Corporations Grab Climate Genes

Take a quick glance at all the un-ecological actions that are being done in the name of opposing climate change: forests are cut down and people evicted from their land to make way for carbon-sucking fast-growing monoculture plantations and biofuels, nuclear power stations are being reconsidered, new ‘efficient’ cars and aeroplanes are being produced, rivers are dammed, and plans are made for huge geo-engineering works to increase the planetary albedo (the amount of sunlight reflected by the earth) or the amount of ocean algae.

Now all the huge biotech companies are rubbing their hands together as they prepare a new PR offensive claiming GM is the saviour to the ills of climate change. Technological ‘solutions’ are always ways of consolidating capital and power in the hands of the few. We are almost at the point where the cure is worse than the disease.

Biotech companies are now asserting that farmers cannot win the war against climate change without genetic engineering. According to a new report from ETC Group, the world’s largest seed and agrochemical corporations such as Monsanto, BASF, DuPont, Syngenta, Bayer, and Dow – along with biotech partners such as Mendel, Ceres, and Evogene – are stockpiling hundreds of patents and patent applications on crop genes related to environmental stress tolerance at patent offices around the world. They have acquired a total of 55 patent families corresponding to 532 patents and patent applications.

In the face of climate chaos and a deepening world food crisis, the Gene Giants are gearing up for a PR offensive to re-brand themselves as climate saviors. The companies hope to convince governments and reluctant consumers that genetic engineering is the essential adaptation strategy to insure agricultural productivity. In the words of Keith Jones of CropLife International, an industry-supported non-profit organization, “GM foods are exactly the technology that may be necessary to counter the effects of global warming….

Posted by NatterJack
Natterjack Press publishes and distributes radical books, pamphlets and articles that inspire resistance to the destruction of nature and community and that provide tools to live healthy, sustainable and liberated lives. We are a non-profit collective...

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