To clarify the headline: the article doesn't suggest that this is a direct consequence of the GM crops themselves, but rather than the adoption of herbicide-resistant GM crops has led to much higher use of herbicides, killing non-GM plants such as milkweed that would previously have also lived in the fields and which are important to the Monarch's reproduction.
The article may not say it directly, but both the article and the headline absolutely suggest it. To phrase your comment a bit more accurately: the article is absurd linkbait that asserts that genetic modification has anything whatsoever to do with the issue, and fails entirely to mention the actual problems, which are relentless expansion of farmland, monoculture, and (directly and indirectly) herbicides/pesticides, which are all strong corrolates of genetically modified crops but, unlike them, pose an ACTUAL problem, as opposed to a scientifically dismissed FUD problem.
It's grossly irresponsible, if you ask me. Monoculture, a lack of regard for preservation, and indiscriminate chemical usage are a problem. Business methods surrounding GMOs are also a problem. But GMOs are not.
But hey, more people click and comment with this headline, I'm sure.
The increased use of chemicals is the strongest argument against the increased use of those chemicals. If you want to regulate something, regulate that thing instead of killing off the technology that enabled it. GMOs in particular have the potential to dramatically help humanity, and it would be a huge mistake to cripple them as an alternative to banning the pesticides directly.
The internet enables the propagation of child porn. I don't think that's a compelling argument against the internet.
I think you're right, but just to play Devil's advocate: Isn't it sometimes more practically and politically feasible to kill off the technology that enables the thing rather than to regulate the thing?
I suppose sometimes it might be, but then the question is whether it was worth it. On GMOs particularly, there are a ton of malnutrition problems we could potentially solve with this technology, and sacrificing that for political expediency does not seem reasonable.
Edit: And we've only begun to scratch the surface of what GMO is capable of; even if banning it were worth it now, what future applications are we preventing? It would be like deciding the internet wasn't worth the child porn it facilitated, but in 1996 (certainly banning the internet then would be simpler and more expedient that trying to figure out how to monitor it for that kind of thing). So more generally: killing technology because of it can be misused destroys not just its current utility but all sorts of unimaginable future potential. So the bar for being worth it should be set very high.
I think there is a difference between "let's experiment with it" and "let's make plenty of Roundup-resistant GMOs so that we can put even more junk in the groundwater on a large scale".
It's not correct that we would sacrifice GMO just for political expediency.
There are plenty of arguments against them; of course they can't be absolute truths, btu they still stand.
In the big picture, I think GMOs would work on the symptoms and not on the cause. There are plenty of political causes for situation of underdeveloped countries to be such.
I definitely don't think that dealing with the symptoms would not be useful; it would possibly save lives, but I think it diverts attention and resources from the real causes.
In the smaller picture, there are plenty of corruption problems connected to GMOs and Momcorps. I reasonably expect plenty of manufactured doubt, general misinformation, and legal violence and racketing to flourish.
I think that more than "killing a technology because it can be abused", it would be "killing a technology whose first use is the abuse".
Regardless, killing it's a strong word; they won't be killed, banned, or significantly restricted anyway.
No, it probably is. Until we have responsible people using the great work of scientists, it's like handing a kid a chain saw (useful tool) and expecting good things.
Yes that bums a lot of people out, nobody wants to hear that - we're not grown up enough for our science.
Actually it's the opposite - GM crops often build natural resistance in the plant (bt for instance), which reduces the use of pesticides (chain saw, many farmers overuse) often resulting in a healthier ecosystem. All the bugs that don't eat / harm the crop survive except the pest that eats it. Pesticides kill a lot more.
Ultimately, each plant makes tens of thousands of proteins. PROTEIN! Each one of these is made from the exact same amino acids all life is made from. a GM crop is genetically modified to have proteins it didn't have before... so all it makes is extra protein, again, from the exact same amino acids that's your flesh and blood.
My question: What makes you think the corporations (including the scientists) understand the complex systems they're interacting with well enough to warrant altering the path of many million years of natural development. What makes you think they even care?
For the record I'm a software developer for 30+ years, even a mildly large/mature piece of software is undeniably complex - and must be treated with serious regard to the larger interactions - never mind nature.
I wouldn't charge such a thing to private corporations, the hubris is undeniable. Please change my view here.
GMO often changes one thing at a time (i.e. modifies one gene). While the classical approach of breeding plants for desired traits modifies 100s if not 1000s of genes at the same time. GMO is simpler to understand and test for that reason alone. I.e. one change with unit testing or random mutation leading to 100s of changes and only testing in production (where patching happens by spraying lots of chemicals on the plant after...)
The second reason is that those large private corporations like to make profits so disable a second gene to make sure the plant can't reproduce by itself. In other words the biggest ecological disaster is rampant spreading of the plant which is a commercial disaster for the corporation as well.
Don't assume that the food you eat today is at all natural. It has been transformed in ways you don't expect, e.g. wheat is a 3 genome plant. Those transformations at time had humongous ecological impact.
>Do you have any scientific argument against genetic manipulation?
The line of thinking behind this type of question always strikes me as either incredibly naive or purposely misleading.
There is a gaping hole in the way we sometimes wield our scientific approach to these things. On one hand, we say that a thing (such as ill-effects of GMO crops) must be observed, measured and quantified in order for us to accept that it exists. The fallacy enters when we then state categorically that in the absence of such evidence, the thing does not exist.
The presumption is then that virtually anything is safe until proven otherwise. Human history is literally filled with applications of this logic that ultimately proved harmful and even disastrous. Yet, we go on repeating this process and scratching our heads over questions such as, "why is x health-problem on the rise? Why is y animal dying?"
And, when we inject such flawed logic into something as complex and interconnected as nature, we are literally begging for unintended consequences--the ecosystem and all that. Someone else on this thread suggested that we solve this problem by engineering hardier milkweed. I think that pretty much says it all.
I am not saying that GMOs are without benefit or even that its risks or too high for those benefits. It just strikes me as both arrogant and short-sighted that we presume to know that the risks are worth the benefits, simply because we haven't yet proved otherwise.
It's so refreshing to know that there are other people applying (what I previously assumed was ubiquitous) common sense rationale to these issues.
What's frightening is how far and wide you need to search to find comments like yours. Most are simply mindlessly perpetuating one side or another of the artificial polarity:
"You 'hate' GMO, so you hate science" vs "GMO is evil, without any merit"
Childish, tiring. It has also begun to fracture society into more factions, more extremes. It's time for us to grow up.
My opinion is: GMOs are most likely a very useful tool, however the people in-charge of the direction appear to lack the emotional maturity to handle the greater responsibility. Until better people are in the driver's seat, we should proceed with extreme caution (which we are not doing).
> It's so refreshing to know that there are other people applying (what I previously assumed was ubiquitous) common sense rationale to these issues.
I'm still trying to find common sense in his or your comments.
You don't want GMO because you don't trust big companies even if you don't know what GMOS is used for. That argument is not common sense, is just ignorance and bias.
Can both of you just provide ONE scientific reason against GMO, and no, GMOS are not just crops.
> The fallacy enters when we then state categorically that in the absence of such evidence, the thing does not exist.
So, how many years must something being observed before saying that is safe? 20 years, 100 years, 1.000 years?
Are you saying that GMO insulin is not safe?
> It just strikes me as both arrogant and short-sighted that we presume to know that the risks are worth the benefits, simply because we haven't yet proved otherwise.
Can you explain why after more than 30 years of observation not finding adverse effects is just short-sighted and arrogant ?
>So, how many years must something being observed before saying that is safe?
>Are you saying that GMO insulin is not safe?
To the extent that you've addressed my point at all, you've helped to make it. I mean everything is safe until it isn't right?
And, this is the part where I respond by offering some evidence that you contest, thus again declaring all GMOs completely safe.
But, the irony of your response doesn't appear to have occured to you, so let me ask you a question: is it your claim that everything that was declared safe after some "acceptable" period of observation has ultimately proven to be so? If not, then what could possibly have gone wrong in our conclusions?
Feel free to think beyond GMOs if that helps you to see more clearly.
> To the extent that you've addressed my point at all, you've helped to make it. I mean everything is safe until it isn't right?
No, this is not my point.
> And, this is the part where I respond by offering some evidence that you contest, thus again declaring all GMOs completely safe
Where I have declared all GMO's completely safe?
> is it your claim that everything that was declared safe after some "acceptable" period of observation has ultimately proven to be so?
No, this is not my claim
> is it your claim that everything that was declared safe after some "acceptable" period of observation has ultimately proven to be so? If not, then what could possibly have gone wrong in our conclusions?
No, my claim is that using your argument we can't use anything because in some distant future we can find that it is not safe.
I ask again, how many time we can wait until we can use some technology/medicine/etc
> Feel free to think beyond GMOs if that helps you to see more clearly.
>my claim is that using your argument we can't use anything because in some distant future we can find that it is not safe.
Nice try. You're waffling and trying to make this discussion about me. You initially demanded scientific evidence of harm caused by GMOs. The clear implication is that without scientific proof of harm, concerns are not credible. The natural corollary is that they should be considered safe.
The point I made is simple: we cannot assume safety simply because we have yet to find evidence otherwise. This is what you (and others) are doing when, as a tactic for dismissing concerns, you repeatedly demand scientific proof of harm.
I'm not sure why that statement is controversial, but yours is the same approach that pharmaceutical, tobacco, chemical (etc.) companies have employed over decades. Under this model, they merely need to demand evidence, then point to some doubt in findings of harm in order to continue touting their wares as safe. The burden of proof is on the claimant and, worse, even reams of empirical evidence are frequently insufficient for this purpose. Look how long tobacco companies were able to fight in spite of mountains of evidence against their product.
If you want to ignore decades of history and pretend to actually believe that companies with a vested interest in denying harm do not do so, then feel free. But, at a minimum, you should not express bewilderment that right-thinking people respect the scale of what's at stake, have the temerity to express doubt, possess the common sense to consider their observations, and ask questions.
This whole conversation has been immensely helpful to me, certainly the comment:
"respect the scale of what's at stake, have the temerity to express doubt, possess the common sense to consider their observations, and ask questions."
.. pretty much sums it up, though some will try to dismiss it (I can't imagine a valid counter-argument to that). As far as the 'philosophical' aspect behind this debate goes, that may be as clear as I've yet seen it written.
It would be helpful if others passionate about this subject would read this. Perhaps learning to avoid the 'anti-science' mines planted all around this topic that childishly squash any intelligent discourse or debate.
> The point I made is simple: we cannot assume safety simply because we have yet to find evidence otherwise
The point you make is moot when you won't believe the evidence even if it kicks you in the butt.
GMO has been investigated not by your evil companies but by universities and scientists by decades.
You don't like GMO, fine. But don't hide your dislike with that bullshit. Even if they ares studied for centuries, people like you will say that we don't have sufficient evidence.
When you can find a single scientific argument against them, call me, until then, it is just ignorance.
There have been many scientific arguments made against GMOs, but I won't repeat them here because it's not the point. The fact that you are still asking me to repeat them, however, is the point.
Nope, I do not - because I'm not a scientist, I don't participate in large scale assessments of these products, and I'm not trained in the field. You are correct: My argument (as clearly stated) is based on lack of trust.
Which begs the question: Are you a GMO scientist, or are you going on trust too?
>So, you're argument against GMO is not an scientific one, just that you don't trust companies. Do you have any scientific argument against genetic manipulation?
Yes. You cannot do proper science if you're motivated by profit to rush it to market, to hide bad results, and to not give a fuck about properly investigating long term consequences.
That it's based on technology (the technical ability to do something) and not deep scientific understanding of it.
>Do you have any scientific argument against genetic manipulation?
Did they have many scientific arguments against thalidomide?
Funny that you mentioned thalidomide. It's one of the first that popped to my mind as well; perhaps because it was not only touted as safe, but it was also specifically promoted to the population in which it would cause the most harm.
History is, of course, replete with such examples. Thalidomide was actually a "fortunate" case to some extent, because the degree and the immediacy of the harm done enabled relatively swift acknowledgment of the causative agent.
But, your parent seems unable or unwilling to understand how his line of reasoning produces such short-sighted outcomes. Instead, he continues to exemplify the very problem by repeatedly demanding evidence for harm, and assuming safety until such evidence is provided.
It's pefectly circular reasoning and is especially dangerous in cases wherein a causative agent is not readily identified or works within a complex, multi-variable system such as nature.
At some point is crying 'the sky is falling' to assume everything is dangerous, or that you know where the danger is coming from. I know GMO has a bad rap; but it seems like a reach to blame everything from butterflies to cancer on it.
At some point our hubris in assuming that everything is safe (or believing the claims of those who have a vested interested in stating as much) will come back to haunt us.
I believe the point is, don't believe every unsubstantiated claim by default. Some plausible evidence is required.
The vested interest is often a sign of an unreliable claim; I would argue back that GMO-haters have just as much (more) vested interest in hanging SOME crime on GMOs, and are too willing to believe anything bad said about them.
>I believe the point is, don't believe every unsubstantiated claim by default. Some plausible evidence is required.
Let's make a bet. I'm going to mix a vat of chemicals. Then, I'm going to tell you that it's safe and "prove" it to you by feeding it to a mouse and, together, observing it go "unaffected" for 15 minutes. Next, I will challenge you to prove that it is unsafe. If you cannot provide some "plausible evidence" that it is unsafe, then you will drink a gallon of my concoction every day for a year. Do we have a bet?
Simplification? Yes. But, the line of reasoning is the same.
Of course I don't believe every unsubstantiated claim. That's a straw-man. And, I won't contest your point about whatever vested interests GMO-haters may have in "hanging some crime on GMOs". Instead, I'll object to your implicit characterization that the issue is binary. The world is not just comprised of GMO-lovers and GMO-haters. Some simply hold reasonable concerns. In fact, I don't recall even stating in my comments that GMOs are unsafe. I've only said that we don't know that they are safe; yet we often behave as if we do. We then challenge others to prove otherwise as a condition of constraining their use, even when we've seen this approach end in disaster time-and-again.
>The vested interest is often a sign of an unreliable claim
Well, we do know that companies can throw science to the side and rush to push products to market. They can even pay researchers for favorable studies (tons of tobacco industry sponsored studies back in the day, showing how smoking was a-ok).
We also know that GMOs have vested interests of trillions of dollars, from companies such as Monsanto.
The "vested interests" of GMO-haters are what? At best their ideology -- which is not a tangible interest.
In a venue such as this, there are only ideology and debate-points to be earned, they are the only coin. Its not all about the money for most folks - its about righteous indignation and following a dogma.
> Yes. You cannot do proper science if you're motivated by profit to rush it to market
All the GMO development is done by evil multinational companies?
> Did they have many scientific arguments against thalidomide?
Thalidomide was retired after just 4 years of its release, GMO has been investigated for 30 years
Are you really comparing those two things?
Do you really have any argument or do you will repeat the same "companies are evil" without anything more? And without taking into account the research done by universities and not the fucking companies?
You can apply this argument to literally any technology. It's worthless. The world would not be better off without GMO crops than with, and it would be even better with alternatives like planting more milkweed.
Yes, I suppose you could. I stand by my point though.
I used to agree with you, I thought the opposition was 'anti-science'. Now I think I was being a touch naive. The corporations you are believing (I assume you're not a scientist) are not to be trusted, that's been made fairly clear.
So yeah, I loved the idea of GMO when I heard about it all those years ago, I immediately thought about how careful we'd need to be when introducing that to the wider system. Then I realised it was being forwarded by people who couldn't care less what happens to nature, me or my kids, or my friends, or anyone else around me. So no.
For one thing, insecticides become less important as plants can fend for themselves.
But even herbicides - a typical non-GMO plant is sprayed by half-dozen herbicides at different stages of growth cycle, whereas a GMO plant would be sprayed with roundup exactly twice.
If you want to avoid pesticides altogether, you'd have to weed out pests manually, which is way more expensive, so is only used for boutique foods. You can argue it's worth the price, but it's not a GMO fight.
It varies by the plant. Many GMO plants are engineered to tolerate RoundUp, allowing farmers to use greater amounts for the control of noxious plants around their farms. Those noxious plants have also started developing some resistance to RoundUp, causing even greater quantities to be used.
Not exactly good news, seeing that glyphosate (the RoundUp ingredient) traces have been found in food and have been 'possibly' linked to various diseases like cancer and Alzheimer's. ('possibly' because more studies are needed, especially to whatever long-term effetcs there might or might not be). On the other hand, it's maybe the lesser of evils as the other pesticides used are probably no better.
> Farmers have been increasingly planting corn and soybeans resistant to herbicides, and then applying those herbicides liberally on their fields. That kills off plants between the rows of crops that aren't resistant, such as milkweed... Because milkweed is poisonous to humans and to grazing animals, it's considered a noxious weed in many jurisdictions and is removed as such.
Humans want less milkweed around them. It competes with the crops we want for space and nutrients, or poisons us and our animals. But we also want more monarch butterflies, which need milkweed to reproduce.
We could encourage planting milkweed away from people. Manually this would be challenging. A scalable solution is engineering an ever-so-slightly sturdier variety of milkweed. This could be allowed to grow between rows of corn, or perhaps in arid or rocky habitats people aren't (yet) bothered with. Alternatively, we could encourage monarch butterflies to pick a less troublesome partner.
I grew up on a farm in southern Ontario where, according to the article, little monarch breeding takes place.
Among many features of the farm was pasture thick with milkweed. We did not interfere with it. As a kid, it was trivial during the summer to find monarch caterpillars. Normally, we'd bring one or two into the house each year, put them in a jar that we'd refresh daily with milkweed and watch the process of the caterpillar growing, entering a chrysalis and emerging as a monarch butterfly.
Twenty five years later, when my city kids were the right age, I eagerly took them out to the pasture to find monarch caterpillars. The pasture was just as thick with milkweed as I remembered, but where is was once easy to find monarch caterpillars, year after year there were none to be found. Only one year were we able to find any.
I too mourn the decline of the monarch butterfly, but whatever the cause, it can't be a mere 20% decline in milkweed population. My parents' farm still has the capacity to support the hundreds of monarchs it once did, yet as far as I can tell they are gone.
For butterflies, the food source is nectar from flowers. I don't know that flower populations are in decline.
The milk weed dependency is because the butterflies will only lay their eggs on milk weed plants. The caterpillars will only eat milk weed. They tolerate the toxicity, which in turn makes them unpalatable to birds that would otherwise eat them.
So, because we want "easy" farming of monocultures we engineer crops that we can spray with poison and still survive.
Then we determine that we are creating a strain of weeds that is resistant to the current batch of poison, so we engineer crops that are resistant to a stronger poison.
Then we determine that the crops/poisons we've engineered are killing a huge number of butterflies. So, instead of questioning whether or not our first principle, engineering poison resistant crops, you are suggesting we engineer a new poison resistant weed so we don't kill the butterflies?
At what point do we stop trying to engineer ourselves out of a problem that engineering is creating in the first place?
Any question that has its answer somewhere along a line from pure free-market capitalism to pure totalitarian nanny-statism is by definition a political problem and therefore without an easy answer. This is lobbyist territory, through and through.
Those are viable solutions, but unfortunately to a problem that shouldn't be there in the first place? 'Liberally applying' (I take it that actually means misusing) herbicides seems the core problem to me. I might be wrong, but it seems undeniable that without it much more other plants would survive, hence much more animals. There are likely species whos sole habitat is the pieces of free land in between fields. They are just not researched nor in the press.
This is profoundly untrue, at least for milkweed sensu lato
Most Asclepias species contain cardiac glycosides and can be highly poisonous. Milkweed extracts were spread on arrow tips by some Native American groups to more quickly bring down game when hunting. Some species have also been used as rat poison. Consumption can lead to serious heart problems due to disruption of the calcium gradient across cell membranes.
Fair enough, I only meant common milkweed. But even for the edible species only certain parts are edible, and only at certain times of year anyway. (As with many/most of the plants we eat.)
Aha, but here's the problem: if you live on the east coast (or just east of the Rockies) in the USA, you probably are referring to Asclepias syriaca, but "common milkweed" on the west coast could be a different species, perhaps Asclepias californica. If you live in Asia or South America, it would be other species.
I guess all I'm saying is be careful :) The majority of milkweeds, heck, the majority of "common milkweeds" are poisonous.
I live a mile from one of CA's largest monarch groves in Pismo Beach (also grew up here) [0]. As a child, we'd go to the grove throughout the winter (that's when they migrate here). There were so many monarchs entire trees were orange and you literally had to watch every step so you didn't step on them.
Since moving back here in 2010, it's pretty sad. You have to actually look hard to find them. Looking at the historical numbers [1], it seems to be 1/10th of what it was in the 80s/90s. I always assumed there was some environmental cause–haven't heard the GM theory before.
The suggestion that GM crops are causing the problem is absurd. The crop is simply a tool that we are using to allow us to kill off milkweed. Although I am against giving GMO suppliers too much power over farmers the idea that this makes GMOs dangerous or evil is just sensationalism.
Creatures that visit many plants are acutely sensitive to chemical applications. There is no reason save fearmongering to blame GMOs for a decline in a migratory, multiple-plant-visiting insect. Might as well hang it on global warming (which actually has some chance of being the true cause).
