Dear Iowa Sierrans, If you are planning to cast your ballot by mail or on-line for the national Sierra Club Board of Directors, these candidate answers to the following question posed to each of them by the Sierra Genetic Engineering Committee may be useful to you when you are deciding who you will vote for. Voting ends at (& mailed ballots must be received by) noon EDT, April 24th, 2002. If you need a replacement ballot, please e-mail: <[log in to unmask]> or call toll-free: 1-866-720-4357. If you do not plan to vote, you may still find these responses very interesting - I hope you will take time to read them. Best, Ericka Dana, Genetic Engineering Chair, Iowa Sierra ExCom ---------- From: Laurel Hopwood <[log in to unmask]> Reply-To: Biotech Forum <[log in to unmask]> Date: Thu, 21 Mar 2002 To: [log in to unmask] Subject: question and responses from BoD candidates ---------- Here's the GEC question to the BoD candidates and their responses (9 of the 13 questioned responded - they are listed in alphabetical order): > "How might the Sierra Club use its influence to help safeguard the genetic > commons from privatization via patenting and damage via widespread release > of transgenic crops?" ---------- Brian Brademeyer <[log in to unmask]> : (petition candidate) The Sierra Club should call for an end to the patenting of genetic material and a moratorium on the introduction of genetically engineered organisms into the environment. For the longer term, the Club should expand its Corporate Accountability campaign to seek alternative economic structures that are compatible with the planet's finite resources and amenable to public control. Corporations are too amoral and short-sighted to be left in charge of biotechnology. ---------- James Catlin <[log in to unmask]> : (nominating committee candidate) Clearly, this is a serious issue with potentially enormous and unrecoverable consequences. To effect change, we need the best knowledge, an practical alternative, political opportunity, and the political muscle to effect change. The Sierra Club's work to date on this issue is impressive and should continue. It's likely that in this administration, we will lack political opportunities and may need to be ready to react to actions that weaken or reverse the success to date. In the long term, we should be planning to create the political need to act in deference to the health of earth's biota. Even as we act in defense, we can prepare for the future by building a common understanding of our solution and assembling broad support. ---------- Larry Fahn <[log in to unmask]> : (nominating committee candidate) Thanks for the excellent question posed to the candidates for the Sierra Club Board of Directors. The Club should do more, not only to safeguard the genetic commons from privatization, and patenting of potentially dangerous transgentic crops, but from genetically altered fish, mice and trees as well, and from the growing risks associated with human genetic engineering. We should increase the support given to the Genetic Engineering Committee for education and outreach. We should be looking for opportunitites to do more excellent articles in Sierra Magazine as well as the Planet, being especially cognizant of ways to spread the word about the excellent work done on this issue in Europe and other countries that are years ahead of us. The issue of Sierra that had the GE issue as a front page cover story was outstanding, and helped elevate the Sierra Club to the forefront of the GE education movement. We should also press to launch the Club's shareholder action program, which I have been spearheading, and work to incorporate GMO-related shareholder resolutions against food companies, grocery chains and other corporations that might be in a position to institute labeling programs and/or bans on genetically modified foodstuffs. We should be making sure that our lobbyists in DC and the various state capitols are up-to-date and working on legislation and regulation on GE issues, such as S.B. 1525, in California, which would ban the importation of genetically engineered fish into the state, or A.B. 2962 which would require labeling of all genetically modified fish at the point of sale. Thanks to you and the rest of the GE Committee for your excellent work on this issue. ---------- Jim Mays <[log in to unmask]> : (nominating committee candidate) There are really two issues here, that of genetically engineered organisms, and that of corporations to fence in the commons. As to the first question, I would advocate education of the public and lobbying the relevant agencies to restrict how and where these crops can be planted, and utilized. On the second, we should be joining with other groups to fight the larger battle over restrictions on intellectual property rights. This is essentially the same battle that was fought over allowing "third world" countries to produce and utilize ADS drugs, etc. The great crime of the agricultural property rights battle is over the seed production companies [and all the support industries like pesticides] retaining ownership of the seed and the farmer's need to use the other chemicals to make the crop work, thereby keeping farmers in thrall. The same battle is being fought on other fronts, and it is vital that the Club join with others in this country and abroad in fighting corporate globalism. Currently, I'm working with the trade folks [who, outside of the Club, have a strong farm contengent] to stop Fast Track, now before the Senate, but to fight it in the US House as well. Lots of organizing to be done with very little in the way of resources. ---------- Patrick Murphy <[log in to unmask]> : (nominating committee candidate) Among environmental organizations, the Sierra Club is unique in the strength of its principal resources -- including legal, political, and grassroots (volunteer- or consumer-based) action. To those approaches, we've recently added a shareholder action program as part of our Corporate Accountability work. All four of these strategies will be necessary to anticipate and meet the dangers posed by genetic engineering in agriculture, silviculture, and human culture: we must win statory restrictions on reckless genetic engineering, establish and enforce much greater legal liability for its deleterious effects, and engage consumer and shareholder response. The good news, it seems to me, is that the biotech industry deliberately chose to move as quickly and clandestinely as possible, rather than foster a meaningful, public dialogue about appropriate uses and necessary limits for biotech. It's sometimes easy to forget in this country, but the global response has been both immense and overwhelmingly critical. Part of our task, then, is to encourage the spread of that response and awareness to the U.S, by mobilizing public sentiment and action. One frustrating impediment is that the industry's agenda is so outrageous that it's often difficult to explain to a mainstream audience -- to talk about Monsanto's 'terminator gene' or tell the story of Percy Schmeiser is to risk sounding like a character from Philip Dick -- but this is really an indicator of how far out of step the biotech industry is from mainstream values and concerns. The Sierra Club is a mainstream organization, and our effectiveness at speaking to a broad audience is much greater than that of many of our allies; our significant public voice can bolster the legitimacy and perceived importance of restricting biotech to responsible uses. In order to speak to that audience, however, we must break down the issue into "digestible" (pardon the pun!) pieces which can be easily related to individual lives. My instinct is that this issue will be much more accessible to consumer and shareholder action than most of the Sierra Club's issues. Campaigning against a fast-food restaurant serving GE products deemed unfit for human consumption; proposing that biotech companies should be fully liable for deleterious effects of their products; advancing a shoreholder argument that companies pursuing irresponsible biotech are actually harming their own public image and profitability -- these are all common-sense approaches, not difficult to communicate from a street corner or supermarket aisle. As we pursue each individual story, however, we must never lose sight of the overarching narrative. The greatest task of our GE work, and one of the greatest possibilities afforded by this campaign, is the articulation of a true sense -- or ethics -- of the "commons." Among various abuses of the public interest in favor of private profit, biotech is no less crass than drilling in the Arctic Refuge -- and it's potentially much more damaging and much closer to home for most people, even if they're not yet aware of it. ---------- Charlie Ogle <[log in to unmask]> : (nominating committee candidate) As Vice President of the Club, and Chair of the Conservation Governance Committee, I have to consider the needs and interests of four priority campaigns, four priority programs, the political committee, the RCC's, three strategy teams, nearly two dozen national issue committees, 65 chapters, and 388 groups. Members of each of these might choose between two approaches to evaluating my candidacy for reelection. They might ask if I am an expert on what they are working on and if I have a plan to promote their interests. Or they might ask if I acknowledge their expertise, if I will encourage others to respect that expertise, and if I will work to support all of the various activities of the Club. I very much hope that all will recognize that the first approach sets up rivalries between various committees, and suggests that the desired end point is the primacy of one issue over the others. I reject this approach, and very much favor the second. Board members should not be partisans for one issue, they should be supporters of the Club as a whole. Their job is to be sure that the system works, that the expertise of our issue committees is respected, and that we find ways to address all of the issues that we have established committees for. I hope that the Genetic Engineering Committee will answer the question that they have posed to me, and that they will communicate the answer to the Sustainable Planet Strategy Team and the Conservation Governance Committee. That is their job, mine is to be sure that the CGC and board do a good job of evaluating the chalanges faced by the Club, and make sensible allocations of our limited resources. ---------- Nancy Rauch <[log in to unmask]> : (petition candidate) In my mind, public education is absolutely critical on this issue. An educated public and media can exert pressure on decision-makers and corporations. Targeting one or two of the big name corporations with consumer buying power actions, stockholders actions, and demonstrations at annual stockholders meetings might be another useful tactic. A nationwide media release with a few coalition partner organizations (e.g. Friends of the Earth, etc) of an independently researched science-based report on the subject might help educate the public and the media and put pressure on the corporate giants. Overall, possibly working on a comprehensive public education campaign plan in conjunction with the new Corporate Accountability Committee, the Sierra Student Coalition, CAFO Campaign and AG Committee, and the Sustainable Consumption Task Force might be another idea... I support your work and will help in any way I can. ---------- Rene Voss <[log in to unmask]> : (petition candidate) I recall a story of a genetic patent which was received by a US company for a yellow bean, based entirely on its color, even though a native bean from Mexico was being imported to the US which had the same color. The US Company sued and prevented any new imports of a natively-grown bean based only on their patent. While it's not a genetic patent, the analogy is similar and can illustrate the problem of patenting genes of living things. Monsanto has patented some of their corn crops and has sued farmers in the midwest whose crops showed traces of the gene, pollinated by the genetically engineered Monsanto version. This is outrageous. The basis of all living things (their genes) are part of our common heritage and it's morally wrong to allow anyone to own their genes like intellectual property. The Club should work with other organizations to prevent these outrages by changing our patenting laws and regulations to end the patenting of life. ---------- Ben Zuckerman <[log in to unmask]> : (petition candidate) My primary concern about the environment is preservation of biodiversity, and I would approach the issue of transgenic crops with that in mind. Various persons and organizations are addressing matters raised in the question. In so much as Sierra Club members are also members of such organizations then there can be direct cross fertilization. But more generally, I envision the SC as a large political resource that smaller, more specialized, groups and organizations can turn to when needing political support in their efforts to safeguard the genetic commons. Such groups include, for example, organic gardeners and farmers and public interest organizations that focus on scientific issues (e.g., Union of Concerned Scientists). In the above spirit, if elected, I would be happy to connect members of the Club's Genetic Engineering Committee with persons I know who have interest and expertise in transgenic crops. As one example, a year or so ago I invited the Executive Director of the California Certified Organic Farmers to give a talk to the UCLA Institute of the Environment. He spent some of his time discussing the potential negative effects that release of genetically engineered plants on neighboring farmland might have on his and other organic farms. Or a second example, in the team-taught UCLA Honors course on the 21st Century that I developed, a substantial portion of the course reader and lecture material was on the previous green revolution and the coming gene revolution (i.e., transgenic crops) and some of their similarities and differences. We had professors from the biology and geography departments, and the law school, weighing in with their expertise on biological, ethical, and legal aspects of these agricultural trends. ---------- No statements were received from the following candidates: (We understand that this may be a result of travel, busy schedules, school, etc.) Marcia Hanscom <[log in to unmask]> (petition candidate) Lois Snedden <[log in to unmask]> (nominating committee candidate) Bernie Zaleha <[log in to unmask]> (nominating committee candidate) Chuck McGrady <[log in to unmask]> (nominating committee candidate) ### - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - For SC email list T-and-C, send: GET TERMS-AND-CONDITIONS.CURRENT to [log in to unmask] - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - For SC email list T-and-C, send: GET TERMS-AND-CONDITIONS.CURRENT to [log in to unmask]