Biotech (GM) Food For a Warming Planet

[wtmusic]

"Climate change is here, folks, and I’m not saying so because it’s hot outside. This is a big worry, or at least it should be.

But big problems create big business opportunities: A California biotech company called Arcadia Biosciences has set out to help farmers do their part to slow down the process of global warming and adapt to a resource-constrained world–by developing crop varieties that require less water, tolerate salty conditions and use less nitrogen fertilizer.

This photo shows two varieties of rice. On the left is rice engineered for nitrogen use efficiency (NUE) by Arcadia, on the right conventional rice. In laboratory tests, using typical applications of nitrogen fertilizer, the NUE rice, as it’s known, is substantially more productive. When you can grow more food using the same inputs of land, water and fertilizer, everyone–farmers, consumers, hungry people and anyone who cares about CO2 concentrations in the earth’s atmosphere–is better off."

http://theenergycollective.com/marcgunther/61991/biotech-food-warming-planet?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=The+Energy+Collective+%28all+posts%29

[robcon]

1. I expect a lot of breakthroughs on this. Necessity = mother of....

n/t

[Nihil]

15. "... all f*ck-ups".

I expect a lot of political chicanery on this followed by a huge
"Oops" moment when not only do the GM food supporters realise that
yes, long-term testing *was* required but the issues raised by
both pollution & over-population cause an even more catastrophic
response to regain equilibrium than would be necessary today.

[GliderGuider]

2. We can expect a growing backlash against frankenfoods over the next couple of decades

Until Monsanto manages to silence the opposition, of course.

[wtmusic]

3. If it's developed by Arcadia Biosciences would it be ok

or you categorically oppose GM food?

[GliderGuider]

4. I categorically oppose GM food - it's a holdover from my A-P days

Anarcho-primitivists are twitchy when it comes to slicing and dicing the planet's genome.

[wtmusic]

5. I'm twitchy about dead zones in the ocean

"Environmental benefits arise because much of the nitrogen now spread on fields is wasted. Some of it flows into rivers and streams and eventually causes algae blooms that create notorious “dead zones” in places like the Gulf of Mexico, and a small amount (estimated at 1-6%) is converted into nitrous oxide, a potent greenhouse gas, and released into the air.

Nitrogen-efficient crops could, in theory, be eligible for carbon credits if it can be shown that they reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Arcadia has an agreement with a provincial government to make its seeds available for free, in exchange for the right to sell carbon credits. “The carbon piece is very important to us,” Eric says."

[GliderGuider]

6. Whaddya say we just reduce the number of people?

Problem solved.

[wtmusic]

7. How?

Problem not solved.

[GliderGuider]

8. Just wait. But whatever you do,

Don't feed them. People are like stray kitties. If you keep feeding them, they'll never leave.

[wtmusic]

9. If you stop feeding them, they die.

Is that the plan?

[GliderGuider]

10. No, first they stop reproducing. That's the plan.

A cap on the food supply tends to cut fertility before it increases mortality in most species. No reason to expect it won't work for us.

[wtmusic]

11. Some people who didn't get the memo

Can we cap your food supply and see if it works?

[GliderGuider]

12. Yeah, I know. Famines are a cast-iron bitch.

The thing is, they're local, and they usually involve more than just a problem with the food supply - there's generally war going on somewhere nearby. Yes, you can starve people to death if you cut them off from all food. But that's not what I'm talking about now, is it?

Since you brought it up, here's a funny personal thing about me and my food supply. I'm on a very strict vegetarian diet right now. I'm still alive and I haven't reproduced. Not that it means anything to the argument, but it has at least as much significance as your cheap shot.

Now to get a little more serious:

Shit-disturbing aside, the core question is this: how much are we prepared to live within limits in order to avoid damaging the planet any further? If the answer is "Not much at all," then none of us should be surprised by the inevitable outcome. A species that's already 50% into overshoot like we are can't continue growing for long without serious shit happening. Even clever tool-monkeys can't fool Mother Nature, certainly not for long.

[wtmusic]

13. I would guess your strict vegetarian diet would keep 10 Somalians alive

and is more luxurious than the diet of 90% of the people in the world. Likewise for the energy you use. The real question is are you prepared to live within the limits within which most of the world already lives?

You're probably not at all prepared to do that, and I wouldn't ask you to (I'm not prepared to do it either). Which brings us to the point that you've solved nothing. If your answer is to starve people in some far-off land so that you don't have to run your A/C as often, that's a pretty fucked-up answer. And if you "cap" a food supply anywhere in the world that's exactly what will happen.

If a GM crop can help people survive, while staving off global warming for awhile, that's should be a priority. Maintaining the ideological purity of the planet's gene pool is not.

[GliderGuider]

14. Not ten, but perhaps one and a half.

The thing about food is that there's a pretty narrow band between overconsumption and malnutrition. My average intake of 2400 cal/day would give each of two Somalis (or anybody else) a meager 1200 cal/day by splitting my ration. That's not enough for long-term survival.

About my energy and other resource consumption, I agree with you. Because of the embedded energy of my country I am responsible for about five times the world average energy consumption. I've made efforts to reduce my personal share, but I'm still probably three times the world average (about the same as an average Russian). I am under no illusions about having "solved" anything with my lifestyle changes. The world is a messy, unequal, unjust, intractable place, and I can't do a hell of a lot about any of it.

One thing I can do, though, is to advocate for life that can't advocate for itself. For instance I strongly support the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society because they do exactly that for whales. However, since we already do a more than adequate job of advocating for our own desires (as a species, anyway), I don't generally advocate for humans. I think we should be expending much more effort than we are to ensure that all other remaining species survive and thrive - not as a matter of ideological purity but as a matter of respect for life itself.

To the extent that humans damage the prospects of other life-forms that share the planet, we are part of their problem. And since the damage we do is significant, I see humans as a significant problem. I don't want to encourage us to become even more of a problem than we already are, so I take the fairly unpopular hard-line position of valuing non-human life more than I value human life - even and especially my own. If our species as a whole were to adopt this attitude I'd see it as an act of altruism - kind of like a mother giving up her own food to feed her helpless children. Since we haven't adopted those values, it remains up to individuals to remind us that all life has inherent value - and that the simple virtue of being the top predator on the planet doesn't give our life any more intrinsic value than the life of dogs, deer or dolphins.