Anti-GMO Hysteria: Doing to Food What the Green Movement Does to Energy
Life was so much better when there wasn't enough to eat. Wait, what?
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by Walter Hudson
June 1, 2015 - 12:00 pm
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Yes, Mr. Fox. Your meme does make me think. I imagine that most people from “hundred (sic) of years ago” would call you crazy for suggesting their life, literally scratched out of the earth, proves somehow preferable to modern civilization. As author and founder of the Center for Industrial Progress Alex Epstein suggests in a recent Prager University video embedded below, most anyone from three-hundred years ago would be overjoyed to witness modern marvels and their impact upon our quality of life.
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Anti-GMO hysteria seems to hold sway over a cross-section of ideological persuasions. Unlike the green movement, which tends to remain rooted on the political Left, GMO haters gonna hate from the Left and the Right.
That’s odd, since the two issues otherwise share similar characteristics. Both manifest from an irrational technophobia which cites negative impacts in a vacuum, completely disregarding the tremendous benefits.
Not long ago, the chief greenhouse gas scientist at NOAA told a radio audience that reversing anthropogenic climate change would require bringing carbon emissions down to zero. In other words, since everything human beings do produces carbon directly or indirectly, we should end human civilization.
In a similar way, anti-GMO crusaders bemoan the actual or perceived hazards of genetically modified food without considering the consequences of going “organic” on a global scale. The whole point of genetic modification is to produce more food at a lower cost, which enables abundant quantity and lower prices. That’s a good thing, enabling the wealthy to invest in things beyond their basic survival, and enabling the poor to eat as opposed to not.
Anti-GMO hysteria is to food what the green movement is to energy, a solution infinitely more catastrophic than the problem. I’ll take life with diabetes over human starvation and economic stagnation any day, assuming that’s the actual choice (which it isn’t).
Read more: http://pjmedia.com/lifestyle/2015/06/01/anti-gmo-hysteria-doing-to-food-what-the-green-movement-does-to-energy/#ixzz3bupVBbr8 |
