Bob Hobden writes

I would like a lot more environmental research on the lasting effects of
growing these crops in the way they are intended to be grown (i.e. high use
of Roundup in some cases) and on the long term effects on the wild
population of flora and fauna.

Generally it is not possible to farm a crop where you have
uncontrollable weeds. Ultimately most can be 'controlled' by breaks, but
the demand for the break crops is rather low and they themselves suffer
from weed problems. That's why you typically do not find much in the way
of weeds in farmed fields.

If it takes 10, 20, or even 50 more years to
be certain, so what.

The major reduction in in-field weeds occurred between about 1950 and
1970.

For example when they allowed the GM Parsley to flower and then cross with
the wild parsley in France what happened? Have we now got a "super weed"
that herbicides can't kill?

No, although it might be resistant to one herbicide.
This may be a problem in a field to a farmer, but not to wild parsly
growing wild.

Or is the wild plant now resistant to it's usual
caterpillars, so will that specific species of butterfly/moth now die out?
etc, etc.

No this one IS a concern. I would be highly against introducing
insecticide resistance to any crop that is known to hybridise with wild
relatives for precisely this reason. Now in practice this isn't a
problem for most crops, in fact I can only think of rape and the herbage
grasses (UK) where this might be a problem. However this is so obvious I
have been pointing it out for very many years.

I've said it before, if they wish to use GM now it must be with plants that
cannot flower, are genetically engineered not to flower, or we could be
heading down a very slippery path where all our crops, indeed, a lot of wild
flora, are contaminated with genes that should not be there and it will be
too late to reverse the process.

Multiplication of seed would be impossible, and in any case this isn't
necessary. All that is required is calm and rational assessment of the
risks to take a rational decision. Further, it's worth remembering that
plants are packed with toxins already, which is why each plant typically
has only a small number of pests. Only those resistant to the plant
toxins can survive on them. Chemical warfare between plants and pests
has been going on for hundreds of millions of years, and not a single
plant has outwitted the insects. The reason for the differences (usually
visual) between insect species probably owes as much to preventing the
wrong species breeding as to anything else.

--
Oz
This post is worth absolutely nothing and is probably fallacious.
DEMON address no longer in use.