The difference is easy to make out; shills oppose labeling.
Note there are plenty of plant scientists who don’t oppose labeling, who are not anti-GMO.
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Exactly this. I resent the argument in this BoingBoing post being framed as “you either like GMO, or you’re anti-science” - fuck that. I’m against:
– Patented seeds by Monsanto
– “RoundUp Ready” soybeans that can be drenched in pesticide
– Monoculture crops from big agribusiness pushing out local varieties (see corn in Mexico)
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I live in Hawaii - specifically on the island of Kauai where we just passed a bill that requires the GMO companies (Syngenta, Pioneer and a few others) to disclose the pesticides they use.
It barely passed.
The issue isn’t one of fear. I do agree there are many who dislike the idea of splicing rat DNA with that of a carrot - but that’s not why many (like me) are against GMOs. The main reasons are:
- Pesticide use
- Patenting of food sources and crops
- Effects on Local Farmers
In Waimea (on the West Side of Kauai) we were picking up elevated levels of Atrazine in the drinking water at the local Waimea schools. The cause for this is, admittedly, unknown however it’s either a) airborne or b) from the water supply itself. This is bad because it was making the kids sick (elder folks too).
We asked the GMO companies to create a buffer zone around schools, parks and public areas - as well as to disclose what exactly they were spraying their crops with. This is a reasonable thing to ask - especially when chemicals appear in water supplies. This isn’t fear - this is reason. And it’s being fought at every level, with the GMO companies threatening to sue individual council members.
Our island overwhelmingly supports this bill - yet the mayor vetoed it.
Many (including the author of this article) have spoken out against ridiculous software patents - yet fail to see the significance of this exact same practice when it comes to food sources. In 2006 the University of Hawaii had the audacity to try and patent taro (http://www.organicconsumers.org/articles/article_504.cfm). Taro is the plant source for poi. Taro itself is considered a sacred food source - imagine if a strain of the patented taro was found in Hanalei Valley (http://www.balihai.com/Blog/hanalei-taro-patches-produce-hawaii-poi-facts-about-taro). GMO companies like to go after farmers after all.
Is this “fear”? I like to think of it as something we shouldn’t have.
Patenting and poisoning the ground without any accountability (disclosures and labeling) - this is what the GMO fight is all about.
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To be fair, Maggie’s point about the fake “science” and general unscientific queeziness in the GMO debate is well taken. It exists, it’s significant, it smells a lot like climate denial, certainly it is closely akin to “tribal-identity” climate denial. I think there are a few key differences though.
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Yes, it is “tribal-identity” selective reading, but it is not driven by the same anti-science, anti-intellectual personal insecurity. Those obsessed with finding biological dangers in GMOs typically look for scientific authority to back them up, even if it is questionable authority. I’d characterize it as being un-scientific, but anti-engineering.
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While reasons for opposition are mixed, almost everyone who favors GMO labeling agrees on the political and economic concerns.
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Unlike anti-science climate change deniers, unscientific GMO opponents do not provide a legion of useful idiots for a powerful economic concern. I’m sure the authors of the fraudulent anti-GMO “research” papers have made some money from the fatuous new age rags at the checkout counter in Whole Foods (I’m not complaining! Better that than the Wall of Kardashian at Safeway!); I’m equally confident they didn’t get marching orders from above.
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Why the hell would you pass a bill that explicitly targets GMO companies, if your concern is amount of pesticide used?
You’d think you’d be wanting to know that sort of thing about ALL of the crops we eat - and it’s that sort of blatant ideological politicking, where people say they are concerned about pesticides (while their actions indicate they are mostly concerned about opportunities to knock GMO producers down a notch) that alienates people like me, who feel many of the things you complain about are things that need to be regulated or eliminated… but I can’t actually come out and support you, because then I’d have to be associated with you and your blatantly anti-GMO methods, which I’m unwilling to do because I support GMO - even if I am opposed to or concerned about all of the actual problems you listed.
No one I’ve met that is pro-GMO is actually pro-Monsanto. There is a widespread agreement that Monsanto and their patents are a problem. We want to work with you to solve this problem, but as long as GMO proponents consistently put destroying GMO viability as a priority ahead of actually solving problems with patents and pesticides, working with them is simply impossible.
Look at it right here in this thread - people say they are opposed to elevated pesticide levels, and that is why we must… label GMO foods? What the fuck! Where’s the logic there? If people want to require food be labeled with pesticides used on it, and quantities (and byproducts) remaining in the final product, hell yes, I’d be behind that 100%! More power to the consumer!
But when they try to sound reasonable “Oh, I’m just concerned about the dangers of pesticides!” and then propose something that doesn’t address that problem but does actively work against GMO ideologically, it’s obvious that “sounding” reasonable is all they are actually trying to accomplish and I can safely write them off as the deceptive ideologues they are.
Because the stuff you’re listing happens constantly WITHOUT GMO. The level of non-GMO engineering going on on the farm is immense. When you resort to attacking a scientific development process instead of the actual problem you claim to be fighting, you lose credibility. So please, I beg of you, if you’re anti-GMO for the stated reasons, stop considering yourself anti-GMO. I want to agree with you about the problems you bring up, I want to work with you to overcome them, but as long as you misrepresent yourself and your goals, as long as you ignore the science and the reality, that’s impossible.
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If Monsanto owns 90% of the market, someone probably ought to tell Dow, their top competitor.
(The Monsanto fear machine is really starting to get out of hand. It isn’t a monopolizing monolith; it’s one of over 140 seed companies in my home state alone.)
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Genetically-modified organisms are still just organisms. If there wasn’t a fear-fueled hype over the name (which doesn’t have any solid evidence anyways), no one would care about labeling it.
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Surprised to see RoundUp being defended here. Be advised that Glyphosate is not the only active ingredient - the surfactant polyethoxylated tallow amine (POEA) makes up to 18% of the RoundUp formulation and has been shown to be highly toxic to human beings.
Any way you slice it, RoundUp and RoundUp ready crops are long-term bad news for everyone.
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That’s exactly what I’m saying. The vendors of GMOs are afraid, so they won’t label. It seems to me that they don’t believe in their product, or they wouldn’t be afraid to tell customers what is in the can. They’re terrified.
It’s normal and commonplace for products to be labeled; hell, it seems like you can’t buy an extension cord without a Cali lead warning anymore and that has no effect on sales. People will happily buy labeled GMO products.
Of course, if GMO foods were labeled, regular people could actually find out if they were harmful… instead of having to trust data supplied by people who fervently oppose labeling. Which is why I suspect that the vendors opposition to labeling is fueled by fear - their fear that their own products are harmful.
I, personally, am not askeert of GMOs. Nor am I afraid of labeling anything I create.
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Well, you have just demonstrated that you either don’t know what “RoundUp Ready” means, or what a pesticide is. Why should I take your word on anything else?
I know the difference between a herbicide and a pesticide if that’s what you mean. I know that that RoundUp is a herbicide.
Indeed. What I didn’t make clear is that Kauai is a research hub so the crops we have here are “in development”, which means all kinds of chemicals are used to test resistance and resilience. Farms that raise food crops are pretty tightly regulated this way - our crops are a bit of a special case.
You were mentioning something about my “idealogical stance”?
The bill we passed asks for a buffer zone around schools and the disclosure of pesticides used. I don’t believe it calls for “destroying GMO viability”.
You’re confusing two points. The first is simply that people want to know if they’re eating GMO foods (labeling). The second (my point) is that I want to know what’s being sprayed on the ground. Not sure why this is so upsetting to you.
It would be helpful if you could tell me what that is?
I don’t quite see how our island is “attacking” these companies. You seem pretty upset about this stuff, but hey the Garden Island will be here for you to relax and unwind - we’ll protect it for you :).
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Strange. Merriam-Webster defines shill as: a : one who acts as a decoy (as for a pitchman or gambler) b : one who makes a sales pitch or serves as a promoter
Unless you can demonstrate that a scientist is paid to oppose labeling, it’s wrong to refer to them as shills.
Of course, there are scientists who aren’t anti-GMO who don’t oppose labeling, but that has nothing to do with the science of GMOs, but rather with their opinions on public policy (which always varies within the scientific community, just as it does with society at large).
Again, your arguments really are no different than those of global warming deniers. A shill is someone who disagrees with you about public policy. Scientists who point out the lack of evidence for harm from GMOs are doing so less for science than for their careers. I’m sorry, there’s just no substance to these arguments.
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What conclusion can one make about products whose producers spend ten of millions to oppose informing the public about their product?
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Plants have been patentable in the US since 1937. See? There’s your problem right there. If you want to ban plant patents, you’ve gotten way off track.
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How many millions of years have humans been practicing agriculture? edit - should have wrote planting seeds.
If activists want to shut down the commercial seed farms in Hawaii, then other states are totally ready to take those jobs. Thanks, Hawaii!
About 0.05 million years.
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Non-GMO crops are just as patentable as GMO crops. I don’t understand why people who (for good reasons IMHO) oppose organism patents, conflate the technology with a legal structure far older than the tech.
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It is the primary thing that keeps me from identifying as a Green… There is so much anti-science in the Green movement that I can’t in good conscience fully support them. There is a wide swath of Greens that react to technology the way that the Religious Right reacts to social issues i.e. with intense emotion and little thought and just echoing the utterances of demagogues…
Edit, to bring this back to topic, my primary problem with GMOs are the licensing issues and the fact that they are often designed to allow wanton application of herbicides and pesticides.
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