A recent article ['Suicide Seeds' Could Spell Death of Peasant Agriculture, UN Meeting Told] reports the horrors of genetically modified [GM] “suicide seeds”, designed to produce crops with sterile seeds, thus not allowing reproduction. One result of their proliferation, the article points out, would be the destruction of peasant agriculture.
I sent the article to my biochemist friend, B., who argues convincingly that GM crops hold great promise for increasing productivity and thereby helping feed the poor. B. is often outraged at what he believes is a knee-jerk anti-technology view of the left that ignores the potential in GM while only focusing on horrors, real and imagined.
But B. is no fool, as his response indicates:
This is a perfect example of how capitalism and the profit motive screws everything up. From an environmental viewpoint, the terminator/suicide seeds are probably the smart thing to do, since they pretty much ensure that nothing gets loose and wreaks havoc (e.g., by replacing “natural” indigenous plants). So, in the kind of society I would like to live in, this would probably be the way to go. However, this would require that free replacement seeds be given to the farmers each year, rather than making them buy them all over again. And of course under capitalism they’ll never do this because it would greatly reduce profits. Without free replacement, the sale of terminator seeds is grossly unfair, and I don’t blame the farmers for getting quite upset about it.
January 29th, 2006
Photographer Gary Braasc has some beautiful yet frightening of Tuvalu, one of th first countries scheduled to disappear from the earth: Postcards from the Edge: Photos of Tuvalu show global warming in action. Like people here and elsewhere, the people on Tuvalu are sure that God will protect them.
January 29th, 2006
A New York Times editorial today:
A bit over a week ago, President Bush and his men promised to provide the legal, constitutional and moral justifications for the sort of warrantless spying on Americans that has been illegal for nearly 30 years. Instead, we got the familiar mix of political spin, clumsy historical misinformation, contemptuous dismissals of civil liberties concerns, cynical attempts to paint dissents as anti-American and pro-terrorist, and a couple of big, dangerous lies.
The first was that the domestic spying program is carefully aimed only at people who are actively working with Al Qaeda, when actually it has violated the rights of countless innocent Americans. And the second was that the Bush team could have prevented the 9/11 attacks if only they had thought of eavesdropping without a warrant.
Regarding cliams that the spying was legal:
The secret program violates the law as currently written. It’s that simple.
One might imagine that congressional Democrats would speak, think, and act so clearly. But one would then be imagining that the delusional fantasy that there was an opposition party in this country bore some resemblence to reality.
Of course, the New York Times editorial ends with its own delusional fantasy:
The Senate Judiciary Committee is about to start hearings on the domestic spying. Congress has failed, tragically, on several occasions in the last five years to rein in Mr. Bush and restore the checks and balances that are the genius of American constitutional democracy. It is critical that it not betray the public once again on this score.
No Congressional “hearings” in this climate will stop this gang. At best, they will simply say they will stop their nefarious activities and continue in secret as if nothing has happened. To get a sense of how these guys operate, see the new Newsweek article: Palace Revolt: They were loyal conservatives, and Bush appointees. They fought a quiet battle to rein in the president’s power in the war on terror. And they paid a price for it.
Nothing short of mass popular mobilization will stop the drift toward dictatorship. The President, who claims absolute powers, would accept no less.
January 29th, 2006
Following James Lovelock’s recent claim that the earth was beyond the point of no return, the Washington Post reports that climate scientists are actively discussing if and when we are approaching that point [Scientists Debate Issue of Climate's Irreparable Change: Some Experts on Global Warming Foresee 'Tipping Point' When It Is Too Late to Act].:
This “tipping point” scenario has begun to consume many prominent researchers in the United States and abroad, because the answer could determine how drastically countries need to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions in the coming years. While scientists remain uncertain when such a point might occur, many say it is urgent that policymakers cut global carbon dioxide emissions in half over the next 50 years or risk the triggering of changes that would be irreversible.
As we have near 60-degree temperatures in Boston at the end of January:
The debate has been intensifying because Earth is warming much faster than some researchers had predicted. James E. Hansen, who directs NASA’s Goddard Institute of Space Studies, last week confirmed that 2005 was the warmest year on record, surpassing 1998. Earth’s average temperature has risen nearly 1 degree Fahrenheit over the past 30 years, he noted, and another increase of about 4 degrees over the next century would “imply changes that constitute practically a different planet.”
“It’s not something you can adapt to,” Hansen said in an interview. “We can’t let it go on another 10 years like this. We’ve got to do something.”
And Europe better get ready for much of the continent to become incapable of sustaining populations remotely resembling those resident there today:
Many scientists are also worried about a possible collapse of the Atlantic thermohaline circulation, a current that brings warm surface water to northern Europe and returns cold, deep-ocean water south. Hans Joachim Schellnhuber, who directs Germany’s Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, has run multiple computer models to determine when climate change could disrupt this “conveyor belt,” which, according to one study, is already slower than it was 30 years ago. According to these simulations, there is a 50 percent chance the current will collapse within 200 years.
Massive change in climate is not an abstraction. It has happened within a few years in the past:
Scientists who read the history of Earth’s climate in ancient sediments, ice cores and fossils find clear signs that it has shifted abruptly in the past on a scale that could prove disastrous for modern society. Peter B. deMenocal, an associate professor at the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory of Columbia University, said that about 8,200 years ago, a very sudden cooling shut down the Atlantic ocean conveyor belt. As a result, the land temperature in Greenland dropped more than 9 degrees Fahrenheit within a decade or two.
“It’s not this abstract notion that happens over millions of years,” deMenocal said. “The magnitude of what we’re talking about greatly, greatly exceeds anything we’ve withstood in human history.”
In response, the administration tries to silence scientists who sound a warning, reports the New York Times [Climate Expert Says NASA Tried to Silence Him].
Given the magnitude of the danger, major changes are needed yesterday. Minor changes, like the Kyoto accords will do little to stem the tide of disasterous climate change these scientists are discussing. Nothing less than near immediate major changes in social organizations stands a chance of reversing these trends.
Wouldn’t you think that newspapers that report the world may be irreversibly changing for the worse would make it a priority to report on the danger. Just as war news dominates the fromt pages for much of a war’s duration, one might expect that the survival of civilization might just become a staple on the front pages. But that might be a downer and not help sell papers.
January 29th, 2006