Jeremy Rifkin
Jeremy Rifkin
Jeremy Rifkinis an American economic and social theorist, writer, public speaker, political advisor, and activist. Rifkin is the author of 20 books about the impact of scientific and technological changes on the economy, the workforce, society, and the environment. His most recent books include The Zero Marginal Cost Society, The Third Industrial Revolution, The Empathic Civilization, The European Dream, The Hydrogen Economy, The Age of Access, The Biotech Century, and The End of Work...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionEconomist
CountryUnited States of America
Jeremy Rifkin quotes about
These new genetically engineered food crops are the first wave of a generation of 'Brave New World' foods that are going to have serious health and environmental repercussions,
You can't get a guarantee that genes are going to turn on and off the way you want them to. You're dealing with life. It's too unpredictable.
If your corn has a herbicide-tolerant gene, it means you can spray your herbicides and kill the weeds; you won't kill your corn because it's producing a gene that makes it tolerant of the herbicide.
The antitrust litigation currently in the federal courts in the U.S. against Monsanto will be the test case in the life sciences, just as the Microsoft case was the test case in the information sciences.
Europe's strength is that each culture is a gift to share.
So my attorneys brought litigation in the U.S. federal courts. The judge ruled in our favor.
The insurance companies aren't covering that. Should Monsanto be liable for these losses? Should the state government? Who's going to cover the losses? The fact is, here's an industry with no long-term liability in place.
The other major problem with introducing GMOs is gene flow. This is as significant as buildup of resistance, probably more significant.
Who in this room is considering hydrogen fuel cell powered boats?
What's different here is that we have now technologies that allow these life science companies to bypass classical breeding. That's what makes it both powerful and exciting.
The public reaction was instant and overwhelmingly in opposition, and Blair was caught by surprise. Here's a man who was wildly popular.
When you do classical breeding, you cluster for hundreds of genes in a plant that allow it to be resistant to a particular insect.
When you introduce a genetically modified organism into the environment, it's not like introducing a chemical product, or even a nuclear product.
Basic income is not a utopia, it's a practical business plan for the next step of the human journey.