Our previous Post Carbon Radio show on Nov. 28, 2016, we talked about Emerging New Technologies: Synthetic Biology & Gene Drives - Should We Be Concerned? We now have the ability to alter the code of life creating new and novel forms of life not found in the natural world. These new discoveries give us unprecedented power over the natural world but raise troubling ethical issues.
On this show, we focus on genetically modified trees. Our guests are:
*Anne Petermann, Executive Director of Global Justice Ecology Project. Anne is also the Coordinator of the Campaign to STOP GE Trees. She has been involved in movements for forest protection and Indigenous rights since 1991, and the international and national climate justice movements since 2004.
*Claire Hope Cummings is an environmental journalist specializing in stories about the environmental, health, and political implications of how we eat. For six years she produced and hosted on KPFA, a popular weekly public radio show on food and farming in Northern California. She regularly reports on agriculture and the environment for public television in San Francisco. Claire also writes for periodicals, webzines, and news services. She is author of Uncertain Peril: Genetic Engineering and the Future of Seeds.
Both Anne and Claire were featured in Synthetic Forests: the Dangers of Genetically Engineered Trees, a video documentary on the risks of irresponsibly introducing genetically engineered trees into the environment. http://asilentforest.info/
*Mark Dowie, West Marin author and journalist in the studio. He is a former publisher and editor of Mother Jones magazine. His recent works include Conservation Refugees: The Hundred-Year Conflict Between Global Conservation and Native Peoples and American Foundations: An Investigative History. He has written and published over 200 investigative magazine articles and has won 19 journalism awards including four National Magazine Awards. Mark retired recently from The University of California Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism where he taught science and environmental reporting and foreign correspondence.