"Stop, Nature, stop! Stop having your way with me!"
"Never!"
First of all, I love how Pollan takes examples from everywhere! For anyone who hasn't been, Versailles and the neighbouring petit Hamlet is a sight to take in - Like Pollan said - gardens as far as you can see. (PS: I couldn't find my actual Versailles pictures, so this is Butchart Gardens on the Island - also very impressive)
So, for lack of a better way of saying this, why the hell would we want rainbow coloured cotton? I know, I know... we wouldn't have to dye it. But really, have we come to the point where we're that lazy?? I don't know how I feel about this. When I first read this, the image of neon trees came to mind - and neon just seems weird in terms of nature and wilderness.
What really bothers me is this idea of plants being modified to carry vaccines (Pollan 188). This begs the question, how would it work?! Would we go to the supermarket, and, while buying bananas, be in truth forcibly (unknowingly) fed vaccines? No mom, I don't want a dash of vaccine with my potatoes, thanks. But really, I know people who get flu shots every year - and then they get the flu. If I don't have to get them, I'd really prefer not to.
I find it really funny that these GMO companies are giving contradictory answers on what modified plants really are. In my view, when Pollan mentions that these kinds of responses make GMO plants seem chimeric (Pollan 189), it makes it really hard to decide whether or not to eat them. On the one hand they might not be so novel, but on the other hand these modifications might be doing some funky things in the plants - which may sooner or later affect our health.
These stories about GMO just keep on making me say, what? I mean, truly, why would you 'make' glow in the dark tobacco plants (Pollan 194). I've heard of farmers painting their sheep with glow in the dark paint to ward off predators. But glowing plants? It just blows my mind.
"While walking through the woods one day,
Chris and Martin see something strange."
Nope, not a leaping lemur, but glow in the dark trees...
Modification by descent is being replaced... or is it (Pollan 196)? We sure are trying, throwing it out the windows left and right with advances in genetic engineering.
The GMO's may be smarter than the plain guys in the planter (Pollan 198) - but hey, the villains in the other corner of the ring can get smarter too (and fast). "Bugs are always going to be smarter than we are... (Pollan 222)". Which is not only bad news for the GMO plants but these superweeds and superinsects could have a doubly negative impact on any plants that haven't been modified.
So as Marie Antoinette is known for saying: "Let them eat... potatoes!"
The question now is, what kind?
The emergence of GMO products brings along with it the problem of biological pollution (Pollan 213).
Where through cross pollination (212) GMO plants can spread their new genes into non-GMO plants - the next resulting generation expressing the modified traits.
Scary stuff, right? I thought so.
The worrisome thought is that Bt resistance might arise as a result of this biological pollution - its like our current state within the field of medicine. Where abuse and overuse of antibiotics has led to multi-drug resistant 'superbugs', so will overuse of this natural (yet modified) pesticide lead to resistance in the future.
For now, the beetle 'falls drunkenly' to the ground (but for how long?)
*sigh* ... McDonald's, what are we going to do with you?
McD: "Sorry, we don't want brown spots on our french fries."
~ "So you'd rather a deadly chemical in them instead?"
This sounds wrong doesn't it? I'm not the only one who thinks so, right? Apparently not, even one of the farmer's interviewed by Pollan won't eat potatoes from his crop - he plants a separate garden crop without chemicals (Pollan 220) --> joy, so we're the ones eating the potentially 'lethal spuds' (of doom).
What literally made me laugh out loud is the Organic Farmer's response to this whole situation.
"So Mr. Organic Farmer, what do you do about net nicrosis?"
Farmer: Uh, I plant potatoes that don't suffer that."
... Damn you McDonald's for demanding a potato that needs to be pumped full of chemicals to survive!
All I have to say in conclusion is that I'm so glad that I don't buy New Leaf potatoes when I plant potatoes in the yard - I would be notorious for breaking the law!
"Intellectual property" indeed...
... it's mine, all mine!!
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