Yesterday I received a copy of a Nufarm media release* announcing that the company had paid Monsanto $10 million for their Roundup Ready® canola germ plasm and a licence to the Roundup Ready® canola trait.
The media release explained that “Roundup Ready® is a genetic trait that allows farmers to use Roundup herbicide over the top of their crops, offering broad spectrum and efficient weed control and simplifying production of those crops”. Further, “the Roundup Ready® canola trait was approved by the Australian Office of Gene Technology Regulator (OGTR) in December 2003, but has not yet been commercialised in Australia following the imposition of State Government moratoriums in the major canola growing States”. And also that, “pending relevant State government authorisation, Nufarm’s Australian canola seed business platform is ideally placed to develop and bring to market Roundup Ready® canola varieties”.
So Nufarm is gearing up to supply Australian farmers with GM canola seed.
The media release finishes with comment that, “canola is also being sought to meet increasing demand from the emerging bio-fuels industry.”
In July the federal government announced a grant of $7.15 million to Riverina Biofuels Pty Ltd under its ‘Biofuels Capital Grants Program’.
Yesterday I received a copy of a media release from MPI Engineering** announcing that they will design and construct a new $16 million biodiesel factory for Riverina Biofuels Pty Ltd in the country town of Deniliquin in NSW. The media release explains that, “the facility will convert natural oils such as tallow and vegetable oil into biodiesel”.
I assume the tallow would be imported? Last year of the 2,535,000 tonnes of oilseed produced in Australia, 1,531,000 was from canola. This product is commonly referred to as vegetable oil.
So will GM canola power the new deniliquin biofuels plant?
———————————————–
* Nufarm acquires Australian licence for Roundup Ready® canola, Company Announcement, 6th September
** MPI Group Wins New Biofuels Plant Project, MPI Engineering Solutions Media Release, 6th September
Jennifer Marohasy BSc PhD is a critical thinker with expertise in the scientific method.
For Nufarm’s sake, I hope the agreement makes its investment refundable. Someone is bound to demand that there be “an open public debate” about whether or not biofuels from GM canola would release GM CO2 into the atmosphere. Doubtless a debate on that and similar points could result in “long term studies” sufficient to delay things for at least a decade.
Perhaps MPI engineering plans to import GM canola and export biodiesel. However, this, too, will need a “vigorous public debate” about identity preservation in the pipeline and whether it interferes with the traditional knowledge of Australians.
Lets hope Schiller, Detribe et al can feed all that biodeisel to the starving millions in the third world they are soooo concerned about, eh?.
To detribe,roger,chris,
I’m not going into any discussions with you on plant genetics since my knowledge on this is minimal…
I just talk as a concerned citizen and as a former medical student I just wonder what health effects GMOs will have in the long run on human and animal health. As a matter of fact the GM products have only been on the market for about a decade.
As far as I know no negative health effects have been detected so far in humans but sure some signs have been detected in lab animals that have been silenced as far as I know.
And what happened with the study that some mice showed antibody production in their blood after eating GM peas(?).
We have to take the health effects more seriously since GM feed in my opionion is unnatural for the body.
Ann, that is a good question. However, I could equally ask the opposite question. What is it about GM crops that makes you think they will be harmful to human or animal health? Crops don’t just magically become harmful, there must be an underlying cause.
I can think of two possibilities. Firstly that the protein produced by the introduced gene is itself harmful. This is quite easily tested.
The second is that the positioning of the introduced gene or the passage through tissue culture alters the expression of other genes that leads to an increase in a toxic compound. This possibility is harder to test for, but this can and is done. When GM crops are ready for introduction, the proponents need to demonstrate that, other than for the proteins produced by the introduced gene, the crop is not different to products already on the market. The concept of substantial equivalence is used here. All known toxins in the crop are tested for to ensure their content has not increased. Also tests are done on the content of a whole suite of nutrients to show they have not altered substantially. In addition, there will be some feeding studies in case something was missed in the analytical tests. If no problems arise in any of this testing, the regulators will approve the product.
There were a couple of studies published last year that showed there was much less difference in protein profiles between GM and non-GM individuals of a crop cultivar than between cultivars of the same crop. David has some information on this on his website. No doubt he will post the link, saving me the trouble. The same can be true of nutrients and toxins.
I am not sure that I agree with you about studies being silenced. There are quite a few ‘studies’ of various sorts floating around, some published some not (i.e. just sitting on the internet), that claim to show health harm from GM food. Frankly, some of these studies were so poorly done (insufficient replication, insufficient numbers or types of control, lack of detail about the experimental method) that they are largely ignored by scientists and regulators.
The peas. This study was published in the scientific literature last year. There is also a paper in the literature showing that soybeans transformed with a protein from brazil nuts produced allergic reactions. Because of the potential risk, both of these products never made it to market.
Why do you say that GM food is unnatural for the body? Would you say the same about grapefruit or strawberries? What about wheat, barley, oats, corn or rice that has been subjected to chemical mutagenesis? What makes a food natural for the body?
Given plants and insects have been doing battle for millions of years I would have thought that plants have developed all manner of toxic biocidal compounds that modern agriculture tries to breed out or we detoxify be cooking. For example – how good are green potatoes for you if you don’t peel them properly? Celery? Peanuts aflavotoxins etc. And so botulism and anthrax are also “natural” but not good for you.
But with GM foods there is a lingering feeling that things have been “interfered with” – frankenstein foods. However given organic food has carcinogenic compounds how much of a real risk is this concern? Is it our lack of understanding. Have GM foods been tested more than other “natural foods” we eat.
Of course how do we ignore the yield benefits of GM technology and benefits with coping with increasing pest resistance to insecticides and also the need to feed an increasing global population.
Ann says “on plant genetics since my knowledge on this is minimal… As far as I know no negative health effects have been detected so far in humans…..GM feed in my opionion is unnatural for the body.”
Given that all the food that we eat has been sourced from genetically altered plants and animals what is “natural” for the body?
Just a short reply here rog as I have to go to work.
What’s natural food?
Example from the animal world:
1) The milks fatty acid’s composition is healthier if the cows have been fed on grass than from conventional cattle fodder( Swedish study released just some days ago).
2) Horses that are given high protein fodder( race horses, showjumpers) such as some pellets containg fish meal develope a serious acute disease called ” the Baron Gruff diseases). It is very lethal and the main sympthoms are colic and dehydration. A disease that has its impact on the digestive tract due to unnatural food, in this case to give horses high protein fodder.
Ann – is the issue you raise about inappropriate processed food vs fresh food.
What if the pasture grass the cows are eating comes from 500 years of selective breeding. Is that natural?
If we risk cancer from what we eat – are not most the carcinogens from natural compounds?
So natural food to some extent is “bad” for us. Obviously a widely varied “appropriate” diet has checks and balances to neutralise the carcinogens as much as possible.
Detribe?
Ann, give it a rest, you dont know what you are talking about.
The cow that gives the milk and the horse with “Baron gruff” do not exist in the wild, they are the product of genetic engineering.
Horses should never eat animal product, everybody knows that, nobody feeds it, end of story. Botulism is probably the disease you are talking about, it can be in chaff or hay or processed food. You can get it if a mouse or a rabbit is chopped up in the hay making process or the hay is not quite dry and ferments. It is undetectable when in feed. As far as I know rabbits are a “natural” food, organic too, but not “natural” to horses.
They can also get colic and/or founder if fed fresh green grass. They van tie up if they eat too much protein, like oats – their diet needs to be balanced between the horse type and work.
There is nothing that we use that is “natural” it has all been altered to better suit our needs.
Since Ann posts the same comment on two threads I’ll append my other response here.
But first
Ann mentioned silencing about experiments. It would be good for Anne to not be silent about which alleged incident she is referring to. What are you referring to Anne?
and
The point about plant toxins is that many of them have the natural function of protection of the plant against insect damage. Conventional selection of insect reistant vaiets can inadvertantly select for plants with inceased toxin levels, and this has occured (eg Lenape potato, celery with high psoralen content, dangerously hot capsicums).
Thus conventional plant variety selection methods have inherantly hazardous features.
Anne
Why do you single out GMOs for special treatment and not also apply the same standards of concern to the new transgenic varieties of plant created by conventional breeding?
Also this excessive precautionary concern about safety based on no tangible evidence of increased hazards has itself long term adverse consequences of harming agriculture’s adaption to wefare and environmental challenge. That is, excessive precaution has real long term adverse effects. It is of concern to many of us that the tangible harm from addressing negligilbe concerns about GMOs exceeds significantly the long term postulated dangers of using the technology. Golden Rice is a good ilustration given that 2000 children die a day from vitamin A deficiency. With your attitude we would have no vaccines today because vaccination in “unnatural”, so banning vaccines is dangerous too.
Your argument that GM food is unnatural to the body is a scientifically meaningless statement. Since when has natural been a criteria of safety, and since whem has DNA rearrangement per se been unnatural?
You mentioned a GM pea was found to be allergenic. There is no understanding as to whether the allergy signal is connected with GM techniques in general, and many conventional foods suffer from toxicity issues created by breeders. Using your argument, conventional breeding is therefore “dangerous ” too.
Luke,
on what basis have you decided that plants and insects have battled on for years and therefore that is bad?
I personally would interpret the facts differently. That if a certain specie of plant flowered, then life-forms compatible with that plant would increase.
You seem to have a different opinion.
“starving millions in the third world they are soooo concerned about, eh?.”
I’ve reached tne conclusion that Nasus is a juvenile troll intent on throwing in whatever inflammatory comments that come to hand to mock the intentions of those they disagree with. I’m going to largely ignore him unless he shows signs of growing up.
I have a rule: three stikes and you’re out. Play funny buggers with me more than twice with un uncivil trivial attitude insincere attitude ( unless you’re truly witty) you can get lost.
Nasus,
I don’t get your point. Environmentalists everywhere agree that people in the third world should starve rather than eat GM food. So environmentalists should be elated to learn that GM crops are being incinerated in internal combustion engines instead.
From one of my favorite Blogs, Cronaca
While we are discussing GMO risks,
a parable about risk, that we can discuss without the tedious disagreements, and which is warm and human.
Some times avoiding risk is less safe than embracing risk:
(for Anne, whom I think would enjoy it)
http://www.cronaca.com/
Ute Navidi, who heads a British children’s charity called London Play, was walking along a Berlin street, on a break from an international conference, when she stopped to watch a group of primary schoolchildren in the schoolyard. She couldn’t believe what she was seeing. “If this was London they would have called in search- and-rescue,” says Navidi. “Or the health inspector would have come in and shut the place down.” Young German kids were chopping wood with axes and mixing soups in a cauldron over an open flame. Children who looked like kindergarteners were manoeuvring kayaks on their own in a large pond while the adults chatted on the sidelines. The scene got Navidi worried — and not for those kids. The risks the German children were learning to manage far surpassed anything schoolchildren in her city were doing.
In Britain, as in Canada, the U.S. and elsewhere, an overwhelming concern for safety — along with a desire to safeguard against child-injury litigation — has completely altered the landscape of kids’ activities over the past 20 years. . .
But recently, a growing number of people have reached an epiphany similar to Navidi’s: despite our best intentions to protect children, our actions have produced the opposite effect. Studies are showing that kids have become less capable, less self-reliant — essentially, more vulnerable to harm. . .
And kids spend more time with parents — eight hours more with their mothers and four more with fathers — compared with 1981. The radius of play of the average nine-year-old has shrunk to one-ninth of what it was in 1970.
Hi all,
First a comment on Greenpeace’s policy again on GMOs.
1) Principally we are not against biotechnology and we really hope they are harmless to human and animal health as well for the environment. We also would be extremely glad if GMOs could solve the global food issue( for example starvation in Africa).
However, we don’t think there is no such thing as a quick fix in agriculture.
Just look at the Cornell University’s study published three weeks ago, regarding BT-cotton in China.
For ten years ago there was a 70% decrease of herbicide use in the GM crops , 2004 we are back again at the same level of use of herbicides as in conventional farming.
So there seems to be a positive result in the beginning and later on a setback.
In India the BT- cotton costs 3 times as much as the traditional cotton. And some farmers didn’t harvest anything at all.
2) As I have mentioned Greenpeace is not against biotechnology , but we strongly oppose that the market is dominated by a few actors, about 4-5.
Literature to read on about eventual impacts of GMOs on human and animal health:
1) Malatesta ( soya)
2) V. Prescott ( peas)
3) T. Traavik
I will try to comment the other posts tomorrow!
Dertibe,
You have made the comment: ” … rich and well fed Scandinavians”.
Is this an insult or a compliment???
David should have said, “rich, well-fed, naive, parochial, politically fashionable Scandinavians.” Either way, factual statements aren’t necessarily insulting or complimentary.
Louis – I didn’t say it was bad. It just “is”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plant_defense_against_herbivory
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solanaceae
Ann’s use of the collective “we” is interesting particularly in light of GP policy is to “Say no to genetic engineering” and “GMOs should not be released into the environment”
rog,
You raise an interesting point. Or several, perhaps. Greenpeace opposes all engineered crops whatsoever, on the notion that the crops will “contaminate” whatever. Greenpeace was forced to a standstill with Golden Rice; Benedikt Haerlin of Greenpeace first announced that childhood blindness was an appropriate price for environmental preservation, and then backtracked because of a backlash, and then was silenced by the group for years, to avoid further embarrassment.
Haerlin is back, though, after being put on the back burner over the Golden Rice embarrassment, and Greenpeace now has lawyers drafting its statements, saying merely that GP opposes them since all environmental impacts whatsoever can never be known. Which means, between now and the heat-death of the Universe, Greenpeace will insist that the long-term results are unknown.
Clue to greenpeacers: some effects are unknown because they don’t exist. If you can’t find them after a decade of farming and consumption, and cultivation on over a billion acres, and one billion GM meals a day in the US alone, the case is looking pretty thin.
GM rice is the latest cause celebre among the neo-troglodytes. Turns out, the genes and proteins involved the “GM Rice Scandals” (LLRice and Chinese Bt rice) have been approved for years. And we have been eating them for years.
Greenpeace is now campaigning against GM brinjals in India, even though the genes and proteins have been approved for years. I have to wonder if GP is taking money from the chemical companies, because protesting against something shown to be safe in the food supply only benefits the makers of chemical sprays.
It is interesting that Greenpeace’ account auditors refuse, every year, to agree that the accounting is accurate. No wonder: Greenpeace is bought and paid for.
Does it feel warm and fuzzy to donate to Greenpeace? You’re trading that nice feeling for pain. Green Power = Black Death. Read the book.
http://www.eco-imperialism.com/main.php
“The time has come to hold these radicals to civilized standards of behavior, end the tolerance for their lethal policies, and demand that they be held accountable for their excesses, and the poverty, disease and death they have perpetrated on the poor and powerless. Eco-Imperialism is an excellent start. Driessen does a masterful job of stripping away the radicals’ mantle of virtue, dissecting their bogus claims and holding them to the moral and ethical standards they have long demanded for everyone except themselves. And he does so with humor, outrage and passion – and always without pulling any punches.
“Every concerned citizen and policy maker should read this book. The environmentalists will hate it. The world’s destitute masses will love it. And everyone will be challenged by it to reexamine their beliefs and the environmental establishment’s claims.”
– Niger Innis, National Spokesman, Congress of Racial Equality (from his introduction to Eco-Imperialism)
Rog, Schiller,
My above post is consisting of information on Greenpeace’s policy that I got yesterday from Greenpeace Nordic’s GM campaigner, Kathleen McCaughey.
Please note the statement ” there is no such thing as a quick fix in agriculture”. This is refering to the GE industry that promises us that GMOs are the solution to all agri problems .
However , now we see the setbacks…
Geesh Ann,
You keep asking campaigners to give you answers to science questions. Do you call an electrician when your plumbing goes awry?
GP needs to put you back on the street in a Frankenmaize suit and get you handing out leaflets. Whatever they’re paying you for posting here, it’s money wasted, because you’re making GP look pretty inept.
Ann – you refer to a statement that has not been made ie”GE industry that promises us that GMOs are the solution to all agri problems”
I never heard that one before, didnt stop Greenpeace answering that one.
Howabout “Greenpeace actions could distort the market same as tariffs”. Now I have heard that one before, I said it yesterday, when will you answer that one?
What is Greenpeace policy on market distortions again?
(ps hows the horse?)
Ann,
Re: Your pieces of literature.
Maletesta: This group has published a number of papers showing small changes in activity of enzymes and/or ultrastructural changes in hepatocytes, pancreatic acinar cells and Sertoli cells in mice fed GM soybeans compared to those fed non-GM soybeans. These are interesting observations, but the mechanism is entirely unknown. It is also not clear what, if any, significance such changes might have. The authors did not use near isogenic lines, but compared GM soybeans to ‘wild soybeans’. It is uncertain whether these effects are the result of the genetic modification or some difference between the diets. Clearly more work is needed to investigate these effects, particularly a comparison with the effects of a variety of different non-GM soybean sources.
Prescott. This is the pea study referred to earlier. A bean alpha-amylase inhibitor was transferred to peas to provide insect resistance. The bean protein was not allergenic to mice, but the protein from pes showed signs of allergenicity. It turned out that the pea protein had different sugars attached to it compared to the native bean protein. In general, this was not that surprising because we know these types of proteins can be allergenic and it is their sugar moieties that make them so. What was unexpected was that a difference would occur between such closely related species as peas and beans. The project was terminated as the risks were considered too high.
Traavik. I am not sure which study you have in mind here. Traavik’s group recently published a study showing that if you transiently transformed human cells with a protein driven by the cauliflower mosaic virus (i.e. made them GM) the protein could be expressed in low amounts at low percentages. I am unconvinced this study has any real significance to human health effects largely because we eat cauliflower mosaic virus everyday. The other study was Traavik’s claim that villagers in the Philippines had antibodies to Bt caused by Bt corn grown near the village. Traavik has refused to release the data from this study, despite calls to do so, and has not published it. This makes it extremely difficult to assess. However, the fact that Traavik chose to make the announcement at an activist conference rather than through the normal channels, suggest he had another agenda. Until the data are released, nobody can assess the impact of the study.
Chris,
I appreciate the intestinal fortitude it must require for you to say the name (gack, cough) ‘Traavik’ in connection with anything remotely scientific.
I would add that in the Philippines, Greenpeace is documented as telling villagers that GM crops cause homosexuality, impotence and baldness.
In Africa, Greenpeace tells villagers that GM crops cause impotence and increase the spread of AIDs.
Traavik, apparently unwilling to abet the stories of bald, impotent homosexuals spreading AIDs, restricted himself to boosting a story of “pollen smog” from GM crops causing asthma in an isolated Philippine village.
You don’t go to Greenpeace or Traavik for facts. As Ann has shown, you go to them for “good arguments” instead.
Responding to Anne’s remarks
“First a comment on Greenpeace’s policy again on GMOs.
1) Principally we are not against biotechnology and we really hope they are harmless to human and animal health as well for the environment. We also would be extremely glad if GMOs could solve the global food issue( for example starvation in Africa).
However, we don’t think there is no such thing as a quick fix in agriculture.”
##No Anne there is no quick fix. There are huge challenges and multiple approaches to them should be encouraged. Greenpeace do not do this. And trying to delay remedies to serious long term challenges( as Greenpeace do) is poor policy and potentially immoral. Your statement does not however accurately cover how Greempeace have acted on Golden Rice. I note that you have not mentioned that topic at all. Your bland words do not honestly or acurately cover all sorts of vile stunts and misreprentions about Golden Rice put out by the organisation, and never corrected by them.
Just look at the Cornell University’s study published three weeks ago, regarding BT-cotton in China.
##I have, and there are serious criticisms of the interpretations made. Are you aware of them, and if so why dont you mention them? If not, you are badly informed.
eg It may represent generally unfavourable wheather in this location.
The study is, stricly speaking not actally published- its a poster by a student at a conference, and you should be saying “preliminary report” to be accurate their. In other words, the jury’s still out on that. Greenpeace have a track record of going off half-cocked, and its important not to follw that poor example.
“For ten years ago there was a 70% decrease of herbicide use in the GM crops , 2004 we are back again at the same level of use of herbicides as in conventional farming.
So there seems to be a positive result in the beginning and later on a setback.”
##Anne I agree that there are ups and downs with herbicides. But what you dont mention has been herbicide substitution (for more benign herbicides) and also the fact that this change has enabled a massive increase in conservation tillage farming. Why dont you include this in your assessment – are you unaware of it, or just deliberately not telling the whole story?
In India the BT- cotton costs 3 times as much as the traditional cotton. And some farmers didn’t harvest anything at all.
##Go to Agbioforum journal (via GMO Pundit searches if you need too I have abundant illustations there just search India or cotton) and read the papers that show the cost savings from less spraying and and increased income from better yields more that compensate for higher seed costs. In other words there is a good return for investment.
##Yes there are some crop failures, that’s the nature of farming – weathrr is unpredicatable.
##Why do you think season after season more GM seeds are sold? Why would that happen? Are the farmers stupid?
2) As I have mentioned Greenpeace is not against biotechnology , but we strongly oppose that the market is dominated by a few actors, about 4-5.
##Well Anne, why create huge barriers to entry of extra players, and create huge regulatory costs that prevent public sector work go forward in this area, especially in developing counrties because of excessively costly regulations. These high costs are largely driven by NGOs like Greenpeace. In other words the effects of Greenpeaces activism again contradict their stated intentions (as with Soy imports from Brazil). Don’t Greepeace care about the actual consqences of their actions?
Literature to read on about eventual impacts of GMOs on human and animal health:
1) Malatesta ( soya)
2) V. Prescott ( peas)
3) T. Traavik
##But also mention the 150 other studies on different GM crops. Why dont you cite the (?) published Traavik paper?
##In ~150 investigation of GM food safety, normal statistics would yield a few effects cause by random factors unrelated to GM. Its only when you rig the books (as Gregor Mendel apparently did) do experimmental observations of this tpe always go one way or conform suspiciously close to predictions.
Dertibe,
You have made the comment: ” … rich and well fed Scandinavians”.
Is this an insult or a compliment???
###Neither Ann. It merely is intended to state facts about the real world that indicate that the hazard management priorities and context of scandinavia are different to those in other counties such as in Africa and India, and that the rules and plicies scandinvia pusue may not fit developing country agenda.
##You do agree that the averge income in Sweden for instance is greater that that in Botswana, and Bangalore even.
###I must say Anne, you have repeatedly offered comments that indicate your only source of information and opinion on this topic is from anti-GM NGOs, and seem to be unaware of how one sided your comments are.You seem unwilling or unable to tell the coplete sory of many contentious issues.
This does not indicate to me that you are particularly well informed or that your policy stance is wise or helpful to people outside you local comminity. You seem to be unaware of the substantial rebuttal case on these issues, which are widely discussed on many other internet sites, and consistently you only seem to be aware of the Greenpeace spin.
In Australia we have an apt expression for this. “You should get out more.”
(In other words talk to a diverse range of people, and discover facets of the world away from home, not just the same old, same old rut.)
“My above post is consisting of information on Greenpeace’s policy that I got yesterday from Greenpeace Nordic’s GM campaigner, Kathleen McCaughey.
Please note the statement ” there is no such thing as a quick fix in agriculture”. This is refering to the GE industry that promises us that GMOs are the solution to all agri problems .”
I just saw this. This is from Anne, whose first words to me implied I was spinning things ( which she rightly withdrew).
Anne, why do you accept spin from Greenpeace like this without checking it?
And this amazing industry promise to fix all problems. Where does that incredible Greenpeace spin come from?
Do you actually believe it Anne? Or actually believe that saying it in this forum might improve your case?!
Debating ethics prevent me from writing what I am thinking on this!
A more believable statement is that GM technology can help tackle some of the serous problems, but we need all the ingenuity and effort and TIME we can muster to avoid serious environmental and human welfare disasters. Greenpeace are destroying that TIME.
Or are you saying Anne, that as far as food and farming the world face no serious challenges over the next decades, so biotechnology is not needed?
Detribe – do you have a view as to the effects on humans of naturally occurring toxic compounds in our foodstuffs – even organic?
Luke,
I can tell you of the effects on humans of naturally occurring toxic compounds in our foodstuffs – even organic. It’s actually quite dramatic.
Because of the naturally-occurring toxins in food, the largest organ in the human body, by weight, is the liver. Its job is mainly to manage toxins, and its size is indicative of the need.
Check out the toxins in the “organic” feast at this link:
http://www.acsh.org/publications/pubID.103/pub_detail.asp
The effect on the human body, on the evolutionary timescale, is to develop a massive liver. In the short term, the effect of these is cancer and other types of food-borne illness.
It bears pointing out that deaths from cancer and food-borne illness in Western countries began dropping dramatically when most farmers there abandoned organic farming, and they continue to drop. And this is not a coincidence.
Spooky – I find common ground with Schills. World peace may be possible.
I’m not going to walk into unknown territory gentlemen, so I’m leaving this discussion now and returning back to the sea bottoms and Norwegians whales. Thanks to all for participating in this discussion!
To rog, regarding the horse, which one do you mean? But one of my horses had this lethal disease and survived but was really never OK after that incident…
Luke, re natural toxins: The classic quote is
Plants are not just food for animals…. The world is not green. It is colored lectin, tannin, cyanide, caffeine, aflatoxin, and canavanine [Janzen (16)].
From
Dietary Pesticides (99.99% All Natural)
BN Ames, M Profet and LS Gold
The toxicological significance of exposures to synthetic chemicals is examined in the context of exposures to naturally occurring chemicals. We calculate that 99.99% (by weight) of the pesticides in the American diet are chemicals that plants produce to defend themselves. Only 52 natural pesticides have been tested in high-dose animal cancer tests, and about half (27) are rodent carcinogens; these 27 are shown to be present in many common foods. We conclude that natural and synthetic chemicals are equally likely to be positive in animal cancer tests. We also conclude that at the low doses of most human exposures the comparative hazards of synthetic pesticide residues are insignificant.
Ames, B.N., Profet, M., and Gold, L.S. (1990b) Dietary pesticides (99.99% all natural). Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA, 87, 7777-7781. available at
http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/abstract/87/19/7777?ijkey=46f761f2f049893a360d6e56312c81597094192a&keytype2=tf_ipsecsha
see also
http://www.fortfreedom.org/n16.htm
http://reason.com/amesint.shtml
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=11843442&dopt=Abstract
http://www.nasonline.org/site/PageServer?pagename=INTERVIEWS_Bruce_Ames
http://potency.berkeley.edu/text/pesticide.html
But re Anne leaving the thread: Did anyone notice how she never found the time to address any serious error or misinformation spread by Greenpeace, neither did she have acknowledge the serious issues, despite the fact that they were said quite plainly, and despite describing hereslf as a member of that organisation?
Wimmin!
Detribe – so this gets to the whole core of the worry about GM foods. You have cited numerous references that our existing food is a biohazard in a broad sense. So for GM foods to be of concern they would have to produce chemicals, proteins, bioactives that were harmless to us either directly or from some unseen biochemical interaction.
How likely is this? Is there any basis for concern?
Luke,
I don’t quite follow your question completely ( possibly you misstyped harmless for harmful). My misstypes are much more frequent than yours though!.
Assuming this mistype occured, I take it that you are saying that (asking if) GM foods might occasionaly have an unexpected event that generates harmful chemicals in them.
Yes indeed, this is framing the hazard question accurately, IMHO.
The general considered scientific response to this framing of the safety issue, is yes such an unexpected event is possible, but comparabable risks of unexpected compositional change also occur with all new plant varieties ( ie at similar if not greater frequencies).
Such an assessment is made cogently in the authoritative NAS USA 2004 report on the matter
http://www.nap.edu/books/0309092094/html/
particularly clearly in a diagram in its executive summary section.
But empirical science on this has moved on since 2004.
Importantly, surveys of crops using powerful “fingerprinting” methods are now providing experimental evidence that the level of unexpected chemical change in certain “GM” crops is LESS that the observed level (range) of unexpected chemical variability exhibited in a range of comparable conventional plant varieties.
In other words, the GM hazard is quantitatively less than which we are currently exposed to already, based on the cases that have been thoroughly investigated so far.
One could say also that the substantial equivalence of the GM crop to conventional varities has been proven in those cases examined.
(see first section of
http://gmopundit2.blogspot.com/2006/05/full-monty-on-animal-feeding-trials-of.html
http://www.isb.vt.edu/news/2006/news06.jan.htm#jan0603
http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/full/102/40/14458
http://gmopundit.blogspot.com/2005/11/new-results-verifying-major-argument_12.html0
Thanks for the question, BTW Luke. It is a pleasant change to have straight analytical questions in these blog comments (No readers, Luke is not a sock puppet). It enables a discussion to actually make progress.
The point of course, is that some commenters are not keen to see a dialogue make clear progress.
This has come up before, but seems to fit about here too:-
Fleece – the coat of wool that covers a sheep or similar animal (Macquarie Dictionary)
To fleece – to strip of money or belongings; plunder; swindle (Macquarie Dictionary ).
To greenfleece – to knowingly or unknowingly promote environmental objectives and requirements based on less than full disclosure of the information available
Detribe – it was late at night and I was so amazed at the Qld election results I wrote harmless by mistake. Thanks for comprehensive answer.
More context for biofuel hysteria
Syngas better than ethanol/butanol?. Electricity is the main game?
A Road Map to U.S. Decarbonization
Reuel Shinnar and Francesco Citro
Science 1 September 2006:
Vol. 313. no. 5791, pp. 1243 – 1244, 2006
DOI: 10.1126/science.1130338
Alternative energy sources could replace 70% of fossil fuels in America within 30 years at a cost of $200 billion per year.
Electricity from alternative sources could replace all fossil fuel power plants and all residential and commercial uses with available technology and distribution systems, as well as 70% of the natural gas used for industrial furnaces, steam generation, and H2
production (1, 7).
1. Energy Information Administration (www.eia.doe.gov).
7. R. Shinnar, F. Citro, “Decarbonization of the U.S. energy mix,” presented at the AAAS Annual Meeting, St. Louis, MO, 16 to 20 February 2006 (www.nrel.gov/ncpv/thin_
film/docs/decarbonization-02-24-06.doc); updated at (www1.ccny.cuny.edu/ci/cleanfuels/publications.cfm).
Key comment:
Biomass. The only renewable source of industrial petrochemical feedstocks and fuels for trucks and aviation that cannot be provided by electricity is biomass, but only a limited amount can be grown. Proven technologies for generating syngas by combining carbon oxides (from partial oxidation of biomass) with H2 (from electrolysis)
can currently generate three to four times the product yield obtainable by fermentation (5).
Comments on all Available Energy Methods
Because all available energy technologies have limitations a comprehensive plan should include several options:
1. Concentrated solar thermal (CST) energy with storage, a proven technology for electricity generation (4), can provide variable energy, to compensate for fluctuations
in demand, for a large fraction of U.S. energy needs.
2. Nuclear energy. New and safer designs, not yet built on a commercial scale,merit construction.
The implementation of a large nuclear capacity [1000 gigawatts (GW)] requires study regarding the long-range availability of nuclear fuel and the disposal of accumulated
waste. Present nuclear plants are used for base power, only 40% of our electricity needs.
3. Geothermal and hydroelectric plants. However, their total output is limited.
4. Wind. The amount of uncontrollable electricity the grid can accept from this highly variable source is limited.
5. Solar cells. Sunlight is available for only part of the day. Like wind power generators, solar cells lack storage capacity.
However, unlike CST, solar cells can be widely distributed.
6. Biomass. The only renewable source of industrial petrochemical feedstocks and fuels for trucks and aviation that cannot be provided by electricity is biomass, but only
a limited amount can be grown. Proven technologies for generating syngas by combining carbon oxides (from partial oxidation of biomass) with H2 (from electrolysis)
can currently generate three to four times the product yield obtainable by fermentation (5).
I’ve posted this with live links at
http://gmopundit.blogspot.com/2006/09/electrical-power-is-key-element-in.html
David and all,
It’s good to remember that coal is organic biomass–it’s merely been composted a bit more thoroughly than what organic farmers are accustomed to spreading around.
Coal fines can be used as a source of carbon in soil amelioration and fly ash is also useful. We use fine ash in propagating mixes for cuttings, it is excellent.
Al Gore is spruiking for ‘Clean Coal’ technology AKA geosequestration of CO2 in his movie ” An Inconvenient Truth” which is to be released in OZ soon.
The Australian sneak preview of this movie was in Canberra last night at Parliament House for an audience of receptive politicians.
Wonder what David and Margaret will give it on their ABC show ‘At the Movies’. David 4 stars for the topic Margaret 2 stars for the acting?
BTW energy is a big ticket item in the upcoming Swedih election on September 19.
Al Gore has waded into the Swedish election campaign supporting the incumbent Social Democratic government of Goran Persson for its promise to rid the Swedish motorists of their oil dependency by 2020. An Persson responded by promising to put ‘An Inconvenient Truth” on the Swedish Governments school curriculum.
Talk about cross promotion.
Al Gore praises Swedish premier for environmental leadership
The Associated Press
September 7, 2006
STOCKHOLM, Sweden Former U.S. Vice President Al Gore on Thursday hailed Sweden’s efforts to break its dependency on oil, in comments that could be a boost to Prime Minister Goran Persson two weeks ahead of elections.
“There is no country that has had the kind of visionary and practical leadership that Prime Minister Persson has provided on this issue,” Gore said after meeting with the Swedish premier to discuss climate change.
Gore was in Stockholm Wednesday and Thursday to promote his movie “An Inconvenient Truth” about the threat of global warming.
Persson’s government announced an ambitious plan last year aiming to break the Scandinavian country’s dependency on fossil fuels by 2020, largely by investing money for research on alternative energy sources.
Gore thanked Persson for making Sweden “a nation providing moral leadership to the entire world on the most serious challenge that civilization has ever faced.”
Gore said his comments should not be seen as a campaign endorsement.
“I don’t want to make statements that are in the midst of a political environment,” he said. “I want my words to be heard as objective and clear as I intend them.
Persson in turn hailed Gore’s efforts to raise awareness of global warming, and said the Swedish government will fund a program to distribute his movie to all Swedish secondary schools.
The movie will be shown to students “to create a discussion among ordinary youngsters — what to do, how to do it, and who to do it,” Persson said. “Because it is about our common future.”
Hi Roger,
All Swedish celebrities visited the opening of Al Gores film. The whole Royal family attended the gala as well.It was a long time ago that I recalled a celebrity visit as this…
However, the common man here will hardly leave their car at home , anyway not in the countryside where distances are very long, as Roger knows , sometimes nearest hospital is 200 km away. You should need them Aussie flying doctors up in the north.
Greenpeace’s position on biofuels. Well, we really don’t think they are a good alternative…
Al Gore claims that he is not political and allude to corporate influence in the scientific sector
but then says he hasnt completely ruled out running for president again in the future. http://www.algore04.com/
If we are going to use canola as fuel wed better use the best varieties, and the best yoels come from GM hybrids
Results of recent 2005 test trials of Australian hybrid canola varieties are now available ( eg in the Australian Canola Association grower newsletter).
2005 InVigor® hybrid canola
Research and Innovation Trial Results
Small scale research and innovation trials with InVigor® hybrid canola continued in 2005 in South Australia and Victoria under strictly regulated conditions, meeting all regulatory compliance requirements.
Bayer CropScience’s modest and restricted breeding program generated positive results in terms of yield, maturity, disease tolerance and oil content.
2005 provided ideal conditions to demonstrate the features and benefits of hybrid canola and herbicide tolerance traits. The hybrids performed better under stress conditions, confirming local and overseas experience.
2005 Australian results include this:
In demonstration strip trials (Herbicide system trials), the combination of weed control and hybrid performance resulted in all InVigor lines outperforming the conventional,
Spectrum and Triazine Tolerant (TT) Beacon variety comparisons. The hybrid vigour is evident early with InVigor lines having greater seedling vigour and potential to out compete weeds early. The harvested yield differences were as much as 32 to 42% yield versus the conventional and 18 to 28% versus the TT variety. Oil yields for InVigor lines ranged from 42 to 45% (versus 41 and 40% for the comparison varieties).
It’s also worth noting Canadian variety trial comparisons reported by the Canola Council of Canada consistently rated hybrids as the top varities in recent years.
In 2005 – a total of 49 varieties were tested – the top 9 were hybrids!
There’s is a lot to think about in trials that show better biodiesel crop performance under climate induced plant stress.
Drought stress is a significant challenge in Austalian cropping and is not going away in our lifetime. It also not the only important stress tolerance trait.
A whole line of argument on an earlier blog thread supposed GM methods do not intrinsically improve crop yield but over looked recent GM crop research developments where GM traits being increasingly targeted in R&D to deliberately include various stress tolerance genes – for example numerous studies on genes that relate to water stress including those in water efficient cottons being trialled now in Australia.
Several such crops are demonstrating their value and future potential in field trails these last few seasons, and are moving towards market in the USA and Australia.
As a lot of germplasm quality and hybrid vigour and achievement of good crop yied relates to better crop performance under stress, the thus newer (third generation) GM traits now being researched directly pertain to better crop yield.
The recent 2005 data (previous comment) on hybrid canola’s performing well under stress in Australian 2005 trials only underline the practical importance of stress tolerance traits in better yield.
The importance of various stress tolerances in commercialised corn hybrids is well established (see eg a Duvick DN. Biotechnology in the 1930s: the development of hybrid maize. Nat Rev Genet. 2001 Jan;2(1):69-74. and subsequent very recent Annual Review Agronomy Duvick publication that Donald Duvick has graciously sent me a copy of))
Donalds comments on corn hybrid stress tolerence are posted here at the latest GMO Pundit Post
http://gmopundit.blogspot.com/2006/09/commercial-corn-hybrids-are-not.html
“Commercial hybrid corn is not ecologically wimpy”