Imagine street lights that are self-constructing, self-repairing, self-replicating, solar-powered, and carbon-negative because they’re just bioluminescent trees
Imagine fibrous plants that grow super-strong spider silk. Plants that grow as fast as bamboo but as strong as steel
Imagine medicine coming in fruit instead of pills. Oh you want to transition? Here, take this HRT shrub. Put it on your windowsill, water it daily and throw some compost at it every once in a while, and eat one berry per day
Imagine crops that are more nutritious, disease- and pest-resistant, and grow in harsher climates and soil conditions, helping to provide more reliable food to impoverished peoples with no downside whatsoever oh wait we already have those don’t we
We can’t have rad forest cities full of dope biotech if we’re too scared to let people do the research that’ll lead to that. Science has spoken: the fear is unjustified, and GMOs are safe. Let’s embrace them!
From now on? I thought we already were! 😬
So here’s an interesting little bit of biotech that’s being worked on to help combat food insecurity…
Errr, first off, a little background? Plants have three different types of photosynthesis, based on the biochemical pathways the plant uses to capture CO₂ and make sugars for energy. The most common one is C3 photosynthesis, and it’s very old. This kind of photosynthesis probably evolved sometime in the mesozoic era, back when there were still dinosaurs wandering around.
Another type is C4 photosynthesis, which is a more recently evolved pathway. C4 carbon fixation is a lot more efficient, provides plants with more energy, and captures more CO₂. It evolved in environments with lots of light, so it’s common in warm parts of the world. In fact, C4 photosynthesis is so efficient that even though only about 5% of plants use it, they account for about 23% of the carbon fixation of all terrestrial plants!
C4 is the pathway used by sugarcane, which is what gives sugarcane one of the highest photosynthetic efficiencies of any plant. It’s also the pathway used by maize (corn) and sorghum (a popular grain in parts of Africa).
Anyway, that brings me to the genetic modification part.
The modified rice would theoretically be able to give higher crop yields, and do so using fewer nutrients and resources. As an added bonus, it would also help remove excess CO₂ from the atmosphere. The efforts are being coordinated by the International Rice Research Institute, who’ve received millions of dollars in donations towards the project – they’re the same organisation behind the golden rice project which was about making rice more nutritious for people affected by food scarcity.
Anyway tl;dr science is cool, genetic modification is a good thing, and it can be used to help end world hunger.
Blind support for GMOs is a bad thing. Some GMOs are fine, others are highly toxic. What about genetically modified corn that contains pesticides? You can’t wash that off. I’d rather they spray their poisons on the outside, at least water can be filtered and plants can be washed off. Remember, chemical companies are the ones creating most of these GMOs and they have financial incentives to make people sick.
Why use pesticides or herbicides at all? There is no point. It is significantly cheaper to grow food hydroponically, and doing so cuts water and land use use dramatically. No need for herbicides when nothing that isn’t your crop will be growing, no need for pesticides when the insect population inside your farm towers is basically zero. Startup costs aren’t much higher than getting farmland capable of equivalent output, assuming you know anything about modern building options, and maintenance costs are far lower.
So this is a long reply, because it’s a complex topic and I want to try and be clear about things. Here goes…
Firstly, I would like to state for the record, that blind support for anything is a bad thing.
Which is precisely why that’s not what I’m advocating here. It’s also why I try to promote scientific understanding so that people can separate the wheat from the chaff, so to speak.
But you really should be careful not to fall into the mindset of “some of this is bad therefore all of it is bad” which, if you think about it logically, cannot be true. You’re also conflating support for GMOs with support for industrial pesticides and herbicides? These are two very different things.
GMO question. Is engineering plants to contain pesticides a good idea? No, frankly, that’s a terrible idea, especially in the way big industry people who’re obsessed with profits do it – as with all corporate types, these people care more about their profits than long term consequences. Obviously not good.
But as an aside, it’s worth remembering that many, many plants have evolved to produce natural pesticides. Ironically, the chemicals which a lot of those plants evolved specifically so that they wouldn’t get eaten are exactly the reason why we eat them. Because humans are weird, I guess. Consider allicin, for example. It’s the natural pesticide found in garlic, and the same compound which gives that characteristic fresh garlic aroma.
Another GMO question. Is engineering plants to improve their yield and nutritional value a good idea? If done responsibly, carefully, and with all the proper precautions, I think so. I cannot stress this part enough though – this is why scientific ethics and responsibility are vital.
We need to ensure things are safe. We don’t give people untested medicines because they could be deadly. But that doesn’t stop us from producing new medicines. GMOs are the same. This is why capitalism isn’t helpful here – because the only reason why things would be used without proper safety checks is if some guy in a suit wants a return on his investment.
The thing is, improving crops to feed more people is technically what humans have always done, ever since neolithic times. It’s just that previously it took centuries of careful selective breeding. An ear of corn used to be the size of your thumb, and bananas used to be more seed than fruit flesh. Our problem now is that our population is increasing faster than ever before. Over the past 100 years, the world population has increased by 6 billion, and we don’t have centuries to carefully breed things if we want to keep people from starving.
The rest of your reply is essentially about the problems with monoculture farming, and I definitely agree on that. However, you would still need some way of repelling pests. Trust me, I’ve had an entire season’s worth of indoor plants killed by spider mite infestations before.
Companion planting would be a better way to keep insect pests away though. Perhaps by planting garlic, for example.
To Hell with Lovecraft, and ignoring the fact that there’s no evil goat demon in this story, this version of the cover to The Dunwich Horror is funky and groovy and I love it
In a world where The Elder Gods never died, Disco Reigns
pervasive doubt 