food chain

We keep watching as science moves to the next level in bio-fuels, specifically with algae bio-fuel which can be turned into jet fuel, bio-diesel, and they even have a scheme to turn it into pure rocket fuel; Whoorah – take that to the moon why don’t you? Recently, there was a decent article in the New York Times, I say decent because it laid it all out in layman’s terms. The article on 7-26-2010 is very much worthy of your time to read.

In it the writer explains that “they have produced over 4,000 enzymes, many of which are up to 10 times better at turning algae into fuel.” I’d say that is some real innovation in the environmental bio-fuel space, and could be one of the answers to slow our outflows to Middle Eastern oil, which as President Bush rightly noted; “The problem is that we are addicted to foreign oil.”

Nevertheless, all these research papers I read each day as part of our Think Tank activities, as well as this great summary in the New York Times, have me asking more questions than ever, for instance, 4,000 enzymes to turn algae more efficiently into fuel, concerns me, namely because of the implications for human health, the environmental food chain, and all aquatic species; plants and animals.

You see, all of this begs the question, similar to the GMO sunflower issues a decade ago, what happens when all this gets into the wild, and in the water? Humans can’t drink fuel laden water right – ouch, talk about a cancer causing crisis coming? We’ve already dealt with fuel additives in the ground water and the aggressive cancers that causes, and this is scary, we need to be risk adverse to all this, or we will be sorry later. More studies are needed – NOW!

Okay so, without getting to sounding like an environmental mouthpiece, which I am not, I am not even a global warming religion follower. And well the reality is; I am not an anti-GMO guy, but realize that mankind doesn’t know enough yet to be screwing around with such things so rapidly, we need to take it slower and make sure we know what we are doing, and it’s clear we don’t, yet. Screwing around with genes in the food chain is going to turn around and bite us in the rear, I fear.

Just like screwing around with free markets, attempting to micro-manage them has brought instability and uncertainty to our economy, messing with the food chain, and the risks of an already challenged water supply is a real problem. As I understand it the GMO crowd wishes to add nutrients to the foods, vaccines, reduced sterilization chemicals, and drugs to solve other problems in the third world, and increase production for the first world while making every fruit and vegetable, yes, and animal produce the right color, texture, shape, etc.

Sill, in doing so the law of unintended consequences could cause chaos, even if it solves some problems temporarily such as preventing Ug99 virus in wheat for instance. A serious issue today, considering the droughts and the world food supplies. You see, the viruses and bacteria will find a way, and in the end we will have resistant bacteria and more dangerous viruses and it will be all our own doing.

Of course, I am preaching to the choir, and we all know this, the FDA, scientists, Monsanto, everyone realizes how serious this is, and they are being as careful as their shareholders and voters allow for. Nevertheless, when we introduce large regions of our nation growing algae, using special enzymes, that stuff will move around and it will most likely end up places we don’t want it. So, we need safe guards and we need to choose the most benign, yet still efficient enzymes and we need to watch and be hyper vigilant every step of the way. Please consider this.