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May 12, 2005
May the Store be With You
Next Thursday's release of the last Star Wars movie, "Revenge of the Sith," inspired the Organic Trade Organization to piggyback on the movie's popularity. The group's Grocery Store Wars site promotes the group's message with an invitation to "join the organic rebellion."
Among the "stars" of the campaign are Lord Tader, Chew Broccoli, Cuke Skywalker, Obi Wan Cannoli, Ham Solo and Princess Lettuce (no vegetables were harmed in the filming).
The animation is really cute. It has an added meaning for me, as my friend Mike Ross once made a cartoon series called Vegetable Farm, featuring a collection of zany vegetables. One of them was named after me: "Barney The Ballistic Beetroot."
On the politics motivating the Store Wars feature: I am in favor of organic farming as it emphasizes sustainability. However, I do not support the protest against genetically modified agriculture. While Sierra Club is anti-GM, some leading environmentalists are suggesting the environmental movement should reconsider their position on this.
Posted by barney at May 12, 2005 6:10 PM
This entry was posted in the following categories: Politics
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Comments
I suggest you may like to have a butchers at the following, Barney, just so you bring yourself up to speed on the GM issue.. :)
Posted by: Aunty GM at June 4, 2005 6:03 AM
Aunty, thanks for the pointer. It is unfortunate that Monstanto hasn't released the full data from the referenceed study, so that the quoted scientists are responding to incomplete data.
I have seen a few articles claiming th GM food has health side effects on animals who eat them. I have also seen articles refuting those other articles as poor science. If scientists do 100 slightly different studies, chance alone guarantees that some of those studies will show adverse effects. At the very least, the data must be considered in aggregate, and each result carefully scrutinized.
The Monstanto spokesman's response, that nine other global authorities have approved this corn, raises additional questions about whether this one study is an anomaly.
One last thought: I gather that studies like these compare health effects of GM corn and natural corn without pesticides. A more interesting comparison would be GM corn, which is pest-resistant and so requires less pesticide, to ordinary corn with normal pesticide treatments. My intuition is that corn with external pesticides is more harmful to consumer health directly and to the environment indirectly.
Posted by: Barney at June 4, 2005 12:00 PM
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