On the battlefield of global warming, too many scientists have done the bidding of Greenpeace
Story submitted by Walter Donway
The world’s top scientists are upset with Greenpeace, the worldwide nonprofit organization, with an annual budget of almost a quarter-of-a-billion Euros, which started in Vancouver in 1970 to defend “nature” against human beings. I mean, by that, to oppose, at every step, mankind’s use of reason, science, technology, engineering, and industry to adapt nature to satisfying man’s needs. To Greenpeace, this made man the freak of the Universe because all other species survive by adapting themselves to nature or dying out. Greenpeace co-founder, Dr. Patrick Moore, told Savvy Street: “When I left Greenpeace 15 years later they, and much of the environmental movement, were portraying humans as the enemies of the earth … I had to leave.”
Many of the world’s leading scientists are disappointed with Greenpeace. More than 107 Nobel-Prize-winning scientists have signed a letter urging—oh, come on, pleading—with Greenpeace to end its worldwide opposition to genetically modified organisms (GMOs). Pleading not in the name of science, however, but humanitarian concern for millions of children in the “developing” nations who go blind, and then die, of Vitamin-A deficiency. These children, say the Nobelists, could be saved if Greenpeace did not block a genetically engineered strain of rice, called “Golden Rice,” that would supply the deficiency. Not surprisingly, still courageously combatting the organization he helped to found, Patrick Moore is a leading advocate and proponent of Golden Rice.
“We urge Greenpeace and its supporters to re-examine the experience of farmers and consumers worldwide with crops and foods improved through biotechnology, recognize the findings of authoritative scientific bodies and regulatory agencies, and abandon their campaign against ‘GMOs’ in general and Golden Rice in particular,” the letter states.
Read this further excerpt from the letter sent to Greenpeace. It would seem to tug at the conscience:
“Greenpeace has spearheaded opposition to Golden Rice, which has the potential to reduce or eliminate much of the death and disease caused by a vitamin A deficiency (VAD), which has the greatest impact on the poorest people in Africa and Southeast Asia.
“The World Health Organization estimates that 250 million people, suffer from VAD, including 40 percent of the children under five in the developing world. Based on UNICEF statistics, a total of one to two million preventable deaths occur annually as a result of VAD, because it compromises the immune system, putting babies and children at great risk. VAD itself is the leading cause of childhood blindness globally affecting 250,000 – 500,000 children each year. Half die within 12 months of losing their eyesight.”
Nothing that man has created “occurs naturally.” Get off your butt and make a list, with the heading: “All I Have that Improves My Health, Comfort, Longevity, and Enjoyment of Life that is Not Found in Nature.”
Well, you old farts! Didn’t you ever read and grasp the mission of Greenpeace? You don’t have to hack the organization to find it. Greenpeace’s international web site will tell you. GMOs represent “genetic pollution.” Anything man creates is pollution:
“Genetic engineering enables scientists to create plants, animals and micro-organisms by manipulating genes in a way that does not occur naturally.” [Emphasis added.]
Follow the link to continue… http://www.thesavvystreet.com/scientists-plead-with-greenpeace-for-blind-dying-children/
My suggestion is that if you are confused as to why Greenpeace and other Environmentalist groups oppose Golden Rice (and other technologies that benefit human life), then you really ought to read the book “Merchant of Despair” by Robert Zubrin. In this book, he lays out the anti-human philosophic strain that has led to the modern environmental movement’s anti-human positions. They don’t oppose Golden Rice because they are *mistaken*–they *really* want these people to die.
Absolutely Couldn’t B.
Check this site http://green-agenda.com/index.html
Cheers
Roger
http://www.rogerfromnewzealand.wordpress.com
I don’t see Greenpeace members volunteering to save the planet by stopping their own breathing.
Patrick Moore wrote this article circa 1994. It still rings true today.
After the fall of the Berlin Wall, Greenpeace was taken over by Marxists of many different stripes: Trotskyites, Leninists, Harpo’s, Groucho’s… and evolved into the watermelon outfit it is today.
http://www.ecosense.me/index.php/key-environmental-issues/10-key-environmental-issues/208-key-environmental-issues-4
Excerpt:
The Rise of Eco-Extremism
Two profound events triggered the split between those advocating a pragmatic or “liberal” approach to ecology and the new “zero-tolerance” attitude of the extremists. The first event, mentioned previously, was the widespread adoption of the environmental agenda by the mainstream of business and government. This left environmentalists with the choice of either being drawn into collaboration with their former “enemies” or of taking ever more extreme positions. Many environmentalists chose the latter route. They rejected the concept of “sustainable development” and took a strong “anti-development” stance.
Surprisingly enough the second event that caused the environmental movement to veer to the left was the fall of the Berlin Wall. Suddenly the international peace movement had a lot less to do. Pro-Soviet groups in the West were discredited. Many of their members moved into the environmental movement bringing with them their eco-Marxism and pro-Sandinista sentiments.
These factors have contributed to a new variant of the environmental movement that is so extreme that many people, including myself, believe its agenda is a greater threat to the global environment than that posed by mainstream society. Some of the features of eco-extremism are:
– It is anti-human. The human species is characterized as a “cancer” on the face of the earth. The extremists perpetuate the belief that all human activity is negative whereas the rest of nature is good. This results in alienation from nature and subverts the most important lesson of ecology; that we are all part of nature and interdependent with it. This aspect of environmental extremism leads to disdain and disrespect for fellow humans and the belief that it would be “good” if a disease such as AIDS were to wipe out most of the population.
· It is anti-technology and anti-science. Eco-extremists dream of returning to some kind of technologically primitive society. Horse-logging is the only kind of forestry they can fully support. All large machines are seen as inherently destructive and “unnatural’. The Sierra Club’s recent book, “Clearcut: the Tragedy of Industrial Forestry”, is an excellent example of this perspective. “Western industrial society” is rejected in its entirety as is nearly every known forestry system including shelterwood, seed tree and small group selection. The word “Nature” is capitalized every time it is used and we are encouraged to “find our place” in the world through “shamanic journeying” and “swaying with the trees”. Science is invoked only as a means of justifying the adoption of beliefs that have no basis in science to begin with.
· It is anti-organization. Environmental extremists tend to expect the whole world to adopt anarchism as the model for individual behavior. This is expressed in their dislike of national governments, multinational corporations, and large institutions of all kinds. It would seem that this critique applies to all organizations except the environmental movement itself. Corporations are criticized for taking profits made in one country and investing them in other countries, this being proof that they have no “allegiance” to local communities. Where is the international environmental movements allegiance to local communities? How much of the money raised in the name of aboriginal peoples has been distributed to them? How much is dedicated to helping loggers thrown out of work by environmental campaigns? How much to research silvicultural systems that are environmentally and economically superior?
· It is anti-trade. Eco-extremists are not only opposed to “free trade” but to international trade in general. This is based on the belief that each “bioregion” should be self-sufficient in all its material needs. If it’s too cold to grow bananas – – too bad. Certainly anyone who studies ecology comes to realize the importance of natural geographic units such as watersheds, islands, and estuaries. As foolish as it is to ignore ecosystems it is absurd to put fences around them as if they were independent of their neighbours. In its extreme version, bioregionalism is just another form of ultra-nationalism and gives rise to the same excesses of intolerance and xenophobia.
· It is anti-free enterprise. Despite the fact that communism and state socialism has failed, eco-extremists are basically anti-business. They dislike “competition” and are definitely opposed to profits. Anyone engaging in private business, particularly if they are successful, is characterized as greedy and lacking in morality. The extremists do not seem to find it necessary to put forward an alternative system of organization that would prove efficient at meeting the material needs of society. They are content to set themselves up as the critics of international free enterprise while offering nothing but idealistic platitudes in its place.
· It is anti-democratic. This is perhaps the most dangerous aspect of radical environmentalism. The very foundation of our society, liberal representative democracy, is rejected as being too “human-centered”. In the name of “speaking for the trees and other species” we are faced with a movement that would usher in an era of eco-fascism. The “planetary police” would “answer to no one but Mother Earth herself”.
· It is basically anti-civilization. In its essence, eco-extremism rejects virtually everything about modern life. We are told that nothing short of returning to primitive tribal society can save the earth from ecological collapse. No more cities, no more airplanes, no more polyester suits. It is a naive vision of a return to the Garden of Eden.
************************
I second that suggestion (BTW it’s Merchants not Merchant). I was absolutely shocked by how bigoted against the poor our government is. One of the instances cited in the book was with our tax money the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) sent to Africa birth control devices banned in the US because of the danger they posed to women. A condition of receiving aid was the recipient countries had to actively promote the use of these devices.
“… environmental movement, were portraying humans as the enemies of the earth …”
The Earth will take care of itself, it just happens that currently humans are at the top of food chain but that was not always the case and may not last for ever.
My money’s on this guy:
http://s16.postimg.org/yi2e5vl4l/kanamit.jpg
To serve man.
Take the green ones, they’re tastier.
“will not last forever. “. Would be more appropriate.
This reads like a counsel of despair.
Has it not occurred to “107 Nobel-prize winning scientists” to take their fight to the people who actually make the decisions to licence GM crops?
Or instead of pleading with these charlatans to call them out publicly for the liars and luddites that they really are?
Greenpeace only has power because craven governments and a deluded public give it that power. Time to put an end do it.
if not for craven, there’d be no politicians and if not for deluded fools there would be no voters and tax payers.
there won’t be any changes to that ever.
i’ll change my view when i see the venezuelans stop voting for and paying for starvation.
you may have heard of ‘suicide by cop’?
i see global suicide by state.
The Venezuelans stopped voting for starvation last December. The collective responded by stacking the courts. Mere elections do not a democracy make, much less a republic.
With the usual socialist result: bloodshed.
gee juan – they got what they voted for already. now they don’t want it?
but if they are voting against starvation i guess voting is the answer cuz it works so well?
they got where they are by a democratic process, you know.
or did you not understand that gang rape is democratic as you can get?
or maybe i misunderstood cuz i thought chavez was really popular because people wanted him to do their bidding and he did. now they don’t like it?
oh- sec- the sympathy phone is ringing.
wrong number.
🙂
let them eat socialism!
they voted to kill liberty – now they get to eat it.
The answer to irrational obstruction should be to convince the public and their representatives based on the scientific merits.
Trying to fight propaganda with more propaganda is going down the same rabbit hole as the global warmists have done. It usually means that you DON’T have a very strong case.
There was a worldwide moratorium on recombinant DNA back in the 80s because people were concerned it could be extremely dangerous. Now everyone recognizes that it is non-hazardous, and that every living organism is well equipped to degrade foreign DNA it encounters.
Gmo started out on the same path of concern, but with all we know about recombinant DNA and proteins, and the high bar we already have for things going into the food system, the irrational fear should be easily dissipated. The worst thing to do is retreat into bickering with the propagandists who already made up their minds in spite of the evidence.
KTM, you seriously misjudge humanity.
66% (or more) of US citizens simply cannot recognize facts “based on the scientific merits” – they either do not have the education or simply don’t/won’t pay attention. This number goes up as you go most other places in the world.
Unlike you, politicians all over the world intuitively understand this herd mentality, and they (including CAGW & anti-GMO weenies) feed off of it. Power over other people is the most powerful force in human beings – far stronger than money or sex.
This is why Maduro or Castro hang on – they don’t believe the crap they tell their citizens, they want to stay in power, and willingly will kill to do so.
There is a nihilist element in the green blob that hates that peasant scum (if you have to ask, you are peasant scum) have things they do. So keeping the number of peasants down is a good thing, and any change might just change the relative status of the green and the scum, so progress is a bad thing, too.
This is fundamentally reactionary philosphy that gets labeled “progressive”.
http://freefall.purrsia.com/ff2900/fc02832.htm
Green MOB
Gang-Green.
It is interesting that high lycene maize is permitted, a completely unnatural plant that was bred by crossing plants repeatedly to find a high lycene result with a translucent seed. Because it was bred ‘naturally’ it is allowed?
So Greenpeace is against what exactly? In vitro fertilization of human eggs? That is pretty unnatural. High lycene maize is unnatural, and we know that because there wasn’t any before it was ‘created’ by a retired agric advisor in Ghana.
Golden rice isn’t natural either. It was probably never going to evolve on its own any more than BIC pen would. The chances of the Internet evolving on its own without human intervention are exceedingly low, similar to the slim chance of the chance development of a mind capable of envisioning it in a period of only a billion years.
their niche is as spoiler.
arafat got a nobel prize for it.
activism’s ‘job security’ hinges on it
and u.s. economy is based on the activist industry now.
that’s why doom can be predicted with such confidence.
Lysine (not lycene), the amino acid. Maize itself is not “natural” in the Greenpeace sense because it was bred into existence from teosinte, by the pre-Columbian Aztecs.
The basic fallacy in the anti-GMO position is the assertion that human artifice is ‘non-natural.’ It’s not. Human technology and artifice are entirely, 100%, natural.
Whatever we make, from peach pies to SUVs to coal-fired power plants to Mars rovers to GMOs, is as much within the natural workings of the universe as are deer, bear, and pine trees. Our technology grew right out of our evolutionary trajectory, just as much as did the ability of polar bears to swim happily hundreds of kilometers out to sea.
Whatever derives from the universe is natural by necessity. Human technology derives from the universe. QED.
greenpeace and other forms of weapon grade stupidity is a human invention. QED that and what we got?
Excellent comment! Humans cannot produce anything unnatural. We are not super natural beings. What we could be doing is evolving enough to be able to advance nature to other planets just as birds evolved enough to move plants and other species around the planet much more efficiently than turtles. Humans using gmo, fossil fuels, nuclear energy, etc. could be exactly what nature has planned to secure it’s survival. In which case Greenpeace is anti-nature.
Not just corn (maize) but every other domestic crop and animal has been unnaturally bred by humans. Wheat, rice, barley, rye and oats, etc. all differ markedly from their wild ancestors. Same for fruit and root crops. Wild cabbage looks little like broccoli, kale and cauliflower.
The wild ancestor of cattle is extinct. Stubby-legged, super woolly domestic sheep are essentially a new species, they differ so much from their wild ancestor. Mules are usually infertile. Domestic pigs and many horses are mutant giants and goats scaled down ibexes.
Maybe the people at Greenpeace believe God, aliens, or some other external force put humans on this planet. That would be the only way we are not a product of nature.
I think Greenpeace would argue that we are a “mistake” of nature. In that case it could be argued that Vitamin-A deficient rice is also a mistake of nature and should be corrected. The idea that nature can make mistakes is a good argument for the need to correct those mistakes. And how can we do that without interfering in some way with nature such as by producing GMOs?
Hallelujah, Pat !
Corn was bred from teosinte by Mexican Indians millennia before the Aztecs, who were recent arrivals in Mesoamerica.
Chimp, I stand corrected.
Pat Frank
October 29, 2016 at 3:34 pm
A true and honest man of science!
theres a damn BIG difference between hybrid / crossing the same plants via natural means ie pollen.
and adding genes from Bt etc
as well as chem resistance genes
and IF you took notice the seed doesnt breed true(ok hybrids dont)but non hybrid strains dont reproduce the altered genes in the supposed spots they were created in.
as for the yield gains?
see todays NYTimes
as for the claims over numbers of kids and Vit A deficiency?
debatable
you reckon ANY decent food etc might BE the problem?
vit C etc
if theyre not getting FOOD full stop, then of course they die.
The Greenies know that man is a part of nature. Saying man is apart from nature and is fighting nature is just their excuse to wipe out man (all except the good ones, e.g. the Greenies). They are extreme misanthropists. However the operative law here is the tendency of nature toward complexity. The misanthropists can never win . . . they might wipe out man but nature will just continue on, creating more and more complex beings. Earth will become the planet of the apes or the dolphins or the lizards or whatever and they will all do the same things that man does now. Even if the Greenies wipe out all life on earth it will just start over again. So who is it that is actually fighting nature?
+100
” Humans using gmo, fossil fuels, nuclear energy, etc. could be exactly what nature has planned to secure it’s survival.”
As I’ve mentioned on WUWT before, I believe Gaia bred us to protect her and her children from those pesky space rocks that keep slamming into her planet. And while we’re at it, if we manage to turn up the thermostat a bit, that’s a bonus. 🙂
Pat Frank +1000
Excellent argument from a naturalist world view. While I disagree philosophically with naturalism, I can’t think of a world view, be it Naturalism (of which atheism is a subset), Theism, Pantheism, or Polytheism which could support Greenpeace’s argument that golden rice is ‘unnatural.’
Why bother pleading with Greenpeace.?
GREENPEACE DOESN’T CARE !!
Greenpeace cares immensely – just not for humanity at large.
But you are right that trying to make appeals to Greenpeace for anything to do with the betterment of mankind is a futile exercise.
Greepeace are environmentalists – not humanists.
Remember when Dolly the sheep was cloned? Then soon thereafter died?
Well Dolly wasn’t simply copied. Part of her was gene-spliced during cloning such that her urine produced a by-product that was commercially beneficial to her creators.
THIS IS THE PROBLEM with Golden rice.
The producers are under no obligation to inform consumers of what exactly has be added or subtracted from the rice. For all I know, the Golden Rice could contain or not contain other genes, Not disclosed, that reduce the population fertility rate, or is malicious to people of certain race make-up. Or the food could contain alleles that can’t be metabolized by human beings. Or… Corporate attorneys of Golden Rice will muscle out natural forms of rice…. see Monsanto & Round-up-ready corn fiasco.
I am against gene spliced GMOs ONLY because the producers are not required to LABEL everything that they have changed in the organism. Natural variation using traditional methods are tougher to control for nefarious purposes.
blah blah … carotene can be supplemented just as easy and special gene manufactured seed rice can be supplied…. they don’t have to be together in the same plant. That argument is a canard.
For heaven’s sake, ketchup bottles require a full description label of the ingredients.
Label the food exactly.
Paranoid much? Meanwhile, the children continue to go blind and die.
I agree, Paul, and additionally feel that extensive animal/human testing ought to be routine for any food source that contains novel/unfamiliar (bio/ecologically speaking) components, as well as ongoing careful monitoring of populations eating the “new” foods. Basically put, use science, I say . . and stay away from broad-brush approval or disapproval based on ideological/romantic claims or fears.
Exactly JohnKnight. Transparent Science. There is no replacement for slow time tested crop breeding. Accelerated regeneration models can’t anticipate all eventualities like the effect on insects (other GMO crops). TIME TIME is the argument I hear mostly. I say , what is the rush? Let the experiments run on a closed animal population or human population WITH THEIR INFORMED CONSENT for 3 generations and then make the case for world wide adoption.
Paul, i think the biggest concern has got to be that GMOs inevitably contaminate the good stuff. Go to the non gmo project website and they’ll tell you up front that they don’t actually guarantee that the products that they verify are non gmo. i think if the promoters of GMOs can’t keep their products from contaminating the rest, then they have no right to do what they’re doing. (at the very least, they should be required to use terminator seeds) GMOs should not be imposed on people who don’t want them…
p.s. what cold dark cave did all these pro gmo peops come crawling out of? (☺) keep up the good fight…
So, the problem with Golden rice is that Dolly gave it a golden shower, heh, Paul?
🙂
Nope.
The problem was that I was told, as was much of the world, that there was NO DIFFERENCE between Dolly and its donor. The problem was that the scientists who made dolly were flawed human beings that had an agenda and concealed it from the public while hyping the benefits of cloning.
It was lying by omission.
I bet $1 that Golden Rice ISN’T just rice with vitamin A added. I wager there are other undisclosed tweaks.
Well, Paul, since Dolly “Then soon thereafter died” according to you, did she actually piss on those mad scientists that violated her? Where did you learn that she was “gene-spliced during cloning” to get magical urine?
I was corrected by gnomish.. it was Polly and Molly, (made by the same group) that were spliced.
PW, you seem to confuse two very different things. A cloned sheep should be identical, unless the DNA is damaged in the process. Perhaps it was. No harm, no foul. Harm, foul.
GMO is on purpose not identical, by definition genetically modified by one or two or so expressed genes. That is why the subsequent testing is so extensive and rigourous. To show you got the desired modification, and only the desired modification.
ristvan,
“That is why the subsequent testing is so extensive and rigourous.”
Talk is cheap, ya know ?
I acknowledged I misspoke. I was referring to Molly and Polly, not Dolly. My bad.
That does not alter the fact that the gene splicers, who have no obligation to disclose the jiggery pokery, may do whatever the want for whatever reasons.
The obligation is on the investigators and GMO food makers to inform the public what the public is expected to consume.
Paul,
“I bet $1 that Golden Rice ISN’T just rice with vitamin A added. I wager there are other undisclosed tweaks.”
I bet you a million bucks that Golden Rice is exactly what it in fact is, which is not your lunatic fringe paranoid ravings:
http://goldenrice.org/
Honestly. Show me the evidence for your paranoid fantasy and I’ll gladly give you a million bucks.
You won’t because you can’t. Typical of the anti-human Catholic perspective, which needs poor suffering victims and hates scientific progress.
Paul, you are engaging in the favorite conspiracy theory of the green left. How deliberate changes in organisms are more dangerous than essentially random changes produced by mutations and selective breeding escapes me.
Much of the opposition is really to corporate agriculture, and capitalism generally. What amazes me is the great conservatism of the commercial plant breeders in mostly making very small changes. What would be a great project would be adapting legumes nitrogen fixing symbiotes to grasses, which has gone nowhere apparently.
If the old Soviet Union or Zimbabwe were examples of good agricultural practices, I might buy the socialist/anarchist objections to intellectual property in agriculture.
TH, great comment. Exposes the errors innbasic premises.
Thank you, Mr Istvan
What makes your comment so much more powerful, Tom, is that even in its gloomiest days prior to Bob Mugabe murdering his opponents and stealing power, Zimbabwe (S. Rhodesia) was commonly called the Bread Basket of Africa for its abundance. Socialism kills off everything, bit by bit.
Tom. I am not opposed to GMO carte blanche. I am opposed to unlabeled GMOs.
If teh food label is required to state calories and sugar, the food label should also require to show all of the genetic manipulations to the food.
Tom. Why not? Apparently the modifications are all for the good right? Which would make the food more attractive right? Or are you one of those people that think the ordinary slobs are too dumb to need to know?
Many of the calls for labeling of GMO’s is to facilitate a boycott. Veggie-libel laws are unconstitutional in the US, so the dread claims of the “natural food” advocates can spread with no consequence.
Yes, Tom. They are simply wrong about the need for more testing. GMOs are extensively tested and have never had a negative effect. It is a strawman argument. The Monsanto urban myths are especially foolish.
And as for labeling: you should come to California where Prop 65 labels have become a pathetic joke, since they are affixed to everything for sale in the state. Not effective.
Plus, every ingredient in every type of food has been genetically modified, by a variety of methods. Agriculture= artificial GM. Those would be some huge labels.
Plus, people want labels in order to scare other people for no reason other than they are ignorant about the topic and there always has to be at least one major food/nutrition scare and one food/nutrition miracle. Eat Alar apples and you’ll die tomorrow. Eat kale and you’ll live forever. Sigh…
———————————-
To prove you are scientifically literate, you should be able to pass the Test of the Modern Big Three:
1) Evolution = fact
2) CAGW = false
3) GMO = good. not new or scary.
It’s surprising how many people can’t get all three right…
Paul: You seem to know precisely all the information you want to be on the label. So how did you find out? No label, so the info must be freely available. What you really, really want is to frighten people away from enjoying the fruits of scientific development. Luddite.
Hi Jim B. No. In the USA even bottled water MUST be labeled as dictated by the FDA. In the USA it is a crime to market food that does not have a label approved by the FDA. That is good practice and the public enjoys eating and drinking with full disclosure.
I don’t think it is frightening to know that phosphoric acid is in Coca Cola. I understand it.
I am legitimately concerned that the GMO producers of Golden Rice DON’T want the public to know everything that is in their rice. JimB, if Golden Rice isn’t scary, then why hide the genetic manipulation scheme from the people who are to consume it?
Brown 3rd world people don’t need our care and protection. They make great lab rats eh?
PW, theyndid not. It is a matter of public domain. Two genes inserted. See my comment elsewhere. Your fears are irrational.
By the way, within the time frame of this aguement how many more blind kids? Maybe we should ask the parents what they want to feed there kids instead of the left deciding what they should get! My guess is they would take the chance and be able to send the little ones on to school instead of sending them off into a life of pure hell as a blind person on the streets in the third world. Who are these lefties who assume so much power over others of less advantage? Pure evil.
The only alteration to Golden Rice is the addition of the gene for beta carotene, in order to up the Vitamin A content. If you don’t like beta carotene, don’t eat carrots. If you really hate it, then go ahead and go blind.
Just what in your paranoid ideation else do you imagine the evil scientists added, and why?
The goal is to improve people’s health. What do you want the rice sacks to say? Is the color not “warning” enough that the rice isn’t “normal”, ie Vitamin A deficient?
How do you feel about iodized salt? Milk fortified with vitamins?
Paul, nothing, including the LAW, has stopped the EPA using humans as “lab rats” for its PM2.5 testing.
Chimp I am fine with iodized salt etc since it is identified on the food container.
My assertion is that Golden Rice simply needs to have a label that says what makes it different from regular rice.
Paul,
You have repeatedly been told precisely what makes GR different from rice without the beta carotene gene.
Yet you continue asserting baselessly out of pure paranoia that there must be other bad things in this life-saving crop.
Anyone planting or eating GR knows what the difference is. Third World people don’t read labels on plastic covered products in supermarkets. They plant, harvest and eat products grown in their own regions.
Grow up and get real.
Paul, may I suggest you take a breath, pause, and consider that you have formed an incorrect opinion based on incomplete information.
Listen to ristvan. The information isn’t hidden. It is readily available.
No, what you said was
ALL of the genetic manipulations. But even that isn’t really clear on what you are expecting to see printed on the label. A list of the genes inserted? The procedures used in the process? A complete gene map? What?
And remember, you’d have to do this for EVERY SINGLE plant or animal product in the food. If it’s just a bag of Uncle Ben’s Instant Golden Rice, then you’re maybe only adding a few lines to the Nutritional Info, but try that with the Banquet Salisbury Steak Meal.
INGREDIENTS
Gravy (Water, Modified Food Starch, Flavorings, Monosodium Glutamate, Salt, Hydrolyzed Soy Protein with Hydrogenated Soybean Oil, Corn Syrup Solids, Caramel Color, Dried Whey), Water, Salisbury Steak Patty (Beef, Pork, Water, Dehydrated Onion, Textured Soy Flour, Bread Crumbs {Bleached Wheat Flour [Enriched with Niacin, Reduced Iron, Thiamine Mononitrate, Riboflavin, Folic Acid}, Durum Flour, Leavening {Sodium Bicarbonate, Sodium Acid Pyrophosphate}, Yeast], Soy Protein Concentrate, Salt, Caramel Color, Sodium Tripolyphosphate, Flavoring), Corn, Dehydrated Potatoes (Potatoes, Mono- and Diglycerides from Vegetable Oil, Disodium Dihydrogen Pyrophosphate, Sodium Acid Pyrophosphate, Sodium Bisulfite, Citric Acid, BHT), Soybean Oil, Salt, Whey Protein Concentrate, Sugar.
Go on, add a few lines about every item listed there. Some of them, like the vegetable oil, may itself be made up of several different plants. And is the corn for the corn syrup solids the same corn as what’s in one of the sides? Probably not, corn syrup isn’t usually made from sweet corn. Heck, the corn growing in my sisters fields last year isn’t the same hybrid as what’s growing in her neighbors this year. And what’s growing here in Indiana isn’t the same as what they’re growing in Texas. Do we need different boxes for each farming region? For each FARM? There are literally hundreds of different hybrids for different combinations of expected climate, insect and weed resistances, soil type, and many others, and that’s just the corn. And they’d all have to be stored separately after harvest before we could even START to try to document what kind of modifications each received. And then track each type separately as it goes through all the different food production methods that lead to a product that eventually shows up in our stores.
Do you begin to understand just how insane this idea really is? How utterly impossible? Maybe we could note foods with a “Contains GMO Items” label, but even that would only be functional for a while because there is only a very few GMO foods produced right now. Once they become more widespread it’ll become even more difficult then trying to keep track if foods are ‘Organic’ (which today amount to little more then arm waving, and is rarely attempted beyond raw foods)
In short, anyone pushing for ‘proper labeling’ of GMO’s either doesn’t understand the problem, or they are deliberately promoting an impossibility to keep them out.
Well, if someone wants to avoid eating GMO foods, they should be able to buy known cultivars and also do a little legwork for themselves. That is reasonable. When gmos are approved in the US, you can instantly find out. Also just go buy organic because organic certification is not given to any gmo product.
What is to be feared are mandates which force people buy either organic food or gm products because they are “environmentally sustainable” or “more nutritious.” Organic food only provides 1 percent of the food supply in the US because it is so unreliable, expensive and inefficient. It is very similar to the worthless wind turbines in the energy sector. People have good reasons not to buy organic, and so organic food should be labeled. We all deserve to protect our growers from organic regulatory assaults similar to what is happening in the EU. Again, conventional growers have voluntary and completely happy buyers who do not want to be forced or tricked by regulations into buying expensive and grossly irresponsible organic foods. Keep in mind that some of us are just as (or more) upset about buying organic food as you are about eating gmos.
So we each have a choice, and that is the best that can be hoped for. It is the mandate and the outlawing of competitors that is evil. This entire generation is always trying to make a buck and control behavior that way.
There is nothing burdensome about telling the consumers of your products, what is in you products.
I am in favor of disclosure, information, education and publication.
GMO makers, should be proud of what they do, if it is in fact good for mankind. So why the resistance to public disclosure? Why the resistance to labeling?
“anyone pushing for ‘proper labeling’ of GMO’s either doesn’t understand the problem, or they are deliberately promoting an impossibility to keep them out.”
And that is your excuse for not informing the public?
NO. The public has a right to know.
They have a right to know what they feed themselves and their children.
In this age, a label can have a link to a web page with all of the genetic manipulations and known ingredients.
It is weird to want to conceal food content from the consumer.
Jjs has a point. Here, people argue GMOs should be labelled so consumers have a choice. But when it comes to Yellow Rice, all choice is removed and Greenpeace says you can’t have it for your own good (or their good, whatever). If Americans should get a choice, why shouldn’t those who could benefit from Yellow Rice get the same choice? (Preferably without the Frankenstein horror stories designed to scare them again using psuedoscience.)
I’m sorry Paul, which part of ‘what you want is physically impossible’ didn’t you understand? Trying to track each specific hybrid or cultivar through the food production and distribution system would require a thousand fold increase in its complexity. And for what? So a bunch of paranoids can know specifically the genetic makeup of the food they won’t be eating? Because let’s face it, if you’re this crazy about GMO’S then you’re not going to eat it regardless of which one is in it.
Now, if all you wanted was a label that says “contains no GMO’S”, then that’s fine. That is actually possible. And as Zeke already wrote it is even already out there. Organic foods are guaranteed to be GMO free. Or if you want to have GMO’S labeled in none Organic foods because you don’t want to climb on that crazy bandwagon, then hey I can get behind that too. (Mostly because damn near everything contains some form of vegetable oil or corn sweetener, so a ‘contains GMO’S’ label IS already everything except Organic foods.
But this crazy fantasy of a webpage that lists every specific gene in every ingredient in every food that you could buy is just that, a fantasy. It couldn’t be done right now, with the vary small numbers of Comercial GMO’S out there, and it would only get worse as time goes along and new plants and animals are genetically modified.
If you’re really this concerned about GMO’S, then instead of trying to track each one to each specific food product, maybe you should be looking into the other end of the process. In the testing phase they DO keep track of each gene mod separately and carefully watch for adverse reactions or unwanted effects. Actually learning about the process you oppose might help you to understand why we think the labeling requirements you are demanding are so ridiculous.
And if all you really want is to push your ‘Monsanto is an evil empire out to poison the world’ conspiracy theories, then quite trying to force everyone else to live in your fantasy. We have better things to do with our time and money.
fact check: did not die ‘soon after birth’.
Dolly the sheep born on 5 July 1996 and died from a progressive lung disease 5 months before her seventh birthday
The life expectancy of sheep is similar to large breeds of dogs, about 10 to 12 years.
fact check: death was not associated with cloning in any way:
A post-mortem examination showed she had a form of lung cancer called Jaagsiekte,[15] which is a fairly common disease of sheep and is caused by the retrovirus JSRV.[16] Roslin scientists stated that they did not think there was a connection with Dolly being a clone, and that other sheep in the same flock had died of the same disease.
“We could find no evidence, therefore, of a detrimental long-term effect of cloning by SCNT on the health of aged offspring among our cohort.”[20][21]
fact check: no evidence of genetic modification can i find:
Dolly was born on 5 July 1996 and had three mothers (one provided the egg, another the DNA and a third carried the cloned embryo to term).[8] She was created using the technique of somatic cell nuclear transfer, where the cell nucleus from an adult cell is transferred into an unfertilized oocyte (developing egg cell) that has had its cell nucleus removed.
please provide link to info substantiating your claim that “Part of her was gene-spliced during cloning”
truth matters
Polly and Molly not Dolly.. Thanks for the correction. but… they were all fabricated by the same scientists.
Climate science alarmism is also fabricated by the same ‘scientists’.
*sigh*
I try so hard to behave myself here these days, but sometimes it is really hard.
If you are into tinfoil hat theories, here is a supplier for you:
http://www.alcoa.com/global/en/home.asp
Just a few problems:
Either you can digest and metabolize DNA or you can’t.
Hint: you can
If some bad actor really was up to no good, either a government or an industrial player, they could arrange for the evil breed seed to be shipped to the farmers while claiming it to be come innocuous breed.
A call to label GMOs as seed to the farmer, with possibly declarations to relevant govt. agencies?
NOPE! Pages of Frankenfood labeling on every consumer product that any GMO ever came near.
Paul:
Things you need to know.
1) “Modest labeling requirements” on consumer goods is a cornerstone of a long running “Frankenfoods” fear mongering campaign which has been hugely profitable for the enviro NGOs. Such fear mongering has to be recognized for the despicable tactic it is, preying on uninformed consumers for fun and profit.
2) Labeling requirements would require absolute 100% segregation between GMO and non-GMO foods in the nation’s food processing industry. This is a practical impossibility and the enviro NGOs know it.
A strict labeling requirement would do to the food processing industry what ObamaCare did to the health care industry and what the War on Coal is doing to the energy sector.
The enviros know this, that is the point. You don’t really believe the enviro NGOs are honest brokers, do you?
Finally, would someone explain to me:
Why taking a gene for bug resistance from a Brussels sprout and sticking it into a cabbage is such a Frankenfood nightmare, “that never existed before”.
Never eat cabbage?
Never eat Brussels sprouts?
Would it be a nightmare if the chef mixed cabbage and Brussels sprouts together, tossed with butter and seasoned with just a dot of fresh ground black pepper, then served?
but haven’t you heard of Mad Salad Disease?
it makes you climb in a big bowl and toss yourself!
gaia weeps!
The horror…
The horror…
Brussel sprouts? Cabbage? That sounds like the kind of stuff food eats. I’m not a big fan of eating the stuff my food eats.
GMO foods are extensively tested before approval and release. See Safety and nutritional assessment of GM plants and derived food and feed: the role of animal feeding trials. in Food Chem Toxicol. 2008 Mar;46 Suppl 1:S2-70. doi: 10.1016/j.fct.2008.02.008. Epub 2008 Feb 13. EFSA GMO Panel Working Group on Animal Feeding Trials.
Here’s the basic result of testing: “Results obtained from testing GM food and feed in rodents indicate that large (at least 100-fold) ‘safety’ margins exist between animal exposure levels without observed adverse effects and estimated human daily intake. Results of feeding studies with feed derived from GM plants with improved agronomic properties, carried out in a wide range of livestock species, are discussed. The studies did not show any biologically relevant differences in the parameters tested between control and test animals.”
Here’s a partial Abstract (bold added): “In this report the various elements of the safety and nutritional assessment procedure for genetically modified (GM) plant derived food and feed are discussed, in particular the potential and limitations of animal feeding trials for the safety and nutritional testing of whole GM food and feed. The general principles for the risk assessment of GM plants and derived food and feed are followed, as described in the EFSA guidance document of the EFSA Scientific Panel on Genetically Modified Organisms.
In Section 1 the mandate, scope and general principles for risk assessment of GM plant derived food and feed are discussed. Products under consideration are food and feed derived from GM plants, such as maize, soybeans, oilseed rape and cotton, modified through the introduction of one or more genes coding for agronomic input traits like herbicide tolerance and/or insect resistance. Furthermore GM plant derived food and feed, which have been obtained through extensive genetic modifications targeted at specific alterations of metabolic pathways leading to improved nutritional and/or health characteristics, such as rice containing beta-carotene, soybeans with enhanced oleic acid content, or tomato with increased concentration of flavonoids, are considered.
The safety assessment of GM plants and derived food and feed follows a comparative approach, i.e. the food and feed are compared with their non-GM counterparts in order to identify intended and unintended (unexpected) differences which subsequently are assessed with respect to their potential impact on the environment, safety for humans and animals, and nutritional quality. Key elements of the assessment procedure are the molecular, compositional, phenotypic and agronomic analysis in order to identify similarities and differences between the GM plant and its near isogenic counterpart. The safety assessment is focussed on (i) the presence and characteristics of newly expressed proteins and other new constituents and possible changes in the level of natural constituents beyond normal variation, and on the characteristics of the GM food and feed, and (ii) the possible occurrence of unintended (unexpected) effects in GM plants due to genetic modification.”
If you folks are worried about the safety of GMO food then what’s the point of worrying in ignorance? It’s a simple matter to inform yourselves of the huge amount of regulatory testing GMOs undergo before release is considered.
For those who worry about ‘unnatural’ toxics in food: Dietary pesticides (99.99% all natural), B. N. Ames, et al., (1990) PNAS 87(19) 7777–7781, doi: 10.1073/pnas.87.19.7777
Abstract: “The toxicological significance of exposures to synthetic chemicals is examined in the context of exposures to naturally occurring chemicals. We calculate that 99.99% (by weight) of the pesticides in the American diet are chemicals that plants produce to defend themselves. Only 52 natural pesticides have been tested in high-dose animal cancer tests, and about half (27) are rodent carcinogens; these 27 are shown to be present in many common foods. We conclude that natural and synthetic chemicals are equally likely to be positive in animal cancer tests. We also conclude that at the low doses of most human exposures the comparative hazards of synthetic pesticide residues are insignificant.”
This paper is an excellent tonic against ignorance-based alarm about the quality of our food. Ames, & co., estimate that we consume about 1.5 gm per day of natural dietary pesticides, i.e., pesticides made by the food plants themselves, in their eternal war against predatory insects.
This 1.5 gm per day of natural pesticides is thousands of times more than our exposure to residues of synthetic pesticides, and the natural and synthetic pesticides are just as toxic in rodent tests.
Here’s a revealing extract from the paper: “Even though only a tiny proportion of the plant toxins in our diet have been tested so far, the 27 natural pesticides that are rodent carcinogens are present in the following foods: anise, apple, apricot, banana, basil, broccoli, brussels sprouts, cabbage, cantaloupe, caraway, carrot, cauliflower, celery, cherries, cinnamon, cloves, cocoa, coffee, collard greens, comfrey herb tea, currants, dill, eggplant, endive, fennel, grapefruit juice, grapes, guava, honey, honeydew melon, horseradish, kale, lentils, lettuce, mango, mushrooms, mustard, nutmeg, orange juice, parsley, parsnip, peach, pear, peas, black pepper, pineapple, plum, potato, radish, raspberries, rosemary, sesame seeds, tarragon, tea, tomato, and turnip. Thus, it is probable that almost every fruit and vegetable in the supermarket contains natural plant pesticides that are rodent carcinogens.
All hail our livers, which detoxify them all.
The Risk Monger publishes a blog on the issues of pesticides and GMO’s — it’s well worth reading on a regular basis. He looks at the issues around Glyphosphate and bee mortality on a regular basis.
https://risk-monger.com/
There is way too much hysteria around GMO’s and pesticides.
I read a study once that found that pure dihydrogen monoxide was a rodent carcinogen. <¿<
No independent double blind multi-generational testing, me no believe it’s safe. I’m a man a science, not blind faith in human experts.
With all due respect: to be a man of science one should at least respect the scientific method and accept valid evidence, such as the results of well designed experiments.
When one is presented with sources which show that the experiments one “requires” have been done, and one then ignores or rejects that information, one sounds hollow when referring to one’s self as a man of science.
“With all due respect: to be a man of science one should at least respect the scientific method and accept valid evidence, such as the results of well designed experiments.”
Well, that’s what I just said, in essence . . Test it . . in reality-land . .
When food is modified by conventional means (cross pollination, etc.) we don’t really know what genes were exchanged. It’s completely random. And even if the genome were sequenced, we still don’t know what most genes do, even in plants. In contrast, we know exactly which genes were inserted into GMOs, and it is easy to prove (by random testing if necessary), that only those genes were added. In fact, you’d want to do that anyway just for quality control.
GMO varieties require even more testing than those produced by conventional means, so they should be safer. I don’t think your fears of using genetic manipulation of the food supply to target specific sub populations is rational. Besides, there are much easier, more effective ways to do that, as history shows us.
Everything that has advanced human civilization and reduced human suffering can be misused. That does not mean that they should be banned. Vigilance is always required, but blind fear leads back to darkness and death.
Paul,
“GMO varieties require even more testing than those produced by conventional means, so they should be safer. ”
One would think such testing would be in order, but as far as I can tell, they’re not subject to any special testing;
“Because FDA determined that bioengineered foods should be regulated like their conventional counterparts, FDA has not to date established any regulations specific to bioengineered food.”
http://www.fda.gov/NewsEvents/Testimony/ucm484275.htm
I suggest folks (here, anyway) treat the matter as they do “climate science”, which is to skeptically. Berating people for being consistent about science seems kinda hypocritical to me.
Paul Penrose.
I for one am not anti-GMO carte blanche. I just think GMO food or anything should be labeled as such. There really isn’t a good reason why not.
JohnKnight, you’ve been eating radiation produced hybrids all your life.
A large fraction of the fruits and vegetables you enjoy were produced by irradiating plant stock to produce genetic mutants with more desirable properties. They were all found to be safe using the same methods as now applied to GMOs.
But using radiation is a scattergun process. Other parts of the genome are also affected. GMO is far more precise, putting in known single genes of defined properties. Your fears are misplaced.
John Knight: Millions of diabetics use insulin—from recombinent DNA. It starts with ecoli and ends with insulin. Other than the usual allergic reactions to components, etc, there have been no reports of sci-fi type happenings due to the use of a GMO product. You can’t get much more modification that turning ecoli into insulin. Why then are people freaking out over Golden Rice?
I have trouble grasping the problem with testing things . . it’s called science, kids . .
I suspect it’s ignorance of just how complex and massive the genetic coding really is, due to the side effects of the Evolution Religion. It ain’t goo in there, kids.
Meanwhile, hundreds of millions of people in China, the Philippines, the US and elsewhere have been eating GM food daily for years, and seem to suffer no ill effects whatever.
Paul,
If I were a nefarious evil anti population guy with the means to introduce/splice dna into rice, that wwould in turn impact human fertility rates, AND I was required by law to lable the rice as such …
Being the evil nefario that I am, I would not lose any sleep over mislabeling and violating that specific regulation.
Twenty Third Rule of Supervillainy: If you want to distribute your Mind Control Formula, Mutagen, Supertoxin, whatever, clandestinely to the public, don’t make it glow in the dark. (Or in this case, be bright yellow)
Paul: With modern DNA sequencing methods, you could quickly analyze the whole genome of Golden Rice and compare it to the conventional sort. No Russian hackers required.
Mike Palmer…hmmm THAT is a great idea!
You may have stumbled onto an opportunity! I could set up an NGO to sequence all food products and expose what the gene splices are doing. I did not think of that. (but then I am suffering a slight fever)
very clever.
See, this is what’s fundamentally wrong with lefty ‘progressives’. Paul gets handed a possibly viable business idea, a way to take his mindless fear of GMO’S and convert it into a marketable product he can sell to ‘Organics’ nuts and like minded paranoids, and his first inclination is to turn it into a neo-bureaucracy complete with government trough dedicated to saving the world from his personal boogieman, whether we want it or not.
God, save me from the ones who want to save me from myself. >¿<
Yes, they have to be labeled with all their ingredients, except for the rat hairs and cockroach eggs…please. No one needs GMOs to wipe out the human race. The greens are doing that with denial of energy sources.
Well said. Greens don’t care about humans so why do we listen to their “warnings” about GMOs. You’d think they would embrace the chance to wipe out millions.
So true! And the problems might occur after several human generations. Even if there is labeling, would we know what it meant, or the risks involved? Would anyone, so who could supply insurance cover?
Mono culture farming isn’t that good anyway. A varied diet is better, so what you say makes sense. And many are eating the ancient grains to which we have adapted, over more than centuries. Variety is the spice of life, especially when it comes to food. Processed food costs! This is a ploy to make small farmers dependent on Big Cereal, aka Big Bio.
I guess most consumers have no idea which genes rice, or any other eatable product for that sake, contains in the first place.
Paul et al – I have a different approach – I trust Patrick Moore. He wrote me about their Gold Rice Project several years ago and sent me a website, now password-protected.
http://www.allowgoldenricenow.org/
Golden rice is a worthwhile, safe and noble endeavour.
May I suggest everyone do a little reading before they get so damned paranoid.
Regards, Allan
Source: http://goldenrice.org/
The Golden Rice project wins the Patents for Humanity Award 2015.
The White House Office of Science and Technology Policy and the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) have announced the winners of the 2015 recipients of the Patents for Humanity Award, among them the Golden Rice Project.
Patents for Humanity is a USPTO program that recognizes patent owners and licensees working to improve global health and living standards for underserved populations. The program advances the President’s global development agenda by recognizing private sector leaders who bring life-saving technologies to those in need, while showing how patents are an integral part of tackling the world’s challenges. .
The award has been bestowed upon the Golden Rice Project, in particular to Prof Ingo Potrykus, Prof Peter Beyer, and Dr Adrian Dubock. The latter attended the official award ceremony on 20 April 2015, accompanied by Dr Rob Russell, a member of the Golden Rice Humanitarian Board.
*************
🙂
Pretty much.
There are other vitamin deficiencies which cause blindness.
“How You Get Vitamin B12 Deficient
Vitamin B12 is present in natural form only in animal sources of food, which is one of the reasons I advise against a strict vegetarian or vegan diet. There are many well-documented cases of blindness and brain abnormalities in strict vegetarians, resulting from vitamin B12 deficiency.
The older you get the more likely you are to have a vitamin B12 deficiency. The two ways you become deficient are through a lack of vitamin B12 in your diet, or through your inability to absorb it from the food you eat.
I recently visited India, which is primarily a vegetarian based culture. Current studies there show about 80 percent of adults are deficient in vitamin B12.
Vegans and Vegetarians
Vitamin B12 deficiency is extremely common in strict vegetarians and vegans. B12 is not readily available in plants, so if you do not eat meat or animal products you are at risk.
Vitamin B12 is found almost exclusively in animal tissues, including foods like beef and beef liver, lamb, snapper, venison, salmon, shrimp, scallops, poultry and eggs.
The few plant foods that are sources of B12 are actually B12 analogs. An analog is a substance that blocks the uptake of true B12, so your body’s need for the nutrient actually increases.”
And other surprising vitamin deficiencies that cause other problems. Found this out during a doctor metabolism workup of my significant other. She developed anxiety disorder after an an anaphylactic shock episode, and one of (not the only) underlying causes was D deficiency. One tenth of a whatever from being officially clinically acute per Mayo Clinics. 1/3 of all Floridians are vitamin D deficient to some degree. On the surface, very surprising for the Sunshine State since D is synthesized in the skin with aunlight exposure. Reason is simple. Extensive use of high SPF sunscreen to prevent skin cancer, as with her. They even sell Vitamin D enhanced Florida orange juice here in Florida, the D deficiency problem is so common.
@Rud Istvan I am so glad for you both. It made my day that your doctor checked for a vitamin or mineral deficiency.
For the same reason, rickets is returning to children in England because of a lack of vitamin D. It is truly scary what an irrational fear of sunlight has done to us. I love sunlight, but keep to 20m exposure a day. As long as you don’t burn, I believe you are fine. (obviously that is difficult to prove)
I’ve had a problem with vitamin D deficiency. It took months of supplementation, once the issue was uncovered, to get my levels back into the ‘normal’ range. It has made a noticeable improvement in the my health. Unfortunately, I’m probably always going to have an issue, my work requires me to cover almost every inch of skin, for safety reasons. So I’m not likely to get enough sun exposure on a regular enough basis to forgo supplementation… not anytime soon anyway.
SMC, one can buy vitamin D oil and mix it into a good-quality skin creme. Apply it to your skin, putting the vitamin D right where it would be synthesized in the sun. That, as well as taking a supplement, should do the job for you.
We left one out: Leftist Greenpeace human compassion deficiency is causing blindness.
Paul is quick with the conspiracy theory , while a certain amount of caution is probably warranted the rewards outweigh the risks if people are dying from starvation and disease .
Greenpeace is an example of how good ideas can be hijacked. They do little but showboat, accumulate massive funds (40m Euros in cash), run scare campaigns (Coal Kills), claim victories that are not theirs (Ross Sea Sanctuary) and by any measure do little of positive value in working our collective way ahead in a constructive fashion. They are stoppers not doers. Give me Sea Shepherd any day!
Eh. Nan. Let’s tax these guys and put the money to better use.
http://s15.postimg.org/r7as7h2mz/lefty_institute_skin_suit_iowahawk.png
Sea shepherd? Pffft. Those guys need to grow a backbone and own up. If they want to sail the high seas colliding with whaling ships that’s cool by me. But they need to lay off the sad videos where they try to make it out like they are the innocent victims and ‘OMG that ship just hit us, couldn’t they see we had the right of way’.
I’ll respect Sea Shepherd the moment I see one of their videos where the hoist the Jolly Rogers and yell out ‘RAMMING SPEED!’
Besides, I still haven’t forgiven them for the Ady Gil. That ship was a marvel, and even after they wrecked her she could have been salvaged and repaired. But scuttling her was better for ratings.
http://www.ecorazzi.com/2015/09/25/judge-rules-sea-shepherd-wrongfully-sank-whale-wars-vessel/
Golden rice is now just two inserted genes: Psy from the daffodil and Crtl from a common soil bacterium. Extensively safety and efficacy tested. Put into the dwarf (IR8) rice varieties that also produce higher yields, a double benefit. Original 3gene version developed by scientists using underlying Syngenta gene technology, who then insisted Syngentia give the underlying patent rights insofar as golden rice was concerned away free (golden rice project) to make the rice readily available. That humanitarian gesture also opposed by Greenpeace under the theory poor Asian countries coild not afford the patent surcharges, so Syngenta shoild enforce its patents, demand royalties, and that would mean the end of golden rice.
For Africa, there is alternative hope. Scientists found wild varieties of sweet potatoes that naturally produce and store provitimin A (beta carotine). They have been able to selectively breed enhanced yields through standard techniques, and these cultivars are now being introduced to Africa. The remaining problem is ‘social’: Africans prefer the taste of their traditional ‘less orange’ sweet potatoes and don’t generally understand VAD disease. An ‘eat your spinach’ problem.
So, why hasn’t someone charged Greenpeace with attempted genocide. At least in the press.
You’re joking, right?
Rud – please read this re the patents, from http://goldenrice.org/
Where is the patent problem alleged by Greenpeace? I don’t see one.
Regards, Allan
Back in 2001, in a ground-breaking humanitarian licensing arrangement, the three applicants (with Dubock then working for Syngenta) arranged in a cashless transaction for the defined commercial rights in US patent US 7,838,749 (and related patents) to be transferred to Syngenta. The inventors retained rights to the carefully and generously defined humanitarian applications. Syngenta, in return for its commercial options acquired, became obligated to support the humanitarian and non-profit vision of the inventors, and the inventors’ public sector licensees, rights to exploit any improvement, including as exemplified by patent application US20120042417 A1. Syngenta stated in 2004 that it had no continuing interest in commercial exploitation of the technology. Nevertheless, Syngenta’s obligations to support the inventors and their Golden Rice humanitarian project remain in place..
If you don’t like GMOs, then stop sneaking soy bean products into people’s food.
(And palm oil always tastes disgusting too.)
Zeke, I like GMO’s on my farm. Corn and soy almost exclusively used. Cows don’t care, and the veal, beef, and milk is delicious.
A little basic backgound science. All GMOs work by using inserted genes from elsewhere to produce useful but ‘unnatural’ (in that plant) proteins. Beta carotine, CP4 ESPS synthase for glyphosate resistance… All proteins in every living thing are comprised of just 20 amino acids. All proteins are broken down in the animal gut and absorbed as those basic 20 amino acids only. (BTW, beta carotine is not a protein, hence the efficacy of golden rice.) Else, an immune response would be triggered. For example, human celiac disease is an inherited immune disorder where glutten is not completely broken down in the gut, and the digestion fragments cause inflammation of the lower digestive cell wall and so acute gastric distress.
In the ordinary course of affairs, all GMO crops pose zero consumption risks from first principles of protein digestion.
Something Greenpeace does not want us to know.
The only science Greenpeace believes is climate “science”.
Uhh, no.
Cash flow.
hmm? so spraytopping near dry grains to speed harvest with glyphosate which is going to be ON the seed husk and dusted onto the grain thats then milled..isnt a probable for so much of the rather amazing rise in gluten intolerant people
and yes I know…many claiming intolerance probably dont show it on a lab test for that
but
they dont test for glyphosate intolerance do they?
and the allowable percent of that was more than doubled recently.
ffs!
rather think “safe dose” and lifetime accumulations are different things entirely.
safe dose of how MANY? foods a day also doesnt seem to get a mention,
gm corn soy RR multi strain chem resistance ie 24d and up to FIVE or more chemicals resistant,
and those two products are added in many ways in the same food
thickener sweetener etc etc.
I havent bought any corn/soy items imported for years for that reason.
no canola or cottonseed oils either cos in Aus theyre possibly gmo. cotton definitely is.
ozspeakup: Nature provides us with numerous “lifetime exposure” risks and yet people seem a-okay with nature killing them via these exposures. Not sure why. Dead is dead.
As pointed out in previous comments, plants make their own natural insecticides. How much “lifetime exposure” are you getting from the foods? Does anyone actually measure the natural toxins? I doubt it, because people think things like natural arsenic and natural cynanide can’t really hurt you, right? It’s irrational and illogical, to say the least.
How does Greenpeace “block” golden rice?
Well organized, well funded political opposition, plus massive disinformation campaigns, plus pay to play politicians. Google Greenpeace golden rice rallies in Southeast Asia, for example. They brag about it all on a dedicated website.
No different than opposition to fossil fuels. Look at the current US pipeline kerfuffle with the Standing Rock Sioux reservation. Protesters from around the world. Pipeline does not cross the reservation, most Standing Rock Sioux don’t care about it, and are increasingly annoyed at the protesters. Today’s Google news.
“Many of the world’s leading scientists are disappointed with Greenpeace. More than 107 Nobel-Prize-winning scientists have signed a letter urging—oh, come on, pleading—with Greenpeace to end its worldwide opposition to genetically modified organisms (GMOs).”
Quite a coincidence that this story should be posted here now. I just finished reading about how the American chestnut tree will hopefully be revived after being nearly wiped out over the last hundred years or so from a viral Chinese chestnut tree blight that was accidentally introduced to the U.S. back around the turn of the 20th century. A food source for forest wildlife was lost when the blight all but wiped out the tree. It is reported to be just barely hanging on now in small numbers.
http://phys.org/news/2016-01-genetically-american-chestnut-decimated-iconic.html.
The American chestnut was a dominant hardwood tree in the eastern forests of the U.S. from Georgia to Maine and reportedly numbered in the billions before the blight. Fortunately, according to the article above, a genetically modified version of the tree has now been engineered by introducing a gene from the wheat plant which helps the chestnut tree resist the virus. Other scientific research involving genetic enginerring to revive and restore the chestnut is also ongoing.
Even if these projects do succeed, it will still take a very, very long time before the American chestnut again becomes the dominant hardwood tree in America’s eastern forests that it once was. Fortunately, the chestnut is said to be a fast grower, and that will help.
I join those Nobel prize-winning scientists (and probably most followers of WUWT) when I expresss my frustration and disgust with Greenpeace and other greenie groups with their oppostion to genetic engineering and GMOs. Their belief system is a religion, not science. Science only matters to them when it can be abused or manipulated for their religion (CAGW for instance).
Long live GE science.
Plus many. The only benefit of Durch Elm disease on my Uplands Wisconsin dairy farm is the abundance of spring morel mushrooms that results. And I probably just gave away a ‘shroomer secret’.
Cool. I look forward to seeing them.
You got qs much ‘shroomer secrets’ as you ever will. Want to see $80/lb spring fresh morels, just Google images.
My bad. The blight is caused by a fungus, not a virus.
@Rud Istvan: Yup. I can remember hearing about Dutch Elm disease here in Wisconsin decades ago when I was a kid.
“Dutch elm disease is spread by the elm bark beetle.”
http://lsuinsects.org/scolytinae/key/Scolytinae%20of%20Louisiana/Media/Images/Ips%20avulsus%20-%20lateral.jpg
More reading on bark beetles:
“A bark beetle is one of about 220 genera with 6,000 species of beetles in the subfamily Scolytinae. Traditionally, this was considered a distinct family Scolytidae, but is now understood to be very specialized members of the “true weevil” family (Curculionidae). Well-known species are members of the type genus Scolytus, namely the European elm bark beetle S. multistriatus and the large elm bark beetle S. scolytus, which like the American elm bark beetle Hylurgopinus rufipes, transmit Dutch elm disease fungi (Ophiostoma). The mountain pine beetle Dendroctonus ponderosae, southern pine beetle Dendroctonus frontalis, and their near relatives are major pests of conifer forests in North America. A similarly aggressive species in Europe is the spruce ips Ips typographus. A tiny bark beetle, the coffee berry borer, Hypothenemus hampei is a major pest on coffee plantations around the world.”
Managing forests must include controlling beetles. American forests have been decimated by pine beetles and Asian longhorn beetles. Activists are always outlawing good pesticides. Activists lie and trees die. Examine their organic solutions very very carefully.
Yep, and in the last few years it’s been the emerald ash borer here in the Midwest. Pretty much devastated the Ash population. I honestly had never considered how many of the trees around here were Ash until they all died in a matter of 2 or 3 years.
And now with all those Ash trees gone, what are the odds that out of all the new ash borers that suddenly have nothing for their larvae to feed on, a few won’t manage to adapt (evolve?) To eat some other kind of tree? Might there already be a walnut or maple in some backwoods lot dying as it’s consumed from larvae that will soon be themselves looking for the same kind of tree for their own spawn?
Who needs horror movies when we have mother nature and her ‘survival of the fittest’ in our own back yards. ○¿●
schitzree,
What a sad way to watch the ash trees die.
emerald ash borer larval form
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-USlynGaakJs/UOc0WOE05fI/AAAAAAAAABQ/qWwleImXXHc/s1600/EAB444.JPG
Zeke
That’s the monster from my nightmares, right there. So many trees killed off, and so quickly. Killed one of the trees right in front of my home. Luckily the other was a maple. My stepdads farm has a back woodlot, and they killed dozens of Ash there. He cut some of them down afterwords to turn into lumber (he build furniture as a hobby) but most just rotted. You about couldn’t even give them away as firewood. A lot of people wouldn’t touch it because they were afraid a spreading the bores, (not that they needed the help) and the ones who did take it for firewood had more then they could burn in 10 years.
My greatest hope is that, with all the Ash gone, maybe the Bores will all die out. I know a few people who’ve keep Ash seeds in the hope they can be restored. And a few ash trees have even been saved. There’s ways to protect them.
it’ll take time, though. Decades to bring back what was lost so quickly.
In the 1950s (in western Pennsylvania), the American Chestnut trees still stood and seedlings still grew from the roots. Hickory and Butternut trees still provided food for Squirrels, and the nuts were collected and eaten (along with a few of the Squirrels). Many of the Chestnut seedlings produced fruit before they died. We found some. Trees that were started far from the eastern mountains still exist, but I haven’t checked in the last 10 years.
Here is a link to the American Chestnut Foundation: http://www.acf.org/
I will now spend an hour catching up.
yeah well dont get too happy just yet
the GM modded eucalypts keep falling over n the woods not so good..ok for loo paper I gather
So when the Edsel proved to be a really bad car, we should have stopped manufacturing cars? When the Challenger exploded, we should have thrown out the space program? Any failure is a sign to give up and go home, right?
@ozspeaksup: There are multiple genetic modification techniques being used to genetically engineer blight resistance into the the American chestnut tree. The one I talked about above is just one of the them.
The research is onging, so let’s just wait and see what happens.
Isn’t that a problem with Eucalyptus Trees in general? Because of the way the roots grow? They grow very quickly and very tall, and have a root system with both a deep boring tap root and shallow laterals for nutritient gathering. But in shallow earth where the tap root can’t grow deep and anchor the tree they can easily grow to large and topple.
Greenpeace is now a marxist organization.
So?
Such behaviour fits ,being consistent with the stated agenda of Gang Green.
They make Luddites look reasonable.
Denying a benefit to the children of poor ,mostly brown people , is business as usual for these virtue posturing phoneys.
The worst thing we could ever do to these lovely “do gooders”, would be planet saviours, would be to take them at their word.
Then give them what they demand.
Paul Westhaver October 29, 2016 at 2:52 I bet $1 that Golden Rice ISN’T just rice with vitamin A added. I wager there are other undisclosed tweaks.
I want to agree with Paul Westhaver on 2 points.
1. Bill Gates is behind a lot of very bad products that no one wants (common core, eliminating fossil fuels), so I will grant that there may be a hook to Golden Rice — something not golden, something nefarious. Perhaps a B12 analog that prevents B12 uptake.
2. But even if there is nothing wrong with Golden Rice, farmers in the end must choose what they grow and how to grow it. I do not want to end up with a lot of genetically tampered with coffee and chocolate, because someone else thinks they have developed a type that is “sustainable” or “more nutritious.” That is what the Golden Rice argument is basically aiming for — if you can add a health benefit to a food, no one can argue against it. No. All decisions are made by farmers, and other cultivars cannot be ruled out, controlled, or outlawed based on the desire to mandate newer plants with advertised nutritional or sustainable qualities developed by GM scientists.
However, there are only 7 crops that are GM in the US. So it is very easy to buy organic and/or don’t use
corn,
soybeans,
cotton
potatoes
papaya
squash
canola
alfalfa– try not to munch too much of that.
Actually, what I want is required labels on foods that are organic. They use bent over laborers in the fields to weed. They are spreading diseases that used to be controlled. They may be applying manure and it is uncertain how long it takes for the ecoli and other diseases to die, even in aged animal waste. They reintroduce pests and make false promises to farmers in poor countries — like coffee growers who can’t use fungicides and loose their crop to rust. LABEL ORGANIC FOOD so it can be avoided by the rest of us.
In fact, just make sure to label the number of hours the foreign workers had to be bent over picking weeds so you could have your designer salad. And label the organic cotton t-shirt so everyone can see that you pay lots extra for brown women in fields to weed and control pests in the cotton field. Maybe that is why liberals want free movement of people so they can have slave grown crops.
Organic farms also require about 60% more land to produce the same amount of crops as a high-tech farm. So, if you want to keep some wild lands, discourage organic farming.
The manures used by organic farms also leach nitrogen into runoff all year round, while the inorganic fertilizers used on high-tech farms are applied only during the growth phases of the crop.
I tend to avoid organic food because organic farming is unnecessarily destructive.
CRAP! re more land use, ditto the fertiliser claim
mulch n manures arent applied in huge amounts , just enough to allow uptake n growth,
inorganics are byproducts of chem production they couldnt get rid of otherwise
naturals are simply returning what came from the soil BACK to it in easily useable form BY the biota then plants
chem ones kill biota
read Albrecht and Walters and Anderson
theres a big differnece between sane organic and the basically wanna be corportae sort as well
I grow organically but will never join the organics mob.
same bureaucratic bullshit as regular mobs.
ozspeakup: Fine, you go organic. Leave the rest of us alone. (Organic farmers admit organic costs more because they cannot produce as much food per acre—meaning their methods are less efficient and less productive. Of course, if you only care about feeding yourself and everyone else can starve, organic’s a wonderful idea.)
Organic foods are more expensive and the organic religion is being pushed on the poorest people in the world. Not only are they in energy poverty now they are being drained of money from scare tactics from buying affordable food.
Nitrogen leaching A Korsaeth (2008) Relations between nitrogen leaching and food productivity in organic and conventional cropping systems in a long-term field study Ag. Ecosys. & Environ. 127(3-4) 177–188.
Abstract (bold added): An ideal agricultural system should both maximize food production and minimize undesirable effects on the environment. The long-term Apelsvoll cropping system experiment, located in southeast Norway, was used in this study, to compare yields, major N flows (in particular measured leaching/runoff losses) and the N loss-to-food production ratios (LFP-ratios) in six different cropping systems over a 4-year period. The experiment included three systems with cash-cropping (CA1: conventional arable farming; CA2: arable farming practice with environmentally sound management; OA: organic arable farming with 25% of the area as green manure, and three systems with both arable and fodder crops, representing mixed dairy production (CM: conventional farming practice with 50% grass–clover ley; OM1: organic farming with 50% grass–clover ley; OM2: organic farming with 75% grass–clover ley). The forage production was assumed to be used for milk and meat production, in amounts calculated on the basis of available feed and estimated requirements for dairy cattle. All farm produce (cereals, potatoes, milk and meat) was converted into metabolizable energy for human consumption. Organic cropping gave significantly lower yields than conventional cropping, for both arable and mixed dairy systems, most likely due to sub-optimal plant nutrition and the lack of plant protection in the organic systems. The average net energy production in CA1 and CA2 was 2.4–5.3 times greater than that in the other systems, which illustrates the energy costs of taking 25% of the area out of food production to produce green manure (OA) and the energy cost of including an extra trophic level in the nutrient chain (CM, OM1 and OM2). Only CA2 and CM appeared to have a balanced N budget, whereas the other systems all had N deficits, in particular CA1 and OA. The total N losses to drainage were largest from CA1, but not significantly larger than those from OA, which had the largest N runoff of the systems, most likely due to the green manure in its rotation. The conventional system with environmentally sound management (CA2) had the lowest LFP-ratios overall. Among the arable cropping systems, the organic system with 25% green manure (OA) had the highest LFP-ratios. The mixed dairy systems had generally higher LFP-ratios than the arable systems. Including leaching/runoff N losses in the LFP-ratio, CA1, CA2, OA, CM, OM1 and OM2 appeared to lose 0.6, 0.4, 1.1, 0.9, 1.2 and 1.1 kg N, respectively, per GJ of produced metabolizable energy for human consumption.
Yield, V. Seufert, et al. (2012) Comparing the yields of organic and conventional agriculture Nature 485, 229–232 doi:10.1038/nature11069.
From the abstract (emphases added): … Here we use a comprehensive meta-analysis to examine the relative yield performance of organic and conventional farming systems globally. Our analysis of available data shows that, overall, organic yields are typically lower than conventional yields. But these yield differences are highly contextual, depending on system and site characteristics, and range from 5% lower organic yields (rain-fed legumes and perennials on weak-acidic to weak-alkaline soils), 13% lower yields (when best organic practices are used), to 34% lower yields (when the conventional and organic systems are most comparable). …
Hunger is not due to non-availability of food but it is the distribution. FAO report says around 30% of the food produced is going as waste. It is 40-50%.
With the wars food production and transportation were/are affected. In early 90s I travelled all around Ethiopia. On the Sudan border side plenty of food with good rains but on the red sea side no food with poor rains. To transport food from good to poor rainfall zones, roads very very poor on the one side and on the other side rebels attack. In 80s in Mozambique, roads are mined — I have to o by twin engine jet to assess the food production in individual provinces.
With reference to Golden Rice Vitamin-A, a group of scientists studied and said that the level of Vitamin A in Golde Rice is more dangerous and chances of loosing eyesight is more than the so-called normal. I myself was an invitee at a first meeting organised by the Swedish Golden Rice seed company along with scientists from IRI Philippines who are working on it.. There they were asked: is the quality of food eatable by humans, in India there are several natural crops that contain Vitamin A, etc.
India and China showed seed varieties that out yield Golden Rice by traditional agriculture-seed.
The main problem with Noble Prize winners is that they don’t know the basics of the subject matter as such but work for MNCs. In the past UN did the same thing, when there was a stiff opposition for chemical input technology, the introduced a poyee global Warming. The chemical input technology introduced air, water, soil & food pollution and created new health hazards and thus drug manufacturing industry and hospitals [see on the Sic Planet: Corporate Medicine and Food.by Stan Cox.
Dr. S. Jeevananda Reddy
ICRISAT [one of the 13 institutes of CGIAR system, a MNCs front organisation], in Hyderabad, India developed a Vitamin-A containing high yielding Pearl Millet [not GM] based on Germ Plasm collected in the region for dry areas of the region. I worked in ICRISAT during 1976-81. In this region there are few varieties of Sorghum that contain in built Vitamin A. Pearl Millet and Sorghum, a healthy diet, were the stapple food of the region.
Dr. S. Jeevananda Reddy
I agree very much on your first point (food distribution is the problem, not production).
Your second point — the purported danger associated with golden rice — I find very dubious. I’m wondering, too, how effective rice enriched in vitamin A might really be. It is one of the fat-soluble vitamins — like E, D, and K — and in a diet short of oil or fat, which I suspect would be common in the populations most afflicted by vitamin A deficiency, I would expect it not to be very effective. However, I see no mechanism by which it could actually make things worse than they are.
Michael Palmer — anything too excess is always dangerous and so is the case with Vitamin-A. Detailed study by British scientists found the level of Vitamin-A in the Golden Rice is in excess of the comfortable limit and thus cause more problems. This was published more than a decade back. I presented this in my technical papers presented at symposia and daily news papers.
Dr. S. Jeevananda Reddy
Really? Because up until 2005 the biggest problem they were having with Golden Rice was that it produced too LITTLE beta-carotene. You would have to eat over 10 pounds of it a day to get the recommended daily requirement of Vitamin-A. With the newer generations you can get the same amount of beta-c from only a cup of Golden Rice. That puts it about equal with kale, and about double that of spinach. But it’s still only around a third of the Vitamin-A you can get from a sweet potato, and a quarter what you’d get from a cup of carrots.
I’m sorry, Dr. Reddy. But your ‘to much it’s dangerous’ theory doesn’t pass the smell test. Which is too bad. A few decades ago I could have used a good excuse not to eat my carrots. ^¿^
Dr. Reddy—I would consider the deaths and blindness of the children to be excessive. What do you plan to do to remedy this? Or are excesses in chemicals the only thing that counts?
Why you should not fund Greenpeace: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wCK7W1Nl34A
What is really needed is an organized effort to globally discredit Greenpeace and its ilk. Conduct ad campaigns and take them to court at every opportunity.
Greenpeace grew up because too many governments and or multinational companies used the earth resources with scant regard for the long-term sustainability, of the whole of the planet and it’s people. That basic proposition hasn’t changed, governments and multinational companies still have to be dragged screaming and kicking to do the right thing.
This article and others like it are just all part of the creeping misinformation put out there by Monsanto and it allies. Making a crop more resistant to pesticides, so the farmer can spray more pesticides on his farm tell you a lot about the ethos and morals behind Genetically Modified Foods. Making a seed sterile so the farmer has to go and buy all new seed every year also shows the morals behind this push. Lobbying governments, trying to change public opinion through articles that totally gloss over or avoid the truth.
A few years ago many so-called lauded scientists swore there was no such thing as global warming, so don’t say that scientists are infallible.
Just like politicians they too can be bought, or influenced for the wrong reason.
Here ya go kevin, learn ya something that isn’t a sad Greenpeace lie.
http://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2012/10/18/163034053/top-five-myths-of-genetically-modified-seeds-busted
Of course, if you still insist that hybrid seed is sterile, you can come on out to my sisters farm and help us clear the volunteer corn out of the soybeans. ~¿~
kevinashton, there’s no such thing as global warming in the sense you mean it.
The negligence that is the global average air temperature record: http://meteo.lcd.lu/globalwarming/Frank/uncertainty_in%20global_average_temperature_2010.pdf (869.8 KB)
The negligence that is the entire consensus position: http://eae.sagepub.com/content/26/3/391.abstract
The incompetence that is climate modeling: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=THg6vGGRpvA
I’m sure yourself and your fellow denialists also still argue vehemently that the world in flat.
My first experience with Greenpeace was in Amsterdam in 1979, I dated a Dutch girl who worked in their office. The asked me to paint some slogans in English to tie to the ship Rainbow Warrior, which I did.
In the couple days, I spent with them I found out what that particular protest was about. A German drugs company called Bayer (not connected to the American Bayer) was paying the Dutch government 6 million guilders a year ($3,000,000 at that time) to dump toxic chemical waste in the Dutch part of the North Sea.
Bayer didn’t even put the chemicals into concrete barrels, they just put a huge hose over the side of their ship and pumped the waste into the sea. Later that day on Rainbow Warrior we caught various kinds of flat fish and most of them had cancerous growths on them because of the poison being pumped without any precautions into a sea that many Europeans get their fish from. The fish were analysed by independent labs to confirm what the Greenpeace marine biologists had said, so let’s hear you explain that one away using science and hard facts, please.
Science and hard facts, is it? Well here’s a hard fact. You’re a nasty little troll, who I’ve already caught spreading bald face lies. Why should we believe anything else you have to say? Heck, you might even believe all the dreck you just spewed, but from your last rant we already know you regurgitate anything you’re feed from Greenpeace without doing the least bit of self verification. Was any of it true back in 79? Who knows. Do you have any kind of proof? Why should I even care?
Frankly, kevin, the moment you rolled out the flat earth meme, I knew you weren’t capable of forming your own thoughts. You’re just another gore-bot. A know nothing Greenpeace following Climate Faithful, incapable of coming up with anything but the same old tired old slogans and quotes, that we’ve all shot down a dozen times before.
Do yourself a favor, and actually read some of the thing people give you the links to. Maybe then you won’t make such a fool of yourself next time.
I’m not a troll nor a liar I stand up for truth against people who deny the facts. Getting angry at me just because I won’t roll over to your lies does not make them true. The world needs Greenpeace and I did speak from personal experience, can you say that? Next, you’ll say there was no such thing as the Holocaust. Sending me links from sympathisers
doesn’t cement your argument. If Greenpeace was not needed it would not exist.
You’ve proferred nothing of substance in favor of your position, Mr. Ashton. You have just been yelling, making blanket accusations against people you know nothing about, telling unsubstantiated eco-sob stories from “personal experience”, automatically hand-waving away any evidence presented by the opposing side because it comes from “sympathizers”, indulging in myopic projection of your own behavior onto others, and generally acting the part of a pontificating buffoon.
Truth, facts. You keep using those words. I do not think they mean what you think they mean.
You will most likely now write another “I know you are, but what am I?” reply, and keep doing so as long as somebody answers back, because getting the last word means you won the argument, right? That’s troll behavior, right there. Please prove me wrong by NOT answering. 😉
Your personal experience was ‘someone in Greenpeace told me something and I believed it unconditional without verifying it.’
My personal experience was ‘I can see the volunteer corn in the field just by looking out the window, so anyone who tells me hybrid seed is sterile hasn’t done any fact checking on their Greenpeace handed down talking points.’
And then, like any good Gore-Bot, you role out the Holocaust. Because you know you’ve got nothing.
Troll
kevin, that was in 1979, when there has been real polluting and the purported theme has been “protection of the natural environment”. Even then it has been mostly show and exploitation of youthful activism.
The Brent-Spar episode has opened many people’s eyes concerning the motives of these “protectores of the environment”.
Now it is about mainly about “Global Change” and the selling of Greenpeace licences and labels, and securing their own jobs.
kevinashton, I replied substantively to your claim about global warming. Your response was to name-call and change the subject (to Bayer).
It’s an easy conclusion that you don’t know what you’re talking about.
Organic growers do permit mutation by exposure to x-rays and gamma rays.
“Induced mutations have been used to improve major crops such as wheat, rice, barley,cotton, peanuts, and beans, which are seed propagated. Since the establishment of the Joint FAO/IAEA Division of the Nuclear Techniques in Agriculture, more than 1800 cultivars obtained either as direct mutants or derived from their crosses have been released worldwide in 50 countries. In vegetatively propagated plants, many of mutants were derived from irradiating rooted stem cuttings, detached leaves, and dormant plants.”
To which radical uncontrolled mutants you have more risk than targeted GMO.
It makes me wish I knew more about it, and about polyploidy, because it is all so interesting. — But so are old fashioned amateur plant breeders who have patented some of the most beautiful fruits, flowers and ornamentals.
And…Boo!
Happy Holloween to all 🙂
Starberry!
Polyploidy is the cause of most species of plants and many animals. Humans and other vertebrates exist because of past polyploidy, ie the origin of new species in a single generation thanks to genome duplication.
Thank you Chimp for the remark. I am very interested in rapid speciation and polyploidy, and possible episodes of catastrophic radiation exposure in earth’s past, but it is hard to find a laymen’s level book on the subject. I do sometimes follow the experiments with sending seeds or yeast up to space and bringing them back.
It’s a very hit and miss method!
(I wish I had a picture of a crabby farmer with an unattractive corncob from an irradiated seed, but I can’t find it.)
Rud Istvan opined…
===============
“All proteins in every living thing are comprised of just 20 amino acids.
All proteins
are broken down in the animal gut
and absorbed as those basic 20 amino acids only.
(BTW, beta carotine is not a protein, hence the efficacy of golden rice.) Else, an immune response would be triggered. For example, human celiac disease is an inherited immune disorder where glutten [sic] is not completely broken down in the gut, and the digestion fragments cause inflammation of the lower digestive cell wall and so acute gastric distress.
In the ordinary course of affairs, all GMO crops pose zero consumption risks from first principles of protein digestion.
================
caveat emptor:
* * * * * *
“Chewing a handful of castor beans can lead to death”
“As little as 100 nanograms of pure botulinum toxin can kill the average human.”
– Gizmodo, 10 of the Deadliest Proteins
* * * * * *
“The dominant contributor in the composition of hair is protein, accounting for 91 percent of hair fiber.”
– Design Essentials
* * * * * *
“Hairballs can be quite hazardous in humans, since hair cannot be digested or passed by the human gastrointestinal system, and (assuming it is identified) even vomiting may be ineffective at removing the hair mass. This can result in the general impairment of the digestive system.”
-wikipedia_hairballs
* * * * * *
The big FDA food maker contradiction:
Argument to the patent office:
My new gene spliced food is novel and teaches new art and I need a patent to advance the science and protect my market. It is different and does wondrous things.
Argument to the FDA:
My new gene spliced food is NO different than natural food. Nothing to see here. The public should not be aware of the differences. People who think otherwise wear tin-foil hats.
You don’t understand GMO. Putting a gene from a plant in which it produces no ill effects into another plant is no more dangerous to humans than when it was in its original plant.
Why is this so hard to understand?
One important reason the labeling and governmental regulations are burdensome, and voters have rejected it in many states, is because there is no test that can possibly distinguish gmo foods or gmo fed livestock. It is not measureable. It is not a scientifically verifiable certification. It’s just another thing you have to crawl to some bureaucrat and pay for. NOne of us who are even remotely informed and sympathetic to farmers want an extra bureaucratic black mat over the market.
People who want to advertise and put non-gmo labels on their products can certainly do so. It should be a great niche market. You can see there are only 5 edible gmo crops in the US, and find out if there are more. But voters don’t want it. We don’t want to be harrassed and bullied into a European Union type of over- regulation on farmers and ranchers. They have to stamp every $%## egg and are outlawing cinnamon over there. You have got to be kidding me.
Chimp,
As a matter of fact, there was no such thing as “Eosinophilia-Myalgia Syndrome,” until a company called Showa-Denko (Japan) produced the amino acid L-Tryptophan using a strain of genetically modified bacteria:
http://www.nemsn.org/
Showa Denko flushed the genetically modified bacteria down the toilet when the problem came to light.
https://www.google.com/search?&q=“tryptophan+disaster”
Why do you reckon they did that?
thank you
same dissonance caught me yrs ago
IF its new n novel and so special
then it can NOT be the same when its procduced for sale or the patenting is a lie
IF?
its different and cost 3x or more to buy seed but doesnt produce 3x more crop then why bother?
and ifs its so special then proudly labelling ALL food inc it as GMO modded should be a sales pitch they fall over emselves to make
oddly?
they dont want ANY labels showing it. hmm?
It is stunning to witness the resistance to informing the public. What is that?
“nonprofit” is misleading.
I assume those who are employed by Greenpeace works there for their own profit.
http://bigthink.com/risk-reason-and-reality/no-gmos-how-about-a-helping-of-irradiated-mutant-plants-and-veggies-instead
The scatter gun approach to creating GMOs has been around since the 1920s, it’s becoming popular again.
So with billions spent on overseas aid nobody has managed to produce vitamin supplements that can be sent to those in need? Amazing. Or would that just be too simple.
Sure, it’s simple. Ship over a few million bottles of Flintstones chewables, easy peasy. Then do it again next year. And the year after that. And so on and so forth. And don’t forget, they still need to eat real food.
OR, send them over a shipment of Golden Rice. Which several of the big seed companies have done, along with waving the licensing fees for anyone making less then $10,000 profit on it.(even the great satan, Monsanto) And of course, they don’t even have to buy more seed next year, because despite what Greenpeace (and Kevin above) tell everyone, the harvested rice is fully fertile and can be replanted for the next crop.
So, which do you think is better? Giving a man a fish? Or teaching him to fish?
yup decades and billions spent on various golden corn duds and then the rice
would have provided vitamin supplemented food for kids and seeds for people
or how about just educating some mums about what local foods they CAN get n afford need to be eaten.
but poverty is the BIG reason over all.
Greenpeace..
Why Greenpeace is popular is because there is an underlying truth in what they promote. To demagogue them is folly. Patrick Moore got an idea in his head that was sort of ok. It was. Now it is all wacky, in Greenpeace.
One must be surgical in separating the good from the bad and that exposes one to risk and reaction.
I see the good in GMOs and I see risks.
Now Moore has yet another idea in his head. It is again, getting all wacky. I see this issue as a projection of a disordered mind. He is determined to advance Golden Rice come what may! Just like his obsession with Greenpeace, he was determined to advance his cause come what may and look at the sh1t storm he created. Patrick Moore is incapable of regulating his mouth. He can’t empathize with normal people who have legitimate concerns. He is still a self righteous activist pushing his issue du jour. He wants it all his way.
He is on both sides of this.
He created Greenpeace and he is also pushing unrestrained distribution of GMO Golden Rice.
I think HE should take a breath and allow lesser confused and abrupt people guide the process of GOMs into the human food system. His is unreliable and capricious.
People have a right to know what they eat.
Greenpeace is popular because people love myths, tales of doom and imaginary enemies. They always have. Nothing sells like a Frankenstein tale. Considering how much GMO is already out there, arguing that it will destroy the planet is a bit like arguing CO2 will destroy the planet.
No. Nuclear accidents weren’t myths. Industrial waste wasn’t a myth. They are real. Greenpeace stands on legitimate issues and extrapolates into the mythology and extremism.
CO2 is a simply natural well-descibed gas with predictable behavior. To say that all GMOs made by all people and corporations in every country for all time is as simple, reliable and well understood as CO2 is absurd. We haven’t begun to see what form of genetic engineering is coming…. reality checker???!!
Paul Westhaver: I didn’t say they were. Even the co-founder of Greenpeace says the organization served a purpose in the beginning. They were too successful in fixing these problems, needed to find ways to continue the gravy train, so jumped into psuedoscience, which sells well.
CO2 is apparently not well understood or we wouldn’t have people trying to shut down every fossil fuel activity out there, regulate cow flatulence and return to 17th century living conditions. Plus, as you so aptly point out with GMOs, CO2 does not occur in a stand-alone system. Yet climate change “science” treats it as if it does, claiming it’s “well understood” even when included in an extremely chaotic system. That should be very concerning to you.
Genetic engineering will come no matter what. It’s like nuclear power. Once the door is opened, you can’t close it. That IS reality. You may be able to regulate it for a while, but you cannot stop it or close the door any more than you can unknow how to split an atom.
They also have a right to not be burdened by even more unnecessary, overbearing regulations imposed by an even more bloated bureaucracy. Or should have, at any rate.
Pursuing his new position with the same zeal as when he pursued his old position does not necessarily make Moore, or anyone else, unreliable or capricious. (The story of Saul of Tarsus comes to mind.)
“Pursuing his new position with the same zeal as when he pursued his old position does not necessarily make Moore, or anyone else, unreliable or capricious.”
Yes it does. He is the same person, with the same genes, the same upbringing, with the inclinations.
It is BECAUSE of his involvement with insisting of keeping the GMOs secret form the public that alarms me.
He is a fountain of egomaniacal will and havoc. HE is no different. Only his platform is changed.
I will ask you—do you want to let diabetics die because insulin is a GMO? There’s a just as much a chance of the Frankenstein mutation in the process that takes ecoli to insulin as any GMO food. So, do you want to let diabetics die?
Demagoguery “—do you want to let diabetics die because insulin is a GMO?”
Of course not. Shame on you for such absurd extreme conclusions.
The Label and IFU of any drug should be available to the patient (which it is) and the genetic engineering data should be disclosed to the patient so that they are informed. What is wrong with that?
I will ask again what I always ask in this type of discussion: Science says humans evolved as PART of nature. We are not aliens to Earth. How then, did something that evolved just like every single other organism on this planet get to be no longer a part of nature? That is simply impossible. Unless we are aliens. Are we?
From the Judeo-Christian religious perspective, humans are the stewards of creation, responsible for its care, but also free to benefit from our labor upon it. So from either perspective, Greenpeace’s position makes no sense.
Agreed. I left out the religious aspect since we are discussing science, but there are three options:
We’re aliens.
God made us and we are stewards of the earth.
We evolved.
None helps Greenpeace except the first.
“three options:”
No.
A scientist would acknowledge 2 more options.
4) we don’t know, and some day we will know,
5) we will never know
and Greenpeace is not helped even yet.
Well this one is wrong. If you actually read the real independent science GMOs are a total lie and a catastrophe. They’ve increased pesticide use, decreased yields and create super weeds and super bugs. And their number one pesticide disrupts the shikimate pathway in the bacteria of the human digestive tract leading to numerous health issues. So score one for greenpeace.
Typical greenpeace screed: Make lots of ill-defined unsubstantiated broad claims in a short space of time/text, wrapped in a thin veneer of scientific terminology with a few key words thrown in to deceive the uninformed.
Any one who wants to in this country is free to eat only what “occurs naturally.” Can I tell you something I have learned? That is a radical agenda and an infinitely fungible term. None of the following methods “occur naturally.” Organic activists assault systematically all applied science in raising food:
1. fumigation using methyl bromide
2. nitrogen fertilizers
2. potassium fertilizers
4. phosphorus fertilizers
5. mass produced tractors, steel products and fossil fuel
6. all fungicides
7. all herbicides and
8. all presently used broad and narrow spectrum pesticides used to kill insects, nematodes, rust, smut, blight, scab, etc.
9. all irrigation using dams and aquifers
9. all cultivars and varieties not native or local
10. all refrigeration
11. all preservatives which extend shelf life
12. all low cost and quick shipping
There is just the top 14. Nothing is ever enough for these wealthy Western Boomer organic activists until they eliminate and reverse every method of applying science, and only allow what “occurs naturally.” So never grow tired, and always fight them as they constantly engage in negative ad campaigns and regulatory assaults and the miseducation of children to get their way. They know that more than 25% of the world’s people are alive because of Nitrogen fertilizers. They hate that so much they declared atmospheric NO2 a pollutant, and now atmospheric CO2. As the good book says, Preserve me from the unjust and deceitful man, who devises iniquity by law.
Zeke, I am inclined to agree with you wrt natural vs unnatural synthesis methods. Particularly wrt engineered systems.
Reminder. I am not opposed to GMOs, just the clandestine implementation into the human food system. ergo labels, information, full disclosure.
Separately, and at the risk of being misunderstood in terms of scope, we humans are what we eat. We integrate complex nutrients into our very selves and in so doing epigenetically transmit information to our future generations.
Therefore, the presence of certain deliberate proteins influence our structure and function at a very fundamental level. That is something that ought not be tinkered with, without the knowledge of those affected.
“..certain deliberate proteins influence our structure and function at a very fundamental level.”
Means nothing. More greenpeace science-babble.
But I can agree with you about open labelling. (It’s not like most people read all the tiny labels on many OTC pharmacy products.) I just want the right to choose, same as you.
“Reminder. I am not opposed to GMOs, just the clandestine implementation into the human food system. ergo labels, information, full disclosure.” Paul Westhaver
What I want is labels, information, and full disclosure of organic practices.
This is including but not limited to:
1. using sawed off hoes and bent over workers for weeding
2. using extensive Bt spraying to control pests
3. using manure that may or may not be free of ecoli on row crops
4. spraying fungicides more than 9 times during the growing season
5. number of labor hours required per hectare (this will be in the hundreds) and whether immigrants were used
So Paul, I understand your point and I too am concerned that there is a lot of clandestine implementation into the American food market. I really do want people to know what they are buying, supporting, and eating. So labeling could be a very interesting way of raising awareness about the amount of cheap labor and waivers from protections that organic growers are bringing into our food market. I have said already, I do think this is partly behind the push for free movement of peoples. They will be trapped on organic farms — when a tractor and a litre of herbicide/acre could have done the job!
And I will also grant you that when we go to a supermarket, it is always nice to see “Russet potato,” “Granny Smith Apple” and “Beefsteak Tomato.” Chinook Salmon. That way you can buy your favorite. Knowing varieties is already a priority for most places, wherever practicable. It is not always practicable, and harms, expenses, regulations and increased operating expenses can and do kill small businesses all of the time. If we do not understand that as axiomatic, then we cannot discuss anything. But there are only 8 US gmo crops so it is not a hardship to know these and simply look for organic or other named varieties when buying corn, soybeans and potatoes. That potato I think is called “Innate,” because its transgenetic material is from other potatoes.
No indeed, let’s label the organics first.
Zeke,
I am ok with labeling organics first so long as GMOs (and everything else) is appropriately labeled too.
Ya gotta start somewhere, then, ratchet in.
Consider the logic of labelling omitted ingredients, definitions of “organics” and GMOs for that matter.
I think that information is relatively inexpensive now. 50 years ago, this would be impracticable.
Paul Westhaver,
I am content for organics to be required to label their products with the 5 vital disclosures I gave, plus any other waivers the organic growers received to exempt them from the minimum wage hikes that all other businesses were slammed with.
Because they do receive waivers from the ban on those illegal sawed off hoes in the state of CA.
Now I can also agree with your side of the isle on this: the FDA does not merit the trust it is given. There is every indication that the FDA is an arm of foreign companies which use it to fast track their products.
I say this not because of what appears to be rapid GMO approvals. I think the FDA is little more than a branch of the psych med industry, and a handful of mostly German companies, which are constantly peddling new psychotropic medications and flooding this country with drugs. This is an industry which is worth over 9 billion dollars a year. It is aided and abetted by the schools under the Boomer generation (which loves psychotropics), which now can even require kids be medicated, so that they will sit in rows and listen to…the wisdom of the Boomers.
So it is very well possible that it approves any GMO from Germany that comes down the pike, since the FDA’s pattern is to approve any psych med that comes down the pike.
So we may both see that there is a problem, but for different reasons. The FDA is very likely as defunct and corrupt as the IRS, the EPA, DOE, DOE, and DOJ.
Especially if one has a materialist worldview anything man is does is by definition natural as man cannot be separated from nature. There is no such thing as unnatural. By the way that makes climate change natural even if we did cause it.
I also see that there are recent reports of successful field trials of “Golden Rice” in Bangladesh, suggesting release possibly as early as 2018.
http://www.thedailystar.net/frontpage/vitamin-rice-now-reality-1305439
That won’t make greenpeace happy. Not at all happy, my precious.
Amazing – I just bought a packet of proton pump inhibitors made in Bangladesh.
But they don’t know how to grow carrots or make vitamin A capsules?
Weird, isn’t it?
My retarded prison colony of Australia isn’t capable of making a proton pump inhibitor. But for some reason we don’t need foreign saviors to engineer proprietary plants to solve our nutritional deficits.
Perhaps my purchase of Bangladeshi pharmaceuticals will help them afford to eat a better variety of food.
After that, require labeling of varieties of crops or the possible mix, without making the stores, farms, ranches, or the food processors liable for mistakes or failures to do so. No enforcement, no lawsuits, and an entirely good faith and voluntary effort which will allow us all to notice if favorite varieties are beginning to be shoved out by backroom deals with the sustainable crew.
you guys are so afraid of government but you aren’t afraid of corporations actually owning a copyright on your food? Newsflash guys- it’s GovCorp. Like a hand in a glove when they get as big as biotech anyway. GMOs do nothing but increase pesticide use! Reduced yields! Less nutrition! Poor soil health! Super weeds. They just give scientists a new way to wack off and corporations a new way to own your wallet. They are totally unnecessary and unneeded. That’s the real science. http://gmwatch.org/
As for golden rice a 25 cent Vit A pil works much better at curing blindness. My guess is that there are hardly any blind kids anyway. Probably a fake cause for fake food. Science is being faked for the global warming just it’s being faked for GMOs!! C’mon guys it the same mechanism. All for more control.
That’s the real science