TOTALLY GEEKED!

huskerbb wrote:

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Lawyerlady wrote:

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huskerbb wrote:

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Lawyerlady wrote:

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huskerbb wrote:

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Lawyerlady wrote:

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Mary Zombie wrote:

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Well....in a catastrophic situation with a shortage of food....I am sure the non organic food will be just fine to most people ;)

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 Let me know when America has one of those. 

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We won't.  We could isolate ourselves and produce enough food for our population, probably even organically.

 

The problem is that much of the rest of the world would starve--but not before they plough up all the land they have left, destroy millions of acres of wildlife habitat, and harvest the oceans past the point of sustainability.

 

We are going to add 2 BILLION people, more than the entire population of the world as of the year 1900--in the space of about just 35 more years or so.

Do you suppose those people will just say--"well, dammit, I guess we don't have enough to eat, and it's too expensive to buy food from nations such as the U.S., so I guess we'll just starve?"

No.  They will try like heck to produce enough food--and wildlife habitat from rainforests to the African Savannah to our oceans will disappear.  

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 And yet that is a projection and one that isn't even projected to happen for quite some time.  There was and is plenty of times for long-term studies to determine safety and long term affects.  There is no reason to flood America NOW with hastily modified and tested product and certainly no reason to push for NINETY percent of corn and soy to be this GMO.  Why the takeover?  Why not just some?  Why not do this in Africa where it is needed instead of here? 

And most importantly - why fight on telling people what is in their food?  Why make it difficult for the consumer to choose?  Why take away choice by making almost EVERY ITEM on the shelves GMO when it is not necessary?  Those are important questions.  And the answer is money.  Which is crap.

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Quite some time?  We are talking a period of less than 4 decades.  That is a VERY short time.

MOST food items are, in fact, NOT GMO.  It enters the food stream at very few points and in very small amounts, if at all.

Africa DOES import vast amounts of food from the U.S.

If we quit producing said food for export--then the very thing I said will happen--will.   

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 In a decade, GMO corn and soy went from 2% to 90%, so no, in comparison, it is not a very short time. 

We are the GMO test subjects - Americans  and Canadians.  We don't need it, don't do it here.  And last I checked, Africa is bigger than we are land wise.  We SHOULD be teaching them to grow their own food and use their own land.  And yes, if it came down to starving vs. GMO - I can see where the GMO would be better for Africa.  But it is NOT necessary here, and more and more Americans, as they become aware of it - DO NOT WANT IT.  We should have the choice.

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I know you don't want it.  You are ignorant.  

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 Saving before you delete it.

??? I did not delete anything. I said I was going to rephrase.

weltschmerz wrote:

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huskerbb wrote:

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Lawyerlady wrote:

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Of course - the name calling is against the rules. You trying for another ban, Husker? The next one is six months. This is the only warning you will get.

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Of course you want to ban anyone who dares to disagree with you.   

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 You called her ignorant.

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 Of course he did.  And "editing and rephrasing" is, in fact, deleting.

Lawyerlady wrote:

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Nobody Just Nobody wrote:

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Wow, love the name calling.

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 Of course he's name calling.  Whatever he says does not matter.  He's part of the process. 

He can call me ignorant all day long and it won't change the fact that I have a right to buy and eat what I want, and that the people who make the food they are selling should have to tell me what they have done to it.  Period.

It will not change the fact that the food industry is the most corrupt and ill-regulated in the country.

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Could we consider "politics" and "government" industries? They certainly would be contenders for "most corrupt", IMHO. 

 

Lawyerlady wrote:

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weltschmerz wrote:

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We're talking about GMOs, not pesticides.
Do you eat bananas? They're not natural. Every single Cavendish banana is a clone. That's hardly natural.
I'm a tree-hugging environmentalist, and even I have issues with the GMO hysteria.
I'm going to bed now. Eat whatever you want. Spend ten times more for organic foods which are no healthier for you. Be my guest. I really don't care.

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 You can't talk about GMOs without talking about pesticides. 

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 You are right about that.  GMO'S have greatly reduced farmers reliance on pesticides to control many pests, especially corn borer and corn root worm.  

Lawyerlady wrote:

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huskerbb wrote:

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Lawyerlady wrote:

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weltschmerz wrote:

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We're talking about GMOs, not pesticides.
Do you eat bananas? They're not natural. Every single Cavendish banana is a clone. That's hardly natural.
I'm a tree-hugging environmentalist, and even I have issues with the GMO hysteria.
I'm going to bed now. Eat whatever you want. Spend ten times more for organic foods which are no healthier for you. Be my guest. I really don't care.

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 You can't talk about GMOs without talking about pesticides. 

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 You are right about that.  GMO'S have greatly reduced farmers reliance on pesticides to control many pests, especially corn borer and corn root worm.  

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 You are splitting hairs.  They are putting the insecticide INSIDE the seed which only descreases what they have to spray on it.  And, with the emergence of the corn rootworm - the "benefit" of reduced sprayed on insecticides is about to be gone.

But herbicide use has had to increase a great deal.  So they are having to make the food more and more resistent to higher and higher levels of herbicides they are spraying on our food. 

 

Here's a good study for you to try to refute.

http://www.enveurope.com/content/24/1/24

 

 

Here are some of the paragraphs - but please do read the entire article before rejecting it out of hand: 

Contrary to often-repeated claims that today’s genetically-engineered crops have, and are reducing pesticide use, the spread of glyphosate-resistant weeds in herbicide-resistant weed management systems has brought about substantial increases in the number and volume of herbicides applied. If new genetically engineered forms of corn and soybeans tolerant of 2,4-D are approved, the volume of 2,4-D sprayed could drive herbicide usage upward by another approximate 50%. The magnitude of increases in herbicide use on herbicide-resistant hectares has dwarfed the reduction in insecticide use on Bt crops over the past 16 years, and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future.

 

 

 

Stable reductions in insecticide use in Bt-transgenic corn are also now in jeopardy as a result of the emergence of corn rootworm (CRW) populations resistant to the Cry 3Bb1 toxins expressed in several corn hybrids [1,2]. To combat this ominous development, some seed and pesticide companies are recommending a return to use of corn soil insecticides as a resistance management tool. There is a degree of irony in such recommendations, given that the purpose of Cry 3Bb1 corn was to eliminate the need for corn soil insecticides.

 

 

Net reductions in pesticide use, encompassing changes in both herbicide and insecticide kilograms/pounds applied, are among the purported claims of GE crops [3-5]. Analysts assessing the impacts of Bt crops on insecticide use report reductions, or displacement, in the range of 25% to 50% per hectare [6]. A more recent study reports a 24% reduction [5]. On GE and non-GE corn since 1996, the volume of insecticides applied has declined, because of the pesticide industry-wide trend toward more biologically active insecticides applied at incrementally lower application rates.

 

The corn rootworm (CRW) has been the target of the majority of corn insecticide applications the last several decades. The average corn insecticide application rate in 1996 was about 0.76 kilograms of active ingredient per hectare (kgs/ha) (0.7 pounds/acre) and is less than 0.2 kgs/ha today (0.18 pounds a.i./acre) [Additional file 1: Table S12]. The two contemporary corn soil insecticide market leaders – tebupirimiphos and tefluthrin – are applied at average rates around 0.13 kgs/ha (0.12 pounds/acre). In 1996, the market leaders were chlorpyrifos and terbufos, insecticides applied at rates above 1.12 kgs/ha (1.0 pounds/acre) [Additional file 1: Table S12]. Obviously, planting Bt corn in 2011 reduced insecticide use less significantly compared to land planted to Bt corn in the late 1990s.

 

 

Total pesticide use has been driven upward by 183 million kgs (404 million pounds) in the U.S. since 1996 by GE crops, compared to what pesticide use would likely have been in the absence of HR and Bt cultivars. This increase represents, on average, an additional ~0.21 kgs/ha (~0.19 pounds/acre) of pesticide active ingredient for every GE-trait hectare planted. The estimated overall increase of 183 million kgs (404 million pounds) applied over the past 16 years represents about a 7% increase in total pesticide use.

 

There are two major factors driving the upward trend in herbicide use on HR hectares compared to hectares planted to non-HR crops: incremental reductions in the application rate of herbicides other than glyphosate applied on non-HR crop hectares, and second, the emergence and rapid spread of glyphosate-resistant weeds. The first factor is driven by progress made by the pesticide industry in discovering more potent herbicidal active ingredients effective at progressively lower rates of application.

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 Um, just what I said.  Pesticide use in GMO corn is 24% less.  Thanks for finding that.