It’s like a 3 year old trying to play chess against a Grand Master. Not Ready Yet.

And I take it that’s a no to my original question? You’ve now ducked it more than once.

The problem with your “burgeoning middle class” argument is it inherently reveals the value asymmetry in the decision processes behind this – it’s basically the tragedy of the commons. An incremental environmental degradation risk is outweighed by the unreasonableness of the demanding masses/won’t someone think of the starving children? And what about the next burgeoning middle class, thereafter? Et voila, un boiled frog (or is it a Kuhnian paradigm shift by then? :)

By all means study GM because it’s shiny stuff that appeals to your intellectual curiosity (remember those triple secured vaults, and no field trials) – but don’t kid yourself you’re saving the world. And do by all means make a buck out of it when you adequately price in the risk you present to me/others as a result. However I ,for one, am not buying.

If you step back and look at this more broadly, you’d see that “GM-free food sources” are naturally “contaminated” in the way that you consider GMOs to be. They contain genetic variants, too. Just a thought ;-)

There are scientists in this country who have been working on GM plants in labs for up to 20 years. They haven’t seen a single commercial release yet despite the fact farmers are similar crops successfully and safely in other countries. As for the looming crisis of how to feed so many people – you may be right, food wastage is rife and we could all get by with some belt tightening, but try telling that to the burgeoning middle class in India and China developing an insatiable appetite for meat and dairy and our way of life. Who the hell are we to tell them they can’t have it? The figures just don’t add up longterm…

With all due respect, that was not my question. Calling me an ideologue isn’t very nice, either.

Aimee: “You simply need to take care that you don’t eat any GM food”

I do. Part of that is ensuring that my GM-free food sources are uncontaminated. (Nice strawman, btw). My assertion is that you (well, Peter actually, but feel free to have a go too) are unable to guarantee that your activities will not contaminate my food sources, and therefore have an ethical problem to address. Two predictable words: Percy Schmeiser. In general, I agree “research into GM food” does not infringe my rights – however your inability to completely contain your experiments does.

BTW, on the matter of whether GM is required to feed the worlds starving millions, I call BS. Starvation is a social problem, as evidenced by the amount of food thrown out every day in Western countries. If we moved to a lower level of meat consumption and added some magical sort of distributive justice brain transplant, we could feed our 6 billion quite easily. Probably even organically, at least considerably more so. Might even make a lot of jobs in the process. If the GM magic beans are required to feed the next 3 billion, fair enough – but what then for the next next 3 billion?

By all means study GM in a isolation lab, but not in my environment. Maybe the knowledge you gain will be useful when we finally understand enough about human and plant biology for it to be safely implemented. I assert that won’t be for some time, and that to assert otherwise is simply all-too-typical hubris.

Further, research into GM food absolutely does not infringe your ‘human rights’ (and ‘not eating GM food’ is not a human right: feel free to check). You simply need to take care that you don’t eat any GM food. In fact, you’re asking that other people’s rights are infringed, by asking that your preference be applied to the entire population.

GM food is going to be extremely important in feeding the world’s less privileged – it’s rather unfair of you to, through your preference, remove other people’s right to eat at all (which IS a human right).

The overwhelming material I’ve seen in NZ regarding GE has been anti-GM propaganda filled with hysteria and outright lies. It’s almost the same as those opposed to wind farms in Otago – the people opposed to the new, better technology are portrayed as the heros.

I’d like to see Greenpeace feed 2 billion people with organic, non-GM, locally sourced food.

Maybe in a super-secure underground bunker with multiply redundant isolation levels it would be OK. But that doesn’t happen other than in the movies. Can you justify presenting a non-zero risk of contamination to the environment at large, and thereby violating the rights of people like me to remain GE free?