Brand Awareness

So much of public policy is either right or left.  It's hard to find someone who can make intelligent points that appeal to both sides of the spectrum.  Take a few minutes this weekend and watch this video by Stewart Brand.  Not only is it extremely interesting but it's also likely to change your perspective. 

Comments

[Matt Sh.]

To quote Mr. Spock, "Fascinating." I guess it's good that Iran is enriching all that uranium...they will be able to market it to all those countries building those microreactors.

[todd]

Much of what he says about urbanization is hardly new but he overstates the ability of people living in these slums to get out of poverty.

His view on GMO crops has a glaring problem which is that he avoids the way the crops have actually been used. One only need look at how the use of GM crops and seeds have been devastating to India because now they must buy seeds every year from Monsanto because Monsanto has built in "copy protection" through genetic engineering. Also, the crops have been modified to need specific herbicides and pesticides. The lack of genetic diversity in the crops are also cause for alarm since this means single cause could wipe out an entire crop. Of course laws could be passed to stop the use of this type of modification to agriculture but then it will be hard for companies to make a profit.

[Winnie]

Todd, without profit there would be no food. The purpose of ag GM is to increase yields per acre. They way they do that is to find an effective pesticide, and then mod the crop to not be harmed by that pesticide. So, yeah, the seed is more expensive but the yield is proportionately higher.

So really it's competition between seed engineers and pesticide engineers, which means the market is operating.

[todd]

Winnie - Of course there is profit in food growing in most places that do more than subsistence farming. The profit is typically for food growers and distributors. Now we have a third class which are the food modifiers and they wind up holding all the cards.

Again, look at what has happened to Indian farmers since the country has opened up to GM seeds. It has been a disaster.

[Winnie]

Ok, for the non-farmer readers y'all should know the other part of it is that the GM crops are sterile: they cannot reproduce hence the need for a new batch of seeds for each planting. Either way, even a disastrously low crop yield only need be that way for one growing season. You experiment a little here and there each season, of course, but that also means your Indian disaster scenario would be short-lived, no?

I guess it's weird to argue that innovators who are not growers or distributors should be precluded from using technology to improve yields. Do you fear a single class of companies "holding all the cards" in a market as diverse as food?

[Kyle Cherrick]

Great Stuff. I Love Ted Talks.

[todd]

Winnie,
One disastrous crop yield can mean economic devastation in much of the world - hence the 500,000 suicided by farmers in India.

No, the scenario is not short lived because each season has its own conditions and the lack of genetic diversity means less resilience.

In order to improve things the GM crops need to have an increase in yield which allows Monsanto and the like to take profit over and above whatever profit has been necessary to sustain farmers and distributors. It is not clear to me that this is happening in the developing world. And yes, I do think it is a problem that now the farmers are dependent on a company to provide them with seeds since the cost of these and associated chemicals needed can be raised at any time.

[Falcoln9]

The coolest thing of all was that train. Land space is so valuable relative to life and manhours that the physical land is reclaimed within seconds upon the train passing.

The reclamation had a distinct biological look and feel to it.