Like the right, the left has its anti-science contingent and agriculture is ground zero for the zealots in the environmental movement. To be sure, any science that is misused can have devastating consequences but genetically modified foods - those that can resist blight or grow in poor climates - have done a lot of good for feeding poor people and had no ill effects whereas so-called 'organic' food can only be purchased for reasonable cost by those fortunate enough to live near it.
Humans emit about nine billion metric tons of carbon a year, about five of which are absorbed by ecosystems on land and water, leaving four to accumulate in the atmosphere and warm the planet.
says this article in Discovery about a paper in Bioscience detailing efforts to also engineer plants to sequester more carbon. While leaves and stems die, and release carbon back into the atmosphere they have absorbed, roots are another matter entirely. Genetic modification that leads to more biomass in the roots, and therefore longer term storage, could naturally absorb more carbon while science works on cleaner energy sources. But it takes all aspects of science working together for this to happen, not an a la carte approach based on politics.
