The Commited MAY 2015 | Page 26

24 This technology enables us to increase the supply of food and improve the quality with a much lower cost. Also, farming requires vast areas to grow food, but with GMOs smaller spaces could be sufficient. Furthermore, GMO crops are environmentally friendly as they require less environmental resources such as water and fertilizer. On the other hand, GMOs might cause several disadvantages. For instance, it might lead to certain allergies. The biggest risk would be the occurrence of some unwanted or unexpected, yet, harmful genetic changes. Interviewers: That sounds a little alarming. It is crucial to be very cautious in spite of the efficiency of the GMO crops on both the financial and the environmental level. Our last question, indeed, is how to do more for the environment and how should TED, as an educational organization, become a green leader? Işık Turcan: TED has already contributed to numerous environmental activities, I can cite some of our own school’s events such as planting trees, collecting garbage on the coastline, abandoning plastic cups and protesting about climate change and Global Warming. But there is always more to be done. I, personally, think that we should recycle more. We haven’t got enough recycle bins to reuse our plastic, paper, and metal waste. To go further, as an educational organization, we have to teach the meaning and the value of carbon footprint to our students and raise awareness as much as we can about the necessity of being ecofriendly. Interviewers: It is also our responsibility to be proactive and take the initiative before it’s too late to save our planet. Regarding changing the children’s genomes, it could be ethically permissible for medical reasons but extremely dangerous and unpredictable if it deviates to other purposes such as the pursuit of perfect physical appearance or the mere boost in strength and human capacities. And most importantly, she helped us realize what a great risk it is to make all of our crops GMO based, even though it allows us to preserve and use our resources in a much better way, it can still engender a disaster in case a situation gets out of hand and there will be no coming back. And finally, to preserve our planet and our home for the next generations, our prestigious organization can take a few more steps further and implement greater procedures towards recycling.