government "white list"

I am behind on reading postings, so sorry if this has already been discussed. I received my catalog from J.L. Hudson a few days ago and was just reading through it. Has anyone heard anything about the government's proposal of a "white list?" Check it out at www.geocities.com/nowhitelist
It sounds pretty scary to me. If you have the 2001 J.L. Hudson catalog, you can also read about it there. It is on pages 3 and 91.

Gabrielle

I went to the site and read it briefly. Then I bookmarked it for more indepth reading and investigation. It does sound ominous. But I'm not going to jump on some possibly flimflam bandwagon before I do more checking.

I beleive the "white list" was nothing more than "ALLGORE" and Slick Willie trying to please the enviromental wacko's.

The report states that it will take 30-40 million dollars to get a plant or cultivar on the "white list". Ain't gonna happen. There are over 100 cultivars of each of the following daylilies, roses, peppers, tomatoes, apples, peaches, pears, marigolds, petunias and corn. At 40 million it would cost 20 billion dollars to get 50 of each of the above approved. Nobody can make enough on petunias to pay 40 million per cultivar to get the plant approved.

Look at the fruits we eat. Who is going to pay to have each cultivar of apple approved. It includes not only the apple tree it's self but also the root stock. Thats 80 million per cultivar. If the tree is not approved is the government going to cut down entire orchards?

The veggies: Who is going to pay 40 million for each variety of tomatoes?

It says on the website that 99.75% of all of the plants of the world will be ban. It also says that the government will/has been killing all non-white list plants. Are they going to do that everywhere in the US. It would take 10,000 times more people than we have in the US military. Even after all of the plants in a given location have been killed the seeds may lay dormate for 100s or even 1000's of years. That will require the "plant police" to go over every square foot of this country every year. Actually several times a year because some plants come up very early bloom and the disapear while other come up very late.

Is the government going to make each person a plant identification expert? Will we have to examine each blade of grass in our lawn?

I could go on and on... Where will all of these "plant police" come from? where will all of the scientists come from to do the testing?

I just purchased some echinacae paradoxa. Every catalog I looked in list slightly different info about the plant. The plants also looked different in the photos. So...

When the testing starts will they take one seed from one plant propagate that seed take seeds from that and so one to certify each plant? If so what about trees? that takes many years before bearing fruit. It could take over 100 years to get a tree certified.

If the testing starts from one seed then you hurt the genetic diversity of the cultivar. You will have plants that are always identical. So ANY problem that affects ANY plant will kill ALL of the plants. What would happen in the case of corn, wheat, or potatoes? It would cause world wide starvation.

If white and purple coneflower are on the approved list and I raise both what happens if I collect the seeds? The cross between white and purple coneflower are not "approved" is that illegal? What if one plant is "different" in some way can I save those seeds or is that a new variety? Or since each variety is patented will be forbid from any means of propagation?

What about plant crosses that occur naturally in nature?

What is of interest to me is that alot of these people talking about laws like this believe in the big bang theory. Well according to their theory evolution is how we got here. If they had enacted such a law at the start of the big bang life on earth would still be nothing more than one celled slim. Personally I think God made everything.

The "white list" includes ALL forms of life. Up until now I have only talked about plants. So what about dog & cats and "mutts" of each. I breed beagles for a while. You can breed 2 dogs and by careful selecting and culling have dogs that are better at cold tracking rabbits, or hot tracking rabbits or you can also try to increase or decrease the size of your dogs. You can then breed the offspring to increase the trait you are looking for and so on. Will it take 40 million for each trait that someone tries to breed into or out of a dog?

The web page says the laws will include microorganisims. What happen when someone catches a cold bug in say China? Will the US "eco-police" put the person into isolation or killed them to control the spread of the non-native organisim?

The government does some really stupid stuff but I don't see how they could do this one.

Sari

I'm just starting to learn about this whitelist, but the good news is egore and Willie aren't in office anymore.