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Eco-Luddites Strike Again!

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Eco-Luddites Strike Again!

Postby macgamer on Wed May 02, 2012 5:41 pm

Just when plant scientists thought it safe to carry out a small field trial, the crazed anti-science eco-Luddites shriek 'contamination!' and threaten to destroy the trial.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-17906172

They seem to have a similar mentality to the animal rights protestors. I remember from an internship at Oxford Plant Sciences a number of years ago, watching the animal rights protestors railing against the new Zoology Department extension. We plant scientists thought with relief, 'Well, at least there are no compaigners for plant rights.'

Alas we, being involved in fundamental research, forgot about our fellow scientists working on crop species...

It seems that these environmentalists, like the odious Jonathon Porritt, think it better to put 'Mother Earth' before their fellow men. Down with this miserabilist eco-millenarianism! Energies should be spent on trying to improve productivity not in annihilating man. If you want to do the latter, I suggest nuclear war. It'll be far cheaper, quicker and effective than contraception or one-child policy. Moreover, it won't discrimate. The earth would be 'reset' and the human 'contamination' of 'Gaia' eliminated.

Speaking of contamination:
"Progress should mean that we are always changing the world to fit the vision, instead we are always changing the vision."
- G.K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy, 1908
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Re: Eco-Luddites Strike Again!

Postby The Cellar Bar on Thu May 03, 2012 12:57 pm

the crazed anti-science eco-Luddites shriek 'contamination!'
....... there is essentially a problem with contamination. Although few protestors "shriek" so far as I know - that sounds more like an effort to demean them by hinting at "girly" characteristics.....and by what right do women have the right to protest against anything? Happily no hint of any "hysterical outbursts" but also being "crazed" apparently that is probably only a matter of time I suppose. Wide sweeping claim ok but previous such "small experiments" during Bliar's years showed that crops within a twenty mile radius of the fields used were actually contaminated by these modified crops. No efforts had been made to actually "contain" the GM experiment and the wind did the rest.

And the problem with the contamination is that the overall effect of it back then was the modification of the other crops - which then continued the process of contamination to a yet wider area by the same effects of wind.

Beyond that, the wider controversy - which this event was useful to highlight - is the fact that world wide, the GM companies go in for crops which are "infertile" - they don't produce a seed crop and the result is that farmers across the world are tied in and obliged to buy fresh supplies of the seeds from the Monsantos of this world every year. Tying them in even further to a subservience to Western companies and increasing their costs by getting on for 4 and 5 fold every year.

A subservience which already sees the West consuming 80% of the world's food production and dictating to share croppers and farmers in the "Third World" that they produce mango, pineapples, coffee, chocolate, kumkwats and the other "essentials" we feel we need for our dinner parties and not actually producing staples for their own families. And then there is the Palm Oil scandal to ensure that our Mercs and BMW's are eco-friendly. The average Western child consumes more before the age of 5 than their "counterpart" elsewhere will eat in their entire life time!

And the ODIOUS Jonathon Porritt, macgamer. What makes the man "odious" in your estimation? Three examples will do. Compared say to the Brazilian and Argentinian and South East Asian landowners and corporations who have destroyed some 60% of the forested areas of the world already in pursuit of the mighty dollar. To mix two threads, I'd have more respect for a certain religious establishment if it campaigned in support of their adherents around the world - rather than either siding with the corporations or saying absolutely nothing at all!!
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Re: Eco-Luddites Strike Again!

Postby macgamer on Thu May 03, 2012 2:57 pm

The Cellar Bar wrote:There is essentially a problem with contamination. Although few protestors "shriek" so far as I know - that sounds more like an effort to demean them by hinting at "girly" characteristics.....and by what right do women have the right to protest against anything? Happily no hint of any "hysterical outbursts" but also being "crazed" apparently that is probably only a matter of time I suppose.

It was tongue-in-cheek ridicule I admit. However, the tenor of the arguments used by the Take The Flour Back groups (see: http://taketheflourback.org/why-a-decontamination/) is sensationalist bordering on the irrational. Besides, have you see some of their philosophical cousins, the animal rights protestors, up close? I have, and they're not people you're likely to get a rational and civilised argument out of. They might even dig up your grandmother's corpse if you really annoy them (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/staffordshire/6454671.stm).

Wide sweeping claim ok but previous such "small experiments" during Bliar's years showed that crops within a twenty mile radius of the fields used were actually contaminated by these modified crops. No efforts had been made to actually "contain" the GM experiment and the wind did the rest.

Testing the crops under glass or in growth chambers are very unrealistic conditions. Having the trangenic crops grown in the field provides a much better test as to the performance of such crops.

The alternative is as you say,
Beyond that, the wider controversy - which this event was useful to highlight - is the fact that world wide, the GM companies go in for crops which are "infertile" - they don't produce a seed crop and the result is that farmers across the world are tied in and obliged to buy fresh supplies of the seeds from the Monsantos of this world every year. Tying them in even further to a subservience to Western companies and increasing their costs by getting on for 4 and 5 fold every year.

If you want to prevent crossing with the non-transgenic varieties, rendering them infertile is the easiest way to do so. An alternative is to induce some sort of polyploidy (like an artificial speciation event), but I don't know whether this is feasible / possible.

A subservience which already sees the West consuming 80% of the world's food production and dictating to share croppers and farmers in the "Third World" that they produce mango, pineapples, coffee, chocolate, kumkwats and the other "essentials" we feel we need for our dinner parties and not actually producing staples for their own families. And then there is the Palm Oil scandal to ensure that our Mercs and BMW's are eco-friendly. The average Western child consumes more before the age of 5 than their "counterpart" elsewhere will eat in their entire life time!

You get no objection from me about the inequalities and injustices you highlight above. I would say that we need to be more efficient in our use of resources and encourage further development in the less developed and developing countries and foster a better trade balance than exists presently.

And the ODIOUS Jonathon Porritt, macgamer. What makes the man "odious" in your estimation? Three examples will do.

His smug face, his hectoring self-righteousness and his hypocrisy. I admit I have a viceral disliking for the man. I prefer (marginally) Prof. Richard Dawkins to him, which isn't saying much.

Compared say to the Brazilian and Argentinian and South East Asian landowners and corporations who have destroyed some 60% of the forested areas of the world already in pursuit of the mighty dollar. To mix two threads, I'd have more respect for a certain religious establishment if it campaigned in support of their adherents around the world - rather than either siding with the corporations or saying absolutely nothing at all!!

Well, there was that dodgy 'liberation theology' popular in the 1970s and 80s in Latin America. However, it lost its way when it got intangled with politics, armed struggle and priests and bishops running for political office. Yes, the Church has spoken up against the injustices. It's just that it doesn't make headline news.
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Re: Eco-Luddites Strike Again!

Postby The Cellar Bar on Sat May 05, 2012 1:47 pm

hey macgamer - doing OK?

And yes - I'd be the first to admit that some of the behaviour of those purporting to represent an otherwise laudable argument/campaign, have been waaay beyond the pale. But that still doesn't or shouldn't detract from the overall character of the debat worldwide or nationally as to how we deal with the problems that science can invoke when it runs full tilt into environmental issues and how we, for instance, deal with food production. This isn't just a case of a small group of scientists in a small field somewhere in darkest Hampshire.

In that respect, what I was meaning when I talked of "open field" experiments centred on the fact that while closed or barricaded tests are faulty in that they don't take into account "natural" effects, the point is that the experiments conducted a few years back didn't in fact make any efforts to keep the experiment separate from the wider locale. No efforts were made to prevent the effects of wind or rain from allowing the contents of the experimental field from going further afield. Such as shrouding or netting which both prevented the effects of wind for instance or the influence of other wildlife, such as birds and land bound animals carrying the contents of the test fields further afield. And that was one of the major criticisms levelled against the tests by other scientific groups when it was found that contamination had occured elsewhere and had modified crops in a radius of 20 miles or so. The fact that Lord Sainsbury, Tony Bliar's buddy, Tony Bliar's chief scientific advisor on GM foods and only really coincidentally Chairman of Sainsbury's to boot, was in charge of these "experiments" goes some way to suggesting just why they were done in the first place!!

In a wider context, that notion of "infertility" probably doesn't reflect a concern on the part of Monsanto and others to protect the environment and not be responsible for probably uncontrollable results of cross contamination in other parts of the world. Certainly their pronouncements reflect more their "responsibility to shareholders to maximise the benefits of their investment" as more than one press release and interview has witnessed. These guys have a living to make and they make no apology for the fact that they are in business to make a profit. On that sort of a global scale, it is impossible to be in a position that a multi national corporation, in "co-operation" with corporate landowners who control the fates of ordinary sharecroppers and farmers can be "controlled" or directed into acting "responsibly" Food production abroad as we know consists of massive single crop businesses tied into futures markets. And it is probably naive to believe that Western based companies such as Monsanto and Del Monte have any real interest in the well-being of farmers who produce, as I said, "luxury" goods for the Western market. But on two levels - on the economic level and the environmental level - the effects of their interests has already been devastating across the world and isn't likely to improve. To exacerbate that fact by their producing seed for massive, country sized pineapple or mango estates which is infertile simply compounds the problem immeasureably. Farmers in those countries surely to Christ have a greater responsibility to produce grain or rice for their own families rather than exotic fruits for us, sold to corporations at prices fixed five years in the past. You can only eat so many pineapples - trust me - as the death from malnutrition and starvation of one child every twenty seconds in this world testifies.

And again - yes....the liberation politics that was dabbled in in South America was something of a failed experiment. Equally what I would say on that, is that much of the failure again reflected the fact of American corporate ranching and coffee corporations and the rest acting with land owners who effectively ensured that any resistance to their plans for cheap burger-bound meat would have failed. It's still happening - activists against the destruction of the rain forest, palm oil plantations or hard wood plantations elsewhere are still dying at the hands of landowners and corporations. But my point was that "The Church" has been conspicuous by its absence in expressing its concerns at any meaningful international level. Not just inside any particular country or associated with any particular "resistance" group. But making its presence and views felt at the level of the UN or ASEAN or any other political forum where these matters are discussed. I'm not aware of any motivated focused group from "Rome" for instance making as much "noise" over environmental issues as they are over population control.

Science being applied to the betterment of food production volume and quality is all very well. But my overall concern is that "science" has already a history of "betterment". Of theories as to how crop production can be enhanced. "We" were aware of that waaay back before environmental issues became almost de rigeur. If you haven't, read Rachel Carson's "Silent Spring" and the awareness in the early 60's of the effects of DDT and other "bettering" scientific breakthroughs. Or ask your average Australian his view of cane toads or rabbits to see just how interfering on the grounds of "you can't stop progress" and "only Luddites resist the future" to see what has already been perpetrated in the name of "progress".

"Science" is fine....science is necessary in some instances. But we, as ordinary mortals, are still entitled to essentially say "thank you very much, really interesting......now give us an unspecified length of time to decide whether we actually want that in our lives". Science.....scientists....have to realise that the days of "we've discovered this...but we're not responsible for the effects of it because we're not politicians or voters, it's down to everyone else bar us from assessing the consequences" are long gone. With any luck.
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Re: Eco-Luddites Strike Again!

Postby RedCelt69 on Mon May 07, 2012 4:04 pm

I remember when I first heard about GM technology. It was an exciting idea... that we had access to some of nature's blueprints and could actually make changes to them - circumventing the aeons required for evolution to finally get there (if it ever did).

Then the media found out about it and labelled the produce as "Frankenstein food". Fuckwits that they were (and are).

So the population perceived GM to be a "bad thing".

If science pushes the boundaries of our knowledge forward, it makes no sense to say "just because we can do it, doesn't mean we should do it" as if science itself is to blame. That decision is in the hands of the policy makers, not the scientists. And the policy makers should be a damned sight better informed than the media. Or we're all screwed.
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Re: Eco-Luddites Strike Again!

Postby Frank on Mon May 07, 2012 4:44 pm

I'm on another side still, I suppose. I think the anti-science agenda (in thinking that scientists, given half a chance, would turn the entire planet into the most absurd laboratory ever conceived) simply misses the point. It's an exaggeration over what TCB's saying, but it's not a far cry from that either.

To put it simply - people are to blame when they act without foresight and circumvent things. Scientists participating and forging ahead in irresponsibly contained experiments are in the same league as bankers forging ahead with reckless economic policies. Same with any expert on anything. Any industry, any person.

It's incumbent, IMO, on any and all involved to take precautions to self-limit and self-restrain; to impose their own restrictions on pace, rigour and precautions. But 'let's not go down that alley... ever'. That makes me shudder.

Agriculture & animal husbandry themselves are already, at their core, elementary genetic engineering. Slower, steadier. Objections to 'open field trials' strike me as ill-informed panic... and yet, the specific objections raised (escape beyond the controls of the trial) make sense to me. So, solution: are the scientists involved taking the correct precautions - if not what can be done to improve them? (And what's the dangers of relaxed [ can we know {how would we check...}])

It's a big old conundrum, sure. Insurmountable? No. We're only in moderately increased danger of breeding triffids versus dog breeders or breeding the Hound of the Baskervilles. Suitably proportional increase in caution? I hope so. :ninja:
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Re: Eco-Luddites Strike Again!

Postby The Cellar Bar on Mon May 07, 2012 9:35 pm

Don't remember anyone describing it as "Frankenstein food" to be honest. What I do remember were the concerns of irradiated foodstuffs for instance. And then the last of those tests, pressed for and supported by Sainsbury in his capacity as a food producer and government advisor. Talk of poachers becoming gamekeepers doesn't come into it. Especially since he had no scientific credentials whatsoever - but plenty of commercial incentive to make it happen. Tests which, as I said, came in for critiscism from other scientific studies when it was found that the sort of contamination of surrounding areas was widerspread and more profound than anyone had considered.

No-one either is saying that we shouldn't do it. What some objectors are saying is that the aims of such tests need to be examined and the sort of scientific rigour which is applied to them. Despite an over-weening apparent confidence is science being the leading lights of progress and those who raise objections to it, that the policy makers and the wider population are actually entitled to raise objections to it and put what brakes they consider necessary on the use of a new technology in the wider "environment". Happily there actually are scientific bodies which feel less remote from the consequences of their actions and have been for some time. Maybe, they, like many others, were less than impressed with previous scientific future-making breakthroughs including lobotomies, DDT, ECT treatment, valium, eugenics, Thalidomide, super resilient strains of viri and vivisection when these were similarly introduced as the way forward.

More to the point, these experiments probably fall into the ambit not of "science" but of "technology". They are being boosted pushed and financed by corporations intent on expanding their control in areas which are already subject to huge pressures. Food production is an industry. No doubt about that. It is also a bare knuckled necessity in getting on for 80% of the world and we are already seeing the effects of such corporations elsewhere. With corporations like Del Monte and Flora Eco hard at work in the "Third World" intent on maximising profits for themselves, producing food, not for the indigenous populations, but for that small proportion of about 20% which consumes more than 80% of all we eat as a global population, then some of us have huge cynical reservations as to what they have in mind. 80% of Madagascar is already aforested....Flora Eco own 200,000 acres of it producing, not food, but bio-mass oil for cosmetics and palm oil based fuel. And they have plans for a further 1.3 MILLION hectares to do precisely the same thing. Land grabs across the world are becoming an increasingly serious concern along with the use that such land is then being put to. And that's where the focus is and will continue to be. Anyone disingenuously arguing that "it's potentially got an advantage in the UK and other western nations because it'll prevent the need to spray insecticide" is blowing smoke.....the focus is not any longer on crops in Europe but in the rest of the world which is much less scrutinised than here to any of the abuses that corporations and landowners are capable of. We've seen that already.....along with the attitude of European companies who hadn't a second thought in creating the environmental disaster that is now Somalia through dumping 23 millions tons of toxic and radioactive waste there to bypass the costs involved in disposing of it legally.

To believe in science as a possible solution to a variety of what we perceive as problems is one thing. To simply therefore put all our trust in what is fast becoming the New Priesthood with solutions for all our ills and brand anyone who objects as being "fuckwits" doesn't push the debate along one smidgeon.
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Re: Eco-Luddites Strike Again!

Postby RedCelt69 on Mon May 07, 2012 11:10 pm

If you can't remember it, Google "GM Frankenstein Food". You will only get more recent hits, but the phraseology has been there from near the very beginning. With the rapidity of a hammer-to-patella and an up-flung-foot. My gripe wasn't so much about anti-scientific-progress campaigners, as it was for the need of a well-informed starting position... against which, the pros and cons could be measured. It was the media that I referred to as fuckwits.

The policy-makers I had in mind are the government. Which, sadly, pays as much attention to bad media as worrying nay-saying Luddites. When they act "for the will of the people" they are doing no such thing. They're acting "for the will of the media" who tell the people how they should feel about things in the first place.

No matter how well-informed subsequent anti-GM campaigners are... their foundations were GM = Frankenstein. And, as we all know, tampering with nature is freakishly bad. Despite the fact that we've been doing exactly that (only much slower) since the very first domesticated flora & fauna got into humanity's hands.

I share the concerns about corporations (and their use of science) to own and control swathes of the 3rd World. But even there, it is the policy-makers and not to the scientists who should be held accountable. Science is about the furthering of knowledge. If I worship anything, it is knowledge... rather then the science that is used to reach it.

Is there such a thing as "bad knowledge*"? And that question is more of a debate-starter than an actual question, as I know that some will quickly and easily reply with a "yes". After all, in the words of the song, Dr. Robert Oppenheimer's optimism fell / at the first hurdle.


* and by "bad knowledge" I mean harmfully truthful, rather than misguidedly untruthful.
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Re: Eco-Luddites Strike Again!

Postby The Cellar Bar on Tue May 08, 2012 1:42 am

I take the point(s) - but part of the problem is that while it might have been possible a dose of decades ago to argue that science's responsibility or remit is the furthering of knowledge and that it can't be held responsible for the social or other effects of those discoveries, the situation has changed over the time.

Science - scientists - are now embroiled in a morass of expectations that go way beyond simply "the science" of what they might be investigating. It's probably why I talked about "technology" rather than "science". Not only are scientists now preoccupied with their own projects but they also now exist in a corporate political state and in the wider environment of corporations and politicians. Not only do they have to focus on their own work but they also need to be aware of - and are undoubtedly made aware of - the economic and fiscal responsibilities of working within a corporation. It's not "pure science" - it's wrapped up in the commercial facts of life and the subsequent demands of thei bosses to essentially produce a profitable product which is expected to at least compete if not dominate the market place. They are expected to produce a product....rather than knowledge. Otherwise their jobs will essentially be on the line. And beyond that, there also isn't the slightest doubt that the cosiness of relationships between the likes of Monsanto and Del Monte with the political policy makers plays a huge part in what is accepted or rejected in the wider world.

And that's the problem. Pure science is laudable. But when it then becomes mixed into the process of corporate/political relationships then the waters very definitely muddy.

It's a relatively simplistic example but if you read the article that started this out it talks of how the product deters aphids from gathering in a certain place because of a pheromene which indicates danger or distress. Fair enough. But in the sentence before that, the "open letter" also talks of how it also attracts natural enemies of the aphid such as ladybirds and wasps. What isn't addressed or even suggested as a problem is that in other circumstances, such an effect may result in an unwanted glut of another form of pest that will then have to be addressed. Just as we have had in the past where the "biological" rather than "chemical" solution to a problem has been hailed as a breakthrough until the later "fall out" has been addressed further on down the line. Harlequin Ladybirds coincidentally are a case in point. They were introduced as a scientific biological alternative to pesticides to kill off aphids in Europe. They are non-native and were so succesful in killing off aphids that they then turned to the soft fruit they were designed to protect and are now as big a problem as the sodding aphids were to begin with. Equally - use a similar form of product that deters aphids but at the same time it turns out attracts an unusually heavier interest in the shape of locusts and one problem is pretty much superceded by another.

Like I said - simplisitic. But my point is that it is hard to believe that any scientific concerns raised by scientists working for a corporation faced with attractive profits will be heeded by The Suits further up the line if it entails that corporation declining to use that product in a particular part of the world where they identify a market for an "aphid deterring" product.

Experience over the past few decades has shown that to be a fact. And therein lies the "morass" of competing instincts. Corporations are sufficiently "cosy" with politicians intent on making a mark for themselves either in foreign or domestic policy, they can essentially destroy any political opponents who don't fall into line. And states like the US or the UK are also sufficiently "cosy" with the leaders of "Third World" countries to ensure that any "domestic" objections can be pretty easily ignored. Again, we have also seen that happen in the case of drugs which have failed the rigour of testing and scrutiny in the West....but which have simply emerged in other countries where ordinary people have less control over either their sale or legal redress if they are damaged by them.

Yes, it's true - loosely speaking. We have manipulated flora and fauna over the centuries to "improve" them - or at least produce more vigorous or productive growth. We have favoured those which produce what we define as of "greater benefit" But it can only be said very loosely that cross pollinating or otherwise producing new strains is a form of Genetically Modifying something in the sense we are talking about here. What we are talking about here has further reaching effects of which we know nothing so far beyond a basic minimum. Again, simple example..... aphids are deterred from a particular area because of such a product. Aphids therefore don't breed because they don't congregate. Ladybirds who feed on aphids are therefore threatened because of fall in aphid population. Again - does anyone seriously believe that a high-flying, intent-on-knightdom Exec working for Del Monte or Sainsbury's is likely to give a rat's ass about the sudden and apparent dearth of both aphids ladybirds and anything that also depends on them.....provided that his figures for sales in Liberia have improved by 35% during his tenure and pineapples are now cheaper in Sainsbury's than ever before?

"Luddites" as a form of abuse and sneering rhetoric emerged around about the time of the Industrial Revolution. Almost at the same time as hymns that talked of "Jerusalem" being found "among dark satanic mills" were written. Even back then it was being recognised that our impact on the environment was greater than to be expected from either relatively small efforts or by a relatively small population. Two hundred odd years on, following DDT, Dust Bowls, Aswan Dams and other projects, desertification and aforestation and the very real threat of the 6th Great Extinction in the history of the Earth itself and there is a great deal to be said that some of their objections were well founded.

Knowledge is above all else the most important factor in all of this. And in that respect, there is an argument to say that if policy makers - and those who put them into power in the first place AKA Us - are to be suitably informed, then the very body that does need to take an active part are the scientists willing to often take on their employers if necessary.....rather than essentially backing off and saying "nowt to do with me guv....I just invented the shit!"
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Re: Eco-Luddites Strike Again!

Postby macgamer on Mon May 21, 2012 10:57 am

The Newsnight debate between the Rothamsted primary investigator and representative from 'Take the Flour Back'

From 22':
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b01hy2qc/Newsnight_17_05_2012/
"Progress should mean that we are always changing the world to fit the vision, instead we are always changing the vision."
- G.K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy, 1908
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