Movies | April 25, 2009 | Comment on this video (13)

A Silent Forest -The Growing Threat Genetically Engineered Trees

ras_menelik
This award winning documentary film explores the growing global threat of genetically engineered trees to our environment and to human health. The film features renowned geneticist and host of PBS' The Nature of Things David Suzuki, who explores the unknown and possibly disastrous consequences of improperly tested GE methods. Many scientists and activists are interviewed in the film, which serves as an effective and succinct tool for understanding the complex issue of GE trees. The film includes the testimony of many experts on the subject and serves as a valuable tool to inform students and those interested in environmental issues. The film has been well used in public forums, government as well as college and high school classrooms.

The film includes an interview with Percy Schmeiser, who lost the rights to his own crops to Monsanto, when Monsanto seeds contaminated his fields. As Schmeiser says in the film:

"It doesn't matter how it gets there, destroying your crop. All of your crop, becomes Monsanto's ownership and they can lay a lawsuit on top of it against you. Even if the contamination rate is 1%, all your other 99% of your crop goes to Monsanto. And that's what startled the world, how farmers can lose their rights overnight, an organic farmer can lose his seeds and his rights overnight, and get subject to a lawsuit."
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13 comments // A Silent Forest -The Growing Threat Genetically Engineered Trees // Video

  • JanforGore
  • queenofit
    • 0
      queenofit  

    • I just had make another comment, the pollen count is running very high where I live. and I get so sick from pollen. It spreads a dusting of green powder over everything. Even my shoes had green dust on them from being outside yesterday.

      Got me thinking about this GMO "mad-made" (oops, I meant man-made) pollen that will be drifting around, I really don't want to be a walking guinea pig. More, I hate to see what our future (our children) will evolve into.

    • 3 years ago
  • Cameleion1
  • ras_menelik
    • 0
      ras_menelik  
    • Image

    • godnoes

      Q. What's the difference between cross pollination/grafting/selective breeding that farmers have been doing for centuries and genetic modification? Just curious, because it seems like farmers have been screwing with genes for a long time now. – Joe, NY

      A. You’re right, Joe. Farmers have used selective breeding for ages to increase the robustness and output of their crops and to produce and encourage other desirable traits. But there are some pretty huge differences between the techniques they’ve traditionally used and the high-tech ones being implemented today on mega farms that produce GM corn, cotton, soy, and canola (the four crops largely converted to GM technology so far). Put it this way: If traditional selective breeding is like two people with two different sets of genes being paired up by a matchmaker who thinks they’ll have pretty, healthy kids together, then modern high-tech GM breeding is like Victor Frankenstein slicing ‘superior’ body parts out of fifteen different corpses and using them to sew together his powerful, yet frighteningly unpredictable, monster.

      Whoops. Did that sound slightly unscientific and/or possibly biased? Then don’t take it from me—take it from Craig Holdrege, director of The Nature Institute. He explains that the most critical difference between natural and GM breeding is that natural breeding crosses only organisms that are already closely related—two varieties of corn, for example—whereas, in contrast, GM breeding slaps together genes from up to 15 wildly different sources. Here’s how he explained the convoluted GM breeding process to me in an email:

      .....click for more

    • 3 years ago
  • joy2yah
    • 0
      joy2yah  

    • This is really frightful!
      Stop the growth of evil and darkness on every level!
      This is the very reason we are in the mess we are currently living in. The motivation is primarily-greed!
      Now what can we do about this?
      Joy

    • 3 years ago
  • artemis6
  • dognose
    • 0
      dognose  

    • OK, I agree that most of these corporations are evil and the leaders should have strokes. But this fear of hybrid plants is ridiculous. Yes, the corporation is fucking people, but that has nothing to do with the fact that everything on the planet since day 1 is genetically modified. Go back and read your 7th grade science book. Oh, I forgot. They don't teach that anymore. The fucking stupid little fake ass A.D.D kids don't want to sit still and learn so it's been replaced with "warm fuzzy" class or some other horseshit they pass off as "education". And now we have a bunch of idiots who think that the evil GM corn is going to get up and eat them in the middle of the night.

    • 3 years ago
  • DennisJohnson
  • artemis6
  • Elevator
    • 0
      Elevator  

    • I agree with jh. Companies like this pose the largest threat long-term to life and liberty. And as they are companies which must by their trade attract people with a… flexible morality; I wouldn’t put anything past them.

    • 3 years ago
  • queenofit
    • 0
      queenofit  

    • I try my best to keep up with this gmo assault to our environment, but they never cease to amaze me. (not to mention the fear factor)

      Thanks for putting this here!

    • 3 years ago
  • jh64487
    • 0
      jh64487  

    • not to be a marxist...

      but if were going to kill people...

      ...the CEO's of these companies have it coming more than anyone else.

      ...I'm surprised people haven't already started doing this (where are you right wing nutters? they're trying to control your food production!)

    • 3 years ago
  • ras_menelik
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