Fighting Mother Nature with Biotechnology - The Oxford Topic of Food, Politics, and Society - page 448

limited niche and geographic territory. This route, too, may not work because the dam-
age already done may continue apace, even without additional human interference. For
example, in the current debate over anthropogenic climate change, the suggested rem-
edies (mainly that we humans cease carbon release in various forms) do not address
the likelihood that rapid climate change is now self-perpetuating. If that is the case, the
deterioration in climate will continue in the absence of major human intervention to
reverse it. That approach is, of course, anathema to those campaigning for a return to
Mother Nature's fold.
But reverting to Mother Nature's plan, in which humans are merely one species
among many, means catastrophic collapse of the human population sooner rather than
later. Judicious human management of global resources provides the only option for a
sustainable future.
Judicious application of biotechnology, integrating food production with environ-
mental sustainability, is the only option offering a long-term human future. Critics of
using technology to overcome natural limits to population growth argue that doing
so just delays the inevitable crash by some years. But careful and deliberative applica-
tion of technology does not mean supporting human population growth indefinitely
but only to the point where human population naturally levels off, as it is expected
to do in the mid-twenty-first century. At that point, the resources depleted in sus-
taining the then-stable human population will be balanced by resources replen-
ished. However, the future planet Earth will not look as pristine and natural as she
did in times past. The evidence of human activities will be evident everywhere since
humans will have to manage planetary resources on a global scale to optimize effi-
ciency and sustainability. Fortunately, it will not require politically impracticable
policies, such as mandated reproductive control or mass euthanasia, but rather
benign policy encouragement based on principles of agronomically, environmen-
tally, socially, and economically sustainable development.
Barring some unforeseen catastrophic event such as a wayward giant asteroid attack,
the Earth should remain intact until the Sun expands in its old age and engulfs our
planet in some five billion years. Whether humans will be around to experience that will
depend on the policy decisions we make now.
References
ADSF (Académie des Sciences Françaises). 2002. Les plantes génétiquement modifiées. . Rapport
sur la science et la technologie nr. 13. Paris: Académie des Sciences Françaises.
Ahloowalia, B. S, M. Maluszynski, and K. Nichterlein. 2004. “Global Impact of Mutation
Derived Varieties.” Euphytica 135: 187-204.
American Dietetic Association. 2006. “Position of the American Dietetic
Association: Agricultural and Food Biotechnology.” Journal of the American Dietetic
Association 106 (2): 285-293.