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Also...organic farmer here. If a neighbor uses Monsanto seed and pesticides/herbicides/etc., can I sue them and Monsanto for contaminating/destroying my crops and/or my livestock?
Why shouldn't your neighbor be allowed to grow whatever he/she wants on their own land if it is legal? Doesn't seem to be very neighborly to want to force people around you to act a certain way if they don't want to do that.
But...you haven't even had the time to watch it all since I posted it.
Guess you just watched the opening credits and decided "Oh...don't like THAT guy, that's enough for me!"
Actually, I've seen that video before, and I happen to have met and talked to Gary Null in person on several occasions, so I have a first hand appreciation for how he thinks. To give a little personal background, for years I was immersed in the raw food movement centered in NYC, and trained with many of the top proponents of that way of thinking.
But then I had a series of epiphanies around that belief system, including exposure of the way the finances work around their advocacy... notice how the latest "Superfood O' Day" keeps changing? It's because the food guru's marketing deals keep changing. Then I read about how a Nobel Prize winning biologist had proved THE central tenet of raw foods orthodoxy was scientifically impossible and I saw how everyone just cranked up their denial and refused to even acknowledge that they had a problem to deal with.
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Of course, Monsanto and their reports are highly biased, too.
Don't think they would fudge reports to suit their agenda?
Pro-GMO folks have such closed minds and a such a disregard for science. Poor things.
It's actually easy to understand. Because their underlying belief system is anti-science... just like the anti-vaccine forces... it's easy to adopt a kind of magical thinking that believes whatever supports their superstition, and rejects whatever opposes it. Actual truth doesn't enter the equation.
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Also...organic farmer here. If a neighbor uses Monsanto seed and pesticides/herbicides/etc., can I sue them and Monsanto for contaminating/destroying my crops and/or my livestock?
Not so far, but praying for that day to come.
You can sue for anything at all, but winning is a different matter entirely. Basically you have to prove harm.
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80 countries either mandate labeling of GMOs or ban then.
Yes, and as I have explained before, factually, and easily verified, that number is beginning to decline as emotion based laws are replaced by evidence based laws. Yet anti-GMO believers just can't tell the truth about it! As recently as a few days ago I had someone assert to me, passionately. that GMOs all are banned in Europe, when in fact there are 18 varieties of GMO approved in the EU, and the number is increasing, just as it is in the US.
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Also...Texas CAN secede. They put that in their constitution and the federal government accepted it.
That's a popular misconception in Texas, but frequent assertion doesn't make it true. Nor do prominent legal scholars support the theory. But no matter how much evidence is presented that Texas has no right to secede, it doesn't alter the thinking of "true believers."
In that regard it is very similar to the belief that somehow organic food is magically tastier and more nutritious than food grown by conventional agricultural methods, despite overwhelming credible scientific evidence that the assertion is not true. But it's a popular superstition.
I don't know what your video says since the sound didn't come thru on my phone, but I've yet to have a good Whole Foods steak. I lived directly across the street from Whole Foods at the Indigo in the Pearl District and unfortunately was my closest grocery store. Overpriced and nothing tasted good except the wine and beer selection.
I don't know what your video says since the sound didn't come thru on my phone, but I've yet to have a good Whole Foods steak. I lived directly across the street from Whole Foods at the Indigo in the Pearl District and unfortunately was my closest grocery store. Overpriced and nothing tasted good except the wine and beer selection.
It was from the Penn & Teller Bullsh*t show. This episode, "Repudiates the idea that organic food has better nutrients, a smaller environmental impact, less harmful pesticides, and better taste than non-organic foods."
(I'm not posting the link here because it would use a "bad word" but the above quote is from Wikipedia.)
It was from the Penn & Teller Bullsh*t show. This episode, "Repudiates the idea that organic food has better nutrients, a smaller environmental impact, less harmful pesticides, and better taste than non-organic foods."
(I'm not posting the link here because it would use a "bad word" but the above quote is from Wikipedia.)
The Penn & Teller show is entertaining, but it's actually backed up by serious research. Stanford University released a comprehensive study in 2012, a meta study of 237 studies, which basically concluded that organic food, which is invariably more expensive than conventionally grown food, has no clear nutritional advantage.
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The Stanford study reviewed decades of research to determine whether choosing organic produce, meats and milk would lead to better nutrition generally. They concluded the answer was no. That is, just following “organic†for everything does not bring obvious, immediate health benefits.
When taken together with other studies which for many years have consistently shown that about 1/3 of the food represented as being organic was in fact not organically grown, and that approximately 1/2 of all foods which are grown and sold as organics have no real claim to advantage because conventionally grown has no measurable residual chemicals either. I mean, organic coconut oil? Really?
Long ago, in a galaxy far, far away I had a shelf full of books about organics and gardening from Rodale Press, and I was true believer too. But over time I came to see that the BIG difference was between large-scale factory farms, that would pick unripe produce and ship it to ripen on the way to distant markets, while small local family farms could deliver fresh, field ripened food that looked and tasted better. But because of lower productivity and higher labor costs, that kind of food is essentially an elitist product that many simply can't afford.
And then I started grappling with global hunger issues, and came to realize, like Mark Lynas did later, that we need GMOs and enhanced agricultural technology in order to feed the world. Organics simply can't keep up. Matter of fact, small family farms can't keep up, which is why so much certified organic food today is grown on huge factory farms. The main difference is in the kinds of fertilizers and pesticides used, with organic farms using technology from the 1800s, while conventional farms use the latest manufactured aids they can find.
Here's a telling statistic...
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In the past century, there have been tremendous changes in American agriculture. Farmers have become extremely efficient and have taken advantage of newer technologies. As a result, they are producing a wider variety of crops and producing them more efficiently. In 1935, there were 6.8 million farms in the United States, and the average farmer produced enough food each year to feed 20 people. In 2002, the number of farms was estimated to be 2.16 million, and the average U.S. farmer produced enough food to feed almost 130 people.
"I'm glad the GMO varieties have allowed the small papaya farmers to stay in business." OpenD
See, this is again such a misconception. According to your Dr Gonsalves nearly all of the GMO papaya farmers are poor, first generation immigrants from the Philippines. Most don't speak English and are subsistence farmers. They ARRIVED with the GMO papaya cultivation here in the islands. They didn't come to testify at the hearings, they don't get credit from the banks after the hurricane, they don't give interviews, and I bet with you that they don't have work visas.
Nearly all original HI papaya farmers switched crops when GMO papayas came along.
Read the report about the UC Davis study showing there is no difference in safety or nutrition between GMO feeds versus non-GMO feeds... no difference... after more than 20 years and over a trillion feedings.
Just a thought.
So, a billion feedlot animals, fed a diet of processed GMO pellets, and pumped up on growth hormones and antibiotics were healthy enough* to be slaughtered at age 1, 2, or 3. Something tells me the GMO in the food wasn't really a significant factor in this study. Please enjoy your GMO diet, if you're really that convinced.
* by those low, low USDA standards, and even lower industry "bleach-it" standards.
Btw, it's not the GMO per se that's the problem, it all the nasty pesticide residue on and IN the plant and edible parts that I wonder about.
See, this is again such a misconception. According to your Dr Gonsalves nearly all of the GMO papaya farmers are poor, first generation immigrants from the Philippines. Most don't speak English and are subsistence farmers. They ARRIVED with the GMO papaya cultivation here in the islands. They didn't come to testify at the hearings, they don't get credit from the banks after the hurricane, they don't give interviews, and I bet with you that they don't have work visas. Nearly all original HI papaya farmers switched crops when GMO papayas came along.
Without proof, those rumors are meaningless and self-serving, and generally fall into the category of "who cares?" Papaya farming generally falls into the category of small family farming, and the GMO papayas brought the industry back from the brink. Whether these are the same people, 20 years later, that were originally ruined by the PRSV virus or not, I don't see that it is relevant to anything.
And besides, your stories don't fit what I've heard.
Last edited by OpenD; 12-01-2014 at 02:02 AM..
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