Re:things to remeber (Score 1)

Hold it. My tomatos don't cross-breed with weeds, as far as I know. I don't think yours do, either. Same for those pesticide-ready corn plants. Now, there IS a way for the gene to make the species-to-species hop, but it requires a microorganism that has the right transposing equipment. The gene must be picked up in its entirety, with the right regulatory sequences, and placed in the weed genome where it will not kill an essential gene. Imagine the likelihood of that happening naturally. Why do you think it took so much work to put the foreign gene in the plant in the first place? Harmful organisms are created from freak transposition events sometimes, and there are worse toxins in your local flora and fauna than a whale gene which is probably only making your tomatos as frost-resistant as the weeds already are. There are some very compelling arguments for gene manipulation to improve crop hardiness and yields. I am told this is a conservative viewpoint on the matter, but you may be interested in: "Saving the planet with pesticides and plastic: the environmental triumph of high-yield farming" by Dennis T. Avery.