ISHTARMUZ’S REBUTTAL TO: UK GM WHEAT WAR: NOT REALLY ABOUT SCIENCE

 

 

In the UK there is a battle brewing over a scientific trial involving genetically modified wheat. Last weekend a protester attempted to vandalize the trial, and a larger civil action is expected on May 27.  The ongoing battle, and its close cousin in the climate wars, tell us something about what can happen to science when it becomes the central battleground over politics and technology. Unfortunately, the scientific community itself has contributed to such tactics.

If this was a fair and open fight on any grounds, then Roger Pielke, Jr might have a valid point here. However, when corporations define the law, patent the tools and control the research, then it is not science, but propaganda. 

 

A Nature editorial explains what is going on  :

Plant scientists at Rothamsted Research, a complex of buildings and fields in Hertfordshire, UK, that prides itself on being the longest-running agricultural research station in the world, have spent years preparing for their latest experiment — which will attempt to prove the usefulness of a genetically modified (GM) wheat that emits an aphid alarm pheromone, potentially reducing aphid infestation.

Yet instead of looking forward to watching their crop grow, the Rothamsted scientists are nervously counting the days until 27 May, when protesters against GM crops have promised to turn up in force and destroy the experimental plots.

The protest group, it must be acknowledged, has a great name — Take the Flour Back. And it no doubt believes that it has the sympathy of the public. The reputation of GM crops and food in Britain, and in much of mainland Europe, has yet to recover from the battering it took in the late 1990s. In Germany, the routine destruction of crops by protesters has meant that scientists there simply don’t bother to conduct GM experiments any more.

The Rothamsted scientists have also attempted to win over the public, with a media campaign that explains what they are trying to do and why. After the protesters announced their plans to “decontaminate” the research site, the scientists tried to engage with their opponents, and pleaded with them to “reconsider before it is too late, and before years of work to which we have devoted our lives are destroyed forever”. The researchers say that in this case they are the true environmentalists. The modified crop, if it works, would lower the demand for environmentally damaging insecticides.

It would be a mistake to conclude that the protesters are in some way anti-science or fearful that the genetically modified crops might fail to work as advertised (though surely some protesters do have these views). Their main concern is that the crops will perform exactly as advertised, and lead to further gains in agricultural productivity.

Nothing like a straw-man argument.  I know of no protester that would agree here. The precautionary principle is the primary concern. They know that even if it performed, as advertised, that there is no way in principle to prove its safety.  They also know that given history, no one will really try to prove it safe, rather, the safety will ultimately be legislated to protect profit over people. The protesters have little recourse other than direct action.

It is not science that they fear, but the implications of scientific advances for economic and political outcomes. The organization leading the UK protests calls itself Take the Flour Back, and clearly explains its rationale   as follows:

Our current political system chooses to deal with world hunger through the model of “food security”, arguing that there is not enough food to go around and that we need techno-fixes to solve this. This approach ignores the fact that there is a global food surplus – many people just can’t afford to buy food. This problem is being amplified by land grabs- communities that used to grow food for themselves are being forced out of their ancestral homes, often by corporations expanding cash crop production.

The industrial food system throws away (in the journey from farms to traders, food processors and supermarkets), between a third and a half of all the food that it produces – enough to feed the world’s hungry six times over. (2)

Free trade policies imposed by the International Monetary Fund make it much harder for governments to protect small and family farmers from big multinationals. With the expansion of free-market capitalism, agricultural systems in many countries in the global south have become focused on producing cash crops for export to rich western nations. At the same time, their markets have been opened to food imports, including imports from US and EU companies at less than the cost of production. US farmers benefit from billions of dollars in subsidies which make up as much as 40% of US net farm income. This means they can afford to export their crops at well below production cost. (3) This is ruining the livelihoods of small farmers in the global south.

This is not the statement of a group concerned primarily with the potential unanticipated risks of GM crops to the environment or people, but rather, it is the manifesto of a group concerned that GM crops will perform exactly as intended.

This is a total non sequitur. He has ignored the premise, the data and the argument, only to repeat what he already said.  How is it that putting more food in fewer hands, farther from where it is needed, with less diversity and local control doing anything except feeding corporate profit at the expense of people’s food freedom?

Like many issues where science and politics intersect, those opposed to the productivity gains made possible by agricultural innovation have sought to use science as a basis for realizing political ends. A primary strategy in such efforts is typically to argue that the science compels a particular political outcome.  In the case of GM crops, opponents of the technology (mainly in Europe) have argued that the techniques are unproven or risky. However, such tactics have not succeeded  . So the next step beyond waging a political battle over science is now direct action against the technology of concern.

Those tactics have indeed succeeded. They have succeeded for the corporate military industrial congressional educational complex. As free and open access to education and research has been trumped by multinational corporate profits driving the economies of nations, the  search for truth has been reduced to the search for profit at the expense of people.

 

This situation is of course in many respects parallel to the climate debate. Efforts to compel emissions reductions through invocations that science compels certain political outcomes have borne little fruit, sosome activists have taken it upon themselves to directly attack the technologies at the focus of their concern  .

One difference between the climate wars and the GM wars is that some prominent scientists are participating in the direct action against technology (such as James Hansen and IPCC contributor Marc Jaccard). Another important difference is that in the case of GM crops, it is research itself being targeted, and the scientific community objects  .

 

I would agree that the methods used in much of the climate debate are indeed driven by nonscientific corporate influences, but more in the same misguided way as the GMO supporters have used it.  The difference here is that the end results of the climate change supporters are that we end up doing many things that we will have to do anyway.  We need real sustainable solutions to both climate change and food shortages.  The ‘why’ of climate change pales before the fact of it changing or the inadequacy of many of the current climate models. Simply,  no one has been able to effectively debunk the idea that small local sustainable solutions to both climate change and food shortages are potentially the best, and least risky, of alternatives.

One argument invoked by scientists in support of GM technology is that the world needs more food. But the world needs more energy too. In condoning direct attacks on energy technologies, the scientific community may have opened the door to tactics that it does not much like when they are applied closer to home.

 

The Original posted article by Roger Pielke, Jr.    and was posted at 5/23/2012 04:07:00 AM in his blog here  

In regard to Roger Pielke Jr.’s closing point, it must be pointed out that the chemical companies, now biotech companies, are intimately dependent on the oil companies.  When they push bio-fuels made from GMO crops they have made another vicious circle in the idiot cycle.  I seriously doubt they will every seriously show that the second law of thermodynamics can be overcome in this process, no matter how successful the business model.

 The repost of the original article and any quotes or images therein conform to the fair use provisions of local copyright law.

RT: History of Monsanto

Vodpod videos no longer available.

RT: History of Monsanto , posted with vodpod

Transfarmers: Dark of The Spoon #TheRevolution #GMO

 

 

 

 

Vodpod videos no longer available.

Transfarmers: Dark of The Spoon = #TheRevolutio…, posted with vodpod

Anonymous Message To Monsanto We fight for farmers!. #GMO #OGM #FYW #OccupyWallStreet #USDOR

 Anonymous Message To Monsanto We fight for farmers!.  #GMO #OGM #FYW

Vodpod videos no longer available.

Anonymous Message To Monsanto We fight for farm…, posted with vodpod

scroll down for the text
this is a video response to
http://www.eweek.com/c/a/IT-Infrastructure/Anonymous-Attacks-Monsanto-Network…
congratulations on this succesful operation

(message we uploaded before the hack)

To the free-thinking citizens of the world:
Anonymous stands with the farmers and food organizations denouncing the practices of Monsanto. We applaud the bravery of the organizations and citizens who are standing up to Monsanto, and we stand united with you against this oppressive corporate abuse. Monsanto is contaminating the world with chemicals and genetically modified food crops for profit while claiming to feed the hungry and protect the environment. Anonymous is everyone, Anyone who can not stand for injustice and decides to do something about it, We are all over the Earth and here to stay.
To Monsanto, we demand you stop the following:

-Contaminating the global food chain with GMO’s.
– Intimidating small farmers with bullying and lawsuits.
– Propagating the use of destructive pesticides and herbicides across the globe.
– Using “Terminator Technology”, which renders plants sterile.
– Attempting to hijack UN climate change negotiations for your own fiscal benefit.
– Reducing farmland to desert through monoculture and the use of synthetic fertilizers.
-Inspiring suicides of hundreds of thousands of Indian farmers.
-Causing birth defects by continuing to produce the pesticide “Round-up”
-Attempting to bribe foriegn officials
-Infiltrating anti-GMO groups

Monsanto, these crimes will not go unpunished. Anonymous will not spare you nor anyone in support of your oppressive illegal business practices.
AGRA, a great example:
In 2006, AGRA, Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa, was established with funding from Bill Gates and The Rockefeller Foundation.
Among the other founding members of, AGRA, we find: Monsanto, Novartis, Sanofi-Aventis, GlaxoSmithKline, Procter and Gamble, Merck, Mosaic, Pfizer, Sumitomo Chemical and Yara. The fact that these corporations are either chemical or pharmaceutical manufacturers is no coincidence.
The people of the world see you, Monsanto. Anonymous sees you.
Seeds of Opportunism,
Climate change offers these businesses a perfect excuse to prey on the poorest countries by swooping in to “rescue” the farmers and people with their GMO crops and chemical pesticides. These corporations eradicate the traditional ways of the country’s agriculture for the sake of enormous profits.
The introduction of GMOs drastically affects a local farmers income, as the price of chemicals required for GMOs and seeds from Monsanto cripples the farmer’s meager profit margins.
There are even many cases of Monsanto suing small farmers after pollen from their GMO crops accidentally cross with the farmer’s crops. Because Monsanto has a patent on theri brand of seed, they claim the farmer is in violation of patent laws.
These disgusting and inhumane practices will not be tolerated.
Anonymous urges all concerned citizens to stand up for these farmers, stand up for the future of your own food. Protest, organize, spread info to your friends!
SAY NO TO POISONOUS CHEMICALS IN YOUR FOOD!
SAY NO TO GMO!
SAY NO TO MONSANTO!
We are Anonymous.
We are legion.
We do not forgive.
We do not forget.
Expect us.

Monsanto or Farmers – Vandana Shiva

Monsanto or Farmers (part 1) #gmo #ogm

Vodpod videos no longer available.

1st collector for Monsanto or Farmers (part1)
Follow my videos on vodpod

Navdanya

An interview with Dr. Vandana Shiva

Monsanto or Farmers (part 2) #gmo #ogm

Vodpod videos no longer available.

1st collector for Monsanto or Farmers (part2)
Follow my videos on vodpod

Vandana Shiva Environmentalist and founder of Diverse Women for Diversity

• by Emine Saner

• The Guardian, Tuesday 8 March 2011
• Article history

Vandana Shiva. Photograph: Stefania D’Alessandro/Getty Images

When Shiva, 58, and women villagers wrapped their arms around trees to prevent them being felled by commercial loggers, the name “tree hugger” was born. Since then Shiva’s influence on the global environmental movement has grown. Fascinated by physics, she went to the University of Western Ontario but left her formal scientific work when she was inspired by the non-violence of the Chipko movement. “My father had been a forester and I had grown up on those hills. I learned from the [peasant women] what forests mean for a rural woman in India in terms of firewood and fodder and medicinal plants and rich knowledge.” Shiva founded her Research Foundation for Science, Technology and Ecology in 1982, in a cow shed at the foothills of the Himalayas, to “serve the powerless not the powerful, which would not get all its cue from Western Universities and international institutions, but would also be open to learn from the indigenous knowledge of local communities”. [more]

Haloa the Taro, A GMO Story

Haloa the Taro, A GMO Story

Vodpod videos no longer available.

1st collector for Haloa the Taro, A GMO Story
Follow my videos on vodpod

Waiter, There’s a Fish in My Tomato! A GMO Story

GMO: More Unintended Consequences

GMO: More Unintended Consequences
Vodpod videos no longer available.

GMO: More Unintended Consequences
Follow my videos on vodpod

Vodpod videos no longer available.

IT’S PEOPLE!, posted with vodpod

Just because you can do something does not mean you should.  Some science should stay unexploited (if not unexplored) until such a time that we are mature enough to inhabit the forbidden planet where its secrets hide. Knowledge for knowledge’s sake does not equate to technology for technology’s sake.  Knowing in itself does not have a consequence until it manifests as technology and then it always has consequences.  The trick is to predict and prepare for any negative consequences. When faced with a science that is complex enough to have unpredictable long-term negative consequences, to dive headlong into its exploitation is playing chicken with all life on earth.  If that makes me a Luddite, then so be it.  The alternative is be a lunatic willing to destroy the world.

So What Could Monsanto’s Or Any Biotech’s GMO Lead To Anyway?

The Idiot Cycle Trailer – #FYW

The Idiot Cycle Trailer – Trailer Addict
Vodpod videos no longer available.

1st collector for The Idiot Cycle Trailer – Trailer Addict
Follow my videos on vodpod

Genetically Modified Food, Panacea or Poison #GMO

Genetically Modified Food, Panacea or Poison #GMO

Vodpod videos no longer available.

1st collector for Genetically Modified Food, Panacea or Poison #GMO
Follow my videos on vodpod

Genetically Modified Food: Panacea or Poison

 Top Documentary Films says:

The fact is, there has never been a single study on the human safety of these products. Any implication to the contrary is a pure fabrication. Make the corporate apologists produce a single study, and they can not. The important point is this. Among scientists, the scientific community is deeply divided as to whether these foods are safe or not, so the burden of proof is on industry. And so far, the corporations have failed to demonstrate the safety of these foods on humans through a single study. In the last thirty years global demand for food has doubled. In a race to feed the planet, scientists have discovered how to manipulate DNA, the blueprint of life, and produce what they claim are stronger, more disease-resistant crops. However, fears that Genetically Modified Food may not be safe for humans or the environment has sparked violent protest. Are we participating in a dangerous global nutritional experiment? This informative film helps the viewer decide if the production of genetically modified food is a panacea for world hunger or a global poison. [watch it here]

The Crisis Jones Report

Pharmakon

It is important to note that a pharmakon is both a medicine and a poison. The cure or the cause of an illness, or both. It is said that a medicine may be a cure in the proper context of an illness that it can treat with the correct dosage. This becomes part of the set and setting of any drug, not just psychoactive ones.  It is clear that in the current idiot cycle created by our biotechnological world that pharmakon will be a word that will grow in importance soon.  There are deep issues here involved in what we define as a drug, an illness and a treatment.  Ultimately in a genetically engineered world we will come to see food as fundamental of all three.

 

 

 

Bayer Distributes AIDS and More

Bayer Distributes AIDS

Vodpod videos no longer available.

Discovered Bayer Distributes AIDS via BekaShakur
Follow my videos on vodpod

Bayer and Death: 1918 and Aspirin

Posted on July 9, 2011 by geobear7| in Food Freedom

PART 1 OF 5

By J. Holcombe, D. Jacobson, and T. Ruhl

“Farbenfabriken Bayer’s worldwide efforts had left few places lacking aspirin. In the United States, Bayer’s giant factory produced aspirin under “American” management. After Bayer executives were charged with violating the Trading with the Enemies Act in August 1918, advertisements encouraged confidence in aspirin.” Karen Starko

The world has believed for almost a century that a new and virulent virus came out of nowhere worldwide and killed millions in 1918.  Two reports, one published in 2008 and the second in 2009, lay that myth to rest for good.

The first report came as a press release on August 19, 2008, from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID):

“Bacteriologic and histopathologic results from published autopsy series clearly and consistently implicated secondary bacterial pneumonia caused by common upper respiratory–tract bacteria in most influenza fatalities.”

People were killed by common bacteria found in the upper respiratory tract, according to research uncovered by F. William Engdahl:

“The 20 to 40 million deaths worldwide from the great 1918 Influenza Pandemic were NOT due to ‘flu’ or a virus, but to pneumonia caused by massive bacterial infection.”

The NIAID press release did not, however, address what caused the bacterial infections, but research by Dr. Karen Starko does.  She implicates aspirin, dovetailing with the NIAID research on pneumonia from massive bacterial infection, and goes further in also explaining the extreme rapidity of death:

“Mortality was driven by 2 overlapping clinical-pathologic syndromes: an early, severe acute respiratory distress (ARDS)-like condition, which was estimated to have caused 10%-15% of deaths (sequential autopsy series are lacking); and a subsequent, aggressive bacterial pneumonia “superinfection,” which was present in the majority of deaths.”

In looking at reports of those who died, two distinct groups became readily apparent to Starko, based on a very distinctive time frame from health to death:

1. People who died of pneumonia from a bacteria infection became sick and things deteriorated at varying rates from there to death; and

2. People who died so astoundingly fast that those deaths became a classic part of the frightening legend of the 1918 “flu” – people perfectly well in the morning and dead within a matter of hours. [more]

Bayer and Death: Aspirin Killed, Homeopathy Saved

Posted on July 10, 2011 by geobear7| in Food Freedom

PART 2 OF 5

By J. Holcombe, D. Jacobson, and T. Ruhl

“In February 1917, Bayer lost its American patent on aspirin, opening a lucrative drug market to many manufacturers. Bayer fought back with copious advertising, celebrating the brand’s purity just as the epidemic was reaching its peak.”  The New York Times

In Part 1, we revealed that while most believed for 100 years that a flu virus killed millions of people worldwide in 1918, medical forensic research discovered that most died of pneumonia caused by a massive bacterial infection. Here, we discuss how this research also shows that homeopathy saved people’s lives during that time, while aspirin killed them.

Karen Starko’s research shows that “Aspirin advertisements in August 1918 and a series of official recommendations for aspirin in September and early October preceded the death spike of October 1918.”

“The number of deaths in the United increased steeply, peaking first in the Navy in late September, then in the Army in early October, and finally in the general population in late October.”

Of tremendous significance is a single sentence in Starko‘s  work.  

“Homeopaths, who thought aspirin was a poison, claimed few deaths.” 

That sentence stands out against a backdrop of millions of the deaths caused by Bayer and the pharmaceutical industry of the day. [more]