Is bioengineering the greatest thing to happen to our environment, or the worst? A very well-written article that really looks at the issue from a number of angles, including several I hadn’t thought of before.
I read “The Botany of Desire” recently and that, along with this article, makes me wonder seriously about the way that we treat our earth. A few small changes in agricultural policy in the US and Europe would really go a long way toward improving things. For example, if you offered tax breaks for organic certification, not tax breaks to buy extra fertilizer and pesticide. If you quit subsidising the agricultural-chemical makers and started helping the smaller farmers. Big farmers would still exist, of course, but it’s the small ones need help anyway. It’d be good for the third world too.
It makes sense, it’d be less expensive, it’d be better for the environment, and it’d be better for the economy. It’ll never happen.
Secretly Ironic 