Discussions of GMO's often devolve into superstition and mythology akin to having a discussion with Sarah Palin about dinosaurs that she thinks are hiding in caves.
I am personally not enthusiastic about Bt or Round-up ready plants. I surely admit the possibility of introducing toxins in transgenic plants and other threats that might concern us, no matter how remote.
Farmers, from the time the first livestock were herded and the first crop was planted, have been selecting the most productive and healthiest for reproduction. The result is plants and animals that are further divorced from their parents than Glenn Beck is from sanity. Livestock is fatter, fruits are sweeter, vegetables perhaps less nutritious.
Undesirable side effects are a concomittant fact of life in any development.
The option of returning to a hunting and gathering society does not seem to me to be viable.
Let me start at the very beginning:
Why is this mother so sad?
See below the fold.
Wouldn't you be sad if you and your young 'uns were being raised to fight this pest:
Cheetahs are doomed to live out their lives on the very edge of extinction. They have to be the greatest killers of all the big cats because no others have so many kills stolen from them.
Momma and her brood are not enemies of the cheetahs but desperately needed friends. By keeping the big cats away from the herders' livestock, they give the herders less reason to kill cheetahs.
Probably be best if there were no herders and livestock in the cheetah's realm but we are mired in doing things the "natural" way.
Imagine if science was allowed to come to the rescue:
Pig city
Another livestock emissions research farm, but this time dedicated to recycling the metabolic waste of pigs, is being built in Denmark.
Gottlan Paludan, the lead architect in the construction of the "City of Pigs", says the purpose is "to analyse the synergies of large-scale livestock raising and the production of tomatoes, in order to take advantage, in a reciprocal way, of the waste that each process produces."
The site of the pig farm, on the Jutland Peninsula, allows the filtration and absorption of CO2, ammonia and other gases. The manure will be reused to generate biogas, which in turn will produce electricity. The manure will also be recycled to remove water and produce natural fertilisers.
I suppose theoretically transgenic sheep could be bred that could fight off cheetahs but sheep already bleat worse than tea party welfare queens crying pitifully about their high taxes and handouts to those who really need help.
While killer sheep do not seem to be in the cards, super strong plants are being bred now with their own native genes:
The plants on the left have survived drought while their twins without strong genes couldn't. They can survive all manner of environmental stress, including disease and predators, simply because they are healthier. They couldn't survive a cheetah attack but there well-bred dogs that might prevent that. Small bugs and viruses they can handle well enough.
So why aren't they on the market?
See above about superstition and such.
Best, Terry