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
Humanity cannot afford to acknowledge all of the blood that it spills and the destruction it inflicts on the world in its effort to perpetuate itself. Desacralization is a process that allows us to sever any relationship we might feel to other living things. By draining the aliveness out of things, we can pretend that our control and manipulation are of little consequence. Man the trapper becomes man the taxidermist, disemboweling nature of its spontaneity and movement, and stuffing it with a leaden inanimateness.
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.
The modern age has been characterized by a Promethean spirit, a restless energy that preys on speed records and shortcuts, unmindful of the past, uncaring of the future, existing only for the moment and the quick fix. The earthly rhythms that characterize a more pastoral way of life have been shunted aside to make room for the fast track of an urbanized existence. Lost in a sea of perpetual technological transition, modern man and woman find themselves increasingly alienated from the ecological choreography of the planet.
The public reaction was instant and overwhelmingly in opposition, and Blair was caught by surprise. Here's a man who was wildly popular.
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,
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.
Who in this room is considering hydrogen fuel cell powered boats?
The antitrust litigation currently in the federal courts in the U.S. against Monsanto will be the test case in the life sciences, just as the Microsoft case was the test case in the information sciences.
Here we are 17 years later. Those agencies never did come through.
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.
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 other major problem with introducing GMOs is gene flow. This is as significant as buildup of resistance, probably more significant.