Team:UCSC/GP

Greenpeace GMO Debate

   This event, the Greenpeace debate, was one of the most intense, emotional, and moving moments within our team’s journey. Greenpeace, for many of us, was an organization we once supported and looked towards as a beacon of hope. A passionate group fighting for sustainability and environmental awareness in a time when little attention was given to either, it functioned as an inspiring role model for all of us. However, as the GMO debate began to pick up steam, it appeared to many of us that Greenpeace chose a path we could not follow. Greenpeace derides and disapproves the use of genetic modification, claiming that GMOs are ‘unnatural’ manipulations and environmental failures.

   That is why it came is a surprise when Sandra Dreisbach, professor of Bioethics, invited us to present our understanding of GMOs to her Bioethics summer course, followed by a presentation from a Greenpeace representative, along with Q&A after the presentations. We were essentially entering a debate with one of the most influential voices in the GMO discussion. Understanding our responsibility to communicate the scientific consensus on GMOs effectively, we put both our nervousness and excitement aside to prepare our presentation. Both presentations are included below.

   Since we wanted our audience to have a comprehensive understanding of what GMOs truly were, we decided to take a historical approach to presenting the information: starting from the domestication of dogs, to the artificial selection of crops, through to the modern techniques and GMOs we know today. We concluded with a brief introduction on what our iGEM team has been doing over the summer in order to both explain who we were as well as give another example of how genetic engineering can be a boon to sustainability. The Greenpeace representative brought up the negative effects of pesticides/herbicides, discussed Greenpeace’s belief that we do not yet have enough scientific evidence or data to support GMOs, and illustrated the negative effects of animal agriculture and the GMOs that sustain it. Most notably, the representative silenced the classroom by referencing a research paper from MIT which stated that if we continue to use glyphosate at current rates, half of children born in the U.S. will be born with some form of autism by 2025. The Q&A portion was not captured via recording (and unfortunately so), yet it was the one of the most engaging and active portions of the entire debate. The students throughout the classroom entered passionate debate on both sides of the argument; and it was an exciting moment for everyone involved. It was during this time that a student revealed that the MIT study referenced by the Greenpeace representative has since been revoked and denounced, and the student followed by passionately expressing how he felt fear-mongering was the worst form of manipulation for our society.

   This debate, with both its ups and down, reminded all of us on the team of the responsibility we all have to be vocal proponents of scientific literacy; and how fortunate all of us are to have had the educational opportunities to be on this side of the debate.

*The Greenpeace representative was recorded in 3 parts due to a technical difficulty with the recording device (a cell phone); but luckily only a few seconds at most were lost!