Substantial droughts are beginning to have effects in the strangest of places. Take the United Kingdom, for example: not known for its droughts, rainy England has seen two of their driest winters on record between last year and their current winter, and the projected impact this will have on the country’s water table, and therefore their ability to grow food, is grim.
Caroline Spelman, Conservative MP and Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, told the National Union of Farmers annual conference that genetically modified (GM) foods may now be considered in the U.K.’s official agricultural plan to ensure that climate change-induced drought does not impact Briatain’s food security. “What if this [drought] is what climate change means and this is the new normal,” she asked.
Technology, as per usual, is being touted as a potential solution to the problem without proper recognition of what role technology and its overuse has played in creating the problems brought about by climate change in the first place. Good to keep in your back pocket in case of emergencies, should technology be our go-to trump card for environmental challenges we choose not to adequately face? Instead of GM food, how about fighting climate change?!
