Letters to the Editor
Well, that's all for now.
Published Letters: 95 Editor's Choice: 10
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A few more tweaks and you'll be fixed.
[Read the article: Hypocrite environmentalists?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]First, it's very refreshing to read well-written posts with varying viewpoints on this important topic. Thanks to all and again to Andrew Leonard for his updates on this topic here on Salon.
I almost laughed when I read the comments by Bailey regarding GMOs and global warming since I have made almost the exact opposite argument in the past. It's convenient that the Bush Admin stalls for time on behalf of its clients regarding the consensus on global warming by stating that there's not 100% proof and that such proof is unattainable, while at the same time turning a blind eye to the development of potentially hazardous technologies before any sort of public defense seeking consensus and accountability can be mounted. Now THAT is rank hypocrisy. I absolutely agree that it's a money-trail thing.
I find it amusing that GMO supporters take flight right over the most basic questions regarding GMOs and land squarely in some Popular Science land of GMOs where nutrition and taste are better, people are healthier and no one is hungry ever again. (One imagines that in their doey-eyed reveries such folks dream that robots do all of our work while we scoot around in flying cars or teletransport to the holodeck, or whatever. How swell.) Of course, bring the discussion back to where it should have been when the first Bush administration began this whole GMO mess in its preemptive strike on precaution by declaring GMOs "substantially equivalent" to old-fashioned life forms, and one will be accused of wanting to starve the Third World.
It's hard to feel pity for any "reluctance to testing requirements" since the bar has been set so low, virtually allowing these biotech firms to self-police. I'm willing to drop almost all testing requirements under the following scenario: staunch GMO advocates have their very own intestinal flora transgenically modified to allow themselves to subsist on cellulose or another widely occurring substance that some other species lives on. C'mon folks, put your bellies where your mouths are. I would find your self-modification far less troubling than modifying large swaths of our ecosystem and I'll send you my lawn clippings (organic of course) when it's time to mow again. Let's end world hunger together ... you first.
Speaking of ending world hunger, that's been one of the prime arguments trotted out since the inception of that previously unknown scientific measure, "substantial equivalence," for why GMOs must, simply must, be allowed to grow unfettered by petty concerns about safety. Never mind that world hunger is still killing 20-some thousand people a day (hundreds of millions of acres of GMOs later), or that the problem of hunger is one of distribution, not production. Nonetheless, it's still a primary argument in the GMO camp and from our own government whenever questions concerning GMOs arise. And then, gosh, wouldn't you know it, all sorts of other GMOs having nothing to do with world hunger seem to be making their way down the pike and it becomes even harder to look the other way from the same primary concerns that should have been addressed at the beginning. BUT HEY, they say, LOOK OVER HERE ... WORLD HUNGER!! ... oh, and can we interest you in a day-glow fish, or a hypoallergenic kitty, or a blue carnation, or these new yeasts designed to make your beer taste better, or this turfgrass for your golfcourse (all real examples by the way) ... oh, and hey, let's not forget about world hunger.
And, folks, let's remember, we've actually paid for the development of these GMOs with our tax dollars, which I suppose helps explain regulators looking the other way. Federal research grants amount to billions of dollars a year just to universities alone. That's all well and good but we should insist on some balance in the research we fund regarding GMOs (and nanotech and bio-nanotech), rather than stand passively by while anyone in the academy who questions the safety of GMOS sees their careers derailed and starved of funding.
Anyway, let me know when you want my lawn clippings.