Slashdot Mirror
EPA Knowingly Allowed Pesticide That Kills Bees
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."
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.
"I bow to no man" - Riddick
This sounds bad, and I admit that this is the first I've heard about this particular pesticide being especially toxic to bees, but let's not get carried away. The longstanding mystery of Colony Collapse Disorder in bees has pretty much been solved. A few months ago, it was published that a double whammy of a fungus and a virus acting at the same time are almost certainly what have decimated bee populations around the world. A bee colony can usually survive either of the two pathogens, and it will recover, but being hit by both at the same time is deadly. The science behind this conclusion looked sound, and most experts have agreed. Sure, this pesticide has clearly not helped bees, and perhaps a ban is in order, but it is not the main factor behind all the recent hubbub about honeybees.
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...
This is a hacked account, for which the owner can not be held responsible.
Bayer: the people who gave us Heroin.
really
How we know is more important than what we know.
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.
Baker's Law: Misery no longer loves company. Nowadays it insists on it
http://www.sigsegv.cx/
Organic farmers around here (upstate NY) absolutely do not use pesticides and the people I've talked to claim large losses in the 30-50% range due to pests and disease. I don't see how they make any money. I have tried growing vegetables for the past few years without pesticides and you get almost nothing. I have to say that the major loss is due to foraging animals (rabbits, birds, etc.), but something like acorn squash will be 90% taken out by beetles passing on a fatal bacterial infection. If I had to make a living growing produce "organically", I would starve.
Sorry, but gray text on gray background is making my eyes bleed.
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.
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.
Play Command HQ online
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.
Blasphemy is a human right. Blasphemophobia kills.