Bonfire of regulations

[Scouse]

So the intention is clear.

We're going to have a bonfire of regulations that includes freeing up companies to not only use genetically engineered crops in the UK (with the ecological arms-race that we know is the sad result) but also genetically engineer insects and soil bacteria so we take that disasterous arms race from plants and put it in our pollinators and in the very soil we depend on to live.

I've been called a catastrophist but every single reservation I've had on the way we perform has borne out correct. We don't have the intellect to understand the consequences we cause fucking about with our ecology. So in many ways we depend on the precautionary principle for our very survival. The precautionary principle which has been proven to be an insufficient protection, but we are now ditching it wholesale.

You can't stop insect populations from spreading their genes around the planet - so what we do in the UK in certain areas will not just spread across the country, but from here outwards. Same goes for soil bacteria.


I'm not really bothered about vehicle standards, the fact that we're clearly going to give up our personal data to corporations in any part of the world companies like, that privacy is going to be effectively abolished and AI is going to run all this shizzle for us. The fact that we're going to remove legislation on ship-generated-waste so small ports can start working at a lower environmental standard isn't great, but really, the very soil we depend on is now fair game for irreversible tampering.

So brexiteers, @Embattle in particular - you consistently said we wouldn't race to the bottom. We've had article after article showing that we are doing just that. But this isn't a just a race to the bottom - it's redefining what the bottom actually is.

Discuss?

 

[Raven]

I have decided I don't actually care. I have no offspring and don't want them, I reckon I will be dead in 40-50 years, touch wood. This has absolutely nothing to do with Brexit, and continually blaming it on that is a weak 'out' it is humanity, all of it, that is the problem, and it's continued greed for personal wealth and enrichment.

Timing though, to quote a guy in the quite brilliant "The North Water" on the Beeb, the stupid, the truly stupid, will inherit the Earth.

I will continue to not fly to the other side of the planet for a couple of weeks of entertainment, I will continue to not drive unnecessary distances, and I will continue to buy local produce. My holidays are spent in the woods with what I can carry.

Humanity will die out, the Earth will move on, we are a tiny blip.

 

[Gwadien]

Well that escalated quickly

 

[DaGaffer]

I have decided I don't actually care. I have no offspring and don't want them, I reckon I will be dead in 40-50 years, touch wood. This has absolutely nothing to do with Brexit, and continually blaming it on that is a weak 'out' it is humanity, all of it, that is the problem, and it's continued greed for personal wealth and enrichment.

Timing though, to quote a guy in the quite brilliant "The North Water" on the Beeb, the stupid, the truly stupid, will inherit the Earth.

I will continue to not fly to the other side of the planet for a couple of weeks of entertainment, I will continue to not drive unnecessary distances, and I will continue to buy local produce. My holidays are spent in the woods with what I can carry.

Humanity will die out, the Earth will move on, we are a tiny blip.

Sorry but the stuff @Scouse is talking about is entirely due to Brexit; these are UK-specific abuses of the population because you've bequeathed your government to the disaster capitalists. And they'll sell it to you as needing to be done for "the good of the nation" or "global competitiveness" or some other absolute bollocks.

The fact that the UK's self-harm may be lost amongst the unfolding ecological disaster rushing towards us, can I admit, make nihilism look like the right philosophical choice, but don't you at least want these cunts to be punished? You might not save the world but you could at least have the satisfaction of kicking this shower of bastards out of the power they live for.

 

[Raven]

Yeah except it's the comfortable thin end of the wedge where you can blame it on leaving the EU. The EU will toe the line soon enough, business (and population growth) demands it. The Tories are doing it because of a sudden need, the EU will do it because, financially, it makes sense. The EU can't "civilise" the poor countries without it, the EU project cannot survive without more consumers, virtual slave labour only goes so far until they need a reward.

For punishment, I would quite happily see them all burst into flames, but I can't do much about that so I might as well live by example, for the little it's worth.

 

[Scouse]

EU will do it because, financially, it makes sense.

No. Not it doesn't. Nothing makes financial sense if it ends up ending us.

There's nothing about this that isn't madness. And nothing about it which was legal to do before brexit...

 

[Raven]

No. Not it doesn't. Nothing makes financial sense if it ends up ending us.

There's nothing about this that isn't madness. And nothing about it which was legal to do before brexit...

Do you really, honestly think the EU cares about that sort of thing? They are desperately, at all costs, trying to be USA version 2. At the moment, they are happy to have dirt cheap labour from the poor ~90% of the EU, it's not going to last, that 90% will want equal footing, equal lifestyle, equal consumerism. They need feeding.

One of the benefits of leaving the EU is that lack of dirt cheap labour, hence the desperation for staff. Companies are either going to have to pay a reasonable wage or not have staff, we are managing it now, on a small scale. GL EU

 

[Embattle]

I've personally never given anything like an iron clad guarantee on whether the government would or wouldn't lower standards, what I've always stated is it will be up to our government to decide and thus then should the people of this country be concerned enough they can decide to vote them in or out of government thus it is a sovereign issue. The EU has made a change recently as well regarding something that we don't do and is also considered a lowering of standards:

EU to lift its ban on feeding animal remains to domestic livestock

Allowing processed animal protein feed for pigs and poultry, barred since BSE crisis, will address non-EU competition, says Commission

www.theguardian.com

Other than what I've stated above I will again avoid the endless repetitive boring posts that try and link everything to brexit while wearing rose tinted glasses.

 

[DaGaffer]

Do you really, honestly think the EU cares about that sort of thing? They are desperately, at all costs, trying to be USA version 2. At the moment, they are happy to have dirt cheap labour from the poor ~90% of the EU, it's not going to last, that 90% will want equal footing, equal lifestyle, equal consumerism. They need feeding.

One of the benefits of leaving the EU is that lack of dirt cheap labour, hence the desperation for staff. Companies are either going to have to pay a reasonable wage or not have staff.

This simply isn't true. Part of the reason the disaster capitalists wanted the UK out of the EU was because the EU's regulation wouldn't let them set fire to people's rights. Look at data protection as an example; the EU has strengthened privacy and is now in direct conflict with the US over it. The EU has already taken a much stronger line on GMO, on emissions, on a ton of stuff that the UK wants to chuck out.

Its way to easy to say "ah they're all the same". No, they're not.

 

[Moriath]

No. Not it doesn't. Nothing makes financial sense if it ends up ending us.

There's nothing about this that isn't madness. And nothing about it which was legal to do before brexit...

Finance is just a construct that can be changed. If we all agreed to work for the betterment and everyone got given the same standard of living it would be a lot nicer place. No wars about what you have and i dont. We wait for the water wars

 

[Moriath]

I've personally never given anything like an iron clad guarantee on whether the government would or wouldn't lower standards, what I've always stated is it will be up to our government to decide and thus then should the people of this country be concerned enough they can decide to vote them in or out of government thus it is a sovereign issue. The EU has made a change recently as well regarding something that we don't do and is also considered a lowering of standards:

EU to lift its ban on feeding animal remains to domestic livestock

Allowing processed animal protein feed for pigs and poultry, barred since BSE crisis, will address non-EU competition, says Commission

www.theguardian.com

Other than what I've stated above I will again avoid the endless repetitive boring posts that try and link everything to brexit while wearing rose tinted glasses.

And france and many other eu countries have a vaccine passport which @Scouse was vehemently against. Theres evils and good on all sides.

 

[Raven]

This simply isn't true. Part of the reason the disaster capitalists wanted the UK out of the EU was because the EU's regulation wouldn't let them set fire to people's rights. Look at data protection as an example; the EU has strengthened privacy and is now in direct conflict with the US over it. The EU has already taken a much stronger line on GMO, on emissions, on a ton of stuff that the UK wants to chuck out.

Its way to easy to say "ah they're all the same". No, they're not.

If you say so, but if you are asking (for example) Latvia to be an equal then they will want equality, which means, ultimately, equal pay. Data protection blah blah blah, means nothing at all to most people, it doesn't put the sports on the 4k TV or the delivered in 30 minutes take away.

 

[Moriath]

If you say so, but if you are asking (for example) Latvia to be an equal then they will want equality, which means, ultimately, equal pay. Data protection blah blah blah, means nothing at all to most people, it doesn't put the sports on the 4k TV or the delivered in 30 minutes take away.

romania to be an equal to france ? Haha

 

[Raven]

romania to be an equal to france ? Haha

That's what they have been promised, why would they not want and pursue that?

Every single empire in the history of the world has fallen for the exact same reason the EU will fail. It's just massively ironic that the owner of the largest empire to have ever been was the first domino to fuck it off, in the most modern empire.

 

[Raven]

Anyway, this is all beside the point.

The Tories are no different from any other that want's power and financial gain at the cost of anything else, and if anyone thinks the EU are any different then they are naive at best. They want control, money and power and they want it on the cheap.

 

[DaGaffer]

If you say so, but if you are asking (for example) Latvia to be an equal then they will want equality, which means, ultimately, equal pay. Data protection blah blah blah, means nothing at all to most people, it doesn't put the sports on the 4k TV or the delivered in 30 minutes take away.

Income convergence has been an ongoing thing across Europe for 20-odd years. Latvia (to use your example) isn't there yet but its income growth has been much faster than the western average and radically faster than the Mediterranean average.

A rising tide raises all boats. This doesn't mean that Europe will eventually be financially equal any more than Alabama is equal to California, but here's the thing; if you have free movement of labour that doesn't actually matter as much.

Raising GDP doesn't have to be a race to the bottom on standards anyway.

 

[Scouse]

It seems to me the brexiters around here are focussing on utter irrelevancies.

My original post was about us, not the EU, scrapping regulations that allow us to irreversibly fuck with the microbes in our soil.

It's insanity, absolute insanity, by any measure. And absolutely, membership of the EU is what prevented that.

This is a desparate grab by big industrial farming in the face of them being forced to shut down in 50 years when our soil becomes so degraded anyway that they'll not be able to produce anything in their harmful monocultures. We can organically farm our way back to biodiversity with zero pesticide use. This is our government legislating, at massive risk, to preserve the stranglehold of food production for big industrial farming.

We're recklessly gambling, trying to engineer a solution when we've already got the solution. It's geoengineering writ large to solve a problem we already have a tried and tested - and safe - solution for. To preserve financial interests.

And its US. Not the EU. It's soverign Britain. For the rich, by the rich, fuck the people.

 

[Scouse]

The Tories are no different from any other that want's power and financial gain at the cost of anything else, and if anyone thinks the EU are any different then they are naive at best.

Evidence @Raven. Evidence. And the very first post is evidence that you're wrong.

The system we run here has allowed this. The system in the EU prevented it.

 

[Raven]

You brought Brexit up... I simply pointed out that the EU will do the exact same thing when it is required to sustain western/EU civilisation. It's an awful lot of people to feed if everyone wants to drive a beemer. It becomes the fall of empire. Study history more.

 

[Scouse]

I simply pointed out that the EU will do the exact same thing when it is required to sustain western/EU civilisation. It's an awful lot of people to feed if everyone wants to drive a beemer. It becomes the fall of empire. Study history more.

The EU have had the opportunity for a long time to do exactly this, and they haven't. We've had to leave to do this.

The EU could perfectly easily choose a different route. Apart from the fact that our genetically engineered insects will take our genetically engineered soil microbes across the channel and fuck them up.

Food scarcity isn't going to bring about the "fall of empire". A technological failure on the back of a political failure will bring it about. A failure such as this. That we, not the EU, are precipitating.

 

[Raven]

OK

 

[Moriath]

The EU have had the opportunity for a long time to do exactly this, and they haven't. We've had to leave to do this.

The EU could perfectly easily choose a different route. Apart from the fact that our genetically engineered insects will take our genetically engineered soil microbes across the channel and fuck them up.

Food scarcity isn't going to bring about the "fall of empire". A technological failure on the back of a political failure will bring it about. A failure such as this. That we, not the EU, are precipitating.

So yes the uk might be doing some things you dont like. The eu are also.

only one do you have the power of the vote over.

form a pressure group. Influence policy. Dont get mad at 5 people on a forum.

otherwise vote in the elections. Complain when you lose and for the next 5 years and rinse and repeat.

whatever arguments against whoever you have. Brexit has come and gone. Cant influence that any more. Raging against people with a different political view with give you a headache.

Disagree with whats happening now on, nows basis and where it can be affected. Not on 5 years ago.

or go stand at a junction on the m25 and leave us to our slumber.

btw no skin in the game here. 40 years and over and out at the most and the joyless existence that it is at the moment who cares if anyone else makes it out or everything but cockroaches become extinct.

its all self importance that humans should be worth more than anything else. Live while you alive sleep when yr dead. Bon jovi

 

[Ormorof]

only one do you have the power of the vote over anymore

Fixed

 

[Scouse]

So yes the uk might be doing some things you dont like. The eu are also.

What potentially existential things are the EU fucking about with compared to the UK @Moriath?

There is no equivalence here - which is the thrust of your post.

I'm guessing you support irreversible soil bacteria engeneering then? It's the only explanation for your lack of horror at the prospect. If not, I'd dearly love to see what you've got up your sleeve that the rest of us can't see - something your political choice has given us that justifies this.

It's amazing what mental flips and twists people go through to feel good about the consequences of political choices they make.

 

[Wij]

Whilst I in no way want a bonfire of regulation and despise the Tory cunts it is also worth bearing in mind that not ALL of this is bad:

GMO eggplant is documented win for resource-poor farmers - Alliance for Science

Insect-resistant brinjal, or eggplant, is arguably the most impactful project to bring agricultural biotechnology to resource-poor farmers. Studies show that Bangladesh farmers, who began growing Bt brinjal commercially in 2014, have enjoyed a sizable increase in income, a receptive market and...

allianceforscience.cornell.edu

 

[Scouse]

Yay Brexit!

Gene editing ‘would allow us to create hardier farm breeds’

The biotechnology is comparable to traditional breeding methods and vital to create livestock resistant to disease, droughts and heatwaves, says group

www.theguardian.com

Not just crops. We're going to be directly genetically modifying farm animals.

 

[Scouse]

Not brexit here, no siree

Brexit paves the way for gene-edited crops

Ministers will relax regulation of gene-edited crops to allow their commercial growing in England.

www.bbc.co.uk

The Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish governments will get to decide whether to adopt or opt out of the changes.

No. No they don't. And, for that matter, neither does the EU.

Once in commercial crops the genes spread uncontrollably, dsspite whatever biosecurity measures we put in place.

We do this, we do it for all our food

European Union regulations require that gene-edited crops are treated the same as genetically-modified crops.
These rules call for a number of field trials over a period of several years, as well as extensive food safety tests.
The final hurdle is for member states to vote to approve a new variety.
This approach is regarded by biotech companies as too onerous and expensive

They *could* do it in the EU - because there's massive profits to be made.

But that inconvenience of field safety trials eh? Ones that have conclusively shown previously that we can't do this without fucking over all our natural crops.

Go go Brexit.

 

[Scouse]

Nothing goes together like Genetic Modification and Pesticide Use.

Go go magic cancers!

Cocktail of pesticides in almost all oranges and grapes, UK study finds

Traces of 122 different pesticides in 12 most polluted fruit and veg products, many with links to cancer

www.theguardian.com

BTW - washing doesn't really help. We use systemic pesticides.

 

[Wij]

Nothing goes together like Genetic Modification and Pesticide Use.

As in an inverse correlation.

 

[Raven]

Nothing goes together like Genetic Modification and Pesticide Use.

Go go magic cancers!

Cocktail of pesticides in almost all oranges and grapes, UK study finds

Traces of 122 different pesticides in 12 most polluted fruit and veg products, many with links to cancer

www.theguardian.com

BTW - washing doesn't really help. We use systemic pesticides.

Isn't a large proportion of GM crops doing the work of the pesticides?