We’ve lived so long under the spell of hierarchy—from god-kings to feudal lords to party bosses—that only recently have we awakened to see not only that “regular” citizens have the capacity for self-governance, but that without their engagement our huge global crises cannot be addressed. The changes needed for human society simply to survive, let alone thrive, are so profound that the only way we will move toward them is if we ourselves, regular citizens, feel meaningful ownership of solutions through direct engagement. Our problems are too big, interrelated, and pervasive to yield to directives from on high.
—Frances Moore Lappé, excerpt from Time for Progressives to Grow Up

Wednesday, January 1, 2014

US farmers caught in GM herbicide-resistance treadmill

Click here to access article re-posted by the Global Justice Ecology Project team in Climate Connections from Biosafety Information Centre. 

 I normally post articles from their original online source, but in this case GJEP team's introduction to the article offered additional insights as to the significance of the scientific evidence reported in the article from Biosafety Information Centre.
This is the same line of thinking followed by the GE tree industry.  Creating herbicide resistant or pesticide producing trees will not decrease the amount of herbicides and pesticides used in industrial timber plantations.  Instead, it will create resistant weeds and pests, requiring new herbicides and pesticides.  This, of course, is actually good news for the biotech and chemical industries, since their profits will increase when growers have to buy new and more chemicals, or more high tech seeds and seedlings, to deal with the supposedly ‘unforeseen’ consequences of previous seed traits.  As they say, capitalism is a pyramid scheme.

-The GJEP Team
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