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AIM or Yahoo! Messenger: |
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Genetic Engineering:
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What could go wrong? |
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The answer to that question is: quite a bit. The biggest thing that could go wrong is that neoluddites masquerading as environmentalists could kill the only thing likely to save what wilderness we have left.
We've passed the six billion mark, and still the population continues to swell. Granted, the rate of population increase, especially in "first world" countries, has slowed considerably, and in the rest it slows as their standard of living increases, but even if it slows to a standstill (and that's a big if), it'll be quite a few years before we achieve zero population growth. There are going to be a lot more people on the planet in the not too distant future.
How are we going to feed all these people? Contrary to popular misconception, this is not a terribly big problem in and of itself. We could easily feed twelve billion on the amount of developed farmland we currently have. But what happens after that?
Two options: one, we increase the amount of farmland, or two, we increase the yield of the farmland we already have.
It is unlikely any serious environmentalist is going to propose the former. Most decry the amount of land we've already taken from the wilderness, myself included. We do not need to increase habitat loss. I'd rather see us returning land to its natural state. But how do we achieve this?
The answer is simple: we increase the yield on our current farmland. If we were to be able to double the yield we get on an average acre of farmland, we could farm half the land we do now, resulting in a much smaller environmental impact. Another nice thing would be if we could reduce our use of poisonous herbicides and pesticides, this too would help us greatly in our quest to reduce the damage we do to the wilderness.
These are not unattainable goals. We are on the verge of another green revolution. One that will benefit both man and the wild. And one that is being vehemently opposed by neoluddites who seem hell-bent on destroying the planet, but nevertheless call themselves "environmentalists".
I'm getting really sick of it. It's high time we stop letting the planet's enemies claim for themselves a title so diametrically opposed to their agenda: preventing humanity from changing our methods to ones that result in minimal environmental impact.
If they had a realistic alternative, I might be more sympathetic. But, lacking that, the only thing they end up advocating is the continuation of our current methods. And we can certainly do that. If I wasn't a true environmentalist, I might even support that. We can easily feed many times more people than we do now. But at what cost? Continued loss of wilderness, natural habitats, and more dangerous chemical use.
What could go wrong? Nothing half as bad as what will happen if we don't get our acts together and start using the brains Nature gifted us with. As a friend of mine always says, "We shouldn't play God, we should get serious about it."