User talk:Paullb

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[edit] Peak Oil

Here's the text you removed with the edit summary: "Fair enough. But the refernced document does not support the claim made, therefore removed.)"

Additionally, application of agricultural biotechnology including transgenic plants holds great promise for maintaining or increasing yields while requiring fewer fossil fuel derived inputs than conventional crops.[1]

Cut and pasted from that source:

Biotechnology for Sustainable Agriculture

New developments in agricultural biotechnology are being used to increase the productivity of crops, primarily by reducing the costs of production by decreasing the needs for inputs of pesticides, mostly in crops grown in temperate zones. The application of agricultural biotechnology can improve the quality of life by developing new strains of plants that give higher yields with fewer inputs, can be grown in a wider range of environments, give better rotations to conserve natural resources, provide more nutritious harvested products that keep much longer in storage and transport, and continue low cost food supplies to consumers. Biotechnology has great potential for developing cleaner, less energy demanding production processes in both agriculture and industry. In agriculture biotechnology can provide novel approaches in the development of new plant strains, in crop protection, in increasing soil fertility and in the processing of agricultural products. The cultivation of energy crops and the development of biofuels must also be considered in this respect.

and

Transgenic Plants

A transgenic crop plant contains a gene or genes, which have been artificially inserted instead of the plant through pollination. The inserted gene sequence (known as transgene) may come from another unrelated plant, or from a completely different species: transgenic Bt corn, for example, which produces its own insecticide, contains a gene from a bacterium. Plants containing transgenes are often called genetically modified or GM crops although in reality all crops have been genetically modified from their original wild state by domestication, selection and controlled breeding over long periods of time. 37 A plant breeder tries to assemble a combination of genes in a crop plant, which will make it useful and productive as possible. Depending on where and for what purpose the plant is grown, desirable genes may provide features such as higher yield or improved quality, pest or disease resistance or tolerance to heat, cold and drought . Combining the best genes in one plant is a long and difficult process, especially as traditionally plant breeding has been limited to artificially crossing plants within the same species or with closely related species to bring different genes together. For example, a gene for protein in soybean could not be transferred to a completely different crop such as corn using traditional techniques.38 Transgenic technology enables plant breeders to bring together in one plant useful genes from a wide range of living sources, not just from within the crop species or from closely related plants. This technology provides the means for identifying and isolating genes controlling specific characteristics in one kind of organism and for moving copies of those genes into another quite different organisms, which will then also have those characteristics. This powerful tool enables plant breeders to do what they have always done –generate more useful and productive crops containing new combinations of genes but it expands the possibilities beyond the limitations imposed by traditional crosspollination techniques.

How does that not support everything stated in the edit you removed?Zebulin (talk) 09:31, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

Nowhere in that document does it mention anythng about "great promise" that is mentioned in the stated article. In fact there are other articles which openly dispute the statements made here ([1]). GMOs actually make large monoculture more prominent which does not help to mitigate peak oil. I will remove the statement and start an item in the Talk:Peak Oil to form a consensus.
I had already removed "great promise" in favour of less colourful language. The statement didn't say that any conceivable use of transgenic crops would be more sustainable. Large monocultures are not part of the definition of applied use of GMO so your link in no way refutes the source. To pretend use of large monocultures makes GMO unsustainable would be like saying that since use of human waste as a nitrogen source can transmit disease then it's clear that use of animal waste cannot be a part of human agriculture.Zebulin (talk) 10:34, 24 April 2008 (UTC)
I think it would perfectly appropriate in the context of peak oil implications for agriculture for you to simply add a follow up sentence with sources of your own that highlights concerns you may have read that transgenic crops can increase dependence on fossil fuels or are incapable of reducing dependence on fossil fuels.Zebulin (talk) 10:54, 24 April 2008 (UTC)