Jeremy Rifkin
Jeremy Rifkin
Jeremy Rifkinis an American economic and social theorist, writer, public speaker, political advisor, and activist. Rifkin is the author of 20 books about the impact of scientific and technological changes on the economy, the workforce, society, and the environment. His most recent books include The Zero Marginal Cost Society, The Third Industrial Revolution, The Empathic Civilization, The European Dream, The Hydrogen Economy, The Age of Access, The Biotech Century, and The End of Work...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionEconomist
CountryUnited States of America
The transition of world agriculture from food grain to feed grains represents an...evil whose consequences may be far greater and longer lasting than any past examples of violence inflicted by men against thier fellow human beings.
That's a sea change in less than 50 years.
The insurance companies aren't covering that. Should Monsanto be liable for these losses? Should the state government? Who's going to cover the losses? The fact is, here's an industry with no long-term liability in place.
The public reaction was instant and overwhelmingly in opposition, and Blair was caught by surprise. Here's a man who was wildly popular.
The other major problem with introducing GMOs is gene flow. This is as significant as buildup of resistance, probably more significant.
What's different here is that we have now technologies that allow these life science companies to bypass classical breeding. That's what makes it both powerful and exciting.
Europe's strength is that each culture is a gift to share.
So my attorneys brought litigation in the U.S. federal courts. The judge ruled in our favor.
These new genetically engineered food crops are the first wave of a generation of 'Brave New World' foods that are going to have serious health and environmental repercussions,
It should be a tipping point, I hope this is a tipping point,
If your corn has a herbicide-tolerant gene, it means you can spray your herbicides and kill the weeds; you won't kill your corn because it's producing a gene that makes it tolerant of the herbicide.
When you introduce a genetically modified organism into the environment, it's not like introducing a chemical product, or even a nuclear product.
When you do classical breeding, you cluster for hundreds of genes in a plant that allow it to be resistant to a particular insect.
The fact is, we know that with traditional foods, 8 percent of children and 2 percent of adults have allergenic reaction to traditional foods.