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Publicly Funded GMO Research Facing Destruction In Italy
ChromeAeonium writes "Shortly after the events in Rothamsted Research in the UK, where a publicly funded trial of wheat genetically engineered to repel aphids was threatened by activists with destruction and required police protection, another publicly funded experiment involving genetically engineered crops faces possible destruction (original in Italian). The trial, which is being conducted by researchers at the University of Tuscia in Italy on cherries, olives, and kiwis genetically engineered to have traits such as fungal disease resistance, started three decades ago. When field research of GE plants was banned in Italy in 2002, the trial received an extension to avoid being declared illegal, but was denied another in 2008, and following a complaint from the Genetic Rights Foundation, now faces destruction on June 12th, despite appeals from scientists. The researchers claim that the destruction is scientifically unjustifiable (only the male kiwis produce transgenic pollen and their flowers are removed) and wish to gather more information from the long running experiment."
If you are genitically modifying crops they MUST be kept isoated from nature and ensure that they cannot contaminate conventional or organic farms with patented gene. Sealed greenhouse whatever. IF you can accomplish that then carry on and label your product as such.
(only the male kiwis produce transgenic pollen and their flowers are removed)
Until a single seed gets away, then the cat is out of the box.
Then there's the human factor. If anthrax can get out of controlled labs, I'm quite sure that pollen or seeds can get out that way too.
male kiwis produce transgenic pollen
In NZ, "kiwis" are only either the people (New Zealanders) or the birds, but never the kiwifruit plants! Very confusing...
/MC
The anti GMO lobby needs to get with the program. GMO is a reality. You can't oppose it. You can moderate it. But it's happening.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
The West rejects some research, so find a welcoming alternative.
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
Genetic engineering can also cause species-wide destruction or unbalance an ecosystem by introducing harmful mutations without any safeguards. The scientists here have no safeguards; just an open field with a bee colony nearby that also pollinates non-GE plants, also close by. If something were to go wrong with their experiments, say mistaking which mutation will produce a desired effect, they could devastate the surrounding crops.
No matter how charitable these guys' intentions are, their negligence could cause far worse problems (like causing anti-GE fanatics to hold up this example as yet another reason for stopping all GE/GMO projects everywhere).
It's cool activists... Monsanto will continue doing their research, with armed guards protecting their facilities, then they'll patent it and spend the next 100 years getting a nickle every time you eat.
Good work with that.
My kingdom for a donkey!
"GMO just does what human controlled breeding would take longer to accomplish."
Not really, the change is approached from a very different angle and creates a inherently different result.
You might get a similar effect if you used both approaches to get a specific desired effect but it would be a very different plant internally and the side effects of the change would be very different.
Also there are inherent problems with it being so fast. When you can create a new different plant and then have it on consumers plates in a handful of years their is far more risk than a crop strain which was developed over decades/centuries.
Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
The frustrating thing about this controversy is that the reason there's such a strong backlash against GMO plants is the widespread use of a *particular sort* of GMO plant: roundup-ready plants. Here, genetic manipulation has been used to make the plant resistant to Roundup, which is a fairly scary pesticide. And then there are the plants that have had insect toxins engineered into them. These toxins have in some cases been found to be toxic to humans as well.
OTOH, GMO products that have high yields, or are more resistant to fungus and mold, are not such a bad idea. But we treat all GMO products as the same, and so we wind up seeing stories like this one.
(Someone will probably point out that insect resistance and roundup resistance can improve yields, and this is true, but it's the side effects that people worry about.)
the 'green revolution' of pesticides and fertilizer did not end hunger. hunger is not caused by a lack of supply , but by the distribution methods. many countries that experience starvation are also experiencing brutal wars, dictatorships, lack of civil society, property rights, etc etc etc. afghanistan, for example, from 1979 to the present. they had to set aside things like crops and farming so that they could grow opium and fight a proxy war on behalf of the two the superpowers.
then there is the fact that most costs of food nowdays in places like the US go to marketing, and 'value added' stuff like freezing, dehydrating, processing, and otherwise repackaging basic wheat, corn, soy, etc, into pizza rolls, snack chips, etc etc.
for speaking their mind about issues of the day, the use of their land + water, etc etc etc.
If the activists had real knowledge of what these fruits needed protection from, they might give this a second thought. There are a lot of things happening that concerns the welfare of vegetation worldwide. They (activists) may need to do their own research before they destroy this. If certain factors are amped up which affect the weather and components of the chemical makeup of rainfall, they may regret this action. Its very secretive, still there is more than ample knowledge available concerning this.
"GMO just does what human controlled breeding would take longer to accomplish."
I love how this argument is always wheeled out.
I've never seen or heard of human controlled breeding successfully crossing a plant with a fish, yet monsanto have genetically modified some plants with fish genes.
We rigorously test new medicines to make sure there are no side effects, but a new species of plant ?, the test is to put it out into the market and hide its origins so that people dont have a choice.
I'm not saying all GM food is bad, but some may have deleterious effects upon the human metabolism, and Monsanto will let us know ?
Yeah, right......
Also there are inherent problems with it being so fast. When you can create a new different plant and then have it on consumers plates in a handful of years their is far more risk than a crop strain which was developed over decades/centuries.
No. Everyone eats the same, genetically identical plant, one one of the millions of farmers finds a mutation that seems interesting they might decide to put that on the market. Maybe they don't realize its a mutation (or does anyone else) since all it did was increase crop yield. Most times with GMO, a single nuclitide base pair is altered, exactly what you would expect with evolution. At least with GMO, the change is more officially reported and it doesn't simply "sneak" into the consumer food supply.
"fighting hunger" -> The world produces far more food then it could even eat let alone what is necessary right now. Also GMOs, since they are patented and that is how you get terminator genes, are one of the biggest issues causing/potentially causing in the future hunger and food shortages.
"better nutrition" -> We already have tons of super nutritious foods. unfortunately modern agriculture has been breeding nutrition out of their crops for decades, pretty much every food processor removes everything good with the food that they are processing, and no restaurants, snack, or junk food manufacturers ever care how good their food is for you. So if scientists succeeded and made a whole line of super foods we would be in the exact same situation as we are now. The only possible solution to (particularly America's) current nutrition problem while maintaining a moderately similar world otherwise would be for government mandated nutrition levels in all foods (and making/enforcing parents to feed their children properly [if your 16 YO son has diabetes, you are criminally negligent]).
"fighting pollution, water conservation, ect." -> I don't believe those issues have anything to do with GMOs... (I assume you are going to post back about how this one crack pot scientist has some theory that some GMO might be able to slightly help in these areas?)
Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
Who knew aphids had such rabid fans?
You should read the rest of the wikipedia article, not just the first paragraph of the toxicity section. Also, it turns out that the excessive use of roundup-ready GMO crops has, shockingly, caused evolution to occur in the midwest, where it was thought to be impossible. Consequently, the next generation of pesticide-ready GMO crops will be much more exciting. Another point I neglected to mention earlier is that if you are a farmer who does not use roundup-ready seeds, but does save seeds for planting next year, then when your neighbor's GMO crops contaminate your seeds, Monsanto will sue you for violating their patents.
When you can create a new different plant and then have it on consumers plates in a handful of years their is far more risk than a crop strain which was developed over decades/centuries.
AHahahahahaha...
Yeah but people have no problem introducing invasive species like Japanese Lilacs. Ah the irony.
Om, nomnomnom...
Italians have voted to not do this. They're tired of US corporations like Monsanto pushing them around. Actually, the US with the push of its power elite was heavily involved in fixing elections and installing a puppet government in Italy, and then making sure that government couldn't be tossed out once it was in. Now Italian workers are told they have to suffer under "austerity" (for them) and be ruled by foreign banks and foreign corporations.
Good for Mario Capanna and company. The Italians democratically voted this in, I have no desire for the Monsantos of the world to find some way to weasel around this. What does Monsanto do anyhow? Create plants with sterile seeds, so Monsanto can then grab all of the farmer's money? Sue farmer's whose fields are next to Monsanto seed fields, alongside the blowing winds, and get the courts and government's to side with them against small farmers?
The antiquated, anti-enlightenment ideas are not the working people and small farmers trying to protect themselves against a small handful of parasites trying to take ownership of everything. The backwards, antiquated ideas are the corporate newspapers and websites who attack anyone against against handing the whole world on a plate to the parasite heir Monsanto majority shareholders. In Italy, in Greece, in Spain, at Occupy Wall Street and Occupy everywhere, people are fed up with the high unemployment, and the expropriation of surplus value from the majority of working people to a handful of parasitic 1% heirs. This Monsanto GM IP deal is no different than the big companies in IT who own all the patents and are parasitically suing everyone around, and harming economic growth.
A major problem that isn't generally discussed is the pests and diseases don't just cry uncle and move on to non commercial food sources. The problem is evolution kicks in and they get resistant. They are already finding it in some GMO crops. Ultimately the pest and diseases get tougher so they potentially are even more damaging to traditional crops while GMO crops go back to the drawing board. It's very similar to what is happening with antibiotic resistant diseases. It's very much like the old cold war where each side builds bigger weapons. Eventually one side looses and I doubt it'll be nature. The problem is if we loose this war billions potentially starve. Basically all staple crops are being genetically modified so the entire food supply is at risk. I know the belief is science always solves every problem but the antibiotic analogy proves that isn't the case. There are now many incurable strains of diseases with no solution on the horizon. Do we really want to go through the same nightmare with food? It'll take 20 pr 30 years for us to be in the same position with food production but by then it will be far too late. If you don't believe it's happening in GMO crops do some web searches.
i bet the people angling to have these crops destroyed also count amongst their concerns fighting hunger, alternative fuel sources, better nutrition, fighting pollution, water conservation, etc.
I think it more likely that their concerns included autism causing vaccines, crop circles causef by aliens, and nuclear power plants exploding in gigantic mushroom clouds.
Most times with GMO, a single nuclitide base pair is altered, exactly what you would expect with evolution.
I don't think you know what you're talking about. Can you give me even one example where this is so? All the genetic engineering I'm aware of involves inserting one or more entire genes from another (usually very distantly related) organism. (And they do stuff with the promoter regions for the genes, but I'm not so certain about what the story is there.)
Quattuor res in hoc mundo sanctae sunt: libri, liberi, libertas et liberalitas.
the reason there's such a strong backlash against GMO plants is the widespread use of a *particular sort* of GMO plant.
While there is some truth to that, I really can't say I agree with that for a couple of reasons. A few considerations in no particular order of importance: glyphosate is actually one of the better herbicides out there in terms of both human and environmental safety, and while no agrochemical input is desirable input, it is one of the least damaging ones (also, not many in the opposition to herbicide tolerant crops will mention the environmental benefits they have provided by facilitating the conversion to no till and conservation tillage systems). You mention the crops with a toxin to insects in them. This is true, but it is hardly new, in fact, this same toxin has been used in organic farming for decades. There is no evidence it is harmful to humans aside from a handful of widely criticized studies. You're partially right in that those are listed as reasons for opposition to GE crops, and contribute to some of the opposition (whether or not they make scientific sense), but realistically, people would oppose them regardless. Remember that there was opposition to the first GE crop used in the US, the Flavr Savr, and all it had was an antisense polygalacturonase gene and the NPTII gene, and that you see the same opposition to things like the virus resistant Rainbow papaya, the Arctic Apple (a non-browning apple awaiting approval), and even Golden Rice. So, to say that people oppose GE for the herbicide tolerant and Bt crops is like saying people oppose evolution based on lack of transition fossils. It may be the case in the minds of some people (again, rational or not), but make no mistake, there is a deeper reason.
No, that is not how GMOs are produced. Genetic engineers insert whole genes from completely different organisms. The inserted gene doesn't even have to come from the same phylum as the original organism. Heck, maybe not even the same kingdom.
HMM?
You are comparing what some crazy, negligent to the apocalyptic consequences, farmers have done to GMOs.
And how exactly does one of a multitude of genetically identically plants be different? If they use this method are they not cut evolution out of the equation?
An actual reasonable non-GMO based agriculture business would mitigate the risks of evolution created dangerous foods to an extreme minimum.
But I cannot comment on the likelihood of evolution randomly generating a poisonous/otherwise dangerous plant from an edible one (particularly one that in a single generation is dangerous at all). I have never heard of this happening and I will admit that you cannot be in-depth testing of every single generation of the evolution of a plant being grown for consumption.
But while you say, "Most times with GMO, a single nuclitide base pair is altered, exactly what you would expect with evolution", I cannot stop thinking that a new GMO produces a useful and quite big change while a single step in evolution does not. It does not seem conceivable to go from a non-poison to a poison in one step in evolution (particularly while also improving a good quality of itself), while a lot more complex things are done in most new GMOs.
Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
Anti Science precautionary principle ecofreaks are a REAL threat to human prosperity and possibly to hman survival. If there wre ever an arguement for imposing the eath panalty, it would be against those dangerous idiots. Perhaps the crops could have a gene added that releases cynanide gas if anyone attempts to harm the crops? Love to see it.
So, you think an entire field of research shouldn't exist, and you don't care about any arguments? That's pretty much the epitome of anti-intellectualism. Also, there are hungry people in places other than Africa.
This is my signature. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
has, shockingly, caused evolution to occur in the midwest, where it was thought to be impossible
:D
Yes. Many of us here are quite aware that evolution is thought to not be possible in the Midwest.
Its not a big step. Scientists don't really know how genes operate, they can only guess on what they do based on what they've seen happen in other organisms. Many times the change in an organism is a small genetic mutation, which turns off a functionality or enables one that previous did not happen. Even when entire genes are inserted into an organism with GMO, the same thing can happen in nature with gene transfer.
Evolution is messy, current genetic makeups of organisms are far from ideal. I fail to understand why everyone is so scared of genetic engineering. Do you fear we are interfering with "gods works"? Are you afraid of the implications of what GMO will do to the human race, that you consider so sacred? Much of what GMO can do, so can nature. Why then limit all of GMO instead of just those parts that cannot be as easily changed by nature?
I'm sorry, but do you have any hard data whatsoever? Everything you've said is at best somewhat believable conjecture otherwise. I can do the same thing and reach the opposite conclusion:
"There are inherent problems with traditional selective breeding. Compared to genetic modification, it creates a very different plant internally and has many side effects, not all of them good. To take just one example, over time plants adapt to insects in their environment and create specific natural pesticides for themselves. Breeding together several strains of a certain plant increases the offspring's insect resistance by overproducing each of the parent strains' natural pesticides. It can take many years for subtle developmental problems caused by the consumption of so-called 'supercharged' insecticides to appear in humans. Genetic modification, on the other hand, produces carefully controlled, surgical changes that can be calibrated for safety. Only well-tested non-harmful natural insecticides are added to the genome by genetic modification, making the process much safer than traditional selective breeding."
Honestly, it's ridiculously easy to make this shit up. It's hard to get scientifically valid evidence to back up your positions. I understand the GMO issue is large and contentious, and it's easy to make up good-sounding scientifically invalid arguments, but still, we don't need more people just spouting whatever crap pops into their heads. The same is true for a huge number of today's arguments by the way: autism and vaccines, (anti-)gay marriage, climate change.... And if you ask for evidence, I can provide some :).
If I've misread you and you do have good evidence, I apologize in advance.
In the not too distant future the earth will reach its carrying capacity with regard to non-GMO food production
This assumes that GMO crop yields are (or will be) higher than those of non-GMO crops. So far, the evidence seems to suggest that the opposite is the case.
You obviously cannot cross a plant with a fish through selective breeding. But you're arguing the method not the result. (CS analogy, "I've never heard of a merge sort successfully sorting an array by repeatedly swapping adjacent items like bubble sort"). Just because you can't breed a fish and a plant doesn't mean you cannot get the same resultant organism through breeding. You can, but it takes a whole lot longer.
Best read up on ERVs. Horizontal gene transfer through viruses or directly between bacteria has been going on for billions of years.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
I think you're vastly overestimating people. I think the controversy controversy comes primarily from the fact that most people don't understand genetics at all; it sounds scary to them, so they fear anything that deals with it. Natural is good, and unnatural is bad. It's a similar deal with nuclear power, really, where the thing I can't see and don't understand is inherently too scary to permit.
That info is really outdated. Recent studies over larger scale and more produce show that on the average conventional produce around 34% more, the best it from organic is strawberries with organic being under conventional by 3%.
That is, of course, true. The only thing that will end hunger is if everyone lives in a free open democratic country with a decent market economy and a government that actually cares about its people, with decent education, healthcare, infrastructure, ect. Obviously, hunger is a complex social issue and a scientific solution isn't going to change the root cause of the problem. However, it is not a binary choice between GMOs will save the world vs GMOs are no help. Improved genotypes, be they transgenic drought tolerant traits or viral resistance traits, or conventionally bred traits (I follow some very fascinating research that seeks to alter the internal structure of roots and the overall architecture of the roots to improve nutrient uptake), can help people. They won't solve every problem, but look at it this way: assume you are a poor sustenance farmer in Africa where your soils are poor (phosphorus is a problem). Would you want the improved root genotype? Or maybe BXW is going to wipe out the banana crop you rely on, even if it doesn't fix all your problems, would you rather have a GE banana resistant to BXW or lose your crop? Improved crops, GE or otherwise , are no silver bullet (and I'd add biodiverse underutilized crops to the list of things of great importance...the amount of research in that field is so stupidly low it is quite frankly dangerous), but lets not forget that does not imply they are without a role, and most likely a significant one, to play in ending hunger and improving agriculture in general.
frankly we have ZERO idea what those extra strands of alien DNA are gonna do long term.
First, these sequences, they're not alien DNA, they just come from different species. Alien is a technically correct but way-over-the-top term. Please don't use it. If you must, use "foreign" DNA or some such.
Second, we know exactly what these strands are going to do : they're going to evolve and adapt to their environment, just like any other gene. They're no more scary that any other piece of DNA that's loose in nature, in other words, they're no more scary than any other part of nature. Which is to say, they're somewhere between terrifyingly dangerous, like h1n1, and a puppy. But they're no different from any other piece of DNA.
Third, and this one really makes your argument fall apart, humans are not the only ones doing cross-species DNA recombination. And we're not all that good at it compared to our competition at all. Meet the dangerous GMO experimenters that having been pulling a Monsanto for about 3 billion years, maybe more. They're, as the article shows, not doing this randomly, but with the express purpose of preventing the treatment of lethal diseases (which is what nature is trying to do to us). They're also very good at it.
In other words, it's not monsanto that's dangerous, nor their competition, nor is the spreading of a infinitesimal amount of genes in any way dangerous, nor the spreading of large amounts of DNA. It's world-travel, the fact that the world is connected, without millions of totally uncrossable natural obstacles. Tolerance and travel is what's destroying the varieties present in the human species, and import/export is doing the exact same thing to every other species. If you aren't prepared to live your life as a scared medieval peasant, self-sufficient, never even to see products made further away than the next city, and extremely unlikely to ever cross the nearest mountain he/she can see from his home, the only hope we have to survive in the long term as a global group of humans, is to keep outsmarting evolution. The only hope we have, is GMO.
Mind you, I'm not denying that patents on GMO genes are a horribly bad idea, as nature will simply not obey the law, no matter how self-important humans feel. Frankly, this is something I appreciate about "extremists" : they accept that they will bend to the will of the "nature" of the universe. Even if I don't agree with their views of the universe, it is refreshing to see people capable of appreciating that their world is not what they want it to be. In this way, of course, someone like Richard Feynman is far more extremist than most extremist Christians, and he too would have had very little tolerance for this whole attitude of "science is bad", propagated by people the vast majority of which cannot solve a simple equation, and who, of course, do not see the problem in defending ideas without data or theory behind them.
Frankly, you're little better than the original "gaia" worshippers who locked people into huge wooden puppets and set them on fire to appease nature. Except of course, that if you ever get listened to, far greater numbers of people will die.
It somehow fails to amaze me that, like every other party, the greens are the very opposite of what they claim to be, just like there's nothing republican about the republicans, just like there is hardly a trace of democracy in the democrats.
Would it be possible maybe to "save" some of the research by de-planting the tree and replanting them in a more friendly country ? Maybe crowd source it ? I would not mind to pass a few day in italy doing hard work for science, with a shovel.
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
well if it's anything like the one I consumed ,a 10 day course of a targeted antibiotic and a testicle the size of a tennis ball and painkillers to target said inflamed nut.
not all bacteria is bad but some are worse than others, and left untreated it could cause renal failure and my death.
Blarney Quality Restaurant, Plants
Yeah, but that really doesn't look at long term sustainability, if the field you got 34% more off is good to go next season, or it's bee sucked dry and needs massive doses of chemical fertilizers to produce properly.
He tried to kill me with a forklift!
None of that has any relavance to roundup being a "fairly scary pesticide". If you are going to make things up at least have them be arguments for your claim.
what's sad is my original comment is rated one
such morons are here on slashdot
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
My main objection to GMO is that we're not yet wise enough to foresee all the future outcomes.
We are already seeing such things as Roundup-resistant weeds, some from the overuse of Roundup and some from genes escaping from plants genetically modified to be Roundup-resistant. Scotts is planning on selling Roundup-resistant lawn seeds, surely a monster if there ever was one. Get off my lawn, for real.
When we become as wise as God, then we can play God. Until then we're like children playing with a loaded gun.
Everyone is so scared, mostly, because of all the really scary things they have already done with it. because GMOs are pretty much inherently a monoculture, inherently patentable, and are responsible for stuff such as the terminator varieties.
To separate the potential for good from the known bad is both impossible and illogical. It is like saying dictatorships are so much more efficient and all together a better model for government, lets just ignore Hitler.
Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
Well I would not say that I do have evidence, but it might not be of the kind you would be satisfied with (and I would not blame you, I very well might argue against myself in the same situation).
I would argue that "the change is approached from a very different angle" is self evident, the processes are simply very different.
That these different methods yield different types of results, I don't have any data on this. But I THINK just using statistical models you could prove that it is extremely unlikely for the guided randomness of evolution to produce similar results to the surgical methods of GMO production.
On the topic of which one is inherently safer, you are right neither really seems theoretically inherently absolutely better than the other. But we have millions of years of data/evidence that would seem to suggest that evolution does not produce harmful things like this (tens fo thousands for agriculture) and in particular when you have a good interdependency going on that one of them does not just evolve and kill the other (and by extension itself). Evolution seems to work quite well, and if it screws up and unbalances entire ecosystems at times then I am surprised I have never heard of it.
Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
My point is that this is on par with what breeding projects have already produced (see http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/7569064.stm where dogs have been bred to look cute, and as they grow older, their skull can't contain their brain).
Your examples are not what people are afraid of. I haven't heard "because its patentable" as a GMO fear before. If this was the only fear, then a simple change to the law would fix it.
I'd be interested to see a link to some evidence backing up your claim. Would you post one, please?
because GMOs are pretty much inherently a monoculture
What? There are many private companies and public institutions performing genetic engineering around the world.
lets just ignore Hitler.
And Stalin,and Mao, who managed to be even worse than Hitler.
I meant promoting a agricultural monoculture. Like having three strains of wheat instead of 3 thousand, each with huge genetic variability inside of them.
Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
I meant promoting a agricultural monoculture. Like having three strains of wheat instead of 3 thousand, each with huge genetic variability inside of them.
I don't think your fear makes sense. As I said, there are many private companies and public institutions performing genetic engineering around the world. Each of then will probably have many strains of wheat, designed for different climatic/economic conditions.
Add to that, the fact that organic food is growing fast [1]. Multiple strains of organic wheat will be grown for the organic market.
And if all that wasn't enough... the solution would be to lobby governments to keep a small reserve backup for each important
strain of wheat.
Therefore, using "monoculture" as an argument against GMO is absurd.
1 : http://www.ota.com/organic/mt/business.html
I have to disagree with your conclusion.
Yes having an organic industry mitigates the danger as not everything is GMO (assuming that GMOs stay as unacceptable to organics).
And preserving grains and other genetics in seedbanks and similar is important and provides a big safety net.
But you cannot just say that since we have a parachute it does not matter how you fly the plane, to use an analogy.
Also it does not matter how many private companies are performing genetic engineering, they will never produce the same variety of genetic diversity as nature where every single individual grain seed is unique. They will not even have something approaching that, and they would never try because it is not economical. Could I conceive of genetic engineering being used in the future such that you have a few varieties that each have many many sub-varieties suited to specific climates, yes. Would the system as a whole still likely be too genetically similar to be safe, yes. Am I making assumptions and judgements based on my feelings, it is possible, but I still think that GMOs are inherently monoculture oriented.
Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
We'll have to agree to disagree.
I would argue that "the change is approached from a very different angle" is self evident
Agreed. I also agree that one would expect selective breeding and GM to differ in the ways you suggest, though at the risk of sounding like a broken record what one expects is not always what one gets, and different people can expect different things. Still, I consider it likely enough not to seriously argue the point.
But we have millions of years of data/evidence that would seem to suggest that evolution does not produce harmful things like this (tens fo thousands for agriculture) and in particular when you have a good interdependency going on that one of them does not just evolve and kill the other (and by extension itself). Evolution seems to work quite well, and if it screws up and unbalances entire ecosystems at times then I am surprised I have never heard of it.
I don't agree; evolution can be wildly unsafe. The black plague comes to mind as an example. In Europe, it proved too deadly--it killed off its population too much and essentially wiped itself out. Presumably a particularly deadly strain happened to evolve. Bacteria and viruses with long-term success are typically either extremely prevalent but not very deadly (chicken pox, common cold) or not very prevalent but very deadly (HIV, ebola). It's at least conceivable that some of the mysterious civilization disappearances in history were caused by pathogens that accidentally became too deadly or prevalent and burned themselves out.
Still, evolution and selective breeding are not the same. Even in dogs, selective breeding is far from unharmful--for instance, American Staffordshire Terriers have a wide range of inherited disorders. I imagine selective breeding of plants can encourage more uniformly good traits since we don't care morally about the "bad" experiments, and I suspect plant evolution is not even remotely as dangerous as pathogen evolution, but I'm not at all an expert.
In the case at hand, I'm far, far more inclined to believe scientists who have studied GMO for years calling for the experiment to continue than to believe whatever special interest groups decide it's bad, especially if that decision is based purely on plausible but non-scientific arguments.
P.S. I reread my first post and found the tone more hostile than it should have been. Thanks for ignoring that.
Or cut down on population. Which is doable without resorting to war or murder (but, I repeat myself). Put the money into sex ed uncontaminated by religion, free prophylactics, and rewards for not having children. Positive reinforcements, not negative like China did.
There is no global overpopulation. Some places (such as Japan) are already experiencing population aging and decline, which is bad in many ways. Other places (such as the USA and specially Europe) already have sub-replacement fertility rates, and their population only grows because of demographic lag and immigration. It is predicted the the European Union population (now at 503M) will reach zero natural population increase by 2015 and zero total population increase in 2035 (at 520M), then start declining.
The USA will grow from 310M in 2010 to 403M in 2050. [1]
Asia will increase from 4.2B in 2010 to 5.1B in 2050, then start declining. [2]
The only region that is really growing is Africa. It will increase from 1B in 2010 to 2.2B in 2050. [2] Then its population density will be 67/km2. [3] Compare that to the current population density in Portugal (115/km2), in South Korea (487/km2) and in Taiwan (641/km2). [4]
Global population is predicted to grow from 7B in 2011 to 9B in 2050 and 10B in 2100 [5] and start falling soon after [6].
And according to [7], 40-50% of America-produced food is thrown away. According to [8], 1/3 of the world food is thrown away.
And this does not take into account that people eat, just for pleasure, excessive quantities of resource-intensive food (such as meat). If Americans/Europeans want to help the poor, an easy way would be to decrease (say, by 30%) their diet of meat. This will immediately reduce food demand and, for double bonus, the saved money can be donated to charity. And much arable land is wasted on subsidized inefficient corn-based ethanol. You can lobby your government to stop that.
Plus, there does not seem to be a negative correlation between population density and GDP per capita. [9]
African hunger is not caused by overpopulation. It is caused by corrupt and authoritarian governments, and by guerrillas/terrorists motivated by Marxism, Islamism, ethnic hate or simply greed.
Overpopulation fear-mongering is very old - at least as old as Malthus. One of its more recent incarnations was the 1968 book "The Population Bomb", which predicted mass starvation to occur in the 1970s.
Anyway, for better or for worse, there is already strong action taken by individuals, foundations, and Western governments, to restrict fertility in Africa.
1 : esa.un.org/unpd/wpp/Analytical-Figures/htm/fig_11.htm
2 : esa.un.org/unpd/wpp/Analytical-Figures/htm/fig_2.htm
3 : According to [2], Africa will have 2.2B people in 2050, and according to Google[10] and Wikipedia [11], the area of Africa is 30,221,532 km2
4 : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_and_dependent_territories_by_population_density
5 : esa.un.org/unpd/wpp/Analytical-Figures/htm/fig_1.htm
6 : esa.un.org/unpd/wpp/Analytical-Figures/htm/fig_6.htm
7 : http://www.foodnavigator-usa.com/news/ng.asp?id=56376-us-wastes-half
8 : http://www.fao.org/news/story/en/item/74192/icode/
9 : http://sanamagan.wordpress.com/2011/03/10/population-population-density-gdp-per-capita-ppp/
10 : https://www.google.com.br/search?q=africa+area
11 : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Africa