The EnviroPerplex: Organic vs. Genetically Modified Ethanol

Ronald Bailey | September 8, 2006

Biotech researchers are developing genetically modified crops that will produce more ethanol. Of course, ethanol is seen by many energy Greens as a way to combat global warming caused by burning fossil fuels. On the other hand, organic Greens abhor anything to do with genes (OK, OK, they just hate genes that weren't in specific plants before the protesters were born).

Look for the Feds to mandate by the year 2020 that service stations must offer drivers a choice between organic and GM ethanol.

Comments

|9.8.06 @ 1:28PM|#

I prefer free-range ethanol myself.

D.A. Ridgely|9.8.06 @ 1:41PM|#

There must be a Mr. Green Genes joke in here somewhere.

|9.8.06 @ 3:22PM|#

I suppose I could illuminate Bailey on how his straw man misrepresents the arguments of those who are concerned about GMOs, but why bother?

He'd just feign ignorance the next time he writes a post on the subject. As usual.

|9.8.06 @ 3:26PM|#

geez, joe, do you suck on only organic lemons or are bioengineered lemons ok too?

|9.8.06 @ 3:27PM|#

Joe! Who says you donks don't have a sense of humor?

|9.8.06 @ 3:44PM|#

Ron:
I haven't been commenting lately because of vacation and the fact I have been agreeing with your recent columns, specifically those on GM crops.
But what is it with Europeans that they can't wait to clone a perfect replacement generation that they don't have to produce but break out the manure and sickle to harvest that olde tyme barley and corn?
Art

|9.8.06 @ 4:08PM|#

Wait for the people who are afraid of putting GM ethanol in the Ford.

|9.8.06 @ 4:30PM|#

Corn fuel is pure bunk. The corn belt is already heading for a water crisis as the Ogalalla Aquifer continues to be depleted. The push for corn fuel will only speed up this disaster. But of course, the feel-good environmentalist morons continue to avoid reality as they bask in the glow of their Gaia complex:

"After all, the journal Nature Biotechnology said in a recent editorial, it's difficult to oppose a technology that's helping to save the planet."

|9.8.06 @ 4:47PM|#

Horst,
There's more to the drying out of the midwest than Ethanol, it's the Industrial-Agribusiness Complex at it's whole, of which ethanol is only one part.
High Fructose Corn Syrup is just as bad as Ethanol and it only rots your teeth.

|9.8.06 @ 7:46PM|#

I suppose I could illuminate Bailey on how his straw man misrepresents the arguments of those who are concerned about GMOs, but why bother?

He'd just feign ignorance the next time he writes a post on the subject. As usual.

There's no question that Bailey's portrayal of the anti-GMO arguments is a bit of a straw man. That does not, however, imply that the anti-GMO arguments, such as they are, have any merit whatsoever. Even though this post is little more than thumbing the nose at anti-GMO "environmentalists" (I use the scare quotes because any well-informed person with concerns for the environment should actually be in favor of GMOs, broadly speaking), it actually is pretty mild compared to the rhetorical excesses of anti-GMO activists, as I'm sure you are well aware.

|9.9.06 @ 11:24AM|#

I have to wonder what happens if you put Frankengasoline made from Frankencrops into a Ford SUV. Would it then be considered a GM SUV? Would it escape into the environment where it can't be recalled?