Islands at Risk - Genetic Engineering in Hawai'i :: Monsanto Playing God?

Photo by Peter Adams on Flickr...


I would offer that it's not just Hawai'i that's at risk...it's the entire planet, and us along with it.

"We cannot ignore the moral and ethical ramifications of combining species at the molecular level..."

"...(genetic engineering is) crossing sacred barriers...it seems unholy...."

Bio-piracy: Multinational corporations (Monsanto, Dow, Dupont, Syngenta) bought up virtually all seed companies in the 1990's, and with the assistance of the Federal and State governments, and aligning Public Universities to help with additional research (some might say "converting them into their own private laboratories), and conducting genetic engineering research, that is eventually patented and thereby becomes private (corporate) property owned by a few individuals.

"...the end of bio-diversity?..."

"...the vast majority of industrialized nations have banned GMO's (genetically modified organisms) completely...the small papaya farming industry in Hawai'i is dying because Japan, their major market, does not allow the import of GMO's...but not the United States...we are leading the research and development of GMO's..."

Hawaii has more experimental field trials of genetic engineering than any other state in the nation. Just a few of the many examples of permits granted for field trials include:

Corn engineered with human genes (Dow)
Sugarcane engineered with human genes (Hawai‘i Agriculture Research Center)
Corn engineered with jellyfish genes (Stanford University)
Tobacco engineered with lettuce genes (University of Hawai‘i)
Rice engineered with human genes (Applied Phytologics)
Corn engineered with hepatitis virus genes (Prodigene)


I have a bad feeling about all this.


Part 1


Part 2


Part 3


Related Info:

The Global Spread of GMO Crops
Inherit the Wind
By PETER MONTAGUE

EarthJustice.Org

Hawaii Seed :: GMO Info

Union of Concerned Scientists :: Food & Agriculture

NPR's "On Being" :: Joanna Macy "A Wild Love for the World"

Joanna Macy - The Great Turning: The Great Turning is a name for the essential adventure of our time: the shift from the industrial growth society to a life-sustaining civilization.

Here is an interesting graphic showing ex-Monsanto employees who are now employed by WeThePeople in positions that in theory they can guide Federal policy to the benefit of Monsanto - or worse - basically corporate spies reporting back to Monsanto. Note that Flickr is blocking me from sharing the image...basically lobbying from within...

Our system is broken...