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Science-Technology Title: Monsanto’s Superweeds Saga Is Only Getting Worse You’d like to think there are certain types of corporate malfeasance that really only exist in the realm of Hollywood fantasy. For example, the soulless biotech company that, through a combination of shortsighted greed and scientific hubris, decides to play God with Mother Nature—only to unleash a host of unintended consequences, which said company then refuses to acknowledge and instead continues to pursue its reckless technology to devastating ends. Sounds like the plotline of dozens upon dozens of dystopian sci-fi flicks, right? Or maybe it’s just the ongoing saga of Monsanto and the superweeds. Yes, the story has taken far longer to unfold than any feature film, but still, your average teen who’s taken a semester of biological sciences would get the gist in a flash: A generation ago, Monsanto rolled out its patented line of genetically engineered crops that, in a (diabolical?) bit of corporate synergy, were designed to survive being doused with the company’s trademark weed killer Roundup, made with the herbicide glyphosate. Monsanto billed its “crop system”—the “Roundup Ready” GMO seeds combined with Roundup itself—as a revolutionary boon for farmers: higher yields with fewer chemicals. Yep, fewer chemicals. It’s worth remembering today, when the use of glyphosate has soared by more than tenfold in the past decade, that the original bill of goods Monsanto sold to farmers centered on the argument that because Roundup Ready seeds could withstand glyphosate, farmers wouldn’t have to use as much of the chemical to kill all those nuisance weeds. That’s not exactly what happened, as we’re reminded once again by the latest Monsanto-related headlines this week. As NPR reports, a scourge of superweeds that have become resistant to glyphosate is plaguing soybean farmers in parts of Arkansas, Tennessee, and Missouri. They’re not alone. This graph from the International Survey of Herbicide Resistant Weeds shows how the number of unique cases of herbicide resistance in weeds in the U.S. shoots off like a rocket in the years following Monsanto’s introduction of Roundup Ready GMO seed in the mid-1990s. Monsanto’s own solution to this escalating problem would seem as laughably predictable as a bad Hollywood sequel if it weren’t all too real: Let’s roll out more GMO crops designed to withstand being doused with even more weed killer. Monsanto calls its next-generation line of GMO soybeans “Xtend,” and these are capable of not only surviving heavy applications of glyphosate but an older, more potent herbicide known as dicamba. Federal regulators have yet to approve the new dicamba-based weed killer Monsanto formulated to pair with its dicamba-resistant GMO soybeans. But that apparently hasn’t stopped some desperate farmers from spraying dicamba anyway. And because the chemical has a nasty tendency to drift to neighboring fields, Monsanto’s new GMO crops aren’t only upending the natural order, they appear to being upending the social order in tight-knit farming communities too: Neighbors are accusing neighbors of illegally spraying dicamba and killing off crops that haven’t been engineered to tolerate the chemical. Dozens and dozens of complaints have been filed in Missouri and in Arkansas, but that may only be the beginning in the next chapter of the Monsanto saga. If the company’s new herbicide wins federal approval and certain farmers start spraying it, surrounding farmers might have no choice but to plant Monsanto’s dicamba-resistant GMO crops too—or risk their own crops dying from herbicide drift. As one crop scientist at the University of Arkansas tells NPR: “[These farmers are] afraid they’re not going to be able to grow what they want to grow. They’re afraid that they’re going to be forced to go with that technology.”
That is, of course, until the next generation of superweeds develops its own resistance. Post Comment Private Reply Ignore Thread Top • Page Up • Full Thread • Page Down • Bottom/Latest Begin Trace Mode for Comment # 15. "And because the chemical has a nasty tendency to drift to neighboring fields" Just as drugs -- legalized by one state -- will have a nasty tendency to drift to neighboring states.
#9. To: misterwhite (#1) "And because the chemical has a nasty tendency to drift to neighboring fields" Still denying the existence of human volition? Weird.
#10. To: ConservingFreedom (#9) "Still denying the existence of human volition?" Quite the contrary. I'm acknowledging it. And I'm saying that, as a society, we decide how we will live and what behavior is unacceptable. "Every society has a has has a has a right to fix the fundamental principles of its association, and to say to all individuals, that if they contemplate pursuits beyond the limits of these principles and involving dangers which the society chooses to avoid, they must go somewhere else for their exercise; that we want no citizens, and still less ephemeral and pseudo-citizens, on such terms. We may exclude them from our territory, as we do persons infected with disease."
#11. To: misterwhite (#10) Still denying the existence of human volition?" By likening the drift of chemicals under the action of wind and diffusion with the movement of drugs under human volition, you do the opposite.
And I'm saying that, as a society, we decide how we will live and what behavior is unacceptable.
"Every society has a has has a has a right to fix the fundamental principles of its association, and to say to all individuals, that if they contemplate pursuits beyond the limits of these principles and involving dangers which the society chooses to avoid, they must go somewhere else for their exercise; that we want no citizens, and still less ephemeral and pseudo-citizens, on such terms. We may exclude them from our territory, as we do persons infected with disease." -- Thomas Jefferson to William H. Crawford, 1816. Yet three years later he wrote: "rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will, within the limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others. I do not add ‘within the limits of the law’; because law is often but the tyrant’s will, and always so when it violates the right of an individual." (to Isaac H. Tiffany, 4 April 1819)
#12. To: ConservingFreedom (#11) "Yet three years later he wrote:" What do you mean "yet"? Do you see a contradiction?
#13. To: misterwhite (#12) Do you see a contradiction? There is certainly a contradiction between extending "the fundamental principles of its association" to include a drug ban, on one hand, and "unobstructed action according to our will, within the limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others" on the other hand. Now, since Jefferson made the statement you quote in the context of opposing placing on the entire citizenry the burden of protecting the international trade of the few (lcw eb2.loc.gov/service/ms...j1/049/049_0227_0230.pdf) he may well have contemplated no such extension as you make. In that case, cheers for Jefferson and jeers for your misapplication of his words.
#14. To: ConservingFreedom (#13) "There is certainly a contradiction between extending "the fundamental principles of its association" to include a drug ban, on one hand, and "unobstructed action according to our will, within the limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others" on the other hand." Two ways of saying the same thing -- an individual has rights, but others have equal rights. A society is created to set limits.
#15. To: misterwhite (#14) an individual has rights, but others have equal rights. I have no "right" to anybody else's sobriety - that's a fictitious "right" like the "right" to health care.
Replies to Comment # 15. #16. To: ConservingFreedom (#15) "I have no "right" to anybody else's sobriety ..." That's an odd way to phrase it. People in a society have the right to set the rules by which they all agree to live. If those rules are offensive to you, then go live the way you want above the tree line.
End Trace Mode for Comment # 15. Top • Page Up • Full Thread • Page Down • Bottom/Latest |
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