Well the main alternative was cultivation, that is dragging a steal hoe threw the ground. This releases a lot of co2, both from burning fuel and faster decomposition of organic matter and so is a factor in global warming. That hoe also destoryes the soil and leads to topsoil loss. Glyphosate allows modern farm to leave the soil alone and that builds more top soil.
Depending on who you ask there is no usual alternative which is in any way competitive and isn't so similar to phosphorylate that any harmfulness of glyphosate like applies to it, too.
Through other people will tell you this is propaganda bs.
I'm not in a position to make any proper judgement there, but it seems that not using glyphosate _or similar_ requires major changes to the approach of farming used.
I develop new technology for regenerative organic farming. I would say the question is not about how GMOs and glyphosate compare to the usual alternatives, but how they compare to the possibilities. Heavy reliance on glyphosate has notable environmental consequences, but it is so cheap and convenient that its use is widespread. To be honest since I am focused on regenerative organic, I can't speak much to what conventional farming methods were like before the use of GMO'd glyphosate resistant crops as I have not studied them, but they would have been more labor intensive. So these GMO crops did make farming cheaper in some ways (tho now farmers pay huge fees to Bayer née Monsanto), but it is important to ask what the trade offs are for this.
Long term, my hope is that small scale farming robot swarms can manage crops the way a more traditional regenerative organic farmer would tend to their crops. In those systems there is more attention paid to each plant, and little to no artificial inputs. This is excellent for the soil and the local environment, as well as the people who live and work at or near the farms.
But then, I am the project lead and maintainer on a solar powered open source farming robot[1], so not only have I drank the Kool-Aid but I'm the one mixing it up to share.
