Can we resuscitate it?

I’m talking about Biodiversity – the variety of differing types within a species that keeps it viable. The less the variety, the more likely it is to be wiped out by disease.
Consider potatoes – in Ireland, at the time of the Potato Blight, they mainly grew only one type of potato countrywide. As a consequence, after two years of crop failure the nation was starving and up to one million died. The blight struck in other countries as well, but because they grew very many varieties of potato there was little damage done.
America has lost 86% of its apple varieties, 88% of its pear varieties. The huge variety of corn types has dwindled to just a few. The same is true world wide.
To prevent extinction of these limited crops we have to use chemicals that poison the environment and destroy other species we no longer see as ‘important. Incidentally, we are EATING these chemicals in ever greater concentrations. What is it doing to US? To our children and grandchildren?

You comments, opinions and related information would be interesting.

eventually the US will go down by potatoes, all part of Saddams plan :p

It's not only America, the EU-laws are also bullshit for a 'healthy diversity'. Apples wich are rich of vitamines can't be sold because their diameter is not correct, the taste of cucumbers is not important the bending is, tomatoes taste absolutely like water but their colour is right and the genetic manipulation prevents rotting for weeks.

Sorry - I wasn't implying it was only America! Far from it! It's a world-wide problem.
What beats me is that ordinary people can see it and Corporations refuse to.

Isn't that problem allaround? The big corporations are looking only at their shareholder values.
It is not only monocultures, it's CO2 emission, trawling, destruction of rain-forrest.........all obvious facts for the 'common peoples' but which of the big bosses cares?
Btw. I didn't mean that you are implying sth. to America it was only a peg(?) for me to grumble about dumb EU laws.

Have none of you heard of genetically altered fruits and vegetables??

there is a big fight here right now that concerns labelling of such foods. It may seem like it would be a bad thing. But with the problems that plague our earth, eating something that was genetically engineered to avoid the deseases and other such plights wouldnt be so bad.

Kitiara You are right. And One day (hopefully before its too late) we are able to make up for the past 50 years and make the old variety come back by genetic-altering means.

Reminds me that my studies begins on monday. Well end of 3 months "vacation". Sometimes a University isn't that bad, guys and gals ;)

[This message has been edited by Nobleman (edited August 29, 2001).]

BLAH BLAH BLAH

In my country the nature is almost untouched. Ecology means no "dirty" industries. Less money - but richer life for me and my (possible) children.

Only thing that bothers me are sulfur rains that come with clouds from your countries. In near future, when you murder your countries' nature we'll just close our borders to tourists. If you destroyed your own nature, what will keep you to destroy any other country's nature? Nothing. You'll destroy it out of pure jealousy.

As long as I'm live, I'll propagate no exchange green areas for MONEY.

AND YOU CAN SUFFER!

What should I do, understand you?
You have your chance, but every day that passes, less chance to mend anything. DO NOT HESITATE! For some areas it's already too late.


[EDIT]
To Nobleman:
I don't know what is a "greenie". No such word in dictionary.
No matter, if my OWN thoughts are thoughts of "greenies", yes, I AM GREENIE. Can you stop me?

[This message has been edited by Extremist (edited August 29, 2001).]

I dropped my economics education. Done 3 years. Now I study Genetics. Why? Because
I think humanity is doomed. I plan on going to a nice settlement on mars,. Stay there 20 years untill we have terraformed the earth once again.

A joke? Partually. For 50 years we have said that things will change we will save the earth. Have I seen any change? No. Can I see anything that pinpoints stronger initiatives than the last 50 years have offered? No.

Now all the bureaucrates move in and talk for God and everybody about new initiatives.

PS: Extremist is a greenie. Extremist is a greenie. heh heh :p

EDITED HERE: Yes I can stop You, But I won't. Why should I? I am One myself. Member of WWF. Studying ways to help nature. That's why its OK to tease You. No hard feelings. :rolleyes:=>to myself.

[This message has been edited by Nobleman (edited August 29, 2001).]

Sigh.

More eco-freak rambling. I have to put up with every day at work.

Yes, it's silly to ruin land for any reason (money is not the only motivation). But most of what people start caterwhauling about is not ruining the land. Drilling in Alaska is not about to ruin it. Drilling in the Gulf of Mexico is not going to ruin it. Oil drilling in general is a safe, environmentally benign thing.

Acid rain, on the other hand, is not.

Nobleman what does WWF stand for? In America if you say WWF people think you are talking about the World Wrestling Federation :p

[This message has been edited by Big B (edited August 29, 2001).]

Yeah, everyone is aware of America's ways...

Especially that America and ecology are two opposite words! :p :mad:

Then again, this is not about America or Americans - this is about whole world.

Hmmmm...I'm talking to walls here...

luckely I'm behind those walls :D

there is no way to stop the destruction of the planet, no one will listen untill its too late and thats how it is, no need to cry, we are all doomed

What wall are you talking about E?
<BUMP!>
Oh that wall :D
Don't ever think I am all about America and oblivious to the rest of the world. I just wanted to know what WWF stands for (and jokingly added that I know it as the World Wrestling Federation) But unless I am missing the picture here, Nobleman is not a proffesional wrestler instead a member of WWF that stands for something else, most likely something to with the environment. I just was curious as to what exactly.
<Bumps into another wall>

WWF is the World Wildlife Foundation. There's actually a suit against the World Wrestling Federation for the use of the initials WWF. Apparently the animal folks had the name and the initials first and agreed to let the wrestlers use the initials if they did so sparingly.

They didn't.

Thank you Shralp. That's interesting about the suit.

Sadly i think you are correct about when the world in general will start to devote major amouts of recorces to preserving the wildlife it will eather be to late or we will only barely manage to miss compleate disaster. As for the trick with genetic manipulation havent we been doing that sence the dawn of agracalture only no we do it in a lab in perhaps a year of study and before we did it by selective breeding over decades and centuries.

True, Kemanmaldea, but when we did it over a long period of time in a more natural way, we could see problems arising before it was too late. Also, we were not introducing genes that did not belong in the species. Today, we are putting human genes into pigs, for example, so that we can use pig tissues for human transplants. We are putting genes from one species into another with increasing frequency. Do you know what that can mean?
It can mean the spreading of animal diseases into the human population. It can mean the spreading of human diseases into the animal population. It could potentially even mean the exchange of disease between plants and animals, and humans. We could be setting a time bomb for life on earth.
Yeah, I know. I'm going over the top and being alarmist.
Aren't I?

It's not the impact of GM foods on human health that alarms me so much as the potential impact on the ecosystem. When you travel to a foreign country, they want to make sure you are not introducing even "harmless" lifeforms since the impact on nature is unknown. For example, a rather lovely flowering plant called Purple Loosestrife was brought to Canada from Europe and it quickly caused the extinction of many local plants because it competed so much more effectively.

The problem with foods genetically modified to avoid plagues and generally to be stronger, is the same problem with introducing a new plant or animal into an ecosystem. With no natural enemies it can quickly take over. What if they created a "super-grain" that grows incredibly fast, needs almost no water, is never eaten by bugs, and is immune to most blights? Scenario One: It eliminates human hunger. Hurray!
Scenario Two: It spreads like wildfire. Bugs can't eat it, so they have to move on to find another crop. The grain competes successfully with local plants and crops, and the bugs get hungry and die. Then the smaller animals die because there are no bugs to eat. Then the larger carnivores die because there are no smaller animals to eat. Soon we are alone on the planet with our grain. Given the historical impact of "new" plants and animals introduced by colonisation, the risk of scenario two is not as low as we'd like to hope.

If you share my concerns (and it seems many do!), there are alternatives to waiting for government to act- in fact I personally am allergic to most government acts anyway. Buy local "heritage" foods from organic cooperatives instead of supporting the international agri-business with your grocery dollars. If nothing else, only selling meat locally instead of shipping cows and sheep all over the place would have saved European farmers a lot of grief over the last few years.

I'm not as good about local-foods-only as I'd like. In an extremely cold climate, that would mean little more than cabbage and potatoes 9 months of the year. But I do buy almost exclusively organic foods, and local meat.

Of course I'm not saying this course of action is for everyone. But for other 'greenies' like me, why wait around for inept government action? Vote with your household grocery budget!

[Edit: Although I know this is an extremely unpopular sentiment, I just have to reiterate this: Blaming "big corporations" for doing things you pay them to do (by buying their products) is not very productive. Neither is waiting around for the government to stop the big corporations from doing what you pay them to do. The only way to control big corporations' activities is by boycotting them when you don't like what they do, and financially supporting ethical companies EVEN THOUGH their products always cost more.]

[This message has been edited by Sprite (edited August 30, 2001).]

Yes Fljotsdale You are. We have very strict rules to work under in the western world.We have a lot of sudden unannounced inspections from the government in our lab to work with even the simplest genetic altered material. And there is a lot of paperwork and clarifiing just to be allowed to bring genetic altered material OUT of our Lab. What You say is the talk of sensation journalists or other alarmers. But What goes on in Cuba for examble is a whole other matter....

Sorry Big B that I wasn't around.

We are actually named both World Wide Fund for Nature and World Wildlife Fund.
We are an independent environmental organisation. But We don't spend as much on Fundraising as Greenpeace so we are less known around the world.
http://www.wwf.org/ http://www.panda.org/


EDITED HERE: No Big B I am not a Wrestler :D

[This message has been edited by Nobleman (edited August 30, 2001).]

Very well said, Sprite. You speak a lot of plain common sense! :)

If you are talking about the "doomsday" prediction of Sprite's Scenario Two, you couldn't be more wrong about the common sense part.

Sorry, Blackthorne, (and Nobleman too) but although Sprite DOES seem over the top, it is a perfectly valid extrapolation from what little we are allowed to know. And not just ordinary Joe's like us hold that opinion - so do very many actually WORKING in the field, from environmental scientist down. It is mainly only the ones working for the corporations who pat our heads and say 'it is all going to be ok, don't worry your silly little ignorant heads.'
I'm overreacting? Yeah. Maybe. Remind me of that when the crops fail and WE are starving, not only the 'third world' countries. :)
No personal attack intended, guys, you are both people I have come to like. :)

[This message has been edited by Fljotsdale (edited August 30, 2001).]

Hi fljotsdale.

I still study at University and when I hit the "real" world, its people like You that keep my common sense in realistic proportions. Nothing wrong in that. :)

Sprite suggests us to make major changes. But visons in that league (drop big sinister firms, stop import export of food(cattle)) takes a Martin L. King extraordinairé to conduct on humanity. Can it at all be done? realisticly thinking? Or should we set more realistic goals. I know its unsatisfying to mend rather that change, but it's better than just standing by. I think peoples attitude towards a healthier world will indeed change in two or three generations. I have Nothing to base that assuption on except for the growing number of what I call "greenies". People who not actively but passively give support to a healthier environment. I don't think the world will end in an biologic Apocalyse but things will be better In my Honest opinion.

[This message has been edited by Nobleman (edited August 30, 2001).]

Nobleman! Actually, if you have read much of the stuff I post you will know that I am in favour of ACTION but not violence. We have to do relatively simple stuff - buying organinc, from small farmers, etc, and avoiding ANYTHING produced by big corporation whenever possible (I know it isn't all the time). Get your electricity supply from 'green' producers. Get a pushbike instead of using the car to go everywhere (yeah, you may need a car for some things). Use public transport if possible, rather than a car, for long distances. Stop using pesticides and herbicides in your garden and make sure your parents don't use 'em, either, if you are a teen or younger. ('Proper' gardening is healthy, anyway!) Recycle as a matter of course.
Eventually, if enough of us do those things, we will make an impact where it counts - in the pockets of the Corporations (we hates 'em forever, we do!)

Hi Fljotsdale

We agree. both on the human awareness in the future and on what to do about it :)

I am sorry if I made the impression of You beeing Violent. English is not my native language, so I am sorry that I wasn't more carefull in expressing myself in a toppic so important.

Nobleman, if you think I was advocating a mass movement I must have miscommunicated. My apologies. My point is that people who hold strong convictions shouldn't wait for a Martin Luther King type to lead them, they should make the small differences they can every day to live according to what they believe in. That doesn't take a leader- it just takes a little independent thinking.

I don't care to destroy big corporations- who would pay my salary so I can afford expensive organic foods? But if you don't like what a particular company does, it's as silly to keep buying their products as it is to wait for someone to shut them down. There's no inherent reason ethical companies can't become big corporations and keep their "heart"- the only obstacle is persistent consumer choice to buy the product that's cheaper because of ethical corner-cutting.

Blackthorne, I know your educational background relates to this area. I'm interested to know the basis for your conviction that the "worst case scenario" I described above is completely impossible. My bachelor's degree was not in science but in history, so I am extrapolating both my best and worst case scenarios from historical events. [I freely admit, by the way, that I am extrapolating ad absurdum- that's a fairly normal way of producing best and worst case scenarios for rhethorical purposes in philosophy although, I know, not usually in science. I'd have qualified that if I thought this was a scientific debate rather than a philosophical one.]

The best case scenario I extrapolated from the New World foods (like potatoes) that dramatically reduced hunger and vitamin deficiencies in 17th and 18th century Europe, and the worst case scenario from the small extinctions that have occurred throughout the world as a result of travel and colonialisation- like Purple Loosestrife as I mentioned above.

If you have the time or patience, I'd like you to explain it as I find this subject very interesting (so do others, it seems) and I'd like to be better informed. If you don't have the patience, can you at least say if your thoughts are in the field of:
a) we could contain such a plant successfully to minimise its impact
b) we could never produce such a plant
c) no plant could ever have such an impact on an ecosystem even if it grew unchecked?

... and then we'll coauthor a really good sci-fi story about it. :b

[EDIT: Thanks for responding Blackthorne, and for the link Nobleman- it's food for thought (pun intended). And by the way Fljotsdale - I too am a "she" not a "he". :)]

[This message has been edited by Sprite (edited August 31, 2001).]

Here is where my unbelief lies:

1)Cereal grains are not made or bred to spread like wildfire. The Purple Loosestrife is a perennial plant (meaning that it lives for more than one season), and will regrow itself if there is a small portion of root left in the ground. Grains are annuals (meaning they live for only one season and then die) and are bred so that their seeds (the grain that you eat) mature and ripen at the same time and remain on the stalk to be harvested. An even more special case is corn which cannot propagate itself without human intervention because it has no natural way to broadcast its seeds.

2)Never eaten by bugs. What do you mean by this? Anything we can eat will be eaten by bugs and other animals. If you mean poisonous to insects and not to mammals, I assure you that is a temporary condition and that the the insects will eventually develop immunities to the poison before they are extinct.

3)Outcompeting local plants. Annuals that are harvested for their seeds cannot outcompete any plant where this is not desired. The plant itself dies every season, and its seeds (that which would propagate a new generation) are taken by us to eat (or to feed to our livestock). Or of course to plant for the next crop.

4)Outcompeting every plant on the planet. Hardly. A grain would never outcompete the trees in a forest, or any other well established perennial (like your Purple Loosestrife :) ), nor would it outcompete any plant that grows under different conditions (an extreme example would be water plants).

5)Humans being the only animals left on the planet given your other predictions come true. Humans are hardly the only omnivores on the planet, and there are plenty of herbivores that would be able to eat this super-grain of yours to keep the carnivores happy.

Oh! One thing I forgot to mention is my educational background doesn't really relate to this subject; it's more into electronics than biology. This is more from my own incidental knowledge of the subject (since I do have interests in sciences other than EE) and my own common sense. Which is why I said Sprite's common sense was not so common! :)

[This message has been edited by Blackthorne TA (edited August 31, 2001).]

Just 'cos someone goes a bit over the top to press a point, Blackthorne, is no reason to trash their argument. As I said, he was talking a lot of common sense, and far more than you, imho, 'cos at least Sprite is looking at possible (if overstated) unfortunate scenarios, while you appear to shutting your eyes. No offence intended -I'm sure you are more aware than your comments indicate - but Sprite expresses the fears of many. :)

Actually, Blackthorne was ASKED to present his arguments and then did so. Very compellingly too, I might add.

Genetically altered plants can and do spread quickly. There's a corn variant called "Roundup Ready" that will withstand large exposure to the powerful herbicide Roundup; and it's spreading from farm to farm. Of course, as BTA pointed out, it wouldn't be able to spread if humans didn't keep planting corn. Yet we are, so this GM corn is spreading. I don't know if the modifications have spread to other plants yet (a friend with a biology degree thinks it quite possible).

I'm not sure what to think about Frankenfoods like tomatoes with fish genes spliced in so that they can handle the cold better. At first it sounds pretty repulsive, but unless someone can tell me exactly what problem can spring from this -- I refuse to sign on to the alarmist bandwagon. After all, isn't such a thing just injecting MORE bioversity?

The RoundupReady has a poor IMMUNESYSTEM due to applications with glyphosate when it's imposed to certain types of stress.

Further the applications with glyphosate can reduce the yield due to changes in it's nitrogen fixation and it's nodulation.

For those who want to know more (I guess none :p) You can read the script files by Dr. Charles M. Benbrook
Northwest Science and Environmental Policy Center
Sandpoint Idaho
May 3, 2001 http://www.biotech-info.net/troubledtimes.html

Still I haven't heard of the spreading to other plants. But I'll look into it. I should have known. sorry :eek: Don't tell my institute :D

Nobleman, I can't pretend to understand what you were saying there, but I can help a bit with finding out about it spreading.

Turns out that since the seed company who markets it (DeKalb?) patented the technology they've managed to finagle some weird deal in which other farmers can't grow it unless they pay. Well, it spread into an adjacent farmer's field. He didn't care, didn't use RoundUp, and didn't report it. So now the government (FDA, I think) is coming down on him.

Sorry the details are hazy.

Fljotsdale - I did not (nor am I) say that caution is not warranted when it comes to genetic manipulations. But I believe that unfounded hysteria and the perpetuation of misconceptions is not warranted. I only objected to Sprite's "doomsday" scenario because she obviously did not believe it was really "over the top", and thought that given the right circumstances, it was possible. Then you came along and said that that was alot of "plain common sense" which I certainly do not agree with, and so I indicated my dissention and presented my reasons in my following post when asked.

Also, when I see only one side of a controversial issue presented with no challenges to even "over the top" assertions, I feel compelled to step in and stand up for the other side of the controversy. :)

[This message has been edited by Blackthorne TA (edited September 01, 2001).]

Fair enough, Blackthorne! :)

But, you know, the fact is that people prefer to go around with their eyes shut until disaster overtakes them. And I know there are arguments for and against using 'over the top' words to make 'em open their eyes for a few seconds.
But what to do? Keep quiet about possible consequences and hope disaster DOESN'T strike, or try to motivate people to DO something, however small, (like recycling, like not buying from indifferent multinationals) to avert possible disaster?

If saying something 'over the top' gets even one person to think, don't you think it might be worth it?

How did a discussion on the possibilities of GM crops turn into a debate on whether I had any common sense? Please let's keep this a debate and not a catfight.

I was using hyperbole as a rhetorical device, NOT saying that my "Scenario Two" was the inevitable result of GM crops. As far as I was concerned both my Scenario One and Scenario Two were "over the top"- that is, reductio ad absurdum arguments as I have already said- to show opposite ends of a continuum of possibilities regardless of probabilities. It seems Fljotsdale understood that even if no one else did- but I'm sorry if I should have spelled that out.

As far as not being "balanced"- I mentioned both an implausible worst case scenario and the implausible best case scenario, and elaborated on the worst case scenario since it interests me most, and since Kitiara had already more or less brought up the best case scenario above. I also encouraged Blackthorne to list his objections- which he did- to encourage further debate into this topic. I hope I wouldn't have to argue BOTH sides to be taken seriously in this debate. While I do argue with myself I don't usually do it in public forums.

Can we get back on topic please? I am looking forward to learning from those here with more scientific backgrounds.

[This message has been edited by Sprite (edited September 01, 2001).]