Professor Chris Pollock believes we should be more receptive to GM crops, swathe England in a blanket of rape seed to make Ethanol, ‘clean biodegradable fuel’.
Science
is Broken
Science is in a state of decay due to corruption and lack of accountability. Overview
Genetically modified crops could raise havoc with the genome of humans.
Humans could soon find that they are more BT and Roundup Ready than human.
Roundup is a weed killer. Roundup Ready crops are genetically engineered to resist the weed killer, which would otherwise kill them.
BT means Bacillus thuringiensis, which is a bacterium species. It contains a protein which kills insects. The gene for that protein has been incorporated into some crops, so insects are killed when they eat the plants.
Here's how it works: Genetic engineering uses a "vector" to insert a gene into a cell. The vector is typically a segment from a cancer causing virus. It is linked to the desired gene and transfers it. It goes through cell walls and nuclear membranes and inserts itself, with the gene attached, into the DNA of the host.
What keeps it from coming back out and entering other cells? Nothing does. It transfers to other species and often does not distinguish between plants and animals.
This effect has been noticeable in Brazil, where surrounding plants and microbes have become altered. Microbes, such as bacteria and moulds, pick up the genes and transfer them to other plants, usually weeds, but also other crops.
Why wouldn't the same also happen to humans?
Presumably it does. Presumably, the genes are moving around from cell to cell in humans.
Humans are not going to notice the effects as soon as fast growing species like weeds do. But future generations could find their DNA loaded with strange genes.
Are you ready to be Roundup Ready?
Gary Novak
Well, okay, and thanks Gary, and for more on GM crops read Seeds of Deception in this magazine. But what about all that Ethanol, clean green fuel? Here’s a report on that too:
A study led by Mark Jacobson, an associate professor of civil and environmental engineering, an atmospheric chemist at Stanford University. An authority on atmospheric dynamics and air pollutants, he is the author of a study in the online edition of Environmental Science and Technology Environmental Science & Technology, which casts doubt on the argument that fumes from ethanol are safer than those from gasoline.
“Ethanol is being promoted as a clean and renewable fuel that will reduce global warming and air pollution," said. "But our results show that a high blend of ethanol poses an equal or greater risk to public health than gasoline, which already causes significant health damage."
“Converting vehicles to E85 is not going to improve air pollution; it could even make the problem worse," says Jacobson. His findings are based on a computer model that considers not only the total amount of ethanol tailpipe emissions that would enter the atmosphere but also how those emissions might disperse and change because of real-world factors such as wind patterns, clouds, and climate. The model, which Jacobson has been developing for almost two decades and has used to analyze other atmospheric pollution issues, predicts that ozone, a component of smog and a known health hazard, would increase over Los Angeles and the Northeast, for example.
Jacobson, who advocates dropping all ethanol subsidies and moving toward electric or hydrogen fuel-cell cars energized by electricity from wind power, says he's worried that politics is leading to misinterpretation of his work. "NRCD went out on a limb in support of ethanol early on. Now they're defending the decision. People don't want to accept that ethanol might not be as good as everybody said it was," he says. "My goal is simply to bring correct information to people."
So, there you have it, but do you want it, and is Professor Pollock talking... nonsense?
