I cross Van Ness to Polk Street to treat my sciatica with a dose of Thai curry. Over the steaming bowl, I consider the irony and turn of fate that has brought us full circle to the place where the first brutal de-greening of ag biotech took place. It was right here in the Bay Area 17 years ago. Some of us witnessed that particular end of innocence. It came with "The Great Ice-Nucleating Bacteria Strawberry-Spray Circus."

A young Berkeley plant pathologist claimed to have discovered a bacterium that behaved like Ice-9 in Kurt Vonnegut's novel "Cat's Cradle." This bacterium, or more precisely, a protein on its surface, catalyzed the formation of ice crystals at air temperatures above freezing! The natural protein was called Ice+. Folks at a humbly named biotech start-up called Advanced Genetic Sciences (AGS) got a cool idea. They would take the gene for Ice+ out of its natural host, mutate it into Ice-, and put it back. This kind of genetically modified organism could be made in many ways but, as a biotech company, they would make theirs via cloning.

AGS claimed that by spraying the surface of strawberry leaves with genetically engineered Ice- bacteria, the plant could be protected from frost damage. Notice the concept of spraying, as in the release of large quantities of recombinant organisms directly into the environment. Artificial colonization of the leaf surface with friendly bacteria is called bio-control. In 1980 bio-control usually qualified as an eco-friendly green technology, a good guy. But when done by cloned GMO, bio-control was not considered green by the bona fide greens. AGS persisted, arguing that the world would ultimately catch up to its vision. Like Monsanto today, AGS fought repeated legal challenges and intense local opposition to gain approval to release its Ice- bacteria. The first Frankenbugs hit the fan on the morning of April 24, 1987, in the East Bay town of Brentwood when AGS officially inaugurated the Age of Agricultural Biotechnology.

As scientific experiments go, this was an amazing show. I attended as a sort of poll watcher and roadie, accompanying a friend who worked at AGS. An international cadre of reporters and TV cameras witnessed a kaleidoscope of tie-died eco-warriors demonstrating across chain-link fencing, barbed wire and hired guards. These folks chanted loud and long to banish the towers of petri plates and miles of sensors attached to biotechies in full-body hazmat space suits (mandated by the FDA). But the opposition did more than chant. In a preemptive strike, over 80 percent of the plants had been pulled out of the ground during the night. AGS restored what it could and began to spray. At the end of the day recombinant genetically engineered organisms had been intentionally introduced into the environment.

But to what end? Why did AGS fight so hard? The answer remains equivocal, but by applying for and ultimately receiving permission to spray, the company was signaling that it was close to the Holy Grail of every start-up: a product almost ready for the marketplace. In the end AGS was allowed to spray, no environmental disaster ensued, and 17 years later strawberries are still freezing all over the world.

AGS is gone now and, as of 2001, only the fully natural Ice+ bacteria have achieved product status for the relatively low-tech application of entertaining rather than feeding the world. Ice+ bacteria are an active ingredient in Snomax, which is used to make snow on the ski slope just down the road from my home university. To quote the Web site: "Snomax Snow Inducer is an ice-nucleating protein derived from the naturally occurring bacterium ... found readily in nature, from grass to trees to vegetable crops, and even in the air we breathe."

And that, as they say, was the end of innocence. As I approach Moscone West in the year 2004, it strikes me as profoundly ironic that so many years later, the anti-biotechnology forces appear once again to be rallying against the push by a company to release genetically engineered organisms directly into the environment, and into our digestive systems. Has either side learned anything in the meantime?

Sunday morning I check for messages from Carl Feldbaum. My voice-mail box is empty but I no longer care. I have come to realize that BIO has nothing to do with the social phenomenon happening on the streets of San Francisco. The worlds of BIO and Reclaim the Commons have no possibility of intersecting. BIO knows it is bigger and better than ever and that all the myths perpetrated about agricultural biotechnology by misguided environmental activists are false. Just read their Web site. The FDA has already determined that biotech foods and crops are safe. Biotech animals eat, drink and behave just like "conventional" animals. And, most importantly, biotech does not harm monarch butterflies.

While the environmental activists pass the hat to collect money to copy their manifestos, biotechies will run networking excursions from their booths in Moscone Center's exhibition hall, take in colorful animated PowerPoint presentations, and have a little fun on the corporate expense account. Prominent members will also attend a gala dinner featuring gourmet GMO foods prepared by a chef with a Ph.D. in biochemistry flown in from Austin, Texas, or someplace equally groovy. Gavin Newsom, the newly elected mayor of San Francisco, is viciously schmoozing the biotech elite, offering them everything from free utilities to their own cable car branch in return for locating in the new China Basin research park. Newsom, a 37-year-old political prodigy, is perhaps the first truly millennial mayor. With a progressive sensibility, from fashion to gay marriage to biotechnology, Gavin sees the future and is committed to bringing the fun back to San Francisco. Fun and profit. To ensure the profit he has placed hundreds of police around Moscone Center and it is clear that Reclaim the Commons has about as much chance of disrupting this meeting as the ghost dancers had of bringing back the buffalo.

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