Societal Aspects of the Biobased economy

Societal Aspects of the Biobased economy

Introduction

“On an objective level, we know that industrial biotechnology has great potential to solve some of the difficult problems facing modern societies: environmental degradation, climate change, reliance on imported oil and gas, etc. However, we cannot assume that the average citizen will necessarily be comfortable with widespread use of biological processes by industry, particularly in instances where genetically modified micro-organisms are used (although in contained environments). In order to assure society’s consent, society must be involved in an open dialogue at an early stage.” (Working document from EuropaBio and ESAB, 2002, p22)

The transition to a biobased economy has a lot of interrelated components. It might seem to be a technological problem: we need to replace our dependency of fossil fuels and substitute it for biological sources. Biodiesel instead of normal diesel, ethanol instead of gasoline, and electricity can be generated by combustion of biomass. Plastics, and other materials for which we now use oil can be manufactured from plants. Apart from the last 200 years, humanity has mostly lived in a biobased society, burning wood and using animal based products to sustain themselves, so why would it be difficult to turn away from fossil resources?

First of all, we are at this moment very spoilt with the high energy density of our fossil reserves. To get an idea of how absurdly luxurious and unsustainable fossil fuel consumption is, it is good to look at how long it took for the reserves to form (400 million years) and how long it will take to deplete these reserves (probably less than 400 years). During each day then we are using an amount of fuel that took more than 2000 years to produce.[1] These figures also make clear that it will be impossible or at least very difficult to replace the fossil fuels with biological alternatives without decreasing our energy consumption. And to effectively decrease our consumption we have to change our lifestyles, which is usually very difficult to achieve.

The need for a different energy so has several elements. One of the main driving forces towards a move away from the fossil fuel system is anthropogenic climate change, which is threatening the majority of the world.[2] But even without the threat of rising sea levels and more extreme weather conditions, it makes a lot of sense to look for alternative energy carriers. In the North of The Netherlands there is currently a lot of social unrest due to earthquakes that are caused by the extraction of gas.[3] Fracking, a popular method by which the United States and Canada set out to become energy independent, can also lead to earthquakes.[4] The wish to become energy independent is nevertheless spreading since the largest fossil fuel reserves are concentrated in the politically unstable Middle East and in Russia whose government is not afraid of using its gas supplies strategically.

The increasing world population is also an important reason to look for alternative energy systems. The world’s population recently reached 7 billion citizens and is expected to grow by another 2 or 3 billion by 2050. Globally, people’s incomes are also increasing, which leads to the situation whereby more and more people are able to buy cars, thus adding to the increasing energy consumption. The growing standards are additionally leading to a food demand that is increasing even faster than the population growth. The development of sustainable technologies is essential for reducing the human impact on the environment, although this will in most scenarios still have to be combined with a sustainable lifestyle. If someone for example takes longer showers because water is partly heated by the sun, or when people start buying larger televisions because the power consumption (per unit of surface) is reduced, then the sustainable technology could even lead to higher energy consumption.

There are several sustainable technologies that are currently being developed using molecular techniques to optimize photosynthesis and achieve a more efficient use of solar energy.

The major advantage of a biological solar cell is that once such a system is developed, production costs can in principle be kept very low, because the biological system is self-replicating in a completely sustainable way. This is an enormous improvement when comparing this with, for example, photovoltaic cells, or windmills, which are not only relatively expensive to produce but also need materials that come from limited sources. An ideal bio-solar cell is completely sustainable and would produce high value chemicals or, at a later point, hydrogen or carbon based energy carriers (e.g. ethanol or butanol) that can directly be used in cars, industry and even in the domestic environment. It will probably still take a long time before such an ideal cell is made which could compete with fossil fuels, but it is essential to develop these alternatives while we still have enough oil and coal in the ground, to ensure the smoothest possible transition to a sustainable bio based energy system. In the development of a biobased economy, two important trends come together, that are both gaining influence in the contemporary era; the search for a more sustainable energy system, away from fossil based reserves, and the rising influence of molecular biology.

 The research, which is mostly bio molecular, is emblematic of the way that the field of biological engineering is gaining influence in our society and the rest of the world. Our daily lives would, for example, not be the same without genetically modified organisms; genetically modified crops are dominating agriculture in a large part of the world, enzymes in laundry detergents that make it possible to clean your clothes at low temperatures come from genetically modified microorganisms, as do a lot of life-saving pharmaceuticals. It often seems that living organisms are moldable at will. This is especially the case in the field of synthetic biology where biological systems are understood to be composed of functional modules. These modules are DNA-strands that code for proteins that can perform specific functions. The possibilities to modify the human body are also increasing; some genetic diseases are already treated with gene therapy and embryos are in some cases selected prior to implantation in IVF to prevent the birth of a child with severe disabilities. The same technologies can however also be used to augment or add particular characteristics in humans. All of these developments are changing our relationship towards living entities and the concept of life itself. Questions around life that have been the subject of philosophy for thousands of years are suddenly being answered by scientists. These scientists are able to explain mechanisms and how aspects of life are functioning. However, questions around values and how our changing relationship with life affects our conception of being human, and what that means, remain. The enormous amount of new scientific knowledge does not provide us with an understanding of the meaning and value of this changing life, which can sometimes create to tensions in our society.

Another problem around the application of new technologies is that the majority of society only experiences the technology after it has been developed, after years or even decades of development. When a societal debate starts at this point, it is very difficult to change the course of events. Another problem that often occurs in societal debates is polarization, which can obstruct constructive deliberations. Opponents and allies of techniques dig deeper in their trenches, and do not listen to the adversaries’ claims. This polarization leads to the stagnation of debates, and the repetition of arguments.[5] This is seen both in the debates around the risks of genetic engineering and around anthropogenic climate change. Solutions for the societal distance from the technological development and for the challenge of polarized debates are to be found in education, open debate platforms and bioethicists who focus on molecular biology.

The characteristics of controversial research are that it challenges the ‘natural’ order, that it has direct applications, that it is relevant to some politicized social issue, that sentiment has mobilized a related social movement and that the research is in competition with limited resources.[6] Biotechnology can in this respect absolutely be seen to be controversial, and this makes the debates around this field problematic.

An increasing area of arable land is worldwide used for the production of biomass. This can lead to frictions between small scale farmers and the larger industries. In some areas, for example in parts of Africa, there is still a lack of basic social rights around labor conditions. There are numerous reports of slavery, child labor and land grabbing with inadequate governmental protection.[7]

Because the incomes of primary agriculture are in these areas often very low, the farmers are trapped in a vicious circle.  They don’t have enough money to invest in better agricultural practices so that the yield of the farmlands are staying low. While relatively simple measure could be taken to increase the yield, for example fertilizing with phosphorous and nitrogen.

 Investments in in agriculture and biomass production by states or large corporations are also not automatically leading to better incomes for the farmers because of existing power relations. In some of the production areas of developing countries in Asia and Africa there is rather a relative impoverishment of the population because the monopolization of access rights to land and 

water because of land grabbing. The vegetation is often also deteriorating and lands are deprived. It should therefore be ensured that with a future excessive demand for bulk bio-based applications, local access to food and animal feed is not hindered. In many areas, malnutrition is a real problem and food security is insufficiently guaranteed. With the increasing demand for biomass there is also an increasing competition between food, feed, energy and materials. 

Traditionally, agriculture produces both food, materials and energy. However, the scale has changed considerably: the demand for bioenergy has become much larger. Therefore, there is a risk for a shift away from food creation and reduced access to food for the poorer people. One of the reasons for this is that crops that produce food are often more efficient for biomass applications than non-edible crops. From efficiency considerations it is therefore often better to opt for the use of food crops for a bio-based economy.[8] However, this brings with it the risk that there is a rapidly growing demand for such crops for industrial and energy applications, making food more expensive. 

Malnutrition occurs mostly in the rural areas, where the availability of land is not the only problem. War, poor agricultural infrastructure, low education, poor healthcare and corrupt economy are often the main causes. Large-scale land use for bioenergy or biofuels could nevertheless increase the problems although they could in theory also be part of a solution.

 

There are a lot of obstacles between the successful production of biobased producs and a societal integration of these products which could eventually lead to a biobased economy. Although a large majority of people indicate that they favor biobased products, most people still choose to buy the products that are most attractive in terms of price, performance or other marketable aspects.[9]

Most biobased products are at this moment more expensive and sometimes even of a lesser quality than competing products made from fossil components. Consumers are unwilling to pay more for products when the added value is not clear to them. This is often a problem in the frequently vague and ambiguous domain of biobased products.

 

[1] Idea from Katan 2012, the figures for the reserves come from Patzek and Pimentel 2005

[2] As stated in the IPCC report or the more straightforward synthesis report by Pachauri et al. 2008

[3] The social impact is described in van der Voort and Vanclay 2015

[4] Also described in Eaton and Mahani 2015

[5] See for example McHughen 2011

[6] Described by Clarke 1990, 30

[7] Land grabbing is the phenomenon whereby foreign investors buy or rent agricultural lands without the consent of the original owners. See:  Nele Delbecque (2011) ‘Land grabbing: neokolonialisme of ontwikkelingskans?’

[8] J.W.A. Langeveld et al. (2014) ‘Biofuel Cropping Systems, Carbon, land, and food’ Routledge, M. Carus and L. Dammer (2013) Food or non-food: Which agricultural feedstocks are best for industrial uses?’, Nova paper #2 on bio-based economy, nova-Institut GmbH

[9] BBMG (2012), Rethinking Consumption: Consumers and the Future of Sustainability. (http://www.globescan.com/component/edocman/?task=document.viewdoc&id=51&Itemid=0 )

 [DL1]Link met waarom het nodig is om hogere efficientie te krijgen (gebrek aan ruimt, relatief ineffficiente photosynthese)

A world without oil

TEDx talk on a world without oil:
 

 

Acceptation of Biobased products

Examples of biobased products

It is important to distinguish two categories of biobased products:

-          Directly biobased end-products, easily recognizable as biological material. Examples: frames of sunglasses made of wood, crates made of tomato plants

-          Refined biobased polymers and other chemicals: PLA, Starch Blends, PHA, PA, PBAT, PBS, Polyolefins, PET, CA (cellulose acetate), PU, Thermosets,

-          Biobased fibers: Flax, Jute/Kenaf, Hemp. Coir, Abaca, Sisal, Cotton

-          Fuzzy materials: mixes or fossil assisted materials

 

Why are natural fibre composites used in the automotive industry?

There are different reason for using natural fibre composites in automotive applications, often mentioned by experts from Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs, producing for the consumer marketplace) and tier-one suppliers (producing for the OEMS):

• Easy and cost-efficient processing of materials with a resilient formula and long know-how

• Weight reduction (up to 30%)

• Price competitive

• Good accident behaviour (good energy absorption (side impact), no sharp edges)

• Good mechanical and acoustic properties

• Low fogging

• No creaking on contact

• Flame resistant – slow burning speed

• High bio-based share (non-food crops)

Source: Market Developments of and Opportunities for biobased products and chemicals (2013) nova-Institute for Ecology and Innovation

 

In the cases that biobased products are unable to compete with fossil-based products, there still remains an option to “push” them with financial help from the government. This can be done by tax deductions, subsidies or other forms of financial compensation. This can help producers to overcome a transition period wherein the production can grow to a size that it becomes profitable.

Some products might also not be accepted by consumers because they have been produced with the use of GMO’s

Greenwashing

 

It can be highly beneficial for companies across a variety of sectors to promote that they’re friendly for the environment.  Some companies abuse the occasional gaps in legislations to lay dubious or vague claims to sustainability.

Greenwashing can be defined as

“the selective disclosure of positive information without full disclosure of negative information so as to create an overly positive corporate image”  (Lyon and Maxwell, 2011)  

According to this definition, almost everyone is guilty of greenwashing. When someone wants to sell something the person will obviously not stress the negative aspects, which are always there.

A more specific description is  “The term for ads and labels that promise more environmental benefit than they deliver” (Dahl 2010, p. A247)  

A report from 2010 concluded that 95% of products that were advertised as green were guilty of some form of greenwashing.To what degree is the marketing around the BBE guilty of this? When a company is exaggerating specific environmental claims in a too obvious way this can lead to a negative public image due to people on social media who seek to unmask these claims. (Bowen and Aragon-Correa 2014, p108) Can governments be guilty of greenwashing too? Possibly in large projects or investments: e.g. the energy plants that were recently build in the Netherlands, and that are using coal: the clean aspects were emphasized when comparing to the more old-fashioned power plants.

 

The mechanisms of greenwashing

The most important reasons for greenwashing are a lack of strict regulations in combination with deliberate vagueness, to avoid the existing legislation. One of the results is public confusion. 

Companies with a reputation of polluting have little to lose when making green claims. Companies who have a clean reputation sometimes choose to be quiet about their innocence, for the risk of being attacked.  (Dahl 2010, p. A250) 

The dangerous consequences of greenwashing include the devaluing of actual green claims: 

"if consumers get so skeptical that they don’t believe any green claims. […] Then we’ve lost an incredibly powerful tool for generating environmental improvements.” (Dahl 2010, p. A252) 

Another problem is that people often do not  understand the labbeling which should make it easier for consumers to make healthier of more conscious choices. The Dutch consumers association therefore started a campaign to get rid of some of these labels.

 

 

The issues with the technique of genetic modification

The main ethical issues around the use of algae and cyanobacteria lie around the technique of genetic modification of the organisms. This can be concluded from the vast resistance that GM crops have encountered in the EU since the 90’s.

When a gene is inserted into an organism a marker must be used, to be certain that the gene is actually transferred. These DNA markers are in nearly all cases antibiotic resistance genes. Screening happens by growing the organism on plates with antibiotics. Only the organisms who are now resistant to the drug, through the newly acquired gene, survive. Most scientists believe that there is little risk that genes are able to transfer from plants to bacteria, which would make them resistant as well.[1]

A lot of the current research is focusing on increasing the yield in photosynthetic organisms. It is assumed that the characteristics that are found in one of the model plants can be transported to other species. This is achieved most easily through genetic modification, but that is not the only way. In this chapter the main focus is on GM techniques, because of the societal resistance they encounter. Scientists in the EU often try to avoid GM, partly because of the public opposition, and because of the available alternatives. Examples of these alternatives are the artificial lighting used in horticulture and directed breeding. In this modern form of breeding, plants are screened for specific beneficial genes. Botanists can then cross selectively with these plants. Technically, no GMO is created but the plant will have the gene of interest.

The main ethical issues lie, just as with the algae and cyanobacteria, around the technology of genetic modifications.

 

[1] For an overview see Nicolia and et al. 2013

Public Opinion in the EU

There have been remarkable changes in the public perception of biotechnology since 1999. During that time, trust in industry, and in particularly biotech industry was very low, there was a trust deficit of 12%.[1] This was largely because of controversies around food, namely the BSE[2] crisis, GMOs and hormone beef. The trust in biotech industry rose in ten years to 50%. 53% of Europeans are optimistic about biotechnology and genetic engineering, against 20% of the people who indicate a negative sentiment.[3] The remaining percentage does not know what to answer. A report made by order of the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Research in 2010 comes with the following conclusion: “There is a robust and positive perception of the biotechnology system. It seems fair to conclude that Europeans have moved on from the crisis of confidence of the mid to late 1990’s.” [4]

The confidence in biotech rose over the years, but with 50% of the EU population that trust the biotech industry, there are still tens of millions of people that do not trust the industry that is changing society. The most important reason for the mistrust is that the people have the feeling that their opinions are not taken into account, despite several public dialogues with science initiatives.[5]

The poll results around nanotech are less pronounced, 55% of the EU population has not heard of nanotechnology yet.[6] In The Netherlands 54% of the population supports nanotechnology which makes them one of the least supportive populations in the EU. Overall, the perception of nanotechnology is at this moment rather neutral, with safety being the main issue. This is not remarkable since half of the population has not yet heard of the technique.

Since no people or animals are directly harmed in the research around the BBE, and since the goal of the overall project is to make more efficient use of solar energy, there seems to be hardly any critical ethical objections. However, one possible concern is that the research represents an attempt to fix social problems by technological means. Such an approach is sometimes criticized because it involves a technology being developed to fix a problem that is created by another technology. In this way more difficulties could be created while a more obvious solution, such as behavioral change, is not applied. Scott describes several views for and against technological fixes in his 2011 article. Technological fixes are usually a lot simpler than social ones, both in describing the problem and in finding a solution.[7] Fixing a clogged sewer once in a while will for example usually take less effort than stopping people from flushing large items down the toilet. Weinberg (1969) argues that the availability of a technological solution can often help in focusing on the problem.[8] Another argument given in Scott’s article for technological fixes is that these fixes do not have to take human behavior into account, and can therefore be less complex and more predictable. In this way, the technological fix is more easily implemented and, therefore, has a higher success rate in the short-term as compared to social changes. Another reason in favor of technological fixes are that technology provides more options to deal with certain problems and thereby offers policy makers more time to deal with the problem on other levels, including social ones.

The arguments against technological fixes are mostly that they are excluding many factors, leading to unforeseen consequences and generating new problems. A common way of expressing this is that technological fixes only focus on the symptoms instead of the disease. In this sense technological fixes are the typical result of an anthropocentric world view, and derive from an uncritical view of technoscientific progress. Some believe that the idea that humans control nature is false, in which case more power over nature would in fact lead to more hazards; rather, the solution is to be found in modifying values and goals.[9] However, looking at how The Netherlands tackles the omnipresent threat of floodings one could conclude that technological fixes are definitely able to lower hazards, at least for the human population.[10]

“[T]he philosophical criticisms are not necessarily against the use of science and technology. Instead they challenge the habitual way of thinking that sees technological fixes as the dominant way to solve our most urgent problems.”[11] The overall conclusion on technological fixes might be that, although we cannot live without technology, we should not focus only on technology to solve our problems. There is always a danger that certain side effects cause more problems than originally foreseen

The issues brought into play by GM can be divided into, first, the consequences of the technology (mostly a risk analysis) and, second, issues around the act of modifying with respect to the value of naturalness and the intrinsic value of non-human organisms.[12]

 

[1] Percentage of Europeans who trust a certain industry,  as described in Gaskell and et al. 2010, 76

[2] Bovine spongiform encephalopathy

[3] Ibid

[4] Ibid, 9

[5] See Wynne 2006

[6] From “Eurobarometer ‘Biotechnology’ 341/Wave 73.1” 2010, 33

[7] Scott 2011

[8] Scott 2011, 209

[9] Drengson 1984, 260

[10] A broader perspective is described in White 1967

[11] Scott 2011, 215

[12] Described in Gregorowius, Lindemann-Matthies, and Huppenbauer 2012

Genetically Modified Organisms

“The full climate change mitigation potential of industrial biotechnology ranges between 1 billion and 2.5 billion tCO2e per year by 2030, compared with a scenario in which no industrial biotechnology.”

 (Source: WWF, Copenhagen, (2009) Industrial Biotechnology: More than Green Fuel in a Dirty Economy?p3, this report was written in collaboration with the enzymes producing company Novozymes)

40 years ago, when genetic modification techniques were just starting to be used, the scientists involved realized that they were dealing with a potentially dangerous practice. At that time, Paul Berg, an American biochemist at Stanford used tumor inducing viruses to infect E.coli bacteria. There was fear that the bacteria would be able to induce cancer in humans and escape from the laboratory. During the first conference at Asilomar, California, in 1973, these potential safety issues were addressed. The conference led to a voluntary moratorium on experiments with genetic modifications that had potential health hazards.[1] It also led to self-containment rules that still apply today, like the low pressure in laboratories which prevents microorganisms from escaping with the airflows. The moratorium resulted in a lot of media attention and led to the first public debates on GMOs. During these debates it was argued that not enough attention was being given to the societal and ethical consequences of the new techniques as compared to a risk analysis approach.

In 1975, the second Asilomar conference was held. This time government officials, lawyers and the press were invited to debate together with the scientists, to compensate for the criticisms generated in response to the former meeting. The researchers from the Molecular Biology Department later indicated that they were afraid to share their concerns with the public because they thought that their experiments might be forbidden by people who knew too little about their research. The Asilomar recommendations led to national institute of health (NIH) guidelines being developed through open hearings, thereby involving a broader part of society than before.[2] These guidelines lifted the voluntary moratorium and allowed the researchers to continue their activities. Large field tests were prohibited but more legislative restrictions were not applied by the U.S. congress.

After 1976, the picture changed significantly. Universities started to work together with commercial institutions and economic values entered the debate where previously they had been mainly scientific. The commercial interest in biotechnology kept on growing with more and more industrial applications found for the techniques. Together with these applications came new patenting regulations. The first living organism was patented in 1980; this was an oil eating bacterium. This was possible because the court ruled (in the case Diamond vs. Chakrabarty)  that a genetically modified organism is not a product of nature.[3] In that same year, the Bayh-Dole act was adopted by the US congress, allowing universities to patent publicly funded research and sell these patents to industry.[4] The safety issue gradually became sidelined by the commercial possibilities, and the experimental limitations were assessed only in terms of the direct physical risks. New debates were started questioning scientific integrity, the patentability of life and the role of the government.[5] Academic and hospital research ethics committees, comprising professionals in the life sciences, religion, law and philosophy, were centralized. National bioethics committees were also established, to consider ethical implications in biomedical research in general. Together with these committees regulations were put in place to manage the moral and ethical aspects of GM research.

Genetically modified crops started to enter the public sphere from the end of the 80’s. Following the deliberate release of agricultural GMOs, the debate started to become focused on environmental concerns. Starting in the US, but quickly spreading to Europe and beyond, the restrictions placed upon GMOs loosened, they began to be grown in agriculture and entered the supermarkets. In the U.S., society slowly started accepting the organisms. In 2010, 85% of the corn and more than 90% of the soya grown in the U.S. was GM.[6] An important difference between the U.S. and Europe is the scale of the farms. In the U.S., the industrialised farms use vast amounts of land, while there is still wild nature preserved in other parts of the country. In Europe, on the other hand, the relatively small farms are understood to be part of nature. This is one of the reasons why Europeans are more protective over their farmlands.[7] Negative media attention led to several European agricultural bans on the growing and importation of GM plants and people started to ban products that contained genetic modified material.[8] Supermarkets refused all products with GM ingredients and the food industry started to apply negative labelling: e.g. “This product contains no GMO’s.” These strong anti-GMO sentiments evoked disputes among the regulators and the experts who were assessing the risks.[9] NGOs, one of which was Greenpeace, started to link the environmental risks of GMOs to the sustainability discourse.

From the 90’s, the societal controversy also started to focus on the welfare of animals. This was particularly in response to gene therapy experiments and to the creation of transgenic animals (e.g. Herman the bull, in Leiden, The Netherlands) in which context the question of the integrity of animals came in to view. Genetically modified animals were seen as unnatural, and the technique of genetic modification was claimed by some to be morally wrong.[10] The debate around bioethics was even further amplified by the birth of the first cloned mammal, Dolly the sheep in 1996, and the corresponding questions over the possibilities of human cloning. More and more societal and ethical concerns entered the debate and it became less about an objective risk analysis than it had been previously. This also led to codes of conduct for companies, studies about the ethical aspects of gene technology and room for ethics in policy making.

While the debate around GMO’s continued over time, it gradually evolved into a discussion between two polarized camps. One reason for this situation is that the mass media more easily pick up the most passionate arguments, rather than a more nuanced but complex description.[11] With extensive media coverage it became clear that strong metaphors (e.g. Frankenstein food) and powerful rhetorics were starting to dominate the public debate, leaving the less exciting rational arguments behind. As the science develops, new experiments and new data further complicate the debate. In the field of biotechnology, the complexities occur at different levels. It becomes clear that not all information is stored in the genes and epigenetics is given a larger evolutionary contribution. There are also scientific and technological difficulties. For the layperson it is almost impossible to understand how all the techniques work and what the important issues are. Even on the highest scientific level there are still disputes about models.

Difficulties in models around anything ‘bio-based’ make it very hard to make reliable predictions about future scenarios. There are so many variables that it is impossible to put them all in one model. Various models predict various scenarios. A multidisciplinary approach is necessary to take all of the factors – the societal, the economic and the technical issues – that play a role in the implementation of the bio-based society (BBS) into account. When simplifying the models, essential parts will be lost. Although the general public and policy makers demand that the future be predictable, this is not in fact possible.[12] Scientific disputes provide the media with a means of popularizing a scientific story but at the same time add to the polarization of the societal debate.[13]

Another factor contributing to the polarization of the debate is the changing relationship between science and society. Society wants increasingly more in return for the money that is invested in scientific developments. Unconditional funding for basic science is disappearing and governments demand socially relevant knowledge. However, the question of relevance is not only very hard to define, it also changes over time. Scientific or academic knowledge is now often quantified by the number of publications attributable to a project, institution, or individual.[14] The number of publications over time (also called “the flux”) is increasing, and highly influences the choices that are made in research. It can for example be a reason to publish in an early developmental stage or split articles that would otherwise have been published together into smaller pieces.

 

[1] Devos 2008, 30

[2] Devos 2008, 35

[3] Described in Mildred et al. 1999

[4] See for more information Stevens 2004

[5] Devos 2008, 38

[6] see USDA 2011, Appendix 2

[7] Described by Lino and Birrer 2006

[8] See Hobbs and Plunkett 1999

[9] Devos 2008, 53

[10] De Vries 2006, 476

[11] Described in Mildred et al. 1999

[12] Described in Landeweerd, Surette and van Driel 2011

[13] Described in Maeseele 2008

[14] See Hessels, Van Lente and Smits 2008

Current GMOs in the EU

Since the beginning of the new millennium, mass media have slowly lost interest in the debate around GMOs.[1] No new arguments have been given, and the two (polarized) sides of the debate repeat their same old slogans. Only occasionally does a story reach the mass media and this is mostly on the account of NGOs. One of these stories that were widely covered in the media was the introduction of a GM potato by BASF.

 

The Case of Amflora in the EU

In December 2010, Greenpeace offered a petition with one million signatures to the European commission. The petition was against the introduction of Amflora. This is a potato, designed by BASF, which only make starch for the production of glue and paper. The most important issue Greenpeace has with Amflora is that it has an antibiotic resistance marker gene. This gene was inserted while constructing the potato, to test if the genetic construct was inserted well. There is no scientific indication that the antibiotic resistance gene could cross into bacteria, but Greenpeace is skeptical and believes that it is not worth the risk.

It was the first application of the EU citizens’ initiative that was formally introduced in the Lisbon Treaty.[2] This initiative allows European citizens to place topics on the commission’s agenda. Amflora is still permitted in the EU, although the European commission has not reached a final agreement. On the 28th of November 2011, the highest court in France confirmed that the ban on the cultivation of GMOs that had been in place in France since 2008 was illegal. This follows the ruling of the European court of justice.[3] The reason for lifting this ban is that over the last 15 years more than 3 billion acres of GM crops have been cultivated worldwide with no negative effects to human health or the environment. According to the court, this confirms their safety. Financial issues played an important role; due to the EU moratorium, European farmers lost between € 443 and €929 million a year.[4] This potato can be seen as an example of a genetically modified plant that produces materials for industry.

 

GMOs are widely used today, although not always knowingly by the consumers. For example, enzymes used in industry for the production of bread, beer and sodas, are usually made using genetically modified yeasts and bacteria. Because the GMOs are only used in the production process and not present in the final product, no labelling is necessary. In non-food products there are even more uses of GMOs. In washing chemicals, enzymes (lipases and proteases) allow users to wash at low temperatures. Phytases are used in fodder, chlorine free bleaching of paper is done with enzymes and a large number of the pharmaceuticals are also produced by GMOs. As long as the organisms themselves are not eaten and there are clear advantages to their use society seems to accept propagation of GMOs.

 

[1] Described by de Vriend and Schenkelaars 2008

[2] “Regulation EU (2011) No. 211/2011 of the European Parliament and the Council on the Citizens’ Initiative ”

[4] Described by Park et al. 2011

Concerns around GMOs

There are several concerns involved with genetic modification. The most important ones are, firstly, the question of the risks as weighed against the benefits of the technology and, secondly, the dominance of a handful of large companies. There are also more philosophical arguments such as the intrinsic value of life in general and the idea that genetic modifications are wrong because they are not natural.

Risk/Benefit

One of the risks of growing GM crops is that the crops can cross breed with the neighbour’s non-GM crops.[1] The farmer growing these crops is then no longer able to claim that his crops are GMO-free. This question of coexistence became a major issue because, according to the EU policy, farmers must have the choice between conventional and modified crops. There is also the fear that a farmer can be sued when he accidently receives GM material. In this situation, a farmer’s crop is unknowingly crossed with GM material, or a seed from a GM field lands on a neighbouring field. The fear of being sued for unknowingly having GM material on a farm field comes from the case Monsanto vs. Schmeiser (1998), where Monsanto won because their patented seeds were found on Schmeiser’s fields. However, this was not just one seed, but 95% of a field. In the appeal ruling it was stated that it was very unlikely that Schmeiser was unaware that he used Monsanto’s seeds, and that he most likely deliberately grew the seeds. If it was the case that an accidental contamination had occurred, a different ruling would have been possible.

There are concerns about the irreversible effects of GM. Once a GMO is introduced into an environment, it is practically impossible to remove it again. This is especially the case with plants that are able to cross breed with natural variants, making them GM too. The agricultural industry came up with a solution for this problem; making plants that cannot reproduce themselves. The problem with those plants is that farmers traditionally harvest seeds to plant them the next year. These farmers now have to buy seeds every year, making them dependent on the seed producers. This forces farmers to adapt their business model, or go bankrupt. Such bankruptcies have dominated the media, with several Indian farmers committing suicide.[2] These cases are still highly debated, and it seems that the stories, which received a lot of attention, may not have been based on reliable figures.[3]

It is not clear how irreversible the release of GMOs is in the long run. It took plants millions of years to evolve to the specific niches, and each plant is well adapted to its own environment. When plants are modified today, it is mainly done to increase the cultivation opportunities. It does not mean that a GM plant has a higher survival rate in the wild. A lot of the crops that we use today, which were bred without GM techniques, cannot survive without human help. Wheat, for example, now has such heavy seeds that they just fall on the ground next to the mother plant. The wild varieties are much more able to spread. Cultivated corn is not able to grow at all without human intervention – the seeds need to be planted or the corncob just rots away. Crops are designed for very specific environments, like greenhouses. It is likely that these varieties will not survive in the wild. So, in the long run the GM plants will probably all be outcompeted in the wild. But that does not make the concerns over the short term future less grounded. Some species might become extinct because of large scale farming, which is an irreversible effect.

Changes in farming techniques, without the use of GMOs, can have more effect on the yield than is reached today with genetic modification.[4] The benefits of GM lie today in the possibilities of lesser use of pesticides, the production of high value chemicals and the abilities of plants to grow under drought or other extreme conditions. A specific kind of genetic modification is cisgenics or intragenics, a technique by which genes are transferred between related varieties. These genes could also be exchanged naturally through breeding, but this approach would be considerably more time consuming and less precise. The result of cisgenics could still be considered a GMO; there is no regulatory difference, although lobby groups are pushing for a jurisdictional reform. Most people see the technique as “more natural” since the species barrier is no longer crossed. Europeans are more supportive towards cisgenic than transgenic apples. They are considered less unnatural, less risky and harmful for the environment and are more encouraged than transgenic crops. It must be remarked upon that the general public then is more sensitive to what happens to e.g. apples than to plants not meant for human consumption.[5]

Intrinsic value of life

Some objections against genetic modifications are not directly based on rationality but rather upon emotions. One such objection is that by using genetic modification, the species barrier is often crossed, which is by many people seen as an unnatural thing. It might be that this feeling fades away as people get used to the technology, although the moral issues around life itself are very sensitive because in general living organisms are accorded intrinsic value;[6] most people agree there are entities that have a value beyond their direct instrumental use. This form of value is called intrinsic value, or the value of something in itself. An example of this is parental love; parents love their children because they are what they are – their children – not (only) because of their utility. There are three fundamentally different interpretations of the meaning of intrinsic value, all with their own problems.[7]

1: Value that is innate to the object and independent of the perception thereof

2: Value, independent of external causes

3: Value, independent of the object’s instrumental value

The problem with the first two definitions is that if intrinsic value is completely independent from its perception or other external links, it is impossible to say anything about it without going against this same definition. The question thus becomes: can something have value without someone who attributes this value? One could imagine that something has a value even if the observer is not there. Someone might believe that a rainforest is valuable to the animals that live in it. However, that would still be a projection of the perception of these animals, and therefore not in accordance with the definition. The third interpretation becomes problematic when using a broad understanding of the concept of instrumental value. Beauty for instance, increases the pleasure of the observer. This means that the object is not valued for itself, but for what it means to the observer. As proposed by Wissenburg, intrinsic value can also be understood as a form of dignity.[8] The dignity of others is not deniable without denying one’s own dignity. People see their own value as more than instrumental because of specific qualifications. Seeing these qualifications in other leads to a projection of this same value to these others. But what are the qualifications we see in ourselves and others that leads us to attach dignity? People dignify several different entities besides humans for different reasons. According to pragmatists, seeing dignity in others is evolutionary selected for, with an important role for empathy.[9] In the secular United States and Europe, the concept of dignity is now deracinated from its Christian origin. According to Kant, the reason why humans have dignity and therefore should not be treated as a means to an end, is because of their capacity for making free, moral choices. Fukuyama argues that this has become an untenable vision, since most natural scientists now agree that free will is merely an illusion.[10] He then avoids the incompatibility between neuroscience and ethics by describing the reasons to attribute dignity to humans as “Factor X”. This factor is irreducible, and contains all human key qualities together: Human emotions, human moral choice, reason, language, sociability, sentience and consciousness. The human aspect in this is important:

It is not sufficient to argue that some other animals are conscious, or have culture, or have language, for their consciousness does not combine human reason, human language, human moral choice, and human emotions in ways that are capable of producing human politics, human art, or human religion (Fukuyama 2002, p.170)

These qualities cannot exist in absence of the others. When a human lacks these qualities, they can still biologically be regarded as human, but their rights are constrained, even in every liberal democracy. Children and mentally retarded people are not allowed to vote, or free to choose where they go. Criminals are deprived of their freedom and in some states in the U.S. even of their life. Seeing such a hierarchy in human culture, it is easy to extend this to the non-human world; seeing dignity in animals, and giving them rights in accordance to the key human characteristics they possess, seems logical in this light. But seeing intrinsic value or dignity in abstract entities such as ecosystems or species cannot be explained in this way.

Long term conservation projects such as national parks are usually not only valued in themselves, but also for future generations. However, someone could still imagine that a national park is valuable in itself, even if humans no longer existed.

Intrinsic value seems to be a tool to express and realize a gut feeling. But a gut feeling alone is not enough to attribute a value (positive or negative) to. Gut feelings should even be approached with extreme care as there are also negative gut feelings such as xenophobia, hate and aggression. The ontological status of moral intuitions is highly contested. When an ethical claim is proved by defining it in terms of natural properties it can be seen as a naturalist fallacy – something is good because it is more desired, pleasant or natural. If intrinsic value is purely a gut feeling, it should therefore be avoided.[11]

Would it be better to abandon the idea of intrinsic value, inner good or dignity, and to live in a society solely based on rationality? Wissenburg argues that this is not the case:

Consequentialism does not answer the questions about the highest goals – happiness, utility, pleasure, the unity of the people or the pureness of the race. And that is the biggest flaw of the Enlightenment: ultimately everything is allowed, ultimately everything is arbitrary, because there not a single highest goal in life, better than another: there is no measure for it. (Freely translated from M. Wissenburg, 2005, p.11)

According to consequentialism only the results of actions count, not the intentions leading to the actions.[12] Utilitarianism, a movement within this class of ethical theories, looks for an objective way of measuring good and bad. This is done by looking at the utility of an action and the amount of harm or pleasure it would produce. ‘Good’ is that which produces the largest amount of pleasure, ‘bad’ is that that which leads to more harm. This system seems to work well until it stumbles onto the limits of objectivism with the notion of intrinsic value. For example, would one sacrifice humans for the pleasure of the majority? If someone is feeling already miserable, why not help him out of his pain if others are helped with it as well? When an isolated, depressed person in agony is painlessly killed in his sleep, and his organs are used to save four people with a lot of friends and family, the total amount of pleasure is increased. Still, this rational point of view is widely condemned as immoral, at least for people who would not act according to the utilitarian moral framework. The difference between deliberately killing someone and letting someone die might not matter from a consequentialist point of view, but it does make an enormous difference in most moral and legal frameworks.

The reason to attach value to all life can also be seen as an anthropocentric and even egoistic one; by giving value to life itself, and therefore also to nature, the value of every living person will increase, including the value of the person who is giving it. By reducing life to purely chemical and physical reactions, the value of the person’s life is lowered, and people can fear for their protection. Who makes the decision about which life is valuable, when not all life valuable in principle? However, even if it could be concluded that life has intrinsic value, it is unclear how the technology of genetic modification would lower this value. Overall, the concept of dignity seems hardly applicable to plants and microorganisms. This is perhaps only possible when applying “the right not to be degraded”, which lies close to intrinsic value and dignity. But even then, the human desire to alter the organism would easily outweigh this value.[13]

Intrinsic value is a human feeling about particular entities, which logically speaking is a contradiction. It is however important not to confuse logic with emotions – this seems to be one of the reasons that debates around the use of GM stagnate. Sabine Roeser proposes to include emotions in societal debates, not because they give counterweight to rationality, but because they are necessary in the rational decision-making process. This is especially the case when making decisions around moral acceptability.[14] Apart from religious arguments (which I will not cover here) there is the argument that GM is wrong because it is not natural.

Morally undesirable because unnatural

The question as to what nature is and what is natural is crucial when trying to understand the issues around sustainability and some ethical issues around biotechnology. A lot of people reject activities because they are unnatural; this feeling seems to be deeply rooted in our system. So, what does nature and the term natural mean?

The Oxford English Dictionary defines nature as (definition a):

“The phenomena of the physical world collectively, including plants, animals, the landscape, and other features and products of the earth, as opposed to humans or human creations”

And (definition b):

 “The physical force regarded as causing and regulating the phenomena of the world”.

Definition (a) does not include humans; it defines nature as completely apart from humans, while in definition (b), there is room for humans to be understood as part of nature, in that they are driven by the same forces as the rest of the world. The word “nature” can also be used to describe all living things, or more specific, “green matter”. Anything unnatural is seen as being opposed to nature, in the sense that it is opposed to the driving forces of life itself. The exact nature of these forces is usually not specified. People can see these ambiguous forces as sacred and therefore something that should not be altered. This would then make “going against nature” immoral.

According to definition (b), nature is a regulating force, for all phenomena. One cannot change these forces, but it is possible to use them by understanding the mechanisms driven by these forces. Natural scientists can reduce life to its chemical and physical components.[15] They then see the same physical forces that make up the core of the simplest living systems as they see in other non –living systems. Life is still special, but not a mysterious force. In this view, there is nothing immoral about altering life, although it stops being natural according to definition (a).

Bob Goodin describes nature in his book “Green Political Theory” (1992) as something with the quality of the original naturalness. In his view, it is crucial that nature is untouched by human intervention. But he does not specify how long it has to be untouched for. The world is changing, by itself and under the influence of human development. Ireland is with its green meadows is often seen as a prime example of unspoiled nature. But until the 17th century the land was covered in dense forests. These were taken down for the wood, and the land is now used for agriculture to raise sheep. The Netherlands hardly has any nature as it is defined by Goodin; the land is completely carved by human hands. The Veluwe, the largest natural reserve of The Netherlands also used to be a primeval forest but it was chopped down in the Middle Ages. Still, most people who visit the reserve would think of it as nature. In this sense the perception that something is untouched by humans seems to be enough even if people actually know that it was created, or at least influenced by humans. According to some scientists the human influence on the planet has become so significant that it should be considered as a major geophysical era: the Anthropocene.[16] According to this theory, the whole world is under influence of humans, in one way or another.

In the food industry, natural is often seen as another word for healthy.[17] This is mostly a marketing tactic, but the word natural in a food context falls under strict legal definitions.[18] Natural products are produced with a minimum of physical, chemical or biological changes. Natural processes include concentration, fermentation, smoking and emulsifying, as long as there were no chemical additions. Sometimes natural additives are allowed when a product is called natural. For these additives only the source is looked at. But the process of extracting the natural additives is often far more complex than the chemical synthesis, which makes the use of the word “natural” in this context dubious.

People are attracted to the idea of natural products, while in fact they are not natural at all according to most definitions. Vegetables and fruit have selectively been bred for a better taste and nutritional value. Otherwise there would hardly be anything else to eat other than sour apples the size of berries and tiny pale carrots.[19] These changes in nature have always been celebrated, for they have mostly benefitted society. People have always changed the world around them. As “Homo Faber”, humans necessarily change the world around them.[20] There is no objective nature; there is only a human projection of a feeling of longing for a pre-Anthropocene world. Naturalness is not a moral category and although changing life by means of genetic modification may seem weird and unnatural to some, this cannot be a valid moral argument.[21]

 

 

 

[1] Described by Binimelis 2008

[2] See for example Sahai 2005

[3] Gruère and Sengupta 2011

[4] Landeweerd, Surette and van Driel 2011

[5] This research was published in “Eurobarometer ‘Biotechnology’ 341/Wave 73.1” 2010

[6] Although there seems to be hardly any difference in views towards science between religious people and non-believers. See Gaskell and et al. 2010

[7] As described in Wissenburg 1998

[8] Idea taken from Wissenburg 2005

[9] This can for example be seen in De Waal 2006

[10] Fukuyama 2002, 151

[11] Proposed by Wissenburg 2005

[12] Described by Brink 2006

[13] Balzer, Rippe, and Schaber 2000, 25

[14] See Roeser 2006

[15] Nelson, 2008 describes these biophysical forces in detail

[16] Steffen, Crutzen, and McNeill 2007; Steffen et al. 2011

[17] See Bender 1989

[18] “Criteria for Use of the Terms Fresh, Pure, Natural Etc. in Food Labeling” 2008

[19] The cultivation beautifully described by Diamond 1997

[20] Wissenburg 2005

[21] Read Plastic Pandas by Bas Haring (2011) for more about morality around nature

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