Pandora's Picnic Basket: The Potential and Hazards of Genetically Modified Foods
Pandora's Picnic Basket: The Potential and Hazards of Genetically Modified Foods

Author: Anne Brontë

Publisher: OUP Oxford

Published: 2000-06-22

Total Pages: 486

ISBN-13: 0191500682

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The first book to look at all the issues involved in GM (genetically modified food) technology in a clear and dispassionate way. Alan McHughen surveys the technology that makes GM food possible, assesses the risk of health and environmental dangers and the regulatory and labelling processes in force to protect the consumer. Question and answer boxes and case histories, and the author's easy writing style make this an essential purchase for all those interested in the debate. - ;Are you concerned about fish genes in tomatoes? Worried that brazil nut genes in soybeans can result in potentially lethal allergic reactions? That rapeseed plants bred to be resistant to herbicides could become uncontrollable superweeds? You are not alone. The issue of genetically modified foods has fast become one of the most debated of recent years, with scientists and companies seeking to develop the technology on one side, and consumer groups and environmentalists on the other. However, in spite of the great heat generated by the debate, there is very little real information on the subject, either about the technologies in use or about the regulatory processes established to approve the processes and the products. This book sets out to explain, in clear and direct language, the technologies underlying so-called genetically modified food, and compares them with other "natural" methods of plant breeding and production. The author then looks at the safeguards in place from regulators around the world and asks whether these are sufficient. The question of labelling, held by some to be an obvious way out for concerned consumers, is examined, and the honesty and usefulness of some of these labels addressed. The book then looks at issues of real concern, particularly environmental issues, and ways in which a consumer can seek to avoid GMOs if they so choose. In each chapter, key topics are addressed through question and answer boxes. Real case histories illustrate the development and regulation of GMOs, and by the end of the book the reader will be able to make an informed choice about whether to support or challenge this technology, the products of which are increasingly pervasive. -

Pandora's Picnic Basket
Pandora's Picnic Basket

Author: Alan McHughen

Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA

Published: 2000

Total Pages: 277

ISBN-13: 9780198507147

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"Genetically modified foods are increasingly available to the public. Pandora's Picnic Basket will help consumers make informed choices about this controversial technology."--BOOK JACKET.

Labeling Genetically Modified Food
Labeling Genetically Modified Food

Author: Paul Weirich

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2007-11-01

Total Pages: 272

ISBN-13: 0198043821

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Food products with genetically modified (GM) ingredients are common, yet many consumers are unaware of this. When polled, consumers say that they want to know whether their food contains GM ingredients, just as many want to know whether their food is natural or organic. Informing consumers is a major motivation for labeling. But labeling need not be mandatory. Consumers who want GM-free products will pay a premium to support voluntary labeling. Why do consumers want to know about GM ingredients? GM foods are tested to ensure safety and have been on the market for more than a decade. Still, many consumers, including some with food allergies, want to be cautious. Also, GM crops may affect neighboring plants through pollen drift. Despite tests for environmental impact, some consumers may worry that GM crops will adversely effect the environment. The study of risk and its management raises questions not settled by the life sciences alone. This book surveys various labeling policies and the cases for them. It is the first comprehensive, interdisciplinary treatment of the debate about labeling genetically modified food. The contributors include philosophers, bioethicists, food and agricultural scientists, attorneys/legal scholars, and economists.

Eco Crime and Genetically Modified Food
Eco Crime and Genetically Modified Food

Author: Reece Walters

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2010-10-04

Total Pages: 176

ISBN-13: 1136918132

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The GM debate has been ongoing for over a decade, yet it has been contained in the scientific world and presented in technical terms. Eco Crime and Genetically Modified Food brings the debates about GM food into the social and criminological arena. This book highlights the criminal and harmful actions of state and corporate officials. It concludes that corporate and political corruption, uncertain science, bitter public opposition, growing farmer concern and bankruptcy, irreversible damage to biodervisty, corporate monopolies and exploitation, disregard for social and cultural practices, devastation of small scale and local agricultural economies, imminent threats to organics, weak regulation, and widespread political and biotech mistrust – do not provide the bases for advancing and progressing GM foods into the next decade. Yet, with the backing of the WTO, the US and UK Governments march on – but at what cost to future generations?

Risk and Reason
Risk and Reason

Author: Cass R. Sunstein

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2002

Total Pages: 362

ISBN-13: 9780521016254

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Encyclopedia of Environmental Change
Encyclopedia of Environmental Change

Author: John A Matthews

Publisher: SAGE

Published: 2013-12-13

Total Pages: 1490

ISBN-13: 1446264882

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Accessibly written by a team of international authors, the Encyclopedia of Environmental Change provides a gateway to the complex facts, concepts, techniques, methodology and philosophy of environmental change. This three-volume set illustrates and examines topics within this dynamic and rapidly changing interdisciplinary field. The encyclopedia includes all of the following aspects of environmental change: Diverse evidence of environmental change, including climate change and changes on land and in the oceans Underlying natural and anthropogenic causes and mechanisms Wide-ranging local, regional and global impacts from the polar regions to the tropics Responses of geo-ecosystems and human-environmental systems in the face of past, present and future environmental change Approaches, methodologies and techniques used for reconstructing, dating, monitoring, modelling, projecting and predicting change Social, economic and political dimensions of environmental issues, environmental conservation and management and environmental policy Over 4,000 entries explore the following key themes and more: Conservation Demographic change Environmental management Environmental policy Environmental security Food security Glaciation Green Revolution Human impact on environment Industrialization Landuse change Military impacts on environment Mining and mining impacts Nuclear energy Pollution Renewable resources Solar energy Sustainability Tourism Trade Water resources Water security Wildlife conservation The comprehensive coverage of terminology includes layers of entries ranging from one-line definitions to short essays, making this an invaluable companion for any student of physical geography, environmental geography or environmental sciences.

The Oxford Encyclopedia of Food and Drink in America
The Oxford Encyclopedia of Food and Drink in America

Author: Andrew Smith

Publisher:

Published: 2013-01-31

Total Pages: 2556

ISBN-13: 0199734968

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Home cooks and gourmets, chefs and restaurateurs, epicures, and simple food lovers of all stripes will delight in this smorgasbord of the history and culture of food and drink. Professor of Culinary History Andrew Smith and nearly 200 authors bring together in 770 entries the scholarship on wide-ranging topics from airline and funeral food to fad diets and fast food; drinks like lemonade, Kool-Aid, and Tang; foodstuffs like Jell-O, Twinkies, and Spam; and Dagwood, hoagie, and Sloppy Joe sandwiches.

Catastrophe
Catastrophe

Author: Richard A. Posner

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2004-11-11

Total Pages: 333

ISBN-13: 0199884382

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Catastrophic risks are much greater than is commonly appreciated. Collision with an asteroid, runaway global warming, voraciously replicating nanomachines, a pandemic of gene-spliced smallpox launched by bioterrorists, and a world-ending accident in a high-energy particle accelerator, are among the possible extinction events that are sufficiently likely to warrant careful study. How should we respond to events that, for a variety of psychological and cultural reasons, we find it hard to wrap our minds around? Posner argues that realism about science and scientists, innovative applications of cost-benefit analysis, a scientifically literate legal profession, unprecedented international cooperation, and a pragmatic attitude toward civil liberties are among the keys to coping effectively with the catastrophic risks.

The Political Theories of Risk Analysis
The Political Theories of Risk Analysis

Author: Nicholas P. Guehlstorf

Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media

Published: 2012-11-03

Total Pages: 216

ISBN-13: 1402028822

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The purpose of this study is to question whether liberal political theories ought to inform the way policymakers and administrators analyze risk in proposed courses of environmental practice. In order to explore the relationship of liberal theory to rational practice in environmental policy, this project examines the risk analysis used to approve the genetically engineered bovine growth hormone in American agricultural policy. The Political Theories of Risk Analysis suggests that American environmental public policy is attempting to assess danger with an incomplete notion of utility, to eliminate the hazards of society with an inadequate contractual justification of political authority, and to publicly debate accepted levels of risk with an unfulfilled critical social theory. Because environmental risk analyses are incorrectly perceived as technically rational and socially apolitical, they result in practices that are muddled and misdirected. Making theoretical foundations explicit, however, could lead to improved practice. Public policy and administrative decisions regarding agricultural biotechnologies should and can function with more concern for democratic values. The Political Theories of Risk Analysis is for environmental scientists, philosophers, public policy planners, applied ethicists, political scientists and environmentalists.

Regulating Next Generation Agri-Food Biotechnologies
Regulating Next Generation Agri-Food Biotechnologies

Author: Michael Howlett

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2013-05-07

Total Pages: 290

ISBN-13: 1136338438

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Agri-food bio-technology policy and regulation is transitioning from an early period focused on genetic engineering technologies to ‘next-generation’ rules and regulatory processes linked to challenges originating in a wide variety of new technological processes and applications. Can lessons learned from past and current regulatory oversights of agricultural biotechnology – and other high-technology sectors – help us address new and emerging regulatory challenges in the agri-food genetics sector? The expert contributors in this volume discuss the experiences of a wide range of North American, European and Asian countries with high technology regulation to address four key questions related to the past and future development of agri-food genomics regulation across the globe. how unique is agri-food biotechology regulation, and how can it be evaluated using the existing tools of regulatory analysis developed in examinations of other sectors? is a ‘government to governance’ model of regulatory regime development found in many other sectors relevant in this rapidly evolving sphere of activity? is a stages model of regulatory regime development accurate? And, if so, at which stage are we currently positioned in the regulation of agri-food genomics products and technologies? what drives movement between stages in different countries and sectors? In assessing such drivers, what are the key links between sectoral (meso) developments and more general macro and micro developments such as international relations and administrative behaviour? By updating, extending and challenging earlier empirical and theoretical social science perspectives on agricultural bio-technological regulation, this volume helps to inform future policy formulation. It will be of interest to practitioners and students of biotechnology, agriculture, and science and technology policy, and regulatory processes more generally.