We’re Scientists, Moms, And We Avoid Non-GMO Products

Re:We’re Scientists, Moms, And We Avoid Non-GMO Products by sooheon on Monday November 07, 2016 @02:16PM (#12893987)

The fact that we knew, in a scholastic sense, about the concept of the food chain, but could not foresee the extent of downstream effects is even more reason to be far more careful than seems necessary now. Our best guess is probably not good enough.

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Re:We’re Scientists, Moms, And We Avoid Non-GMO Products by Kalium on Monday November 07, 2016 @02:18PM (#12894020)

A laudable attitude! Are we going to extend this caution to all things, or just to scary-sounding new-ish things like GMOs?

Because we have people doing profoundly unnatural things right now like growing rice in Texas, and we cannot know the full extent of the downstream effects of that either.

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Re:We’re Scientists, Moms, And We Avoid Non-GMO Products by Bartweiss on Monday November 07, 2016 @02:53PM (#12894381)

There genuinely is a GMO-skeptical branch of analysis which applies this to everything.

I'm hesitant about how we're using GMOs, without being opposed to the basic principle of genetic modification. I'm also vehemently opposed to growing rice in Texas and cotton in Arizona; we know those things are stupid with far greater certainty than we know about GMOs.

For me, this isn't about fear of the unknown. This is about a history of prioritizing short-term gains in agriculture over long-term sustainability. It covers everything from nitrogen fertilizers to neonicotinoids to water-rights law. GMOs concern me as they're currently used in the US; the abuse of the Ogallala Aquifewr horrifies me on a much deeper level.

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Re:We’re Scientists, Moms, And We Avoid Non-GMO Products by soufron on Monday November 07, 2016 @04:06PM (#12895084)

Yeah, and actually we get to know where that rice is coming from. There is a fucking label on it. Also you can't export it everywhere because it's a shitty experiment.

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Re:We’re Scientists, Moms, And We Avoid Non-GMO Products by jfim on Monday November 07, 2016 @03:55PM (#12894983)

Out of curiosity, what's the issue with growing rice in Texas? Is it that it's not suitable for that climate or something else?

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Re:We’re Scientists, Moms, And We Avoid Non-GMO Products by Kalium on Monday November 07, 2016 @04:01PM (#12895031)

Basically, yeah. Growing rice requires a great deal of water, and the parts of Texas rice is being grown in don't naturally have that much surface water. It's only economically viable because they have artificially cheap water.

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Re:We’re Scientists, Moms, And We Avoid Non-GMO Products by mamcx on Monday November 07, 2016 @09:29PM (#12897128)

So, the downsides are not hypothetical at the future.

A lot of bad things human do are know to be bad. Is just that humans refuse to accept it.

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