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If you haven’t read it already, definitely check out Sustainable Energy – Without the Hot Air.
I think it’s been mentioned on BB before.
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I love that site! Errr . . . I probably got my bookmark from here actually.
I tried to transition back to the topic in my last post, but perhaps too little too late, eh?
We’re also totally remiss in any big conversation on the topic if we don’t talk consumption, because it’s possible to live awesome lives without being so freaking wasteful all the time, we’re just presented with a horrible set of defaults there IMHO. But that’s just diverging more off topic!
I’m totally regretting mentioning nuclear right off, but it really seemed like a good comparison at first!
I know what common and less common words mean, like this one that came to mind reading your comment: “obfuscated”. I just haven’t got a clue how “socially engineer the society that the critic envisions” is even remotely related to the discussion or if it’s supposed to be humor.
So yeah, please, make a note of it and stop trolling and wasting our time.
So you’re just reduced to unconditional demands for control? I think you may have come full circle back to what attracted you to this topic in the first place - a demand for power based on nothing.
I’ve made a number of comments here that are relevant and technically accurate, as i did in the last gene patenting article, and you’re just screaming “Shut up! Shut up!” You don’t have anything to say, but you are making demands and pitching them in various forms until you hope you find something that will stick.
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What demand of power? My only demand is to stick to the topic or make yourself understandable if you are answering my comment: Social engineering is not genetic engineering or related to my comment as far as I can see. Insulting people telling them they can’t understand simple words won’t get you anywhere either.
I don’t care about your other comments that may or may not be technically accurate, I care only about your first answer that I don’t understand. Instead of saying I’m too stupid, you could have explained it ages ago and we wouldn’t be there.
I assumed from your firm stance that you had lesser familiarity with the subject
Not sure I understand your logic there, but c’est la vie. I have a less “firm” stance on things I have less knowledge about, but that’s what I think works for me. However, I put “firm” in quotes because I’m always willing to learn more and change my stance as new information/facts come in. I might assume you’re the same way in that regard, I hope.
an imaginary bankruptcy (seriously, that was kind of cheap)
I’m sorry you feel that way, but I think you may have already cheapened the discussion early on by making assumptions and/or inferring you already know the extent of my education/familiarity on this topic. Let’s just call it even and move on.
your quick rejection of an ocean-going reactor because of an imaginary bankruptcy (seriously, that was kind of cheap) makes me think you’re not exploring the options seriously before rejecting them.
Well, that’s kind of ironic. This shows to me you didn’t explore your options by visiting the link within my other post here that shows why nuclear is too expensive to be practical.
And which would you choose if it gave you the opportunity to get rid of a coal power plant? What type?
Sorry, but that’s presenting a fallacy of false alternatives (no pun intended). That’s like asking me to choose any color I want, but it has to be red.
I’ve already showed evidence that nuclear is too expensive as to be practical and my alternative to a coal power plant would be solar, wind, tidal and/or geothermal, etc. And, of course, that would all depend on geography, time frame and many more factors.
Similarly, location is a huge issue, placing a reactor under water in the deep see is very different from on land near a reservoir
And, massively too expensive whether you stick nuclear power plants on an island like Japan or under the Atlantic in the Bermuda Triangle. It’s time to start progressively phasing out nuclear and fossil fuels and replace it with solar, wind, tidal and/or geothermal, etc.
With government subsidies this can happen faster than you may think:
Add a federal "Manhattan Project"dedicated to more R&D into the mix and it can happen much faster. The more we put time and money into more sustainable energy, the more it progresses by leaps and bounds. And, once again, all this progress has happened despite a very concerted effort of the fossil fuel and nuclear industry to put up artificial hurdles to slow its (inevitable) adoption to further milk their current infrastructure.
I’ve been studying this extensively for well over a decade. If you’d like sources for any of this, let me know and I’ll post it for you. It’s sometimes difficult to find reliable sources of info since there’s unfortunately a massive amount of astroturf and disinformation one must filter through.
what about the batteries we’d need for solar and wind?
The “Manhatten Project” will take care of that quickly, but even if that never happens there’s already solutions that are evolving at a fast rate. For example, as you mentioned earlier there’s graphene technology and it’s accelerating despite the lack of extensive funding.
The difficulties of mass-producing commercial-grade graphene are also fading with time. There’s many companies out there finding competing methods including using “solution-based” processes that are similar to making paper.
http://news.discovery.com/tech/tiny-graphene-sheets-make-for-big-energy-storage-130801.htm
Imagine if our government got off its ass and funded the hell out of graphene research? We better do it soon or we’re going to be left in the dust by Europe:
In a similar vein, GMO isn’t scary by itself, but again there are layers and layers.
I agree, except that I’ve found that GMO issues are vastly more complicated than alternative energy issues (overall). For example, the cost/benefit ratio between nuclear and wind for many countries is very clear cut. The only issue is the time frame for implementation. France is dealing with this now where nuclear has been very successful for them (to say the least) but they are now finding wind is less expensive than fixing up their old nukes or creating new ones. But, even the most ardent wind energy supporters realize it’ll take time to replace nukes, but at least they’re seated in reality unlike some in the USA.
I for one want to get away from fossil fuels and wasteful farming practices just as much as I want to get to clean energy and prevent starvation and hunger.
I very much agree, I just don’t think nuclear power is the answer. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think it’s possible to suddenly stop all current nuclear next Tuesday, nor usage of fossil fuels, but the time is now for a gradual phase out and as more R&D goes into more sustainable energy, this will happen more and more progressively. Actually, it’s already happening as we speak as more and more people get informed and educate themselves beyond the industry FUD that tries to keep it at bay for corporate greed.
I think it’s been mentioned on BB before.
Thank you, daneel! It was and I read it I guess about 3 years ago. It’s unfortunately a bit dated at this point, but it’s still a great read overall. I just checked and it’s got a 2013 errata pdf, but it’s still missing some newer technological breakthroughs for alternative energy production, storage and lightweight materials, etc.
As a citizen from a developing world country, listening to well-meaning people talking about GMO makes my stomach turn and my blood pressure raise.
That Golden Rice will cost lives? Really? Do you think that if we don’t develop or use Golden Rice things are gonna improve? Do you think that if we don’t use Golden Rice because sanctimonious, well fed people in far away lands says we should not, we are going to get more aid? Do you think that more aid is really going to solve our problems? Really?
Look, theoretically more aid could solve that problem. We have the money, there are enough resources, yadda, yadda, yadda. Yes, that’s true. That has been true for years, but short of a global revolution that’s not going to happen. Even if tomorrow all wealthy countries from the Western world would start a massive aid program, Can you personally guarantee that such program is going to be kept as long as necessary, can you guarantee that the lives of billions of people are not subject to the whims of your political class and your disgruntled voters?. No, you cannot. Even in the best of cases, aid would be an unstable measure, with very difficult logistics. Hell, of course I want more aid, but I am realistic. It has not happened and it won’t happen. Even if the people soooo concerned about GM in the developing world would care with the same intensity about aid, it would not happen.
Listen, we are not passive subjects, waiting for you wealthy Americans and Europeans to deign and come and raise us from poverty. We are every bit as smart ass you, we just don’t have the means, infrastructure, tools and education, a lot of times. But, give to resourceful, smart and hard working farmers and scientists the right tools, and they will use them to improve the situation, without waiting until you, well-meaning, concerned people of the wealthy world finally get your shit together and send enough aid. That might happen, more likely, it won’t, but we certainly can improve our situation until that day arrives using GM plants.
This is not an ideological argument, it’s not a theoretical situation, it has happened and it will happen again.
So, indeed, there needs to be testing and labeling (I don’t think labeling it’s necessary, but I understand the concerns of people, so let them choose), but the tools to make this technology easy and low cost should be available to scientists in the developing world. A lot of problems can be solved this way, specially with endemic pests that screw our crops. The US or Europe are not solving our problems, we already know that. We need to solve them ourselves. We need to stop waiting for a white, caring, savior that’s not going to come anytime soon. Don’t get me wrong, it’d be great if you’d help us, but we cannot count and depend on it.
Spreading irrational fears, destroying crops, is not helping, and it’s not hurting Monsanto. Monsanto, Syngenta, etc have the budget to pay for heavy security and make sure their crops and trials won’t be touched. When people destroy a trial field, often what they are doing is destroying the crop of a poor bastard who depends on grants and cannot afford security for the fields. When people destroy crops, spread fear and lobby for irrational testing standards, they are making easier for Monsanto to kill its competition and become even more of a monopoly on GM crops.
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^This.
This post covers the problems of aid, the issues of patronage and dis-empowerment between developed and developing countries and the problem of regulatory hurdles driving (rather than limiting) the influence of large multinationals. It is like the Euler’s formula of GM topic posts…
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I don’t even know where to start with this post. There is so much wrong and patronizing here that you’d need a year of remedial courses to correct it.
Please tell me that you aren’t involved with any sort of NGO or government aid project…
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The fact that farmers steal GMO seed may be one reason that GMO critics have dialed back the claims that the technology is worthless. Why steal something worthless?
Also you gotta love folks who say “Good! Stealing hurts Monsanto!” because all of a sudden they are supporting unlabeled pirated GMOs in their food supply.
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I’m not sure what specific cases you refer to when you say “farmers steal GMO seed.” In most cases farmers are accused of stealing and pressured with lawsuits to not save seed. In fact most corn, soy and alfalfa seed have already been contaminated with GMO pollen and planting these is considered a crime, even though the seed did not come from any company. Your equating farmers with criminals is exact tactic the GMO companies have used to attempt to control our food supply.
Some farmers have been caught intentionally selecting contaminated plants from the edge of their fields and then breeding them for resale after pirating the GMO genes, like that fellow in canada. And in places like India there was probably theft or black market reselling of seed. Likewise in Brazil there was a black market for GMO seed for years despite an official government ban. You will make a big pretense of pretending to not know about these things, but you do, so let’s pretend I patiently spent an hour explaining it to you and move on.
Also the contamination issue is the direct result of Greenpeace and activists preventing the use of sterile seed technology 20 years ago. They should have been demanding the use of plants that make sterile seed or pollen, but they prevented it. So now they say contamination is a corporate conspiracy when it is in fact a problem that Greenpeace had a major role in creating.
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The sterile seed tech you mention is very dangerous. The prospect of such strains contaminating native or non-GMO varieties, creating new strains with lower yields or just wiping them out, and making it impossible for seed saving to even happen. In the worst case, major crops would ALL become sterile, forcing us all to rely on food born from a test tube. This is the dream of the giant GMO firms. But the big picture is such a strategy of forced dependence is already in play, and the lawsuit you mention is a perfect example. This is a global effort to destroy self-reliance for farmers, but what it really does is endanger the sustainability of food production and increase the risks of famine for all of us.
Boogity, boogity. Now we’re back to fairy tales and just making stuff up and scary word salad. How exactly would that rampant spread of sterility work exactly? Isn’t that sort of like saying the oceans might just spontaneously combust? You’re claiming special knowledge of things unknown to science, so I think it’s your duty to enlighten us.
Besides, haven’t we already been doing that experiment out in the real world and seeing worst case scenarios of contamination of something like <1% ? And in these case of farmers saving seeds for reuse, that might amount to a 1% decrease in seed viability, unless they took the obvious step of saving their seed from the part of their field that does not directly border a GMO field.
Yes the lawsuit I mentioned is a perfect example of a crook that the anti-GMO crowd tries to use as a martyr. Losing an IP suit in Canada against an American company goes to show just how weak his case was. there are much better examples you could cite, and going with that one is just sloppy PR. You could actually pick much better facts to make your case, but you’re picking the weakest possible example and being dogmatic.
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You clearly don’t understand how pollination works. To say that only plants bordering a GMO field are at risk of contamination is simply wrong. Wind, insects, and birds are just a few examples of pollinators that spread pollen far and wide. The pollen of countless plants from the far corners of the world are flying over my head as I type this. The wind not discriminate which plants are GMOs or not, nor do the bees only visit a flower in the middle of a field. You dismiss other’s arguments like you’re some kind of expert, but comments like the ones you are making only show your own “knowledge” is suspect. Instead of drawing your own generalities about those who don’t share your zeal for GMOs, perhaps you should brush up on your knowledge with a little research of your own.
I’m not going to dispute your claims of superiority or even ask if you ever took a biology class, because you are a world class authority and I am honored that you even took the time to talk down to me.
Just how does that contamination break the roughly 1% level you might get directly downwind?
Pollen goes “far and wide?” OK, how does a single sterile pollen grain trigger the genetic apocalypse?
Do you know that there are plenty of pollen sterile and seed sterile varieties of plants out there used for plant breeding? They aren’t for sale to the public, but they are commonly used and nothing bad seems to have happened. Why is that. and why aren’t trying to get them banned?
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I’m making a larger point here, and that goes back to “Why are people afraid?”
Well pretty clearly for some folks “Fear” = “God-like Superiority”
And what these movements offer is this:
" Put all your fears in this bucket, and we’ll make you a god!"
Which might sound silly, but that’s pretty much every cult and conspiracy theory and UFO religion.
Then please read the references I posted and start informing yourself.
Again, please start informing yourself and understand that the way things work in the US is not how things work everywhere else.
Sigh. Indeed. This is a similar problem to the testing problem: COncerned person says it’s necessary testing, scientist agrees, concerned person then grabs a bullhorn and starts shouting IF THESE FRANKENFOODS ARE SAFE WHY DO THEY NEED THIS TESTING!!! THEY ARE DANGEROUS!!!11
Major craziness. And even if it’d be possible, those varieties are not being used anymore. That’s pretty much like saying we can’t have pet iguanas in cities because Godzilla.
Opposing genetic modification achieves the same, ironically. Indeed we have a biodiversity problem, but you can use GE to mitigate it.
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