The other day Marshall and Sol took on Bjorn Lomborg for ignoring the benefits of curbing greenhouse gas emissions. Indeed. But Bjorn, among others, is also notorious for exaggerating costs. That fact is that most serious estimates of reducing emissions are fairly low, and there is good reason to believe cost estimates are too high for the simple fact that analysts cannot measure or imagine all ways we might curb emissions. Anything analysts cannot model translates into cost exaggeration. Hawai`i is a good case in point. Since moving to Hawai`i I've started digging into energy, in large part because the situation in Hawai`i is so interesting. Here we make electricity mainly from oil, which is super expensive. We are also rich in sun and wind. Add these facts to Federal and state subsidies and it spells a remarkable energy revolution. Actually, renewables are now cost effective even without subsidies. In the video below Matthias Fripp, who I'm lucky to be working w
You muddy the waters by calling this "genetic modification".
ReplyDeleteTraditional crop breeding/improvement has virtually none of the downsides of GMOs.
Of course it could be argued that there are benefits to GMOs. Just don't call it all genetic modification.
Below from Human Genome Project Information
Controversies
* Safety
o Potential human health impacts, including allergens, transfer of antibiotic resistance
o Potential environmental impacts, including: unintended transfer of transgenes through cross-pollination, unknown effects on other organisms (e.g., soil microbes), and loss of flora and fauna biodiversity
* Access and Intellectual Property
o Domination of world food production by a few companies
o Increasing dependence on industrialized nations by developing countries
o Biopiracy, or foreign exploitation of natural resources
* Ethics
o Violation of natural organisms' intrinsic values
o Tampering with nature by mixing genes among species
o Objections to consuming animal genes in plants and vice versa
o Stress for animal
* Labeling
o Not mandatory in some countries (e.g., United States)
o Mixing GM crops with non-GM products confounds labeling attempts
* Society
o New advances may be skewed to interests of rich countries