Tag: benefits

bookmark_borderGMO’s: Throwing the Baby out with the Bathwater

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by Daniel Brouse

The definition of GMO is the modern version, not selective breeding. (0)

GMO’s (genetically modified organism) have been around for thousands of years; however, the irrational fear of GMO’s is a recent phenomenon. Are there risks to GMO’s? Yes. Has there been any evidence of harm to human health? No. The risks associated with GMO’s are from the impact to our ecosystem through the misuse of GMO agricultural practices.

Technically speaking, you are a genetically modified organism.  One of the first patents issued for GMO’s was for medicine. “In 1982, The U.S. Food and Drug Administration approves the first genetically engineered drug, Genentech’s Humulin, a form of human insulin produced by bacteria. This is the first consumer product developed through modern bioengineering.”

The phobia of GMO’s is really a fear of modern bioengineering patents. Modern bioengineering started in 1980. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that “genetically altered life forms can be patented. The decision allowed the Exxon Oil Company to patent an oil-eating microorganism.” (1)

Another change in the meaning of GMO occurred with the sequencing of genes. “NHGRI led the National Institutes of Health’s contribution to the International Human Genome Project. This project, which had as its primary goal the sequencing of the three thousand million base pairs that make up human genome, was successfully completed in April 2003.” (1.1) With these discoveries all sorts-of risks arose. There are the benefits of being able to use plants similar to the human genome for research. For instance, GMO tobacco plants are being used to help develop new medicines because of their similarity to the human genome. It is the ability of Man to alter genetics so rapidly that is frightening.

SHOULD WE BE AFRAID OF GMO’s?
The use of GMO’s in agriculture practices should be of concern. “There is a case for GMOs and a case against the indiscriminate use of monoculture crops fueled by synthetic fertilizer on dead lands.” (2)

Part of the concern is a monoculture crop. There may be long term impacts from the lack of diversity caused by patent controlled crops. This factor is the least concerning since patents are only good for 17 years. After that, the GMO seed is free to crossbreed.

Of more concern is, “fueled by synthetic fertilizer on dead lands.” The inherent risk from GMO’s is not the plant itself, but how the plant is farmed. Some GMO crops promote the use of RoundUp (glyphosate). RoundUp creates dead lands — the rest of the ecosystem is destroyed, at least to some extent. Certainly, all the other vegetation is extinct from that land. The collapse of bee colonies may, or may not, be part of that destroyed ecosystem. Combining RoundUp with synthetic fertilizer just adds fuel to the deadly mix.  There appears to be no debate that GMO seed created for the purpose of being fed fossil fuel fertilizer has a negative impact on the entire world.

5,000 years ago in China similar agriculture experiments were conducted. (In particular, the cultivation of rice.) Today it is believed these methods of farming are the origins of human induced climate change. (3)

If you look at the impact on Earth as an ecosystem, humans are conducting a deadly agriculture experiment.

PART II: Should we throw the baby out with the bathwater?

On the other hand, GMO farming (in particular, the cultivation of rice) is saving millions of children from dying or going blind. (4)

HUMAN HEALTH
Since 1992, millions of animals have been raised on GMO feed. Since 1996, cows, chickens, pigs and pretty much all other types of livestock have eaten GMO crops. To date, there has not been a single case of a health problem for either the animals nor the humans that consume the meat. This equates to multiple generations being raised without an occurrence of ill health.

Also since 1996, almost all organic produce has been grown using GMO fed manure. During these multiple generations of plants, neither a plant nor human has shown any ill effects related to the GMO dung.

… TO BE CONTINUED.

0) Mark Mullen (2016)
1) American Public Radio (2016)
1.1) Human Genome Project (2003)
2) Sidd (2016)
3) Richard Lovett (2014)
4} Golden Rice / U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (2015)

bookmark_borderEPA: Climate Change Report

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WASHINGTON –The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) today released one of the most comprehensive analyses to date on the economic, health and environmental benefits to the United States of global climate action. The peer-reviewed report, “Climate Change in the United States: Benefits of Global Action,” examines how future impacts and damages of climate change across a number of sectors in the United States can be avoided or reduced with global action. The report compares two future scenarios: a future with significant global action on climate change, where global warming has been limited to 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit), and a future with no action on climate change (where global temperatures rise 9 degrees Fahrenheit). The report then quantifies the differences in health, infrastructure and ecosystem impacts under the two scenarios, producing estimates of the costs of inaction and the benefits of reducing global GHG emissions.

“Will the United States benefit from climate action? Absolutely. This report shows us how costly inaction will be to Americans’ health, our environment and our society. But more importantly, it helps us understand the magnitude of benefits to a number of sectors of the U.S. with global climate action,” said EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy. “We can save tens of thousands of American lives, and hundreds of billions of dollars, annually in the United States by the end of this century, but the sooner we act, the better off America and future generations of Americans will be.”

The report examines how the impacts and damages of climate change across a number of sectors in the United States can be avoided with global action. The findings include:

• Global action on climate change reduces the frequency of extreme weather events and associated impacts. For example, by 2100 global action on climate change is projected to avoid an estimated 12,000 deaths annually associated with extreme temperatures in 49 U.S. cities, compared to a future with no reductions in greenhouse gas emissions. This is more than a 90 percent reduction from what we would expect with no action.

• Global action now leads to greater benefits over time. The decisions we make today will have long-term effects, and future generations will either benefit from, or be burdened by, our current actions. Compared to a future with unchecked climate change, climate action is projected to avoid approximately 13,000 deaths in 2050 and 57,000 deaths annually in 2100 from poor air quality. Delaying action on emissions reductions will likely reduce these and other benefits.

• Global action on climate change avoids costly damages in the United States. For nearly all of the 20 sectors studied, global action on climate change significantly reduces the economic damages of climate change. For example, without climate action, we estimated up to $10 billion in increased road maintenance costs each year by the end of the century. With action, we can avoid up to $7 billion of these damages.

• Climate change impacts are not equally distributed. Some regions of the United States are more vulnerable than others and will bear greater impacts. For example, without action on climate change, California is projected to face increasing risk of drought, the Rocky Mountain region will see significant increases in wildfires, and the mid-Atlantic and Southeast are projected to experience infrastructure damage from extreme temperatures, heavy rainfall, sea level rise, and storm surge.

• Adaptation can reduce damages and costs. For some sectors, adaptation can substantially reduce the impacts of climate change. For example, in a future without greenhouse gas reductions, estimated damages from sea-level rise and storm surge to coastal property in the lower 48 states are $5.0 trillion dollars through 2100. With adaptation along the coast, the estimated damages and adaptation costs are reduced to $810 billion.

The report is a product of the Climate Change Impacts and Risks Analysis (CIRA) project, led by EPA in collaboration with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the Pacific Northwest National Lab, the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, and other partners. The CIRA project is one of the first efforts to quantify the benefits of global action on climate change across a large number of U.S. sectors using a common analytic framework and consistent underlying data inputs. The project spans 20 U.S. sectors related to health, infrastructure, electricity, water resources, agriculture and forestry, and ecosystems.

bookmark_borderIs Opposition To GMO Crops Irrational?

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By Daniel Brouse

There is evidence of genetically modified crops for over 8,000 years. There is no evidence of harm from eating GM foods. The Bible compares the grafting of an olive branch to a human being grafted to God. Romans 11:17 — “But some of these branches from Abraham’s tree — some of the people of Israel — have been broken off. And you Gentiles, who were branches from a wild olive tree, have been grafted in. So now you also receive the blessing God has promised Abraham and his children, sharing in the rich nourishment from the root of God’s special olive tree.”

The BBC program “The Inquiry” asks:

“Ask a scientist, and they will almost certainly tell you genetically modified food is safe to eat. Yet an awful lot of consumers disagree. Is their fear of GM food irrational? Earlier this year the Pew Foundation released a US poll which suggested 88% of scientists think GM food is generally safe to eat, while only 37% of the public agree. It is the issue on which American scientists and the general public are most divided, more so than climate change or vaccines. If the scientific consensus says it is safe, should we embrace a technology that could help solve hunger and feed the world? Or is GM food a lightning rod for justified concerns about the impact of global agribusiness and industrial food production?”

Listen to the report.

The BBC report mentions flood-tolerant rice. The Ronald Laboratories of UC Davis state:

“Each year millions of small farmers in the poorest areas of the world lose their entire crops to flooding. Although 24% of the global rice crop is grown in paddies, most rice varieties will die if fully submerged for more than three days. In India and Bangladesh alone, submergence destroys 4 million tons of rice each year, enough to feed 30 million people.

About 50 years ago, breeders discovered an unusual and ancient variety of rice that could withstand 2 weeks of complete submergence. Using conventional approaches, breeders tried to introduce this submergence tolerance trait into rice varieties favored by farmers in India and Bangladesh. However, because the breeding was imprecise, the resulting varieties were rejected by farmers. In the 1990s, rice breeder David Mackill (University of California, Davis) and graduate student Kenong Xu (University of California, Davis) demonstrated that tolerance to complete submergence mapped to the Submergence tolerance 1 (Sub1) Quantitative trait locus (QTL)

In 1996, Ronald began a project with Mackill and Xu, funded by the USDA, to isolate the genes at the Sub1 locus. Over a period of 10 years, Dr. Xu carried out fine mapping and physical isolation of the Sub1 gene in the Mackill and Ronald laboratories at the University of California, Davis (Xu. et. al., 2000). While working as a postdoctoral fellow in Ronald’s laboratory, Xu identified and sequenced the Sub1 QTL genomic region, revealed that it carried three ethylene response transcription factors (ERF) and demonstrated that one of the ERFs, designated Sub1A, was up-regulated rapidly in response to submergence. Xu and Ronald further demonstrated that overexpression of Sub1A conferred robust tolerance to submergence in genetically engineered plants ( Xu. et. al., 2006). This work revealed an important mechanism with which plants control tolerance to environmental stress and set the stage for in-depth molecular-genetic analyses of Sub1A-mediated processes”

Also see: GMO Rice Wins Humanitarian Award

bookmark_borderJust Say No To Taxes

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by Daniel Brouse

I suggested that there should be little (to no) taxes.

You responded:
How does any of this function
without taxation…?
I would like to know your thinking on this…
it doesn’t seem to be working now
and sure doesn’t favor poor to middle class…
but I think this is too long to write?

I respond:
There are a few ways one can look upon it. Here are two of the shorter versions —

1) Evolution
In the beginning there was Adam and Lilith. There were no taxes. For more generations than I can count, the world got along fine without taxes. In fact, humans prospered in the Garden Of Edan without taxation until we evolved into corrupt beings.

2) Exploitation And Corruption
An economic evaluation of taxation reveals a costs and benefits shutout. That is to say, there are no known benefits to taxation. On the other hand, there are at least a trillion costs to taxing (see the National Deficit for a an exhaustive list.) A small sampling includes…
The cost of taxing productive people
The cost of corruption inherent in collecting money
The cost of additional bureaucracy
The cost of removing the efficiency inherent in the competition of the free market place

You may want to think of it this way… every adult in the USA owes about $42,614.99 just for the Iraq War. (And, that is if we pay off the debt today. Oh, yeah. The cost of life and limb is not included.)

Next time, in order to be fair to everyone… maybe we should be required to pay the tax in advance… instead of 1% of the population footing 40% of the bill?

Additional resources: Occupy Wall Street? Occupy Yourself