{"id":11076,"date":"2013-04-29T20:04:50","date_gmt":"2013-04-30T01:04:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.discovermagazine.com\/collideascape\/?p=11076"},"modified":"2013-04-29T20:04:50","modified_gmt":"2013-04-30T01:04:50","slug":"why-gmo-supporters-should-embrace-labels","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.keithkloor.com\/?p=11076","title":{"rendered":"Why GMO Supporters Should Embrace Labels"},"content":{"rendered":"

http://masterfacilitator.com/facilitationoverview/ Guest post by Ramez Naam.<\/em><\/p>\n

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Order Pregabalin Online Image: Ecowatch.com<\/p><\/div>\n

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Buy Clonazepam Without Prescription Keith Kloor has graciously given me the opportunity to guest post here again.\u00a0 So let me cut to the chase:<\/p>\n

Tramadol For Sale Online I support GMOs.\u00a0 And we should label them. We should label them because that is the very best<\/em> thing we can do for public acceptance of agricultural biotech. And we should label them because there\u2019s absolutely nothing to hide.<\/p>\n

Order Soma 350Mg Online Let me explain.\u00a0 First, so you don\u2019t mistake me for a GMO-basher, let me introduce myself.\u00a0 I\u2019m a computer scientist by training.\u00a0 I\u2019m also the author of three books<\/a>, all of which endorse the use of biotechnology to improve the human condition.<\/p>\n

https://disneycruisinggroup.com/planning/ In the most recent of these, The Infinite Resource<\/em><\/a>, I talk about the power of innovation to save the world.\u00a0 In between chapters on climate change and fresh water depletion, solar power and desalination, I make a forceful argument that genetically engineered crops and animals can help us grow more food, with better nutrition, and less<\/em> impact on the planet.<\/p>\n

Buy Alprazolam No Prescription I believe that.\u00a0 In the last two weeks I\u2019ve written about the scientific consensus that GMOs are safe<\/a> and the many reasons that advocates of organic food should love GMOs<\/a>.\u00a0 And recently I went on MSNBC<\/a> to make that case on national television.<\/p>\n

In short, I believe in science, and I believe that science tells us that our currently approved GMOs are safe for humans and good for the planet, and that next generation GMOs will be even better.<\/p>\n

So why label them?<\/p>\n

Purchase Xanax Online The short answer is this: by fighting <\/em>labeling, we\u2019re feeding energy to the opponents of GMOs.\u00a0 We\u2019re inducing more <\/em>fear and paranoia of the technology, rather than less.\u00a0 We\u2019re persuading those who might otherwise have no opinion on GMOs that there must <\/em>be something to hide, otherwise, why would we fight so hard to avoid labeling?<\/p>\n

My conversion to this point of view began in January, when Keith Kloor posted a letter he\u2019d received from Jonathan Gilligan<\/a>, an associate professor in the Department of Earth & Environmental Sciences, Vanderbilt University. Gilligan made several good points. It\u2019s worth reading the whole letter<\/a>.<\/p>\n

https://disneycruisinggroup.com/stateroom-categories/ https://plazadelencuentro.com/livros/ Will Labels Kill GMOs?<\/strong><\/p>\n

https://raceflowdevelopment.com/ordering/ Let me add to Jonathan Gilligan\u2019s points.<\/p>\n

First, it\u2019s undeniable that a large fraction of Americans want <\/em>labels on GM food.\u00a0 An ABC News poll found that 93% of Americans want GMO labels<\/a>.\u00a0 A more recent HuffPost\/YouGov poll put the number at 82%<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Order Clonazepam Online These are overwhelming numbers. They don\u2019t reflect the scientific consensus on GMOs, but they do reflect the very real public fear and uncertainty around the technology. And more than that, they reflect a public view that labeling is common sense.<\/p>\n

Buy Carisoprodol Online GMO proponents (including me) look at this and worry, quite frankly, that GMO labels on food will massively drive down sales of genetically engineered foods, which would lead to less planting of genetically engineered fields and less research into new and better GMOs.\u00a0 If true, this would be a tragedy, for it would undo all the environmental benefits of genetically engineered crops that I\u2019ve outlined previously<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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Buy Soma Online The wrong kind of label. Image from labelityourself.org<\/p><\/div>\n

https://theroyalstagproperties.com/contact/ And if the labels were warning <\/em>labels, with a prominent skull and crossbones, they might indeed kill agricultural biotech.\u00a0 But they\u2019re not.\u00a0 Or at least, they don\u2019t have to be.\u00a0 GMO labels around the world are almost exclusively ingredient <\/em>labels, similar to the image at the top of this post. Those are the sorts of labels that can be agreed on now if the agricultural and biotech industries drive labeling or at least come to the table. Indeed, they\u2019re the sorts of labels that my co-guests on MSNBC \u2013 all labeling proponents – insisted they wanted to see.\u00a0 No skull and crossbones \u2013 just something on the package that informed a consumer that GMO ingredients are present.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s an important distinction, because the data suggests that GM ingredient labels would not <\/em>change how consumers shop, by much, if at all.\u00a0 Experiments with GMO labels in France (PDF link<\/a>) have shown no detectable change in customer buying patterns.\u00a0 Other studies in more than a dozen countries have shown the same. Even when a change is found, it tends to be quite small.\u00a0 For example, a study of GMO labeling of cooking oil in China (PDF link<\/a>) showed a drop of around 4% in market share of GMO oils after labeling, noticeable but not large. Surveying all the worldwide data through 2011, Elise Golan and Fred Kuchler found that \u201clabeling has negligible impact on consumer choice<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

Far from the end of the world, GMO labels \u2013 of the right kind – are likely to have little to no impact on sales of genetically engineered foods.<\/p>\n

https://rgprincipal.com/equipo-chile/ How Fighting Labels Hurts <\/em>GMO Perception<\/strong><\/p>\n

On the flip side, I\u2019ve come to believe that the fight against <\/em>labeling massively harms the perception of genetically modified foods.<\/p>\n

First, there\u2019s the impact on consumer fear.\u00a0 Jonathan Gilligan points out that classic risk-perception studies show that people are less frightened of a threat when they feel that they can identify and control their exposure to the threat.\u00a0 Science blogger Ed Yong wrote a terrific piece on this topic in 2008, titled \u201clack of control drives false conclusions, conspiracy theories, and superstitions<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

Do \u201cfalse conclusions, conspiracy theories, and superstitions\u201d sound at all like the most strident wings of the anti-GMO movement, and the memes they spread through the wider society?\u00a0 I think so.<\/p>\n

While the scientific data shows that GMOs aren\u2019t a threat to people\u2019s health, very few Americans are confident of that.\u00a0 In the latest HuffPo\/YouGov poll, 35% of Americans believed that GMOs are unsafe to eat, and another 44% are uncertain. Among the most hardcore believers of GMO health risks, very little is likely to change minds in the short term.\u00a0 But among the large set with weak beliefs or uncertainty, the risk perception studies suggest that the lack of labeling has the effect of boosting fear.\u00a0 And that fear itself is a bigger risk to the future of genetically engineered crops than labels are.\u00a0 Boost people\u2019s perception of control instead and we may see a reduction in the ease with which false conclusions, conspiracy theories, and superstitions spread into the persuadable middle.<\/p>\n

The second way the lack of labeling hurts GMO perception is by deepening distrust of the scientists, institutions, and companies creating and selling genetically engineered foods.\u00a0 Anti-GMO sentiment is already extremely mixed in with anti-corporate sentiment and suspicion.\u00a0 Among the many tweets directed at me during and after my MSNBC appearance, the most common themes were \u201cAll we want is disclosure\u201d and \u201cIf you\u2019re so proud of your GMOs, why don\u2019t you label them?\u201d<\/p>\n

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A simple argument that’s hard to rebuff. Image from labelgmos.org.<\/p><\/div>\n

Those are extremely hard arguments to fight against.\u00a0 Replying \u201cwe\u2019re worried that if Americans see a GMO label, they\u2019ll be less likely to buy it\u201d only strengthens <\/em>the anti-GMO argument.\u00a0 At best it\u2019s condescending to consumers, sending a signal that \u2018we know better than you what you should eat\u2019.\u00a0 And at worst it adds fuel to pseudoscience and conspiracy theorists who believe that labels are being withheld because Monsanto and other agribusiness concerns know <\/em>that GMOs are harmful.<\/p>\n

Even the reply that states \u2018The FDA doesn\u2019t require a label because GMO food is functionally identical to non-GMO, and has absolutely no health risk\u2019 (which I used on MSNBC) falls flat in the face of this response.\u00a0 Orange juice from concentrate is labeled. Food coloring Red #5 is labeled. Fish are labeled as to whether they\u2019ve been previously frozen. To a consumer, there\u2019s no plausible reason why these factors should be on a food ingredient label while the presence of GMOs shouldn\u2019t be.<\/p>\n

Or rather, the only plausible reason most consumers can devise is that information is being intentionally withheld from them.\u00a0 That\u2019s not the conclusion anyone who supports better crops through biotechnology should want to see consumers come to.<\/p>\n

http://www.amandasatoz.com/?page_id=1479 Lead or Be Dragged<\/strong><\/p>\n

Sooner or later, GMO labels are coming to the United States. With an overwhelming majority of Americans supporting labels, with prominent legislators introducing federal GMO labeling bills, as happened last week<\/a>,\u00a0 with more than 20 states<\/a> considering measures to label GMOs, it\u2019s only a matter of time.<\/p>\n

The only question now is: Do GMO advocates want to be dragged along in this wave?\u00a0 Or do they want to help direct it?\u00a0 There\u2019s a substantial difference between a patchwork of potentially conflicting state labeling laws and a unified system, between a bad labeling measure and one that\u2019s sensible.<\/p>\n

The only reasonable choice for GMO proponents now is to embrace labeling and help lead the process.\u00a0 We should embrace it to help dampen consumer fear of GMOs.\u00a0 We should embrace it to help shape the labeling system into a sensible one.\u00a0 And we should embrace it because we have absolutely nothing to hide.<\/p>\n

Ambien Without Prescription About the Author<\/strong><\/p>\n

Ramez Naam<\/a> is the author of The Infinite Resource: The Power of Ideas on a Finite Planet<\/em>, a book<\/a> about the power of innovation to overcome the environmental and natural resource challenges that face us, and the decisions we need to make to win the race between innovation and consumption.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Guest post by Ramez Naam. \u00a0 Keith Kloor has graciously given me the opportunity to guest post here again.\u00a0 So let me cut to the chase: I support GMOs.\u00a0 And we should label them. We should label them because that is the very best thing we can do for public acceptance of agricultural biotech. And…Continue Reading…<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2496,2646,2709,2710,2724,2961,2962,2967],"tags":[743,1095,1125,1126,1341,1581,1583],"class_list":["post-11076","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-biotechnology","category-environment","category-genetic-engineering","category-genetically-modified-foods","category-gmos","category-science","category-science-communication","category-select","tag-biotechnology","tag-genetically-modified-foods","tag-gmo-labeling","tag-gmos","tag-monsanto","tag-science","tag-science-communication"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.keithkloor.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11076","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.keithkloor.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.keithkloor.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.keithkloor.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.keithkloor.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11076"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.keithkloor.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11076\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.keithkloor.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11076"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.keithkloor.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11076"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.keithkloor.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11076"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}