
I play Nerd-Folk!
Actually, this was effectively debunked by Gerard O'Neill in his book "2081" if not his earlier book "The High Frontier".
The earth to orbit transportation economics of an electromagnetic catapult system (other systems are possible such as Hans Moravec's Rotovator(tm)) result in far less environmental impact than sustaining the same human terrestrially.
Moreover, the energy and transportation scale required to have a net depopulation would be comparable to the current airline industry.
Seastead this.
I found the article's arguments about how quickly population is leveling off to be pretty surprising, so I headed over to www.census.gov to check out the numbers.
Though the growth rate is decreasing slightly, it still looks like a problem to me. The US is gaining a person every 13 seconds, and the world is gaining 2.3 people every second. The census projects what things will look like in 2050 assuming that the growth rate will continue to decline at the same rate, and we still will have 10 billion people by 2050.
It looks to me like the article was factually correct, but it only reported on the best looking numbers.
The numbers are there. No fundamental technological breakthroughs required nor even materials advances.
Seastead this.
There is a very good chance that Paul Erlich will ultimately be proven correct. He just misjudged the pace at which the changes have occurred.
Have you been watching the situation unfold in the Darfour? This is precisely what Erlich was prediciting.
Human population is leveling off in large measure because we are becoming much better at killing each other off and more people are living at the margins of human existence, hence mortality is rising, while famales are producing less offspring in suboptimal environments. Typically, the most efficient means of disposing of the excess is through starvation and witholding medicial care of the young. Infant mortality is on the rise (including in the US).
Oh yes, we love to delude ourselves into thinking we are making progress on all fronts. While it is true that in some respects we are making "progress", such progress is largely for only the very fortunate few.
If you don't think resource shortages are occurring, perhaps you haven't been to the gas pump lately. If you don't see mass famine, I suggest you move to Central Africa, where you can get a better view. If you don't think polution is worsening, wait till the Chinese all own a car but in the meantime, check out the substantial increase in Chinese produced air pollution is now producing a globe circling smog.
Frankly, you better start preparing for the worst. It will come sooner than you think, primarily because there are far too many who think like you do and would rather dump on "envionmentalists" than accept any responsibility whatsoever to change your own behavior.
If you really think global warming is not occuring, you really have to have blinders on at this point in the scientific debate. For each glacier that you can show me that is increasing in size, I can show you 100 that are decreasing.
Perhaps you are among the many, who seem to ignore the commandment not to "bear false witness". I guess the 11th commandment is more popular these days, not that it will save any souls, especially yours.
They're not going to dump herbicides with "wreckless abandon" because doing so takes time and money. Farmers, like most people, don't want to spend either unproductively.
You are absolutely correct, except for one thing, Farmers are usually in a worse financial position to waste money on things like herbicides. Anyone that hasn't been in the agricultural business has no idea how much herbicides and insecticides cost, and how little most farmers want to use them. The only reason farmers use pesticides at all is to protect their investment and bring more product to market.
As GM plants become more common, less herbicide will be used, so the cost of said herbicides will increase (theoretically) proportionally. The chemical manufacturers will still make their money, the new biotech companies providing the GM plants will make their money, the farmer will get screwed and people will complain about how evil the frankenfood and herbicides are while ordering their $2.99 cheeseburger.
Find coupons in Greeley
Look, this "population growth is a problem" myth has been around for decades. It's also wrong.
See the Julian Simon vs. Paul Ehrlich bet. Basic supply/demand theory suggests that if there is an increasing demand for a limited supply of resources, the price on those resources ought to rise, correct? This was the premise by which biologist Ehrlich made a bet with economist Simon -- that increasing population growth increases the demand on a limited set of resources, and thus the price of those resources will rise.
But Ehrlich was wrong. Prices of a basket of commodities in the bet decreased quite markedly over 10 years. Why? Technology and efficiency gains. Simon won the bet: prices of each of the 5 bet-on commodities fell, despite the population around the world rising over the same period.
Why do some enviros continue playing the overpopulation card? Who knows. Economic illiteracy and retardation, I guess. IMO, a a more-legitimate environmental challenge to solve is that of urban sprawl and the crowding-out effect it has on natural animal habitats... and those of air and water pollution...
Is Capitalism Good for the Poor?
The perils of GM come not from shifting the frequencies of genes already in natuarl populations as domestication and selective breeding do, but in creating new genetic combinations whose behavior in the wild (should they be accidently released) are impossible to predict. We are in effect producing xenobiotics. They may prove innocuous and we have no way of knowing a prior if they will not.
"As you no doubt know, rose bushes are fundamentally unhealthy organisms which only thrive with massive doses of fertilizer, insecticide, and herbicide, so those of us who raise them know all about this."
My dad has rose bushes growing in front of his house in Colorado (which has been undergoing droughts for the past few years). In 10 years he has never watered, fertilized, sprayed, or even trimmed them. He gets giant, beautiful rose blooms every year.
Now, he would probably get more blooms if he used the things you mentioned, but they're far from necessary for beautiful roses.
In an oversimplistic way you attempt to draw inference from the selection on individuals to that of populations of individuals.
I fear at a deeper level you are probably right, there are no noble humans (or at least not enough of them to make a tinkers damn). After all it only takes a few knotheads to destroy what nature and entire civilizations have strived to attain over millennia.
What you paint is a vague picture of human doom. Where the only places capable of sustaining life after nuclear war will themselves become military targets precisely for that reason.
As for your comment, "In short, while I agree that the idea of protecting and preserving the environment is fantastic I do not see an efficient way to reach that goal. Sure, we can all take baby steps in our own lives to try to help. However, in the face of clearcutting/slash-and-burn farming in a third of the world, CO2/SO2/NOX emissions in billions of tons, PCB's, pesticides, and heavy metal dumping me riding my bike to work or recycling my plastic dosen't mean jack shit."
What you are saying is that if others fuck up, I might as well too as this gives me an excuse for not riding my bike.
When you tuck your kids in for the night, don't forget to tell them to kiss there asses goodbye, since as you note, you don't provide them any alternative.
I see his points and agree with some of them, but I think his "rational scientist" is more a "technology enthusiast". He is so in love with his ideas. But many of them sound absurd/dangerous. Engineering an microbe that attacks a certain invasive species and then dies out? Is there anyone who would want to let this genie out of the bottle? A central "World nuclear waste reprocessing plant?" Yea, coz that's gonna happen.
'scuse my Buddhist slant, but "doing nothing" is also an action, and often times it is the right action. Meaning in this case, that *not* coming up with high-tech solutions for low-tech problems.
Instead of engineering freak plants that produce their own herbicides, we could simply think about how to not use herbicides at all, and give at least as much money to the research of organic and IPM agriculture as goes into GM crops.
Where do these goofy ideas about going to Mars so that we can use it to our benefit thereby solving our environmental problems come from?
Do a few calculations and estimate the cost of sending just one person there? Its staggering.
Then look to current trends in space science and ask yourself is it even realistic to even suggest that the near term problems facing humanity on earth (habitat destruction/pollution/global warming/population pressures) are going to be solved quickly enough for utilization of mars to be even relevant? We can't even sustain manned missions to the moon (and can bearly break even with respect to near orbit now that we are down two shuttles and soon no Hubble). One certainly doesn't have to rail against environmentalists, dirty hippies or other hob-goblins to see that this isn't likely to happen.
To suggest that the technical experts on UN scientific panels are to be regarded in the same way as a few guilty of malfeasance, is really a basis to question their science is remarkable. Perhaps someday someone will tell this poor rube that UN science panels are largely picked by the scientific community from the best available scientists in from many countries.
I guess the moral of this post is that one shouldn't stand in the way of a Republican on a diatribe.
Don't make me laugh.
First and foremost requirement for membership in a UN panel is agreement with the UN agenda.
In this particular case and in the case of Kyoto, the agenda is to redistribute the wealth of "first world" countries to "third world" countries.
Science has nothing to do with it.
The only "evidence" of global warming is your precious "computer models" comprised, conveniently enough, of proprietary code so that nobody can know what the true calculations are, just the magic result.
We must be alert to the danger that public policy could become captive to a scientific-technological elite. - Eisenhower
Since we are making decisions for the good of the whole world already ("Should we hold back the entire world economy because of it? I think not."), I propose the construction of nuclear reactors in the most cheap, economical way possible, followed shortly by the relocation of all nuclear proponents, and their children and grandchildren, to housing settlements nearby and downwind. This will maximise the economic success of the reactors while making room for all of us who don't want to live near them.
In fact, if we just killed off all nuclear proponents, we would reduce our energy needs enough to not need nearly as many reactors to begin with. Since nuclear proponents surely represent a minority of the world's population, this should be just fine by your "greatest good" logic.
From the article:
"Ignore the origin and look at the technology on its own terms. (This will be easier with the emergence of 'open source' genetic engineering, which could work around restrictive corporate patents.) What is its net effect on the environment? GM crops are more efficient, giving higher yield on less land with less use of pesticides and herbicides. That's why the Amish, the most technology-suspicious group in America (and the best farmers), have enthusiastically adopted GM crops."
Less use of herbicides? HAHA!!! Not even close. Many GMOs are made herbicide resistant so more herbicides can and are being dumped onto crops, fact is herbicide resistance encourages the use of more herbicides. How about increased yield? That I know of there's not one study that has concluded GMOs increase yield, however some studies has concluded they don't:
3. Does GE actually increase yield, or even have the potential to increase yield?
US Secretary of Agriculture, Dan Glickman, reportedly stated in a 1996 talk to the World Food Summit in Rome, that "Biotechnology can give us a quantum leap forward in food security by improving disease and pest resistance, increasing tolerance to environmental stress, raising crop yields, and preserving plant and aimal diversity" If you listen to radio advertisements aired in Ontario just last week, increasing yield is one of the key selling features of GE crops. But are these claims scientifically defensible?
Although "increasing yield" is one of the most common benefits attributed to GE, evidence to substantiate this (or any of the other oft-repeated claims) is hard to find. Lappe and Bailey (1998; p.82) analyzed data from soybean yield trials reported by Ashlock (1996). Yields from the 1995 and 1996 years were reviewed, with yield of Roundup Ready (RR) soybean varieties contrasted with that of their nearest conventional counterpart. In 30 of 38 comparisons, the conventional variety outyielded the RR variety. Mean reduction in yield of the RR varieties was 4.3 bu/ac or almost 10%, a loss which was statistically significant.
A more recent review of 40 soybean varietal trials in the north central region of the US by Oplinger et al. (1999) found a mean 4% yield drag in RR soybeans. Even comparing the top 5 varieties from each, RR still yielded 5% less than conventional soybeans. Thus, there is a cost to the crop from expressing the genes for Roundup resistance, and it manifests itself in lower yields.
Brown (1998) cites evidence of a marked plateauing of yield in most major world food crops. He contends that the really major gains in wheat, rice, and corn yield occurred between 1950 and 1990, due to improvements in harvest index, coupled with intensification of resource use. Gains since 1990 have slowed markedly, as the potential for additional gains is rapidly used up. It is difficult to see how genetic engineering, particularly with the simply inherited traits prominent in current GE crops, can fundamentally lower the "wall" inhibiting further gains in yield.
FalconDebunking the Myths of Genetic Engineering in Field Crops
Should there be a Law?
Why would herbicide resistant crops need less herbicide? You're trying to kill weeds, right? You haven't changed the weeds, so why would you need less herbicide? Why would you even bother making the crops resistant to herbicides if you're going to start using less?
If you want to use more herbicide, I could see maybe using herbicide resistant crops--maybe the regular crops can't handle the amount of herbicide you want to use.
-- . . ramblin' . . .
"What you paint is a vague picture of human doom
Actually, what I did was take numerous examples from contemporary society and world events and also myriad examples of nations throughout recorded history and apply them to the example at hand. In other words I used the established pattern of human behavior that has been unerringly followed throughout history and made a prediction about how things might turn out in the furure. Not too hard to do when you study history.
"What you are saying is that if others fuck up...
Actually you take that out of context. I think the idea of conservation and limiting pollution is great, and I do my part. HOWEVER...what one person can do on the positive side is infinitessimally small compared to the forces on the negative side. The only people concerned with cutting down on consumption are those with the luxury of doing it, and a vast number of those do not even care. That works out to be a really small part of the world.
Regardless, I do participate, but you seem to think that if I ride my bike to work I will save the world for my children. All I am pointing out is that that kind of thinking is moronic. Fundamental changes need to be made in the way that people think and react to reality for environmental concers to become top priority.
Maybe a giant climate shift would wake people up. Unfortunately, if it goes ice age on us I can see people strip mining the USA for all the coal we have (largest coal reserves in the world, BTW) just to keep warm. Imagine what that would do to the environment! In fact, I can see a vast increase in the consumption of resources if we did have a fdrastic climate shift, regardless of the temperature direction. People would throw all caution and restrictions to the wind in an attempt to maintain status quo, or just to stay alive for that matter.
Maybe I am a bit pessimistic, but how can you look at history, the trends of mankind, their treatment of eachother and their world, and think any other way?
When the only tool you have is a claw hammer every problem starts to look like the back of someone's skull.
Scientific skepticism demands that you acknowledge that science still has only a very incomplete view of how any biological entity works, and a very hazy view of how our climate and ecology work.
"Natural" may not be "ideal" but it is what has gotten us to where we are today. I'd say it's even more romantic (and less rational) to believe that ~400 years of scientific study is more trustworthy and safer than millions of years of "natural" biological processes.
The skeptical approach demands proof commensurate to claims. There's not much proof that GM corn (for example) is dangerous, but there's also not much proof that it is safe. Compare to the amount of proof that "natural" corn is safe for growth and consumption.
BTW, a central tenet of support for GM products is that they are in fact more "natural" than chemical products, because they are modified living organisms vs. manufactured products. Even the support for GM includes an assumption that natural > synthetic.
That you can guarantee that there will not be any negative, unintended consequences to growing engineered, higher quality protein content, drought tolerant corn in Africa.
You can't. I know the implications of growing unmodified corn--it's been around for thousands of years. I don't know the implications for GM corn--and neither do you.
Or, if we distributed the food we already have more fairly, we wouldn't even need genetically modified plants.
Getting the food that's already being produced will do more to feed the hungry than GE, GMO crops will. In many third world countries food doesn't make it into the hands of those who need it. In others farmers are driven off their land wherein the produce doesn't make it to market and is allowed to rot in the fields. Fact is is that most farmers can't even afford to buy gmo seed much less pesticides and herbicides.
FalconShould there be a Law?
"Designed to sell more of their own pesticides"? Genetically modified food reduces the need for pesticides, as well as reducing the amount of farmland we have to use. Perhaps you're thinking of "Roundup-ready" crops which are immune to the plant-killer "Roundup". The thing there, though, is that Roundup is one of the most environmentally friendly ways to kill weeds that I know of, and Roundup-ready crops make it possible to use Roundup instead of less friendly herbicides.
Perhaps what was meant was "sell more of their own herbicides". In that case it's true, Roundup ready seed means more roundup Ready can, and usually is, dumped on crops. As for crops bred with pesticide mechanisms, yes it may reduce the need for pesticides, up until "pests" build an immunity. It can also adversely affect nontarget species. Meanwhile both herbicides and pesticides destroy healthy soil thus requiring more chemical inputs. Why use either when there are better methods?
FalconShould there be a Law?
"Montaso vs Schessmier" has already locked this into Canadian law by the Supreme Court of Canada, and since US law shares precedent with Canadian law, it's the law there too.
In the end that's the goal of Monsanto and other GMO companies, to get a lock on market segments so farmers are dependent on them.
FalconShould there be a Law?
Actually, it is worse than that. When a bacterium finds a piece of DNA, from whatever source, it can do two things. eat it (food) or use it. Many bacteria actually spit out DNA fragments for this purpose. Genes can jump species this way. The short generational period is not enough to develope antibiotical resistance as fast as it has. (they thought of that when the first started using antibiotics, and figured that it wasn't a big enough problem. They did not think of (know about?) the gene swapping thing.)
Laws are horrible moral guides, moral guides make even worse laws.
I suspect similar reasoning is why medical cannabis is has been an issue between the DEA and alternative medicine anecdotes.
Hemp, aka cannabis wasn't always considered "alternative medicine", at one tyme it was very much excepted by the AMA:
"Did Anyone Consult the AMA?"
However, even within his controlled Committee hearings, many expert witnesses spoke out against the passage of these unusual tax laws.
Dr. William G. Woodward, for instance, who was both a physician and an attorney for the American Medical Association, testified on behalf of the AMA.
He said, in effect, the entire fabric of federal testimony was tabloid sensationalism! No real testimony had been heard! This law, passed in ignorance, could possibly deny the world a potential medicine, especially now that the medical world was just beginning to find which ingredients in cannabis were active.
Woodward told the committee that the only reason the AMA hadn't come out against the marijuana tax law sooner was that marijuana had been described in the press for 20 years as "killer weed from Mexico."
The AMA doctors had just realized "two days before" these spring 1937 hearings, that the plant Congress intended to outlaw was known medically as cannabis, the benign substance used in America with perfect safety in scores of illnesses for over one hundred years.
"We cannot understand yet, Mr. Chairman," Woodward protested, "why this bill should have been prepared in secret for two years without any intimation, even to the profession, that it was being prepared." He and the AMA" were quickly denounced by Anslinger and the entire congressional committee, and curtly excused.3
*The AMA and the Roosevelt Administration were strong antagonists in 1937.
When the Marijuana Tax Act bill came up for oral report, discussion, and vote on the floor of Congress, only one pertinent question was asked from the floor: "Did anyone consult with the AMA and get their opinion?"
Representative Vinson, answering for the Ways and Means Committee replied, "Yes, we have. A Dr. Wharton [mistaken pronunciation of Woodward?] and {the AMA} are in complete agreement!"
With this memorable lie, the bill passed, and became law in December 1937. Federal and state police forces were created, which have incarcerated hundreds of thousands of Americans, adding up to more than 14 million wasted years in jails and prisons - even contributing to their deaths - all for the sake of poisonous, polluting industries, prison guard unions and to reinforce some white politicians' policies of racial hatred.
(Mikuriya, Tod, M.C., Marijuana Medical Papers, 1972; Sloman, Larry, Reefer Madness, Grove Press, 1979; Lindsmith, Alfred, The Addict and the Law, Indiana U. Press; Bonnie & Whitebread; The Marijuana Conviction, U. of VA Press; U.S. Cong. Records; et al.)
The Last Days of Legal Cannabis
Falcon
I know it is off topic but felt it still needed to be answered.
Should there be a Law?
Didn't read the article, did you? Go find the paragraph about flouridation.
I read the MIT article twice and did a search of it and didn't come across "flouridation". I may of missed it and the search function may be broke, so can you show me where it is?
Let me explain by analogy. I'm not a farmer -- but I do raise roses as a hobby. As you no doubt know, rose bushes are fundamentally unhealthy organisms which only thrive with massive doses of fertilizer, insecticide, and herbicide, so those of us who raise them know all about this.
Like you I'm not a farmer though I do garden. I don't grow roses, mostly herbs and fruits and vegetables, but there are people who do grow them, garden like I do, organically.
Let me lay this out in short sentences. Herbicide resistant crops need less herbicide. That's not good for the chemical companies, but bad. Simultaneously, it has a net positive impact on farmers, food, and the environment.
First, why do herbicide resistant crops need less herbicides? The reason to make them resistant is so more herbicide can be used, which is the case. Because a farmer's crop is resistant the farmer can use more herbicide. Maybe you're thinking of pesticides? Here's an article about herbicides use for herbicide resistant crops:
Genetically engineered soybeans will increase herbicide residues in food by up to 200 times
Auckland, 25 February 1997 The US-based manufacturers of a genetically engineered soybean have applied to the Australia New Zealand Food Authority (ANZFA) for a two hundred fold increase in Roundup residues in Soybeans. The application calls for allowable residues in dry soybeans to rise from 0.1mg/Kg to 20mg/Kg.
The dramatic increase in residues results from the Roundup Ready Soybean, a genetically engineered soybean produced by Monsanto, which is resistant to Monsanto's own brand of herbicide - Roundup.
Last year, Monsanto promised the New Zealand public on Morning Report that such genetically engineered crops would result in reduced use of herbicides. This year the truth is coming out. The New York Times reports that soybean farmers in the USA are dowsing their crops liberally with Roundup. Monsanto is reported as very pleased by the increased sales of Roundup. However, consumers should not be pleased, since soybeans now contain dramatically elevated residues of the herbicide. Soybeans are used in up to 60% of processed foods such as baby foods, chocolate, bread, pasta, sauces, ice cream etc.
FalconGE soybeans will increase herbicide residues in food
Should there be a Law?
Almost all the people you discribed sound like hippys to me (know it all college hippys mostly, no doubt some stoned gigglers in the mix).
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
A good (bad) amount of the natural uranium (and other tasty treats) stays in the bottom ash (which is used to clear roads in some areas).
They are thinking of processing bottom ash into nuke fuel but as far as I know there is'nt much incentive as prices are low.
Lighter things like mercury mostly go up the stack (yum).
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
As GM plants become more common, less herbicide will be used, so the cost of said herbicides will increase (theoretically) proportionally.
Studies have already been shown that when herbicide resistant crops are planted more herbicides are used. Afterall that's why they are made herbicide resistant.
FalconShould there be a Law?
Same gripe I have about jalapeno peppers....I remember when they used to have some heat to them...but, some idiot has been breeding them for lack of heat. I swear, I've gotten some fresh ones, that weren't any more spicy than bell peppers. I've switched to serranos for now...at least they haven't bastardized those yet...
It does seem peppers are loosing their heat. Serranos have some but the hottest I've had in the past few years are Thai hot peppers. I want to grow both of them this year as well as anchos or anaheim and scotch bonnets. Some with heat and some for stuffing.
FalconShould there be a Law?
you seem to have missed his point.
He was saying he use to use 100 gallons of pesticide A on traditional crops....with GM crops he now only uses 10 gallons of pesticide A.
Now if you go to pesticide B which is 20X stronger you would only be using HALF a gallon instead of 5 gallons....the GM crops still use less pesticide.
It's seem you're missing the point, it's herbicides not pesticides being talked about.
FalconShould there be a Law?
It gives me just a bit of fear about how soon we'll have roundup-resistant weeds
They are already here, Roundup Ready resistant weeds have been found in the "wild":
Weed with Roundup immunity galloping across state
John Woodmansee4 0526/localnews/503241.html
Chronicle-Tribune, May 26 http://www.chronicle-tribune.com/news/stories/200
A herbicide-resistant weed that arrived in Indiana two years ago isn't standing still.
Marestail populations that are immune to glyphosate were first identified in 2002 in the southeast Indiana counties of Jackson, Bartholomew, Clark, Jefferson and Jennings.
LRecent field inspections by Purdue University researchers found the weeds in another 15 counties to the north and west, said Bill Johnson, Purdue Extension weed specialist.
Glyphosate is the active ingredient in many herbicides, including Roundup.
Indiana farmers annually plant millions of acres in crops genetically modified to withstand Roundup applications. This year alone, 88 percent of the state's projected 5.45 million acres of soybeans are expected to be Roundup Ready varieties.
"We had a few isolated fields in southeast Indiana that were showing poor control of marestail with glyphosate in 2001 and 2002," Johnson said. "By late 2002 we'd confirmed glyphosate resistance in four counties, and we highly suspected it in six additional counties.
"We did some extensive field surveying in the fall of 2003 and now believe we've found glyphosate-resistant marestail in about 19 counties, mostly in southeastern Indiana," Johnson said. "We've found it as far north as Wells County, as far west as Montgomery County and as far south as Perry County."
Marestail -- also known as horseweed -- is a thin-leafed annual weed that can grow to more than 6 feet tall if undisturbed. The weed produces seed in July and August but can emerge at almost any time during the year.
"This weed is problematic for a number of reasons," Johnson said. "First and foremost, the weed's biology allows it to behave not only as a winter annual but also as a summer annual. I'm convinced that this weed can germinate and grow any time the soil is not frozen."
He said the second reason marestail is troublesome is that it already has developed resistance to ALS inhibitors and triazines.
"So we're running out of effective tools to manage the weed," Johnson said.
Aceto-lactase synthase (ALS) inhibitors kill weeds by preventing them from producing essential amino acids necessary for growth. Triazine herbicides work by interrupting a weed's photosynthesis.
Marestail's ability to reproduce poses a third challenge, Johnson said.
"The seed of this weed spreads rapidly. Because it's so adaptable, the weed easily could become a predominant weed on our landscape, much as giant ragweed, giant foxtail and velvetleaf have done," he said.
Farmers are relying too much on glyphosate-based herbicides, according to Johnson. If farmers begin noticing glyphosate-resistant marestail in their fields, one option is to utilize 2,4-D in their burndown applications next year.
"We know that 2,4-D is very effective on these weeds, so farmers need to use it in their burndown if they have marestail in their field, regardless of whether they think it is glyphosate-resistant," Johnson said.
John Woodmansee is the agriculture and natural resources educator and director of the Purdue Cooperative Extension Office in Grant County.
Originally published Wednesday, May 26, 2004
FalconWeed with Roundup immunity galloping across state
Should there be a Law?
Environmentalists come in all persuasions just like neocons or troglodytes. I doubt that most of us agree with your generalizations.
1. Population: Humans aren't subject to the same carrying capacity issues as other large mammals, but it's pretty clear in the fossil record going back to the Pleistocene that we blow through lots of resources as our numbers increase. There would be a lot more species alive today if not for man.
2. Urbanization: I bet most environmentalists live in cities. Cities save people from the stultification of rural life. The people I know who hate environmentalists all live 50 miles from the nearest Starbucks.
3.GM Food: You're right on this one. Environmentalists mostly have it wrong.
4. Nuclear power: It's coming back. The hardcore environmentalists are wrong,but I think lots of sensible people would like to see a change in our government's energy policy, too. If we had set CAFE standards with teeth twenty years ago we'd all be driving 40 mpg cars today.
PH
A better way to fend off depression induced by 'Green' concern is to realize that enviro doomsayers like Stanfords Paul Ehrlich, et al were proven wrong. And still are wrong. Lay off the junk science. Your brain will clear and you will be happy again :-)
Studies have already been shown that when herbicide resistant crops are planted more herbicides are used. Afterall that's why they are made herbicide resistant.
Studies by whom? We all know that studies can be twisted to say many things. I'm sure more herbicides of certain types are used, but less of other types are used. As posted earlier, pre-emergents are used to control weeds on some non herbicide resistant crops (my personal experience is with Pinto Beans). This means that a herbicide that will keep weed from germinating is sprayed on the ground and then worked in prior to planting. This is done because Pinto Beans are particularly susceptible to many of the products used to kill broadleaf weeds (2-4D for example). The only way to control weed population is by using a pre-emergent, or to weed the fields by hand (machine cultivation isn't generally possible with pintos because the vines grow across the rows). If a herbicide resistant pinto bean was planted weeds could be killed using Roundup, 2-4D, or whatever herbicide the GM beans are resistant to as needed rather than using a pre-emergent just in case the weeds show up.
I'm sure in some instances more herbicide is used with herbicide resistant crops, but generally farmers are using some type of herbicide anyway. Herbicide resistant strains just make it possible to use cheaper, safer alternatives.
Find coupons in Greeley
http://www.motherjones.com/news/feature/2005/05/so me_like_it_hot.html
Follow the money etc...if even some of this is true then things need to change. I hope more people read it to open some eyes
Actually, it's the Left that's opposed to fluoridation now too. See here:
For eons now, liberals have teased conservatives about one thing (well, many things, but I'm thinking of one in particular): the fluoridation of water. "Oh, you work at National Review? What do you do, write editorials denouncing the fluoridation of the water supply?" Ha, ha, ha. (Actually, we spend our time advocating separate lunch counters for Negroes.) In many quarters, "fluoridation of water" is a code word for right-wing kookery. Well, imagine my surprise -- and delight -- when I was talking recently with a dentist friend of mine and the subject of water fluoridation came up: "We still have to fight on that, all over the country," he said. "What," I said, "you mean the Birchers are still at it?" "Oh, no," he replied. "It's the Left. The opposition comes from the environmentalist, earthy-crunchy, sandal-wearing Left." Well, well, well. Who's laughin' now, baby?
If environmentalists would just buy the old-growth forest, they could accomplish their goal and do so without interfering with other people's livelihood. But that's not the accepted solution - it's easier to just find someone who owns part of that forest and try to change the law to make them do what you want them to do.
The fact that this solution is almost entirely ignored in favor of legislation makes these advocates look like "the government will save us" extremists even when they aren't.
Just trying to make the other POV clear.
-Yndrd1984
As an ex-NukeE and the son of an ex-NukeE, let me qualify that for you: the United States nuclear power industry has a good safety record overall; Chernobyl put a nasty blip in the international stats, and we'll never know the exact death count.
TMI, on the other hand, went quite well overall, aside from trashing a several hundred million dollar toy. The US has lost a few people over the years... and mostly learned from the mistakes so that it stayed only a few.
//Information does not want to be free; it wants to breed.
You got me there, when I said studies have show herbicide resistant crops use more herbicides I got the information from different websites, so your question spurred me to check and see just what studies drew this conclusion. I found this:
Evidence of the Magnitude and Consequences of the Roundup Ready Soybean Yield Drag from University-Based Varietal Trials in 1998"
This report reviews the results of over 8,200 university-based soybean varietal trials in 1998...
Use Trending Upward
Experience in the field in 1999 suggests strongly that use of Roundup this year will rise perhaps 15 percent to 25 percent above 1998 in terms of average pounds of Roundup applied per acre. In 1998 USDA data show that the average rate per crop year for Roundup on soybeans was 0.92 pounds and there were on average 1.3 applications per acre. In 1999, use will trend upward to perhaps 1.6 applications per acre and 1.2 pounds per acre on average.
To place this level of Roundup use in perspective, in 1998 well less than 0.5 pounds of herbicide were applied to the vast majority of soybean acres not treated with Roundup. On perhaps 15 percent to 20 percent of the acres, the rate was well under 0.25 pounds. So compared to these systems, RR soybeans are heavily herbicide dependent.
Moreover, because of weed shifts, resistance, price cuts and aggressive marketing, Roundup use is bound to rise sharply in the next few years, hastening the day when farmers will be forced to seek new solutions.
What comes next is the soybean farmer's $64,000.00 question. It remains to be seen whether any company or public research institution will come forward with answers that cut to the core of soybean weed management challenges. In the current economic and policy climate, this vital task might be left to growers themselves.
It names some of the studies or trials though not all, at more than 8,000 I understand.
The only way to control weed population is by using a pre-emergent, or to weed the fields by hand
Those aren't the only methods of weed control, there are organic methods as well. Two such methods are cover crops and mulching.
FalconShould there be a Law?
Yes, but companies like Monsanto create the food crops to be sterile, and become the only source for the seed stock. Sure they can lose a little on herbicides now to have a strangle hold on food production later. I for one do not care to have the Monsantos of the world to have that kind of monopoly. Also, where human enterprise is concerned there are always trade-offs. I agree that in the long run we will probably get GM right. We can ooh and ahh about the commercial successes of GM, but what kind of damage might we be doing to the environment and ourselves while we are figuring it out? The article and comments I have seen so far do not acknowledge other viable alternatives to nuclear power and GM crops. I'd rather be dealing with the downsides to crop diversity and rotation, and wind power generation (carbon nanotube superconductors are on the way to efficiently get the power form the windfarms to the cities) than the downsides of GM and nuclear power generation AND waste management.
Introducing natural pesticides that eliminate or reduce the use of man-made chemicals that injure both the environment and the health of the people consuming the food while lowering the cost of the food
Because it's natural it's safer and won't harm the environment? That's usually what proponents of biotech usually accuse those against it of saying. As for lowering the costs of food, how does it do this?
# Increasing shelf-life, and therefore the range at which food can be reasonably delivered (this directly impacts the price of food in the third world, as getting food in place before it rots is a huge cost).
There's an easier, or at least better way to get food to people before it rots, grow the food closer to them. Better yet have them grow some of their own food. Indeed, while more and more people are moving from the country to cities, city farms, city gardens, and community gardens are also getting more and more popular.
FalconShould there be a Law?
The thing that gets to me about this whole discussion is the prevalent attitude that the Farming community is some organized evil that wants to poison everyone. That is just NOT true. Any Farmer I've ever met is more in tune with nature than most people that shop at the local whole foods store. All they want to do is grow quality products and be able to survive on the fruit of their labor, but to do that in the culture we have created they have to use herbicides.
Oh, I agree with you one this very much. Farmers are trying to live on their land and make a living wage from it. I "blame" big agrobusiness, like ConAgra, Tyson, and others for the low prices farmers get more than I do the government. Where I blame government is with all the subsidies gov gives out, and it's usually to the same companies or factory farmers. Actually that's one reason the WTO meeting fail in Cancun, back in 2003 was it? The EU, Japan, and the US wanted Third World countries to eliminate their import tarifs and to stop subsidizing their own farmers but they refused to agree to this before the First World stopped subsidizing it's own agrobusinesses. With these subsidies exporters from the EU, Japan, and US could export food to the Third World and sale it for less than it costs local farmers to grow crops.
FalconShould there be a Law?
Can you give a possible mechanism for these "unimagineable long-term digestive and other diseases" that may come from monkeying around with protein chains?
I can't give you what you're asking for, at least not now, but I can give you an example of possible health risks. It has to do with allergies, some people are allergic to Brazil nuts. It was found out that when a gene from the Brazil nut was transfered to soybeans those who were allergic to the nut were also allergic to the soybeans. Who knows what other allergins or health problems can come from GMOs?
FalconShould there be a Law?
And if you want tomatoes that taste like tomatoes - buy organic, or just grow your own. I just don't understand why the heck GM is needed to get a good-tasting fruit or vegetable. I'm surrounded by delicious vegetables that were grown organically. None of the GM foods or standard aqgricultural produce comes anywhere close in terms of quality.
I couldn't agree with you more, actually I believe most people should garden, grow at least some of their food. If a person doesn't have much tyme or space they could try a community garden, which are getting more and more popular in cities. They could also try CSA, Community Supported Agriculture. Personally, I'm planning on growing one or two different tomatos, maybe three peppers, some cauliflower, onions, maybe some carrots and/or radishes, and some herbs.
FalconShould there be a Law?
The traditional way of killing weeds is by tilling. Tilling adds to erosion and releases carbon into the atmosphere. With Roundup, you can cut down on tilling, or stop tilling altogether.
I have no idea which is worse, tilling or Roundup, and it probably depends on the soil and climate, but it goes to show that these things are complicated.
And, of course, Roundup-resistant mutations will pop up. But that in itself is not an argument against Roundup as such anymore than antibiotic resistance is an argument against the use of antibiotics. It is an argument against *indiscriminate* use, but there are indeed lots of poisons that we use since a long time that are beneficial for us, used with moderation.
Both of which have GM modifications for sale as we speak.
You are correct, the grandparent was speaking of herbicides while I typed in pesticides but the point is still valid. Both chemicals are needed to acheive good growth and BOTH types of chemicals have been inserted into various GM crops.
I used the wrong word...I admit it....but that mistake actually strengthened my argument by pointing out how GM plants can allow you to lower the use of SEVERAL different types of chemicals.
Sorry, but as Secretary General of the United Nations, Kofi Annan is something more than "a few guilty of malfeasance."
If the very top leader of the United Nations is a crook, explain to me why anything the United Nations does should be taken seriously?
I dare you!
We must be alert to the danger that public policy could become captive to a scientific-technological elite. - Eisenhower
Perhaps you should read Caves of Steel again. A few MASSIVE cities, yes.
"most of the land free of people"? Well, technically, yes, but it was cleared of people to make room for farmland. Pretty much every arable acre was under cultivation to feed the population in those MASSIVE cities.
What is most interesting is that the massively populated world described in "Caves of Steel" was only slightly more than our current world population (8 billion in CoS, 6 billion and change now). In fact, the MASSIVE city in the story was smaller than modern Tokyo. Actually, it was smaller than any of the dozen largest cities in the world today, and less than half the size of Tokyo....
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
I could very well be wrong, but I am under the impression that most logging takes place on public lands. Logging companies buy/lease the right to log areas of public forests. In which case, the environmentalists are simply lobbying their government concerning their opinion as the how to manage a public resource. Really no different from what the logging industry did by getting the government to let them log on public land in the first place. I don't know if buying the land is really an option for either party. Both sides are simply lobbying for government regulations which favor their position.
Is wanting to save the last 5% of old growth forest really the extreme position? Granted when all the other old growth has been cut (which it mostly has); the remaining old growth become increasingly valuable resources. It is completely understandable that private interests would want to exploit them to make a lot of money. But their value is exactly why they should be preserved.
And as I recall, fuel efficiency in the 70's wasn't that great, and only improved with the oil crisis and the introduction of small Japanese cars to the market.
I wish that the same bill that the US Congress passed in the early 1960's that prohibited government agencies from competing with private communications satellites had instead, or in addition, prohibited government agencies from competing with private launch service companies -- even if that meant the first man on the moon was a Russian communist.
Your logic is essentially that of someone looking at the Jamestown settlement and claiming it is ridiculous to think the colonization of the New World would be largely a fiat accompli within a century.
You understand the limitations of government space programs quite well and underestimate the exponential power curves of economic growth.
Seastead this.
People have been living in cities for thousands of years, and have been increasing in life expectancy for much of that time.
I just want to give folks a heads up. I think we should all shy away from saying things like "the environmental movement" because it's a lot like say "the open source movement." Or did I miss a memo and has everyone switched to the GPL now?
You are correct, the grandparent was speaking of herbicides while I typed in pesticides but the point is still valid. Both chemicals are needed to acheive good growth and BOTH types of chemicals have been inserted into various GM crops.
Neither pesticides nor herbicides are needed for good growth of plants. What is needed for good growth is healthy soil, which chemical inputs destroy. Organic farmers and gardeners along with those practicing permaculture, all of which are experiencing growth, are proving this. To receive certification as organic you've got to prove herbicides and pesticides amount others are not used. Fact is organics and permaculture shows no chemicals such as herbicides and pesticides are needed.
FalconShould there be a Law?
Also, eating muesli and selling organically grown tat (what's that?)
What's tat, where can I get it, and how do I trade it for that other thing?
You're so full of shit, I'd be suprised if your snot wasn't brown.
First, the hard-core base of all of these movements are hard-core communists.
This is a line right out of Dr Strangelove. Do you find yourself woried about the purity of your natural fluids?
OF COURSE environmentalists sometimes impede corporate interests. If corporate interests weren't harming the environment, there would be no need for environmentalists! It's a check and balance.
and if we went back to the fuel efficiency of the 60's and early 70's, then all of our cars would still produce an insignificant amount of pollution, compared to the power plants and other industries.
No.
http://www.epa.gov/otaq/cfa-air.htm
You want more pollution and less fuel efficiency? What do you want, your teeth to fall out and to give your entire paycheck to the middle east? And then, what happens when we run out of oil? You didn't think of that in your brilliant plan, did you?
Try picking up a book and reading it, instead of letting your right-wing radio talkshow host tell you what to think.
The only reason this planet can currently support 6 billion people is BECAUSE of chemical fertilizers, herbicides and pesticides.
You are correct, plants will grow without treatment. They grew in the wild before domestication and most species can grow there now. To "grow" plants need dirt (sometimes even very poor dirt), air, water and light.
The difference is efficiency. Organic farms produce a fraction of the output modern farms do. This at a dramactically larger man-hour investment PLUS a higher risk of food poisoning.
I am not debating the morality or wisdom of modern farming. It certainly has it's faults. A big one being monocultured crops which tend to be more seceptible to disease (organic farms have similar problems although not to the same extent) not to mention environmental issues.
Right now the choices are buy cheper food that has treatments or buy more expensive food with extra bacteria. Personally I go with the first, mainly because I am cheap, but others may decide differently.
Right now the choices are buy cheper food that has treatments or buy more expensive food with extra bacteria. Personally I go with the first, mainly because I am cheap, but others may decide differently.
Just because food is organic it doesn't mean it's not safer. While I've heard a number of reports of how some food item has caused illnesses or deaths, all of these reports have been of "conventional" foods. I haven't heard of one report of it happening with organic food. How many have died from Mad Cow Disease? Coming from another direction, all produce, whether conventional or organic should be properly washed and meats should be properly cooked. As far as costs are concerned, as in all free markets the greater the demand and the less available the higher the costs. As more farmers switch to organ the prices will drop, even as more people are buying organic. Organic may never reach parity with conventional food, then again it may. Yeah prices for conventional food is "cheap" in the US and other First World Countries in the grocery store but the costs of that food is actually higher. Well not really costs, bigAgra gets to pocket more than the amount shoppers pay, governments gives them massive subsidies. That's taxpayer dollars. I'd bet that if organic farmers got as much from subsidies as conventional farmers do, organic food would be a lot cheaper than they are. Not that I'm for it, I'm against all farm subsidies, I have yet to see anywhere in the Constitution of the USA about subsidizing farmers. I doubt even Thomas Jefferson who believe the USA should have an agricultural based economy would have put up with them.
FalconShould there be a Law?
By David R. Sands
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
April 27, 2005
Former Federal Reserve Board Chairman Paul Volcker says his investigation into the scandal-plagued oil-for-food program has not cleared U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan of wrongdoing, despite Mr. Annan's claims to the contrary.
In an interview aired yesterday with Fox News, Mr. Volcker took direct issue with Mr. Annan's insistence that he had been exonerated by investigators probing both his role in overseeing the Iraq aid program and conflicts of interest involving a key contract awarded to a Swiss firm that employed Mr. Annan's son.
"I thought we criticized [Mr. Annan] rather severely," Mr. Volcker said of his panel's interim report, released March 29. "I would not call that an exoneration."
Asked point-blank whether Mr. Annan had been cleared of wrongdoing in the $10 billion scandal, Mr. Volcker replied, "No."
Mr. Annan has faced calls for his resignation from U.S. critics in the wake of the oil-for-food scandal.
Under the seven-year program that ended in 2003, Iraq was allowed to buy food and other humanitarian supplies through tightly controlled sales of its oil.
But the congressional Government Accountability Office found that the regime of Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein stole about $10 billion during the period, either through illegal oil sales outside the program or through corrupt deals and kickbacks within it.
Senior U.N. officials have been implicated in the scandal, and Mr. Annan himself faced harsh scrutiny when it was learned his son, Kojo Annan, had been employed by Cotecna, the Swiss firm that won a critical U.N. monitoring contract for the oil-for-food program in 1998.
Mr. Annan, who has fiercely resisted calls that he step down, immediately claimed vindication after the Volcker panel reported on March 29 that it had found "no evidence" that the secretary-general had used his influence to help Cotecna win the contract.
In a press conference that same day, Mr. Annan told reporters, "As I had always hoped and firmly believed, the inquiry has cleared me of any wrongdoing."
He has said he was "disappointed" to discover that his son had received hundreds of thousands of dollars in payments from Cotecna for several years after leading his father to think he had cut all ties with the U.N. contractor.
Asked whether he was considering resigning from his post before his term ends next year, Mr. Annan answered emphatically, "Hell no."
The Volcker investigators faulted Mr. Annan for what they said was an "inadequate," one-day investigation into the Cotecna contract after his son's job history with the firm came to light in 1999.
Had Mr. Annan demanded a "thorough and independent investigation," the Volcker panel concluded, "it is unlikely that Cotecna would have been awarded renewals of its contracts with the United Nations."
Mr. Volcker's panel, which was commissioned by Mr. Annan last year, has come under fire with the recent resignation of two of the panel's lead investigators, Robert Parton and Miranda Duncan, who left reportedly because they thought the reports released to date had gone too easy on Mr. Annan.
A spokesman for the Volcker panel said the two had left because their contracts had expired, but Mr. Parton has said in an e-mail released to the Associated Press that he left his job over "a matter of principle."
Efforts to reach the two investigators yesterday were unsuccessful.
Mr. Volcker, in the Fox News interview, said his panel "was not meant to be soft or hard" on Mr. Annan or the United Nations.
"We are out to get the facts, and I've said from the very beginning our responsibility is to follow the facts wherever they lead."
We must be alert to the danger that public policy could become captive to a scientific-technological elite. - Eisenhower