I think eventually economic necessity would overcome people's opposition to GM crops and such. Really we do need to genetically engineer cereal grains to grow in areas of Africa prone to desertification and drought if we are to seriously tackle poverty and starvation in that part of the world.bastardman25 said:Well argued, but many of the technologies & techniques we use in the more economically developed parts of the world are considered unsustainable or even harmful to the environment in the long term, monoculture farming and constant intercontinental transportation of fruit & veg for eg.
Also for some reason the media went WILD telling people to be shit scared of everything GM, as though scientists were deliberately engineering tomato plants to uproot themselves "day of the triffids" style, eat your kids and take over your house, even though it could potentially solve critical food shortages everywhere including places with poor infrastructure and less fertile soil.
Unfortunately the same luddites propagating the anti-GM sentiments meet in a venn diagram with the rampant anti abortionists in their desire to deny scientific development to the whole world for the sake of unprovable space people only they care about, so we cant have mandatory birth control or improved means of food production yet.
I'd vote for one, while the other catches up, given the option.
I will also say that there could well be problems with, not food so much, but resource consumption as countries like China, India, Brazil etc become consuming more material than the West does. I imagine there will be problems ahead this century as the prices of rare earths necessary for computers and oil necessary for cars continues to rise. I don't think it will be the end of the world as some seem to think, but we need to become more resource efficient if the world is to successfully accommodate formerly un-developed countries becoming as developed as, say, Europe and America. Population isn't the problem here, it's the fact that soon Africans, like the Chinese today, will be wanting cars, laptops, proper houses etc, and this will cause an economic strain on the worlds resources. Which is why we need to become more resource-efficient to accommodate these changes. It's during these challenging times that people will learn to tolerate GM foods and such.
In the long run, and i'm talking in terms of centuries, asteroid mining and space colonisation is the key to man's long term survival. Once asteroid mining becomes feasible, i would predict that the prices of rare earths and raw materials will plummet and living standards across the world will rapidly increase.