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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."
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.
The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
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
Curses.... foiled again by people who read.
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.
Why is Snark Required?
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.
I wrote my first program at the age of six, and I still can't work out how this website works.
Come again ?
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.
Read radical news here
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
"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."
Please help metamoderate.
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.
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.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
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>
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.
Read radical news here
While WikiLeaks is a current and exciting topic, the clothianidin/EPA leak has nothing to do with WikiLeaks.
Quoting a prominent secondary story linked from TFA:
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
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organic_certification
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.