What is Synthetic Biology? The Comic Book
Submitted by Joëlle Deschambault on
Engineering life and livelihood
Related Content
Craig Venter Lays an Easter Egg
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Six Years in the Making, “Synthia” is Resurrected
Synthetic Biology, according to its proponents, is moving at five times the pace of Moore’s law – basically doubling its capabilities and halving its costs every four months. Except that brash billionaire Craig Venter, often dubbed Bioscience’s Bad Boy, is no Gordon Moore. Venter has just announced that his team has produced Synthia 3.0 – the simplest human-made and self-replicating lifeform ever. Synthia 1.0 was announced – after years of delays – in 2010 and its second coming in this new form has been awaited ever since. Synthia 2.0 slipped by without notice – apparently not much to talk about – but this new version is being hailed by at least some synthetic biology scientists as a breakthrough.
Merge-Santo: New Threat to Food Sovereignty
Submitted by Joëlle Deschambault on
If we act, we can stop the Big Six from becoming the Titanic Three.
Briefing Note, March 23, 2016
As ETC first warned in May[i] last year and again in February[ii] this year, the pressure of two mergers among the Big Six Gene Giants would make a third merger inevitable. In the last few days the business media have reported that Monsanto is in separate talks with Bayer and BASF – the two German giants among agricultural input companies. While anti-competition regulators are fussing about the hook up of DuPont with Dow and of Syngenta with Chem China, Monsanto urgently needs to make a match. They hope that if regulators let the other two deals go through, they won’t be able to deny Monsanto a chance to even the score.
Corporate vision of the future of food promoted at the UN
Submitted by Joana Chelo on
More than 100 civil society organizations raise alarm about FAO biotechnology meeting
La Via Campesina, GRAIN and ETC Group
Human Health and the Environment: Zika Virus and GM Mosquitoes as Business
Submitted by Silvia Ribeiro on
Human Health and the Environment: Zika Virus and GM Mosquitoes as Business
The data on which is based the declaration of international emergency for the Zika virus are striking for the lack of evidence to motivate such a pompous statement by the World Health Organization (WHO) in the face of a mild illness, with very little evidence of connection with more serious ailments and without scientific proof.
Sino-Genta?
Submitted by Joëlle Deschambault on
And soon there will be three. Joy of six heads towards a “ménage à trois”
For a decade, six multinationals have controlled 75% of the world’s high-tech seeds and pesticides businesses. Late last year, Dow and DuPont agreed to merge and now state-owned ChemChina is buying Syngenta for $43 billion. This means that Monsanto needs a merger to stay in the game. Or, is the game about to be called?
ETC's Irreverent Review of 2015...
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...and (possibly) Irrelevant Preview of 2016
The Year that Ended Dangerously
Breaking Bad
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Big Ag Mega-Mergers in Play; Dow + Dupont in the Pocket? Next: Demonsanto?
December 2015. In this new report, ETC Group examines corporate consolidation in four agricultural input sectors: seeds, pesticides, chemical fertilizers and farm equipment. With combined annual revenue of $385 billion, these companies call the shots. Who will dominate the industrial food chain? And what does it mean for farmers, food sovereignty and climate justice?
Issue
Global Agribusiness Mergers NOT a Done Deal
Submitted by Joana Chelo on
New ETC Group report, Breaking Bad, shows how Dow-DuPont, Monsanto and Syngenta seed and pesticide deals could be blocked by Global South
The $130 billion Dow-DuPont merger announced last week has rekindled ChemChina’s $44.6 billion bid for Syngenta which, in turn, may provoke a fourth takeover try by Monsanto. If ChemChina prevails, Monsanto is likely to look for a deal with either BASF or Bayer. If they get their way, the world’s Big Six agricultural input companies controlling 75% of global agricultural R&D may be reduced to three or four.
No to 1.5°C with geoengineering!
Submitted by Joëlle Deschambault on
Sign-on letter
Paris, 11 December 2015
Seemingly out of the blue (or rather, out of the black smog of the UNFCCC process), some of the largest historical culprits for climate change, countries including the United States, Canada and the European Union, have decided to back an "ambitious goal" of limiting global temperature rise to 1.5°C. To achieve this, radical emissions cuts would be needed from now, but in the case of these countries, that's not their real intention.
Report Release: Outsmarting Nature?
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New Report Questions Risky Synthetic Biology Developments Promoted Under “Climate-Smart” Guise
Paris, 27th November 2015 – Some of the world’s largest agro-industrial corporations will be flying the flag for ‘climate-smart agriculture’ at the upcoming Climate Summit. They will claim that hi-tech crops and intensive industrial agriculture are needed to rescue farmers (and the hungry) from a warming world – a claim widely dismissed by peasant movements and civil society groups.
Outsmarting Nature?
Submitted by Joëlle Deschambault on
Synthetic Biology and Climate Smart Agriculture
Many of the world's largest agro-industrial corporations are pushing forward the poorly-defined idea of "Climate-Smart Agriculture"(CSA) to re-market industrial agriculture as 'climate-ready'. This report uncovers how some advocates of CSA are embracing the extreme genetic engineering tools of synthetic biology ("Syn Bio") to develop a set of false solutions to the climate crisis.
The 20-page report includes:
- An overview of the Players lining up behind the “Climate-Smart” brand and the Global Alliance for Climate Smart Agriculture (GACSA).
Report Release: Extreme Biotech meets Extreme Energy
Submitted by Joëlle Deschambault on
New report exposes biotech’s big bet to prop up fossil fuels + International video release.
Paris, 24th November 2015 - At the upcoming Climate summit in Paris, some governments and much of civil society will be pushing for an urgent transition away from the carbon-rich fossil fuels responsible for climate chaos. However, one hi-tech sector, the multi-billion dollar Synthetic Biology industry, is now actively tying its future to the very oil, coal and gas extraction it once claimed to be able to displace. That’s the conclusion of a new report released jointly today from the ETC Group and Heinrich Böll Foundation. Titled “Extreme Biotech meets Extreme Energy”, the report predicts that as the extreme biotech industry and the extreme extraction industry move towards deeper collaboration, the biosafety risks and climate threats emanating from them will become ever more entangled.
Extreme Biotech meets Extreme Energy
Submitted by Joëlle Deschambault on
an ETC Group and Heinrich Böll Stiftung Report
As the synthetic biology industry and the extreme extraction industry move towards deeper collaboration, the climate and biosafety risks and threats from both will become more entangled.
Related Fora:
Video Animation on Synthetic Biology in 5 languages
French, German, Spanish, Portuguese and Haitian Creole
ETC Group and Heinrich Böll Foundation are releasing new language versions of a ten minute animated introduction to Synthetic Biology. Titled “What is Synthetic Biology ? : Engineering life and livelihoods” this short explainer cartoon, drawn by award-winning Canadian animator Marie-Josée Saint-Pierre and produced by documentary filmmaker Jocelyne Clarke was previously only available in English but is now available in French, Spanish, Portuguese and German.
A Bad Bet on Synthetic Biology
Submitted by ETC Group on
Cargill's Eversweet is competing with farmers and misleading consumers
Las Vegas seems to be an apt place to launch a risky corporate gamble that could destroy the livelihoods of millions of small-scale farmers. Earlier this month, the international food conglomerate Cargill chose the city’s famous Strip to introduce what it hopes will be its next blockbuster product: EverSweet, a sweetener made of “the same sweet components in the stevia plant.”
And yet, despite Cargill’s heavy reliance on stevia in its promotional material, EverSweet does not contain a single leaf of the plant. Cargill’s new product is an example of synthetic biology, a form of genetic engineering that uses modified organisms to manufacture compounds that would never be produced naturally. What makes EverSweet taste sweet is not stevia; it is a compound produced by a bioengineered yeast.
Mega-Mergers in the Global Agricultural Inputs Sector: Threats to Food Security & Climate Resilience
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Powerpoint Presentation and Webinar
Today, six corporations control global markets for industrial seeds/agrochemicals. They determine the priorities and future direction of agricultural research. What are implications of ag mega-mergers for food sovereignty and climate change? What can be done?
Chegou a hora de içar a bandeira branca para o fracasso de um remendo tecnológico?
Submitted by Joëlle Deschambault on
O escândalo da Volkswagen é um aviso que os Grandes dos Combustíveis Fósseis não são confiáveis para controlar as emissões de Gases do Efeito Estufa
Brazil Aims to Torpedo International Moratorium on Terminator Seeds
Submitted by Joëlle Deschambault on
Farmers’ Rights and Food Sovereignty Under Fire
At a time when just three corporations – Monsanto, DuPont and Syngenta – control 55% of the world’s commercial seeds, industrial farming interests in the Brazilian Congress have introduced a bill that aims to overturn the country’s 10-year old ban on Terminator technology – seeds that have been genetically modified to render sterile seeds. The technology is designed to secure corporate profits by eliminating the age-old right of farmers to save and re-plant harvested seeds.
Time to Wave the White Flag for a Failed Techno-Fix?
Submitted by ETC Group on
The Volkswagen scandal is a warning that the Fossil Majors can’t be trusted to control GHG emissions
Try though they might, Volkswagen can’t seem to get off the air those three little old ladies in their television commercials waving a white scarf in front of a Volkswagen diesel exhaust pipe. (See cartoon.) Volkswagen’s emission scandal is just a prelude to a much bigger emissions sleight of hand that will be rolled out in Paris this December at the Climate Change Summit.
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