Ecology & Genetics:

Table of Contents

Preface >

Acknowledgments

Chapter 1: The Ecosystem in Us

Chapter 2: Incorporation and Excorporation

Chapter 3: Modes of Expression

Chapter 4: Reproduction of the Ecosystem

Chapter 5: Genetic Engineering and the Environment

References

Ordering information

To M-and-m and Caline, the cats in our family

I have long dealt with another kind of nuclear pollution-the radioactive mess created by nuclear weapons production and commercial nuclear power. Worrying about radioactive dumps and spent nuclear fuel laced with plutonium- 239 has occupied much of my professional life. A large part of my concern has arisen from the longevity and particular danger of plutonium-239. It has a half-life of more than 24,000 years, it is a peril to health, and it can be used to make nuclear weapons.

Plutonium will burden generations far into the future. It is, moreover, a burden whose nature we cannot properly grasp. In the meantime, the risks of nuclear war, by design or accident, continue to hang over humanity. Indeed, the risks of accidental nuclear war have grown.¹

The implicit social ethic that has produced such risks is the opposite of how people have lived from time immemorial-that society should try to leave a world to the next generation at least as livable as the one it inherited. We live in a world where the pre-occupation with the well-being of the present generation- increasing its comfort and longevity-has become so intense that it is pushing out and severely compromising the possibility for future generations to live well, or even to exist. The immense nuclear arsenals that still exist and the mounting global stocks of plutonium are only a part of the evidence for such a conclusion.

The problem of inter-species genetic engineering seems quite parallel to that of plutonium. We are proceeding on the basis of slim knowledge and little understanding. We are courting disaster in ways that are ill-understood. Indeed, some theoretical arguments indicate that it may not be possible to understand the consequences of widespread introduction of genetically engineered species without experiments that risk unpredictable destruction.

Plutonium and long-lived nuclear wastes were produced with the full confidence that they could be well managed. Society was supposed to make a "Faustian bargain" with the nuclear establishment, as the former head of the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Alvin Weinberg, put it in 1972. If society would only trust that the "nuclear people" would manage nuclear waste properly, it would be provided with an endless "magical energy source" from plutonium. The problems of nuclear weapons, of proliferation, of long-term waste management would all be taken care of.² The reality has been rather more difficult and complex.

The corporations that are making genetically engineered seeds are making an essentially similar appeal. We are being asked to trust that they will safeguard us from adverse consequences of the broadcast of genetically engineered organisms. We are being asked to trust that the consequences are known well enough and that they will be minimal. In return for this trust, society will reap an era of plenty in food and freedom from starvation. There is little basis for such trust, if we are to go by the facts of the terrible inequities that have plagued the world for centuries, and which persist to this day.

While long-lived nuclear waste is one of the most vexing and difficult problems that humanity has created, it is still possible, though not without considerable chutzpah, to speak about its management. Almost all (~99 percent) the plutonium that exists is in the custody of various nuclear establishments. Yet the collapse of the Soviet Union has reminded us, were a reminder necessary, that the stability of nuclear establishments is nowhere near the longevity of plutonium. Even the small fraction that has been dumped or that is unaccounted for will remain a concern for health, environment, and security for the foreseeable future.

A similar claim of control cannot be made in regard to the new species created by interspecies genetic engineering, even though it is far more recent than nuclear weapons or nuclear power technology. As biologist Erwin Chargaff has noted, "you cannot recall a new form of life."³ Further, the potential for inter-species genetic engineering to create new, unmanageable problems of biological warfare and proliferation is just beginning to be glimpsed.

I am emboldened to put forward this essay, though I am not academically trained as a biologist, because those who have seen it, among them biologists as well as environmentalists, have felt that there is a perspective here worth considering. Perhaps it can contribute to a re-thinking of whether, when, and how interspecies genetic engineering should be used.

Arjun Makhijani
Takoma Park, Maryland April 2001

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