>You're confusing yourself, because there're two interpretations of the phrase "exacerbating resistance" in play here.
No, I completely understand what he is saying, and I am suggesting that, in saying it, he is being disingenuous and misleading. It's industry sponsored double-speak. Judging by your response, it appears to be working.
His initial statements that GMOs don't exacerbate the problem and that resistance is completely independent of GMOs are false. Full-stop. When challenged, he goes on to admit as much by acknowledging the well-known fact that resistance has increased where the Roundup Ready case is concerned.
But, he then tries to qualify and obfuscate that acknowledgment by saying that overall resistance is decreased by a corresponding amount for other herbicides which are subsequently used less.
The problem with this is that it is misleading and seeks to let GMOs off the hook. It even applauds them. The reality is that humans are now using and consuming more glyphosate. He tries to dismiss this effect by cheerleading their safety (which is anything but assured when independent research is considered).
The other pernicious bit of his argument is due to the fact that, in the future, we are likely to use more and more herbicide-resistant GMOs. By declaring GMOs "competely independent" of the resistance problem, he is implying that overall resistance would continue to remain the same (or be reduced), even with more GMOs. But, the fact is, the more we use any herbicide-resistant GMOs, the more we will dump those herbicides on crops, and the more resistance we'll see to those (and, hence, overall).
At the end of the day, our crops will be soaked in more of whatever herbicide we're using. But, you certainly don't get that potential scenario from statements like "herbicide resistance is a problem completely independent of GMOs".
No, I completely understand what he is saying, and I am suggesting that, in saying it, he is being disingenuous and misleading. It's industry sponsored double-speak. Judging by your response, it appears to be working.
His initial statements that GMOs don't exacerbate the problem and that resistance is completely independent of GMOs are false. Full-stop. When challenged, he goes on to admit as much by acknowledging the well-known fact that resistance has increased where the Roundup Ready case is concerned.
But, he then tries to qualify and obfuscate that acknowledgment by saying that overall resistance is decreased by a corresponding amount for other herbicides which are subsequently used less.
The problem with this is that it is misleading and seeks to let GMOs off the hook. It even applauds them. The reality is that humans are now using and consuming more glyphosate. He tries to dismiss this effect by cheerleading their safety (which is anything but assured when independent research is considered).
The other pernicious bit of his argument is due to the fact that, in the future, we are likely to use more and more herbicide-resistant GMOs. By declaring GMOs "competely independent" of the resistance problem, he is implying that overall resistance would continue to remain the same (or be reduced), even with more GMOs. But, the fact is, the more we use any herbicide-resistant GMOs, the more we will dump those herbicides on crops, and the more resistance we'll see to those (and, hence, overall).
At the end of the day, our crops will be soaked in more of whatever herbicide we're using. But, you certainly don't get that potential scenario from statements like "herbicide resistance is a problem completely independent of GMOs".