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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!
I wouldn't equate pseudoscience-believing hippies with Republicans.
I'm from Hawaii (specifically the Big Island), and that state (and county) is dominated by Democrats who are very, very far from being creationist Republicans. Heck, even our Republicans are more liberal than a lot of mainland Democrats. So yeah - totally pseudoscience hippies. We have a saying (due to our macadamia nut orchards) that we send our nuts (macadamia) to the mainland and they send their nuts (california hippies) to us.
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!
You mean like people who keep claiming that "evolution is just a theory", and that trickle-down economics work?
Hmm, you've a point... there is hard evidence linking screwdrivers to murders all over... maybe GMO is safer than screwdrivers?
We have a saying (due to our macadamia nut orchards) that we send our nuts (macadamia) to the mainland and they send their nuts (california hippies) to us.
In Oregon they call that "being californicated".
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
You could have read the fine article, which nicely mentions "overuse of pesticides". The current reason to use GMO is raised pesticide/herbicide resistance, which naturally means that farmers are encouraged to go overkill with Roundup and co. to kill of everything else in the area. AFAIK it has also been shown that the poisons used accumulate within the plants, sadly the only health study on that point I know of has been unreliable (the lab animals used hat a naturally high chancer rate).
So while GMOs may not be responsible for the harm done to humans, the pesticides/herbicides sold as part of the package - the only reason GMOs are currently used - are responsible for killing of local plants and insects. It might be overly broad, but it is based on reality and facts.
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.
It is not so much the science of GMOs that is specifically bad but the companies that are typically behind them. These companies have a long history of being James Bond Villain evil, manipulating governments to their will, hurting people in corrupt countries, and pushing other things that are bad like pesticides, herbicides, hormone/antibiotic meat, and vicious anti consumer anti labeling campaigns.
The other thing with most GMOs is that they (the main commercial ones) are aimed at things that on the surface I don't care about such as herbicide resistance. I suspect that people would have a whole lot more buy in if the GMOs made the food healthier, tastier, have a longer shelf life (Bananas that don't turn brown in 3 seconds) etc.
But it seems the main beneficiaries of GMOs are big agribusiness and only big agribusiness. So when people reject GMOs they don't personally feel like they are losing much. One might argue that they are losing if the food costs a bit more but the reality is that the savings at the consumer end is actually quite minimal. (In theory a pest resistant crop might have fewer pesticides/herbicides which is a gain but hard for the average consumer to know as big agribusiness has fought all public disclosures of chemical levels in food.)
So looking at the science in most people's heads they might be thinking, "Hey this GMO only has one study in 100 that says it is bad. But what benefit do I have even taking that tiny risk? Whereas the agribusiness people won't eat this crap if it is toxic but they stand to make a fortune selling it."
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."
I agree. I also wouldn't equate opposition to GMO with opposition to science. It is precisely that kind of oversimplification that impedes helpful discourse on the topic.
If this is true, then why do people keep blanket banning "GMOs", rather than banning things like glyphosate?
According to this regulating GMO's is a federal responsibility. Will the ban and/or fines even hold up in court?
United States regulatory policy is governed by the Coordinated Framework for Regulation of Biotechnology This regulatory policy framework that was developed under the Presidency of Ronald Reagan to ensure safety of the public and to ensure the continuing development of the fledgling biotechnology industry without overly burdensome regulation.The policy as it developed had three tenets: "(1) U.S. policy would focus on the product of genetic modification (GM) techniques, not the process itself, (2) only regulation grounded in verifiable scientific risks would be tolerated, and (3) GM products are on a continuum with existing products and, therefore, existing statutes are sufficient to review the products."
I am pretty sure that a ban with no scientific review or investigation would fail tenet #2.
Wait until the Chinese start implementing cross-species modifications of the human genome to, say, extend our visual range into the far ultraviolet. Will the same Americans who preached open borders for all suddenly become advocates of keeping "frankenpeople" away from our precious shores?
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.
People of ALL political beliefs here in the UK don't want GMO crops
Are you saying that all people in the UK are pseudoscience believers? That's not very nice to say.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
There is a different in dueling political pseudosciences, though: how many infrastructure projects, public or private, in any state, have been bullied to a halt by creationists? Can you name even one?
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.
These are the same people who think that eating an "alkalizing" diet and drinking "alkalized water"
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.
Howdy howdy howdy
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.
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
If you'd read the article, or paid any attention at all to the subject, you'd know that many GMOs are unencumbered by IP laws and/or were always intended to be given away. This includes both golden rice (which was specifically intended for the third world - developed nations don't really have endemic vitamin A deficiency) and virus-resistant papayas, which Hawaii currently grows. Banning them does nothing at all to advance the cause of open science.
Screwdrivers don't reproduce with hammers, permanently altering the property of a hammer.
An island is in a rather unique position regarding GMOs. Once they're let in, there's no turning back. Where's the harm in keeping a naturally isolated island free from them, at the very least until the long term science is real?
Unless, of course, you're simply looking for cheaper Kona coffee due to increased yields.
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
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.
I have zero problem with GMO foods as a general matter. "GMO" means as much to me as the word "chemicals"; it's devoid of substantive meaning.
That said, anti-GMO activists are not supporting malnutrition. We don't need GMOs to solve food shortages. We have more than enough food. It's a distribution problem, and where solving distribution is intractable existing agricultural methods can be used. Africa, for example, had more than enough food in the 1960s and 1970s; it wasn't until Western agribusiness put all the domestic farmers out of business that we ended up with famines in the 1980s, and that's because most poor nations are incapable of adapting to rich nations' sophisticated food management systems.
The reason why Western scientists push GMO crops to help solve international nutrition problems is because GMO is what Western scientists spend all their time on. GMOs aren't necessary, they're simply the tool most familiar to rich nations. It's like a guy who spends his day job writing Java code; guess what kind of language he'll prefer when doing open source projects at home. Java, most likely. Does that mean Java is the best language out there? Even if it is, that doesn't mean others are sufficient for any particular task.
I have zero problem with GMO foods as a general matter. "GMO" means as much to me as the word "chemicals"; it's devoid of substantive meaning.
It means the same thing as "evil spirits" used to mean.
They hurt our education system, forcing teachers to teach mythology as science. They hurt the kids trying to learn, telling them some religious-based crap is equal to the scientific method. They hurt our progress as a nation, causing confusion amongst students who might have been STEM but instead now have doubts that the science is "real", when no other leading country muddies their science classes with completely unproven made-up ideas.
There are many people who don't think that this study was bogus.
There are also people who think the moon landing was faked.
I've looked into it, and whether there was something 'suspicious' or not, the paper was seriously deficient.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
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 just thought of the other analogy: the Soviet Union, for all of its many unredeemable flaws, did manage to rack up some impressive scientific accomplishments. But not in biology or agriculture, because its leaders made a conscious choice to embrace Lysenko's pseudo-science and demonize genetics. The result was to set back progress by decades, because an entire generation was trained to be scientifically ignorant in that particular field. Russia still produces some excellent mathematicians and physicists, but it's never recovered in biology and medicine.
(Another contemporary example would be Hitler's opposition to much of physics research as being "too Jewish", and his own support for less rigorous science, but it was ultimately his anti-Semitism that caused the most damage to Germany's scientific community, rather than his embrace of pseudoscience.)
Until a large portion of the world starts performing population control, our opinions about the harm of growing populations is not relevant to topics related to feeding more people. As long as we as a society let people have as many kids as they want, and do not wish to punish children for the sins of their parents, we need to find ways of feeding all of these people.
How do you figure that concern over population growth is not relevant to feeding people? I smell in this statement some kind of ethical concept which needs to be more clearly elucidated. I'm willing to accept that it's a Machiavellian notion, but if you don't feed people, they find it harder to reproduce.
Like I said, once society is ready to start performing population control on a global scale, then we no longer have to worry about feeding growing population. I did not talk about the morality of population control, just that as long as we both let people have the freedom to reproduce and do not condone letting people starve, it is irrelevant what our opinions on growing population are when talking about finding ways of feeding them.
-- All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. -- Edmund Burke
Ok, then explain the thugs who tried to destroy the GE wheat trial at Rothamsted, or the ones who did destroy the GE potatoes at the University of Leeds.
The anti-Monsanto is just a convenient attempt to justify anti-science bullshit (and even that card is factually weak). That's why there's opposition to Golden Rice, the Rainbow papaya, The Arctic apple, and every other non-Monsanto GMO. If it was just about Monsanto, that wouldn't happen, but it does.
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.
Careful with names containing L slashdot.org/~AiphaWolf_HK slashdot.org/~AlphaWoif_HK slashdot.org/~AiphaWoif_HK
It's shills like you that continue to suppress the information that GMO's are a pandoras' box. There is so much information out here that Monsanto and their ilk you'd rather not know. Anti-GMO proponents are not anti-science (sounds like a fox news insult) they are on the side of labeling so we, the people can choose. The pro gmo faction knows if we have a choice, their products will no longer sell, and there are a multitude of reasons for this, but until you avail yourself of the documented effects of gmo's you'll remain ignorant of their dangers. Side with the Corps that told us that Agent Orange is safe and get back to me.
End of Line.
They probably could, but you're a superstitious freak, because you don't understand science.
Get an understanding of science, then we'll talk. Otherwise I'm just wasting my time and you're being an idiot.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."