I completely understand your hesitancy about the introduction of non-native species. There have been plenty of bad examples there, but there have also been a lot more examples that went fine. Wheat, Barley, Apples, European Grapes, Potatoes, Citrus, Kiwis, and Almonds represent just a few of the plant species that were not native to the US but now grow here without becoming like Kudzu. For a forestry example, the Monterrey pine was introduced to New Zealand and Chile and has become a very successful and non-invasive crop there. Eucalyptus came from Australia to Brazil and has been well behaved there. We know a lot more about what makes a plant "invasive" than back when most of the big mistakes were made. We also know to do small-scale tests first like this one.

So yes, this is not something to take lightly, but it is not an automatic "no."

Yes, this whole site has been down a lot lately because it has a new owner who is making modifications. It probably won't be fully functional until sometime later this month. The statistics function isn't working because they are changing to allow tracking with Google analytics, but with little new content I'm guessing the traffic is way down.

Yes, Monsanto sued quite a few farmers who were brown bagging in the early days of this technology, mostly with soybeans. Percy was the only one that turned that into a career. What Monsanto was doing, licensing a patented technology to farmers, wasn't entirely new (even Universities had patented lines of things like wheat), but the "technology fee" and the replanting restrictions were more significant than in the past. Many in the trade thought it would never work. Today I doubt that there are any mainstream farmers who would say this has been a bad thing. Instead it has created a vigorous and competitive seed industry that is bringing better and better options, particularly with soy which had previously seen a much lower level of investment. Industries like wheat that have not been allowed this advance are organizing to overcome the objections of people like yourself so that wheat can become a more competitive crop.

I'm sorry you have food allergies, but genetic engineering is the least risky source of new crops for you. In that case whatever proteins are new are well known and testable (for instance, a seed storage protein from Brazil nut was considered as a way to increase the lysine content of corn. Very early in the research they tested the protein to see if it was the one to which some people were allergic. It was so the work was stopped). Conversely, George Washington Carver had no idea he was putting a potentially life threatening allergen into the food supply when he first developed peanuts as a modern crop.

Was this blog was down Friday evening, for several hours? I see you have dismissed my examples. How predictable, as is your characterization of the article I cited as inflammatory spin. What you call manageable, others might consider a major problem. I could say your statement of the precautionary principle is inflammatory spin. Where did you find that definition? I found this definition, which sounds much more like what I had always heard, i.e. a common sense approach: (http://www.mindfully.org/Precaution/Precautionary-Principle-Common-Sense.htm)
“While we realize that human activities may involve hazards, people must proceed more carefully than has been the case in recent history. Corporations, government entities, organizations, communities, scientists and other individuals must adopt a precautionary approach to all human endeavors.

Therefore, it is necessary to implement the Precautionary Principle: When an activity raises threats of harm to human health or the environment, precautionary measures should be taken even if some cause and effect relationships are not fully established scientifically.

In this context the proponent of an activity, rather than the public, should bear the burden of proof.”

See, it isn’t a matter of genetic engineering just having some unknown risks. Some of the risks are unknowable, and some are known. You might want to dismiss all those as manageable or red herrings not meriting slowing down the march of science, but others have different priorities and are not so trusting of the motives of corporate scientists, for good reasons.

By the way, Percy Schmeiser is far from the only person Monsanto sued after discovering the engineered genes in their crops. Were they all brown-bagging, or otherwise attempting to cheat Monsanto? That’s Monsanto’s story. CBS News did an investigation a couple of years ago into Monsanto’s peculiar methods of protecting its patent rights. (http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/04/26/eveningnews/main4048288.shtml) “In fact, in Feb. 2005 the Runyons received a letter from Monsanto, citing “an agreement” with the Indiana Department of Agriculture giving it the right to come on their land and test for seed contamination.

Only one problem: The Indiana Department of Agriculture didn’t exist until two months after that letter was sent. What does that say to you?”

So, seed contamination is a red herring, huh? It’s one way Monsanto makes money. It’s no secret US government officials have been extremely friendly to biotechnology. Why, CREDO Action has just issued an alert about USDA accepting Monsanto’s safety protocols for their variety of alfalfa, despite acknowledging “that GE alfalfa is virtually certain to ‘contaminate’ normal seeds.” But I’m sure you’ll think their article (http://act.credoaction.com/campaign/monsanto_alfalfa) is just more inflammatory spin. However, I must say I don’t agree with the next sentence of that article: “Cross-contamination is the number one concern with genetically engineered crops.” I have bigger concerns, for instance, my health. I have a bunch of food allergies, and occasional life-threatening asthma attacks, so my concerns are not just theoretical.

You don't have to philosophically adopt the precautionary principle to assign some things as too risky. For instance it was decided not to pursue insect resistant GMO sunflowers in the US because it could out-cross to wild sunflowers making them potentially a weed. Cell phones are an interesting negative example. It didn't take a rocket scientist to imagine a risk of drivers being distracted while using them. A true precautionary approach would have said, don't do it. In that case we didn't even manage the risk and only belatedly and impotently tried to do something about it. Cell phones have killed a lot of people.

To me, you look at the risk/reward and if you are not fairly confident that you can manage the risk, you don't do it. If you think you can manage it, you ideally test that theory on a small scale as in this example. Building a mine is not something where you can do the experiment, so the threshold of confidence in the mitigation has to be a great deal higher – both from an environmental perspective and from a capital investment perspective. It would be irrational to build a very expensive mine if there was even a slight chance of it being shut down. Of course this is assuming a good regulatory system.