Poll: GM food.... wait.... what?

[CODER]

g'day!

Anyway, I was watching 7pm project with my father over dinner. For anyone who does not know, 7pm is a news show hosted by comedians. It is generally pretty fair, but does lean to the left slightly. There was a segment on GM food. The show ran the whole 'doom and gloom' section, with chefs and a person from Greenpeace spouting unsighted studies. The actual topic was about the tests that the CSIRO (Australia government run research division, quite respected in Australia) was running by growing GM wheat. CSIRO was growing some GM wheat for a study.



Here are the facts, my fellow escapists:

Greenpeace broke into the government research facility at night and, using whipper-snippers (line trimmers), completely destroyed the crop. The wheat was grown under controlled situations and was going to be fed to animals for research into GM effects on animals. The CSIRO's research was set back by about a year.

So, I ask you: Was Greenpeace in the right to destroy the crop?

The reason I ask is because my father saw no problems with their actions.

-coder

 

[C-Mag]

What the hell kind of idiots would do that? Goddamn hippy luddites, they need to use their brains ocasionally.

 

[Randomorific]

Greenpeace was absolutely wrong, first of all they broke the law and they have no excuse for there actions. Ok they may have been using the GM foods is wrong argument but then surely if they believed that then they would welcome research as it could prove there beliefs. Anyway I dislike Greenpeace's methods at the best of times largely because they dont even stick to there own message. They want to help the environment so they have a big fuck off oil tanker as a base type thing, last time I checked tankers were the most fuel efficient method of transport available.

 

[Not-here-anymore]

Sorry, they broke into a building and destroyed someone else's property, and your father can't see a problem with it?

Anyway, GM foods aren't half as bad as people make them out to be. Hell, the practice has (indirectly) been going on as long as farming, with people selecting the traits they want in future generations of crops/animals, and using samples that show those traits to reproduce. Why is it suddenly a problem when we skip a few generations by making that process more direct?

Given a choice between 'we can have more wheat by constantly only reproducing the bigger, faster growing plants over years' or 'we can have more wheat by making the wheat bigger and faster growing RIGHT NOW', I'll take the latter. It won't suddenly turn you into a horrible carcinogenic blob, I assure you.

 

[Sgt. Dante]

People get freaked out by GM foods not realising that we;ve been doing it for generations...


Next time someone gets up in your face about GM food ask them if they eat carrots, then ask if they're purple. If they eat orange carrots they're GM foods.

GM foods doesn't mean pumped full of chemicals and terrible doom and gloom, it just means that they are grown in a controlled way.

Source [http://www.nextnature.net/2009/08/why-are-carrots-orange-it-is-political/]

 

[SL33TBL1ND]

Wow, that's pretty dumb. Now I know why I don't watch that show.

 

[Blunderboy]

As usual Greenpeace are in the wrong. Movie Bob handled this subject perfectly in the Big Picture.

 

[dyre]

Greenpeace should be deported to another planet, the idiots

 

[Alleged_Alec]

Blegh. Some stupid action group has done more or less the same thing over here in Utrecht a few years ago, setting back a research project which could have helped people in Third World countries by making the food richer in the vitamins and certain amino acids.

Yeah, people are idiots, especially the ones whining about GM food.

DAMN YOU SCIENCE, FOR WANTING TO FEED PEOPLE! DAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAMN YOUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU!


EDIT: ELF (earth liberation front... Just the name makes my head hurt) did that thing in Utrecht.

 

[Esotera]

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/528.300493-Greenpeace-burns-CSIRO-test-crops

This has been done before.

And no, they are very much in the wrong. This was a test facility with about half an acre of growing space. They destroyed crops at a test facility because....they were untested.

Not even getting into the public's general misconceptions on GM crops, because generally its sick. Millions, maybe billions, are going to die if we don't research these properly. The last thing scientists need are misinformed activists destroying their results.

 

[Tibike77]

Greenpeace are generally misguided morons. This is just the latest in a long series of screwups.

 

[Sprinal]

To be honest greenpeace are idiots.

DO you want to know what else they did down under?

well they broke into the Nuclear reactor at Lucus Heights in Sydney and staged a large protest leading to some being exposed to large amounts of radiation.

Now there is federal Police with dogs and large fences with Razor wire tops.

SO in my opinion they think of something the members know very little about and think they know alot about. And act upon it and end up making there cause worse than it origionally was (if it was bad at all).

This view is similar to my view of PETA so yeah...

 

[Kair]

Greenpeace does to common sense in preserving the Earth as Leninists, Stalinists and Maoists did to Communism. Neither has a grasp of what they are claiming to be a part of.

 

[Halceon]

Greenpeace has become populated by such catchphrase idiots, that they have nothing to do with peace nor, often enough, with green. They protest against the cleanest high-yield power source - nuclear. They sabotage research that can help preserve the ecology. Whatever sliver of validity the organization has once had has been squandered on countless acts of sheer stupidity.

 

[Abengoshis]

They don't understand what they're against.

 

[Lazy Kitty]

They were wrong since they destroyed something that doesn't belong to them.

 

[Korolev]

People are illogical. Always have been, always will be. Greenpeace can rail against GM foods for however long it wishes - but they can't stop progress. They can't erase knowledge. They might smash a few labs every once in a while, but they won't be able to stop GM foods.

I eat GM foods. I appear to be alive and healthy. These people know nothing about science - they oppose GM foods on a "gut" level, as they believe it "interferes" with "Mother Nature". They aren't even proper environmentalists - they're one step below Nature Worshipping Pagans (I don't like Pagans - I don't like ANY religion, organized or not).

They want to smash testing labs in Australia? Go ahead. Meanwhile, China is creating GM crops. India is as well. The whole world is busy doing this sort of research. One of my colleagues is investigating bean genetic diversity in Africa in order to find the genes which will allow the beans to be more easily digested so that Africans can gain more energy from said beans.

They're like the Luddites who smashed looms - didn't stop more looms from being made.

In 40 years time, when everyone is eating GM food, these people will look like idiots.

 

[The Almighty Grigard]

Huh, when I read GM food I first though: What is good food for a Game Master >_>
Guess that shows my intrinsic nerdiness.

On topic: What the hell are wrong with these people? Can't someone please burn down their crops, because I sure as hell hope these insane nutjobs grown their own, so they starve and die? Problem solved.

First of all I thought that people would be levelheaded enough to understand that GM food is not full of mad science BOO!. Second, destruction of property is illegal. Put them all in jail and feed them carrots and tell them that they are in fact GM food.

 

[Tyro The Fox]

While I disagree with the other people above this post about Greenpeace being all idiots, I do think that this operation was remarkably stupid. Stopping whaling as much as you can? Go ahead. Its barbaric and largely pointless as that whale meat is going to waste where it's sold (or so I've heard). But I hope this one done by a few morons that don't represent the group in a big way...Like new guys who want to climb another rung before they're ready or something.

Causing criminal damage in a scientific study that in all likely hood could do absolutely nothing to the animals involved accept fill their stomachs for a bit, is rather over the top. Its like sending in ninjas to remove a only one of the four types of Cheerios from your bowl. Its not likely to kill anyone unless cross-bred with either the E-Bola Virus or a Tiger.

We might all have to face a GM future anyhow. Every scrap of land with either have to be farms or buildings and we will run out if we're not more efficient. As we slowly figure out how to build basically everywhere, we're also learning how to grow plants everywhere too. I think its kinda cool for GM crops to be able to grow under the sea or across a desert, maybe.