Time to re-think the GMO revolution in agriculture

Rótolo, G.C.; Francis, Charles; Craviotto, Roque Mario; Viglia, Silvio; Pereyra, Ana Lucya Marky; Ulgiati, Sérgio

doi:10.1016/j.ecoinf.2014.05.002

Cited by 23 publications

(12 citation statements)

References 33 publications

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“…Before our study, few other high skills-and patent-intensive systems have exhibited ratios higher than 50%. This is the case of those involving agricultural processes through transgenic technologies [97] [98]. The level of complexity of the Salam Centre is evidently higher, and so is the alien nature of a specialised hospital with Global Northern in a context not at all rich in the resources that are required to fuel its featuring processes.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Systemic sustainability and resilience assessment of health systems, addressing global societal priorities: Learnings from a top nonprofit hospital in a bioclimatic building in Africa

Cristiano

Ulgiati

Gonella

2021

Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews

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Health services represent a cornerstone to ensure well-being and human rights everywhere, particularly in deprived areas with limited access to resources. We investigate the resource cost and appropriate use for the implementation of a top-quality hospital in Sudan. An integrated Life-Cycle Assessment and systems-based Emergy Accounting approach is applied to assess its sustainability and resilience. Very few similar studies have addressed civil works so far, even less bioclimatic buildings, while our focus on health systems is an absolute novelty. Particular attention is paid to bioclimatic design in adverse climate and economic conditions, to the humanitarian nongovernmental organisation running the hospital, and to the cutting-edge medical staff and technologies imported from abroad that at the same time allow local practitioners to train in excellence medicine. The system's direct and indirect socio-ecological requirements are expressed as emergy (resource investment) per patient-day, per cardiac surgical operation, per outpatient visit, and per year. From a quantitative viewpoint, these indicators represent a benchmark for improvement scenarios, comparison with new studies in a deserving field, and future investments, driven by effective healthcare policies. They also provide an overview of the efforts required by nature and society to ensure a human right in conditions of scarcity. In addition to the possibility to lower a hospital's environmental impact (sustainability-oriented) and to keep it functioning over time in changing climate, resource, societal, economic, and geo-political scenarios (resilience-oriented), this study leads to original remarks upon societal priorities and upon the challenges of guaranteeing high-quality health systems in an uncertain century. Highlights: • A layout and novel indicators are introduced for the evaluation of health systems • Health provision crucially relies on societal priorities and resource allocation • Remarkable performances in sustainable resource use are reached in our case study • The largest fraction of embedded energy lies in medical labour and services • Savings from a bioclimatic building can further pursued through this approach

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Systemic sustainability and resilience assessment of health systems, addressing global societal priorities: Learnings from a top nonprofit hospital in a bioclimatic building in Africa

Cristiano

Ulgiati

Gonella

2021

Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews

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“…Although GM-foods are very prevalent in the food system, the long-term environmental impacts of GM food production are still not completely known. Research currently shows that these crops may potentially have unknown long-term negative effects, such as threatening biodiversity and increasing the prevalence of herbicide and pesticide resistant weeds and pests [22]. The U.S. is the leader worldwide in GM food production, and these foods are readily available on supermarket shelves.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Consumers’ Food Choices and the Role of Perceived Environmental Impact

Wunderlich

Gatto

2016

WIT Transactions on State-of-the-Art in Science and Engineering

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As the world population grows to a predicted 9 billion people by 2050, food availability and security should be considered, and the relationship between food production and consumers' selection of their food may influence the global agriculture system and perhaps the environment. In an altruistic sense, purchase of sustainable foods is strongly correlated with the measures of ethical self-identify, moral attitude, concern for environmental issues, and other measures of global concern. Additional analysis of values in relation to environmental purchasing and policy similarly found that intention to purchase environmentally friendly products is positively correlated with food and environmental concerns. While this ethical vision of making sustainable or organic food choices is often viewed as altruistic, it can also be viewed as an egoistic motivator, as it relates to personal identification as an ethical person. Food choice is driven by other egoistic values as well, including nutritious qualities, sensory qualities, and overall health effects of food purchases. Attitudes toward genetically modified foods, which are not organic and are viewed as non-environmentally friendly, has been correlated with decreased purchasing behavior, indicating that the tie between attitudes towards certain food production methods can predict actual purchasing. Current research examines the complex relationship between consumer knowledge and purchasing behavior relating to multiple food production methods, including organic, genetically modified, and conventional.

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“…A case study is also conducted on the regional metabolism of bio-fuels from locally grown plant crops, a hotspot in regional environmental research. Rótolo et al (2015) use emergy to quantify the direct and indirect environmental costs of producing transgenic commodity seeds, identify the more resource/emergy-demanding steps in the process in order to evaluate potential improvements in efficiency, and explore the long term value of information stored in GMO versus conventional hybrids and varieties. New information is found to be generated through extracting, selecting, copying and sharing natural strategies, stored in the seed, which drives systems through new pathways and resulting performances.…”

Section: Frameworkmentioning

confidence: 99%

Ecosystem metabolism framework, metrics and indicators towards sustainable society design and management

Chen

2015

Ecological Informatics

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Time to re-think the GMO revolution in agriculture

Cited by 23 publications

References 33 publications

Systemic sustainability and resilience assessment of health systems, addressing global societal priorities: Learnings from a top nonprofit hospital in a bioclimatic building in Africa

Systemic sustainability and resilience assessment of health systems, addressing global societal priorities: Learnings from a top nonprofit hospital in a bioclimatic building in Africa

Consumers’ Food Choices and the Role of Perceived Environmental Impact

Ecosystem metabolism framework, metrics and indicators towards sustainable society design and management

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