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[Folly]

What I'm hearing now is that, according to the wording of the Paris Climate Accord, the US President is not actually allowed to officially withdraw until after the 2020 election.

So...huh.

[Lord Shonus]

If, however, the farmer were to sell those replantable seeds, the person that bought them could not be penalized under this decision. More relevantly, the cases where Mosanto allegedly went after people who grew patented crops from seeds that blew into their fields would now have no legal leg to stand on.

The "Monsanto sues a farmer for growing crops that happened to have been contaminated by GM pollen" thing never had any leg to stand on. When a group of farmers sued Monsanto out of fear of exactly the situation described, it was thrown out because there was no incident where Monsanto had ever actually sued anyone for growing accidentally contaminated crops.

In response to plaintiffs’ [farmers] letter, defendants [Monsanto] reiterated that it is not their policy to exercise their patent rights against farmers whose fields inadvertently contain trace amounts of patented seeds or traits. In particular, the reply letter referenced plaintiffs’ claim that they do not have any intention of using any transgenic seed and noted that, “[t]aking [that] representation as true, any fear of suit or other action is unreasonable, and any decision not to grow certain crops unjustified.” (FAC, Ex. 4, Letter from Seth P. Waxman, WilmerHale, to Ravicher (Apr. 28, 2011).)

There was one infamous case in 1999 where Monsanto sued Percy Schmeiser, a Canadian canola farmer, for growing "Roundup Ready" crops without having paid the licensing fee. Schmeiser had never actually purchased any of Monsanto's seeds, and he claimed that the crops had been contaminated by GM pollen. In that case, however, Schmeiser had deliberately selected seeds from some of his own crops to replant when he noticed that they demonstrated a resistance to Roundup (due to unintentional cross-pollination from a neighboring field that did use Roundup Ready canola; Schmeiser knew about the GM crops in the neighboring field and performed an experiment to see if any of his nearby crops showed a similar resistance). Monsanto sued because Schmeiser purposefully used seeds that he suspected contained patented GM traits without paying Monsanto's licensing fees; in other words, he intended to infringe on their patent.

In any case, the ultimate decision in that case was that Schmeiser had deliberately infringed on Monsanto's patent, but because doing so didn't benefit him (he had no intention to use Roundup on his crops, which sort of makes you wonder what the point of it all was), he didn't owe Monsanto anything.

That would be why I said "allegedly" - all I knew for sure is that I hear that accusation constantly.

[EnigmaticHat]

Monsanto has sued hella people.  And they've been sued a lot in return.

Since the mid‑1990s, Monsanto indicates that it has filed suit against 145 individual U.S. farmers for patent infringement and/or breach of contract in connection with its genetically engineered seed but has proceeded through trial against only eleven farmers, all of which it won.

The thing about Monsanto is that they know they don't need to actually win their lawsuits, they just need to produce legal fees for farmers.  As long as the field was contaminated by Monstanto patented seeds, they Monsanto has enough of a case to not get thrown out of court.  And there's no way in hell a private citizen could win a case like that without a strong attorney.  Most of the time the farmer settles or just straight up goes out of business.  If Monsanto is going to lose for some reason, they can just withdraw the case; the US legal system is very friendly about not imposing punishments on those who file lawsuits unless the lawsuit itself is found to be frivolous or deceptive (which, again, if the seeds were present its unlikely to happen).

[Neonivek]

Monsanto's biggest fear would be for one of their frivolous lawsuits actually going through the system since that would lead to precedent.

[Gizogin]

It is weird how Monsanto is pretty much universally regarded as almost cartoonishly evil. I don't have any particular affection for the company; I just think the discussion about GMOs should be based in facts, not one company's reputation. Not that the discussion up to this point had really been about GMOs until I launched into defending Monsanto, but I digress.

What I'm hearing now is that, according to the wording of the Paris Climate Accord, the US President is not actually allowed to officially withdraw until after the 2020 election.

So...huh.

Where did you hear that? Not that I'm doubting you, but I haven't heard it myself, and I'd like some details.

[misko27]

I read that a few days ago on Politico. It was an argument to verbally agree to stay in the pact, since by dropping out now you lose your leverage (and Trump is all about those deals, you know?).

[Neonivek]

It is weird how Monsanto is pretty much universally regarded as almost cartoonishly evil. I don't have any particular affection for the company; I just think the discussion about GMOs should be based in facts, not one company's reputation. Not that the discussion up to this point had really been about GMOs until I launched into defending Monsanto, but I digress.

Monsanto is archetypical not an exception. How they harass farmers is how the gaps in our legal system allows the creators of GMOs to harass farmers.

Bringing them up is fair game the same way that bringing up Copyright trolls is fair game when talking about Copyright (though that has... been somewhat patched)

[Frumple]

Entirely too lazy to dig stuff up, but so far as I'm aware the initial stuff and pull-out writing bitsies has a period the process of withdrawl proceeds over, which'd finish up around 2020, which is where that's coming from.

In other news, apparently trump/the WH has now stated they're considering shutting relations to cuba back down. Chalk another one up for being able to predict this shit by going, "Did obama do it? Okay, whatever reverses that and then does the opposite."

E: Also neat, USCA. Seem's trump's shit has caused the governers of a few states to come together and announce the formation of a coalition type thing intended to uphold the Paris agreement and aggressively pursue mitigation of climate change related issues. Announcement looks to have been made by the cali, new york, and washington governors.

[Folly]

Where did you hear that? Not that I'm doubting you, but I haven't heard it myself, and I'd like some details.

Heard it from a reporter on the news...dug up some details here:

http://www.cnn.com/2017/06/01/politics/paris-climate-agreement-trump-ways-to-withdraw/

I guess the declaration would be final before the new president is sworn in, so no chance of a hero sweeping in to save the world.

[EnigmaticHat]

I'm willing to bet Trump doesn't understand the original reasons Cuba was contentious (AKA communists being close to us is embarrassing and nukey).

[smjjames]

I'm willing to bet Trump doesn't understand the original reasons Cuba was contentious (AKA communists being close to us is embarrassing and nukey).

It's still contentous now, though for a slightly different reason.

Proof that Trump has no clue what he is talking about: In his rambling attempt at a justification, he apparently said it was to advance a tax bill, which is nonexistent.

You know, Global Warming and climate change was BARELY ever addressed during the debates, even the Democrat ones, and I think we've lost out because of that.

Hopefully it gets FAR more focus in 2020.....

edit2: He's also given the excuse that 'we don't want other countries to laugh at us anymore'. I have no idea what other countries would laugh at us about, or what Trump is even referring to.

[redwallzyl]

I just realized that the 2020 election is going to be filled with horrible hindsight puns.

[smjjames]

Also, in an article Trump is using the 4 year withdrawl method (bottom part of article), which means that 2020 will very well become a referendum on Climate Change.

[Bralbaard]

edit2: He's also given the excuse that 'we don't want other countries to laugh at us anymore'. I have no idea what other countries would laugh at us about, or what Trump is even referring to.

He only achieves the opposite from what he claims here, he will be isolated. The rest of the world might not be laughing, but they are united in being disgusted about this decision.

[redwallzyl]

Once again the republican party is badly ignorant of what people actually want. hell even corporations want climate action now.