Green Group discussion

Transgenic American Chestnut Trees Are Coming. Who Are They For?

So starts an article that examines the intersections of beliefs, causes, science, and culture. It raises far more questions than answers and serves to raise awareness about how the past can not be forgotten because forgetting about the past is how the past gets repeated.

Transgenic plants uses genes from other plants to enable the original plant to survive under adverse conditions which did not exist before. One of the benefits is that it beings back to life plants that have disappeared from the Natural World. It is also genetic engineering. It is a GMO product and if that wasn't done, the plant would no longer exist.

One issue the article brought up was the idea that people would not be able to tell if they were interacting with a GMO or transgenic plant, or with the original genetic version. If they couldn't tell the difference and let the GMO tree replace the original tree, then they might also forget why they needed to bring the GMO tree into existence in the first place.

Its not like the GMO tree is displacing the original genetic version as that version is already gone from the planet or will be for all intents and purposes. The GMO tree is the new version of that tree.

The problem with viruses, molds, bacteria and all microbes is that they have very long genetic memories. The microbes genes are their tools, and not only do the the microbes freely share their tools, they insist on sharing their tools to increase their chances of survival. However microbes do not not share the resources.

We have the choice of inoculating everything, or making it permanently resistant to something that will harm it. The easiest way is to start over from scratch with a new version that is immune to the existing dangers and let it naturally repopulate itself. While this is good for plants, as we don't consider their connections to past generations to be of any real value, it is not a particularly good solution for sentiment beings like people.

This article also explores in depth the connection to past generations of living things with people and the different ways these relationships can be viewed.

https://nativenewsonline.net/environm...

The question would be whether you want to have chestnut trees in your landscape. If this is the only way to have them, and they do not harm and in fact benefit other parts of the ecosystem, the gene-edited version may be the only way. With luck the fungus will then die out, and protected saplings of the original can be planted.