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VIDEO WEBCAST
Originally broadcast live on February 4, 2002
Pictured
left to right:
Margaret Warner, Carl
Pope, Peter Raven, Martina McGloughlin, Charles Benbrook
"Environmental Savior or Saboteur?
Debating the Impacts of Genetically Modified Food and Biotechnology"
The Pew Initiative
on Food and Biotechnology hosted a policy dialogue, "Environmental
Savior or Saboteur? Debating the Impacts of Genetically Modified Food
and Biotechnology" on February 4, 2002 in the Hawthorne Room of San
Francisco's Golden Gate Club/National Recreation Area. Margaret Warner,
Senior Correspondent for the PBS NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, moderated the
lively discussion with environmentalists, policymakers, and researchers.
A poll was released on consumer attitudes towards agricultural biotech
and the environment.
"Much has been researched and written about whether genetically modified
crops are good or bad for the environment," said Michael Rodemeyer,
executive director of the Initiative. "We hope, through this policy
dialogue, to stimulate an informative discussion about the present and
expected impacts of agricultural biotechnology on the environment and
to help examine the science as well as the passions for why people feel
so strongly -- one way or another -- about this technology.
Panelists are:
- Charles Benbrook,
an environmental consultant and the former executive director of the National
Academy of Sciences Board on Agriculture, who has critiqued contemporary
claims of environmental and economic benefits from today's genetically
modified crops
- Martina McGloughlin, director of the Biotechnology Program at
the University of California-Davis, who has written and lectured about
the environmental benefits of biotechnology
- Carl Pope, president of the Sierra Club. The Sierra Club has
taken the position that there should be a moratorium on all genetically
modified products until they have been adequately tested to better understand
which of them pose environmental risks.
- Peter Raven, president of the American Association for the Advancement
of Science and recently named "Hero for the Planet" by Time
Magazine, who has spoken about how biotechnology can be a boon to biodiversity,
not a threat.
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