Intellegent discussion about GM

Is it possible?
Heres some snipets from russel browns column.
http://publicaddress.net/default,hardnews.sm#post761

On the other hand, read this fascinating story from The Atlantic Monthly, ( http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/2003/10/rauch.htm ) which focuses on the way GM plants have been used to aid no-till farming, which is a revolution in soil ecology. It predicts that GM plants will be embraced by many ecologists for this reason.


......
Because, frankly, the GM debate in its current form has not been terribly useful. Last Thursday, the Harbour News ran a story looking forward to the anti-GM march. It quoted Jonathan Eisen - author of a book claiming, among other things, that the Apollo moon landings were faked, and that evidence of buildings and canals on Mars is being covered up - as a protest spokesman. It concluded with a dissenting opinion - from the local branch of the Raelians. Jesus wept. Is this where we're at?

......

The most common fallacy in the press is to attach global significance to a single issue. The Guardian, working on advance information of a significant report due for delivery to the British government on Friday (about which you will hear a lot), ran this story speculating that the results would justify the banning of all GM crops in the UK.

You have to read down a bit to get the nuance: three commercial GM varieties, of canola, sugar beet and maize respectively, were tested against their conventional counterparts; the test being that they had to be more environmentally benign than existing crops. The canola and the sugar beet failed: there were fewer insects in the soil.

You might have been forgiven for thinking from the various stories that it was because they were GM that they damaged the environment. Actually, no: they were designed to resist a particular herbicide, and it was the herbicide that clearly proved too harsh for local conditions. The solution? Don't grow them, obviously. These results would be strong enough for those plants to be rejected for growing in New Zealand.

The maize, on the other hand, came up better - because the conventional maize fields were treated with atrazine, a rather nasty weedkiller which has recently been banned. The Guardian's reports on the issue were strongly criticised by the British Royal Society, but widely quoted by GM opponents.

i absolutely rapt with GE... i think its great.

on a personal level and on a larger scale... its potential for world hunger problems and such make it positive for me... as long as we are cautious with what we do and don't get carried away with the possibilities i don't really see it as anything other than selective breeding on speed...

NZ has some of the best bio scientists in the world and our research facilities are producing cutting edge results.

I am pro GM, but feel that for NZ's "clean green" image to be maintained we should confine our GM studies to the strictest of lab controlled conditions.

Sure, the advances that could come from a general release of GM might be huge, but at present we have an unknown on what the negative drawback may be.

i agree that GM can potentially provide some break throughs in the food industry etc...

what i don't like is when companies are developing plants simply because they will save them money, ie, herbicide resistent etc . also i don't trust multi-national companies to be doing what is best for the world, not their pockets.

the other things is, if it ain't broke, don't fix it.

do we really NEED Ge?

GE and GM are very different. GE we should keep wel away from, but with GM we have the potential to overcome hardship for many people. not just by producing bigger yielding crops but also in the treatment of disease and illness.

the AgResearch station in Hamilton has been carrying out studies to ease the infliction of Multiple Scorosis, a disease where there is no known treatment plan - and their study is producing very positive results.

how are they different? i just thought they were different names for the same idea.... ?

red shoes: In the Royal Commission report that was done it was defined to be that the terms GE and GM were equivalent and interchangeable.

as a side note, i fully support the use of GE or GM or whatever in a lab environment, ie, for studies into cures or preventative measure for diseases etc....

my above comments were in relation to commercial release into the ecosphere.

sorry, i was only going on what i have been told off for.

GE is making the gene splice while GM is modifying the gene so it will or won't accept the splice of it's own accord. That is the way they defiend it at AgResearch.

Theyre a bit grey really but modifcation ussualy refers to smaller changes perhaps removing a undesirable trait. GE is more about inserting genes into other strings.

Unfortunately for NZ what ever we choose to do we are going to be at the whim of the rest of the world. It is better for us to develop our own work as we have a huge knowledge base from our research in farming and agriculture.

I am so delighted Labour is lifting the GE moratorium despite the howls of protest from the new age religious luddites of the Green Gaia movement.

Its an absolute triumph of rational, scientific truth and common sense.

http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/2003/10/rauch.htm

Without reading your links Bob (which I will in my next break )

1. I dont think New Zealand has big enough buffer zones for field trialing GM crops.

2. http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/Science/2003/05/08/82548-cp.html
Its hard to trust the ethics behind the likes of Monsato.

GM has its place in the world but imo New Zealand needs to be very very careful.

Like others here, I have no prob with GE/GM research in controlled laboratory conditions, but am very uncomfortable with field trials at this time (and in the forseeable future).

After going through things like Thalidomide, asbestos, lead in petrol, tobacco etc its easy to understand why alot of humans are wary from experience that tells us not to believe every assertion from the market.

Id just like them to keep it in the lab or isolated island plots etc cause you never can be too carefull about the future of humans and the nature of man to make misery to other men for their own personal gain. We allow starving nations as it is (its a dollar a day world), if GE ends up doubling output are we all of a sudden going to start feeding everyone equally worldwide? I doubt it, seeing there is enough food to go around today, but poor distribution occurs and so long as its "over there" its not real to us.

I dont think the benefits (with dubious reports from both sides of the argument) outweigh the possible damage. Its not acceptable for me to have our future ancestors around the world cursing us for being so careless if something does go awry.

There are options for increased food output including better worldwide distribution with less waste, or regulating the amount of meat is produced (4:1 yeild or something like that i think?), but look out im starting to get into a worldwide socialist argument so thats out of the scope of this thread. Anyway, look what genetic engineering did to us!

What I find interesting about this issue is that we seem to be taking our lead from the US and not europe. In the US they have no problem with GE (probably because the evil monsanto have told them its OK) while in europe they are very careful and cautious about it. Herr Helen seems to back the US position.

I think we should keep it in the labratory. As I have said before, I have no problem with the sort of GE that used to happen, basically selective breeding sped up to produce different varieties. I do have problems when it involves genes from other species being used, especially when the aim is to produce crops with unnatural characteristics, eg, tomatoes that don't rot.

hehe...

its $1.20 now!

has anyone seen the ads lately? sorry to go off topic i just thought it was mildly amusing that inflatino had hit CCF etc...

Libertarianz Take On The GE Mob
Press Release: Libertarianz Party

http://www.scoop.co.nz/mason/stories/PO0309/S00107.htm