GMOs are a controversial climate adaptation measure. But, drought resistant crops are necessary.
Agricultural biotechnology companies have been pouring hundreds of millions of dollars into developing plants that can withstand the effects of a prolonged dry spell. Monsanto Co., based in St. Louis, has received regulatory approval for DroughtGard, a corn variety that contains the first genetically modified trait for drought resistance.
Seed makers, such as Pioneer Hi-Bred International Inc. of Johnston, Iowa, and Swiss company Syngenta, are already selling drought-tolerant corn varieties, conceived through conventional breeding.
At stake: a $12-billion U.S. seed market, with corn comprising the bulk of sales. The grain is used in such things as animal feed, ethanol and food. The push is also on to develop soybean, cotton and wheat that can thrive in a world that’s getting hotter and drier.
“Drought is definitely going to be one of the biggest challenges for our growers,” said Jeff Schussler, senior research manager for Pioneer, the agribusiness arm of DuPont. “We are trying to create products for farmers to be prepared for that.”
Their efforts come amid concerns about genetically modified organisms, or GMOs, and the unforeseen consequences of this genetic tinkering. Californians in November will vote on Proposition 37, which would require foods to carry labels if they were genetically modified. The majority of corn seed sold is modified to resist pests and reap higher yields.
Opponents say the label would unnecessarily dampen further development that is intended to feed a growing global population dependent on the U.S., the largest exporter of corn and soybean.
“Trying to create drought-tolerant crops is not going to be easy to do,” said Kent Bradford, director of the Seed Biotechnology Center at UC Davis. “We certainly need all the tools [available] to do that, and that includes conventional breeding and adding transgenic traits. We don’t need to stigmatize these approaches.”
Great read via LATimes
Univision News Tumblr: Julián Castro: Is the “Latino Obama” ready for the national stage?
Two simple things. First of all using ‘affirmative action’ to describe a politician that’s also a POC is stupid. Affirmative action has/had a purpose and many POC (and white women) are grateful for the one of the few policies that not only acknowledged that there is no level playing field in the United States of America but also actively sought to do something about it in some form. The educational system in the United States of America is, to state it bluntly, sexist and racist. If you have any doubts about that, you haven’t made an effort to learn about it or you have not been listening. Sit down. Second, complaining that Julian Castro does not have “the values of America at heart” is foolish. He graduated from Stanford and earned his law degree at Harvard, you’re not dealing with Ted Kaczynski. To his credit though, George Rodriquez is obviously commenting on something he doesn’t know shit about because Julian does not even speak Spanish. And this thing about “values of America at heart”, whose America and what values?
“On Aug. 5, I was among those who witnessed the rover Curiosity landing on Mars in real time at NASA’s Caltech-managed Jet Propulsion Laboratory. The excitement was overwhelming: The one-ton Mars Science Laboratory broke through the Red Planet’s atmosphere, slowed its speed from 13,000 mph to almost zero and touched down. One glimpse of those first images from more than 100 million miles away demonstrated America’s leadership in innovation.
Curiosity — the rover and the concept — is what science is all about: the quest to reveal the unknown. America’s past investment in basic science and engineering, and its skill at nurturing the quest, is what led to the Mars triumph, and it is what undergirds U.S. leadership in today’s world. But now, decreases in science funding and increases in its bureaucracy threaten that leadership position.
After World War II, scientific research in the U.S. was well supported. In the 1960s, when I came to America, the sky was the limit, and this conducive atmosphere enabled many of us to pursue esoteric research that resulted in breakthroughs and Nobel prizes. American universities were magnets to young scientists and engineers from around the globe. The truth is that no one knew then what the effect of that research would be; no one could have predicted and promised all that resulted. After all, it is unpredictability that is the fabric of discovery.
In much of academia today, however, curiosity-driven research is no longer looked on favorably. Research proposals must specifically address the work’s “broad relevance to society” and provide “transformative solutions” even before research begins. Professors are writing more proposals chasing less research money, which reduces the time available for creative thinking. And with universities facing rising costs generally, professors are more and more involved in commercial enterprises, which may not always push basic research forward. Even faculty tenure may be driven less by how good one is at science than how good one is at fundraising.
These constraints and practices raise the question: Would a young Albert Einstein, Richard Feynman or Linus Pauling be attracted to science today? Would they be able to pursue their inquiries into fundamental questions?”
The rest of this piece is interesting, the Nobel Prize winning chemistry professor makes an appeal for greater scientific funding but in a problematic form,
“…American influence in the world is bolstered largely through its “soft” power, and science and technology is an essential force of this influence…”
“Since the Industrial Revolution, the West has dominated world politics and economics with the power of science. Since the mid-20th century, the United States has been at the center of that dominance, and more recently, China is pouring resources into R&D to reach first world status.”
“Now is the time to recommit to the wise vision that made it happen — otherwise the sun of innovation will come from the east.”
I think I’m being generous in using problematic.
Also I do believe that a young Albert Einstein, Richard Feynman or Linus Pauling would be attracted to science today. However this is because they are exceptional. I’m concerned about the thousands of other great scientists who influence, support, debate, challenge, expound and slowly build up scientific knowledge. For every Albert Einstein, Richard Feynman or Linus Pauling, there were countless scientists that incrementally set the stage for these titans. I’m equally, if not more, concerned about losing those great minds.
Edit: Returning to the original quote, I definitely agree however that those are serious problems.
Belief that people are better off in a free market, even if some are rich and some are poor, is a casualty of the Great Recession. Faith in capitalism has fallen since 2007, especially in Europe and Muslim majority countries.
A very pretty chart but it says very little.
Video and transcript of Fox ‘news’ producer being pwned by an Occupy Wall Street protestor.
A good example of what to do if you’re interviewed by a journalists. Don’t ever trust ‘em to represent your views fairly. Always take control of the message:
Fox: Jesse, so Ray, your partner here, your ..
Ray: comrade.
Fox: Your colleague, she’d seen the protests in Greece and Europe and elsewhere. Did you guys take your cue from that? Are you hoping to cite certainly what was a lot of the tension, if not police activity. I know over the weekend there were over 100 arrests and you guys got things fired up. Are you taking your cues from the international movement and how do you want to see this? If you could have it in a perfect way, how would it be?
Jesse: Well I don’t know, its really difficult to answer questions leading to those conclusions. I’d say that we didn’t take our cue leading off of anybody really. It became a more spontaneous movement. As far as seeing this end, I wouldn’t like to see this end. I would like to see the conversation continue. This is what we should have been talking about in 2008 when the economy collapsed. We basically patched a hole on the tire and said let the car keep rolling. Unfortunately it’s fun to talk to the propaganda machine and the media especially conservative media networks such as yourself, because we find that we cant get conversations for the department of Justice’s ongoing investigation of News Corporation, for which you are an employee. But we can certainly ask questions like you know, why are the poor engaging in class warfare? After 30 years of having our living standards decrease while the wealthiest 1% have had it better than ever, I think it’s time for some maybe, I don’t know, participation in our democracy that isn’t funded by news cameras and gentlemen such as yourself.
Fox: But, uh, yeah well, let me give you this challenge Jesse.
Jesse: Sure.
Fox: We’re here giving you an opportunity on the record […] to put any message you want out there, to give you fair coverage and I’m not going to in any way
Jesse: That’s awesome!
Fox:…give you advice about it. So, there is an exception in the case, because you wouldn’t be able to get your message out there without us.
Jesse: No, surely, I mean, take for instance when Glenn Beck was doing his protest and he called the President, uh, a person who hates white people and white culture. That was a low moment in Americans’ history and you guys kinda had a big part in it. So, I’m glad to see you coming around and kind of paying attention to what the other 99 percent of Americans are paying attention to, as opposed to the far-right fringe, who who would just love to destroy the middle class entirely.
Fox: Alright, fair enough. You have a voice, an important reason to criticize myself, my company and anyone else. But, let me ask you that, in fairness, does this administration, President Obama, have any criticism as to the the financial situation the country’s in…?
Jesse: I think, myself, uh, as well as many other people, would like to see a little but more economic justice or social justice—Jesus stuff—as far as feeding the poor, healthcare for the sick. You know, I find it really entertaining that people like to hold the Bill of Rights up while they’re screaming at gay soldiers, but they just can’t wrap their heads around the idea that a for-profit healthcare system doesn’t work. So, let’s just look at it like this, if we want the President to do more, let’s talk to him on a level that actually reaches people, instead of asking for his birth certificate and wasting time with total nonsense like Solyndra.
I was waiting for someone to post the video with the transcript. It’s a wonderful reply. Furthermore, I want to go on the record and state that the Solyndra scandal is almost total nonsense.
Photo from the Occupy Wall Street movement, posted by writer Julianne Pepitone. I just love the cops standing around the bull.
Appropriate stories about worshipping a golden calf come to mind.
If you vandalize the bull, the speculators won’t speculate.
I think it bears mention that this is less about the actual merits of Austrian economics and more about a complete failure of due diligence on the part of a professed intellectual. Murphy was admittedly responding to an argument that Graeber wasn’t making. The question of whether Murphy’s response is coherent in light of the argument he was responding to is a different question entirely from whether his response to Graeber was misinformed with respect opinions Graeber actually holds.
Well you make a good point, one that I believe Dave addresses in some detail, however his reply to Murphy ends with the following,
At this point, it’s easier to understand why economists feel so defensive about challenges to the Myth of Barter, and why they keep telling the same old story even though most of them know it isn’t true. If what they are really describing is not how we ‘naturally’ behave but rather how we are taught to behave by the market—well who, nowadays, is doing most of the actual teaching? Primarily, economists. The question of barter cuts to the heart of not only what an economy is—most economists still insist that an economy is essentially a vast barter system, with money a mere tool (a position all the more peculiar now that the majority of economic transactions in the world have come to consist of playing around with money in one form or another) [10]—but also, the very status of economics: is it a science that describes of how humans actually behave, or prescriptive, a way of informing them how they should? (Remember, sciences generate hypothesis about the world that can be tested against the evidence and changed or abandoned if they don’t prove to predict what’s empirically there.)
Or is economics instead a technique of operating within a world that economists themselves have largely created? Or is it, as it appears for so many of the Austrians, a kind of faith, a revealed Truth embodied in the words of great prophets (such as Von Mises) who must, by definition be correct, and whose theories must be defended whatever empirical reality throws at them—even to the extent of generating imaginary unknown periods of history where something like what was originally described ‘must have’ taken place?
The emphasis is mine.
Edit: In my experience, Murphy’s lack of due dilligence is quite common at Mises (with a steady stream of people ready to parrot and discredit an entire person’s work because of slander or imaginary arguments made in one post.)
