I don’t actually disagree with you, but here’s another perspective on it. Would you say that the whole of the EU is engaged in a conspiracy to spread FUD about GMOs? Why? ISTM that they’re just exercising an abundance of caution, and are not nearly as subject to the lobbying of special interests as we are here.
I do tend to agree with you in some respects, though. Mandatory GMO labeling is one of the issues on which I’ve considerably moderated my position. I tend to agree that it’s not particularly useful since there is such a broad spectrum of GM and a lot of risk overlap between GM and non-GM substances, and such labeling will tend to be misinterpreted. As much as I distrust the malign lobbyists of the agribusiness and food conglomerates, there is at least some element of self-interested lobbying on the “organic” front, too.
I now believe – as I just said upthread – that the imperative for protecting the public interest on GMOs should be on science-based regulation and oversight and its essential prerequisites, transparency and full disclosure. At the present time, the consumer label may not be the place for that. However in the future there may be unique GM processes which pass the threshold of regulatory approval but whose identification on the label serve a useful public interest. And you can be assured that millions of dollars will be spent by vested interests to buy all the right Congress critters and bamboozle their constituents to prevent this from happening. My greatest and historically very well justified fear is that in the US, in matters like this, corporate money and lobbyists tend to prevail over the public interest – maybe not forever, but for an unconscionably long time.
The internal politics in the EU and anti-american inclined protectionist tendency. It is not ‘conspriacy’ it is the decision making by the left tendancies who have been duped by the kinds of thinking displayed in this thread.
it is funny there is to ‘concern’ about the gmo process but the same persons use without thinkiing the foods and the seeds modified radiologically or by chemical induced mutagenisis processes… dominant practices outside of the gmo field for decades.
This may be a linguistic misunderstanding: when you say, " possibly with an alternative approach of the chemical turn on the desirable trait with a post growth chemical enactor," that’s pretty opaque, but it sounds like you’re describing what others are describing as a trigger.
A moment’s thought makes it clear that there has to be a trigger. Otherwise, scientists would need to re-engineer this crop ahead of every growing season and for each plant that will produce seed to sell to farmers.
It’s worth remembering that terminator technology isn’t used–because of an international outcry. In this instance, opposition to a specific GMO technology was both rational and successful.
Generally true - just as politicians who are anti-vaccine tend heavily to be right wing (examples are Michele Bachmann and Rand Paul). Rank and file opposition to both splits fairly evenly between Left and Right.
Again, the fact that it causes sterility (constitutively) means by definition its spread into other populations is going to be very limited. A variant can increase in frequency by mutation, horizontal gene transfer, drift, or by reproduction. Reproduction is by far the most common way that a variation spreads. These sterile plants by definition can’t reproduce, so the spread of the gene into any non-target population would be very limited.
as the article points out:
“Groups like ETC and the Environmental Defense Fund, however, oppose the terminator system. In addition to their concerns about subsistence farmers, environmentalists worry that the terminator gene could castrate wild relatives of cultivated plants by spreading through pollen. Oliver points out that contaminated plants wouldn’t survive past a single generation, so the problem would be nipped in the bud. But to environmentalists, the prospect of even a single generation of terminator victims is noxious, and with repeated plantings, they fear, the cycle of thwarted propagation would continue, with unknown consequences.”
The whole advantage of these ‘teriminator’ sequences is that they severely limit the ability of transgenes to spread into non target populations, which is something that critics of GM rightly point out as a risk.
If 5% of Farmer Lou’s plants are sterile b/c of contamination, it’s not really a problem since Farmer Lou probably isn’t going to be saving seed anyway. Even if he did save seed, however, it also wouldn’t be a long term problem. 5% of the first generation would be sterile, but of course those plants would leave no progeny, so in the second generation none of the plants would carry the sterility gene.
As for your second points, patents expire after a period of time (fortunately), and the first generation Roundup Ready varieties are no longer under patent.
And farmers could use that technique all they like, and they still wouldn’t have to label their crops as GMO. Now, if we had my hypothetical “Monsanto-free” labeling, then those crops could not be labeled Monsanto-free, because Roundup is a Monsanto product.
In the third world, seed-saving is far more common. One of the reasons terminator technology was justly (IMO) opposed is that there was a risk that it’d be coupled with other technology that would drive down crop prices, meaning that subsistence farmers would be forced to buy Monsanto products in order to stay competitive, but the lack of seed-saving would require additional capital outlays beyond the reach of small farmers, and so lots of subsistence farmers would be forced to sell their lands to wealthier farmers or corporations, and you’d eventually get something like a sharecropping system replacing patchworks of small independent farmers.
You seem to assuming that perceived risk is the only reason for a label.
A number of people choose to be vegetarians. I don’t think it’s because they think meat will kill you. Some people may wish to abstain from eating GMO foods for similar reasons of personal conviction, belief that it leads to environmental harm, etc.
I’m pretty lefty, and am vehemently opposed to anti-vaxxers. The best way to get to where we don’t have to vaccinate is by driving the diseases in question out of existence, like we’ve done for smallpox. But getting there involves…vaccination.
My take on GMOs is a bit more complex. First of all, ISTM that a lot of that is about resistance to pesticides, e.g. “Roundup Ready” crops. The problem is, you eventually get Roundup-resistant insects, blights, etc., and a cycle of pesticide escalation. Also, I gather there are questions about how insects we’d kind of like to keep around, like butterflies and honeybees, deal with the wholesale application of Roundup and whatnot.
For these reasons, I want GMO labeling. Also because the companies involved have fought it. When people whose interests don’t coincide with yours want to hide information from you, my attitude - call it knee-jerk if you want - is that I want that info. I’m against a GMO ban, but if they can’t live with GMO labeling, what’s their problem?
It is a strange world where the insects become resistent to the herbicides. A well informed position and rationale, that is clear…
Of course it is for this kind of informed rationale that a ratoinale company would not want to label something where the product is in fact in competition with the “non-GMO” that is genetically manipulated by radiological and chemical inducers (as has been the case since the 1930s…).
so it is clear for all the superiority about openness to science posturing that many of the Left do on the climate side, it is not really any different, the tribal rationales.
I have never, ever seen the debate framed that way. But my hunch is that if such a proposal were put forward, most of the people who want GMO labeling would not have a problem with it.
But they don’t get a free pass either, it’s because of produce that has been “genetically manipulated by radiological and chemical inducers” (among other reasons) that the organic and neighbor farmer craze has happened. People want to know what they’re putting in their mouths! and simply saying “don’t worry, science says it’s not harmful” is not good enough!! You don’t get to make those choices for everybody.
