Promoters of genetic modification (GM) in agriculture have long argued that genetically engineered Golden Rice is a practical way to provide poor farmers in remote areas with a subsistence crop capable of adding much-needed vitamin A to local diets. Vitamin A deficiency is a problem in many poor countries in the Global South and leaves millions at high risk for infection, diseases and other maladies, such as blindness.

Everyone who gives a damn about the planet is denouncing Trump’s latest attack on the Endangered Species Act. But little is being said about this law’s actual impact on the fate of endangered species. In theory, the collapse of global biodiversity was supposed to be prevented by the Endangered Species Act (ESA) and the Convention on International Trade of Endangered (CITES). But in reality this has amounted to trying to stop a raging wildfire with a squirt gun.

Today, some biologists estimate the rate of extinction at 100,000 species a year and climbing! At this rate, preserving biodiversity has gone from an altruistic enterprise to a matter of human survival. Vital species and the ecosystems they call home are under assault by the relentless incursion of human civilization.