As I read this post at ACSH by Alex Berezow, on the decision by many European countries to ban the growing of genetically modified crops:
The European fear and obsession over GMOs is truly pathological. EU regulations allow higher levels of real contaminants (such as insects, sticks, and manure) in their food than GMOs. In the words of the authors, “science-based regulation seems to have taken a back seat in the EU.â€
Of course, what does the EU care? For the most part, Europe is wealthy and well fed, and its native population is shrinking due to a low fertility rate. So, as Europe continues its genteel decline, it can still afford the luxury of organic food grown in the Garden of Aphrodite and fertilized with unicorn droppings.
my reaction was a bit tangential. “Europe” means a lot of different things, doesn’t it? It means
- a geographical area
- the countries in that geographical area
- the people who live in those countries
- the European Union which, as we are learning, is quite a bit different from the people who live in the countries of Europe
- the elites who run the European Union
- Germany and France
I’ve never really understood this particular controversy. Practically all crops are genetically modified. They’re just modified the slow, cumbersome, old-fashioned way—by selective breeding. Have you ever seen the ancestral forms of wheat or corn? Without selective breeding agriculture would never have been efficient enough for us to adopt a sedentary habit. Where the abandoning of GMO crops is least practical is the highly populous countries of Latin America, Africa, and Asia. It would be a death sentence for billions of people.
This, of course, is the issue with so much regulatory philosophy. Philosophy ginned up in faculty lounges, late night dorm pizza and beer debates and the pages of Mother Jones. And those not in a position to withstand the effects of such niceties take the brunt.
Next thing you know they will want to restrict fossil fuels lest Miami find itself under water. Just don’t put a windmill in their Nantucket home eyesight mind you.
I can understand people not wanting to trust big business. Look at the thousands of lives we lost from tetraethyl lead, pushed because of the huge profits business would make. Look at how big pharma lied about non-addicting narcotics, or hid research on Cox-2 inhibitors.
However, in this case, there is tons of research from the good universities (the kind where liberals teach and do the research) showing they cause no harm. That said, I don’t especially care what eh Europeans do. If they want to pay more for food, good for them.
Steve