. . . at 6a.m this a.m was gearing up for another Media Orchestrated Terror Campaign. And what is it this time? Well, it's FOOD SECURITY, innit? The problem seems to be that the world's ballooning population (6.4 billion and rising faster than you can count) is putting pressure on:-
Fresh water (a resource necessary for growing it)
Energy (for - you name it, food needs it)
As Molesworth sez, "Eny fule kno all this" although we collectively pretend it doesn't matter - as long as it impinges only on the poor of the world and not on the developed world - and even though many of us weigh twice as much as is good for us. But I digress. The bulletin went on to say (something like) "various authorities have been issuing warning about the impending crisis for the last thirty or forty years."
ONLY thirty or forty? The Reverend Thomas Malthus first pointed to the problem in his Essay on the Principle of Population (1798 to 1826) in which he argued that population growth must eventually be limited by famine and disease. At the time he was up against utopians like Jean-Jacques Rousseau. (For the more mathematically minded, Malthus pointed out that population can in principle increase in a geometric progression - whereas food supply can increase only in an arithmetic progression. When the graphs cross, we're in trouble.) Technology has done pretty well so far to fix things up, despite the insane vapourings of the anti-GM lobby. These are amongst the World's True Weirdos. Why? Because if they are below the age of about 150, they haven't eaten a mouthful of food in their whole lives that isn't genetically modified(*). These maniacs are not objecting to GM. They are objecting to GM being done quickly and cheaply in laboratories, rather than slowly and expensively on plant and animal breeding stations. They are objecting to science, which they don't understand yet rely on for everything they do and are, every minute of their lives. They will change their minds the day they find empty shelves in Tesco. Remember folks . . next time you eat any of your five- a- day, you're eating a genetically modified hybrid. ENJOY!
(*) fish and game are perhaps exceptions to this, except that evolution has been genetically modifying even these species for millions of years.
evolution has been genetically modifying even these species for millions of years
ReplyDeleteMankind included! Aren't we lucky? Glad you had a more interesting topic to post about than I did, this Monday.