William_the_Bloody

Hmmm, I'm not totally convinced yet, the French study was accepted by a peer reviewed magazine in Europe, though it appears political in nature (Sadly you could argue that specific branches of the science department have become politicized themselves) so in short...I think we need more scientific enquiries.

Environmental Sciences Europe | Full text | Republished study: long-term toxicity of a Roundup herbicide and a Roundup-tolerant genetically modified maize

I don't trust environmental socialist ideologues with utopia agendas, but I sure as hell don't trust the power of big capitalist corporations either, and Monsanto doesn't exactly have an angelic history.

So call me a technocrat, but I'll just sit this one out until science proves or disproves the safety of GMO's, until then I'll be crossing my fingers when I munch down on a Kit Kat bar, cheers.

Freebase Dali

I'm of the firm conviction that if someone doesn't have any up-to-date, authoritative scientific evidence for the negative effects of GMOs, then any discussion regarding such a thing is basically irrelevant and useless.

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Lord Larehip

The truth is, GMOs are causing superweeds that require stronger and stronger herbicides to kill them. Currently, the amount of herbicide used is actually less than with ordinary farming but it is also only a matter of time before that changes because nothing can stop it once it is set in motion. Eventually, we will poison ourselves trying to keep ahead of the superweeds and the eventual superpests that are also inevitable.

The truth is--there are too many people and not enough land. There would have been global mass starvation long ago had it not been for fertilizers but we are reaching a point now where there are simply too many people and not enough land to produce the food necessary to sustain that population and GMOs only prolong the inevitable.

The bottom line is--there must a be mass die-off of humans. No other way around it. If you live in an area where, say, deer are overpopulating, what do they do to solve the problem? They cull the herds IOW, they go out and bag bunch of deer. It is the only solution to a severe food shortage. And with the possibility that we may lose our honeybees, there goes one-third of the foods we normally consume which will intensify the struggle for food.

Eventually "GMO" will mean the same thing as "Soylent Green."

Janszoon

A concise history of tl;dr.

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A Night in the Life of the Invisible Man

Time & Place

25 Albums You Should Hear Before the Moon Crashes into the Earth and We All Die

last.fm

John Wilkes Booth

i think it's a bunch of environmentalist paranoia. people don't like that we're ****ing with nature, it scares them. oh well. the future is scary. get over it. at the end of the day genetic engineering is too big a opportunity to miss out on just to play **** safe. it would be like if man never started using fire just in case the fire got out of control.

i do think there is probably a legitimate point to the idea that gmos demand stronger pesticides and **** like that. that is a kink they need to work on, not a reason to hault technology. tbh i think eventually the solution will be sanitized massive indoor grows. but first we need to work out renewable energy or we'll be ****ed regardless of who made the dna in the **** we eat.

Sparky

I think it also stems from a distrust of other food that the media hype as toxic.
People may be less lenient towards the idea of gmos due to adverse effects of artificial sweeteners, processed meats and such.

As an uninformed consumer it can be hard to keep track of what is safe when it's all deemed ok by the fda.

This thread has made me re-evaluate my outlook. I took an entire class in college that fed me(pun not intended)the absolutely opposite of what a quick internet search tells me is empirical truth.

Lord Larehip

That's a piss-poor excuse for short term fixes that at best prolong the inevitable and at worst hasten our demise.

Much of Europe as well as wealthier Asian countries as Japan and South Korea have either banned GMOs outright or severely restrict their use. Plowing on full-speed ahead with a technology we can't possibly understand all the ramifications of is reckless and irresponsible. Already most of our cotton and corn is GMO. GMOs are a bandage on the problem that we are running out of space to live because there are too many of us. The UN estimates that there will be 9-10 billion people on earth by 2050 and may top 15 billion by 2100. That is simply unsustainable.

The more food we produce to support this ballooning population will only cause that population to continue ballooning. Populations expand as long as there is the food to sustain them. Far from helping, GMOs are ultimately hurting us by allowing us to keep breeding unchecked. We are running out of living space and that is causing other animals to run out of living space as we build over their habitats. We are producing ever increasing amounts of waste with nowhere to put it and that is polluting other creatures' habitats as well as our own:

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/n...science-world/

We can't stop it because most people refuse to admit the true problem. It isn't poverty or disease or lack of food--it's over-population of the human race. This planet was not meant to support 7 billion of us and counting. You've heard of housing bubbles and credit bubbles? We are a population bubble--inevitably it will have to burst. The idea that GMOs will prevent this is laughable and tragic. GMOs are a catalyst to bring it about.

The problem is that we grow GMOs as single crop farms. The superweeds can be reduced by varying what we grow through crop rotation but the problem is that this only slows the process of decline and moreover many areas of the world have a soil that is conducive only to one crop. These areas will eventually be choked out. Then we have to grow food to send them and that is exactly the same old problem all over again. Monsanto does not tell farmers the truth because they want to make huge amounts of money. They pushed Roundup as this super savior which is what created the superweeds. Now that they are out there, they will never go away. That genie doesn't go back in the bottle.

Frownland

Who cares if European countries banned them? That doesn't make the anti-GMO argument any more stronger. The Europeans are just as capable of being wrong as Americans. And Larehip, with the "technology we can't possibly understand" statement, I think you meant to say "I" instead of "we". The concern over super weeds is legitimate but tilling and combining herbicides have proved an effective defense against this.

As for the overpopulation schtick, I couldn't care less.

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Studies show that when a given norm is changed in the face of the unchanging, the remaining contradictions will parallel the truth.

Lord Larehip

Oh, I see! So YOU understand it! Well, now, and, uh, where did you get your degree in the study of genetically modified seeds? How many years have you worked with this wonderful technology? What peer-reviewed reports have you submitted that we can consult? Pray, tell us, O Great One!!!

Yes, I admit, I don't really understand the technology or the science behind it. And I refuse to put my faith in it that it is harmless when a corporation is rushing headlong into something we may not be able to get out of because they want to make money. Certainly, Europe, Japan and Korea don't have your understanding of the situation but, like me, they don't trust some monolithic corporation on their bare word. For example, Monsanto's line to farmers was that cross-pollination and superweeds would not happen as long as they followed their directions very carefully. They did and it didn't matter. Hmmm...you know, that might be why Europe, Japan and Korea said no thanks.

But, of course, you understand on a level the rest of us don't. Maybe we should put our blind faith in your bare word.

Frownland

Did I mention that I entirely understood it? The scientists who work within the field do and I put my faith in them, which is why I knocked your use of the word 'we' since it implies that nobody really understands them.

And show me your evidence of any cross pollination occurring. A group of farmers attempted to sue Monsanto for that very idea and their case was thrown out because they were unable to cite a single instance of cross-pollination of GMO crops.

I understand the dislike for corporations, but I don't think that should fuel a misplaced fear in the science behind a given corporation's technology. Be against the corporation, not the technology.

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Studies show that when a given norm is changed in the face of the unchanging, the remaining contradictions will parallel the truth.