In March, National Geographic published an issue called “The War On Science,”
and of all the cities in the entire United States, can you guess which
city was called out in the very first paragraph of that article for its
anti-science tendencies? Oh yes: it was Portland.
The article went on to say, “We live in
an age when all manner of scientific knowledge … faces organized and
often furious opposition. Empowered by their own sources of information
and their own interpretations of research, doubters have declared war on
the consensus of experts… And there’s so much talk about the trend
these days … that science doubt itself has become a pop-culture meme.”
Nowhere is this culture more alive than
in the city where I live. We’re one of only a few major American cities
that don’t fluoridate our water, despite the scientific and medical
consensus that it is a cheap and safe way to improve dental health for
everyone. We also just narrowly avoided being one of the first states in
America to label GMOs; the vote literally came down to less than half a
percentage point – I’m almost certain it will return to the ballot and
possibly pass next time. There’s a county in Oregon that has banned the
growth of GMOs, and there’s another county currently trying to do the
same on a ballot measure next week, even though the state has passed
legislation to prohibit county-by-county bans. To get around that,
Benton County is trying to give legal rights to plants.
Except maybe that’s changing. Why?
Because there’s a new grass-roots movement that’s standing up to March
Against Monsanto and making an effort to help people better understand
GMOs. This Saturday, for the first time, there will be a group of
pro-GMO people (YES! Pro-GMO people in Portland!) standing up for science.
They’ll be standing right next to a horde of protesters carrying
posters with sculls and crossbones, blaming GMOs for every health
problem under the sun, and accusing Monsanto of controlling the food
supply and killing bees, butterflies, and everything in between.
The pro-GMO group will be holding signs
that say, “I heart GMOs” and “Ask me about GMOs.” They’ll be handing out
leaflets that talk about all the amazing things GMOs have actually
done: like resurrecting the American chestnut tree from the brink of
extinction, saving the Hawaiian papaya, and reducing carbon emissions
associated with agriculture equivalent to removing almost 12 million
cars from the road for one year. They’ll be approachable. They’ll be
honest. And they’ll be accurate. They’ll be everything that March Against Monsanto isn’t.
They’ll March Against Myths About Modification. (That’s their name, MAMyths.)
Now that is the kind of movement I can
get on board with. And it couldn’t come at a more necessary time. I
really believe that in my lifetime, we’ll be facing problems that have
the potential to make or break our species. I could give you a bunch of
statistics here, but the bottom line is that we have too many people for
this planet to support.
We’ll need to make some drastic changes if we
want to stay on this planet at all. There are lots of ideas about how
we’re going to make that happen, but one thing is for sure: we already
have a technology that has the potential to help address many of those
problems. Is it the magic bullet? No. Can biotechnology feed every
starving person in Africa? No. But it can help. If only we’ll let it.
How can we convince people that GMOs are
not evil? How can we convince people that the story is not about
Monsanto, or chemicals, or patents? The story is about the next
generation of GMOs and their potential to help. Here are some examples
of what I mean:
- rice with beta-carotene that could help the 124 million children in the world who are chronically deficient in vitamin A, a deficiency that accounts for about one-quarter of the total global burden of disease from malnutrition
- insect-resistant eggplant that would allow farmers in Bangladesh to spray less pesticide where pesticide poisoning is a chronic health problem
- cassava (a staple for millions of people in developing countries) with increased protein, beta-carotene and other nutrients
- crops that are self-fertilizing that would allow farmers in developing countries who don’t have fertilizer to grow more productive crops
- crops that can photosynthesize better and produce 50 percent more food per acre
- drought-resistant crops that can produce more with less water
Some of those are ten or more years away from development, but some of them, like Golden Rice and
Bt eggplant, already exist but are being blocked somewhat in part to
hysteria fueled by activists like March Against Monsanto.
That brings me back to this Saturday in
Portland. This is where we can help. This is right here, right now. For a
long time, academics and scientists have been doing what I call the
“soft sell.” They’ve been rather quietly and calmly explaining the
science, the safety, and the benefits of GMOs and hoping that eventually
it catches on. And maybe for some, it is working. But it’s not working
fast enough. We are badly losing the information war on GMOs. Perhaps
now is the time to be a little more forceful, and that’s exactly what
MAMyths is doing. They’re standing up proudly and loudly to say, “I
support GMOs and I want to tell you why.”
Of course, that’s a little scary.
Especially in a city like Portland where people might get a little riled
up over that. But the good news is they have the facts on their side.
And, even better, they’re real people who aren’t backed by industry.
They’re people just like me: with children whose health we care about,
who have a very serious vested interest in the sustainability of our
food supply.
It’s MomSense is the nom de plume of a mother and
former Monsanto employee. She has chosen not to reveal her name because
of threats against people who express their support for crop
biotechnology.
