future tense
<font face="Times New Roman" size="4"></font><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><em style="color: rgb(40, 27, 33); line-height: 21.6px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">This article is part of Future Tense, a collaboration among </em><a href="http://www.asu.edu/?feature=research" target="blank" style="line-height: 21.6px; color: rgb(102, 0, 51); text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><em>Arizona State University</em></a><em style="color: rgb(40, 27, 33); line-height: 21.6px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">, </em><a href="http://www.newamerica.org/" target="blank" style="line-height: 21.6px; color: rgb(102, 0, 51); text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><em>New America</em></a><em style="color: rgb(40, 27, 33); line-height: 21.6px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">, and </em><strong style="color: rgb(40, 27, 33); line-height: 21.6px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><em>Slate</em></strong><em style="color: rgb(40, 27, 33); line-height: 21.6px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">. Future Tense explores the ways emerging technologies affect society, policy, and culture. To read more, visit the </em><a href="http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense.html" style="line-height: 21.6px; color: rgb(102, 0, 51); text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><em>Future Tense blog</em></a><em style="color: rgb(40, 27, 33); line-height: 21.6px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> and the </em><a href="http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/future_tense.html" style="line-height: 21.6px; color: rgb(102, 0, 51); text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><em>Future Tense home page</em></a><em style="color: rgb(40, 27, 33); line-height: 21.6px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">. You can also <a href="http://www.twitter.com/futuretensenow" target="blank" style="color: rgb(102, 0, 51); text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold;">follow us on Twitter</a>.</em></font></div><div><font color="#281b21" face="Times New Roman" size="4"><span style="line-height: 21.6px;"><i>
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</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"></font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/future_tense/2015/04/arctic_apple_safety_dr_oz_sows_seeds_of_mistrust_on_gmos.html</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></div><div><div class="text text-1 parbase section" style="color: rgb(40, 27, 33); line-height: 21px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><p style="line-height: 1.8; margin: 1em 0px;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">rgeon–turned–television doctor Mehmet Oz opened his show on March 10 with a “Dr. Oz Investigation” on the newly U.S. Department of Agriculture–approved “Arctic” apple, which doesn’t undergo the unappetizing browning that other apples do when it’s bitten, bumped, or cut. The episode, titled “The Non-Browning GMO Apple: Is It Safe?,” pushed the fallacy that there is some sort of “right to know” (via labeling) whether a food has been produced with the techniques of molecular genetic engineering (aka “genetic modification,” or GM).</font></p></div><div class="text-2 text parbase section" style="color: rgb(40, 27, 33); line-height: 21px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><p style="line-height: 1.8; margin: 1em 0px;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">The reason the Arctic apple doesn’t discolor involves ingenious but simple biology. Enzymatic browning in apples is caused by the fruit’s intrinsic chemical reaction to cell injury, which ruptures the cells and triggers chemical reactions between the enzyme polyphenol oxidase (PPO) and the substances that cause the apple flesh to turn brown. A family of four genes controls the majority of PPO production, and by inserting low-PPO-producing genes from other apples, scientists were able to turn off more than 90 percent of PPO production.</font></p></div><div class="text-3 text parbase section" style="color: rgb(40, 27, 33); line-height: 21px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><p style="line-height: 1.8; margin: 1em 0px;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Ordinarily the development of a new apple variety would proceed uneventfully, but because the shut-off of the four genes was done with molecular techniques, the proposed commercialization of this new variety was met with unconscionable, irresponsible, and lengthy regulatory delays. (On the heels of the USDA approval, the FDA approved the Arctic apple on March 20, following a “voluntary” food safety review that dragged on for <em>four years</em>.)</font></p></div><div class="text parbase text-4 section" style="color: rgb(40, 27, 33); line-height: 21px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><p style="line-height: 1.8; margin: 1em 0px;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Now that this remarkable fruit has jumped through the required regulatory hoops, Dr. Oz and other fear-mongers are trying to elicit totally unwarranted consumer apprehension about it. Oz opened his program this way:</font></p></div><div class="text parbase text-5 section" style="color: rgb(40, 27, 33); line-height: 21px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><blockquote style="margin: 0px 40px 0px 0px; border-left-width: 2px; border-left-style: solid; border-left-color: rgb(102, 0, 51); padding-left: 18px; line-height: 2; padding-top: 8px; padding-bottom: 8px;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Would you buy this apple if I told you it wouldn’t brown when you cut into it or took a bite? Would you buy this apple if I told you it was genetically modified to not turn brown? Well, a lot of people are banking on your answer. The U.S. Department of Agriculture recently approved the first genetically modified apple. They’re calling them the Arctic apple.</font></blockquote></div><div class="text text-6 parbase section" style="color: rgb(40, 27, 33); line-height: 21px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><p style="line-height: 1.8; margin: 1em 0px;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">It’s a safe bet that most people in that audience that day said no, they wouldn’t buy the apple. A whopping <a href="http://www.doctoroz.com/episode/turbo-fire-your-energy-just-10-days?video_id=3998123045001" target="blank" style="color: rgb(102, 0, 51); text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold;">98 percent of respondents</a> to a Doctoroz.com poll cited in a January episode said that they wanted foods containing genetically engineered ingredients to be labeled. In addition, nationwide polls suggested that <a href="http://agecon.okstate.edu/faculty/publications/4975.pdf" target="blank" style="color: rgb(102, 0, 51); text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold;">up to 80 percent</a> of Americans want labels on foods that contain DNA—although, presumably, few of them realize that that would encompass virtually everything in their diets except highly refined foods such as oil, sugar, and salt. These exercises prove only that people know little about the chemistry and biology of what they eat. (Or about their own bodies, for that matter—they, too, are composed of chemicals, including DNA.)</font></p></div><div class="text parbase text-7 section" style="color: rgb(40, 27, 33); line-height: 21px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><p style="line-height: 1.8; margin: 1em 0px;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">This latest manifestation of New Age nonsense is vintage Oz. The FDA slammed him in 2011 for an “irresponsible and misleading” report on arsenic in apple juice, and in June 2014 at a hearing, members of the Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee <a href="http://www.slate.com/blogs/weigel/2014/06/17/sen_claire_mccaskill_dissects_dr_oz_for_weight_loss_scams.html" style="color: rgb(102, 0, 51); text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold;">grilled and thoroughly humiliated</a> Oz for his hawking of fraudulent products. In addition, publications including the<em> </em><a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/to-your-health/wp/2014/09/09/the-ftc-fined-a-company-pushing-diet-pills-touted-by-dr-oz-will-the-medical-world-weigh-in/" target="blank" style="color: rgb(102, 0, 51); text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold;"><em>Washington Post</em></a>, the <a href="http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2013/02/04/the-operator" target="blank" style="color: rgb(102, 0, 51); text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold;"><em>New Yorker</em></a>, and <strong><em>Slate </em></strong>have criticized his anti-science views.</font></p></div><div class="text parbase text-8 section" style="color: rgb(40, 27, 33); line-height: 21px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><p style="line-height: 1.8; margin: 1em 0px;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">The <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Randi_Educational_Foundation" target="blank" style="color: rgb(102, 0, 51); text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold;">James Randi Educational Foundation</a> has no fewer than three times bestowed on Oz its Pigasus Award, which is given “to expose parapsychological, paranormal or psychic frauds that Randi has noted over the previous year.” The last two of these were for support of faith healing and psychic communication with the dead, among other things (2010), and “Refusal to Face Reality” for his continued promotion of “quack medical practices, paranormal belief, and pseudoscience” (2012). </font></p></div><div class="text parbase text-9 section" style="color: rgb(40, 27, 33); line-height: 21px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><p style="line-height: 1.8; margin: 1em 0px;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Among scientists, Oz is known for his anti-genetic-engineering propaganda, which he promotes regularly on his TV program in concert with outspoken biotech opponents who lack medical or scientific backgrounds. In September 2014, Oz <a href="http://geneticliteracyproject.org/2014/09/25/organic-food-can-cure-autism-caused-by-gmos-more-quack-science-from-dr-oz/" target="blank" style="color: rgb(102, 0, 51); text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold;">featured</a> Zen Honeycutt, founder of the anti-genetic engineering organization Moms Across America, who shared her bias without a hint of skepticism or so much as a follow-up question from Oz. </font></p></div><div class="text parbase text-10 section" style="color: rgb(40, 27, 33); line-height: 21px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><p style="line-height: 1.8; margin: 1em 0px;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Like many antagonists of genetic engineering, Honeycutt attempted to demonize glyphosate, an herbicide used in various types of farming, because some genetically engineered crops are used in conjunction with it. Honeycutt claimed that her son had been experiencing symptoms of autism, and she wanted his urine tested for chemicals used in farming. His doctor declined, so she used a private lab that supposedly detected glyphosate levels “eight times higher than found anywhere in Europe [in] urine testing.” She claimed that within six weeks of going “completely [genetic engineering]–free and organic, his autism symptoms were gone, and the level of glyphosate was no longer detectable.” She didn’t clarify what European data were used for comparison or why. There is no medical evidence that exposure to glyphosate has any connection with autism; in fact, glyphosate has lower overall <a href="http://www.nysipm.cornell.edu/publications/eiq/equation.asp" target="blank" style="color: rgb(102, 0, 51); text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold;">health impacts</a> than white vinegar (aka the chemical acetic acid) when used as a <a href="http://www.nysipm.cornell.edu/publications/eiq/equation.asp" target="blank" style="color: rgb(102, 0, 51); text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold;">herbicide</a>. ....</font></p><section class="content" style="padding-right: 88px;"><div class="newbody body parsys"><div id="pageContainer2" class="page-container"><div class="text-11 text parbase section"><p style="line-height: 1.8; margin: 1em 0px;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">This sort of nonsense is part of a longstanding pattern. Oz’s wife and the co-producer of his program, Lisa Oz, is a supporter of brazen anti-genetic-engineering campaigner and <a href="http://academicsreview.org/reviewed-individuals/jeffrey-smith/" target="blank" style="color: rgb(102, 0, 51); text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold;">self-described levitator Jeffrey Smith</a>. An advocate of alternative health products—the manufacturers of which happen to sponsor her and Dr. Oz’s radio and television programs—Lisa Oz recently collaborated with Smith and served as narrator for his lurid and ludicrous <a href="http://www.examiner.com/article/genetic-roulette-a-movie-review" target="blank" style="color: rgb(102, 0, 51); text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold;">anti-genetic-engineering movie</a>.</font></p></div><div class="text-12 text parbase section"><p style="line-height: 1.8; margin: 1em 0px;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Oz made an attempt to appear balanced on the March 10 program—he interviewed Neal Carter, apple grower and founder of Okanagan Specialty Fruits, the creator of the Arctic apple. When asked how to detect whether a nonbrowning apple is rotting, Carter explained, “It’s important to understand that Arctic apples are just like any other apple in this regard.” He described how only the <em>enzymatic</em> browning of the Arctic apple has been “turned off.” When an apple rots, pathogens have their own enzymes that make it turn brown. Thus, these apples will brown when they rot.</font></p></div><div class="text-13 text parbase section"><p style="line-height: 1.8; margin: 1em 0px;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Why nonbrowning apples? “Apples as a whole apple are too big a commitment,” Carter asserted. “[B]y making it not go brown, it makes it more suitable for food service, putting apples in more places, increasing consumption.”</font></p></div><div class="text text-14 parbase section"><p style="line-height: 1.8; margin: 1em 0px;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">After his own reductionist description of how scientists turned off the browning traits, Oz cited unnamed critics who say that altering one trait might inadvertently affect others. To expand on these concerns, Oz brought on so-called genetic engineering expert and Consumers Union scientist Michael Hansen. On the program Hansen questioned the apple’s safety, claiming that the technique used can also potentially turn off other genes. (Testing has shown that it doesn’t, and that the Arctic apple is<a href="http://www.arcticapples.com/arctic-apples-story/how-we-keep-apples-from-turning-brown" target="blank" style="color: rgb(102, 0, 51); text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold;">indistinguishable from its unmodified cohorts</a>, except for lower levels of the enzymes that mediate browning.)</font></p></div><div class="text text-15 parbase section"><p style="line-height: 1.8; margin: 1em 0px;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Neither Oz nor Hansen seems to understand that the entire apple industry owes the diversity of varieties to different gene expression patterns. A Golden Delicious apple looks and tastes different from a Red Delicious because different apple genes are expressed. Recent genomic sequencing shows there are about 57,000 genes in the Golden Delicious apple.</font></p></div><div class="text parbase text-16 section"><p style="line-height: 1.8; margin: 1em 0px;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Hansen then invoked the issue of “fraud,” lamenting that without labels at salad bars and elsewhere, most consumers will see unblemished sliced apples and think they’re freshly cut. Thereby, Hansen turns a red fruit into a red herring. Do sliced cucumbers or radishes turn brown to warn customers of waning freshness? </font></p></div><div class="text parbase text-17 section"><p style="line-height: 1.8; margin: 1em 0px;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Leading up to the segment’s conclusion, Oz gushed to Carter, whose company created the Arctic apple, “I treasure the fact that you’re here. It’s hard to have this conversation in America right now; the two sides aren’t talking to each other very much. I commend you for your transparency, and the fact that you’ve been willing to come here and articulate in a very tasteful way at many levels.” The tacit message was, of course, that Carter is a rare exception to the usual mendacious, obfuscating biotech proponents.</font></p></div><div class="text parbase text-18 section"><p style="line-height: 1.8; margin: 1em 0px;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Oz then implored Carter to extend his transparency to labeling Arctic apples in the marketplace as genetically engineered (presumably so that consumers could avoid them). Carter didn’t bite. He responded calmly that the proponents of labeling are anti-biotech. “It’s being driven by other business objectives and I think that’s completely wrong.” For that reason, he stated that the fruits will be labeled with the Arctic logo, but not explicitly as genetically engineered.</font></p></div><div class="text parbase text-19 section"><p style="line-height: 1.8; margin: 1em 0px;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Oz wasn’t satisfied, expressing concern that consumers might not know that <em>Arctic</em>means genetically engineered. The real debate, Oz claimed, is not whether products made with genetic engineering are dangerous, but whether consumers have a right to know so they can decide. But there is already plenty of voluntary GMO-free labeling around, while mandatory labeling fails every test—<a href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/henrymiller/2014/07/09/genetic-engineering-is-a-tool-not-a-category-stupid/" target="blank" style="color: rgb(102, 0, 51); text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold;">scientific</a>, <a href="http://giannini.ucop.edu/media/are-update/files/articles/V15N6_2.pdf" target="blank" style="color: rgb(102, 0, 51); text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold;">economic</a>,<a href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/henrymiller/2011/12/08/labeling-of-biotech-foods-is-unnecessary-and-unconstitutional/" target="blank" style="color: rgb(102, 0, 51); text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold;">legal</a>, and <a href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/henrymiller/2012/09/12/labeling-of-genetically-engineered-foods-is-a-losing-proposition/" target="blank" style="color: rgb(102, 0, 51); text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold;">common sense</a>—and the federal <a href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/henrymiller/2011/12/08/labeling-of-biotech-foods-is-unnecessary-and-unconstitutional/" target="blank" style="color: rgb(102, 0, 51); text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold;">courts have found that there is no such “right to know</a>.” </font></p></div><div class="text parbase section text-20"><p style="line-height: 1.8; margin: 1em 0px;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Dr. Oz fails to understand that there is a centuries-old seamless continuum of genetic modification of crops, animals, and microorganisms, performed by a variety of pre-molecular techniques, some of which have drastically altered the foods that we consume routinely. Some have <a href="http://execdeanagriculture.rutgers.edu/pdfs/goodman-k06.pdf" target="blank" style="color: rgb(102, 0, 51); text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold;">moved genetic material from one species or genus to another</a> to yield outcomes that don’t exist in nature. Farmers and plant breeders have been creating new varieties of apples for millennia. The new molecular techniques for accomplishing this are far more precise, predictable, and conservative than older, <em>unregulated</em> techniques for genetic improvement. With the exception of wild berries, wild game, wild mushrooms, and most fish and shellfish, all of the foods in our diets come from organisms that have been genetically modified in some way; and about <a href="http://www.politifact.com/rhode-island/statements/2015/mar/22/donna-nesselbush/sen-donna-nesselbush-three-quarters-processed-food" target="blank" style="color: rgb(102, 0, 51); text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold;">three-quarters of the processed foods</a> in American markets contain ingredients from organisms genetically engineered with molecular techniques similar to those used to create Arctic apples.</font></p></div><aside class="top-comment top-comment-link" style="display: inline; position: relative; width: 246px; float: left; margin-left: -18px; padding-left: 18px; padding-right: 18px; margin-right: 18px; background: url("/etc/designs/slate/images/top-comment-background-tile.10f58d3d.gif?1450734108");"><a href="http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/future_tense/2015/04/arctic_apple_safety_dr_oz_sows_seeds_of_mistrust_on_gmos.2.html#lf_comment=293348621" class="primary" style="color: rgb(102, 0, 51); text-decoration: none; position: absolute; top: 0px; left: 0px; width: 282px; height: auto; z-index: 5; bottom: 3.1em; background-image: url("/etc/designs/slate/images/transparent.7f431be1.png?1450734108");" /><p class="title" style="line-height: 1.1; margin: 1em 0px;"><span style="padding: 8px 10px; background: rgb(240, 255, 0);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Top Comment</font></span></p><div class="quote" style="border-bottom-width: 1px; border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-color: rgb(40, 27, 33); padding-bottom: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px;"><p style="line-height: 1.4; margin: 1em 0px;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">An apple that doesn't brown quickly is far less scary than a pastry that doesn't get stale ever. E.g., everything in the center aisles of your grocery store. <a style="color: rgb(102, 0, 51);">More...</a></font></p><p style="line-height: 1.4; margin: -18px 0px -5px; text-align: right;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">-STOOL BOOM</font></p></div><p class="comment-options" style="line-height: 1.1; margin: 1em 0px; overflow: hidden;"><a href="http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/future_tense/2015/04/arctic_apple_safety_dr_oz_sows_seeds_of_mistrust_on_gmos.2.html#comments" class="count labeled" style="color: rgb(102, 0, 51); text-decoration: none; display: block; float: left;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">345 Comments</font></a><a href="http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/future_tense/2015/04/arctic_apple_safety_dr_oz_sows_seeds_of_mistrust_on_gmos.2.html#comments" class="join-in" style="color: rgb(102, 0, 51); text-decoration: none; display: block; font-weight: bold; padding-left: 21px; float: right; background: url("/etc/designs/slate/images/join-in-icon.50531212.png?1450734108") 0% 50% no-repeat;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Join In</font></a></p></aside><div class="text parbase section text-21"><p style="line-height: 1.8; margin: 1em 0px;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Touting consumer choice as a right is a subterfuge. When there is sufficient demand, market forces provide labels that people want, like <em>kosher</em>, <em>halal</em>, or <em>organic</em>. Dr. Oz might think he can emulate Dorothy by clicking his heels three times and making his claims true—and he may have luck convincing others that they are—but science and common sense argue otherwise.</font></p></div><div class="text-22 text parbase section"><p style="line-height: 1.8; margin: 1em 0px;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><em>This article is part of Future Tense, a collaboration among </em><a href="http://www.asu.edu/?feature=research" target="blank" style="color: rgb(102, 0, 51); text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold;"><em>Arizona State University</em></a><em>, </em><a href="http://www.newamerica.org/" target="blank" style="color: rgb(102, 0, 51); text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold;"><em>New America</em></a><em>, and </em><strong><em>Slate</em></strong><em>. Future Tense explores the ways emerging technologies affect society, policy, and culture. To read more, visit the </em><a href="http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense.html" style="color: rgb(102, 0, 51); text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold;"><em>Future Tense blog</em></a><em> and the </em><a href="http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/future_tense.html" style="color: rgb(102, 0, 51); text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold;"><em>Future Tense home page</em></a><em>. You can also </em><a href="http://www.twitter.com/futuretensenow" target="blank" style="color: rgb(102, 0, 51); text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold;"><em>follow us on Twitter</em></a><em>.</em></font></p></div></div></div></section><footer><section class="about-the-author multi" style="margin-bottom: 10px;"><div class="author-bio" style="background: url("/etc/designs/slate/images/narrow-black-line.4b966049.gif?1450734108") 0% 0% no-repeat;"><p style="line-height: 1.3; margin: 1em 0px; color: rgb(102, 0, 51); padding-top: 1em;" /><p style="line-height: 1.3; margin: 1em 0px; color: rgb(102, 0, 51);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Henry I. Miller, a physician, is a fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution. He was the founding director of the Office of Biotechnology at the Food and Drug Administration. </font></p><p style="line-height: 1.3; margin: 1em 0px; color: rgb(102, 0, 51);" /></div><div class="author-bio" style="background: url("/etc/designs/slate/images/narrow-black-line.4b966049.gif?1450734108") 0% 0% no-repeat;"><p style="line-height: 1.3; margin: 1em 0px; color: rgb(102, 0, 51); padding-top: 1em;" /><p style="line-height: 1.3; margin: 1em 0px; color: rgb(102, 0, 51);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Kavin Senapathy is a science advocate and works for a genomics company in Wisconsin that doesn’t develop GE foods. Find her<i> </i>on <a href="https://www.facebook.com/Ksenapathy" target="blank" style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(102, 0, 51) !important;">Facebook</a> and <a href="https://twitter.com/ksenapathy" target="blank" style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(102, 0, 51) !important;">Twitter</a><i>.</i></font></p></div></section></footer></div></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"></font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">trembath</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></div><div><div class="text text-1 parbase section" style="color: rgb(40, 27, 33); line-height: 21px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><p style="line-height: 1.8; margin: 1em 0px;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">n 1980, Stanford ecologist Paul Ehrlich famously bet libertarian economist Julian Simon that the price index of several precious metals would increase over the ensuing 10 years. Ehrlich, author of the apocalyptic hit <em>The Population Bomb</em>, expected that resource scarcity would inevitably drive up prices. Simon took the bet, insisting that the free market and human ingenuity would find ways to produce more resources at lower costs. Simon won.</font></p></div><div class="text-2 text parbase section" style="color: rgb(40, 27, 33); line-height: 21px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><p style="line-height: 1.8; margin: 1em 0px;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">That wager, expertly recalled in <a href="http://www.amazon.com/dp/0300198973/?tag=slatmaga-20" target="blank" style="color: rgb(102, 0, 51); text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold;">Paul Sabin’s <em>The Bet</em></a>, is a microcosm of the left-right divide on the environment and economic growth that has existed for the past several decades. Ehrlich was on the left: an angry, pessimistic academic demanding government policy to halt the growth of population, technology, and consumption. Simon was on the right: a sunny, gregarious economist arguing the free market would forever solve humanity’s resource challenges and that government should get the hell out of the way. Lefties and righties across Western economies have played these roles consistently for a generation.</font></p></div><div class="text-3 text parbase section" style="color: rgb(40, 27, 33); line-height: 21px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><p style="line-height: 1.8; margin: 1em 0px;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">That divide no longer matters.</font></p></div><div class="text parbase text-4 section" style="color: rgb(40, 27, 33); line-height: 21px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><p style="line-height: 1.8; margin: 1em 0px;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Or, at least, it’s on its way out. Two remarkable books that came out this year—<a href="http://www.amazon.com/dp/1782799605/?tag=slatmaga-20" target="blank" style="color: rgb(102, 0, 51); text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold;"><em>Austerity Ecology & the Collapse Porn Addicts</em></a><em> </em>by Leigh Phillips and <a href="http://www.amazon.com/dp/1250057671/?tag=slatmaga-20" target="blank" style="color: rgb(102, 0, 51); text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold;"><em>The End of Doom</em></a><em> </em>by Ronald Bailey—each makes the case that growth, technology, and accelerated modernization can solve the twin global problems of poverty and environmental devastation. The twist is that Phillips and Bailey argue from diametrically opposed left and right positions.</font></p></div><div class="text parbase text-5 section" style="color: rgb(40, 27, 33); line-height: 21px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><p style="line-height: 1.8; margin: 1em 0px;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Phillips’ important socialist polemic—subtitled <em>A Defence of Growth, Progress, Industry and Stuff</em>—resurrects the progressive vision of Alexander Hamilton, Abraham Lincoln, and Franklin Roosevelt. Somewhere in the last 50 years, Phillips writes, the left abandoned progressivism. “The New Left in America,” he argues, “from its birth in the early 1960s, turned away from the expansive ambition and productivism of earlier social democratic and Communist left, and toward the fear of the large, the modern, and the technological.” From this perspective, Phillips advocates global socialist government, nuclear power, biotechnology and genetic modification, and even space exploration.</font></p></div><div class="text text-6 parbase section" style="color: rgb(40, 27, 33); line-height: 21px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><p style="line-height: 1.8; margin: 1em 0px;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Bailey, a scholar and columnist at the libertarian <em>Reason</em> magazine, makes a similar case. An update to his 1993 book <a href="http://www.amazon.com/dp/0312086989/?tag=slatmaga-20" target="blank" style="color: rgb(102, 0, 51); text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold;"><em>Eco-Scam</em></a>, <em>End of Doom </em>counters 50 years of apocalyptic environmentalist rhetoric on pesticides, GMOs, fossil fuels, and other hallmarks of modernity. Along the way, he regularly chides environmentalists and big-government bureaucrats for slowing the advance of promising technologies.</font></p></div><div class="text parbase text-7 section" style="color: rgb(40, 27, 33); line-height: 21px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><p style="line-height: 1.8; margin: 1em 0px;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Bailey writes that not only are the risks of advanced technologies massively overhyped by nominal lefty spokespeople like <a href="http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/08/25/seeds-of-doubt" target="blank" style="color: rgb(102, 0, 51); text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold;">Vandana Shiva</a> and Bill McKibben, but said technologies in fact have the consistent and demonstrable effect of lifting people out of poverty and saving more room for nature. For instance, Bailey cites studies showing that biotech crops have produced $120 billion in economic gains for farmers over the past 20 years while sparing 300 million acres—an area almost twice the size of Texas—from being converted to agricultural land. The evidence in Bailey’s book is convincing: Technology boosts incomes and saves nature.</font></p></div><div class="text parbase text-8 section" style="color: rgb(40, 27, 33); line-height: 21px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><p style="line-height: 1.8; margin: 1em 0px;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">On GMOs, nuclear power, energy consumption, and industrial activity, Phillips the socialist and Bailey the libertarian agree. But for their positions on the role of government, they have written nearly the same book. How can this be?</font></p></div><div class="text parbase text-9 section" style="color: rgb(40, 27, 33); line-height: 21px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><p style="line-height: 1.8; margin: 1em 0px;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">The two authors do not fit neatly into political categories. Phillips excoriates his fellow leftists for abandoning their historical faith in progress, technology, and institutions. According to <em>Austerity Ecology</em>, the anti-technology “small-is-beautiful” ideology of the modern left feeds right into the anti-government right of the latter 20<span style="line-height: 0; position: relative; vertical-align: baseline; top: -0.5em;">th</span> century. This is an evolution of the progressive movement that Phillips harshly rejects. Bailey, likewise, contrasts sharply with past conservative ideas of Malthus, Thomas Jefferson, and other anti-modernists.</font></p></div><div class="text parbase text-10 section" style="color: rgb(40, 27, 33); line-height: 21px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><p style="line-height: 1.8; margin: 1em 0px;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Left and right have been around for centuries. But they’ve never actually been the most relevant ideological divide. Rather, humanity has always been tugged between the proponents and skeptics of <em>progress</em>. In his recent work, University of Warwick’s Steve Fuller has borrowed a <a href="http://thebreakthrough.org/index.php/issues/technology/the-rise-of-the-up-wingers" target="blank" style="color: rgb(102, 0, 51); text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold;">40-year-old distinction between “up-wingers” and “down-wingers”</a> to advocate a <em>proactionary principle</em>, a deliberate contrast to environmentalism’s hallowed precautionary principle.</font></p></div><div class="text-11 text parbase section" style="color: rgb(40, 27, 33); line-height: 21px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><p style="line-height: 1.8; margin: 1em 0px;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Fuller describes how the reorientation from “left-right” to “up-down” could take place:</font></p></div><div class="text-12 text parbase section" style="color: rgb(40, 27, 33); line-height: 21px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><blockquote style="margin: 0px 40px 0px 0px; border-left-width: 2px; border-left-style: solid; border-left-color: rgb(102, 0, 51); padding-left: 18px; line-height: 2; padding-top: 8px; padding-bottom: 8px;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">The “90-degree revolution” I foresee is that the communitarians and the traditionalists will team up to form the “down-winging” pole, while the technocrats and the libertarians will join forces to form the “up-winging” pole. … The geometry of the political imagery implies that the Left and the Right are each divided and then re-combined to form the Up and the Down.</font></blockquote></div><div class="text-13 text parbase section" style="color: rgb(40, 27, 33); line-height: 21px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><p style="line-height: 1.8; margin: 1em 0px;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">It’s a compelling visual, and the new books by Phillips and Bailey make me think Fuller’s revolution might actually be taking place. (The two are, of course, not alone—see also the reorienting work of <a href="http://www.amazon.com/dp/0061834815/?tag=slatmaga-20" target="blank" style="color: rgb(102, 0, 51); text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold;">Michael Lind</a>, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/dp/0465044972/?tag=slatmaga-20" target="blank" style="color: rgb(102, 0, 51); text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold;">Ruth DeFries</a>, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/dp/0822314746/?tag=slatmaga-20" target="blank" style="color: rgb(102, 0, 51); text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold;">Martin Lewis</a>, <a href="http://www.nationalaffairs.com/publications/detail/the-new-american-system" target="blank" style="color: rgb(102, 0, 51); text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold;">Jim Manzi</a>, and other scholars who confound conventional political categories.)</font></p></div><div class="text text-14 parbase section" style="color: rgb(40, 27, 33); line-height: 21px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><p style="line-height: 1.8; margin: 1em 0px;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">I think it would make for an encouraging change, for a few reasons. Firstly, I’m an up-winger, so of course I’m in favor of this ideological revolution. Second, it wouldn’t really be a revolution, but more a reversion to the mean: the up-down distinction has historically been more practically relevant than the left-right distinction. Third, an up-down distinction would redound to the benefit of upwingers. Downwingers are present on both the left and the right, but are more sound than fury—refocusing the debate toward upwinger varieties on the right and the left would further marginalize the opponents of progress.</font></p></div><div class="text text-15 parbase section" style="color: rgb(40, 27, 33); line-height: 21px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><p style="line-height: 1.8; margin: 1em 0px;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Fuller’s framework explains why ostensibly lefty environmentalists like Naomi Klein can adopt similar back-to-the-land, localist positions as right-wing doomsday preppers and reactionary anti-urbanites. More optimistically, it’s how socialist technocrats and libertarian free-marketers could collaborate on technological innovation, global growth, and open societies....</font></p></div></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"></font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></div><div><section class="content" style="padding-right: 88px; color: rgb(40, 27, 33); line-height: 21px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div class="newbody body parsys"><div class="text text-1 parbase section"><p style="line-height: 1.8; margin: 1em 0px;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">As negotiations at the Paris climate conference head into the final, critical stage, a piece of pop wisdom is coming to a boil: “They say the next wars will be fought over water.” Some politicians, academics, and laypersons angling for progress on climate change have picked up the frenzied refrain. In the process, they are dragging us all into a “water wars” trap—and compromising real progress toward sustainable solutions.</font></p></div><div class="text-2 text parbase section"><p style="line-height: 1.8; margin: 1em 0px;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Water is the principal medium through which climate change expresses itself, particularly through intensified floods and droughts. But despite melting glaciers, increasing water scarcity, and a run on resources, there is not a single ongoing “water war” being fought on the planet—nor has there been one in 4,500 years. Yet some media outlets are calling what’s happening in <a href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/stratfor/2015/11/25/the-water-wars-waged-by-the-islamic-state/" target="blank" style="color: rgb(102, 0, 51); text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold;">Syria and Iraq</a> a water war and warning about potential future conflicts in <a href="http://www.omaha.com/news/nebraska/potential-water-war-could-be-tsunami-of-disaster-for-nebraska/article_d6975be7-96c4-5106-82fd-67e20fba1eca.html" target="blank" style="color: rgb(102, 0, 51); text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold;">Nebraska</a>, <a href="http://www.salon.com/2015/11/05/the_water_wars_are_coming_civilization_will_never_survive_climate_calamity/" target="blank" style="color: rgb(102, 0, 51); text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold;">India, China</a>, and <a href="http://www.geopoliticalmonitor.com/water-war-in-central-asia-the-water-dilemma-of-turkmenistan/" target="blank" style="color: rgb(102, 0, 51); text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold;">Turkmenistan</a>. So how is it possible such an idea so thoroughly permeated public opinion when the evidence suggests otherwise?</font></p></div><div class="text-3 text parbase section"><p style="line-height: 1.8; margin: 1em 0px;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Drama sells. From <em><a href="http://www.amazon.com/dp/0441172717/?tag=slatmaga-20" target="blank" style="color: rgb(102, 0, 51); text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold;">Dune</a></em> to <em><a href="http://www.amazon.com/dp/B000ICZCQW/?tag=slatmaga-20" target="blank" style="color: rgb(102, 0, 51); text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold;">Waterworld</a></em> to <em><a href="http://www.amazon.com/dp/B014QZ9D84/?tag=slatmaga-20" target="blank" style="color: rgb(102, 0, 51); text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold;">Mad Max: Fury Road</a></em>, the public has been intoxicated by fantastical struggles over water. Media outlets have picked up on these sociological cues and are <a href="https://www.google.com/trends/explore#q=%22water%20war%22" target="blank" style="color: rgb(102, 0, 51); text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold;">increasingly</a> including “water wars” in the already terrifying list of adverse impacts we can expect from climate change. The result of this sensationalized perspective on water scarcity is that it diverts focus away from the real issue of poor management and governance of water resources.</font></p></div><div class="text parbase text-4 section"><p style="line-height: 1.8; margin: 1em 0px;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Leading up to the Paris, a <a href="http://www.worldbank.org/en/news/feature/2015/11/08/rapid-climate-informed-development-needed-to-keep-climate-change-from-pushing-more-than-100-million-people-into-poverty-by-2030" target="blank" style="color: rgb(102, 0, 51); text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold;">spate</a> of <a href="http://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/10/11/114016?fromSearchPage=true" target="blank" style="color: rgb(102, 0, 51); text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold;">studies</a> emerged showing climate change’s impact on water scarcity, including the melting of glaciers, putting at risk billions of people’s water supply. The attention led to numerous <a href="http://www.pbs.org/newshour/making-sense/water-wars-are-brewing/" target="blank" style="color: rgb(102, 0, 51); text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold;">articles</a> that focused on national security concerns and even “water wars,” as the attraction or mystique around the concept of wars over water is difficult for both the media and individuals to ignore. It’s understandable, as our existential dependence on water for life creates a primal, visceral reaction to the idea of its scarcity. But, while there are real security considerations to take into account, it is reductionist to claim water scarcity will equate to “water wars.”</font></p></div><div class="text parbase text-5 section"><p style="line-height: 1.8; margin: 1em 0px;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">The attention, however, is counterproductive. Strategically, water is a poor choice of resource to fight over. First, an upstream country would not attack a downstream country over water, as it controls the flow from the territory it already occupies. In the case of a downstream country attacking an upstream country, the country downstream would have to be more powerful. There are very few examples of this, but one comes to mind and is instructive to inform the thinking on the likelihood of “water wars.” Consider the example of the Nile River in East Africa: Ethiopia is currently building the much-publicized Renaissance Dam upstream from Egypt and Sudan, a concern for the downstream countries because of the potential to capture or divert water. Yet even in one of the drier parts of the planet, there have been continuous diplomatic discussions, now in their <a href="http://www.albawaba.com/business/renaissance-dam-talks-back-on-between-egypt,-sudan-and-ethiopia-round-ten-776754" target="blank" style="color: rgb(102, 0, 51); text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold;">10<span style="line-height: 0; position: relative; vertical-align: baseline; top: -0.5em;">th</span> round</a>, not war, over finding solutions to the Renaissance Dam issue.</font></p></div><div class="text text-6 parbase section"><p style="line-height: 1.8; margin: 1em 0px;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Additionally, war is expensive. To control water, you must control territory, and then you must move the water to your own territory. There are simply cheaper solutions than waging a war.</font></p></div><div class="text parbase text-7 section"><p style="line-height: 1.8; margin: 1em 0px;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">There are many examples of how, even in times of acute armed conflict, countries cooperated over their shared water. Israel and Palestine consistently cooperate over water issues much more than they would lead anyone to believe. The Sri Lankan government and the Tamil Tigers cooperated over water before the war ended. Pakistan and India signed the Indus Waters Treaty amid tensions in 1960. Cooperation has been the norm, not the exception.</font></p></div><div class="text parbase text-8 section"><p style="line-height: 1.8; margin: 1em 0px;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">The reality is that a “water war,” an armed conflict between two nations over water resources, has not been fought since 2500 B.C. between the city-states of Umma and Lagash in the basin of the Tigris-Euphrates river system. According to <a href="http://www.transboundarywaters.orst.edu/database/" target="blank" style="color: rgb(102, 0, 51); text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold;">research</a>conducted by professor Aaron Wolf at Oregon State University, the historical record consistently demonstrates that water is a greater catalyst for cooperation than conflict, and there is reason to believe that this trend will continue despite continuing global challenges of water scarcity.</font></p></div><div class="text parbase text-9 section"><p style="line-height: 1.8; margin: 1em 0px;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Ultimately, there is more to gain via collaboration than war over shared waters. Beyond the water itself, there are benefits to be derived from a basin as a whole, through cooperation, which include hydropower, agricultural production, improved water quality, and disaster risk reduction through upstream storage in case of drought and flood mitigation. This does not even include potential spillover effects from cooperation like trade and regional integration.</font></p></div><div class="text parbase text-10 section"><p style="line-height: 1.8; margin: 1em 0px;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">This does not negate the importance of water as a security issue. While there haven’t been wars between nations over water, subnational violent conflict over water happens frequently, <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2004/mar/11/mexico" target="blank" style="color: rgb(102, 0, 51); text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold;">from two farmers arguing over water rights in Mexico who killed each other in an old-style pistol duel</a> to <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/us-iraq-security-idUSBREA3A0Q020140411" target="blank" style="color: rgb(102, 0, 51); text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold;">ISIS seizing control of the Fallujah Dam</a>, as is outlined in the Pacific Institute’s <a href="http://worldwater.org/water-conflict/" target="blank" style="color: rgb(102, 0, 51); text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold;">Water Conflict Chronology</a>. These are mostly stand-alone events, but sometimes they are a factor, though one of many, in contributing to regional or national instability. This is one reason why governments support and fund water and sanitation projects, especially in post-conflict areas. Safe access to drinking water and sanitation leads to dignity, health, the pursuit of a livelihood and education, and healthy watersheds contribute to healthier communities and economies.</font></p></div><div class="topcomment section"><div class="text-11 text parbase section"><p style="line-height: 1.8; margin: 1em 0px;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">But to focus all attention on water as a motivation for war is to miss the multifaceted nature of war, which impairs finding solutions to both conflicts and the water problems. For example, Stratfor Global Intelligence published an <a href="https://www.stratfor.com/weekly/water-wars-waged-islamic-state" target="blank" style="color: rgb(102, 0, 51); text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold;">article</a> recently stating that the Islamic State was waging “water wars.” The article describes ISIS as using water as a weapon, but this is not the same as a “water war.” If the solution to ISIS were better water resources management, planeloads of hydrologists and engineers would be on their way to the Middle East. Using “water war” to frame the ISIS issue is a red herring that detracts from the true nature of the problem.</font></p></div><div class="text-12 text parbase section"><p style="line-height: 1.8; margin: 1em 0px;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">A “water war” is an irresponsible oversimplification of dilemmas that are nuanced, complex, and multifaceted, which include issues of economics, law, politics, culture, diplomacy, and even basic concepts of water management. Advancing the idea of “water wars” does not address the underlying reasons why a dispute, or poor water governance, exists in the first place.</font></p></div><div class="text-13 text parbase section"><p style="line-height: 1.8; margin: 1em 0px;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">The rhetoric and narrative that are propagated by “water wars” scenarios through the climate change dialogue is one that is counterproductive to finding real solutions to the water problems of the world. Let us reframe the discussion and focus on how we can meet people’s water needs, to promote peace and cooperation, rather than sensationalizing a scenario that is unfounded and dangerous. Our world leaders in Paris do not need attention drawn from the task at hand by talk of “water wars”—they need all the help they can get.</font></p></div><div class="text text-14 parbase section"><p style="line-height: 1.8; margin: 1em 0px;"><a href="http://www.slate.com/topics/p/paris_climate_change.html" style="color: rgb(102, 0, 51); text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold;"><strong><em><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Read more of Slate’s coverage of the Paris climate talks.</font></em></strong></a></p></div><div class="text text-15 parbase section"><p style="line-height: 1.8; margin: 1em 0px;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><em>This article is part of Future Tense, a collaboration among </em><a href="http://www.asu.edu/?feature=research" target="blank" style="color: rgb(102, 0, 51); text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold;"><em>Arizona State University</em></a><em>, </em><a href="http://www.newamerica.org/" target="blank" style="color: rgb(102, 0, 51); text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold;"><em>New America</em></a><em>, and </em><strong><em>Slate</em></strong><em>. Future Tense explores the ways emerging technologies affect society, policy, and culture. To read more, visit the </em><a href="http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense.html" style="color: rgb(102, 0, 51); text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold;"><em>Future Tense blog</em></a><em> and the </em><a href="http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/future_tense.html" style="color: rgb(102, 0, 51); text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold;"><em>Future Tense home page</em></a><em>. You can also <a href="http://www.twitter.com/futuretensenow" target="blank" style="color: rgb(102, 0, 51); text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold;">follow us on Twitter</a>.</em></font></p></div></div></div></section><footer style="color: rgb(40, 27, 33); line-height: 21px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><section class="about-the-author multi" style="margin-bottom: 10px;"><div class="author-bio" style="background: url(" etc="etc" designs="designs" slate="slate" images="images" narrow-black-line.4b966049.gif="narrow-black-line.4b966049.gif" no-repeat="no-repeat"><p style="line-height: 1.3; margin: 1em 0px; color: rgb(102, 0, 51); padding-top: 1em;" /><p style="line-height: 1.3; margin: 1em 0px; color: rgb(102, 0, 51);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Josh Newton is a consultant on international water issues and holds a Ph.D. from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University. Follow him on <a href="https://twitter.com/joshnewtonH2O" target="_blank" style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(102, 0, 51) !important;">Twitter</a>.</font></p></div></section></footer></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">==</font></div></div>