Wayne Stollings wrote:
The video is not very accurate in the presentation. For example, the on the case between Monsanto and Schmeiser and the interview with Schmeiser presented a far different representation than the facts of the case do.
"The video is not very accurate" you say... and give one example of ..... Percy Schmeiser.
We can talk about him if you like, but the video is about much, much more than old Percy and his canola plantation ....... But now for the "presentation".
What Dr. Suzuki is sounding the alarm bells for is way beyond Percy and canola. He is speaking out, with his geneticists feet firmly planted on the ground, against a "population experiment" which is going on without our consent. [/quote]
No, he is giving his opinion and that opinion is supposed to be supported by evidence. When any of that evidence is found to be a misrepresentation ALL of the evidence becomes questionable until it can be confirmed. Thus, the video is its own worst enemy because it shows it misrepresented the facts and cannot be trusted.
The multinational and transnational corporations are marching ahead in their bad science which they are due to profit from. They are about to become much richer from these experiments while the general population, the environment, food production , and our forests is/are about to become much poorer.
With misrepresentations to back up the claim? That is hard to believe unless you really want to do so and really do not need evidence to support your belief.
Suzuki is sending out the alarm bells for those who are able to listen.
And using what amounts to lies to sway them? How is that not a problem if the truth does not support the view?
He is attempting to educate us about vertical inheritance vs. horizontal inheritance. This is NOT Mendel. This is Corpitocracy regardless of which side one votes.
No bias here, what facts are there to show an issue with horizontal over vertical inheritance? How is a random mutation different from a gene insertion exactly?
It's an experiment upon all our heads because genetically modified trees .... and food .... is an inherently uncertain process and therefore hazardous.
What uncertain results have there been exactly? Is this supported by evidence or merely an assumption?
The experimenters do not know what's going to happen or how it's going to land and yet those pushing for it are going to gain enormously which is good reason to sound the bells ... and hear them.
Really? What are the uncertain outcomes of the genetic experiments with insertion and random mutation, for example?
Profit is being promoted as opposed to our own well being as well as the very fundamental well being of our environment. If we don't have that, we have nothing.
Give us evidence to show the well being is actually threatened, but use the truth and not misrepresentations thereof.
With little public discussion, the technology is being pushed into our food, sprayed onto our fields, and engineered into our medicine without our knowledge even though there are profound health, ecological, and economic ramifications. The industries are rushing ahead because of the dollar value. They are testing a hypothesis and we are the guinea pigs.
Little public discussion? The number of blogs, protests, court actions, articles, forum discussions, meetings, videos, commentary, and the like belie that claim.
As Suzuki so eloquently explains, real science actually tests out the hypothesis and, done correctly, acknowledges there are trials and errors. If it doesn't work, we toss it out and revise. It is the way science progresses. But in this case, the hypothesis is being rammed down our throats with little experimentation and no possibility of consent.
Except this is not the case. There have been decades worth of experiments to support the branch of science. What failures are there to cause a change? That is where the video fails because it cannot show that but instead has to try to manufacture issues.
This is a case of corporations experimenting on people and the environment we both live in and depend on. They are rushing this experiment through. We are at the beginning of the hypothesis but without the application of the precautionary principle. There has been little experimentation done except for the scientists who work for the corporations themselves. It's more than likely that these corporate scientists are biased.
Really? Maybe you can provide some data to support this hypothesis because one of the largest funding bases for any research is the government to academic researchers. These researchers did years worth of work before any commercially viable concept became possible.
Genetically engineered trees are supposed to resist insects and toxic herbicides while they are engineered to be sterile meaning they cannot produce seeds, nuts, pollen nectar or fruit.
The idea is to insert Bt toxin into the cells of trees which would cause every leaf, flower, and fruit pollen of the tree to produce this insecticide. Advocates claim this would reduce the need to apply chemicals because pests would be exterminated by eating the tree, yet we already know that using a pesticide this way selects resistant insects who breed with other resistant insects which puts industry on a treadmill of using an endless stream of different and more toxic pesticides. Expensive ones.
And encasement of the pesticide in the item being protected instead of general application to the environment as a whole is worse how? Or are you just opposing pesticides in general and picked only this niche to fight?
'The pesticides cannot be washed off because they are in EVERY cell of the tree so there is no specific target and no real limit to what or whom can be harmed.' Monarch butterflies, for instance, .... the ones who do the job of pollination, even as we see the demise of bees. Already Bt toxin have unintentionally resulted in the evolution of Bt resistant bugs and more toxic pesticides are needed to control them. At great expense to the farmers ..... while a corporation's main goal is profit.
How is this different from applied pesticides exactly? Other that being specific to the protected items, of course. What are the "great expenses" to the farmers? If the expense is so high they would not accept it unless the benefit was higher .... or the expense is also a misrepresentation.
The long term consequences of toxic trees is unknown, but Monsanto, who also invented DDT and proclaimed its safety, effected animals up the food chain. Check out the peregrine falcon whose eggs were so thin that they failed to hatch ... as a result of DDT. Monsanto would not inform you of such perils because it would hurt their corporate wallet.
The long term consequences of "toxic trees" is different from the corn or cotton how exactly? I find it amusing that you use the claim of misrepresentation of DDT to impugn the industry in the defense of the claim of misrepresentation by the opposition to GMO. Do you know what term can be used to describe such an action?
Bt leaches into the soil and water systems. In the soil they alter the microbial composition via the roots of corn, for example. The bacteria picks up the toxin and spreads it outwards into the entire ecosystem's ground and surface water.
Evidence of this claim is where? Not a video or a blog but real honest to gosh science published in a reputable peer reviewed source.
The Danish government has banned the glyphosate used on 'Round Up Ready' because it has contaminated their drinking water! (Example of responsible government).
There were restrictions on Autumn applications presented in 2003 and removed in 2004. The use of glyphosate increased 2003-2007 over 1998-2002http://croplifefoundation.files.wordpre ... n-2007.pdf
In areas that are growing in high concentration of Bt corn, are found abnormally high content in the water systems and we are also seeing diseases triggered by immune reaction. Suzuki cites the Philippines as one example where this is happening.
Given the previous errors, specifics would be better than these generalizations. Papers?
Look at what is happening in Hawaii. Papaya growers have been subject to a 50% contamination rate of organically grown papaya ..... as well as the folks who are growing it in their yards .... contaminated! They have lost their organic certification because of the spread of GE seed which they are finding in the seeds of their fruit. Their crops are suffering from a fungus spread by GM that they are having to spray every 10 days. Many have had to go out of business. As one grower stated, the National Academy of Science has released a report which states the potential risk of unintended side effects of GM foods is greater than from natural process. Round Up Ready comes with a very high price tag. It isn't cheap.
I saw that mentioned, but the video also mentioned things I knew were not truthful. Some specific research would be better than the anecdotal presentations.
We are subjected to massive experimentation without the provision of informed consent. The corporations are writing the rules and we have absolutely no say .... except in the recent and widespread protests. But while we are hitting the streets in record numbers .... the corporations are in bed with governments which have profit and big business going for them, and so there voices are louder
As long as you ignore the whole research oversight thingy .....
As far as GM trees and with patent laws being what they are, and with the propensity of pollen being distributed by air/wind, birds, etc ...... Monsnato can now OWN all trees, private or public, because if 1% of their genetically modified seed is found to have blown into Yosemite or Yellowstone ..... the forests then belong to the corporation and they can do whatever they like ...... it is then "intellectual property" and they own the forests just as they "legally" own organic papaya plantations or Canadian canola.
Not exactly, which is why the misrepresentations cause such a problem.
They made an example of Schmeiser and he knew it. "When Monsanto made the law suit against Percy, they admitted it was a test case and they wanted to see how far they could exercise through patent law, control over a farmer regardless of how a seed got into a famer's field. 2 1/2 weeks of trial, the judge ruled "It does not matter how any of Monsanto's GMO seeds or plants got onto a farmer's field." He (the judge) then went on to describe how this could happen .... cross-pollination, wind, birds, floods, etc. ----- doesn't matter. Even if the contamination rate is 1%, ALL your field belongs to Monsanto."
No, but why let the truth get in the way of a good lie. The court case was about the harvesting of the seeds from the contamination and using them without the proper approval. The field in question was 95% GMO, which is far different. Please give us a legitimate reference to the quote of 1% contamination making the entire crop the property of Monsanto, if you can. If you cannot how does it feel to repeat a lie after being told the source was lying to us?
And now, with these patent laws enforced and with the advent of GM trees, and the inevitability of pollen and wind contaminating both private and public forests, the corporations own us as well as the places we call our own. They own life. They have a patent on it. It's called intellectual property and because it's legal, we may as well all shut up. We may still enjoy Yosemite and other places, but without lingam, which is also an attribute of trees that genetic modification wishes to manipulate, the trees will have no structural integrity and will be blown over by the wind and subject to unintended disease so that we can enjoy crawling over them rather than walking under them.
Why not just make up something? Nevermind, I see you already have.
What a discouraging mess. But we can overcome.
Kinkos, for example, has agreed to not buy any GM tree product for the paper they use.
Marketing is a wonderful thing. You do not believe big corporations when they tell you something, unless you want to believe it?
The suggestion is that we squeeze the companies who do .... out.
Go for it. But the problem is providing evidence to sway those who do not already believe and what happens when that evidence is found to be a lie is not often pretty.[/quote]