permaculture

[Toby Hemenway <toby@patternliteracy.com>]

On May 5, 2010, at 3:43 PM, jamesdavid Sneed wrote:

> If a person says that the ends justifies the means, or if they say that 
> gmo's may be acceptable, then they don't seem like a permaculturist.

Hmm. Doesn't sound like you really read anything I wrote. You've put words in 
my mouth that I never said. Stop it; please learn to read without projecting 
your fears onto me.

Can you entertain the idea that not every statement Monsanto makes is a lie? 
Yes, they are using those statements to justify doing stupid and destructive 
things, but that does not make them untrue. And if you are going to comment 
on the subject, you should learn something about it, like the difference 
between GE techniques and GMOs. I don't approve of GMO release; I never said 
I did. GE techniques, however, have been used to make cancer, blood disease, 
and arthritis medications that have saved or improved the lives of countless 
hundreds of thousands, and it's done without release of organisms. A number 
of my friends and family would be dead without them. If you can find one iota 
of ecological harm that's been done by the creation of those drugs, I'll 
gladly back right down. 

Back to the subject: There was a great article about a year ago in the NY 
Review of Books by Freeman Dyson that pointed out that horizontal gene 
transfer--the transfer of genes between wildly different organisms--was the 
main source of evolutionary change for most of life's existence. There was no 
such thing as a species for the first three billion years of life; no real 
barriers to gene exchange. The evolution of sex and the species barrier is 
relatively recent, only in existence for a small percentage of life's tenure, 
and only for a relative few organisms. Dyson went on to speculate that the 
advent of easy, available genetic engineering kits--like chemistry sets for 
kids--would mean the end of the brief window of individual species. 
Horizontal gene transfer would again be the norm, but this time directed by 
humans. I found that last a pretty frightening thought, but I appreciated his 
pointing out that horizontal gene transfer is the rule, not the exception.

I just had the thought that maybe our fears of GMOs are similar to the 
largely groundless fears that the natives-only crowd have about exotic 
species: they'll take over; they'll ruin everything. Superweeds may be bad 
for farmers; who knows if they are harmful in any larger sense. I'm not sure 
that I'm ready to start thinking like that, but it's worth considering.

Toby
http://patternliteracy.com



On May 5, 2010, at 3:43 PM, jamesdavid Sneed wrote:

> 
> If a person says that the ends justifies the means, or if they say that 
> gmo's may be acceptable, then they don't seem like a permaculturist. The 
> refrain of "I am a geneticist" and that Nature does it anyways is straight 
> out of testimonyby Monsanto I've heard countless times at hearings and in 
> reviewing eis filings.
> Are even permaculture gurus subject to losing their focus?
> 
>> From: toby@patternliteracy.com
>> Date: Tue, 4 May 2010 19:07:37 -0700
>> To: permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org
>> Subject: Re: [permaculture] Oil spill - solutions?
>> 
>> As a former geneticist, I want to point out that nature transfers genes 
>> between species, between families, even between phyla and kingdoms. It was 
>> viruses that taught geneticists how to do it; viruses move genes between 
>> the most distantly related organisms with great frequency and ease, making 
>> the genetically engineered tomato with a fish gene look like child's play. 
>> Nature is far ahead of us in the breeding world, and is doing things we 
>> can barely dream of.
>> 
>> It makes no more sense to condemn genetic engineering itself than it does 
>> to condemn a hammer or a computer. It's a tool. A permaculturist doesn't 
>> rule out a tool simply because of its origin; if we did we wouldn't use 
>> hammers, computers, or anything else that's a product of an unsustainable 
>> culture. The techniques of genetic modification are not evil; it's the 
>> godawful stupid things they do with them that are the evil. If we can talk 
>> about using technical solutions like hair mats and mycelium to clean up 
>> oil spills (with all their pluses and minuses), then we ought to include 
>> GMO microbes that eat oil in the toolkit. None of them is going to solve 
>> the oil problem, but while we work on the technical level, we work on 
>> other levels too.
>> 
>> My sense is that activism, even Jensen's violent kind, isn't going to 
>> bring civilization down--and I like Derrick a lot, and I speak as an 
>> activist. The elites are much better at violence than anyone else. I think 
>> oil will just get too scarce, and the crash will solve a lot of those 
>> problems. I just hope it happens soon enough.
>> 
>> Toby
>> http://patternliteracy.com
>> 
>>