"When we are able to grow the resources we need, we will finally be on the road to sustainability."
The picture above actually depicts the various means that we are using to move towards sustainability and the branches stopped at certain point and the missing links are actually the resources we need to drive all the activities shown in the picture. Once we are able to find the missing links, we would have actually complete the whole picture and i believe that we are already on our way to find the missing links.
Environmental life sciences and industrial biotechnology are the 2 main types of technology driven by biobusiness and according to the statistics in 2001, it accounts for over US$ 9.7 trillion of the world's GDP and i strongly believe that the figures could have reached as much as US$15 trillion today especially with the high emphasis on sustainable development.
One surprising fact brought by Dr Gurinder this week is that we are still suffering from rural overcrowding. I believe that this is probably due to the high cost of living in the urban area and also the natives in those area are rather conservative, hence resistant to changes. This has actually caused some concerns as it has led to poor and dirty living environment. Since those people are living at rural areas, their income tends to be lower and result in poverty. 1 of the MDGs is to actually reduces poverty in developing countries and i think the root of the problem is rural overcrowding and once this issue has been solved. Poverty rate can actually be reduced. Next interesting fact would actually be about the presentation that one of our peers had presented about Monsanto.
I have heard about Monsanto but i am surprise that how they resort to bribery in an attempt to get their products approved by the legislation. In addition, they have employed the so call "GM police" to keep track of what the farmers have done and arrest those farmers that are suspected of keeping the GM seeds. I am sure the reason is because of their high pricing policy. The seeds itself constitute nearly 20% of the farmers income, excluding the cost of maintaining the crops. This is actually one of the examples of the down side of having BioBusiness, increasing the disparity between the rich and the poor; The rich who are able to afford it gets richer and the poor who are struggling for their basic needs get poorer.
Some key takeaways for this week lessons is actually so far the technology that we have created is linear, i.e. to say the advancement that mankind has made to technology is only to improve mankind and not beneficial to both mankind and environment. The rise of BioBusiness might be the way to change the linear function of the trend and improve the environment and at the same time, benefit mankind. Thus creating a win-win situtation. Nature has responded to us by increasing the number of natural disasters and creating global warming to warn us to change the linear relationship. Next would be with regards to the issue of genetic engineering. People are actually afraid of genetic engineering due to the modifications made and perhaps some ethical issue. However, i have to emphasise that whatever modifications we have made so far is nothing compared to the natural derivation of genetic modification. We have to accept it in a more open approach and so that we are able to reap the benefits of GM products. In the beginning stage, people might be skeptical about the benefits it can bring about but i believe once people start to see the improvement, it will also serves as a driver for them to work towards that improvement.
I would rate this week's lesson at 8/10. It has actually widen up my knowledge in the BioBusiness industry. However, i wish we could have more time for discussion with regards to the topic of the term flash pyrrosis ( i hope i did not spell it wrongly!) and for this time i would not look forward to the next lesson! Reason is simply that means recess week ended -.-
I shall end this week's entry with this quote.
"We wake up everyday with a list of wishes, and maybe we spend our lives trying to make those wishes come true. But just because we want them, doesn’t mean that we need them to be happy."
NED, PUSHING DAISIES
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