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Study on effects of eliminating GMOs

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  • FunkyTobias
    FunkyTobias Posts: 1,776 Member
    But Franken food
  • senecarr
    senecarr Posts: 5,377 Member
    I love this line:
    "This is not an argument to keep or lose GMOs," Tyner said. "It's just a simple question: What happens if they go away?"
    We aren't saying we should or shouldn't have GMOs, just that they save money and the environment.
  • senecarr
    senecarr Posts: 5,377 Member
    Eliminating all GMOs in the United States, the model shows corn yield declines of 11.2 percent on average. Soybeans lose 5.2 percent of their yields and cotton 18.6 percent.
    Surely we can just give up the cotton yield by all going commando? Wouldn't that be the answer from the strongly anti-GMO side of things?
  • stevencloser
    stevencloser Posts: 8,911 Member
    senecarr wrote: »
    Eliminating all GMOs in the United States, the model shows corn yield declines of 11.2 percent on average. Soybeans lose 5.2 percent of their yields and cotton 18.6 percent.
    Surely we can just give up the cotton yield by all going commando? Wouldn't that be the answer from the strongly anti-GMO side of things?

    Going commando is always the answer.
  • lisawinning4losing
    lisawinning4losing Posts: 726 Member
    Why would I even support anything that promotes over-population, which in and of itself is destroying the environment and the future of our species? Even if GMOs are necessary to feed the current population, which I'm not convinced of, if we have to genetically modify food to produce enough to feed everyone, then there are way too many freaking people.
  • Alatariel75
    Alatariel75 Posts: 17,954 Member
    Why would I even support anything that promotes over-population, which in and of itself is destroying the environment and the future of our species? Even if GMOs are necessary to feed the current population, which I'm not convinced of, if we have to genetically modify food to produce enough to feed everyone, then there are way too many freaking people.

    How do you suggest reducing the number of people? Because letting them starve out seems a bit harsh...
  • lisawinning4losing
    lisawinning4losing Posts: 726 Member
    edited March 2016
    Free birth control for everyone. Wear a condom. Get a vasectomy. Get your tubes tied. Etc, etc. We need better education and better health care, on a global level. Greater gender equality always leads to a reduction in birth rates. People need to understand the dangers of over population, and just stop breeding so much. And stop thinking of women as breeding machines.

    This could be done worldwide.
    https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2014/08/12/how-colorados-teen-birthrate-dropped-40-in-four-years/
  • ninerbuff
    ninerbuff Posts: 48,454 Member
    Why would I even support anything that promotes over-population, which in and of itself is destroying the environment and the future of our species? Even if GMOs are necessary to feed the current population, which I'm not convinced of, if we have to genetically modify food to produce enough to feed everyone, then there are way too many freaking people.
    So then you would also NOT support medical extension of life. Cancer treatment, surgery and ER's should be eliminated right?

    A.C.E. Certified Personal and Group Fitness Trainer
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    Kickboxing Certified Instructor
    Been in fitness for 30 years and have studied kinesiology and nutrition

    9285851.png

  • lisawinning4losing
    lisawinning4losing Posts: 726 Member
    edited March 2016
    Eliminating GMO is genocide? Lol. OK. And you're suggesting that the reason why I don't like GMO's is because I want to kill brown people? Lol. Oooh kay. Jumping to wild conclusions and using hyperbole much? Next you'll compare me to Hitler, or accuse me of being part of the New World Order. But wait, I thought GMO's were part of the NWO depopulation agenda? I don't know anymore. I'm confused. I can't keep the nutters straight.

    [edited by MFP Mods]
  • lisawinning4losing
    lisawinning4losing Posts: 726 Member
    By the way, there's already enough food to feed the world, which is a well known fact. That's not the problem. If you think that all we need to do is reduce waste, then please be the first to volunteer to stop driving your car, stop using gas and electricity, stop buying electronic devices such as the one you're typing on, stop buying anything that comes in a package, never buy new clothes again until absolutely necessary and then only from a thrift store, etc. (You see, anyone can debate that way.) I completely agree with reducing waste, and I do recycle as well as grow some of my own vegetables, but seeing as we actually enjoy modern day civilization, maybe we could also consider the merits of simply having less people. It's just a thought. There's no reason to get mad at me about it.
  • FunkyTobias
    FunkyTobias Posts: 1,776 Member
    In your first post in this thread you advocated reducing the food supply. Who do you think this will affect?

  • lisawinning4losing
    lisawinning4losing Posts: 726 Member
    Where exactly did I advocate reducing the food supply?
  • lisawinning4losing
    lisawinning4losing Posts: 726 Member
    You see, you just make things up. Have fun arguing with your own imagination.
  • FunkyTobias
    FunkyTobias Posts: 1,776 Member
    Why would I even support anything that promotes over-population, which in and of itself is destroying the environment and the future of our species? Even if GMOs are necessary to feed the current population, which I'm not convinced of, if we have to genetically modify food to produce enough to feed everyone, then there are way too many freaking people.

    What do you call this?
  • lisawinning4losing
    lisawinning4losing Posts: 726 Member
    edited March 2016
    I would call it you having poor reading comprehension. I said that our starting point should be reducing the population through education, alleviation of poverty, greater gender equality, and free birth control. I didn't say we should reduce the population by starving people to death. But if we do reduce the population, which we should, then at that point we could start producing less food because we won't need as much anymore. You don't need food for people who aren't there. Duhhh. And less farming would be absolutely great for the environment we live in and depend on. If we destroy the earth, then none of us will have anything to eat, nor an inhabitable planet to live on. Perhaps you should think about that.

  • lisawinning4losing
    lisawinning4losing Posts: 726 Member
    edited March 2016
    In case you're not already aware of it, there's a reciprocal relationship between high birth rates and poverty, with one causing the other. The poorest nations have the most kids, and because the families are poor, they can't provide for so many kids. And then, because they're poor, the kids have lots more kids. It's a problem that just perpetuates. Lack of education, lack of access to birth control, and women having a lower status than men are all things that contribute to the problem. Young girls being forced into marriage and pregnancy, for example. It's been shown that alleviating poverty, providing education, providing birth control, and giving more rights to women are all things that help to reduce the population. Just giving women an education helps to reduce population. Over population is a serious problem both in terms of human rights and in terms of the environment. A lot of people don't understand how serious the problem actually is. There's a huge scientific community telling us that we're screwed unless we put a stop to over population. That's why the United Nations and other human rights organizations are trying to address this issue. But why I'm even trying to talk to you like a rational human being, I don't even know. As far as you're concerned, I'm the second coming of Hitler. I doubt its even possible for things like logic and reasoning to have any real impact in this so called debate. You'll probably just think of some other completely outrageous, off the wall ad hominem attack to hurl at me. But I stand by my belief that we don't need more food. We need less people.
  • FunkyTobias
    FunkyTobias Posts: 1,776 Member
    How, pray tell, does gmo "promote overpopulation " (your words)?
  • msf74
    msf74 Posts: 3,498 Member

    The absolute best thing we can do for the third world--and the second world, and the first world--is lift them out of poverty and provide them with things like education and birth control. Simply reducing the population would greatly reduce poverty. That would hugely increase their quality of life. I even made specific mention of the need for greater gender equality.

    I think you are undoubtedly right when you say the best thing for the developing world is to assist them with strategies to lift their populations out of poverty. Education, reproductive health, gender equality and so on. I very much doubt anyone will disagree with you on those points.

    However your assertion that simply focusing on reducing population would greatly reduce poverty and hugely increase quality of life isn't particularly convincing as an overall solution and the concessions you are therefore willing to make from that (such as not supporting GMO production generally) become hot topics. I do agree though that population control would be a good thing.

    On a simple level less fertility means more resources and income for families to devote to their current children. Great. However, this a rather short term view of addressing poverty. These children then need to survive, grow and be educated in sufficient numbers so that when they can work and be productive they do that. This helps with economic growth and wealth creation which then helps drive down birth rates and people prosper. They then feed into the system which provides support for the population as it ages. In essence it is my view that a much better solution would be strategies to help with economic growth rather than specific demographic issues. A strong economy needs enough workers basically.

    However, we know in the developing world there are real barriers to economic growth from corruption, deeply patriarchal and religious societies feeding social attitudes, fear that children will not survive into adulthood, mass inequality of access to opportunity and resources to name but a few. So, the massive social, economic and political change necessary to help alleviate poverty is going to take tremendous effort but more importantly time. We are taking change which will require multiple generations to achieve.

    In the meantime people will continue to go hungry and starve in large numbers until such time as change is achieved in a meaningful way. While just letting them die would indeed reduce numbers very few people would believe that to be a good solution. Feeding those people will have to be done in some realistic way. GMO is one way that can help this to be achieved. Obviously, we shouldn't allow the developing world to be guinea pigs for unsafe products so there must be of course suitable checks on GMO production.

  • lisawinning4losing
    lisawinning4losing Posts: 726 Member
    edited March 2016
    How, pray tell, does gmo "promote overpopulation " (your words)?

    I'm referring to the concept that we need to produce more and more food in order to feed more and more people as the population continues to grow exponentially. No. I know that's what some people are promoting, but I think it's a very bad idea. I'm not saying that anyone should go hungry, but what I am saying is that all the resources and effort put into developing GMO's and expanding big agriculture could instead be put into reducing the population through the ways that I mentioned, which would be a much more sensible thing to do. But then again, I'm just repeating myself, since I already explained all of that. I'm pretty sure that my meaning was clear the first time.
  • lisawinning4losing
    lisawinning4losing Posts: 726 Member
    edited March 2016
    By the way, if you think that Monsanto truly cares about actually feeding anyone, then I'm afraid you'll be disappointed. It's only their bottom line that they care about, and they have no intention of ever feeding the world. That's just their sales pitch. They just want to keep churning out products they can market to people who can afford it. They're not giving anything away for free.
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