Can you believe that by implementing an international biosafety protocol, we are damning countless millions of future generations to malnourishment and starvation? How, you may ask? We are instituting "bio-cops" that will regulate on a case-by-case basis development of genetically engineered crops. Down to the smallest test tube, square inch of green house space or perhaps the area under the gene-gun, controls are to be implemented that will "regulate" the industry.
Are their concerns justified? Yes, but there are better ways than to put control in the hands of an international agency. The system now in use in the US is working, it is responsible science, although it could be streamlined and made more productive. Change for the sake of change is never good.
Instead of focusing on the biotech industry, their attention needs to be placed elsewhere. Just to cite examples of how our ecosystems get out of kilter by natural plants and animals coming into a new environment, consider the following: The zebra mussel now threatens our water-ways, cooling plants, electric generating facilities, and more. Kudzu and johnson grass were introduced to provide another source of herbage for livestock, now these "weeds" require countless millions of dollars to be spent for their control. The gypsy moth was thought to be a possible means of developing a silk industry in the US, and may cost us our hardwood timbers. And, dutch elm disease has destroyed our American elms. There are many more examples that can be cited, but the point is that these introductions resulted in a permanent change to our environment. And the bio-cops show no concern in this type problem. You may ask, if it is possible that the genetically engineered crops that are being carefully researched could become a pest like the examples cited above? The answer is no. Reason being that the crop culture systems used to produce economic grains, fiber &c. are mono-systems. These plants simply are not competitive in the wild. One need only look at a soybean field where corn was planted the previous year. The volunteer corn plants are inferior, typically producing no seed, and yet the number of seeds per acre of left-over corn far outnumber the number of soybean seeds planted.
A recent book, Earth in Balance, postulates political, economic, physiological, sociological and religious roots to the problem. This is a paranoid, zealous and ill-informed viewpoint that represents regulation run amuck. The author would obscure the cost of environmental programs and redefine them as benefits.
---
ABOUT Joe Wortham