Destroy the Planet: Buy Organic

Personally, I find that this was unnecessary:<p><pre><code> &#62; Who knew that “sustainable” would mean a polyester &#62; shirt and a bag of Fritos? </code></pre> What does a bag of Fritos have to do with organic vs non-organic produce?<p>That said, 'sustainable' is a lot more just 'how efficient is our growing process?' A few things that he fails to mention:<p>- Dealing with run-off from industrial pesticides and fertilizers into our water ways (including the 'dead zones' that form at the mouths of rivers due to this pollution).<p>- The amount of energy that we waste in raising livestock. A good portion of the land that we use for growing (i.e. not grazing land) is used to grow corn/etc that is used <i>exclusively</i> for livestock feed. How much energy does it take for us to grow all of this food and then funnel it into the mouths of livestock? What is the amount of energy that we get in return for the amount we invest? How does this differ from just growing vegetables/fruits on that land and foregoing livestock?<p>- The amount of food that we consume that is totally unnecessary. If 100% of the people on earth ate as much as the average person in the US did, that wouldn't be sustainable. That 'bag of Fritos' is unnecessary. How much essential nutrition does it actually give you? If you <i>really</i> want to talk about sustainability and efficiency in our food supply chain, maybe we don't need to spend so much focus on comfort foods. Or at least focus on comfort foods that provide us with more than just fat + sugar + salt.<p>- The under-handed, rent-seeking tactics of GMO companies like Montsano. &#60;sarcasm&#62;Forcing farmers to remain dependent on a single company through technological means[1] and legal means[2] seems like a pretty efficient use of our time and resources to me!&#60;/sarcasm&#62; (Read the full Wikipedia page for all sorts of nonsense -- e.g. toxic waste dumping, suppression of damaging studies, etc)<p>[1] <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monsanto#Terminator_seed_controversy" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monsanto#Terminator_seed_contro...</a><p>[2] <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monsanto#As_plaintiff" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monsanto#As_plaintiff</a>

I'm all for listening to contrarian arguments, but this seems a little inconsistent:<p><i>"Organic farmers won’t use Roundup and other herbicides, so they plow the weeds under, which kills a lot of small animals"</i><p>In other words: herbicides are good, farmers should use them.<p><i>"Standard industrial cotton has Bacillus thuringiensis (“bt”) genes mixed in and these kill pests, cutting the need for sprayed pesticides in half."</i><p>In other words: pesticides are bad, farmers should not use them.<p><i>"Organic farmers won’t use standard fertilizer, but only manure from cows, which means we’ll need a lot more cows running around"</i><p>By the same argument, recycling is bad because we'll need a lot more garbage to recycle.

In principle, gmo is a fine idea--why not hack nature to suit our needs? In practice, the genetic modifications are often used to enhance resistance to pesticides (not pests). Then, more pesticides can be sprayed without endangering the health of the plant. But no one has modified <i>us</i> to tolerate the pesticides, which we then consume.<p><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetically_modified_food" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetically_modified_food</a><p><a href="http://topdocumentaryfilms.com/the-disappearing-male/" rel="nofollow">http://topdocumentaryfilms.com/the-disappearing-male/</a>

This is a pretty heavy handed interpretation. Sure, the definition of agriculture is humans messing with the genetics of plants and animals. Since the first seed was replanted, we have been involved in a process of selecting and mixing desirable genetic traits.<p>BUT. This is all just the application of technology. And like all technologies, not every application of technology is better than the last. There was a time in the pharmaceutical industry when it was OK to mix industrial solvents and addictive substances into a deadly cocktail. Then we dialed that back, said that wasn't so good. Some pesticides and GMOs are looking a little scary, sometimes "is that kerosene in my cough syrup" scary.<p>There is a good compromise with GMOs in my opinion. First we do the genetic sequencing to unravel the secrets. Then we use traditional hybridization to mix the strains for desirable properties without exposing ourselves to the risk of full blown genetic hackery.<p>That's without even bringing up the topic of genetic patents. I find it far more objectionable than software patents but it is rarely discussed. There was a good New Yorker article on it for any patent haters that want to raise their blood pressure.<p><a href="http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2007/08/27/070827fa_fact_seabrook" rel="nofollow">http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2007/08/27/070827fa_fact_...</a>

This is a total side note, but I find the reference to Fritos as something non-organic or unnatural amusing, because they're one of the most natural snack foods on the martket. Look at the ingredients on a bag of Fritos sometime. IIRC they are corn, corn oil, salt. Now compare that to something like Doritos.

Over simplification.<p>There are alternate strategies to reduce the impact of pests or to fertilize fields, or to just make those fields deplete at a slower rate. In some cases we would need the very useful pesticides or chemical fertilizers but right now they are just used by default. A lot of those GMOs aren't to make things have better nutritional value, or make it that you need to use less external help to grow produce, they exist to make the farmer buy more of something else. The roundup ready seeds are the best example of that; they make it possible to use herbicide by default, without having to mind it too much.<p>For some produces, organic growing is actually cheaper, its just dumb that they still charge us extra for it.

This article does offer little back ground argument or cite any true hard information. However the organic vs non organic debate is a large topic. The overall argument of this post is not worthless. The amount of land used to feed the maximum amount of people is significantly less using modern technology vs organic methods.

throughout history we consumed organic and we were fine so the by experimentation we know organic produce is generally safer (if handled cleanly).<p>GMO on the other hand maybe causing many things (jury is still out) and we won't know that for a while probably so I wouldn't risk the entire human population just so that we can have more food which kills us rather than enough food which sustains us.<p>and comments on that forum have listed that organic can have enough/comparable yields just that its labor intensive sounds like a job creation plan no body is mentioning :)

Totally agree. Same argument for paper vs. plastic. Takes more energy to create a paper bag that a plastic one!

Extremely little (none?) actual science or evidence presented in this article. If this wasn't from the Harvard domain it wouldn't get a second glance.

The 11th Rule: Any Greenspun commentary on a sufficiently complicated social issue contains ad hoc, appeal-to-emotion, bug-ridden statements regurgitating half of "Atlas Shrugged".