Mark Lyans help found the anti-GMO champaign back in 1995. He believed that GMOS would increase the use of chemicals, that they only benefited the big companies, that they robbed farmers of their seed, and that it was dangerous. However, as he wrote his books, he changed his mind. As he travelled around the world writing about climate change, he wanted scientific data to back up his research. So he learned how to read scientific journals and informed the world about climate change. However, he had some back lash from people who didn’t believe him to which he said “I have science to back this up”. A couple books later, someone finally called Mark out on his hypo-criticism saying something along the lines of “You call yourself an environmentalist as you lecture about climate change but you don’t agree with the use of GMOs.”

So, Mark did some research and found out that everything he believed before was untrue. It turns out that GMOs actually decrease the use of pesticides because they are modified to be able to fend for themselves, GMOs are beneficial to the companies and to farmers, that GMOs may or may not rob seed but the seed farmers are already getting does that anyway so it doesn’t make a difference, and that GMOs are actually safer than mutagenesis. Mark also found that there has never been an incident where GMOs hurt someone, however many people have gotten sick from organic foods.

Mark realized that without GMOs, there would be no way to feed our growing population without wasting all of our resources and, being an environmentalist, that is against his morals. GMOs help conserve land and water while still producing high yields and without have to cut down more trees. They also reduce runoff of chemicals because less have to be applied.

For all of the reasons that Mark mentioned in his video about why he changed his mind about GMOs are the same reasons why I have been a fan of GMOs since I was a kid. We cannot feed the world by 2050 on just organic. Organic is a niche that has greta benefits but it is not sustainable. We need to be able to have GMOs and organics live together peacefully or else, quite frankly, a lot of people will die whether it be from malnutrition and disease or from depleting our resources. I try to talk to nonbelievers about GMOs in the hopes that they will see that we need GMOs around. You can eat whatever you want, but you need to realize that your way of living can’t be for everyone.