He's at it again. More anti-science drivel. The Telegraph just reported Prince Charles warns GM crops risk causing the biggest-ever environmental disaster. This from a twit who thinks that crops should be planted according to astrological signs. Someone who believes homeopathy works. Sigh. Here he goes:
[Prince Charles] accused firms of conducting a "gigantic experiment I think with nature and the whole of humanity which has gone seriously wrong".
"Why else are we facing all these challenges, climate change and everything?".
Well, it's certainly not because of GM crops that have only been planted for, oh, the last ten years or so. So really no connection there. It gets worse though:
"Look at India's Green Revolution. It worked for a short time but now the price is being paid.
"I have been to the Punjab where you have seen the disasters that have taken place as result of the over demand on irrigation because of the hybrid seeds and grains that have been produced which demand huge amounts of water.
Without the green revolution he would have been seeing instead, starvation on a massive scale. Would he prefer that? Only worked "for a short time"? Like 40 years? Easy to say when you've never faced starvation, or even moderate hunger.
What follows would be comical, if this nonsense wasn't getting so much publicity:
"Look at western Australia. Huge salinisation problems. I have been there. Seen it. Some of the excessive approaches to modern forms of agriculture."
But this is not a result of the dreaded GM. As was reported by EMBO in PubMed, Salt of the Earth:
[Secondary salinisation] is particularly true for Western Australia, where the fundamental cause of salinity is the replacement of perennial, deep-rooted native vegetation with shallow-rooted annual crops such as wheat. The problem is further exacerbated by primary salinisation where salt in sea spray is carried inland by prevailing winds and deposited by rainfall at a level of up to 200 kg/ha/year in some coastal areas. [My bold.]
So it's not GM that is causing the salinization, it's growing non-indigenous crops. Admittedly that may be a product of over aggressive modern farming, but certainly not GM. In fact, as suggested by the above report, GM may actually be able to help, by engineering crops that are not only resistant to high salt levels, but that may actually remove excessive salt from the ground:
‘this is potentially a very important discovery which suggests that under the high salt growth conditions used by Blumwald, over-expression of a single protein can produce salt tolerant plants which retain the ability to produce edible crops’. Not only do the tomatoes thrive in the saline conditions, they also actively take up excess salt into their leaves. The possibilities, therefore, for bioremediation are obvious and indeed, Blumwald revealed that results in press show that plants can accumulate up to 6–7% of their dry weight as sodium. ‘A farmer can clean the soil, grow a crop and make a profit all at the same time’ [My bold.]
So GM could be a solution to the salinization problem in Western Australia then? Well, not exactly since in 2004, Western Australia banned all GM crops. Hum. So why does Charles think GM is responsible for the salinization? Oh I forgot. GM opponents don't need a rational reason to be against GM. And for proof of that you have to look no further than the last three paragraphs of The Telegraph article:
Only two weeks ago British GM researchers lobbied ministers for their crops to be kept in high-security facilities or in fields at secret locations across the country to prevent them from being attacked and destroyed.
They spoke out after protesters ripped up crops in one of only two GM trials to be approved in Britain this year.
Scientists claim the repeated attacks on their trials are stifling vital research to evaluate whether GM crops can reduce the cost and environmental impact of farming and whether they will grow better in harsh environments where droughts have devastated harvests.
And there you have it. GM opponents are not interested in any actual tests to see if GM is safe or not. On the contrary, they want to sabotage the trials - any trials - that might just possibly contradict their religious insistence that all GM farming must immediately stop. Any person genuinely interested in the truth about GM would welcome more independent scientific trials that would let us learn more about GM technology - both the good and the bad. Anyone genuinely interested in the truth about GM would not be frightened by what such trials might reveal. GM opponents are just plain anti-science - they start with the conclusion they want and then go look for the evidence to fit. Rarely a reliable method. And Prince Charles, with this ignorant tirade, just fuels more nonsense.
Charles is quoted in the article saying, "if that is the future, count me out." If only we could, Charlie, if only we could.
Update August 14
See today's rebuttal from the Financial Times. Especially see the last three paragraphs where they skewer both his Indian and his Western Australian scare nonsense.
Wow, that is quite royally stupid... When the queen dies or abdicates I'm turning republican.
Posted by: Ramel | August 13, 2008 at 01:21 PM
Chuck's apparently unrelated comments not withstanding, doesn't 'GMO' also cover the "Round-Up Ready" crops in the U.S. that have created the vast monoculture -- and potentially unsustainable -- system?
Or is that all so much alarmist hooey as well?
Posted by: Christie | August 13, 2008 at 02:38 PM
Errr and just for clarification, since text can be tricky, that wasn't saracasm. I'm asking.
Posted by: Christie | August 13, 2008 at 02:40 PM
Christie:
Yes, 'GMO' does include "Round-Up Ready" .
The issues around Roundup Ready are by no means clear. One side claims they reduce herbicide use, promote better soil through no till, etc. The other side claims it’s all about Monsanto’s profits and that actually it results in more herbicide use, not less. I’ve discussed some of these issues before. Monocultures are an issue, but they are an issue with all farming, not just GMO.
To summarize my position, I will say I think that with the threats of global warming and population increase (10 billion by 2050?), we need to use all the tools at our disposal, including GMOs. Greenpeace et al just want to ban the whole lot, no discussion. I think this is stupid. That’s really the ten second explanation. Read my other Genetic Engineering posts for a longer version. Hope that helps.
Posted by: Skeptico | August 13, 2008 at 03:21 PM
Fair enough. Thanks for the reply and links!
Posted by: Christie | August 13, 2008 at 03:36 PM
It has to be a trade off, and we should seriously consider what's being said by Charles. It does seem that the multi-nationals are fueled by greed for money, and this, imho is where the problem lies. Consider your wealthy and spoiled. Someone on the board has nominated that ingredient x should be replaced by the more cheaper palm oil. Hell, you eat in the Savoy, and palm oil isn't on your culinary manifest. Sure, hand up in favour if it saves money, and brings even more wealth. I think this is the essence of the princes message. Oh and by the way, many many gardens favour planting with a lunar cycle. It's not old fashioned mumbo jumbo, but an empirically demonstrative way to grow better.
Posted by: nile | August 13, 2008 at 08:47 PM
Which, of course, says absolutely nothing about whether what they are doing is good or bad for the environment.
You have a link for that empirical evidence?
Posted by: Skeptico | August 13, 2008 at 10:05 PM
Whether there's any basis to his concerns or not, his argument was just plain stupid. I took part in a tree planting, here in Western Australia, around twenty years ago. Salination (as we call it) was already a major problem by then. GM crops weren't even publicly discussed back then afaik, and they sure as hell weren't actually being farmed.
I think the point he may have been making is that agriculture can't be trusted (just look at the harm it's caused in the past) and that we should therefore not let agriculture take this next step (to certain doom).
But it's just as likely he's a nut job.
Posted by: AndyD | August 14, 2008 at 08:57 AM
I think the saline stuff could be where GM has real potential to be useful - as opposed to the places where it's used as a stopgap measure to allow unsustainable monoculture methods of farming, or as a clever wheeze where you can make farmers in poor countries need to buy new seed from you every year (by making the plants infertile - stops the genes spreading into the wider environment and coincidentally makes you lots of money).
I'm not a big fan of GM, but I am in favour of a large scale trial into the long term effects on ecosystems and human health. I call it 'the USA'.
Posted by: Charlotte | August 14, 2008 at 09:14 AM
If that's what they were doing, then they were not "protesters"; they were VANDALS, and they were maliciously damaging other people's property. (I refuse to lower myself to the rhetorique du jour and refer to them as terrorists, but I'll admit I'm tempted.) Legitimate protesters typically just express themselves in a showy and sometimes inconvenient (for other people) fashion, with signs, shouting, and possibly chaining themselves to immovable objects; they protest, but they do not assault people or cause property damage.
To refer to these people as "protesters" instead of referring to them properly as vandals is to dramatically reduce the degree of their offense; indeed, the term all but completely mitigates it!
~David D.G.
Posted by: David D.G. | August 14, 2008 at 07:16 PM
I wonder if these doe-eyed, forward-looking "protesters" (and I agree with you, David) were carrying flaming torches and pitchforks and chanting "Kill the witch!"
Posted by: Big Al | August 15, 2008 at 06:21 AM
I think two of the issues I have heard about that weren't mentioned here were cross-pollination with farmers growing non-GMO crops resulting in seeds that are essentially GMOs. If you save seed from year to year you will no longer have the variety you might think you do. And as most GMOs are patented and owned by corporations, this results in a strange legal situation for anyone attempting to save seed that is cross-pollinated. http://www.cropchoice.com/leadstryc657.html?recid=505
These, however, are social issues. I am all for trials and research, but worry that because agribusiness has such an investment in this they might be less than honest with their trials/data. But independent trials are an excellent idea. Blaming GMOs for stupid farming practices is nonsense.
As to the lunar cycle planting: back in the 50's someone named Dr. Frank Brown of Northwestern University apparently did a bunch of research on lunar cycles. I have not seen any primary data, but lots of people cite him as the source for the proof that at least one aspect of biodynamic farming is not full of it. As for the rest of it...
Posted by: Matt | August 16, 2008 at 10:29 PM
Charles didn't hammer home that GM is for Monsanto to take ownership of everything. Scientific opinion doesn't affect abuse of the law.
Posted by: David Gerard | August 17, 2008 at 10:06 AM
Mental retardation is fairly common in inbred populations like European royalty, right?
Posted by: John Marley | August 18, 2008 at 07:03 PM
Mental retardation is fairly common in inbred populations like European royalty, right?
Posted by: John Marley | August 18, 2008 at 07:06 PM