Climate Change Killed Elvis

A contributor to Discover Magazine online has an interesting theory on the tomato scare.

Apparently, "climate change" causes everything. Perhaps my foot is itching because of climate change. Maybe climate change caused my computer to freeze last night. I know, climate change is what killed Elvis!

The writer's claim that "genetically modified organisms" (GMO) are also partly to blame. Some background for those of you who are not biology/agri-science nerds: the US is one of the biggest producers of genetically modified food (i.e. plants, not animals) in the world. Through the use of genetic replacement therapy, we have been able to use plant viruses to change the DNA of a plant to be resistant to bugs, grow faster, or even choke out weeds. While the means we use to accomplish these goals (DNA modification) is new, the idea is not. Farmers once selectively bred their crops for certain characteristics.

Now, there is a global debate on the safety of the modified food. The environmentalists claim that it is "not natural" and therefore bad. (By the way, Salmonella is natural and bad, but an autoclave is unnatural and good.) Mostly fanned by the Europeans, who have an economic interest in stopping US food exports, many third world nations refuse US genetically modified food-- despite starving families.

Now, back to the claim that GMOs are responsible for the current tomato scare: the writer fails to show how exactly GMOs "exacerbate" the problem. He lays a claim, and then gives no evidence or argument to back it up. Indeed, he even admits that the outbreak could have "natural" causes not related to GMOs.

In the end, environmentalists hate two things: people (except themselves) and technology. They have stated consistently in their literature that people (overpopulation) are the cause of all their professed problems. Sure, they talk about investment in new technology for energy, but the reality is that they want fewer people and a return to an agrarian life with little in the way of technology. The most extreme example is the hippie commune.

We have returned to the lie of the nobility of savagery.