Genetic Engineering in Plants and How it Harms Biodiversity
Genetic Engineering of plants will harm biodiversity. Why? Well, as humans playing God by splicing a gene here, deleting a gene there creating new life forms may seem like a good thing. However, there are many drawbacks that far outweigh the “benefit,” if any, of the practice.
As it stands, plants are being genetically engineered to be pesticide resistant, though there are no producers of pesticides complaining about this issue because it just means they get to use more of the chemical to kill the pests, which means they will sell more products, and make more money. Over time, the pests we are trying to fight against will become stronger as they develop immunity to our pesticides, and the problem will only perpetuate itself.
Plants have been genetically engineered to create pesticides, and if these were to spread to the weeds and plants we don’t want, we would eventually become overrun with plants that we don’t use or don’t need, taking away from the plants that we do want and need. The potential to produce the opposite effect seems much greater than the possibility of the desired effect.
The genetic engineering of plants will likely have back lash that the researchers are not counting on. What happens if their handy work causes a mutation of genes that creates a terrible issue we are not ready for? What happens when these genetically engineered plants cause horrible toxic allergic reactions in the people who eat them? Naturally these are questions one would ask in regards to the subject, and there is little to provide substantial answers to them, let alone comforting ones.
As there is no regulation to mandate the safety of genetically engineered products of any kind, we are greatly risking our own health and vitality when we are dealing with products like these. Without regulation, we will have no way of knowing whether we are eating whole foods or genetically processed foods that could contain by products of animals and even humans! Reducing ourselves from human beings to manufactured products cannot do the world any sort of good.
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