The Anti GMO movement, is it the new Kony 2012?

[Azure]

You have to decide whether or not increased herbicide and pesticide usage is okay for the environment. Even if it does result in bigger yields.

[corporatejay]

Originally Posted by Azure

You have to decide whether or not increased herbicide and pesticide usage is okay for the environment. Even if it does result in bigger yields.

Sure, and I think that's a legitimate debate weighing the world's food supply needs v. environmental impact. But using herbicides and pesticides isn't GMO exclusive, it's just that GMO's make this easier to do.

[burn_baby_burn]

Originally Posted by Azure

You have to decide whether or not increased herbicide and pesticide usage is okay for the environment. Even if it does result in bigger yields.

Another reason for the use of Roundup specifically for GMO crops, aside from being non selective, was the fact that it had a minimal impact on the environment. I'm not a scientist so please forgive my crude explanation. When Roundup is sprayed it acts systemically, meaning it is absorbed into the plant. The chemical that isn't absorbed into the plant is binded to soil particles where it is broken down by soil microbes. Chemicals that don't bind to soil particles are the chemicals that bind to water molecules and end up in the gound water, rivers, and streams. Those are the chemicals that have a more severe enviromental impact.

[burn_baby_burn]

Originally Posted by corporatejay

From what I can gather, while spraying various chemicals can lead to superweeds (GMO or not), the net yields are much higher and so there is a clear net benefit to spraying your crops. The difference is the GMO crops allow you to spray roundup, or specific types of chemicals, which are far more efficient, because they are engineered to be resistant to them.

Do I have this right?

Basically. Good farmers will rotate their crops to reduce problems such as disease, herbicide resistance (different crops use different chemicals from different groups), fluctuations in commodity prices.

Glyphosate however, is one chemical that could get used on every field, every year on some farms. Because it is used to control weeds before seeding. To control perrenials before harvest. And to control weeds in crop in Roundup Ready Canola. A typical rotation in western Canada can be Wheat, Barley, and Canola. Some areas will have large amounts of pulse acerage and some will have specialty crops rotated in as well.

[Minnie]

There was a "March Against Monsanto" downtown today. I'd hazard a guess that most of the shouters and marchers haven't the foggiest clue what they're marching about, really.

[troutman]

[corporatejay]

tag that bro.

[NuclearPizzaMan]

Originally Posted by troutman

*Big silly illuminati image*

pfft. All those scientists are wrong about this issue because my gut feels that they are wrong and I saw this movie about killer tomatoes one time.

Also mother nature gaia rabble rabble nature is perfect, where did I leave my macbook?

[GGG]

But Monsanto bought off all of those scientific bodies. So much more efficient at faking science than the oil comanies.

[jayswin]

Remember when troutman posted that pic that stretched across three monitors?

[Thor]

You small monitor users, I thought this was CP, home of the wealthy oil workers!

[troutman]

Natural News writer Mike Adams feels it is "morally justified" for anti-GMO activists to kill defenders of GMO science.

http://theness.com/neurologicablog/i...angerous-loon/

Let me summarize Adams’ points here: Monsanto is equivalent to modern day Nazis committing their own genocide and bid for domination. Anyone who defends GMOs (or just doesn’t buy into anti-GMO nonsense) is a “Monsanto collaborator” and are just as bad as Nazi collaborators. He says directly, “These attacks all have one thing in common: they are orchestrated by paid biotech muckrakers — people I call ‘Monsanto collaborators.’”

These people should be named, their addresses and photos made public. And by the way, it is your moral right, even responsibility, to kill them.

[Bill Bumface]

Is this what happens when society hits a point people don't need to toil for 16 hours a day to provide for their family?

They need some other meaning in their life, and constructive, helpful things are hard, so you pick a successful industry, and try convince people to murder their employees? Energy, pharmaceuticals, the US government and food being the current popular targets.

[Thor]

The natural news loony toons guy Mike Adams calls Monsanto collaborators akin to Nazi's and they must be named and hunted down.

http://www.motherjones.com/blue-marb...-collaborators

For years, Natural News—a conspiracy-minded alternative medicine website that attracts roughly 7 million unique visitors each month—has been crusading against the practice of genetically modifying food. This week the site's proprietor, Mike Adams, took the campaign to new extremes with a post comparing journalists who are critical of GMO activists to "Nazi collaborators." Adams also urged readers "to actively plan and carry out the killing of those engaged in heinous crimes against humanity." Below is a snippet from his anti-media diatribe:

Monsanto is widely recognize as the most hated and most evil corporation on the planet. Even so, several internet-based media websites are now marching to Monsanto's orders, promoting GMOs and pursuing defamatory character assassination tactics against anyone who opposes GMOs, hoping to silence their important voices.

These Monsanto collaborator sites tend to be "leftist" publications but also include at least one prominent business and finance publisher on the political right. All of them are Monsanto collaborators who have signed on to accelerate heinous crimes being committed against humanity under the false promise of "feeding the world" with toxic GMOs.

The rambling post goes on to compare the agrochemical giant Monsanto to IG Farben, a "chemical conglomerate run by Nazi collaborators" that "used Jewish prisoners as human guinea pigs in horrific medical experiments." And it calls on readers to target journalist who Adams views as pro-GMO by publicly listing their names:

Just as history needed to record the names and deeds of Nazi war criminals, so too must all those collaborators who are promoting the death and destruction caused by GMOs be named for the historical record. The true extent of their collaboration with an anti-human regime will all become readily apparent once the GMO delusion collapses and mass global starvation becomes an inescapable reality.

I'm hoping someone will create a website listing all the publishers, scientists and journalists who are now Monsanto propaganda collaborators. I have no doubt such a website would be wildly popular and receive a huge influx of visitors, and it would help preserve the historical record of exactly which people contributed to the mass starvation and death which will inevitably be unleashed by GMO agriculture (which is already causing mass suicides in India and crop failures worldwide).

[The Fonz]

It's spooky that people like Mike Adams exist.

[troutman]

Former Anti-GMO Activist Says Science Changed His Mind

http://www.npr.org/2013/01/20/169847...anged-his-mind

"When I started off as an anti-GMO activist, it was very much an ideological position. I was scared of the new technology, you know, it just seemed to be messing with the basic building blocks of life. But what happened in the sort of 10, 15 years since then, is that I have written a couple of books on climate change, and I really fell in love with the scientific method as a way of establishing knowledge about the world. It eventually dawned on me ... that I was actually being anti-science in the way I was talking about GMOs, and that there are many ways a stronger scientific consensus on the safety of GMOs than there is about the reality of climate change."

[-TC-]

other than the petty bickering, I've found this thread to be fascinating. cheers very much

[Azure]

Originally Posted by corporatejay

Sure, and I think that's a legitimate debate weighing the world's food supply needs v. environmental impact. But using herbicides and pesticides isn't GMO exclusive, it's just that GMO's make this easier to do.

Chemicals have always been used regardless of what variety of seed was planted. As such, chemicals have always been a problem considering their danger to the environment around them.

GMO crops like RR Canola have created a more efficient way to spray chemicals. The question will always be, is the trade off worth it? Whether people want to admit it or not, superweeds are becoming more of a problem.

I know many farmers that have struggled to get good yields with RR varieties. That has lead to a lot of new research being done by Monsanto and Bayer. Talking to some Monsanto guys, they are trying to figure out a way to move away from RR and towards something better, but it will take some time. They do realize the superweed problem. Nature has a mean way of dealing with manmade products.

Of course, all of that has nothing to do with the 'problem' people have with GMO. I have no issue with the science side of things. My issue is with the environmental impact we have on nature with our farming methods.

[The Fonz]

Originally Posted by Azure

Chemicals have always been used regardless of what variety of seed was planted. As such, chemicals have always been a problem considering their danger to the environment around them.

GMO crops like RR Canola have created a more efficient way to spray chemicals. The question will always be, is the trade off worth it? Whether people want to admit it or not, superweeds are becoming more of a problem.

I know many farmers that have struggled to get good yields with RR varieties. That has lead to a lot of new research being done by Monsanto and Bayer. Talking to some Monsanto guys, they are trying to figure out a way to move away from RR and towards something better, but it will take some time. They do realize the superweed problem. Nature has a mean way of dealing with manmade products..

Are you against GMOs, or are you against the over-use of pesticides?

They are different things.

As for Monsanto wanting to move away from RR crops, you're right. But what they'll move to will just be a crop resistant to a different chemical, in particular, a chemical that Monsanto holds a patent on ($$$). Monsanto lost control of the glyphosate ('Roundup') market years ago, and in doing so lost market share in the 'RoundUp' brand, costing them countless millions of dollars.

[Critter4223]

Originally Posted by Azure

Chemicals have always been used regardless of what variety of seed was planted. As such, chemicals have always been a problem considering their danger to the environment around them.

GMO crops like RR Canola have created a more efficient way to spray chemicals. The question will always be, is the trade off worth it? Whether people want to admit it or not, superweeds are becoming more of a problem.

I know many farmers that have struggled to get good yields with RR varieties. That has lead to a lot of new research being done by Monsanto and Bayer. Talking to some Monsanto guys, they are trying to figure out a way to move away from RR and towards something better, but it will take some time. They do realize the superweed problem. Nature has a mean way of dealing with manmade products.

Of course, all of that has nothing to do with the 'problem' people have with GMO. I have no issue with the science side of things. My issue is with the environmental impact we have on nature with our farming methods.

It isn't called "super weeds" it's group resistance. Every type of herbicide is sorted into different numbered groups. Certain weeds have always had group resistance and some have developed a group resistance. Weeds such as wild oats, cleavers, thistle, quack grass, and many other weeds have developed a resistance to certain groups, but that is why crop, variety, and herbicide group rotation is necessary. The biggest cause of weed resistance has been the over use of group 2 herbicides and the shortened rotation of canola, especially using the same canola system over and over, so with a better rotation and the development of new group herbicides farmers can control these nasty "super weeds".