EPA Knowingly Allowed Pesticide That Kills Bees 410
hether writes "The mystery of the disappearing bees has been baffling scientists for years and now we get another big piece in the puzzle. From Fast Company: 'A number of theories have popped up as to why the North American honey bee population has declined — electromagnetic radiation, malnutrition, and climate change have all been pinpointed. Now a leaked EPA document reveals that the agency allowed the widespread use of a bee-toxic pesticide, despite warnings from EPA scientists.' Now environmentalists and bee keepers are calling for an immediate ban of the pesticide clothianidin, sold by Bayer Crop Science under the brand name Poncho."
EP(what?) (Score:4, Insightful)
Hmmm and i thought the "P" stood for Protection, but clearly its something to do with Profits and or Pressure.... what a freakin sellout i bet they were pressured to allow more profits by the big agribusiness lobbyists... i guess agribusiness will be the first to cry foul when their crops no longer get fertilised....
Re:EP(what?) (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:EP(what?) (Score:4, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:EP(what?) (Score:4, Insightful)
In addition, you can keep the insect infestation quite low by using chickens. Chickens love to eat insects, so if you corral them into the garden for a set amount of time per day, they'll keep the bugs out. Don't let them stay too long, though, or else they'll start eating the crops.
Re:EP(what?) (Score:5, Informative)
Growers of organic food still use pesticides (if you try growing crops without any pesticides you'll realize why).
Some organic growers use it. They use a lot less of it, and only specific chemicals (with little to no synthetic stuff):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organic_farming#Pesticides [wikipedia.org]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organic_certification [wikipedia.org]
Re: (Score:3)
if you try growing crops without any pesticides you'll realize why
Bullshit. When my kids were growing up we lived ina small house with a huge back yard, and we turned most of that back yard into a garden. We grew corn, peas, tomatos, radishes, several kinds of peppers, beans, lettuce, cabbages, blackberries, and one or two others I can't think of right now.
Not once did we use any pesticides. We did lose some yield to insects, but we lost more to small mammals (rabbits and squirrels), and the only food we ha
Re:EP(what?) (Score:4, Insightful)
Cause? (Score:2)
Didn't they recently announce discovery of the primary cause for the bee-deaths?
Seed Enhancement (Score:5, Interesting)
I work in seed enhancement, fortunately, I don't order clothianidin (Poncho) from Bayer Crop Science. However I do order Thiram, Captan and Allegiance (aka Apron FL) from Bayer. Most of these chemicals are used to control pythium, however I've always wondered if these were responsible for the bee hive die offs.
Re: (Score:2)
If you are getting your seed enhanced, the load from your mind isn't the relevant one.
One More Bush Era Screw Up (Score:5, Insightful)
It's just like the BP Gulf oil spill and the coal mine explosion in West Virginia. There are systems in place to protect people and the environment, but when the Republicans gain control they stop all oversight. It takes five to fifteen years to see all the failures, and by then everyone forgets who turned over control to the crooks and lairs.
They just wave the flag, blame everything on the government bureaucrats and illegal aliens, scream about the war on terror, and then lie and deny when the shit hits the fan. I guess as long as these morons continue to lie and cheat their way into power we deserve to have poisoned gulf seafood and the end of flowering crops.
Don't worry, you can just consume more high fructose processed food and get diabetes. The corn/agribusiness lobby will continue to do just fine with their massive tax breaks and government subsidies, and they're so rich that they can afford imported fruits and vegetables. If you get sick and loose your health care you can crawl off and die, and that will solve them problem.
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
One more example of how Bush and his greedy incompetent Republican asshats have screwed everybody. This stuff is used because of a conditional waiver that was issued in 2003, against the scientific advices of the experts.
It's just like the BP Gulf oil spill and the coal mine explosion in West Virginia. There are systems in place to protect people and the environment, but when the Republicans gain control they stop all oversight. It takes five to fifteen years to see all the failures, and by then everyone forgets who turned over control to the crooks and lairs.
They just wave the flag, blame everything on the government bureaucrats and illegal aliens, scream about the war on terror, and then lie and deny when the shit hits the fan. I guess as long as these morons continue to lie and cheat their way into power we deserve to have poisoned gulf seafood and the end of flowering crops.
Don't worry, you can just consume more high fructose processed food and get diabetes. The corn/agribusiness lobby will continue to do just fine with their massive tax breaks and government subsidies, and they're so rich that they can afford imported fruits and vegetables. If you get sick and loose your health care you can crawl off and die, and that will solve them problem.
Pssstttttt.... 15 years before the events you cited... Clinton was president.
Re:One More Bush Era Screw Up (Score:5, Informative)
As further evidence, the number of lawsuits issued by the EPA dropped by 75% [ens-newswire.com] under the Bush administration. (!) It's no coincidence that during the last decade we had increasing food safety alerts about E. Coli, etc. in our food, increased mercury in bodies of water, etc., etc. etc. This was done intentionally in the belief that applying the following rules always works: "regulation = bad" "business interests = good". Stupid and short-sighted.... (And yet somehow the American people felt it was a good idea to let these guys back into control of congress? WTF? They're going to get what they deserve, the only problem is I'm going to get what they deserve it too since environmental problems affect everyone.)
Re:One More Bush Era Screw Up (Score:5, Informative)
I'd just like to add that, while strongly worded, the parent post isn't actually a troll
Let's see, in reality clothianidin was granted full approval this year -- April 2010! That's 4 years of a completely Democratically controlled congress and 2 years of a Democratic House+Senate+President. Most politically appointees from the Bush years are LONG gone by now. Turnover in agencies is incredible around election time. I'm very, very glad to see more stuff of this type appear on Wikileaks (though I wish some other government's dirty laundry would start showing up too). The troll part is being so blindly partisan. IMHO, it's that kind of super-polarized partisanship that helps lead to so many of our political problems.
Additionally, CCD is occurring around the globe--even in countries that don't use clothiandin.
As further evidence, the number of lawsuits issued by the EPA dropped by 75% [enO's-newswire.com] under the Bush administration. (!) It's no coincidence that during the last decade we had increasing food safety alerts about E. Coli, etc. in our food, increased mercury in bodies of water, etc., etc. etc
What on does the EPA have to do with E. coli outbreaks? Does the EPA really control wild boards running through spinach fields? Or indeed have ANYTHING to do with that situation?
Re:One More Bush Era Screw Up (Score:5, Insightful)
Well that's the responsibility of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). However I think the point the gentleman was making was that the Republicans (in particular their "libertarian" wing) have this tendency to gut red tape, minimize government enforcement, and count on industry self-monitoring and "voluntary guidelines" with the expectation that the free market will redress all wrongs. That doesn't happen with car emissions, with pollution controls, with pharmaceuticals (remember snake oil salesmen promoted snake oil for curing all sorts of ailments), or Ponzi schemes gussied up as investment funds. It also doesn't work when there are only around 7 major meat packing companies in the country and safety problems in one producer create significant shortages that drive up the price and force vendors to turn back to suppliers that have proved themselves unsafe in the past. Too big to fail doesn't just happen to banks. There are areas where excessive regulation may be caused by overzealous bureaucrats, but food safety is one where I generally prefer to err on the side of safety.
The one exception I would make regarding food safety, if I could still eat cheese, has to do with the mandated pasteurization of soft cheeses. Put warning labels on the cheese and keep them away from small children and pregnant women, but let me make that choice. It's telling that there have been far fewer deaths in Western Europe from unpasteurised cheeses than there have been in Canada or the US with listeria or E. Coli outbreaks from inspected meat plants. Mainly I find it ridiculous that you can't buy an unpasteurized brie, but cigarettes are sold by the carton at the checkout stand,
Re:One More Bush Era Screw Up (Score:5, Insightful)
This stuff is used because of a conditional waiver that was issued in 2003, against the scientific advices of the experts.
Bees are in decline in europe as well, and the decline has been going on since before 2003.
Maybe this conditional waiver was bad for the environment, I wouldn't be at all surprised, but to think that it's the root cause of the problem is pretty childish.. The world isn't so simple
Re:One More Bush Era Screw Up (Score:5, Interesting)
Rick Perlstein called them "E. Coli conservatives", because they think helping big business make more money is more important than protecting the food supply from deadly bacteria. The name comes from the Bush era FDA, much hobbled and reduced, and the rash of tainted food deaths that happened under its oversight. But the absolute nadir was when the Bush administration took a slaughter house to court to try to stop them from testing each cow for Mad Cow disease and use the negative results for marketing. They did this on behalf of the rest of the cattle industry, which was afraid they'd have to follow suit and a bunch of positives would turn up.
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
I modded it off-topic because it has nothing to add to the dicussion of pesticides and their effect on bees. Nor does it offer any real discussion about the EPA approval prrocess. In fact, the entire pesticide/bee story is merely cited as an example of something else entirely that the poster is just itching to tell us about.
And if it wasn't off-topic, calling your political opponents asshats, morons and cheaters is just flaming. It's barely on-topic as a mindless political screed, which is a pretty low stan
Re: (Score:2)
this issue is about a govt. agency enabling a corporation to cause phenomenal ecological damage by letting go of rules. the cause-effect relationship, is as thus.
the GP post you modded down, practically lays out not only HOW this happened, but also WHY this happened.
But "uncomfortable truth"? Partisan ranting is certainly one of those two things.
so is conveniently missing the major causation leading to the event being discussed and then modding a post down. maybe too convenient indeed ...
Re: (Score:2)
this issue is about a govt. agency enabling a corporation to cause phenomenal ecological damage by letting go of rules. the cause-effect relationship, is as thus.
Actually, it's not. It's about a government agency ignoring a possible contributing factor to a serious matter of national interest. The pesticide might cause phenomenal ecological damage, though that hasn't been established.
Re:and (Score:4, Insightful)
Quite honestly, I think posts like this deserve to be modded flamebait, even if they do have some seeds of truth in them (the lobbying and all that jazz), because they do not contribute to a conversation in an intelligent or rational manner. They are just pissy rants posted by people too immature to accept the fact that the real world is an ugly place, and more often than not, blame doesn't lie with one group of "thems" verses the "us."
Don't worry though, it appears that, despite some downmodding, the post was modded back up to insightful because, just like some commentators, some moderators are too juvenile to recognize flambait when they agree with the point of the rant being posted. So you and the OP can go back to your smug little world where you see things along black and white lines and there are always "bad guys" that always fall under some easily recognizable label like Republicans, assuring yourselves with every breathe that, "at least we're not like them."
and wikileaks are terrorists (Score:2, Interesting)
how did this stay hidden so long
Where are those who dubbed wikileaks 'terrorists' (Score:5, Insightful)
North american bee population has been declining, scientists estimated that in a few decades this would affect everything in agriculture (pollination), and trying to solve it. it was even dubbed end of mankind. it was that serious.
Now it turns out that, your government has allowed bee-killing pesticides. noone heard about it. no journalist made news of it. no ngo was warned of it. NOONE KNEW. if wikileaks didnt leak it, you would not know about it, still.
tell me now, who are the real terrorists ? the ones letting you know that your entire ecosystem and agriculture is being killed by corporations which have been allowed by your government, or, those corporations and the government themselves ?
wise up. support wikileaks. it is giving you the control over your government that was taken away from you.
Re:Where are those who dubbed wikileaks 'terrorist (Score:5, Funny)
You need to relax. It's quite simple if you understand Friedmannite economics. Cutting corporate taxes and deregulation will resolve all of our problems. The Free Market will come up with a cheaper, better solution to bee pollination.
Re: (Score:3)
You need to relax. It's quite simple if you understand Friedmannite economics. Cutting corporate taxes and deregulation will resolve all of our problems. The Free Market will come up with a cheaper, better solution to bee pollination.
Actually large-scale farms which want everything pollinated and thus ready for harvest in one go purchase the services of large-scale beekeepers, which drive farmed bees to the area in hive trucks and leave them there while they pollinate. By the time they die off it's mission accomplished, and growing bees artificially wherever you want isn't under threat like the naturally occurring bees that pollinate wild flowers.
The "free market (i.e. people earning a living) have already figured out the pollination
Re: (Score:3)
Actually large-scale farms which want everything pollinated and thus ready for harvest in one go purchase the services of large-scale beekeepers, which drive farmed bees to the area in hive trucks and leave them there while they pollinate. By the time they die off it's mission accomplished, and growing bees artificially wherever you want isn't under threat like the naturally occurring bees that pollinate wild flowers.
Except that it's the colonies used by commercial beekeepers that are among the hardest-hit by CCD, and their replenishment programs can't keep up with the loss. If a cure for CCD can't be found, in a few years the supply of hives will be lower than the demand for pollination services.
Re:Where are those who dubbed wikileaks 'terrorist (Score:5, Funny)
And the market wins again.
When demand outstrips supply the suppliers can up their prices. They'll make a lot more money.
Now, since the food growers can't get enough bees to pollinate their crops, the supply of food will dwindle - more expensive food, meaning more money for the growers.
This means that regular workers have to work more to buy the same amount and kinds of food. That means the supply of workers will outstrip demand and salaries can be cut. That's another win for the market and the companies in particular.
It's Win/Win/Win for the market economy - what's not to like?
Re:Where are those who dubbed wikileaks 'terrorist (Score:5, Informative)
While WikiLeaks is a current and exciting topic, the clothianidin/EPA leak has nothing to do with WikiLeaks [fastcompany.com].
Quoting a prominent secondary story linked from TFA [fastcompany.com]:
Re: (Score:2)
While WikiLeaks is a current and exciting topic, the clothianidin/EPA leak has nothing to do with WikiLeaks.
Thank you!
Somebody probably got confused because TFA is titled, "Wik-Bee Leaks: EPA Document Shows It Knowingly Allowed Pesticide That Kills Honey Bees"
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Enough with the crazy doomsaying.
Capitalism will solve this problem as all the others. Soon Monsanto will be announcing genetically modified bees that will resist to the pesticide.
All will be well, except that these bees will somehow kill all cows. At which point Monsanto will give us those better, iron-skinned OGM cows they are working on *right* *now*.
They are incredibly strong and resistant, so much that your head will explode when you try to chew their meat. Enter the OGM humans. They can shoot laser be
Re:Where are those who dubbed wikileaks 'terrorist (Score:5, Insightful)
Here we are. When they released the locations of targets, they became terrorists.
rest of the world doesnt give a flying fsck about american cia operatives who participated in kidnapping ,or american soldiers who have participated voluntarily in occupations, are being targeted or not. its their choice, their life. they should ask themselves, what are they doing there, in the first place.
what is appalling is that, there are people who are basically saying that we should be sorry for cia operatives who kidnapped german citizens or other nationals from the middle of europe, took them to bases in client countries in middle east, and tortured them. and, anyone revealing the location of these people, are 'terrorists'.
the real terrorists are people who kidnap others, and torture them. the world doesnt give a flying fuck about the 'lives' endangered by wikileaks' leaks as such. they are the terrorists which should have been hunted for that long time. they have even violated constitutions and sovereignty of ALLIED countries.
To recap. get a fucking clue. you dont know right from wrong.
Snippy "Free Market" Comments (Score:4, Insightful)
So when anything bad happens involving some private enterprise, someone on here usually has some stupid comment like "I thought the free market would make life perfect."
Well, let me be the one to offer a hypothesis: people are no good and there is no perfect system because of people. Or if we want to be sarcastic too "I thought government regulators were going to make life perfect."
Re:Snippy "Free Market" Comments (Score:5, Insightful)
It's because there are idiots out there known as "libertarians" who believe that emasculating the government will solve everything. They are just as fucking wrong as utopian communists.
A transparent market is an amazing thing, but unfortunately, a market desires to be opaque in order to increase profits. Unless you have a strong and largely uncorrupted government to continue providing transparency, you don't have a market. You have a conspiratorial oligopoly that will risk destroying entire ecosystems to push up quarterly profits.
Re: (Score:3)
Agreed - this is exactly the kind of thing a government is for -- keeping the interests of one party from damaging the rights of others.
Unless they own the bees they're killing, then pesticide companies are creating demonstrable harm. Sue them out of existence for the lost bees.
Re: (Score:3)
There's a difference between being responsible and acting in good faith and letting your narrow self-interest damage others.
When a chemical company invents a pesticide or hebicide that enables farmers to grow more food or avoid some sort of difficult or dangerous manual labor, that's a good thing. When pesticide has wider-ranging effects that can negatively effect the greater environment or economic fortunes of others, and that same company obfuscates or actively funds research to deflect attention, that is
Re: (Score:3)
You are with the faith based economics community apparently.
But let us not forget the grand (socialist) bail out of the right which they begged dear nanny state so they could pay their rich friends with so they wouldn't suffer any losses. But yet they can't afford to help the homeless or the poor right?
It's ok when the federal reserve gives the warm embrace of socialism to the rich. Trillions in offsheet balance transactions to domestic and foreign multinational corporations.
http://dailybail.com/home/there- [dailybail.com]
Re: (Score:3)
This has nothign to do with CCD, the EPA had no reason not to allow this, and this article is just a knee jerk reaction by someone who doesn't really know how to think about a subject.
Regulation has made life a hell of a lot better.While there are people who literal say 'The free market is perfect' there is no one that says 'Regulation is perfect'.
People who claim the invisible hand of the free market is perfect either haven't studied history, or make money through some sort of shell game.
I think it's time to consider banning EPA itself (Score:2)
I think it's time to consider banning EPA itself. Seriously, those fuckers are a joke. Kill it with fire and replace with something that has more teeth. Do the same to FDA as well.
Re: (Score:2)
The EPA as a whole isn't the problem. It's that thin, but corrupt as hell, veneer between the scientists and the policy makers that is the problem. There are so many stories of corruption (like the administrator who edited a climate change report then went to work for Big Oil) like this. But, no substantial changes will ever occur since our country has gone over the Fascism cliff. We are totally at the beck and call of corporate interests now. Yes, I'm saying our country is on its death bed.
Re: (Score:2)
Hold on now... (Score:5, Interesting)
I don't want to hear anything about evil electromagnetic radiation, cell phones, wifi, government conspiracies, aliens, a grassy knoll, or malnutrition induced by an exploding pooh bear population. The answer is simple and makes sense. Bee populations have suffered around the world, including where there is neither ubiquitous wifi nor this pesticide, and the virus/fungus combo has been found everywhere anyone has looked. Now, maybe aliens brought the virus and communists spread the fungus, but...
Re: (Score:2)
I don't want to hear anything about evil electromagnetic radiation, cell phones, wifi, government conspiracies, aliens, a grassy knoll, or malnutrition induced by an exploding pooh bear population.
Good, because those aren't the issue. The issues are that 9/11 was an inside job, and Obama is a foreign born Muslim.
Said study by Bayer associate (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:3)
That a scientist working in agriculture has ties to a company working in agriculture is not surprising. An accusation that he made up data however, is serious. Serious claims need more than Natural News backing them up (BTW the NYT article appears to be backing up Dr Bromenshenk, not supporting the
This industry is SO CORRUPT. (Score:5, Insightful)
My father is an entomologist for a university Extension Service. For those who don't know (non-Americans), the Extension Services are outreach arms of the universities set up to provide advice to the public. His main job is to advise farmers on pest control measures for crops, mostly cotton; the advice is often "if you spray to kill pest A, you'll also kill predator B, which eats pest C which is resistant to insecticide, and C will eat your cotton. So don't do anything and put up with A, they won't eat that much."
Many of the meetings are sponsored by chemical companies. There are responsible uses of insecticides; used wisely, some insecticides can provide a cost-effective way to increase yields with very minimal long-term environmental harm. But the chemical companies are corrupt as hell. They try to bribe the scientists with lavish gifts to publish studies that favor their products, and encourage farmers (and scientists) to use too much insecticide, or use it when it's not really appropriate. It's sham science done for the sake of greed, and it is disgusting.
On the flip side, there are "studies" that show environmental harm where there really isn't any -- either by misguided "everything must be grown organically" types, or by people pushing back against the chemical company propaganda.
It's hard to tell a damn thing from "studies" on this sort of thing, because everyone is so busy grinding axes that who's right and who's wrong gets completely lost. This makes me, as a scientist in another field where there is far less of that, rather angry.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
You've also described how modern medicine works as well.
Re: (Score:2)
Yes, although I have less firsthand experience with it. But I know a little about stats as a physicist, and I've seen some stats presented in medical studies that are *impossible* -- things like chisquared/d.o.f. consistently less than unity, which only happens if you are fudging things (or overestimating your errors).
Those crazy germans. (Score:4, Interesting)
Bayer: the people who gave us Heroin.
really [a1b2c3.com]
Re:Those crazy germans. (Score:4, Insightful)
Well, their advertising for Heroin was for "non-addictive opium".. could they have gotten that any more wrong?
I am sure the EPA will act swiftly (Score:5, Insightful)
These leaks MUST be stopped immediately, and those responsible must go to jail for life, and execution may even be warranted. I am sure the EPA will be acting quickly to ensure those responsible for the leaks are rapidly brought to justice.
This is a clear and dire threat to national security, and the leakers are traitors; think of what will happen when the Bees find out the nature of the pesticide, and the informants who formulated it!
This will only serve to cause more incidents of bee attacks against us, costing precious human lives.
Lives are at stake; and the leakers are enemy combatants performing an act of terrorism
<sarcasm>
Fungus and virus combo. (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Fungus and virus combo. (Score:5, Informative)
Yeah, except the NY Times article failed to mention that that study was funded by Bayer Crop Sciences, whose product was the principle other suspect behind Colony Collapse Disorder.
See this CNN piece in response to the NY Times article: http://money.cnn.com/2010/10/08/news/honey_bees_ny_times.fortune/index.htm [cnn.com]
And this article posted a few threads up: http://www.ktradionetwork.com/tag/dr-jerry-bromenshenk/ [ktradionetwork.com]
Not clear what the real answer is, but it just goes to show that it's easier to mislead a New York Times journalist than one would think and that any scientific study that answers questions of economic significance are subject to meddling with money. Though we sometimes assume that scientists are truly objective, they are human beings and subject to biases and influence like the rest of us.
These sorts of potential conflicts of interest need to be better disclosed - and it's rather embarrassing that the New York Times never published a clarification or follow-up story about this (at least as far as I know).
Migration (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
Finland, Finland, Finland,
That's where I want to Bee?
Real data (Score:4, Informative)
Here is the EU data on the pesticide [herts.ac.uk].
Some highlights: It is an insecticide, so it should not really surprise that it kills bees. The toxitity to honey bees is well known (LD50 = 0.004 ug/bee, which the document interpret as "high" risk). And it is approved for use in most EU countries, including Italy and Germany.
Re: (Score:3)
Re:Some Questions (Score:5, Informative)
Most of your questions are answered in TFA, and those that aren't, are thoroughly covered in the linked PDF (except for the political ones.) The short version is that the stuff propagates very easily through the environment and is toxic to bees even in very low doses.
Re:Some Questions (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
The villains fall for that trick every time.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
From TFS: Now environmentalists and bee keepers are calling for an immediate ban of the pesticide clothianidin, sold by Bayer Crop Science under the brand name Poncho
Sold in Europe under the brand name dondurun, which is why Paul McCartney wrote a song in favor of banning it!
Ban dondurun, it's toxic to bees!
Re:Some Questions (Score:5, Funny)
I don't know about this "science" stuff, but I thought I would get straight to the root of the issue. To this end, I found a nearby hibernating honey bee and I asked the little fellow what his thoughts were on the matter. At first I couldn't quite make out what he was saying (bee sized and all) so I held him close to my face. Do you know what the little guy told me? Kill everyone, make the rivers flow with their blood and fill the skies with their screams.
Surprisingly, this is exactly what the article said too.
Re:Some Questions (Score:4, Informative)
> I'm not a fan of pesticides but I won't deny that they increase food and crop yield.
Prove it. I don't believe this whatsoever.
There has been a growing of evidence showing that the overuse of pesticides has led to a *decline* in crop yields, not an increase.
See:
http://www.organicconsumers.org/articles/article_5995.cfm
http://www.rsc.org/chemistryworld/News/2007/June/04060701.asp
Unless you are familiar with changes in farming techniques over time it's very very hard to have a substantive position on this. Since about 1960-1970 there has been a *huuuge* increase in the use of nitrogen fertilizers that essentially parallels the use of pesticides. Sadly there was a limit to how much nitrogen fixation can actually take place in the presence of pesticides. Keep in mind that nitrogen is required for plants to grow, nitrogen fixation is required for plants to use nitrogen and... research has now shown that pesticides interferes with nitrogen fixation.
I'm not making a broad claim one way or another, but the government clearly isn't researching the things they should be.
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
The Green Revolution, heralded by former USAID director William Gaud, is a Malthusian population control mechanism. Oh. USAID? An operational front for the CIA [ipresscenter.com]
It was designed to create maximum crop yield for a 20-50 year period, with a maximum of industrialization and a minimization of farm labour.
The result of which was to create a vacuum of occupational opportunity in the rural communities, which in the 1960's were still the hubs of livelihood for much of the population in the US, Canada and Western Eu
Re:Some Questions (Score:5, Insightful)
Before you go all tinfoil-hat on us, maybe you should get some points straight. Among them is that the Detroit idea is a proposal, is contingent on approvals at multiple levels and securing funding to move people from neighborhoods that would no longer receive full services, and is simply reflective of the reality that Detroit, once a bustling city of 1.85 million people in 1950, is now under half of that, with nearly 35,000 empty homes.
Besides, urbanization has been happening for centuries. It's picked up the pace in recent decades, but I bet most of the people around in even the 1950s would have been hard pressed to provide entirely for themselves had the need arisen.
Re: (Score:2)
Detroit, once a bustling city of 1.85 million people in 1950, is now under half of that, with nearly 35,000 empty homes.
Well, at least Detroit is exporting something again...
Re: (Score:2)
Im not surprised. 26.43 people per household is just too much.
Re:Some Questions (Score:4, Insightful)
"The bad Science Fiction dystopia is real. The bees? Just a late stage of this sad, intentional collapse..."
No, the reality is that nobody could have guessed our current social norms back in the 50's, let alone planned them! The idillic picture of the past you paint is just the misplaced nostalgia of a bunch of semi-senile people from my generation.
Re:Some Questions (Score:4, Informative)
Which pesticides?
There is a /huge/ spectrum of different chemicals to kill different sorts of pests, used in different ways, and with different mechanisms of action. Saying that "pesticides" affect nitrogen fixation is an overbroad statement.
Re: (Score:3)
Use != overuse
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
There was an article posted on /. a while back that showed a two pronged attack on the bees by I think a mite and a pathogen that caused the death of whole hives.
This sounds like some anti-pesticide religious fanatic trying to whip up hysteria while trying to make the FDA and the pesticide industry look bad.
The FDA screens pesticides for how they will be used, how mobile the pesticide is and how long the residue lasts. If this was not done then cry foul.
This is what I could find in a few minutes searching h [thefederalregister.com]
Re:Some Questions (Score:5, Informative)
The FDA screens pesticides for how they will be used, how mobile the pesticide is and how long the residue lasts. If this was not done then cry foul.
...
I have not found the application for use as a seed coating but Bayer would have needed to go through a process to get that approved by the EPA.
Did you RTFA?
"...Bayer was granted a 'conditional registration' while the Environmental Protection Agency waited for them to conduct further field studies on the pesticides impact on bee colonies."
Long story short: The original study was crap, the EPA allowed it, and Bayer knew that the pesticide was a bee killer.
Re:Some Questions (Score:5, Informative)
There was a horizon program on the BBC here called "what's killing our bees?", which suggested that the only country not really affected (yet) was Australia, who have a roaring trade selling bees now.
That was 2 years ago. Yes, the UK is affected.
Re:Some Questions (Score:4, Interesting)
Somehow I am not surprised.
It is also the only country to go against the flow and invest on a crazy scale into government sponsored agricultural research.
Why do you thing Australian wines are marching victoriously even across old wine producing countries? Why do you think 100+ year old vineries in Europe are throwing out their traditional tech and using Australian? In fact a lot of the ones we think as "traditional" are actually now aussie tech and even part-owned by them. It is because they have spent a colossal amount on government sponsored research into this over the last 50 odd years.
Same with everything else. It is a textbook example that there are cases where pinko commie government intervention actually works and when it works - when it is an investment into foundations and infrastructure through R&D while leaving the private enterprises utilise it after that.
On the subject of bees - they have long invested into research in pesticide minimisation techniques at a government level and they have spent a shedload of money on it. As a result, I am not surprised that they are laughing madly Kookaburra sitting on an old gum tree style while the rest of the developed world is running around like headless chickins.
Re:Some Questions (Score:4, Funny)
You want to be careful posting quotes about kookaburras and old gum trees, apparently there are some copyright issues :-)
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The pesticide is a seed coating?
Some are sprays. There are actually dozens of different types, mostly due to the pharmaceutical companies' vast experience in slightly modifying known drugs in order to maintain patent coverage. This also means that, every time they create a new one, they get several years to sell it and pretend that it has no ill-effects before studies are done and it is either banned or the lawsuits start rolling in.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neonicotinoid [wikipedia.org]
And, yes, that name means these drugs are similar to nicotine.
Re:Some Questions (Score:4, Insightful)
While I agree with the sentiment of your post, you misrepresent the neonicotinoids. Nicotine evolved as a natural insecticide; it's only logical that we use it too if we want to kill insects. (When insects should be killed, of course, is not the question here.)
There are pretty stringent controls on how recently food can be sprayed before it's harvested; I'd worry far more about environmental degradation from the stuff than harm to food consumers.
malicious skepticism (Score:5, Insightful)
You've insinuated gross incompetence on the part of the researchers. Have you actually gone out and tried to find the answers to these questions? Are you qualified in the field to question the research? Or are you just going off the article, which is a summary of research that was almost undoubtedly much more in-depth than a journalists' summary?
I consider myself a strong skeptic, but one of the duties of a skeptic is to realize their limits. I don't attend a graduate-level lecture and start asking questions - I'd be asked to leave, or at least laughed at. So when I'm confronted with something that doesn't seem right, I seek more information. You're not. You're just throwing out questions. Rather slanted ones.
I see this often, and I suspect it is an actual class of logical fallacy...
1)A slashdotter posts a series of slanted questions and wondering-alouds that are very FUD-ish.
2)The questions aren't (properly) answered, because the audience (jokes about parent's basements aside) doesn't have much knowledge on the subject. Or, the answers that are qualified aren't noticed by moderators.
3)The questions, which are more a challenge to refute a contrary viewpoint to the article than anything else, appear to be valid because there's no response visible. And thus what was probably perfectly legitimate research gets shot down by someone with no background in the subject. Probably not even a mild background in research.
Lastly: the burden of proof no longer rests on the shoulders of the public. After decades of the chemical industry producing toxins and marketing them for uses which were harmful, then doing everything to cover it all up...they are no longer entitled to public trust. If you want to manufacture a chemical and spray it on thousands of square miles of farmland, you better prove first that it doesn't cause problems.
This is especially so, given that research shows that old farming techniques and organic practices are equally or more effective, and cause no permanent damage to people or the environment. Virtually none of the artificial stuff spread on the farmlands of the world are *necessary*, even if one's sole criteria is increased yield.
If anyone wants to see another scary example of this "what, me worry?" attitude, check out methyl iodide, a known toxin, which was just approved for use by California:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=%2Fn%2Fa%2F2010%2F12%2F01%2Fnational%2Fa143424S98.DTL&tsp=1 [sfgate.com]
"Hey, it's okay to spread this toxic crap all over the ground, because we'll only use what we think is just enough, and people want pretty strawberries."
Re:malicious skepticism (Score:5, Informative)
Before someone shoots down your argument, wondering what research you are refering to, I thought I'd provide a link to underscore your point: http://www.seedquest.com/News/releases/2007/july/19783.htm [seedquest.com]
A study by the University of Michigan showed that organic methods are sufficient to feed the current global population and more without an increase in the landbase used for agriculture.
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How come? Is it because pesticides make it possible to use less labor?
Given that 50% of the food produced for western markets lands in the trash and does not reach the consumer, I'd say there are better ways to bring down costs than using pesticides with all their negative side effects.
BTW, I'm not talking about spoiled food, but perfectly fine foodstuff that's close to its mostly arbitrary best-before-use date or which doesn't meet some visual criteria that consumers have become conditioned to expect. We'
Re:malicious skepticism (Score:5, Interesting)
I see this often, and I suspect it is an actual class of logical fallacy...
I don't think it's a class of logical fallacy. I think it's a failure to sincerely engage in dialectic, or more likely, an example of bad rhetoric.
Dialectic requires asking questions, but the questioner must be interested in the answers, and agree to them or follow-up with relevant questions.
Rhetoric, as opposed to dialectic, is more a means of suasion than a logical approach to discovering the truth, and probably what was intended here.
Note that dialectic is not widely taught in the USA, even at the college level liberal arts curricula. I suspect that has a great deal to do with the sad state of discourse.
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Insects' nervous system works a lot differently from mammals, which is how pesticides can be made to be so devastating to bugs yet effectively harmless to humans. This means it's also a challenge
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But yeah, pedanticism aside, your main point still stands. Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) [wikipedia.org] is a pretty serious problem facing beekeeping and any agriculture that relies heavily on bees for fertilization, such as almonds. There are many many possibilities on what causes CCD. I personally have a feeling that it's going to end up being something like cancer where there isn't one type
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It seems to me a single cause is quite likely for virtually all cases of CCD. That would fit a well-established historical pattern of environmental disruption.
Suggest re-reading Rachel Carson's book, The Silent Spring, published in 1962. It documents events remarkably similar to CCD, when aerial spraying of DDT to control mosquitoes began, and subsequently was found to be causing the widespread death of song birds. And also the presence of DDT in human breast milk, although that did not gain recognition u
Re:Some Questions (Score:5, Informative)
Also, it's apparently used in the UK. Are only North American bees susceptible to this? The article says:
Of course not. The better question would be has the UK had a problem with colony collapse as well? The answer to that would be yes, it has.
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Re:Some Questions (Score:4, Informative)
I have mod points but I'm also a biochemist so I thought I'd answer a few of your questions.
The pesticide in question is also found in pollen. Since Bees come into frequent contact with said pollen, it's not too much of a surprise that at certain levels, it can be harmful to them.
In short, no, they are not the only ones susceptible. The LD50 for bees is in the ppm range but there is concern that bees show abnormal behavior at ~20 ppb. Different plant components contain different concentrations of the insecticide. Mostly in the leaves which can have up to 20x the amount of insecticide shown to change bee behavior.
The pesticide its self is designed to mimic Nicotine in that it works against the neurological systems of many species of insects.
Re:Some Questions (Score:4, Informative)
"The pesticide is a seed coating? How frequently do bees come into contact with seeds that are planted?"
It'll be systemic, in that the plant absorbs it through it's life and any pest eating the plant gets a dose of it. The problem with these systemic insecticides is that they carry through even to the pollen, so Mr Bee plays around with the flower, gets some pollen on him, takes it back to his hive stuck to his legs and then you have pollen infected with systemic insecticide that kills the bees in the hive.
"Also, it's apparently used in the UK. Are only North American bees susceptible to this?"
No, Europe has the same problem with heavy bee decline.
"I'm not a fan of pesticides but I won't deny that they increase food and crop yield."
Even if they do, is it necessary? Here in the UK we have farmers complaining about how crop prices have been forced lower and lower, so many complaining they can't afford to compete each year, we have fields of cabbages and so forth that are just left to rot. In my mind with this kind of evidence we have too much food, perhaps if farmers moved back to organic methods then they may get smaller yeilds but it'd push the prices up for them and yeah, the end customers will probably have to pay more too, but it's not like paying unsustainably low prices in the first place is a good thing, it just means folks will have to give up their chelsea tractors, or get a 40" TV instead of a 50". It aint going to be the end of the world. There's also many health concerns caused by pesticides, we're not immune to any effect from these pesticides, in larger doses they're just as harmful to us, we just don't get them in those doses from crops. The problem is, we don't know what effect small doses have in the longer term.
Interestingly I used to live in the south of the UK and we eventually moved up to Yorkshire, since moving up here my dogs have developed lumps, they're not cancerous but they're quite large all the same and oddly, all the dogs around here have grown lumps- this isn't something that happened to anyone's pets I knew down south, and the difference here is we're surrounded by more fields and the dogs run through the fields. I do wonder if perhaps pesticides are to blame, the lumps don't seem to hurt the dogs, but they are large- the size of a fist in some cases.
Despite all this, as someone who grows cacti in his spare time, I also know the flip side of it- amateur gardeners have lost access to a lot of pesticides over the years and that has led to immunity to the small range (Imidacloprid, Thiadacloprid) of insecticides that are available to amateur gardener amongst invasive species such as non-native Mealy Bugs and Red Spider Mites. As always though, the reason they've been removed for amateur use is due to abuse of farmers- there's a big difference spraying thousands of gallons of the stuff, to an amateur using half a pint to spray a few plants which are kept in a closed environment such as a greenhouse.
I don't really know what the answer is, large scale use of pesticides simply is not good, I think in many ways even GM foods are a better option, because at least you're not introducing poisons that kill things like bees, and have potentially harmful effects on people and pets. Current regulation seems to let farmers get away with murder, whilst not providing pesticides that amateurs could use to abolish invasive species in small quantities in a closed environment where they don't effect the outside world.
I think the only solution is a massive overhaul of regulation from the ground up, but companies like Bayer are massive, and seem to have a near worldwide control of national and international pesticide regulations. I was quite shocked to see a note from Bayer in a garden centre the other week withdrawing one of their named pesticides to be replaced with a new one that was based on the same mix, but had just been rebranded and the price increased- the bit that shocked me is that this meant their old product, was now illegal to use beca
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Re:Not like Slashdot (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, see, you can live in your little Randroid free-market fantasyland all you want. But when you start poisoning the land, air, and water we all have to share, the rest of us will organize to stop you. We will call this organization "the government." We will give this organization the power to fine you, imprison you, or even kill you if you refuse to mend your ways, and you can't stop us. There are more of us than there are of you, we're smarter, and we're better than you in every conceivable way.
Don't like it? Move to Somalia. There are a bunch of people there who have taken your ideology to its logical extreme. Let's see how long you last.
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Your argument for limited government controls to prevent a tragedy of the commons is not also an argument for strong government controls like massive redistribution of wealth and the destruction of the dollar as a valuable entity. Furthermore, your suggestion that Somalia is a form of free market is ludicrous.
You should actually try to understand what you're arguing against. Capitalism is a philosophy of private ownership, pacifism, and protection of property rights. Somalia, by contrast, is what happens wh
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The issue is that there are three points of view: strong government controls (a la Europe), weak government controls (what you're calling "capitalism"), and fascism. We have the latter right now.
Re:Not like Slashdot (Score:5, Insightful)
Capitalism is a philosophy of private ownership, pacifism, and protection of property rights.
The only problem is that your argument relies on a sort of "enlightened dictator" in the role of the supreme capitalist. In the history of the world, this has never happened for any significant length of time.
Look at the history of the labor movement. The mega-companies at the turn of the century had de-facto private armies that beat and killed workers who protested horrendous working conditions.
Capitalism in its pure form as as rare as any theory; too many people are avaricious bastards who will screw their own mother for a dime. Capitalism without a strong government will not lead to "respect of property rights"; rather it will lead to theft, murder, and destruction of anyone who is less powerful than you.
Look at the history of the American West; a lot of "pure capitalists" look at that as some sort of proof of superiority of pure american capitalism personified by the immigrants. In fact, those who became wealthy often did so by cheating, killing, and stealing the property of others. It's not a pretty story, and it goes on to this day.
Re:Not like Slashdot (Score:4, Interesting)
A good capitalist would admit that he or she fucked up and do something about it.
Nope, a good capitalist would try to game the system, which almost always has a better cost/benefit ratio than admiting to a screw-up.
This is just a fact: it is almost always "better"--for some widely accepted standard of "better"--to lie, distract, bully and corrupt than it is to admit the truth, take responsibility for it, and move on.
I used to believe otherwise, but too many years of watching "good capitalists" make exactly that kind of rational economic calculation proved me wrong, and as a rational empiricist I changed my mind about the question.
The only stable, sane society is one in which various interests are maintained in a balance of power, and to balance the huge interests of dishonest, corrupt capitalists we need a large, democratic, transparent and relatively powerful government. The transparency and democracy are key, of course, as otherwise it will fall into all the well-known bad behaviour that humans get up to when given unchecked power.
Re:Not like Slashdot (Score:5, Insightful)
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I'm a marketer, you insensitive clod
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A nerve you've hit. You directly attacked the integrity of myself and my profession.I know that to some people this might not mean much, but to me it does.
Not the person you were talking to originally, but: This is the point. Most people are completely SICK of being marketed to constantly, and thus you should expect some flack for it. Advertising HAS, uncontroversially, gotten completely out of hand, and some people in your profession are at fault for this. You might even be, don't take that as an insul