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The expert group that will be filing a report with recommendations to the UN Convention on Biodiversity met in early June, and examined a variety of emerging uses of synthetic biology. Jim Thomas was there representing ETC.

Increasingly, syn bio is moving out of the lab, and companies are conducting experiments and even genetic engineering in the wild – for example, by using viruses or gene drives to change genetic structures in nature.

The following is an excerpt from ETC Group's May 2019 newsletter. To receive regular updates, sign up (see right sidebar)!

As converging global crises – biodiversity, climate, plastic – intensify, governments and corporations are scrambling to create new institutions and investors are lining up to finance a new round of buzzword-driven techno-fixes. Talk of “rapid technological change”, “exponential technologies”, “frontier technologies” and “the fourth industrial revolution” can be heard in hallways of a variety of governments, institutions and UN bodies.

Prepared by ETC Group with additional research by Dr Elisabeth Abergel, for the International Union of Food, Agricultural, Hotel, Restaurant, Catering, Tobacco and Allied Workers' Associations (IUF)

Déchiffrer les tendances scientifiques et technologiques émergentes fait partie intégrante du travail du Groupe ETC. Nous voulons saisir les implications des nouvelles réalités qui se font jour autour de nous, qu’il s’agisse d’intelligence artificielle, d’ingénierie sociale, de formes extrêmes de modifications génétiques, de concentration d’entreprises, de surveillance, d’autoritarisme ou de géoingénierie.

Making sense of emerging trends in science and technology is a core part of what ETC Group does. We’re impatient to grasp the implications of new realities that are emerging around us, whether they relate to artificial intelligence, social engineering, extreme forms of digital genetic modification, corporate concentration, surveillance, authoritarianism or geoengineering.