Environmentalism That Kills!

[PoliticalChic]

Environmentalism that has no interest in human lives....only the care of Gaia.

At the heart of the modern environmentalist movement is a contempt, a repugnance, for humanity. Attempts to ban DDT are responsible for the deaths of millions of Africans, but merely collateral damage to the greenists who consider imaginary damage to the 'environment,' Holy Mother Earth, of a higher value than human lives.

Genetically modified foods will be the next battlefront….and is already littered with maimed and dead children.





1. “Vitamin A deficiency has killed 8 million kids in the last 12 years….Finally, after a 12-year delay caused by opponents of genetically modified foods, so-called “golden rice” with vitamin A will be grown in the Philippines. Over those 12 years, about 8 million children worldwide died from vitamin A deficiency.
Are anti-GM advocates not partly responsible?

2. Three billion people depend on rice as their staple food, with 10 percent at risk for vitamin A deficiency, which, according to the World Health Organization, causes 250,000 to 500,000 children to go blind each year. Of these, half die within a year. A study from the British medical journal the Lancet estimates that, in total, vitamin A deficiency kills 668,000 children under the age of 5 each year.

a. Yet, despite the cost in human lives, anti-GM campaigners—from Greenpeace to Naomi Klein—have derided efforts to use golden rice to avoid vitamin A deficiency. In India,Vandana Shiva, an environmental activist and adviser to the government, called golden rice “a hoax” that is “creating hunger and malnutrition, not solving it.”




3. Two recent studies in theAmerican Journal of Clinical Nutritionshow that just 50 grams (roughly two ounces) of golden rice can provide 60 percent of the recommended daily intake of vitamin A. They show that golden rice is even better than spinach in providing vitamin A to children….Greenpeace says that golden rice is “neither needed nor necessary,” and calls instead for supplementation and fortification, which are described as “cost-effective.” But golden rice would cost just $100 for every life saved from vitamin A deficiency.

4. Greenpeace calls golden rice a “failure,” because it “has been in development for almost 20 years and has still not made any impact on the prevalence of vitamin A deficiency.” But, … that failure is due almost entirely to relentless opposition to GM foods—often by rich, well-meaning Westerners far removed from the risks of actual vitamin A deficiency.





5. …current regulations for GM foods, if applied to non-GM products, would ban the sale of potatoes and tomatoes, which can contain poisonous glycoalkaloids; celery, which contains carcinogenic psoralens; rhubarb and spinach (oxalic acid); and cassava, which feeds about 500 million people but contains toxic cyanogenic alkaloids. Foodstuffs like soy, wheat, milk, eggs, mollusks, crustaceans, fish, sesame, nuts, peanuts, and kiwi would likewise be banned, because they can cause food allergies.

6. Here it is worth noting that there have been no documented human health effects from GM foods. But many campaigners have claimed other effects. A common story, still repeated by Shiva, is that GM corn with Bt toxin kills Monarch butterflies. Several peer-reviewed studies, however, have effectively established that “the impact of Bt corn pollen from current commercial hybrids on monarch butterfly populations is negligible.”

7. Greenpeace and many others claim that GM foods merely enable big companies like Monsanto to wield near-monopoly power. But that puts the cart before the horse: The predominance of big companies partly reflects anti-GM activism, which has made the approval process so long and costly that only rich companies catering to First World farmers can afford to see it through.





8. In 2010, the European Commission, after considering 25 years of GMO research, concluded that “there is, as of today, no scientific evidence associating GMOs with higher risks for the environment or for food and feed safety than conventional plants and organisms.”

9. True to form, Greenpeace is already protesting that “the next ‘golden rice’ guinea pigs might be Filipino children.” The 4.4 million Filipino kids with vitamin A deficiency might not mind so much.” GM food: Golden rice will save millions of people from vitamin A deficiency. - Slate Magazine

 

[Oddball]

Millions die from malaria and other mosquito-borne diseases?..They don't care.

Thousands killed on the highways from the death trap shit box cars they force onto the roads with their asinine CAFE standards?...They don't care.

Thermal runaway of their stupid lithium-ion batteries set people's computers, cars and airliners on fire?...They don't care.

More hospitalized and dead asthma sufferers?...They don't care.

Space shuttles blow up?....They don't care.

 

[Deepbluediver]

Opponents to the modern green revolution don't seem to get that the entire history of agriculture is about genetic manipulation.

The Evolution of Corn

The fact that we can now accomplish more in a lab in a few years instead than we did in a field in decades apparently upsets some people.

 

[tjvh]

How many people starve in third world countries because of the stupid Ethanol mandate? A LOT.

 

[PoliticalChic]

How many people starve in third world countries because of the stupid Ethanol mandate? A LOT.

1. Buddhism describes the interconnectedness of all things as a spider web, Indra’s net, on which every knot on the net is tied a pearl. Everything that exists or has existed is one of the pearls, and every pearl is tied to every other pearl. And on the surface of every pearl is the reflection of every other jewel on the net.

2. Your post fits right into that conception.
And the resultant increase in the price of food has the effect of an avalanche....the Arab Spring.


"Let Them Eat ... What? High Food Commodity Prices Could Cause A Global Revolution
BY GREG LINDSAY | AUGUST 30, 2011
New evidence suggests the Arab Spring wasn't caused by the slow boiling of political grievances, but by a sudden rise in food prices. Next year, prices will soar even higher.
...“the price peaks are due to speculators causing price bubbles, and the background increase… is due to corn to ethanol conversion.”
Let Them Eat ... What? High Food Commodity Prices Could Cause A Global Revolution | Fast Company

 

[taichiliberal]

Sure, let's not point out that the local gov'ts failure to properly organize their economic/social and agricultural structure to feed it's people, let's blame people with legitimate reasons to be against GM foods. Yeah, like Agri-corps with a $$$ vested interest in patenting food and dominating that market has nothing to do with it.

Here's a reality check:

What countries have banned GMO crops? - Mankato Green Culture | Examiner.com

Institute for Responsible Technology - 10 Reasons to Avoid GMOs

Say No To GMOs! - Scientists Speak

 

[PoliticalChic]

Sure, let's not point out that the local gov'ts failure to properly organize their economic/social and agricultural structure to feed it's people, let's blame people with legitimate reasons to be against GM foods. Yeah, like Agri-corps with a $$$ vested interest in patenting food and dominating that market has nothing to do with it.

Here's a reality check:

What countries have banned GMO crops? - Mankato Green Culture | Examiner.com

Institute for Responsible Technology - 10 Reasons to Avoid GMOs

Say No To GMOs! - Scientists Speak

You've bought the Left-wing hype like it was on sale.

"... let's blame people with legitimate reasons to be against GM foods."

There are no legitimate reasons to be against GM foods.



The most Leftist of of bodies is the EU.

The EU operated via the ‘precautionary principle’ can be summarized as ‘better safe than sorry,’ and in Europe, it is the law of the land.
“The precautionary principle is detailed in Article 191 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (EU). It aims at ensuring a higher level of environmental protection through preventative decision-taking in the case of risk. However, in practice, the scope of this principle is far wider and also covers consumer policy, European legislation concerning food and human, animal and plant health.” The precautionary principle


b. “In practice, many environmentalists do not eschew risk analysis when they apply the principle; rather, they use it selectively to advance preconceived agendas, cherry-picking scientific risk assessments and information in order to restrict technologies that they dislike — such as biotechnology, DDT, fossil fuels, nuclear energy — and to advance technologies that they favor, including forms of renewable energy, organic farming and light-weight vehicles.”
Applying the Precautionary Principle to DDT | NCPA


Even so....

In 2010, the European Commission, after considering 25 years of GMO research, concluded that “there is, as of today, no scientific evidence associating GMOs with higher risks for the environment or for food and feed safety than conventional plants and organisms.”



Only the gullible believe as you do.

 

[Deepbluediver]

Institute for Responsible Technology - 10 Reasons to Avoid GMOs

There are so many questionable points in that article that there few legitimate ones get burried under the avalanche of slop. I'll do a more detailed markup later.

And I haven't even bothered opening the other two yet.

 

[Oddball]

Dr. Strangelunch Or: Why we should learn to stop worrying and love genetically modified food.- Reason.com

 

[Toronado3800]

Environmentalism that has no interest in human lives....only the care of Gaia.

At the heart of the modern environmentalist movement is a contempt, a repugnance, for humanity. Attempts to ban DDT are responsible for the deaths of millions of Africans, but merely collateral damage to the greenists who consider imaginary damage to the 'environment,' Holy Mother Earth, of a higher value than human lives.

Genetically modified foods will be the next battlefront….and is already littered with maimed and dead children.





1. “Vitamin A deficiency has killed 8 million kids in the last 12 years….Finally, after a 12-year delay caused by opponents of genetically modified foods, so-called “golden rice” with vitamin A will be grown in the Philippines. Over those 12 years, about 8 million children worldwide died from vitamin A deficiency.
Are anti-GM advocates not partly responsible?

2. Three billion people depend on rice as their staple food, with 10 percent at risk for vitamin A deficiency, which, according to the World Health Organization, causes 250,000 to 500,000 children to go blind each year. Of these, half die within a year. A study from the British medical journal the Lancet estimates that, in total, vitamin A deficiency kills 668,000 children under the age of 5 each year.

a. Yet, despite the cost in human lives, anti-GM campaigners—from Greenpeace to Naomi Klein—have derided efforts to use golden rice to avoid vitamin A deficiency. In India,Vandana Shiva, an environmental activist and adviser to the government, called golden rice “a hoax” that is “creating hunger and malnutrition, not solving it.”




3. Two recent studies in theAmerican Journal of Clinical Nutritionshow that just 50 grams (roughly two ounces) of golden rice can provide 60 percent of the recommended daily intake of vitamin A. They show that golden rice is even better than spinach in providing vitamin A to children….Greenpeace says that golden rice is “neither needed nor necessary,” and calls instead for supplementation and fortification, which are described as “cost-effective.” But golden rice would cost just $100 for every life saved from vitamin A deficiency.

4. Greenpeace calls golden rice a “failure,” because it “has been in development for almost 20 years and has still not made any impact on the prevalence of vitamin A deficiency.” But, … that failure is due almost entirely to relentless opposition to GM foods—often by rich, well-meaning Westerners far removed from the risks of actual vitamin A deficiency.





5. …current regulations for GM foods, if applied to non-GM products, would ban the sale of potatoes and tomatoes, which can contain poisonous glycoalkaloids; celery, which contains carcinogenic psoralens; rhubarb and spinach (oxalic acid); and cassava, which feeds about 500 million people but contains toxic cyanogenic alkaloids. Foodstuffs like soy, wheat, milk, eggs, mollusks, crustaceans, fish, sesame, nuts, peanuts, and kiwi would likewise be banned, because they can cause food allergies.

6. Here it is worth noting that there have been no documented human health effects from GM foods. But many campaigners have claimed other effects. A common story, still repeated by Shiva, is that GM corn with Bt toxin kills Monarch butterflies. Several peer-reviewed studies, however, have effectively established that “the impact of Bt corn pollen from current commercial hybrids on monarch butterfly populations is negligible.”

7. Greenpeace and many others claim that GM foods merely enable big companies like Monsanto to wield near-monopoly power. But that puts the cart before the horse: The predominance of big companies partly reflects anti-GM activism, which has made the approval process so long and costly that only rich companies catering to First World farmers can afford to see it through.





8. In 2010, the European Commission, after considering 25 years of GMO research, concluded that “there is, as of today, no scientific evidence associating GMOs with higher risks for the environment or for food and feed safety than conventional plants and organisms.”

9. True to form, Greenpeace is already protesting that “the next ‘golden rice’ guinea pigs might be Filipino children.” The 4.4 million Filipino kids with vitamin A deficiency might not mind so much.” GM food: Golden rice will save millions of people from vitamin A deficiency. - Slate Magazine

This is a very interesting subject and you may be right.

As a conservative that suprises me, you accepting all these based on little claims from the companies that stand to profit. Who spun off Solutia to all their problems anyways?

Still though you may be right.

I'll have to do some research and see if the OP posts a spoon fed party doctrine or boot steps to a party line...

Just givin you a hard time PC. like I said on this one you may be right. I prefer a slower approach than what we are taking but accept it as inevitable some genetically modified crop is bound to be ok.

 

[Old Rocks]

Millions die from malaria and other mosquito-borne diseases?..They don't care.

Thousands killed on the highways from the death trap shit box cars they force onto the roads with their asinine CAFE standards?...They don't care.

Thermal runaway of their stupid lithium-ion batteries set people's computers, cars and airliners on fire?...They don't care.

More hospitalized and dead asthma sufferers?...They don't care.

Space shuttles blow up?....They don't care.

Dumb fuck Oddie is at it again. DDT is legal to use in the areas where malaria is rampant. The reason they no longer use it that much is that many of the mosquitoes have developed immunity to it. And cars today, large and small, are safer than they have ever been. So much so, that by 2015, if present trends continue, there will be more people killed in the US by guns than by auto accident.

As far as not caring about people or facts, that is you, Oddie. You don't care enough to do the simple research to get the facts right.

Death rates from guns, traffic accidents converging

WASHINGTON — Deaths from traffic accidents have dropped dramatically over the last 10 years, while firearm-related fatalities rose for decades before leveling off in the past decade, a USA TODAY analysis of data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows.

Meanwhile, the rate of firearms deaths has exceeded traffic fatalities in several states, including Arizona, Colorado, the District of Columbia, Michigan, Nevada and Oregon, records show. The rate is equal in Ohio and Pennsylvania.

FULL COVERAGE: Debate over guns in America

In the United States in 2010, the rate of firearm deaths was 10 people per 100,000, while for traffic accidents it was 12 per 100,000. Firearm-related deaths totaled 31,672 in 2010.

 

[Mad Scientist]

Opponents to the modern green revolution don't seem to get that the entire history of agriculture is about genetic manipulation.

The Evolution of Corn

The fact that we can now accomplish more in a lab in a few years instead than we did in a field in decades apparently upsets some people.

Corn Blending is one thing, Genetically Modifying corn so it has insect repellent in it that we then eat is another.

 

[Mad Scientist]

First paragraph from OldRocks link:

Deaths from traffic accidents have dropped dramatically over the last 10 years, while firearm-related fatalities rose for decades before leveling off in the past decade.

You're Jedi Mind trick doesn't work on me.

That means they're not converging.

 

[gallantwarrior]

Sure, let's not point out that the local gov'ts failure to properly organize their economic/social and agricultural structure to feed it's people, let's blame people with legitimate reasons to be against GM foods. Yeah, like Agri-corps with a $$$ vested interest in patenting food and dominating that market has nothing to do with it.

Here's a reality check:

What countries have banned GMO crops? - Mankato Green Culture | Examiner.com

Institute for Responsible Technology - 10 Reasons to Avoid GMOs

Say No To GMOs! - Scientists Speak

You've bought the Left-wing hype like it was on sale.

"... let's blame people with legitimate reasons to be against GM foods."

There are no legitimate reasons to be against GM foods.



The most Leftist of of bodies is the EU.

The EU operated via the ‘precautionary principle’ can be summarized as ‘better safe than sorry,’ and in Europe, it is the law of the land.
“The precautionary principle is detailed in Article 191 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (EU). It aims at ensuring a higher level of environmental protection through preventative decision-taking in the case of risk. However, in practice, the scope of this principle is far wider and also covers consumer policy, European legislation concerning food and human, animal and plant health.” The precautionary principle


b. “In practice, many environmentalists do not eschew risk analysis when they apply the principle; rather, they use it selectively to advance preconceived agendas, cherry-picking scientific risk assessments and information in order to restrict technologies that they dislike — such as biotechnology, DDT, fossil fuels, nuclear energy — and to advance technologies that they favor, including forms of renewable energy, organic farming and light-weight vehicles.”
Applying the Precautionary Principle to DDT | NCPA


Even so....

In 2010, the European Commission, after considering 25 years of GMO research, concluded that “there is, as of today, no scientific evidence associating GMOs with higher risks for the environment or for food and feed safety than conventional plants and organisms.”



Only the gullible believe as you do.

Honey, I am neither left-wing nor gullible and I am very much against GMOs. There is actually quite a bit of evidence that GMOs are NOT all they've been sold as. But follow the money, honey. Big agri is all for GMOs. They hold the patents and have a vested interest in destroying all other farming sources in order to corner the market.
Food control = people control. Maybe even more so than control of our access to health care.

The Effects Of Gmos | LIVESTRONG.COM

Weighing the GMO arguments: against

How to Avoid Genetically Modified Foods - Weston A Price Foundation

 

[PoliticalChic]

Millions die from malaria and other mosquito-borne diseases?..They don't care.

Thousands killed on the highways from the death trap shit box cars they force onto the roads with their asinine CAFE standards?...They don't care.

Thermal runaway of their stupid lithium-ion batteries set people's computers, cars and airliners on fire?...They don't care.

More hospitalized and dead asthma sufferers?...They don't care.

Space shuttles blow up?....They don't care.

Dumb fuck Oddie is at it again. DDT is legal to use in the areas where malaria is rampant. The reason they no longer use it that much is that many of the mosquitoes have developed immunity to it. And cars today, large and small, are safer than they have ever been. So much so, that by 2015, if present trends continue, there will be more people killed in the US by guns than by auto accident.

As far as not caring about people or facts, that is you, Oddie. You don't care enough to do the simple research to get the facts right.

Death rates from guns, traffic accidents converging

WASHINGTON — Deaths from traffic accidents have dropped dramatically over the last 10 years, while firearm-related fatalities rose for decades before leveling off in the past decade, a USA TODAY analysis of data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows.

Meanwhile, the rate of firearms deaths has exceeded traffic fatalities in several states, including Arizona, Colorado, the District of Columbia, Michigan, Nevada and Oregon, records show. The rate is equal in Ohio and Pennsylvania.

FULL COVERAGE: Debate over guns in America

In the United States in 2010, the rate of firearm deaths was 10 people per 100,000, while for traffic accidents it was 12 per 100,000. Firearm-related deaths totaled 31,672 in 2010.

Banned in the sense that the EU has threatened to stop the import of crops if a nation uses DDT.

. “Ugandan farmers are being told that they could lose millions of dollars in fruits and vegetable exports into the European Union (EU) market when the Ugandan government imports DDT for the prevention of malaria. European protectionism is odious at the best of times, but this alleged EU threat borders is particularly egregious, and should be pre-emptively challenged by Ugandans through the WTO. There is no evidence that any of the DDT, which could be used to save thousands of babies from malaria, would ever reach any agricultural products; and even if it did, there is no evidence of any harm from DDT in produce, even at relatively high doses."
Europe Promotes Tragedy in Uganda - Energy and the Environment - AEI

 

[Deepbluediver]

Institute for Responsible Technology - 10 Reasons to Avoid GMOs

I promised I'd come back to this at some point, so lets go through it line by line.

1. GMOs are unhealthy.

Since The American Academy of Environmental Medicine (surely an unbiased organization) doesn't actually name the studies they site, or say where they were published, I'm having trouble tracking them down to verify the veracity. If true, this is troubling, but I'm wary of a repeat of the "Coca-cola causes cancer! study" where it turns out researchers injected their animal test subjects with massive amounts of a pure chemical.

Also, the article lists numerous trends in declining American health, then admits that there is (thus far) no evidence linking them to GM foods. But we should be cautious.

2. GMOs contaminate―forever.

This is true, but it's only an issue for the people who don't like GM foods. Plus, there was a solution to all this: remember the "terminator" genes? These where crops that couldn't be replanted for ensuing generations, but look at the stink that kicked up.

3. GMOs increase herbicide use.

Again, this is true, but WHY?
You basically have threw choices when dealing with weeds:
(1) do nothing, and accept a reduced crop from inter-plant copetition
(2) labor-intensive hand weeding (because AFAIK, no machine yet designed can easily distinguish between plants on an industrial capacity)
(3) use herbicide

So obviously if a plant is herbicide resistant, that's the option a farm will choose.
The other option, which might be better for the environment, isn't really so hot for the guy trying to make his living on a farm.

4. Genetic engineering creates dangerous side effects.

They don't even claim that any of this is evidenced in a study. And it really boils down to- "Science has the potential to be dangerous", to which I would reply, "Duh!"

I appreciate wanting caution, but when you get to this level of fear-mongering you start to remind me of all the people who swore the LHC would open a black hope and destroy the earth.

5. Government oversight is dangerously lax.

This would be a problem, if it where true. As far as I can tell, the EU has all but banned foods, and the FDA has been aware of and had regulations for this kind of stuff at least as far back as 1992.

And wait, what's this?
"But this was a lie. Secret agency memos..."
Oh right, the conspiracy theory. I wondered when that was going to show up.

Which leads to- "...GMOs can create unpredictable, hard-to-detect side effects."
In other words, RANDOM. As in, there is no pattern of correlation.

6. The biotech industry uses "tobacco science" to claim product safety.

I think THIS is actually a legitimate point; I've never really been a big believer that "self-regulation" is a long-term viable tactic.

7. Independent research and reporting is attacked and suppressed.

Belgian protesters destroy GM field trial | Food Freedom
BBC NEWS | Europe | Protesters destroy French GM crop
Scientists send open letter to anti-GM protesters pleading with them not to destroy 'years of work' - Home News - UK - The Independent

Sorry, who exactly is doing the attacking?

8. GMOs harm the environment.

Habitat destruction and agricultural pollution are both legitimate issues, but what is the real point of GM crops? If they are succesful, ultimately it is to increase the amount of food a given piece of land can produce. With the earth's growing population needs more food, you basically have two options- increase the amount of land farmed, or increase the production capacity of the land you are already farming. So it's six-in-one, half-dozen in the other.

AFP: Organic farms yield less produce, require more land: study

9. GMOs do not increase yields, and work against feeding a hungry world.

This one mentions a report called "Failure to Yeild", and I actually managed to track down a copy:
http://www.ucsusa.org/assets/documents/food_and_agriculture/failure-to-yield.pdf

It's long, about 40 pages or so, but from what I can see it doesn't say exactly what the article claims. The report, which is based on a collection of other studies, seems to indicate that improvements in yield (the amount produced) from GM foods have been modest, but that the major gains where in the reduction of labor, energy, and other resrouces needed to grow a crop.

Also, the report points out that many of the various GM strains don't get produced commercially, as if it where somehow meaningful. But that's how MOST industrial R&D projects function; lots of failures along the road to a few big successes (for instance, in the pharmasutical industry).

And I don't want to accuse them of cherry-picking data, but some of the studies they site seem frankly miraculous- such as organic crops outperforming trational ones by 100+%

The report mostly seems to conclude that further study is needed, and that developing countries seem to benefit more from traditional improvement methods, not that "GMOs have nothing to offer the goals of reducing hunger and poverty, improving nutrition, health and rural livelihoods, and facilitating social and environmental sustainability".

10. By avoiding GMOs, you contribute to the coming tipping point of consumer rejection, forcing them out of our food supply.

This is a circular argument- it's only a reason to fight against GM products if you already don't like them. Really stretching to hit that "10 reasons" I think, especially considering how similar some of the prior statements where.



To conclude, I fully support more research and study of GM crops, and their potential for widespread change. And normally I would take the long-term outlook in a given situation. But in instances where people are starving (or going blind) I think that the sooner we can get the ball rolling on some solution the better.

GM opponents complain that money is being spent on GM foods that could be directed elsewhere. But who is spending this money? Mostly private companies.
They like list reasons why GM food shouldn't be grown in the West, while seeming to ignore the fact that developing countries frequently face an entirely different set of issues.

 

[PoliticalChic]

Sure, let's not point out that the local gov'ts failure to properly organize their economic/social and agricultural structure to feed it's people, let's blame people with legitimate reasons to be against GM foods. Yeah, like Agri-corps with a $$$ vested interest in patenting food and dominating that market has nothing to do with it.

Here's a reality check:

What countries have banned GMO crops? - Mankato Green Culture | Examiner.com

Institute for Responsible Technology - 10 Reasons to Avoid GMOs

Say No To GMOs! - Scientists Speak

You've bought the Left-wing hype like it was on sale.

"... let's blame people with legitimate reasons to be against GM foods."

There are no legitimate reasons to be against GM foods.



The most Leftist of of bodies is the EU.

The EU operated via the ‘precautionary principle’ can be summarized as ‘better safe than sorry,’ and in Europe, it is the law of the land.
“The precautionary principle is detailed in Article 191 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (EU). It aims at ensuring a higher level of environmental protection through preventative decision-taking in the case of risk. However, in practice, the scope of this principle is far wider and also covers consumer policy, European legislation concerning food and human, animal and plant health.” The precautionary principle


b. “In practice, many environmentalists do not eschew risk analysis when they apply the principle; rather, they use it selectively to advance preconceived agendas, cherry-picking scientific risk assessments and information in order to restrict technologies that they dislike — such as biotechnology, DDT, fossil fuels, nuclear energy — and to advance technologies that they favor, including forms of renewable energy, organic farming and light-weight vehicles.”
Applying the Precautionary Principle to DDT | NCPA


Even so....

In 2010, the European Commission, after considering 25 years of GMO research, concluded that “there is, as of today, no scientific evidence associating GMOs with higher risks for the environment or for food and feed safety than conventional plants and organisms.”



Only the gullible believe as you do.

Honey, I am neither left-wing nor gullible and I am very much against GMOs. There is actually quite a bit of evidence that GMOs are NOT all they've been sold as. But follow the money, honey. Big agri is all for GMOs. They hold the patents and have a vested interest in destroying all other farming sources in order to corner the market.
Food control = people control. Maybe even more so than control of our access to health care.

The Effects Of Gmos | LIVESTRONG.COM

Weighing the GMO arguments: against

How to Avoid Genetically Modified Foods - Weston A Price Foundation

"There is actually quite a bit of evidence that GMOs are NOT all they've been sold as. But follow the money, honey."

No, there isn't, sonny.


…for nearly 20 years, billions of animals in the European Union and the United States have been fed soy products produced from genetically modified soybean, mainly from Latin America. Yet, no problems have been reported by the hundreds of thousands of farmers, officials and vets.


And...stop being afraid of capitalism.
That idea is a primary doctrine of the anti-GM cabal.

OK, sonny?

 

[PoliticalChic]

Environmentalism that has no interest in human lives....only the care of Gaia.

At the heart of the modern environmentalist movement is a contempt, a repugnance, for humanity. Attempts to ban DDT are responsible for the deaths of millions of Africans, but merely collateral damage to the greenists who consider imaginary damage to the 'environment,' Holy Mother Earth, of a higher value than human lives.

Genetically modified foods will be the next battlefront….and is already littered with maimed and dead children.





1. “Vitamin A deficiency has killed 8 million kids in the last 12 years….Finally, after a 12-year delay caused by opponents of genetically modified foods, so-called “golden rice” with vitamin A will be grown in the Philippines. Over those 12 years, about 8 million children worldwide died from vitamin A deficiency.
Are anti-GM advocates not partly responsible?

2. Three billion people depend on rice as their staple food, with 10 percent at risk for vitamin A deficiency, which, according to the World Health Organization, causes 250,000 to 500,000 children to go blind each year. Of these, half die within a year. A study from the British medical journal the Lancet estimates that, in total, vitamin A deficiency kills 668,000 children under the age of 5 each year.

a. Yet, despite the cost in human lives, anti-GM campaigners—from Greenpeace to Naomi Klein—have derided efforts to use golden rice to avoid vitamin A deficiency. In India,Vandana Shiva, an environmental activist and adviser to the government, called golden rice “a hoax” that is “creating hunger and malnutrition, not solving it.”




3. Two recent studies in theAmerican Journal of Clinical Nutritionshow that just 50 grams (roughly two ounces) of golden rice can provide 60 percent of the recommended daily intake of vitamin A. They show that golden rice is even better than spinach in providing vitamin A to children….Greenpeace says that golden rice is “neither needed nor necessary,” and calls instead for supplementation and fortification, which are described as “cost-effective.” But golden rice would cost just $100 for every life saved from vitamin A deficiency.

4. Greenpeace calls golden rice a “failure,” because it “has been in development for almost 20 years and has still not made any impact on the prevalence of vitamin A deficiency.” But, … that failure is due almost entirely to relentless opposition to GM foods—often by rich, well-meaning Westerners far removed from the risks of actual vitamin A deficiency.





5. …current regulations for GM foods, if applied to non-GM products, would ban the sale of potatoes and tomatoes, which can contain poisonous glycoalkaloids; celery, which contains carcinogenic psoralens; rhubarb and spinach (oxalic acid); and cassava, which feeds about 500 million people but contains toxic cyanogenic alkaloids. Foodstuffs like soy, wheat, milk, eggs, mollusks, crustaceans, fish, sesame, nuts, peanuts, and kiwi would likewise be banned, because they can cause food allergies.

6. Here it is worth noting that there have been no documented human health effects from GM foods. But many campaigners have claimed other effects. A common story, still repeated by Shiva, is that GM corn with Bt toxin kills Monarch butterflies. Several peer-reviewed studies, however, have effectively established that “the impact of Bt corn pollen from current commercial hybrids on monarch butterfly populations is negligible.”

7. Greenpeace and many others claim that GM foods merely enable big companies like Monsanto to wield near-monopoly power. But that puts the cart before the horse: The predominance of big companies partly reflects anti-GM activism, which has made the approval process so long and costly that only rich companies catering to First World farmers can afford to see it through.





8. In 2010, the European Commission, after considering 25 years of GMO research, concluded that “there is, as of today, no scientific evidence associating GMOs with higher risks for the environment or for food and feed safety than conventional plants and organisms.”

9. True to form, Greenpeace is already protesting that “the next ‘golden rice’ guinea pigs might be Filipino children.” The 4.4 million Filipino kids with vitamin A deficiency might not mind so much.” GM food: Golden rice will save millions of people from vitamin A deficiency. - Slate Magazine

This is a very interesting subject and you may be right.

As a conservative that suprises me, you accepting all these based on little claims from the companies that stand to profit. Who spun off Solutia to all their problems anyways?

Still though you may be right.

I'll have to do some research and see if the OP posts a spoon fed party doctrine or boot steps to a party line...

Just givin you a hard time PC. like I said on this one you may be right. I prefer a slower approach than what we are taking but accept it as inevitable some genetically modified crop is bound to be ok.

"all these based on little claims from the companies that stand to profit"


Why the fear of profits?

 

[Nika2013]

From a scientific perspective DDT is one of the worst things for the environment, not to mention that it destroyed the eggs of the bald eagle for many years, until the bird almost became extinct...

And food from a genetically modified source? Who knows what's in it or what it will do to people down the road?

"As far as not caring about people or facts, that is you, Oddie. You don't care enough to do the simple research to get the facts right."...she says...

You have missed the real research, yourself....Open a science book...

 

[PoliticalChic]

From a scientific perspective DDT is one of the worst things for the environment, not to mention that it destroyed the eggs of the bald eagle for many years, until the bird almost became extinct...

And food from a genetically modified source? Who knows what's in it or what it will do to people down the road?

"As far as not caring about people or facts, that is you, Oddie. You don't care enough to do the simple research to get the facts right."...she says...

You have missed the real research, yourself....Open a science book...

1. "From a scientific perspective DDT is one of the worst things for the environment, not to mention that it destroyed the eggs of the bald eagle for many years, until the bird almost became extinct..."

Really?

a. Still relying on Rachel Carson’s “Silent Spring” ? From that moment, progressives embraced radical environmentalism and other visions of natural utopia. Based on anecdotal evidence and dubious statistics coupled with heaping doses of paranoia, but very little science, it gave birth to the full-blown Progressive!

b. Carson’s book was dismissed in ‘Science’ magazine as a “prosecuting attorney’s impassioned plea for action,” not a book based on scientific data. I.L.Baldwin, “Chemicals and Pests,” Science, September 28, 1962, p.1042-1043.



2. "And food from a genetically modified source? Who knows what's in it or what it will do to people down the road?"

'For Progressives, science and technology are great…until they go too far! They oppose nuclear power, and genetically modified food, demanding that corporations prove a food or chemical is safe…rather than the common sense demand, wait for it to be unsafe. While claiming to wholeheartedly trust in science and scientists, Progressives do so only until scientific findings fail to uphold their cherished progressive values. When that occurs, the progressives accuse the scientists of transforming into shills for big industry.'
From "Science Left Behind," Berezow and Campbell



3. Here's a plan: "Open a science book..."