Comments sdsavage has made

  • The ethics of GMO refusal

    If it is immoral to divert food to biofuels as many are saying, is it not also immoral to block a perfectly safe technology that could make Europe a less voracious competitor for food and feed?  And how is it that companies that are helping to get the world fed are somehow wrong for doing that?  Are you feeding anyone?

    Steven Savage, Ph.D.

    On Worldwide resistance to GMOs dwindle as food bills rise posted 1 year, 7 months ago 7 Responses

  • Schizophrenic report on biofuels

    I would agree with Biodiversivist that many popular press articles and blogs are slopping in terms of talking about biofuels from food/feed crops vs ligno-cellulosic sources.  In fact lots of disinformation gets thrown around these days on this subject.  Yes, we will not get to the really significant contribution to environmental improvement until the ligno-cellulosic technology takes off (still a few years out), but at that point the hope becomes real.  We also have the opportunity to do it "right" in terms of working out GEP (good environmental practices) for the biofuel/materials crops and setting up a certification system to insure thats how it is done (like FSC for the forestry industry).

    The one point that was lacking in the above referenced post is the fact that agricultural productivity has long been and will continue to rise so that the competition for fuel/food will not be as severe as some worry.  I'm not saying that there won't be any competition, but there are lots of ways for that to even be a good thing (e.g. less super cheap corn sweetener to help our kids get obese, maybe an end to first world subsidized cheap food that undercuts markets for developing nations, maybe even more grass-fed beef...).  

    Steven Savage, Ph.D.

    On Critique is a good thing posted 3 years, 2 months ago 2 Responses

  • Engineering new energy

    Before your readers jump to conclusions it would help to clarify some things.  Biodiversivist is right that corn and soybeans are not the real answer that we are looking for, but for the next 5 years or so they can make some contribution to our fuel needs until the necessary breakthroughs occur for us to start using things like switchgrass and miscanthus and poplar - the point at which this becomes very positive.  At first that won't be with bioengineered versions of those crops, but eventually it might.  In the case of Miscanthus we will be using a naturally occuring sterile triploid so there is no gene flow issue.  With switchgrass and poplar there would certainly be an issue of gene flow that would have to be dealt with in some way (e.g. sterility for poplars).

    If we want energy security and to make progress on global warming and to still have plenty of land for food I think we need to employ our best technology skills and environmental experience to make highly productive biofuel crops.  That will involve a wide range of technological advances, only one of which may be biotech.On Agribiz giants compete to create new plants for biofuels posted 3 years, 2 months ago 5 Responses