Earth population 'exceeds limits'
By Steven Duke Editor, One Planet, BBC World Service
There are already too many people living on Planet Earth, according to one of most influential science advisors in the US government.
Nina Fedoroff told the BBC One Planet programme that humans had exceeded the Earth's "limits of sustainability".
Dr Fedoroff has been the science and technology advisor to the US secretary of state since 2007, initially working with Condoleezza Rice.
Under the new Obama administration, she now advises Hillary Clinton.
Pressed on whether she thought the world population was simply too high, Dr Fedoroff replied: "There are probably already too many people on the planet."
A National Medal of Science laureate (America's highest science award), the professor of molecular biology believes part of that better land management must include the use of genetically modified foods.
"We accept exactly the same technology (as GM food) in medicine, and yet in producing food we want to go back to the 19th Century."
Dr Fedoroff, who wrote a book about GM Foods in 2004, believes critics of genetically modified maize (corn) and rice are living in bygone times.
"We wouldn't think of going to our doctor and saying 'Treat me the way doctors treated people in the 19th Century', and yet that's what we're demanding in food production." Read More
I have said many times that agriculture is the only industry that is being asked to eliminate the use of technology and raise food “the way we used to do it”. This article does a great job of comparing it to another industry that has made tremendous strides in the past one hundred years, human medicine. I think people need to realize that the good old days only exist in your mind.
2 comments:
I agree with your comments Troy.
Why is agriculture the only industry today where decreasing productivity and efficiency to the levels of 100 years ago viewed by certain elements of society as beneficial? I don't get it. This peculiar phenomenon certainly defies logic and reason.
I find it interesting and appropriate that the author of this article made the comparison between medical science and agricultural technology. I wouldn't be here making this post today if medical science was still practicing science from the era of leeches. A few days ago I had my pacemaker that was installed 6 yrs ago replaced in a relatively simple outpatient operation. I would have been in the ground long ago if I had to rely on 100 yr old technology to survive.
John
That's a great example John. Thanks for sharing.
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