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  • From: Toby Hemenway <toby@patternliteracy.com>
  • To: permaculture <permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [permaculture] Oil spill - solutions?
  • Date: Wed, 5 May 2010 20:55:57 -0700

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
>>
>>





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