Russell,
I am having a failure of imagination.
How do we have a transgenetic disaster of nuclear holocaust proportions?
Do you mean a virus (etc.) sort of thing or something more like the
"kudzu that ate the earth"?
Otherwise I am seeing scifi images of cornfields with monkey genes
suddenly rising up to throw off their yokes of bondage using their new
opposable thumbs to drive the farm equipment into the cities to rape and
pillage?

We may not need GM!

I would bet that the viruses (etc.) already have been created by
"normal" means by our oh so wise sci/gov folks. I have seen interviews
with a fellow from high up in the Russian bio war department - really
scary stuff. Of course, since I have seen no such interviews from the
USA side I assume that the USA didn't undertake any such developments
(yeah right!) But it seem that the now unguarded Russian stuff is
probably sufficient. And of course it would probably be silly to dismiss
the "third world" as a source for such wonders. I am leaving out most of
the rest of the "developed" world because they don't seem to be so
insane - I doubt the Canada or New Zealand etc. have bio war departments.

As far as the kudzu approach goes, well, it seems that Mother has
already done a fair job with kudzu itself, a little cross breading
-tease out some cold weather resistance etc. - might just do the trick
eh? It seems to me that one of Mothers major barriers WAS geographic but
no more! Now plants etc. from different places can be crossed and the
results transported to all corners of the planet.

Also, in the lab, one could come up with something truly awful (with
ordinary non GM methods) that had intermediate stages that could not
survive in the wild but the end product could.

By the way, I too am fearful of GM. For a personal instance, my daughter
has a death allergy to dairy products, suppose some clever fellow
decides to make dairy corn and the pollen escapes and infects the world
food supply (like that pesky pollen seems to do) ...
Looking forward,
Al Shinn

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