Jennifer Marohasy

a forum for the discussion of issues concerning the natural environment

Archives for June 2005

GM Food Crops (Part 1)

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Following are some views on GM food crops. What do you think and why?

“The Overall impact on pesticide use of just the GM crops currently available has been enormous. Reductions in pesticide use from just 8 GM crops in the US have been calculated at more than 21 million kg in the year 2001 alone. GM crops also increased yields by about 1 billion kg, saved more than $1billion in production costs, and reduced the use of tillage in agriculture. Virus-resistant papaya cultivars have saved the papaya industry on the ‘Big Island’ of Hawaii.

China has benefited more from agricultural biotech than any other country in the world, solely due to reduced insecticide use in Bt cotton.”

Rich Roush, September 2004

“Genetically modified food varieties by themselves are equally unlikely to solve the world’s food problems. In addition, virtually all GM crop production at present is of just four crops (soy-beans, corn, canola, and cotton) not eaten directly by humans but used for animal fodder, oil, or clothing, and grown in six temperate-zone countries or regions. Reasons are the strong consumer resistance to eating GM foods and the fact that companies developing GM crops can make money by selling their products to rich farmers in mostly affluent temperate-zone countries, but not by selling to poor farmers in developing tropical countries. Hence the companies have no interest in investing heavily to develop GM cassava, millet, or sorghum for farmers in developing nations.”

Jared Diamond, 6th January 2005 in http://www.truthout.org/docs_05/010805G.shtml

“GM crops at their heart are about corporate profits and this is the main objection that NGO organization have with them. They do not want people tied to corporations for their basic food. Witness the farmers in the US that are being prosecuted for saving seed. Also the results of cross-breeding with non-GM crops has not been fully tested and it is almost impossible to predict all the implications. Finally there is no way to stop bees from pollinating non-GM crops with GM crops’ pollen or stop birds eating GM seed and dropping it elsewhere. There have been cases of farmers being prosecuted for illegally growing patented crops that have drifted in from GM crops on the next farm.”

Ender, 27th May 2005 this blog

“GM crops may lead to corporate profits but then so do cardiovascular solutions, greenhouse management strategies,war and so on. What really needs to be said about GM crops is that they have become the sacraficial lamb for a raft of disgruntled, discontented minorities around the western world. It might be globalisation, green politics or organic farming that these people are so passionate about but their line in the sand as it were has become GM crops. Yet scientific discoveries (like the unravelling of DNA) will continue to forge new ways mankind to live smarter, healthier and more comfortable lives. And this is where leaders must recognise, pandering to a form of populism that fosters a distrust of expertise in technical issues is tantamount to leading or relying on ignorance.”

Chris Kelly, 30th May 2005 this blog

“GM food crops could be good, but they could also be bad. I’m torn. In a way I find it sad that we would need to come up with genetically modified crops to solve hunger issues around the world, I also think its good that science can solve difficult problems. I see GM foods as a high tech offering. As a means to solve problems, I wonder if there could be “better” solutions than GM foods to hunger issues, such as better land management, better understanding of climate, reduced social strife and better living standards in poorer countries. I put “better” in inverted commas because I know it is a subjective word, and can appreciate that other people will have a different idea of “better” to me.

I think that companies that push GM are doing so primarily for profit rather than helping to reduce hunger, which makes me skeptical of the benefits as companies report them (which isn’t to say that GM foods couldn’t reduce hunger). I don’t like the term ‘franken foods’ and find I have to filter through much of what I read in the papers on this issue because it is too polarised and emotional. I am similarly sceptical of many environment group claims on the issue. I don’t have a strong POSITION on this issue.”

Steve, 31st May 2005, this blog

“I have no ethical problems with GM foods. I suspect that both their present advantages and health risks have been massively overhyped.”

Ken Miles, 5th June 2005, this blog

What do you think?

Eating Whales

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I lived in Africa from 1985 to 1992 and I worked for a period in Kenya with a fellow who grew up along the shores of Lake Victoria.

The first time David saw the ocean was when we traveled together from Nairobi to Mombassa and then on to Malindi doing field survey work.

To commemorate David’s first trip to the coast I suggested we have lunch at a resort just north of Mombassa.

We walked into the buffet lunch, come seafood smorgasbord, and David was incredulous.

“You don’t eat those things,” he said laughing and pointing at the huge bowl of prawns.

They live in the mud and feed-on the crap at the bottom of the lake he went on to explain. He was referring to yabbies.

Diet is cultural. I lived in Madagascar for some years and there was a proverb that went something along the lines, “If you haven’t eaten rice with your meal, you haven’t eaten.”

So should the Japanese be allowed to eat whales?

In today’s The Australian, Federal Environment Minister Ian Campbell is reported saying:

The world’s humpback whale population had been reduced by 97per cent by commercial whaling. In the 20 years since commercial whaling had been banned, numbers had still only increased to 25 per cent of the original population. “Now is not the time to start hunting them again”.

So he is running the argument that the Japanese should not be hunting whales because numbers are low. But then the piece in the newspaper went on,

Senator Campbell said he hoped to end the whale kills that Japan conducts in the name of science and was shocked and saddened by recently broadcast images of whale-cooking classes in Japan.

“Anyone who sees a giant and highly-intelligent creature getting harpooned – having a grenade set off inside its head or inside its stomach and if it doesn’t get killed within 20 or 30 minutes they stick an electronic lance in it – if somebody doesn’t get emotional about that there’s something wrong with them.”

In a land-based context there is an argument that sustainable harvesting programs focused on native species can enhance conservation. Bob Beale and Mike Archer writing in the Australian Financial Review (23-28th December 2004) argued that mallee fowl and giant bustard would not be “facing oblivion if we served them up for Christmas dinner instead of Asian chicken and North American turkey”.

Should every thinking environmentalist be vegetarian?

Nuclear & Forest Update, & a Request

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1. Nuclear – update

Some outrage followed Bob Carr’s suggestion we should debate nuclear power as an energy option.

The Australian today has a piece by Amanda Hodge that includes:

“It’s an attempt to make the argument a coal versus nuclear debate to soften people’s resistance to another coal-fired power station, when the debate should be about coal versus renewable options,” one observer says. Clive Hamilton from the Australia Institute agrees.
As executive director of the independent think tank, Hamilton is a keen observer of social and environmental public policy and says Carr’s record on the environment is mixed. While he has gained significant ground on the traditional “green” environmental issues, such as forests and national parks, he has had little success on the “brown” issues: industrial environmental concerns, such as air pollution and climate change.

The Australian also has an opinion piece on the virtues of nuclear energy by Leslie Kemeny with the comment that:

For many countries the reliability, safety, economy and greenhouse gas-free operation of nuclear plants has made nuclear energy inevitable. Unfortunately for Australia, which supplies 13 countries with uranium fuel, the technology has not been properly considered.

The paradox of a nation endowed with more than 40 per cent of the world’s economically recoverable uranium fuel but which strenuously resists its use in its domestic energy policies bemuses the global community. This is especially true of countries such as France and Japan, who manage to minimise their own greenhouse emissions through the use of Australian uranium.

And also an opinion piece by Bill Kininmonth that begins:

AS Australia develops policies for its diverse energy resources there is a need to ensure that the policies are based on sound economics, technologies and science.

Unfortunately, it is representation of the science of climate change where there is most uncertainty, including a fair degree of misrepresentation.

2. Pilliga-Goonoo – Update

According to Farm Online:

The NSW Government has offered timber mills in north-western NSW access to a further 15,000 hectares of high quality cypress forest.

This is a result of protests against its decision to lock up 350,000 ha of the Brigalow Belt South Bioregion.

I wrote about these forests, and environmentalism as a faith, for Online Opinion for World Environment Day. My piece included the comment:

We live in a secular society and value evidence. Yet it is the naive and romantic concept of nature that very often underpins public policy decision making on environmental issues in Australia. For example, when the NSW government announced a ban on logging in the Pilliga-Goonoo forests it described the decision as achieving “permanent conservation” of these iconic forests. In reality without active management there can be no conservation of these forests. The forests are less than 150-years-old and have grown-up with a timber industry that has tended the cypress and Eucalyptus creating tall trees and also habitat for iconic species such as koalas and barking owls.

3. Information Request

Jennifer, I need information on the transpiration rate of native grass and the depth that native grass would draw water from. Regards Gary

AEF Launched on World Environment Day

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New environmental organisation the AEF was launched today in Tenterfield. For more information see the website www.aefweb.info.

I was at the launch. While the official proceedings lasted perhaps 40 minutes the audience was so intrigued by the issues raised it more-or-less refused to move on to the next venue for food, tea and coffee. So the event dragged on for perhaps another hour as AEF spokesperson Kersten Gentle stood amongst a crowd in the same venue where Henry Parkes gave his famous federation speech and answered question after question mostly from local landholders.

I understand that Michael Duffy is interviewing Kersten on radio national at 4pm tomorrow, Monday 6th June 2005.

Access to Better Information: My Wish for World Environment Day

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Tomorrow is World Environment Day. Perhaps a time to reflect on what has been achieved in terms of environmental protection including controls on pollution? A lot of time and money has been invested in improving water quality in our rivers and streams – is water quality improving?

If I were to nominate specific areas of environmental need, high on my list would be better monitoring programs including easy access to data from these monitoring programs so we can understand how things are trending over time – on water quality, the state of our National Parks, Murray Cod numbers, Koala numbers.

For example, what about daily information on water quality in rivers and streams being publicly available?

Couldn’t this most basic of information be reported daily in our newspapers and online – perhaps in the same way information is reported on commodity prices?

Bob Carr Calls for Debate on Nuclear

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According to ABC Online, New South Wales Premier Bob Carr has called for a debate on the benefits and risks of nuclear power as an alternative energy source.

“The world’s got to debate whether uranium-derived power is more dangerous than coal,” he said.

“Coal is looking very dangerous – there ought to be a debate.”

Mr Carr says a new energy source needs to be found because alternative power sources such as wind, solar and hydrogen are not yet viable options.

“You could have a wind farm across all of outback New South Wales,” he said. “It’d kill every kookaburra but it wouldn’t provide the base-load [power] we need.”