Responsible Nuclear would, however, be an excellent bridge
There’s no such thing as “responsible” nuclear. Why did you capitalize it, anyway? No offense, but that makes it sound like an astroturf slogan.
Nuclear is vastly too expensive and it’s not even close to as sustainable as solar, wind, geothermal, tidal, etc. are.
There’s been a non-stop astroturfing campaign to spread the LIE that implementing solar, wind, geothermal, tidal, etc. aren’t possible in the short term. Don’t fall for it.
Well, aye, quite.
Even if you’re right and I comitted a rethorical fallacy, I think it’s kind of the central point of the article’s headline “What makes GMO plants scary?” One thinks, they lied to us about that, they want to dominate the markets with GMO foods that require license payments to Monsanto & Co, ergo what else is wrong about GMO plants, we don’t trust GMO. A perfectly normal human reaction IMHO.
The fact that the Wikipedia page on GMO controversies which is a subpage of the main GMO page has it’s own page on “Religious views on genetically modified foods” just goes to show how wildly complex (pun intended) this GMO issue is.
On that note, I wish more people would throughly read through the fantastically complex GMO controversy Wikipedia page before attacking each other on the issue in these forums. It’s very enlightening no matter which side of the fence you lean towards and could probably neuter some of the more inane squabbling on the issue.
I’m completely out of this argument…but with three cats in the house, I wouldn’t bat an eyelash if someone told me I’m ingesting a pound of cat hair a week.
Can we grandfather in strawberries, shellfish, pine trees, and peanuts?
Actually, I was a nuke in the Navy and have had lots of discussions recently with people who actually understand such things far better than either of us and are wise and responsible human beings (and only one of them is even vaguely pro-corporation)
You need to stand all the way back and look at the big picture, creating turbines, solar panels,and the like requires energy and materials, there’s environmental damage there too, chemicals are introduced into the environment, and currently we need to dedicate a lot more resources to technology as not all of them are plausible in all areas. Do we use a huge amount of resources making inefficient solar panels? Or improve technology so we can get a far greater long-term energy-output per physical resource rather than possibly wasting a lot of them making sub-standard devices?
Then there’s delivery and storage to be taken into account. Graphene may really save us there, because our battery technology needs improvement. We also should be looking into other storage methods (hydraulic for example)
Now, picture this. You have a nuclear reactor suspended beneath an ocean-going city/village/whatever that’s floating over one of the more stable, deep, and most lifeless sediment beds. Then you have a very stable energy source and if (heaven forbid) something awful happens you just drop it (worst case scenario). The ocean is made of our favorite neutron absorber, and it’s freakin’ huge. On top of that, the fissiles aren’t so much a risk (fish don’t eat plutonium), it’s the chemicals that can be replaced in biological processes, and that can be limited if you’re thinking ahead about the real problems. And now compare that to the impacts of ocean acidification on the entire food chain . . . what happens if we lose most of the Sea Butterflies because they can’t form shells? They’re the potato chips of the sea! Nuclear doesn’t hurt them nearly as much, if at all.
I wanted to be Aquaman when I was a kid. I’ve watched every video that MBARI posted. I LOVE the ocean, and I’m trying to explain that as far as I’m concerned, it’s got a message for us too. We just have to be humble and careful, to make sure we’re not having knee-jerk reactions, and things start to make more sense.
You’ll note that I’m not terribly emotional about this (except for my love of my precious sea critters, of course). I’m trying to take a responsible view, not a passionate one. I know there are a lot of people who ARE shills, don’t assume I’m one of them just because of a disagreement of perspective.
You need to stand all the way back and look at the big picture, creating turbines, solar panels,and the like requires energy and materials, there’s environmental damage there too, chemicals are introduced into the environment, and currently we need to dedicate a lot more resources to technology as not all of them are plausible in all areas. Do we use a huge amount of resources making inefficient solar panels? Or improve technology so we can get a far greater long-term energy-output per physical resource rather than possibly wasting a lot of them making sub-standard devices?
I could be misremembering/misunderstanding the data here, but my understanding from research I did a couple of years ago was that, while we do often forget about the impacts of creating wind and solar (and storing that energy), those impacts are much smaller than the impacts of creating/storing fossil fuels.
I don’t remember having seen a life cycle analysis comparing renewables and nuclear, though. Now you’ve got me curious. I can really see that going either way. In general, life cycle analyses aren’t things that lend themselves well to “common sense” assumption making.
Good thing to bring up, though! (Even though it’s totally off topic to GMOs.) 
Not sure where you’re trying to take this, but to clarify: if it involves laboratory manipulation resulting in recombinant DNA, I won’t touch it.
Oh, I bet that’d be fun! Especially with all the variables (all the different types of solar panels and locations they can be used, changes needed in the electrical grid (to be fair, our grid is crap and could use some fixing), the various different nuclear refinement methods and the chemicals we have to deal with there, all the different disposal mechanisms and all the risks inherent. . .
Wait. . . no, that’s not fun, what am I talking about? I’m going to run out of neurons at this rate!
But thanks, and I think that’s just one of those things we all KNOW, but we’re so used to being lied to by people that we just pick our favorites . . . our little brains are only supposed to have to understand so much, we only have to worry about these things because they’re being managed by irresponsible people. It’s all topsy turvy.
Okay, totally embarassed now, since I had JUST read the ‘Reply as new topic’ thread. blush
You know what? If you take it upon yourself to destroy someone’s hard work, I want to you to at least understand what you’re doing. Otherwise I’m lumping you in with the 14 year olds with no relationships with your parents.
People like to be scared. They even pay to ride roller coasters.
Hey, don’t say anything against casu marzu!
Seed patents have been legal since the 1930s. The issue of seed patents has nothing to do with GMOs.
BTW, what do you think the alternative is to carefully inserting, duplicating, or deleting genes? Going back to slow selective breeding? NOPE! The non-GMO alternative is irradiating plants so that they randomly mutate and then patenting those varieties. GM tech is much safer and more controlled.
Except it’s true . .
The article says humans are provably still evolving, which was the point I was feebly attempting to make. Let’s not start arguing over the precise ways in which we are changing unless it actually relates to the topic at hand; I’ve told you where I got my notions (which are obviously reputable sources for me, but mere hearsay to you).
As for what they say about guys with big feet, I seem to remember there was a peer-reviewed paper on that one! Something something index finger length something something… it wasn’t a very good experimental setup as I recall?
Got to roll, or I’ll miss my dinner. Good night all.
I attended a recent presentation about flood resistant rice, a strain created using a rice gene from a variety found in India. Most rice dies if completely flooded for three days, so heavy rain can destroy an entire harvest. These new varieties can survive two weeks underwater, and it has already been proven in areas that have epic floods over the last decade. It’s a rice gene being put in new rice varieties and it is an open source project.
The presenter said how refreshing it was to present in the United States rather than the EU because no riot police were needed.
I kind of suspect some of this anti-GMO activism is in the realm of soccer hooliganism.
Ha, well, tl;dr and all that, right?
Gotta say that the science types overlook the HISTORY of industrial abuse of the planet. You shouldn’t need to be pushed very hard to doubt the claims of industry whether in the form of private PR or government action.
On the other hand . . .
No. Mandatory labeling is all about expressing the idea of danger, and you know that perfectly well. That’s why cigarettes have mandatory labels saying that they contain nicotine – because nicotine has been shown to be dangerous. There aren’t mandatory labels for positive things – they are optional (although people can certainly get in trouble for claiming benefits that aren’t supported). The strategy of anti-GMO activists to demonstrate that GMO is dangerous hasn’t really worked that well for them and so they decided to skip that step – it hardly matters if they don’t have scientific evidence for their fear of GMO if they force through the same sort of scare labeling that would be in place if they did.
“Something like Golden Rice should be a no-brainer. It’s free, it’s safe, it’s going to save lives.”
Well not really, it’s not supposed to save lives, but to prevent blindness from the lack of vitamin A (carotene, hence the “golden” color). It will actually cost lives, since the real problem with the targeted African populations is malnutrition, so if you keep relying on rice and only rice as the staple food, people will keep missing other nutrients and starve or become sick or die at the same rate,except for the blindness thing. And I guess we don’t know about the “free” and “safe” either. I would assume the latter is true though.
The only way that makes sense is to fix the root cause, i.e. allow the local population to grow both rice and vegetables, and maybe raise some chicken and dairy goats too, in order to have a balanced diet. They didn’t have thousands of years to figure out agriculture like we did and need our help. They need solar pumps to get water, plants and animals adapted to the land and climate, sustainable farming training, etc. Golden rice is NOT the solution, especially if the population needs to rely on crops grown in foreign countries. It started with a good intent, but addresses one problem in a rather disturbing fashion. As well drop a vitamin A pill in the rice water.
