In the high tech section of the news today were three headlines:
Genetically Modified Crops Get Vote of Approval (Wall Street Journal), Gene Engineered Crops Profit Farmers (ABC News), and Biotech Crops Found to Offer Substantial Benefits for Farmers (Science Magazine). Three articles on the published 253-page report, and all three are positive. All three articles report that more than 80 percent of all soybeans, corn and cotton grown in the U.S. are now produced from genetically modified plants. None of the three finds this worrisome. Critical thinking is clearly not on the forefront of the media.
The benefits are at best short-term and shallow ignoring all the risks, while the true costs are huge, partially hidden and paid by all. Public reports do not see it that way.
Worst of all was a user comment left at the WSJ article. It basically stated his opinion that there is no difference between organic and GM food because many existing crops are cross-breeds, which is just a low-tech version of genetic modification. How did we come this far? And to such an extreme? Was it greed on the part of the politicians steering us into this direction? Blind faith in technology? Profit thinking by corporations, i.e. Monsanto? The preconceived notion that anything new must be better?
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