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Anti-GMO Activists Win Victory On Hawaiian Island
biobricks writes "New York Times reports on how the county council on the Big Island of Hawaii banned GMOs. 'Urged on by Margaret Wille, the ban’s sponsor, who spoke passionately of the need to “act before it’s too late,” the Council declined to form a task force to look into such questions before its November vote. But Mr. Ilagan, 27, sought answers on his own. In the process, he found himself, like so many public and business leaders worldwide, wrestling with a subject in which popular beliefs often do not reflect scientific evidence. At stake is how to grow healthful food most efficiently, at a time when a warming world and a growing population make that goal all the more urgent.'"
I wouldn't equate pseudoscience-believing hippies with Republicans.
in other words, going after GMO-the-technique is anti-progressive. one should instead go for (federal) regulation of GMO products. even indiscriminate labeling campaigns just naively suppress the technique, both good and bad usages.
ok, (having spoken my peace); on with the pitchforks and burning-brands!
Remember artificial sweeteners? They kept saying there were no health issues to worry about, they had peer-reviewed clinical studies showing no ill effects, and you were getting sweetness without the calories.
It seemed to a lot of us that something was wrong that story, and it turned out something was wrong. What if they had turned out to be right? No problem - those of us who abstained would've just missed the benefits of using their invention for the first 15-20 years. Well, it's the same with GMOs.
I'm not necessarily endorsing a ban, but those who want GMO-free food should be able to buy it from a local grocer.
Let's make this headline more accurate and honest, okay?
These has never been a single reputable study by anyone anywhere that has shown GMO anything to be unhealthy. GMO products have been made for decades and have been intensely studies by people with a vested interest in keeping them out. This range of scientific lunacy is in the same camp as wifi causes cancer and vaccination scaremongering.
Let's get real, this has jack to do with GMO and everything to do with eco naive that get their talking points from greenpeace and protectionism from those countries that haven't started making their own GMO foods yet. Once other countries start making their own versions of GMO foods all of the objections to GMO foods will vanish overnight from everyone that isn't an eco-naive twit.
Field tests to study new G.M.O. crops would also be prohibited. Penalties would be $1,000 per day.
What a joke.
That's a rounding error to a multinational corporation.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
So a better analogy for GMOs might not be with screwdrivers, but with concentration camps and gas chambers, which by themselves did no harm.
That is a horribe analogy. A better analogy would be comparing GMOs to Hydrogen Cyanide. GMOs can be used poorly, just like hydrogen cyanide can be used in gas chambers. But both are used for good far more than for evil.
Actually, even mine is a bad analogy. An even better one would be comparing genetically modifying foods with chemical synthesis in general. Both are simply scientific techniques. We can use genetics to change the color of food, make it resistant to pesticides, or create deadly bacteria. Just like we can use chemical synthesis to create table salt, carbonic acid, or hydrogen cyanide.
-- All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. -- Edmund Burke
More hippy FUD. "....according to the National Cancer Institute and other health agencies, there's no sound scientific evidence that any of the artificial sweeteners approved for use in the U.S. cause cancer or other serious health problems." http://www.mayoclinic.org/artificial-sweeteners/art-20046936
It all starts at 0
I wouldn't call it pseudoscience
From the hippie side of things, yes, it is. These are the same people who think that eating an "alkalizing" diet and drinking "alkalized water" is a necessity for being healthy and ridding the body of "toxins." It's pseudoscience because they have BS "science" that "proves" it. For example, there are papers by people with fake phd's that say eating protein means your pee is more acidic, which means your body is toxic. Anyone who remembers high school biology should know why that's BS (and why the "Westernmost Institution for Gaia Science" is not an accredited institution), but they believe it because they've smoked away their high school memories.
Interestingly, at least on Maui, I can't necessarily speak for the Big Island but I'm going to assume parallels, it wasn't the hippies that got the anti-GMO ball rolling, although they're the ones taking off with it. The initial ball-rollers were the taro farmers, and for entirely different (and IMO legitimate) reasons. There are a lot of small independent family (actually a family, not just a big conglomerate owned by a family) taro farmers. With taro (it's like a big potato), much of the planting is done by cutting of the top of the corm (the potato part) and replanting it. They saw what Monsanto was doing with not allowing corn farmers to save seed, and were concerned that if the taro market went to GMO the same thing would happen with taro, where farmers would be entirely dependent on Monsanto and pretty much unable to resist or remain independent.
The tests that show a link between certain GMO and cancers is "pure BS"?
Yes, actually, it was BS, if you're talking about this one. Which is why the study was retracted.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
You could have read the fine article, which nicely mentions "overuse of pesticides". The current reason to use GMO is raised pesticide/herbicide resistance,
It is also worth noting that the Hawaiian islands have one of the most unique and fragile ecosystems in the world due to the isolation of being in the center of the pacific ocean. There are thousands, if not tens of thousands, of species unique to the islands and many of them have gone extinct since man showed up, especially western man.
We've already lost hundreds of unique bird species due to the misguided introduction of mongooses to hunt rats -- rats are nocturnal, mongooses are diurnal so that didn't work, instead the mongooses raided indigenous birds' nests which had evolved in the absence of such predators so they had no protection.
Hawaii's got a sad history of this sort of thing and, for one reason or another, the GMO corps have made Hawaii one of their most popular testing grounds. It is no surprise that many of these "hippies" are paranoid.
The linked NYT article is very informative. According to it, that bogus study was the very study cited by the anti-GMO hippies in the Hawaii vote.
I think that analogous concept you might be looking for is DDT. It was originally a godsend -- it kills pests! The problem is that it also collapsed entire ecosystem (animals that ate pests, animals that ate those animals, etc.). The analogy works IMHO because it was developed by the Chemical industry (analagous to big aggro) and it provided relief from pests and the harm it caused was not immediately clear. NOTE: I am not suggesting that GMO is inherently bad. I merely mean to point out that new tech and new toys can have unintended consequences that are not immediately evident. Perhaps more importantly, the unintended consquences might not have any immediate relation to nourishment, allergies, digestibility, or human health.
In the GMO discussion, people love to bicker over bullshit like allergies, tumors, "noble" causes, etc. People do not talk as much about the insidious influence of profit motive over one's ethics. Or sensitive nonlinear dependencies between crops and adjacent ecosystems. What happens when the pests can't eat? Will our bird population leave or die out? I have heard some talk about how big aggro funds a lot of the GMO research which influences opinions. In my reckoning, this is even more direct and troublesome than big oil funding environmental studies.
Additionally, policymakers -- like those in Hawaii amply illustrated by this article -- have no knowledge of what is going on. Regulators (does a GMO seed need FDA approval to be planted? How do we insure crop isolation?) don't know anything either and can hardly make effective regulations. People also ignore that disaster scenarios, which might be EXTREMELY unlikely, must nevertheless be contemplated because when you have a disaster HELLO IT'S A FUCKING DISASTER DUMMIES.
I for one don't buy the argument that the world needs more food to support a growing population. There are more than enough people in the world. I for one would rather see fewer suburbs, shack villages, and shanty towns, and more wilderness in the world. While I question the wisdom of Hawaii's move, I treasure the idea that Hawaii might remain pure, pristine, and full of naive hippies.
Really? There is a lot of evidence that shows our GMOs are not good. Monsanto and Dupont based GMOs lack a lot of testing. It doesn't appear to be affecting our health now, but the long term effects could be bad. Plus, the PATENTS! It's not about science, it's about freedom of seed! Banning GMOs is an important first step to getting rid of life-patent laws. Seeds should be part of the public trust. If they become public again, I'd have no problem with GMOs that were open to people looking at them and doing real research on them; as well as people saving their seeds instead of being forced to buy terminal seed.
This idea that GMO stopped world starvation is a myth. Good cultivation can stop food shortages without the need of this GMO and with GMO, we have less diversity and more monoculture.
anti-GMO is not a conservative/republican issue. It's a global health and a progressive issue.
That's an overly broad and unfair characterization. Everyone seems to be ignoring that companies are not required to prove with sufficient rigor that GMO crops are adequately safe.
The FDA requires new pharmaceuticals to undergo years of testing. In contrast, GMO crops are assumed to be safe because they 'closely approximate' their originating crop. That's a foolish assumption.
Everyone seems to be ignoring that nobody is required to prove with sufficient rigor that non GMO crops are adequately safe.
In fact to purposely allow non GMO crops that have been linked to death to continue to be grown and sold.
Because the creationists hurt ... who exactly?
The creationists are actively trying to increase scientific illiteracy among American children - that's their entire reason for existence. In the short term, this doesn't really hurt anyone; in the long term, it would lead to the US being far less economically competitive, and more dependent on other nations for new scientific advances, especially medical technology. That has a very real impact on people's lives.
When I was studying genetics in the late 80's/early 90's, we were taught that releasing GMOs into the environment was immoral. It had nothing to do with whether or not food products were safe, and everything to do with the impossibility of understanding what effect such new organisms would have on the incredibly complex wild environment. When I heard that Monsanto's GMO crops had become superweeds, causing major problems for farmers not growing Monsanto crops, it seemed that what I was taught was correct. From the article, it seems that most of Hawaii's concern is protecting their ecosystems.
Anti-GMO activists have done things like destroy golden rice fields. Golden rice is currently just about the best bet for combatting vitamin A deficiency. It certainly seems like these rich yuppies prefer that brown people be malnourished to having GMO foods even tried.
I have heard some talk about how big aggro funds a lot of the GMO research which influences opinions.
Go to your local university. The vast majority of scientists in relevant areas support the use of GE. You should not find it surprising when the people who cry Monsanto conspiracy at every inconvenient fact also accuse research of being part of the conspiracy.
I for one don't buy the argument that the world needs more food to support a growing population.
Well, you're wrong. The population is not only growing, but it is also demanding more than just rice, corn, and wheat. Also, there is less land, encroaching urbanization, more demand for water, evolving pests and diseases, and climate change. We need all the technology we can to face that.
While I question the wisdom of Hawaii's move, I treasure the idea that Hawaii might remain pure, pristine, and full of naive hippies.
I'd like two of those three.
Hell, who am I kidding, they'll come running to us anyways, and we'll give them aid packages anyways. They always do, and we always do.
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