Brian D Williams wrote:
> Last night NOVA/FRONTLINE aired a two hour special "harvest of
> Horror" a program about biotech food.
Harvest of Fear, yes, that was an excellent and surprisingly
well balanced treatment. The star of the show was the Kenyan
scientist, for she helped me realize that I did not even begin
to understand the problem of starvation in Africa.
The anti-GMers argue that giving the rural Africans GM will
only make them dependent upon western technology. But
what is the alternative? If the west gives food to the underfed
Africans, it still has an enormous cost by the time it gets to
its intended recipients, for the transportation costs are
enormous. Rural Africa lacks the transportation infrastructure,
such as trucks, which would be useless anyway for they
lack adequate roads. Often supples must be hauled in
wheelbarrows by hand. This in addition to the fact that
the rural African farmers have their pride, and are not
beggars.
If the Greenpeacers withhold GM from the Africans, they simply
allow them to starve. Since starvation is a particularly cruel
form of death, the Greenpeacers would show tender mercy
by simply shooting the hungry Africans. Do you suppose
the Peacers would change their minds when the Africans
began to shoot back? Perhaps Greenpeace would donate
funds to build highways into the jungles and Diesel trucks to
haul food?
I haven't the answers to these vexing problems either, but
the ELF/EarthFirst/GreenPeace position seems hopelessly
mired in contradictions, unless they come right out and
admit that they are anti-human. spike
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