[Jach]

Go into crispr research or other biological engineering fields if you want to do something directly. Figure out how to make less toxic pesticides that are economically substitutable (break-even or only slightly more costly than existing ones) rather than demanding that they're banned entirely, or if you're satisfied those exist already, lobby for their use. I suspect that whatever preventable problems we face we're not going to unite as a big collective to prevent them, especially when incentives don't align, but a few teams will be able to engineer solutions when the problems become actualized. Instead of asking how do we prevent problems, ask how we can solve problems given that they occur.

[sitkack]

I am going into crispr to make pesticide immune versions of all the bugs we currently have. Effect change where you can.

[sitepodmatt]

Wouldn't that eventually mean you starve a large portion of the population as crop yields shrink dramatically?

[jopsen]

It's certainly a decent plot for a bond movie.

Pesticide resistant super bugs could probably breed and eat all our crops in no time.

[sitkack]

Let Them Eat Bugs!

[dbcurtis]

People are actually seriously proposing that. Very high in protein, and very efficient at converting feed to protein.

I'm not sure it will catch on fast....

More seriously, we need to be pursuing sustainable agricultural practices. I believe that means treating crop fields as the complex microbiomes that they should be, instead of highly-tilled, species-restricted biomes. Read up on how no-till and low-till farming practices change the soil communities of worms and microbes. It's huge. We need to move away from heavy reliance on pesticide and herbicide for the health of the soil and environment neighboring the fields, not to mention our own.

The thing is, we got to heavy chemical agriculture in part because of a drive to lower fuel consumption by making fewer passes over the field doing mechanical weed disruption. Of course, mechanical weed disruption is the kind of tillage that disrupts the soil biome, so we shouldn't go back, anyway, even if you could magically make diesel fuel cost $0. We need a new way forward to feed a hungry planet in a sustainable fashion.

[pvaldes]

>Eat bugs

Now deliciously enriched with 35% more of weedkillers

[Amygaz]

Basically, you're going to engineer new insects... I love it! I'm in! Can't wait to see the big chemical companies' faces when they see a poster on new breeds resistant to everything they have on the market or contemplating to put on the market.

[sitkack]

I was thinking some combination of carpenter ant, a beetle and a mantis. It would nice if it had wings so it could spread faster, the ant and the mantis are intelligent. It would be nice if it could live off leavings of a 25-35 year old yuppie, so unused airtime minutes and a mixture of dried latte foam and eco-plastic.

I wonder if we could infuse it with some Octopus brain matter? Also, I'd like it to have the ability to remember across generations, but Octopus probably already do this.