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I used to think that nothing rivaled the misinformation spewed by climate change skeptics and spinmeisters.
Then I started paying attention to how anti-GMO campaigners have distorted the science on genetically modified foods. You might be surprised at how successful they've been and who has helped them pull it off.
Ive found that fearsare stoked by prominent environmental groups, supposed food-safety watchdogs, and influential food columnists; that dodgy science is laundered by well-respected scholars and propaganda is treated credulously by legendary journalists; and that progressive media outlets, which often decry the scurrilous rhetoric that warps the climate debate, serve up a comparable agitprop when it comes to GMOs.
In short, Ive learned that the emotionally charged, politicized discourse on GMOs is mired in the kind of fever swamps that have polluted climate science beyond recognition.
The latest audacious example of scientific distortion came last week, in the form of a controversial (but peer reviewed!) study that generated worldwide headlines. A French research team purportedly found that GMO corn fed to rats caused them to develop giant tumors and die prematurely.
Enjoy that GMO corn with the insectide in it, it won't harm you at all, it's FDA approved!
Just like McDonalds is!
Dr. Strangelunch
Or: Why we should learn to stop worrying and love genetically modified food.
Ten thousand people were killed and 10 to 15 million left homeless when a cyclone slammed into India's eastern coastal state of Orissa in October 1999. In the aftermath, CARE and the Catholic Relief Society distributed a high-nutrition mixture of corn and soy meal provided by the U.S. Agency for International Development to thousands of hungry storm victims. Oddly, this humanitarian act elicited cries of outrage.
"We call on the government of India and the state government of Orissa to immediately withdraw the corn-soya blend from distribution," said Vandana Shiva, director of the New Delhi-based Research Foundation for Science, Technology, and Ecology. "The U.S. has been using the Orissa victims as guinea pigs for GM [genetically modified] products which have been rejected by consumers in the North, especially Europe." Shiva's organization had sent a sample of the food to a lab in the U.S. for testing to see if it contained any of the genetically improved corn and soy bean varieties grown by tens of thousands of farmers in the United States. Not surprisingly, it did.
"Vandana Shiva would rather have her people in India starve than eat bioengineered food," says C.S. Prakash, a professor of plant molecular genetics at Tuskegee University in Alabama. Per Pinstrup-Andersen, director general of the International Food Policy Research Institute, observes: "To accuse the U.S. of sending genetically modified food to Orissa in order to use the people there as guinea pigs is not only wrong; it is stupid. Worse than rhetoric, it's false. After all, the U.S. doesn't need to use Indians as guinea pigs, since millions of Americans have been eating genetically modified food for years now with no ill effects."
<snip>
Last June, at a Capitol Hill seminar on biotechnology sponsored by the Congressional Hunger Center, Shiva airily dismissed golden rice by claiming that "just in the state of Bengal 150 greens which are rich in vitamin A are eaten and grown by the women." A visibly angry Martina McGloughlin, director of the biotechnology program at the University of California at Davis, said "Dr. Shiva's response reminds me of... Marie Antoinette, [who] suggested the peasants eat cake if they didn't have access to bread." Alexander Avery of the Hudson Institute's Center for Global Food Issues noted that nutritionists at UNICEF doubted it was physically possible to get enough vitamin A from the greens Shiva was recommending. Furthermore, it seems unlikely that poor women living in shanties in the heart of Calcutta could grow greens to feed their children.
Please post a link to an article that says "non GMO natural corn contains insecticide".Enjoy that GMO corn with the insectide in it, it won't harm you at all, it's FDA approved!
Just like McDonalds is!
All corn has insecticide in it, even completely organic natural corn.
Please post a link to an article that says "non GMO natural corn contains insecticide".Enjoy that GMO corn with the insectide in it, it won't harm you at all, it's FDA approved!
Just like McDonalds is!
All corn has insecticide in it, even completely organic natural corn.
No nation will be immune to the impacts of climate change, states the new report titled Turn Down the Heat: Why a 4°C Warmer World Must be Avoided. However, the distribution of impacts is likely to be inherently unequal and tilted against many of the worlds poorest regions, which have the least economic, institutional, scientific, and technical capacity to cope and adapt, it adds.
The report arrives ahead of the next round of United Nations-led talks aimed at crafting a new global climate pact, which begin in Doha, Qatar in late November. As negotiators head to Doha for the climate talks, they must bring a greater sense of urgency and purpose to these negotiations, said Andrew Steer, president of the World Resources Institute, a think tank. The World Bank-commissioned study notes that global temperatures have already risen 0.8°C above pre-industrial levels and will soar past the U.N. goal of limiting the increase to 2°C absent stronger policies to limit emissions.
It warns that absent further commitments to curb emissions beyond existing pledges, a rise of over 3°C above pre-industrial levels is likely, and that even if nations' current pledges are implemented, there's a roughly 20 percent chance of going over 4°C by 2100. A 4°C world would be one of unprecedented heat waves, severe drought, and major floods in many regions, with serious impacts on ecosystems and associated services. But with action, a 4°C world can be avoided and we can likely hold warming below 2°C, it states.
The report warns that some of the most dangerous effects will be felt by poor nations in the tropical regions, who will face the greatest sea-level rise, get hit disproportionately hard by increases in cyclone intensity, and face other effects. Increasing aridity and drought are likely to increase substantially in many developing country regions located in tropical and subtropical areas, the report states. It warns of ecological harms and increased human suffering, noting that the effects of climate change will counteract benefits seen from economic growth and development initiatives. Whilst economic growth is projected to significantly reduce childhood stunting, climate change is projected to reverse these gains in a number of regions: substantial increases in stunting due to malnutrition are projected to occur with warming of 2°C to 2.5°C, especially in Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia, and this is likely to get worse at 4°C, it states.
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Global warming is real. Man-made warming is not. It's called Earths cycle. It happens consistently since the beginning. We are just able to track it now. Can't wait for the Gore cronnies to say something about that!
Global warming is real. Man-made warming is not. It's called Earths cycle. It happens consistently since the beginning. We are just able to track it now. Can't wait for the Gore cronnies to say something about that!
