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EU To Ban Neonicotinoid Insecticides
PuceBaboon writes "The BBC is reporting that the EU has voted to ban pesticides containing neonicotinoids for at least two years, in an effort to isolate the cause of CCD (colony collapse disorder; the alarming disappearance of bees over recent years). Despite intense lobbying by the chemical companies, a 3-million signature petition helped swing the vote in favor of the ban."
I read that as "Neocon Insectoids."
Damn caribbean rum...
Mod me down, my New Earth Global Warmingist friends!
How cow, if that doesn't show the lawmakers which votes they won't be getting... I don't know what will.
US Take note, this has shown that even though Big Business is behind something, voters can say "No".
Moved to http://soylentnews.org/. You are invited to join us too!
I'm happy to see that this important decision was made based on sound science.
Or maybe it was made by weighing corporate lobbying against petition signing. That's probably fine too. After all, it's not like this was an important decision that should have been made based on sound science.
Although bees are endangered, they aren't the only ones pollinating.
Celebrate National Pollinator Week, June 17 - 23, 2013!
These hard-working animals help pollinate over 75% of our flowering plants, and nearly 75% of our crops. Often we may not notice the hummingbirds, bats, bees, beetles, butterflies, and flies that carry pollen from one plant to another as they collect nectar. Yet without them, wildlife would have fewer nutritious berries and seeds, and we would miss many fruits, vegetables, and nuts, like blueberries, squash, and almonds . . . not to mention chocolate and coffeeall of which depend on pollinators. . .
Pollinators, such as most bees and some birds, bats, and other insects, play a crucial role in flowering plant reproduction and in the production of most fruits and vegetables.
Examples of crops that are pollinated include apples, squash, and almonds. Without the assistance of pollinators, most plants cannot produce fruits and seeds. The fruits and seeds of flowering plants are an important food source for people and wildlife. Some of the seeds that are not eaten will eventually produce new plants, helping to maintain the plant population.
In the United States pollination by honey bees directly or indirectly (e.g., pollination required to produce seeds for the crop) contributed to over $19 billion of crops in 2010. Pollination by other insect pollinators contributed to nearly $10 billion of crops in 2010. . . more
Wild Bees Are Good For Crops, But Crops Are Bad For Bees
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
This class of pesticides will still be permitted (in most countries) for use on crops that bees have no interest in.
These pesticides are extremely effective and yet very benign (as long as you're not a bee). It would be unfortunate if they were entirely banned.
So neonicintinoids of unknown bee toxicity and better cost effectiveness are going to be replaced by older pesticides of unknown bee toxicity and worse cost effectiveness.
Quite an experiment they are embarking on.
I don't think this will be over any time soon.
that if they vote no and allow the issue to get worse, that money may not matter because everyone will be dead.
Bees are serious fucking business.
Slavery has been shown over and over to be a poor economic system. Workers work better when well treated. Henry Ford paid more than any other business and it made him filthy rich. Slaves make poor workers and that includes wage slaves.
So were the scientists at the chemical companies right or were the 3 million people who signed a petition right? Did an emotional outcry of ignorance just stop the use of something harmless? Guess we'll know in a couple of years... maybe.
Good question. The consequence of delay in allowing the use of Neonicotinoid chemicals in this case is minimal. It seems the prudent thing to do.
There is good science behind this ban. A Harvard study showed that these Neonicotinoids leak through the production chain of corn syrup, which beekeepers are using to winter their colonies. As soon as that news was out, many, if not most US beekeepers immediately switched back to Cane Sugar syrup, or leaving more Honey in the hives for the bees instead of selling it off. The trend to feed bees corn syrup is not something that had been going on for all that long - since the 70s. But the addition of Neonicotinoid chemicals is fairly new.
The pesticides are not actually used on or near crops normally pollinated by bees. It was found to be creeping in through the corn syrup. These pesticides are not harmful to humans (as far as we know) so the regulations governing their presence in industrial corn syrup were simply too lax. It remains to be seen if they can be refined out of corn syrup.
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
Slavery has been shown over and over to be a poor economic system. Workers work better when well treated. Henry Ford paid more than any other business and it made him filthy rich. Slaves make poor workers and that includes wage slaves.
It's a lot harder to recline in feudal satisfaction at the end of the day, though, if the world doesn't have squalid serfs sweating their little lives away at your whim...
(Unfortunately, I'm only half joking. Especially before things like 'modern medicine' and 'flush toilets' and 'central heating', the delta in actual well-being between a 'not-malnourished peasant' and 'king' pretty much came down to leisure time and how many people would bow and scrape and lick your boots for you. Technology has increased the number of goods that aren't directly social-status based; but feeling high-status is still very much a matter of having somebody to look down on.)
Wireless communication FUD has been debunked. Completely.
Neonicotinoid chemicals on the other hand are a new field of study that has been tested by simply removing the source of these chemicals from the bee hives. It was creeping in not from the fields, but from the Beekeepers themselves. That too was greed, this time on the part of the beekeepers.
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
In case you didn't know, these "neo-nicotinoid" insectides are basically engineered substitutes for nicotine that affect insects more than people (as opposed to the normal nicotine that affects people more than insects). As I understand it, if an insect eats get too much of this chemical, their nervous systems basically stop working (it overloads certiain receptors so they stop propogating signals), and the insects become paralyzed and eventually they die. Apparently it doesn't get past the blood-brain barrier on most vertibrates, so it isn't too toxic to us (or so they say)...
Typically bees don't eat plants, so in theory they are affected less by this, but it seems plausible to me that bees would be affect by this as well as I imagine insectides cannot be applied perfectly, and sustained exposure can't be a good thing.
I have no idea how low-level exposure would affect a bee, but given how nicotine exposure affects humans, maybe there's something there...
So were the scientists at the chemical companies right or were the 3 million people who signed a petition right?
Or were the scientists claiming links between neonicotinoids and colony collapse disorder right?
What if you were a mega-corporation with unlimited funding, access to the brightest researchers in bio-engineering and you were trying to corner the world's food supply.
You'd start by controlling agriculture; you'd develop seeds that would only germinate once, for example, to slowly drive farmers out of business.
Next, you'd want to definitively stop people from producing food on their own, so you'd develop an artificial means of pollenisation and then develop something like say a virus or bacteria or even a toxic compound that you'd release into the environment to get rid of the top natural pollinators so the only crops that could grow would be under your control.
Of course no corporation would ever do something like that, no one is that evil, right?
Still, it makes a nice plot for an eventual James Bond or other science-fiction...
I don't know the meaning of the word 'don't' - J
I do not see why the burden of proof that massive dissemination of poison is harmful should be with the public.
IMO those who manufacture and sell this stuff have to prove that it does not destroy our ecosystem.
I know, the stuff has been at some point been certified, but I think that every company that manufactures a product has an obligation to monitor if it is harmful even after it appears on the market. You simply can not determine the long term impact of wide use on the environment with a handful of studies,
p.
Without order, nothing can exist. Without chaos, nothing can be created.
"The pesticides are not actually used on or near crops normally pollinated by bees."
Bullshit. All over California, citrus crops are sprayed regularly with neonicotinoid pesticides. During my contract work with the state, I applied pesticides within a few miles of apiaries.
They don't give two fucks. They're too worried about trying to contain the asian citrus psyllid to think about anything else.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
this is the EU we are talking about, they do not use corn syrup their, there are also lots of rather serious consequences for delaying the use of neonicotinoid chemicals, those consequences are the use of older less effective and more harmful chemicals as a substitute. The Bee decline has also been shown to not be happening in other countries (eg. Australia) where these chemicals are also extensively being used.
without the euro, [...] the average german would have been about 1000 euro's poorer
...I see what you did there.