Chemical companies are saintly, charitable organizations. Its those damn 'green' folks that are profit driven crooks! No, but seriously, I'm sure there must be money to be made in at least one of the two... I don't know... would you willingly ingest 'Roundup'? I'm sure Monsanto has all our best interests in mind, though. A plant that is modified to resist this chemical may also have other, unknown altered properties... and that is where the potential harm creeps in. Just because a jug of 'kill-bugs-dead' doesn't jump up and bite one in the ass doesn't mean its great for us all to pour it on our breakfast cereals... or dump it in our ground water, for that matter... I don't need a PhD in chemistry to know that the cigarettes I smoke can kill me. But I already digress...
Okay, let me say right off the bat, I do NOT have empirical evidence memorized, nor do I believe all corporate farming methods or gene-manipulation are inherently harmful... I am, however, a skeptic by nature, whether it's concerning the 'green' movement, or corporate advertisements. It's not terribly difficult to manipulate findings, as past incidents have shown, like cigarette companies hiding their findings on the addictive properties of their products, or factories that have dumped or allowed leakage of their waste products into water supplies. I never meant to say, 'synthetic chemicals= bad...' (and yes, 'its' ALL chemicals, nature that biatch! I get that), only that some of the chemicals used on food crops are hazardous to the soil, water and probably our cells, but so is cyanide, 'au natural' ha ha ha. No one, not even the scientists that manipulate genes for crops in a lab, really know precisely what they are also turning on.... one desired trait, like higher yields, may be obtained, and for starving people that is a good thing, but for everything we can see there may be 2 or 3 things we can't.... (even 'politically conservative' geneticists will admit that) so there is no real way to know what the selection of these genes may lead to down the road, and that IS scary to me... sorry. I understand that every living organism undergoes mutation over time, but these changes are complex interactions within a context which is probably impossible to duplicate in a lab, and no, I'm not a scientist (my major was philosophy, actually, so feel free to poke fun at that...) and yes, we have been purposefully manipulating the genes in plants and animals from the start of agriculture through selection, but I also know that there is some difference between responsible, sustainable growing and large scale corporate farming as it is often practiced today, just as there is a difference between isolating and changing a chain of genetic material and that genetic material slowly altering within the organism over time. Believe it or not, the old captains of industry can also be 'greedy shysters' - and they've had a long time to hone their craft. Market values can be temporarily manipulated by hype, but eventually the cost of production and demand will determine prices. I don't doubt that there are many greedy dicks out there that are full of it when they market their 'organic' whatever, but really? You really believe an apple's an apple, no matter how its grown or what its treated with? But hey, if you're the 'soil chemistry' guy, you should know... Look at the area outside New Orleans where farmland runoff from the rivers (via the ol' Miss. River in the mid-west) empties into the gulf.... a dead zone for miles and miles. Something about that is seriously fucked. As shocking as it may be, the 'little-ol'-ma-and-pa-agro-firm', owned by the 'cute-little-chemical-firm', owned by the 'smiley-guy-general finance, insurance and nuclear-war-head- company', who answers to faceless stockholders demanding maximum return, might just be using whatever makes for the cheapest produce.... But hey, they're not ripping you off! Maybe some poor people in Taiwan that have a chemical cest-pool for their backyard, but not us! And I'm sure some of those 'little-ol'-ma-and-pa-companies' call themselves 'organic bla, bla, bla...' I am not a devout organic anything. I do make my own compost and worm castings (hooray...) and stay away from really toxic pesticides, but I do use plenty of fertilizers that are not 'OMGI'. I do appreciate soil chemistry, though i am not an expert... I'm learning, and have done pretty well growing in what I've put together, and i love that soil-life... Good stuff. I got tons-o-fungus growing all the time in aerated containers... Organics are chemicals, period... but naturally occurring compounds in compost are not the same as a package of Miracle Grow (I think the bright blue hue gives it away... just kidding. (also not knocking MG..., just a point). While I do not think we can pretend that we can all rely purely on whole organic compounds for everything, I also believe there is a lot of room for abuse. I mean, the fucking atom bomb didn't just happen, and I for one would rather it not have at all. By the time it was used it was pretty much only an exercise in 'don't fuck with us, everyone else!' but then we also learned a lot from the research... (and yes, before anyone writes it as a reply to show me the error of my thinking, nuclear reactors are everywhere in nature...stars, for instance, which made our existence possible, so thank you nuclear reactions!!). I guess my point was quite simple, and obviously also somewhat ambiguous... I DO think that it is unwise to trust that profit geared, power hungry giants are making sure that everything they use is safe and sustainable, (and with many billion humans on this little rock, that might be a concern for us).. and everything they sell us is quite fine and healthy to suck down, I'm sure. Hell, I don't even trust myself that much... I am definitely on the left of things, but I am not a professed purest (whatever the hell that means anyway), and am aware that many of the 'chemicals' we use allow our fine, gentle species to live in the billions on this planet (though whether THAT is a good thing I will not even try to touch here)... I soooo did not mean to open some proverbial 'socio-political can of worms'. Its not the thing itself, at the risk of sounding clique, but how we use it and toward what end that can be 'bad'. Okay? I'd rather write about growing and leave the other issues alone, at least on this forum. Besides, I have plenty of people to piss off in my hum-drum daily life. I will not make anymore sweeping statements about 'chemicals' if I can help it.... starting......... NOW! ha ha ha ha ah ha ah ha, diddly-doo- dot-dibity-doo, and of course, araz-mataz! Wecome to the "there's no such thing as a 'no-spin-zone' zone!" But try telling FOX that! Oh hell, I did it again...