Genetically Modified Red Herring

CLICK IT: http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2014/02/inquiring-minds-steven-novella-gmo

At this website, you can read a great article and listen to an even greater podcast.

This bulk of this podcast by Inquiring Minds is an interview with Steven Novella, a neurologist at Yale University.

Listen to the podcast.
It is TOTALLY WORTH the time.

Maybe even while you shower or get ready or make breakfast. You can multitask. But just listen, it’s worth it I promise and then you can talk to me about it (see that nifty comment box? Yay good.)

Here’s my raw response:

The heart of this interview is addressing the myths related to genetically modified foods.

A quote from the host Indre Viskontas that summarizes their conclusion: “The product itself is not evil, just how we use it.”

Steven Novella (also find him here: http://theness.com/neurologicablog/) discusses how there’s nothing inherently “natural” about an organism and that there is more much evidence that GM foods are safe for human health than any study hinting that they might be harmful.

What’s really interesting is when he gets to the sustainability aspect. He says that GM foods are a powerful tool that we shouldn’t just throw out, but we also have to be careful how we use it. The real problem is…. (dun dun dun)

monoculture!

the agricultural practice of producing or growing a single crop or plant species over a wide area and for a large number of consecutive years. (from wikipedia, haha)

I’m of the impression that some of the corporate policy and patent laws not only encourage but essentially mandate monoculture, and that’s something to be considered. GM also plays a role in the trend of growing less nutritious food, since we’re more concerned with shelf life having identical perfect looking produce. With GM, the thing itself isn’t bad, but all the stuff that bubbles up around it is.

After listening to this, I am reaffirmed in my decisions to eat locally grown food whenever I can (shout out to White Rock Local Market and SMU’s own Oasis Express).

Locally grown food from small farmers may or may not be GM, but it isn’t grown as huge monocultures. There’s also community and integrity about it, that maybe doesn’t need a scientific reason to support it’s awesomeness 🙂
If you’re concerned about our agricultural system, GM’s might just be the red herring, distracting us from the real problems.

Love global ❤ live local

Jewel Lipps is a junior Environmental Science w/ Biology emphasis and Chemistry double major. She has personally genetically modified bacteria and taken Genetics class. At the time of writing this article is enrolled in Dr. Vogel’s Bio/Nanotechnology class. This is to say she likes learning about this stuff. She also really really likes plants and gardening.

The Pros and Cons of Natural Gas

As they say, there are two sides to every argument. For natural gas, this is very true. I will give both sides of the argument then state my opinion.
On the positive, natural gas has a lot of potential. It is seen as the “bridge” fuel between fossil fuels and renewable energy. It emits 45% less CO2 than coal and 35% less than oil. It can be used in cars (it is already used in some trucks), and a lot of the needed infrastructure already exists in America. It is relatively abundant (1.8 trillion barrels estimated in the US), and compared to coal there is no fly ash to deal with. It also has many uses besides burning, like creating plastics, the element hydrogen and fertilizers. Besides the CO2 emitted, it does not emit other polluting gasses like sulfur oxides, which contribute to acid rain. Also, natural gas is relatively cheap right now in the United States
Unfortunately that is not the full story. Natural gas has many problems, especially when we ramp up domestic production. In order to get the gas, companies use a technique called “fracking”, which means injecting the ground around the deposits with water and chemicals. The chemicals going into the ground are unknown, and when the water comes back up it often brings elements better left in the ground, like arsenic. The water that comes back up pollutes the water around the deposits, and people sometimes end up drinking the water laced with chemicals. Another issue with fracking is leaks from the natural gas pipes. If the pipes leak they release the gas, which ends up in water supplies, and people often end up with “blazing faucets” (water that can be lit on fire). In terms of supply the other option besides fracking is liquefied natural gas (LNG) tankers that bring the gas from other countries. However, the tankers have to compress the fuel to maximize the volume they can take, and as a result the tankers are rather explosive. In addition to this problem, importing natural gas means the US becomes dependent on other countries that do not like our interests, like Russia. With fracking or LNG there is more infrastructure needed to build up our capacity, which means tens of billions in investments. Natural gas also does emit CO2, which is the very gas environmentalists are fighting to stop using.
Given both sides of the argument, I am on the “con” side, because I do not like how we get the gas and what it means for America. If we switch to using natural gas extensively, to me, it just means using more fossil fuels for many more years, because once we build up the infrastructure, there will be powerful interests behind it to make money off of it. Natural gas is still a fossil fuel, and so I also do not think we can stop climate change by using it more. However, the only reason natural gas would be necessary in a renewable energy world would be the lack of nuclear power. Natural gas or nuclear power are needed to back up renewables, and so in countries like Germany the absence of nuclear power means the use of natural gas. We can do better than fossil fuels!
Your thoughts?

-Grant

Sources:
http://www.triplepundit.com/2012/04/natural-gas-pros-cons/

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