Here is a real solution, available right now, proven technology: free public transport.
Imagine a world with no cars!

Here is a link to the international movement for free public transport.
http://www.freepublictransports.com/Welcome

Yes, imagine a world where people are deprived of their own freedom of choice and independance!

While the title and content of this article contains typical alarmist, anti-humanist fear-mongering doomsaying environmental extremism, it is right in pointing out that carbon capture storage (aka “clean coal”) is the worst emissions mitigation measure ever conceived.

It is interesting that you oppose GM food when it is the only reason your country didn’t starve to death 30 years ago. There are of course, limits to everything and some of the things being done with GM food is highly questionable if not dangerous.

Mike, before you start saying anything about my country and GM Crops, do your research.
India has had enough and more food without GMOs. And I don’t recall this ‘starving to death’ point. Unless you study a different history.
And please read. The link I posted of the NYT debate has Vandana Shiva in it. She is a renowned scientist and it may do you well to read her if you are concerned about India and agriculture.
But read and come to debate, if you must.

Apparently you’ve never heard of Dr Norman Borlaug then.

“The Indian sub-continent was different. Here there was huge dependence on wheat, and the population was rocketing. When Borlaug began work there in the 1960s massive starvation looked unavoidable. To widespread scepticism, he imported his new seed and began his missionary science.

His Indian experiment succeeded beyond the wildest hopes. Wheat production quadrupled in a decade; by today that increase is tenfold. The region’s population has more than doubled, yet its people are better fed than they have been in more than half a century. For Dr Borlaug the Nobel Peace Prize followed in 1970.”

You should pay your respects.

Norman Borlaug, India’s ‘annadaata’, dies at 95

Around the time Dr Borlaug arrived on the scene in the mid-1960s, the specter of famine, shortages, and starvation hung over the sub-continent. India was importing huge quantities of food grains from the US - much of it dole - to feed its growing millions in a manner that was famously described as “ship-to-mouth” sustenance.

Enter Norman Borlaug, a strapping, self-made, sun-burnt American from the farmland of Iowa, who had spent more a decade by then in Mexico after hard-earned doctorate in Depression-era US. What he had pulled off in experiments in Mexico was a miracle, that if successfully applied in India, would fill its granaries to overflow - as it eventually did.

There is no debate that this man single-handedly saved over a billion lives. By saving the people, he also saved the environment.

Of course I know Borlaug. And his legacy is important in many respects. One of them is, what can we learn from it.

One of the things is: question it.

The very success of the green revolution is under scrutiny:

But while Borlaug, along with MS Swaminathan and other young agronomists such as Gurdev Khush at the International Rice Research Institute, were feted for their contribution to eradicating postwar hunger, concerns steadily mounted over the long-term sustainability of the intensive chemical-based farming practices involved.

It never benefitted the small farmers, and its effect on environment isn’t really all that positive.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2009/sep/13/norman-borlaug-obituary

The real question however, here is not Borlaug and his contributions. WHich i have no right to comment on.

The question here is GM Crops and what is ahppening with them. And it seems to be going in the wrong direction:

It’s simple really.
The pro GM Food lobby says GM Good is harmless.
Concerned scientists say, there is no proof it is the case. In fact, their independent researches show that indeed GM Food is harmful and may cause irreversible genetic contamination in the food and environment.

It simply means, We need proper tests:

Gene flow from Bt brinjal (the GM food crop which they are trying to introduce in India) to wild relatives, if commercialized, would therefore be virtually certain. Whether the Bt gene becomes a permanent part of the environment in India would then depend on the properties of the gene in the wild plants–something that cannot be predicted without performing tests. No such tests have been performed according to the records available.
http://www.gmwatch.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=11611:gene-flow-testing-for-bt-brinjal-useless-expert

But are these tests possible?

Agritech companies such as Monsanto, Pioneer and Syngenta don’t let their seeds be tested. For a decade their user agreements have explicitly forbidden the use of the seeds for any independent research. Under the threat of litigation, scientists cannot test a seed to explore the different conditions under which it thrives or fails. They cannot compare seeds from one company against those from another company. And perhaps most important, they cannot examine whether the genetically modified crops lead to unintended environmental side effects.
Research on genetically modified seeds is still published, of course. But only studies that the seed companies have approved ever see the light of a peer-reviewed journal.
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=do-seed-companies-control-gm-crop-research

Why Bt Brinjal is no solution.

http://www.financialexpress.com/news/bt-brinjal-is-no-solution/532815/2

Vandan Shiva on Bt Brinjal
http://www.financialexpress.com/news/trouble-on-the-plate/532814/

The case against GM Crops which answers many questions.
http://www.sgr.org.uk/GenEng/CaseAgainstGMcrops.html

Here is a well balanced view from nat geo:

A recent article in National Geographic says that sustainable agriculture and not GM Crops may be the solution.

http://bit.ly/RXrUb

And as for GM Food, here is Devinder Sharma giving a challenge of an open public debate to the Mahyco-Monsanto director, Raju Barwale.
Neither Mr. Barwale has any courage nor the facts to face Mr. Sharma.
It would have been a noce debate for you to attend:
http://www.countercurrents.org/sharma311009.htm

I think we’re both actually in agreement here. I was only calling you out on your frivolous statement that “India has had enough and more food without GMOs”. Perhaps I misinterpreted your intent.

There is a difference between opposing GM foods outright, and opposing where they are going. Clearly, if it weren’t for the GM crops introduced by Norman Borlaug that quadrupled yields, your country would have had to commit 4 times as much land to cultivating those crops, which would be disasterous. At the same time, new GM products should not be considered safe by any means.

In fact, I don’t support current GM food practices at all, it is far too rushed and profit-motivated. And, indeed, gene contamination does occur as a result. There are also a lot of agricultural practices that are done for convenience at the cost of yields. These should be treated seperately. I believe it would be more prudent to pursue hybridisation, but this is a long path of trial and error.

I’ll admit that this is certainly not an area I’m very well informed on, so if you still think I’m wrong or I made a mistake, I’ll leave it at that.

Yes, we are.
I think it is about current GM Food practices and the ruthless monopolistic way the companies are going about it.
Scientists agree that there needs to be a long term testing, but the companies are in a hurry to sell the GM Food idea in the name of climate change.
There is something which may give you a cursory look at some arguments used by GM Food companies and their point by point rebuttal:
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_qMCd_WZVOAc/Subapi0vDUI/AAAAAAAAAIM/zrs_m8XSpXk/s1600-h/greatindianrat.jpg

Reading Vandan Shiva was really uplifting. There are problems, but there is no reasn to lose hope, I think

Even James Lovelock, father of the Gaia theory, in a recent interview says, “Our wish to continue business as usual will probably prevent us from saving ourselves.” On the bright side he also says, ‘the Earth will become “a barren state in which few of us can survive.” Humankind can survive, he stresses, but only some of us. Those best suited, those who plan’: http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2009/aug/09/interview-james-lovelock
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A little more about biotechnology and genetic modification. It’s not biotechnology which is questionable, it is the recombitant DNA technology which is the issue…

Here is the WHO report:
An excerpt. You can read the full report by clicking the link given. it’s a pdf:

Conventional biotechnologies, such as breeding techniques,
tissue culture, cultivation practices and fermentation
are readily accepted and used. Between 1950 and 1980,
prior to the development of genetically modified organisms
(GMOs), modern varieties of wheat increased yields up to
33% even in the absence of fertilizer. Modern biotechnologies
used in containment have been widely adopted; e.g., the
industrial enzyme market reached US$1.5 billion in 2000.
The application of modern biotechnology outside containment,
such as the use of genetically modified (GM) crops is
much more contentious. For example, data based on some
years and some GM crops indicate highly variable 10-33%
yield gains in some places and yield declines in others.

http://bit.ly/2HcurT

Second, it is easy to confuse biotechnology with genetic modification. So while biotechnology - tissue culture etc have been used sucessfully, it is the genetic modification which is really untested and dangerous.

Here is a nice explanation:
http://www.hc-sc.gc.ca/fn-an/gmf-agm/fs-if/faq_4-eng.php

It’s like a FAQ and explains really well:

However, unlike traditional breeding, techniques such as recombinant DNA technology permit the transfer of genetic material form unrelated species and this is precisely why a safety assessment is considered to be necessary. Similarly, a gene may be transferred from an organism expressing a protein that has no history of use as a food. Safety assessment provides assurances that toxic and or allergenic compounds are not transferred along with the desired trait when new DNA is introduced into an organism.

Here’s the latest example of how businesses are sabotaging the climate talks and any hope of reaching a deal:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/11/05/exposed-the-worldwide-eff_n_346110.html

More on carbon trading from Friends of the Earth:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/nov/05/friends-of-the-earth-attacks-carbon-trading

and how the British govt is greenwashing on carbon capture / clean coal!
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/nov/05/carbon-capture

You are right on all the line… except that we leave one period that you did not know: the war and fear.
We knew two world Great Wars and nuclear terror then.
The destruction of the Berlin Wall goes back only to 1989!
It is very short!