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It Seems Disingenuous For The Intellectual Elite Of The First World To Dwell On The Subject Of Too Many Babies Being Born In The Second- And Third-world Nations While Virtually Ignoring The Over-population Of Cattle And The Realities Of A Food Chain That Robs The Poor Of Sustenance To Feed The Rich A Steady Diet Of Grain-fed Meat.

-Jeremy Rifkin

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It Seems Disingenuous For

Jeremy Rifkin

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It Seems Disingenuous For The Intellectual Elite Of The First World To Dwell On The Subject Of Too Many Babies Being Born In The Second- And Third-world Nations While Virtually Ignoring The Over-population Of Cattle And The Realities Of A Food Chain That Robs The Poor Of Sustenance To Feed The Rich A Steady Diet Of Grain-fed Meat.

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We Are Hopeful That You Will Want To Visit Our Planet In The Near Future. We Are In The Process Of Restoring Our Environment To Its Original Grandeur, And Hope To Have Completed The Task Before Your Rsvp.

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The American Public Is Not Aware That There Might Be Potential Allergenic And Toxic Reactions. With Regular Food, At Least People Know Which Foods They Have An Allergy To.

What's Really Clear To All Of Us In The Business Community Is That Gdp Is Slowing Everywhere. And The Reason Is Productivity Has Been Declining Now For 15 Or 20 Years All Over The World. So We've Got Very High Unemployment, And It's Structural. And It's Compounded By Real-time Climate Change - That's Really A Game Changer.

The Revolution Here Is From Hierarchical To Lateral Power. That's The Power Shift. So Increasingly A Younger Generation That's Grown Up On The Internet And Now Increasingly Distributing Renewable Energies, They're Measuring Politics In Terms Of A Struggle Between Centralized, Hierarchical, Top-down And Closed And Proprietary, Versus Distributed, Open, Collaborative, Transparent. This Shift, From Hierarchical To Lateral Power, Is Going To Change The Way We Live, The Way We Educate Our Children, And The Way We Govern The World.

Now In Wikipedia It's Really Interesting. If You Put Something Incorrect Up On Wikipedia Within Minutes There Are People Crawling All Over That Sentence Saying, "this Is Wrong" Or "i Want To Change This" Or "you've Got To Include An Amplification," Et Cetera. So There's This Massive Checks And Balances That Actually Makes That Accuracy Work. This Is The Kind Of Model That We - And I'm Not Sure Why No One's Discussing This - That We Now Have To Begin To Apply To Fake News.

Being Both Entrepreneurial And Social Is No Longer An Oxymoron, But Rather A Tautology.

Entrepreneurial

We Now Have An Opportunity, Though, To Do Something We Didn't Do In The Industrial Age, And That Is To Get A Leg Up On This, To Bring The Public In Quickly, To Have An Informed Debate.

What The Public Needs To Understand Is That These New Technologies, Especially In Recombinant Dna Technology, Allow Scientists To Bypass Biological Boundaries Altogether.

The 10 Largest Antitrust Law Firms In The United States Have Gone Into The Federal Courts Charging Monsanto With Creating A Global Conspiracy In Violation Of The Antitrust Laws, To Control The Global Market In Seeds.

What Type Of New Economical System Can Organize This System? There Is Another Sector In Our Life, That We Rely On Every Single Day, That Are Absolutely Essential: The Social Commons, The Social Economy. It Is All The Activity We Engage In To Create Social Capital. It Doesn't Create Capital Market. Social Commons Is Growing Faster Than The Market Place. It Is Growing Faster Than The Market Place. The Social Commons Include Any Activity That Is Deeply Social And Collaborative.

T Century, Hundreds Of Millions - And Eventually Billions - Of Human Beings Will Transform Their Buildings Into Power Plants To Harvest Renewable Energies On Site, Store Those Energies In The Form Of Hydrogen And Share Electricity, Peer-to-peer, Across Local, Regional, National And Continental Inter-grids That Act Much Like The Internet.

We Are Already Producing Enough Food To Feed The World. We Already Have Technology In Place That Allows Us To Produce More Than We Can Find A Market For.

Today We Are Raised With The Notion That To Be Secure Is To Be Financially Autonomous. Amassing Wealth Is Viewed As The Primary Rite Of Passage To A Secure, Autonomous Existence.

President Obama, I Voted For Him. I Think He's A Mature Politician, But Here's What Happened. Obama Wanted A Green Economy. He Spent Billions Of Dollars Of Tax Money To Create A Green Economy And It Didn't Happen. The Question Is Why.

We Need A Game Plan To Deploy It Very Quickly To Both Move The Economy Forward And Create The New Businesses And Jobs, And Address Climate Change. It's A Pretty Big Task. Pretty Challenging.

What I'm Suggesting To You Is That This Could Be A Renaissance. We May Be On The Cusp Of A Future Which Could Provide A Tremendous Leap Forward For Humanity.

If I Were Mark Zuckerberg Or Any Of These Guys, I Would Say, "my God. How Does The World Expect Us To Deal With This?" I Mean, It's Too Big A Responsibility; I Think They're Going To Welcome This. They'll Maybe Keep It In The Private Sector, But They'll Welcome Some Form Of Regulatory Operation Because They've Been So Successful That They Are A Global, Public Good. Everyone Needs Them.

Europe Will Not Accept Genetically Modified Foods. It Doesn't Make Any Difference In The Final Analysis What Brussels Does, What Washington Does, Or What The World Trade Organization Does.

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Starvation Does Not Occur Because Of A World Food Shortage. If Everyone Ate A Vegetarian, Or Better Still, A Vegan Diet There Would Be Enough Food For Everyone. The Only Sane Way Forward Is To Grow Food For Humans Rather Than To Feed It To Farmed Animals.

The Greenhouse Crisis Is The Bill Coming Due For The Industrial Revolution. It's Not An Accident. It's The Logical Outcome Of Our World View - The Idea That We Can Control The Forces Of Nature, That We Can Have Short-term Expedient Gains Without Paying For Them, That There Are No Limits To Exploitation Of The Environment, That We Can Produce And Consume Faster Than Nature's Ability To Replenish.

James Watt Patented His Steam Engine On The Eve Of The American Revolution, Consummating A Relationship Between Coal And The New Promethean Spirit Of The Age, And Humanity Made Its First Tentative Steps Into An Industrial Way Of Life That Would, Over The Next Two Centuries, Forever Change The World.

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I Know Quite A Few Farmers All Over The United States Who Have Tried This And Have Said The Opposite, That They Have To Use More Herbicides, Not Less. The Same Holds True With Bt.

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The Eu Constitution Is Something New In Human History. Though It Is Not As Eloquent As The French And U.s. Constitutions, It Is The First Governing Document Of Its Kind To Expand The Human Franchise To The Level Of Global Consciousness. The Language Throughout The Draft Constitution Speaks Of Universalism, Making It Clear That Its Focus Is Not A People, Or A Territory, Or A Nation, But Rather The Human Race And The Planet We Inhabit.

The Transition Of World Agriculture From Food Grain To Feed Grains Represents An...evil Whose Consequences May Be Far Greater And Longer Lasting Than Any Past Examples Of Violence Inflicted By Men Against Thier Fellow Human Beings.

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Economic Activity Is No Longer An Adversarial Contest Between Embattled Sellers And Buyers "in The Distributed Economy, Where Collaboration Trumps Competition, Inclusivity Replaces Exclusivity And Transparency And Openness To Others Becomes Essential To The New Way Of Conducting Business, Empathic Sensibility Has Room To Breathe And Thrive. It Is No Longer So Constrained By Hierarchies, Boundaries Of Exclusion, And A Concept Of Human Nature That Places Acquisitiveness, Self-interest, And Utility At The Center Of The Human Experience."

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A Half Century From Now, Our Grandchildren Are Likely To Look Back At The Era Of Mass Employment In The Market With The Same Sense Of Utter Disbelief As We Look Upon Slavery And Serfdom In Former Times. The Very Idea That A Human Being's Worth Was Measured Almost Exclusively By His Or Her Productive Output Of Goods And Services And Material Wealth Will Seem Primitive, Even Barbaric, And Be Regarded As A Terrible Loss Of Human Value To Our Progeny Living In A Highly Automated World Where Much Of Life Is Lived On The Collaborative Commons.

Companies That Actually Survive And Flourish Are Going To Change Their Business Model From Production To Aggregating The Networks And The Network Services And Solutions. If You're A Construction Company Or An It Company Or A Logistics Company Or An Information Data Operation, To The Extent That You Can Find Ways To Help Build The Commons, You Can Get Some Commercial Value In That.

You Can Eliminate, For Example, A Brazil Nut Gene If You Know That It Will Create An Allergenic Effect.

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So My Attorneys Brought Litigation In The U.s. Federal Courts. The Judge Ruled In Our Favor.

When You're Sharing The Music, You're Not Buying The Cd. When You're Sharing That Video, You're Not Buying The Tv. But We Thought, Really, There'd Be A Firewall. While Near-zero Marginal Cost Would Impact Virtual Goods, We Never Thought It Would Move Over To The Physical World.

The Position I Took At The Time Was That We Hadn't Really Examined Any Of The Potential Environmental Consequences Of Introducing Genetically Modified Organisms.

In This Country, The Health Concerns And The Environmental Concerns Are As Deep As In Europe. All The Surveys Show That. But Here, We Didn't Have The Cultural Dimension. This Is A Fast-food Culture.

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I Wanted To Make Sure That This Be The First Scientific And Technology Revolution In History In Which The Public Thoroughly Discussed All The Potential Benefits And All The Potential Harms, In Advance Of The Technology Coming Online And Running Its Course.

We're Finally Going To Get The Bill For The Industrial Age. If The Projections Are Right, It's Going To Be A Big One: The Ecological Collapse Of The Planet.

Generations Of Human Beings Were Transformed Into Machines In The Relentless Pursuit Of Material Wealth: We Lived To Work.

When We Seed Millions Of Acres Of Land With These Plants, What Happens To Foraging Birds, To Insects, To Microbes, To The Other Animals, When They Come In Contact And Digest Plants That Are Producing Materials Ranging From Plastics To Vaccines To Pharmaceutical Products?

Back In 1983, The United States Government Approved The Release Of The First Genetically Modified Organism. In This Case, It Was A Bacteria That Prevents Frost On Food Crops.

We Need A Change In Consciousness To Go With This Technology Platform. We Need A New Narrative: We Need To Shift From Geopolitics To Biosphere Consciousness In One Generation. The Biosphere Is Understood Here As What Goes From The Biosphere To The Depths Of The Ocean 40 Miles Where All Living Beings Interact With All Chemicals To Create A Very Complex Choreography That We Call "life On Earth". That Is Biosphere That Is Our Indivisible Community.

The Empathic Civilization Is Emerging. A Younger Generation Is Fast Extending Its Empathic Embrace Beyond Religious Affiliations And National Identification To Include The Whole Of Humanity And The Vast Project Of Life That Envelops The Earth.

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The Industry's Not Stupid. The Industry Knows That If Those Foods Are Labeled "genetically Engineered," The Public Will Shy Away And Won't Take Them.

They're Now Turning Those Seeds Into Intellectual Property, So They Have A Virtual Lock On The Seeds Upon Which We All Depend For Our Food And Survival.

The World's Environment Can No Longer Handle Beef.

Facebook's A Wonderful, Incredible Way To Bring Humanity Together. They've Brought Together 2 Billion People In The Largest Fictional Family In History. So Young People Are Starting To Empathize With Each Other Through Facebook Across The Globe. This Is Wonderful. However, When Everyone Needs Facebook Because It's So Successful That Everyone's On It, Then It Starts To Look Like A Global Public Utility, A Public Good. Same With Amazon.

The Interesting Thing Is, While We Die Of Diseases Of Affluence From Eating All These Fatty Meats, Our Poor Brethren In The Developing World Die Of Diseases Of Poverty, Because The Land Is Not Used Now To Grow Food Grain For Their Families.

The Very Notion That Millions Of Workers Displaced By The Re-engineering And Automation Of The Agricultural, Manufacturing, And Service Sectors Can Be Retrained To Be Scientists, Engineers, Technicians, Executives, Consultants, Teachers, Lawyers And The Like, And Then Somehow Find The Appropriate Number Of Job Openings In The Very Narrow High-tech Sector, Seems At Best A Pipe Dream, And At Worst A Delusion.

We Are Entering A New Phase In Human History - One In Which Fewer And Fewer Workers Will Be Needed To Produce The Goods And Services For The Global Population.

Turning Points In Human Consciousness Occur When New Energy Regimes Converge With New Communications Revolutions, Creating New Economic Eras.

Many Of The Genetically Modified Foods Will Be Safe, I'm Sure. Will Most Of Them Be Safe? Nobody Knows.

The Electronic Media Introduced This Idea To The Larger Audience Very, Very Quickly. We Spent Years And Years And Years Meeting With Activists All Over Europe To Lay The Groundwork For A Political Response, As We Did Here.

The Prospect Of Cheap Fusion Energy Is The Worst Thing That Could Happen To The Planet.

Solar And Wind Are Now Cheaper In Many Places Than Some Fossil Fuels And Within The Next Two Years, Three, Four, Five Years At The Most. What The Exponential Curve Does Isn't Going To Go Away. It Is Totally Over For Fossil Fuels And Nuclear. Nuclear's Actually Gone Out.

We Have Come To Discover What We Suspect Is A New Political Mindset Emerging Among A Younger Generation Of Political Leaders Socialized On Internet Communications. Their Politics Are Less About Right Versus Left And More About Centralized And Authoritarian Versus Distributed And Collaborative.

The Public Should Know That The Liability Issues Here Have Yet To Be Resolved, Or Even Raised. If You're A Farmer And You're Growing A Genetically Engineering Food Crop, Those Genes Are Going To Flow To The Other Farm.

The Modern Age Has Been Characterized By A Promethean Spirit, A Restless Energy That Preys On Speed Records And Shortcuts, Unmindful Of The Past, Uncaring Of The Future, Existing Only For The Moment And The Quick Fix. The Earthly Rhythms That Characterize A More Pastoral Way Of Life Have Been Shunted Aside To Make Room For The Fast Track Of An Urbanized Existence. Lost In A Sea Of Perpetual Technological Transition, Modern Man And Woman Find Themselves Increasingly Alienated From The Ecological Choreography Of The Planet.

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