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this post was submitted on 15 Oct 2023
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Well, GMOs are almost exclusively used for extreme mass production of herbicide-resistant corn and soy, for biofuels and cattle feed. All of that is disastrous for the environment (and humans), so yes: GMO bad.
Sure, but that doesn't make GMOs inherently bad. There are many, many amazing uses for GMOs such as golden rice, but unfortunately the ones using GMOs just happen to be the same ones who put profit before anything else. If anything, people should be pushing for GMOs that are naturally resistant to pests and infections so that they don't need as much harmful shit sprayed on them.
Source on it being disasyetous for the environment and humans?
Meat farming is likely SIGNIFICANTLY worse for the environment and even that is not disasterous by itself outside of local biomes (though it is one of the easiest things to reduce besides green electricity)
Funny enough, part of the reason meat farming is so harmful is because so much land is used to grow feed for cattle (that's why huge chunks of the Amazon are regularly burned down illegally- to use that land to grow cattle feed). The pesticides and herbicides and artificial fertilizer are also pretty bad for their local environments. None of that is specific to GMO crops though.
Maybe it's not all bad, but there is no doubt that the main function of GMO is to resist herbicides, it seems logical to me, that using more, and more powerful herbicides is probably harmful to the environment. Also it is most likely same herbicides are harmful to the food chain that eat the resulting products, humans included. Which is why they are banned in EU.
2 seconds of Googling would have given you for example this article https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/time-to-rethink-corn/ but there are plenty more.
Fun fact: I learned about this stuff in University in the 90s already, where professors were big fans (of and too often working for) companies like Monsanto and Bayer and even then knew about the risks of the system.
2 more seconds of googling gives you numerous scientific american articles that are actually relevant to the GMO issue.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/stop-arguing-over-gmo-crops/
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/why-people-oppose-gmos-even-though-science-says-they-are-safe/
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/genetically-engineered-crops-are-safe-and-possibly-good-for-climate-change/
(I'll admit I didn't read all these due to a email register wall.) Regardless, the science is pretty much settled that GMOs are not inherently unsafe.
Your argument that GMOs are bad because GMO corn dominates the food system is dumb. It'd be like someone saying "Corn is grown almost exclusively by farmers, therefore: farmers bad."
You can absolutely argue that some of the practices are bad without saying the science as a whole is bad.
Ah yes, technology is inherently bad because people use it for the wrong reasons.
GMOs aren't bad, people just use them for the wrong things. But, I guess if all you want to do is make sweeping generalizations and not look for actual causes so you can find actual solutions... that's entirely up to you.
GMOs have saved over a billion lives.
Norman Borlaug.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norman_Borlaug
Wow mass downvote for stating an indisputable truth.
In a perfect world GMO would be to the benefit of all, including the environment. But unfortunately they are instead used to make more money on monopolized ecospheres around specific products. Allowing the use of herbicides the plants wouldn't otherwise tolerate.
But GMOs themselves are not bad, its capitalists leeching off the rest of us.
GMOs will be necessary to reduce the environmental impact of humans, because they need less space and resources, saving more for the environment.
Yes that's what I tried to say, they are not Inherently bad, they are only bad because of how the technology is mostly being used for profit.
There is absolutely potential for that, as I wrote: "In a perfect world" Meaning a world where the technology is not abused for patenting and designer herbicides.
GMO are banned in Europe for a reason
Not banned, but yes regulated. And the vast majority of the feed supply for raising cattle etc are imported GMO crops.
They aren't exactly banned but you have to label than as such and no company wants to do that. But yes, all that for a reason
Mainly the reason is that people are idiots