Introducing untold numbers of untested, lab-altered organisms into the wild has been sold to the residents of Hawai’i (and the public at large) as a conservation measure to save endangered species.
Like too many things these days, the issue is framed by those doing the selling as an oppositional dialectic: a dichotomy.
The dialectic leverages disease (malaria) and an ostensible good (saving endangered bird species) to push an agenda for unleashing engineered insects into the wild without sufficient study or concern for risks, both known and unknown.
The argument, unlike the reality, is deceptively simple: You’re either on the side of the birds or you’re on the side of the mosquitoes.1
Now, as this program prepares to expand beyond Hawai’i, to California and Florida, the potential reach of a much larger plan is unveiled.
Was it ever really about endangered species or were the birds a convenient pretext to rationalize uncontrolled experimentation?
This short film was made to expand the range of consideration—beyond birds vs mosquitoes—so that we might consider the natural and human-influenced history of Hawai’i, and how this tableau continues to impact the future; and perhaps, give credence to the need for precaution and humility in the face of untested technologies set loose on the world.
There is no recalling a live experiment, no ‘undo’ button.
This experiment is live and the experiment is all of us.
#questioneverything
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