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[Editor’s note: On March 17, Boulder County Commissioners Gardner and Jones voted to ban the cultivation of GM crops on county open space land. The following is an editorial addressing their votes]. . .[W]ithout receiving a detailed explanation from Commissioners Gardner and Jones as to which particular anti-GM crop arguments they find more compelling than those we have presented, we believe that the citizens of Boulder deserve a written response to the questions listed below.
. . . .
• Banning GM crops from open space lands will force farmers to revert to the insecticide-spraying farming methods of the 1990s to cope with pests such as European corn borers. How does increased insecticide spraying benefit open space lands?
• Why do you ignore the science around the safety of low applications of glyphosate, effectively forcing farmers to use herbicides that have more troubling toxicity profiles?
• How do you justify the increased greenhouse gas emissions caused by preventing our farmers from utilizing no-till agriculture?
. . . .
• . . . .Why do you think that keeping campaign promises based on outdated and even false information is more important for making practical land-use decisions than basing such decisions on facts and novel scientific findings?. . . .
This commentary reflects the views of hundreds of scientists and engineers that live and work in Boulder County, and who believe in making decisions based on facts and not myths. . . .
William Adams, a professor of ecology and evolutionary biology at CU. . . Lindsay Diamond has a Ph.D. in molecular biology . . .Andrew Staehelin, an emeritus professor of molecular, cellular and developmental biology at CU, lives in Boulder.
Read full, original post: William Adams, Lindsay Diamond and Andrew Staehelin: Questions for Commissioners Gardner and Jones
