[lit-ideas] Re: Bees and Seas
- From: Andy <mimi.erva@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Thu, 10 Nov 2011 15:17:19 -0800 (PST)
In response to your inquiries, yes. And yes. The NYT is most definitely
biased in favor of industry, and in their article they're not exactly
over-emphasizing the role of pesticides in CCD. The pesticide treadmill is a
big deal. Farmers won't even let their children walk on the soil they grow our
food in. They treat it like a haz mat, which it is. Bacteria develop
resistance to antibiotics virtually the first time they're used. Insects take
a little longer with pesticides, but not too many of their little insect
generations. I can't imagine fungi are much different. The cure for CCD is
going to be more pesticides.
On the surface of it the study's credentials look good. I'm not clear where
the funding came from. Here industry has a stake in figuring out the problem,
but they also don't want to ruin things for their pesticide promulgating golf
partners. The USDA is virtually owned by industry, as is the FDA. So, maybe
it's unbiased, maybe it isn't. As far as the actual study, first a
disclaimer. I have enough background in chemistry that I can make heads and
tails of this study but not enough to analyze it in any depth. However, I did
see this, a quote from the study: "...A majority of the wax samples were not
analyzed for amitraz metabolites, the fungicides boscalid and iprodione, and
the coumaphos metabolites chlorferone, coumaphos oxon, and potasan. Where only
some of the samples in a given matrix were analyzed for coumaphos metabolites,
only coumaphos (and not ‘total coumaphos’ levels - coumaphos plus metabolites)
were compared. Lastly, a
lack of detection of some chemicals does not necessarily rule out potential
exposure. Chemicals that metabolize or break down quickly may have been removed
from the various matrixes tested. Alternatively, some chemicals may have been
consumed (in the case of beebread) before samples were collected."
What I'm reading is that they didn't analyze all the pesticides. Also, how the
pesticides all react with one another has to be unknowable, there are so many
of them. One of the things about pesticides is that they kill good things
along with bad things, setting up predator-free pathogens in their wake so
pathogens run wild. Predator-free and resistant to everything thrown at them
sooner or later. Monsanto has hit a wall with their herbicides. They say that
it's only temporary, but admit it will take them at least eight years to take
the next step on the treadmill, which will involve dealing with the genetic
material. Good luck I say. Nature always bats last. All they're going to do
is create even worse resistance.
As far as Michelle Obama standing up to the pesticide peddlers, it looks like
smoke and mirrors to me. Her husband appointed someone from the pesticide
industry as chief agricultural negotiator in the office of the U.S. trade. He
really had no choice. Corporations run the country, and that's just a fact.
They weren't going to let someone as well known as Michelle get away with
letting it be known that pesticides aren't necessary for good gardening, or
farming.
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2010/03/29-0
Andy
________________________________
From: Robert Paul <rpaul@xxxxxxxx>
To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Sent: Thursday, November 10, 2011 4:42 PM
Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: Bees and Seas
Andy, ever the skeptic, wrote
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.
Do you mean that the NY Times is understating the effect of pesticides in this
article? That the article is somehow biased in favor of industry—? Or what?
This is an article about a group of scientists who cooperatively discovered the
probable cause of hive collapse. The Times article is a newspaper article, not
a scientific treatise. If you want to read the original paper, here's the link.
http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0006481
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.
Apparently she did. Twenty seconds of scanning Google hits would have shown you
that. Maybe your practice of getting all of your information from the History
Channel needs to be upgraded
Your obt. servant,
G. W. Leibniz
a
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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