Who is to die if the crops fail from something that a herbicide or pesticide could prevent ?
Ok, genetically modified food 101...
Technically, cross breeding different strains of corn is genetic modification. But the industry term typically applies to things that are much different. Companies such as Monsato experiment with techniques such as splicing genes between species, such as inserting fish genes into tomatos. So what we have is a whole new set of organisms with genetic properties unlike anything seen before. How exactly these organisms affect human beings and the ecosystem is completely unknown, no matter how many marketing dollars say otherwise. New data suggests that the sudden epidemic of food allergies has something to do with these new strains, but that must be just paranoid hippie propaganda, right? Keep in mind that these new breeds being created are completely lacking in genetic diversity, meaning that one pest or disease COULD wipe out the entire population. Natural strains of food, textiles, etc. have something called genetic diversity, which is what keeps species alive over time. There is natural variation among the species, and that means that even with a horrible plague some of the organisms will probably survive. One of the reasons so many people oppose the rise of GMOs (or "Frankenfoods") is that they provide the perfect circumstances for just one threat to completely wipe out the entire crop.
As for pesticides, they are static chemical compounds, which means that pests can adapt to them and render them useless. In fact, the pests adapt much faster than we do (shorter life cycle), which means that after a period of use the pesticides become more harmful to humans than anything else. Many of the modern diseases such as leukemia and most forms of cancer have been linked to pesticide exposure. I'm sure all the scientists who did that research are paranoid hippies too. Or better yet, communists!
This is just another case of businesses using fear and bad science as a marketing strategy to claim that the world can't possibly work without their products.
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Who is to die if the crops fail from something that a herbicide or pesticide could prevent ? Ok, genetically modified food 101... Technically, cross breeding different strains of corn is genetic modification. But the industry term typically applies to things that are much different. Companies such as Monsato experiment with techniques such as splicing genes between species, such as inserting fish genes into tomatos. So what we have is a whole new set of organisms with genetic properties unlike anything seen before. How exactly these organisms affect human beings and the ecosystem is completely unknown, no matter how many marketing dollars say otherwise. New data suggests that the sudden epidemic of food allergies has something to do with these new strains, but that must be just paranoid hippie propaganda, right? Keep in mind that these new breeds being created are completely lacking in genetic diversity, meaning that one pest or disease COULD wipe out the entire population. Natural strains of food, textiles, etc. have something called genetic diversity, which is what keeps species alive over time. There is natural variation among the species, and that means that even with a horrible plague some of the organisms will probably survive. One of the reasons so many people oppose the rise of GMOs (or "Frankenfoods") is that they provide the perfect circumstances for just one threat to completely wipe out the entire crop. As for pesticides, they are static chemical compounds, which means that pests can adapt to them and render them useless. In fact, the pests adapt much faster than we do (shorter life cycle), which means that after a period of use the pesticides become more harmful to humans than anything else. Many of the modern diseases such as leukemia and most forms of cancer have been linked to pesticide exposure. I'm sure all the scientists who did that research are paranoid hippies too. Or better yet, communists! This is just another case of businesses using fear and bad science as a marketing strategy to claim that the world can't possibly work without their products.