The Future (89 page)
Authors: Al Gore
558
National Bioeconomy Blueprint
Andrew Pollack, “White House Promotes a Bioeconomy,”
New York Times
, April 26, 2012.
559
make themselves impervious to the herbicides and insecticides
National Research Council, “Impact of Genetically Engineered Crops on Farm Sustainability in the United States”; Faure and Wibisana, “Liability for Damage Caused by GMOs”; Antoniou, Robinson, and Fagan, “GMO Myths and Truths, Version 1.3.”
560
forcing the mutation of new strains of pests that are highly resistant
Faure and Wibisana, “Liability for Damage Caused by GMOs”; Antoniou, Robinson, and Fagan, “GMO Myths and Truths, Version 1.3.”
561
genetically engineered to survive application of the herbicide
National Research Council, “Impact of Genetically Engineered Crops on Farm Sustainability in the United States.”
562
increases among weeds and insects, the overall use of both herbicides
Antoniou, Robinson, and Fagan, “GMO Myths and Truths, Version 1.3.”
563
though advocates of GM crops dispute their analysis
Council for Biotechnology Information, “Myths & Facts: Plant Biotechnology,”
http://www.whybiotech.com/resources/myths_plantbiotech.asp
.
564
and more dangerous—herbicides
Antoniou, Robinson, and Fagan, “GMO Myths and Truths, Version 1.3.”
565
$17.5 billion and both insecticides and fungicides representing
Clive Cookson, “Agrochemicals: Innovation Has Slowed Since Golden Age of the 1990s,”
Financial Times
, October 13, 2011.
566
U.S. Air Force to clear jungles and forest cover during the Vietnam War
“ ‘Agent Orange Corn’ Debate Rages as Dow Seeks Approval of New Genetically Modified Seed,”
Huffington Post
, April 26, 2012,
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/04/26/enlist-dow-agent-orange-corn_n_1456129.html
.
567
“endocrine disruption, reproductive problems, neurotoxicity, and immunosuppression”
Ibid.
568
U.S. farm belt by almost 60 percent over the last decade
Tom Philpott, “Researchers: GM Crops Are Killing Monarch Butterflies, After All,”
Mother Jones
, March 21, 2012.
569
cropland dedicated to crop varieties engineered to be tolerant of Roundup
Ned Potter, “Are Monarch Butterflies Threatened by Genetically Modified Crops?,” ABC News, July 13, 2011,
http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/monarch-butterflies-genetically-modified-gm-crops/story?id=14057436#.UA2kPUQ-KF4
; Philpott, “Researchers: GM Crops Are Killing Monarch Butterflies, After All.”
570
harmful impact on at least one subspecies of monarchs
Faure and Wibisana, “Liability for Damage Caused by GMOs.”
571
Although proponents of GM crops have minimized
Potter, “Are Monarch Butterflies Threatened by Genetically Modified Crops?”; Monsanto, “Frequently Asked Questions,”
http://www.monsanto.com/hawaii/Pages/faqs-hawaii.aspx
.
572
a new group of pesticides known as neonicotinoids
Elizabeth Kolbert, “Silent Hives,”
New Yorker
, April 20, 2012.
573
since the affliction first appeared in 2006
Ibid.
574
“About one mouthful in three”
U.S. Department of Agriculture, Agricultural Research Service, “Questions and Answers: Colony Collapse Disorder,” December 17, 2010,
http://www.ars.usda.gov/News/docs.htm?docid=15572
.
575
because the engineered seeds must be purchased annually by farmers
Science Museum (UK), “Who Benefits from GM?,”
http://www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/antenna/futurefoods/debate/debateGM_CIPbusiness.asp
.
576
can introduce genes that do not fit into the seed company’s design
Miriam Jordan, “The Big War Over a Small Fruit,”
Wall Street Journal
, July 13, 2012.
577
with pollen from citrus varieties that have seeds
Ibid.
578
all of the major commodity crops
Union of Concerned Scientists, “Industrial Agriculture: Features and Policy,” May 17, 2007,
http://www.ucsusa.org/food_and_agriculture/science_and_impacts/impacts_industrial_agriculture/industrial-agriculture-features.html
.
579
reliance on monocultures makes agriculture highly vulnerable to pests
Ibid.
580
stem rust began attacking wheat fields in Uganda
“Scientists in Kenya Try to Fend Off Disease Threatening World’s Wheat Crop,” PBS
NewsHour
, December 28, 2011,
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/globalhealth/july-dec11/wheat_12-28.html
.
581
Similarly, cassava
Donald G. McNeil Jr.,
New York Times
, “Virus Ravages Cassava Plants in Africa,” June 1, 2010.
582
“The speed is just unprecedented”
Ibid.
583
Ireland’s heavy reliance on a monocultured potato strain from the Andes
Nicholas Wade, “Testing Links Potato Famine to an Origin in the Andes,”
New York Times
, June 7, 2011.
584
destroyed in 1970 by a new variety of Southern corn leaf blight
Union of Concerned Scientists, “Industrial Agriculture: Features and Policy.”
585
robust global work under way to genetically modify trees
Clive Cookson, “Barking Up the Right GM Tree?,”
Financial Times
, July 20, 2012.
586
genes from one species into the genome of another
National Research Council, “Emerging Technologies to Benefit Farmers in Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia,” 2009.
587
synthetic growth hormone in dairy cattle
Carina Storrs, “Hormones in Food: Should You Worry?,”
Health.com/
Huffington
Post
, January 19, 2011.
588
elevated levels of IGF and a significantly higher risk of prostate cancer
Ibid.
589
for the labeling of milk with bovine growth hormone
Andrew Martin, “Consumers Won’t Know What They’re Missing,”
New York Times
, November 11, 2007.
590
has significantly decreased its use
Dan Shapley, “Eli Lilly Buys Monsanto’s Dairy Hormone Business,”
Daily Green
, August 20, 2008,
http://www.thedailygreen.com/healthy-eating/eat-safe/rbst-hormones-milk-470820
; “Safeway Milk Free of Bovine Hormone,” Associated Press, January 21, 2007.
591
into the embryos of dairy cows
Haze Fan and Maxim Duncan, “Cows Churn Out ‘Human Breast Milk,’ ” Reuters, June 16, 2011.
592
at the National Institute of Agribusiness Technology
Robin Yapp, “Scientists Create Cow That Produces ‘Human’ Milk,”
Telegraph
, June 11, 2011.
593
intended for direct consumption by human beings
Harmon and Pollack, “Battle Brewing Over Labeling of Genetically Modified Food.”
594
a salmon modified with an extra growth hormone gene
Andrew Pollack, “Panel Leans in Favor of Engineered Salmon,”
New York Times
, September 20, 2010.
595
as fast as a normal salmon
Randy Rieland, “Food, Modified Food,”
Smithsonian
, June 29, 2012.
596
about the possibility of increased levels of insulin-like growth factor
Storrs, “Hormones in Food: Should You Worry?”
597
changing the species in an unintended way
Pollack, “Panel Leans in Favor of Engineered Salmon”; Bill Chameides, “Genetically Modified Salmon: The Meta-Question,”
New Scientist
, November 23, 2010.
598
to reduce the amount of phosphorus in their feces
Andrew Pollack, “Move to Market Gene-Altered Pigs in Canada Is Halted,”
New York Times
, April 4, 2012.
599
They called their creation Enviropigs
University of Guelph, “Enviropig™,”
http://www.uoguelph.ca/enviropig/index.shtml
.
600
because phosphorus is a source of algae blooms
University of Guelph, “Environmental Benefits,”
http://www.uoguelph.ca/enviropig/environmental_benefits.shtml
.
601
abandoned their project and euthanized the pigs
Pollack, “Move to Market Gene-Altered Pigs in Canada Is Halted.”
602
because scientists elsewhere engineered an enzyme, phytase
Clive Cookson, “Agrochemicals: Innovation Has Slowed Since Golden Age of the 1990s,”
Financial Times
, October 13, 2011.
603
which, when added to pig feed
Pollack, “Move to Market Gene-Altered Pigs in Canada Is Halted.”
604
genetically engineer insects, including bollworms
Henry Nicholls, “Swarm Troopers: Mutant Armies Waging War in the Wild,”
New Scientist
, September 12, 2011.
605
and mosquitoes
Michael Specter, “The Mosquito Solution,”
New Yorker
, July 9 and 16, 2012, pp. 38–46.
606
species of mosquito that carries dengue fever
Nicholls, “Swarm Troopers.”
607
The larvae, having no access to tetracycline
Andy Coghlan, “Genetically Altered Mosquitoes Thwart Dengue Spreaders,”
New Scientist
, November 11, 2010; Nicholls, “Swarm Troopers.”
608
proposed the release of large numbers of their mosquitoes
Specter, “The Mosquito Solution.”
609
potentially disruptive effects on the ecosystem
Nicholls, “Swarm Troopers”; Specter, “The Mosquito Solution.”
610
small number of the offspring do in fact survive
Nicholls, “Swarm Troopers”; Specter, “The Mosquito Solution”; Andrew Pollack, “Concerns Are Raised About Genetically Engineered Mosquitoes,”
New York Times
, October 31, 2011.
611
spread their adaptation to the rest of the mosquito population
Nicholls, “Swarm Troopers”; Specter, “The Mosquito Solution.”
612
“may have profound impacts on the ecology of certain infectious diseases”
Tim Sandle, “Link between Dengue Fever and Climate Change in the US,”
Digital Journal
, July 7, 2012,
http://digitaljournal.com/print/article/328094
.
613
Dengue, which now afflicts up to 100 million people each year
World Health Organization, Dengue and Severe Dengue Fact Sheet, January 2012,
http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs117/en/
.
614
causes thousands of fatalities
Yenni Kwok, “Across Asia, Dengue Fever Cases Reach Record Highs,”
Time
, September 24, 2010.
615
“breakbone fever”
Gardiner Harris, “As Dengue Fever Sweeps India, a Slow Response Stirs Experts’ Fears,”
New York Times
, November 6, 2012.
616
the extreme joint pain that is one of its worst symptoms
Margie Mason, “Dengue Fever Outbreak Hits Parts of Asia,” Associated Press, October 26, 2007.
617
Simultaneous outbreaks emerged in Asia, the Americas, and Africa
Suzanne Moore Shepherd, “Dengue,” Medscape Reference,
http://emedicine.medscape.com/article/215840-overview
.
618
the disease was largely contained until World War II
Ibid.
619
inadvertently spread by people during and after the war
Ibid.; Thomas Fuller, “The War on Dengue Fever,”
New York Times
, November 3, 2008.
620
In 2012, there were an estimated 37 million cases in India alone
Harris, “As Dengue Fever Sweeps India, a Slow Response Stirs Experts’ Fears.”
621
dengue’s range was still limited to tropical and subtropical regions
Jennifer Kyle and Eva Harris, “Global Spread and Persistence of Dengue,”
Annual Review of Microbiology
62 (2008): 71–92.
622
dengue is likely to spread throughout the Southern United States
Sandle, “Link between Dengue Fever and Climate Change in the US.”
623
including HIV/AIDS
Jim Robbins, “The Ecology of Disease,”
New York Times
, July 15, 2012. The expansion of livestock farming into areas where wild animals are in close proximity has been implicated in the spreading of diseases from wildlife to domesticated animals and from there to people. The bird flu, for example, evolves in domesticated animals when it spreads from wild animals. HIV/AIDS spread to humans ninety years ago when African hunters killed chimpanzees and sold the meat for human consumption. The extremely deadly Ebola virus, first identified in the border regions of western South Sudan and northeastern Democratic Republic of the Congo in 1976, originated in chimpanzees, gorillas, monkeys, forest antelope, and fruit bats.
624
brought into close proximity with livestock
Ibid.
625
60 percent of the new infectious diseases
Sonia Shah, “The Spread of New Diseases: The Climate Connection,”
Yale Environment 360
, October 15, 2009.
626
that outnumber the cells of our bodies
Robert Stein, “Finally, a Map of All the Microbes on Your Body,” NPR, June 13, 2012,
http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2012/06/13/154913334/finally-a-map-of-all-the-microbes-on-your-body
.