1.5k posts

[gavin]

Hi Jon

When wind power blows, jobs will fall
Dominic Lawson

You may recall the Beyond the Fringe sketch in which Squadron Leader Peter Cook tells Jonathan Miller, the doleful pilot, that he must set out on a doomed mission because “we need a futile gesture at this stage. It will raise the whole tone of the war”.

I was irresistibly reminded of this by Ed Miliband, the energy secretary, in his launch of plans to cut carbon emissions by switching to “renewables” for more than 30% of our energy use. This, he claimed, would “rise to the moral challenge of climate change”.

Miliband is of the generation of politicians struggling to find a great moral cause ......

Perhaps the Mail would have been a better home for that Blog.

I have gone from rabidly anti GM to extremely wary about GM in recent years.
I don't entirely trust some of the companies in control of the technology and it has implications for agricultural practices such as sharecropping which are common in developing countries.

Have to say that there isn't much to argue about there! I'm less wary of course.

Sounds like you are angling for the full 30 minute argument Gav.
There should be a handicap system implemented as you know more about the technology than the rest of us.
What do you see as the biggest risks with GM?

On the other hand I'll be outnumbered, so that balances out my advantage?

Biggest risks?

- unrealistic expectations for delivery, it will not cure world hunger and the coming perfect storm of climate change, pathogen shifts, overpopulation, environmental degradation (but it might help)

- focusing of financial clout in the agricultural industry

- had been a risk of over-enthusiastic scientists doing risky things, but not now given the intensity of regulation

- change in allergenicity of a basic foodstuff (but see above, and this could happen from less regulated crop improvement methods anyway)

G.