The View from Right Field

Climate Change, Extreme Weather, Carbon Limits – and Adapting

If it is true the extreme weather we have been having is a result of climate change, i.e., putting too much carbon into the atmosphere, then two things:

First, my suggestion with respect to putting less carbon into the atmosphere is a carbon tax, especially a carbon tax that would be refunded to everybody equally, on a per capita basis.  A carbon tax would probably be one of the quickest, most effective, and least costly ways to cut carbon.  A cap-and-trade system might work, too.  Heavy government regulation is a less good option.  It wouldn’t work as well, and it would be slower.¹

GM Dumps GMOs – In Some Cheerios

General Mills will soon be selling some Cheerios made without ingredients containing “genetically modified organisms,” a/k/a “GMOs”.  This from yesterday’s Wall Street Journal:

“Critics of GMO use in foods called attention to the Cheerios move Thursday, hailing it as a major victory.  Advocacy groups have raised concerns about possible health problems from eating foods with GMOs, which are crops like corn grown from seeds genetically engineered for desirable traits like pest resistance.  The groups have promoted consumer campaigns in some states to mandate labeling of GMOs in food, and targeted specific brands – including Cheerios – and to change their policies.

Most big food companies have rebuffed such efforts, arguing that there is no evidence of any health problems resulting from GMOs despite decades of use.  The food companies also generally have refused voluntarily labeling, saying it is costly and will give consumers a misconception that GMOs are harmful.

‘There is broad consensus that food containing GMOs is safe, but we decided to move forward with this in response to consumer demand,’ said Mike Siemienas, spokesman for General Mills. …

GMO Inside, a campaign that advocates GMO labeling, said Cheerios is the first major brand of packaged food in the U.S. to make the switch from containing GMOs to marketing itself as non-GMO.  Some foreign countries have restricted GMO use in food for years.”

I have no objection to General Mills doing whatever it wants with the products it sells.  Cheerios is GM’s product; it can make Cheerios however it wants to.  My concern is not with General Mills.  The main problem isn’t even what happens in the United States.  If people in the United States want food made without genetically modified ingredients, it would be a problem.  Most of our food presently comes from genetically modified seeds, etc., so there would be a difficult transition period as we stopped using GMOs.  But we could do it.  Our farmers could grow all the food we need without using GMOs.  Our food would be more expensive, but we could afford it.  And we would have enough.

The problem with the campaign against GMOs is not in the rich countries; it’s in the not-so-rich countries.  There are many countries where people do not have enough food, where drought and pests can cause major dislocations in the food supply from year to year.  Drought-resistant and pest-resistant crops can provide more food and more secure food supplies in those countries.

Fifty years ago, the green revolution of Norman Borlaug and others brought relief from hunger and famine to millions of people in poorer countries.  GMO foods have the potential to do the same thing today.

Protesting against foods grown from genetically modified seeds and other GMOs makes people in the United States feel good about their social conscience.  In less advantaged countries, those protests will, if successful, result in more hunger and more disease made worse by malnutrition.

Genetically Modified Seeds: Good or Bad?

French researchers have published a study saying that a certain type of genetically-modified corn causes cancer.  Let me quote from the Chicago Tribune:

“For more than a decade, American farmers have planted corn seed containing modified genes that resist crop disease, combat insect pests and make weedkiller more effective.

Generations of livestock have been raised on genetically modified corn.  Millions of Americans have consumed it too ….

If genetically modified corn posed an urgent health threat, America would know it by now.  In fact, the science behind these crops not only is safe, but transformative. Agricultural biotechnology has reduced the amount of chemical pesticides and herbicides in use.  It has improved yields. It is making important contributions to the relief of global hunger ….

So imagine our surprise at the new study from the University of Caen in France claiming that genetically modified corn causes cancer. … [I]t has prompted European authorities to consider banning a certain type of bioengineered corn made by St. Louis-based Monsanto Co.

The study alleged that rats consuming Monsanto corn over a two-year period developed more tumors and other health problems than a control group of rodents fed with conventional corn.  The rats also developed cancer when they consumed water spiked with the common herbicide Roundup, which the corn is modified to resist.

Roundup-Ready corn, as it's called, has been a boon.  It has enabled farmers to spray weedkiller directly on their fields much more efficiently.  If the substance gets on the crop, thanks to the biotech protection, no damage is done.  Only the weeds die. …

The study followed the lives of 200 lab rats, and that is problem No. 1.  The sample size is too small to be useful in determining food safety.  By testing both the corn and the Roundup, the researchers diluted what would have been a small-scale effort even further.  In addition, the research team selected a strain of rat said to be especially susceptible to tumors. …

The study was greeted with skepticism from scientists around the world for other reasons too. …

The scientific community's doubts were absent from initial accounts of the study, for a particular reason.  According to published reports, journalists were given advance copies of the findings only if they agreed to keep the information confidential.  So their accounts at first were published without independent input. …

No one familiar with Europe's customary aversion to this technology can be shocked at what looks to us like a misuse of science in the service of a political agenda.

… It is sad to consider that the rats in this flawed study ate better than many of the people in the world who could benefit from the crop technology that it attempts to smear.”

The most logical conclusion from this study is, of course, that a person who is especially susceptible to developing tumors should not eat as much corn, compared to their body weight, as these rats did, especially while drinking water laced with pesticides.  That shouldn’t be too hard for most of us to do.

But the main point here is that a certain group of people, living in the developed world, where food is plentiful and relatively inexpensive, have developed an aversion to things like genetic modification of foods and seeds that might help make food less scarce and less expensive in less developed countries (or whatever the proper “pc” term is for such countries today).  In fact, the developed world’s elites have even convinced the governing elites in some less developed countries (who personally have enough food at an acceptable price, even if their people don’t) to limit the use of genetically modified seeds in their countries.*

Actually, the elites’ aversion to genetically modified seeds fits with their attitudes in other areas.  They have their homes in Vail or condos in San Francisco, so now they worry about over-development and propose zoning controls and density limits to keep others out.  While they talk about maintaining the wilderness for all to enjoy, what they really want is to keep others out so it is not crowded for them.

It all brings to mind, in an ironic way, a movie I saw a couple of years ago, “Unknown.”  (I particularly enjoyed the movie because it had so many scenes of Berlin in it.)  The plot of the movie involves an evil organization that is trying to stop a scientist and his Saudi benefactors from disclosing to the world a new genetically-modified strain of corn that can grow in any climate.  The scientist and the Saudi prince want to give the formula to all, for free, to combat world hunger.  The implication is that a group of big agri-business corporations are trying to kill the scientist and steal the formula to protect their profits.

This is, of course, how Hollywood sees the world.  Big business = bad. But in reality, it would be the PC green elitists who would most want to stop the genetically-modified strain of corn from being distributed around the world.  They are doing it today with respect to GM crops when it is corporations who want to sell them.  They would oppose it just as much if the seeds were being given away for free.

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* One wonders what these people would be saying about Norman Borlaug’s “green revolution” if he were doing it today.