[lit-ideas] Bees and Seas
- From: Andy <mimi.erva@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Thu, 10 Nov 2011 04:25:29 -0800 (PST)
The NYT article about the bees is probably accurate, but the NYT is very
industry friendly so one has to wonder the extent to which they're understating
the effects of pesticides on the immune systems of bees. Michele Obama
started her campaign to grow food. Pesticide manufacturers demanded (demanded)
that she use and promote pesticides in her garden even if they weren't needed.
I don't know what happened with that. She probably caved because the food
industry is staggeringly powerful. No one can go up against them. On the
related issue of plastics, birds in the Great Lakes were suddenly turning gay.
Males were flying off with males. It turns out that the ostensibly male birds
were in fact androgynous, with both male and female reproductive organs. The
reason for it was birth defects basically from a class of chemicals called
phthalates, no doubt among others. There are so many plastics molecules
and they're so ubiquitous they
almost can't all be studied. Needless to say industry isn't bending over
backwards to study them, and government is now owned by industry.
I learned something interesting just recently. It turns out that a source of
microscopic poisoning in the oceans is washing fleece fabrics. Washing
fleece mechanically removes the fibers that eventually wash into the oceans and
are eaten by sea life. Needless to say they aren't good nutrition for sea
life. Plastic too winds up in the oceans (in huge quantities). Some is beaten
by waves into tiny particles that are eaten by fish that mistake it for
plankton. (The plankton eat the fleece particles.)
Here's the documentary I saw a while ago on overfishing. It's where I learned
about Mitsubishi.
http://www.hulu.com/watch/197316/the-end-of-the-line
Andy
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