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Three-Quarters of All Honey On Earth Has Pesticides In It (theverge.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Verge: About three quarters of all honey worldwide is contaminated with pesticides known to harm bees, according to a new study. Though the pesticide levels were below the limit deemed safe for human consumption, there was still enough insecticide in there to harm pollinators. The finding suggests that, as one of the study authors said, "there's almost no safe place for a bee to exist." Scientists analyzed 198 honey samples from all continents, except Antarctica, for five types of pesticides called neonicotinoids, which are known to harm bees. They found at least one of the five compounds in most samples, with the highest contamination in North America, Asia, and Europe. The results are published today in the journal Science.
To get a better sense of just how widespread neonic contamination is, Mitchell and his colleagues analyzed 198 worldwide honey samples collected as a citizen science project between 2012 and 2016. They found that 75 percent of honey contained at least one of the five tested neonics, and 45 percent of samples had two or more. Honey from North America, Asia, and Europe was most contaminated, while the lowest contamination was in South America. Neonic concentrations were relatively low: on average, 1.8 nanograms per gram in contaminated honey -- below the limits set as safe for people by the EU.
To get a better sense of just how widespread neonic contamination is, Mitchell and his colleagues analyzed 198 worldwide honey samples collected as a citizen science project between 2012 and 2016. They found that 75 percent of honey contained at least one of the five tested neonics, and 45 percent of samples had two or more. Honey from North America, Asia, and Europe was most contaminated, while the lowest contamination was in South America. Neonic concentrations were relatively low: on average, 1.8 nanograms per gram in contaminated honey -- below the limits set as safe for people by the EU.
Hi, I'm not often posting but I have an anecdote. About three years ago I bought a house. First two years, no honeybees. This year we had them. Wowsa, great!! When I was young (40 yrs ago) honeybees were all around but haven't seen them for 20+ years.
Can I say what is different? Not sure. We are completely organic, but use horticultural oil for hemlock woolly adelgids & hemlock scale, not currently using but did/might future use spinosad for winter moth and gypsy moth. The exotic (asian, european) insects are very aggressive on native (north american) trees. Often defoliation is complete, no leaves left uneaten. It is hard to judge whether mild pesticides (horticultural oil, spinosad) to save the trees are better or worse than refraint for their (small, but non-zero) effect on honeybees.
Neonicotinoids seem to be a problem and restricting those has a high level of support. Let's start with removing those, and see where we go.
Given that the bees didn't die and they were able to carry out their primary mission (bring food back to the hive) I'd say their exposure was below acceptable limits.
Odd that they didn't look for other pesticide classifications like organophosphates, carbamates, pyretheroids, abamectins, etc. No, wait, it's not because they flat out kill bees with very minimal exposure. Neonics are one of the few things they can actually tolerate. Hell, cyantraniliprole, a fairly new chemical in the ryanoid class that was brought to market specifically to supplant neonics when they got the "bee killer" label flat out kills bees and hornets if you apply when they're around. I've used it for that. On purpose. The stuff we're supposed to use instead of neonics friggen kills bees. Nobody's surprised by that because it's still an insecticide and bees are insects, but it's not a "neonic" so nobody is going to ask if you use it.
We have the ability to detect materials in such minute amounts that we can find traces of almost anything, anywhere. It is definitely an effective way to generate headlines. But is it meaningful in any real sense? There is some botulinum toxin in the air you breathe. The question is always how much.
Stop worrying about the risks of nuclear power and start worrying about the risks of not using nuclear power.
Given the history of big corporations influencing dosage levels, we do not have to be a conspiracy nutcase (or somewhat fake nutcase) like Alex Jones to realistically assume powerful forces are going to be trying their best to corrupt the whole subject.
Then we have the history of science moving slowly due to funding etc, as well as being wrong for a while on top of the propaganda and corruption making it move slower. Remember when Pb was not a problem? Then we had various levels of acceptable Pb under different situations and finally after a REALLY LONG TIME the conclusion that there really is NO safe acceptable level Pb under most situations.
The stuff hasn't been around long enough to see long term problems and even so, if the problems can be kept close to the margins of error and if symptoms between people differ even slightly you divide the population so that the largest groups fall too close to error margins. I wouldn't put it past Monsanto to add something to make it WORSE to diversify symptoms... someday they WILL do something like this. because profits... duh.
Even old accepted standard tests such as the amount of Vitamin C we should have just have not been revised with better studies involving more than 1 man getting scurvy... plus there is the whole matter of what is a healthy amount vs what threshold is so bad symptoms develop. In this case, it could be the healthy amount is 3x as high as the minimum mean average.... why use a mean average?
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Humans weren't alive and prosperous for most of that time period. I'll assume we could adapt and survive in such weather, especially given our ability to use technology, but the changes that occur over that time are going to suck. There's still a big chunk of the world that's at or barely above subsistence levels and they're going to want to survive. Just look at how bad we are at handling the refugees from Syria and imagine a situation orders of magnitude larger.
No, he wasn't, idiot. He was pointing out that we are currently in a relatively cooler period.
The planet doesn't give a shit about global warming. Most life doesn't care either. It's primarily humans who will suffer from it, and since it's mostly humans causing it right now, and since there's about 5 billion more of them than there should be, I say bring it on.