New York Times: A Dream of Trees Aglow at Night
by Andrew Pollack
Articles
Response from 'Glowing Plants' project
Email sent by Antony Evans
From: Antony Evans
Date: May 7, 2013 1:34:33 PM EDT
Subject: Re: Request to Cancel the Kickstarter Synthetic Biology ‘Glowing Plants’ project.
Dear Jim Thomas and Eric Hoffman,
Thank you for your interest in our project and taking the time to write to us with your concerns. Please allow me to clarify and expand upon a few key points.
Wall Street Journal : Glow-in-The-Dark Plant Makes Activists See Red
By Anna Leach
Online at http://blogs.wsj.com/tech-europe/2013/05/07/glow-in-the-dark-plant-makes-activists-see-red/
An Israeli startup selling genetically-modified glow-in-the-dark plants over the Web has drawn the ire of environmentalists who are demanding it be withdrawn.
Kickstopper letter to 'Glowing Plants' project
ETC Group and Friends of The Earth request a halt to Synthetic Biology project.
2 May 2013 Dear Antony Evans,
Request to Cancel the Kickstarter Synthetic Biology ʻGlowing Plantsʼ project.
We are writing to express our concern, in the strongest possible terms, about the project you have listed on Kickstarter, which, as currently advertised, will likely result in widespread, random and uncontrolled release of bioengineered seeds and plants produced with synthetic biology techniques. We respectfully request that this project, which poses real world risks to the environment, be abandoned as currently described.
Kickstopper Letter to USDA APHIS
Letter sent by ETC Group and Friends of the Earth to USDA APHIS
April 30, 2013
USDA/APHIS/LPA
1400 Independence Avenue,
SW Room 1147
South Building
Washington DC 20250
Ms. Bethany Jones:
Kickstopper Letter to Kickstarter
ETC and Friends of the Earth request Kickstarter Inc to Cancel the 'Glowing Plants' Project
Kickstarter Inc
155 Rivington St.
Second Floor
New York, NY 10002
United States
30th April 2013
Dear Perry Chen, Charles Adler and Yancey Strickler:
Request for Kickstarter to cancel the Synthetic Biology ‘Glowing Plant: Natural Lighting with No Electricity’ project
Informational Backgrounder on the 2012 Haida Gwaii Iron Dump
Almost six years ago ETC Group blew the whistle on a commercial geoengineering outfit called Planktos, Inc., which was making its way to dump 100 tons of iron nanoparticles into the waters of the Galapagos Islands . Working with allies ETC Group was able to prevent that ocean fertilisation dump. In 2012 however we were less lucky. The same geoengineering entrepeuner, Russ George, suceeded in dumping over 100 tonnes of iron into the Pacific ocean west of Haida Gwaii in Canada, claiming that his actions had prompted a 10,000 square km plankton bloom. This time his new company, The Haida Salmon Restoration Corporation (HSRC), was using millions of dollars in funds from a small indigenous community. Read here the full story of how ETC Group uncovered HSRC's rogue geoengineering scheme and the storm of international concern that ensued.
The Maize War
In the face of an imminent authorization of the Mexican Government’s to sow millions of hectares of GM maize in this country, several social networks and collectives in Oaxaca have declared 2013 as the Year of Resistance to GM maize and of defense of native maize, life and autonomy of the maize people. The most important genetic heritage of the Mesoamericans is at stake.
The Artificial Intelligence of Geoengineering
Communique # 109
Chaos theory proposes that a butterfly flapping its wings in Brazil could cause a hurricane in Texas. Complexity theory compounds the chaos by adding the quantum-like effects of, for example, genome changes in the butterfly to the conflictions of supercomputer models. Now, geoengineers want to multiply the complexity with politics. The result is an extreme form of artificial intelligence.
Gaia is complicated. From stratospheric currents to undersea rivers – and from plankton to palm tree emissions and sequestrations – quantifying, qualifying and calibrating planetary systems is at least as challenging as understanding genes or neurons. Despite decades of modeling, we are no more likely to predict next month’s best picnic day than we are to anticipate the proclivities of our DNA or to trace a memory in our cranium. Frustratingly, we have learned to map and manipulate genomes, geographies and memories, but we can’t control the consequences.
The Year We Didn't Want
...Or "193 Shades of Grey".
2012 Whizzed and then it Fizzed, but 2013 can be Better
To get 2013 off with a technological BANG, ETC staff are offering (what, for us, amounts to) a ‘light-hearted’ reflection on the year past and projections for the one already upon us.
Uppers: At the end of the year, New Scientist announced that we have reduced the under-5 child mortality rate by 60 % in the last 20 years. In the United States, government studies revealed during the year that teenage pregnancies have declined 40 % since 1990; teenage smoking (at 10.6 %) is at its lowest level since records were first kept in 1975; the number of traffic fatalities in New York City (declining ever since 1971) are the lowest since 1910; in spite of a 50 % increase in the number of firearms, the number of US households possessing guns is continuing to drop. And, in late October, The Economist reported that, across most industrialized countries, the annual crime rate has been dropping steadily since the mid-1990s. In 2012, studies announced that homophobia, at least in OECD states, is declining steeply – a little short of World Peace or ending hunger but still something to celebrate.
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