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EPA Approves Release of Bacteria-Carrying Mosquitoes To 20 States (nature.com)
schwit1 writes: The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has approved the use of a common bacterium to kill wild mosquitoes that transmit viruses such as dengue, yellow fever and Zika, Nature's news team has learned. On November 3rd, the agency told biotechnology start-up MosquitoMate that it could release the bacterium Wolbachia pipientis into the environment as a tool against the Asian tiger mosquito (Aedes albopictus). Lab-reared mosquitoes will deliver the bacterium to wild mosquito populations. The decision -- which the EPA has not formally announced -- allows the company, which is based in Lexington, Kentucky, to release the bacteria-infected mosquitoes in 20 U.S. states and Washington DC.
MosquitoMate will rear the Wolbachia-infected A. albopictus mosquitoes in its laboratories, and then sort males from females. Then the laboratory males, which don't bite, will be released at treatment sites. When these males mate with wild females, which do not carry the same strain of Wolbachia, the resulting fertilized eggs don't hatch because the paternal chromosomes do not form properly. The company says that over time, as more of the Wolbachia-infected males are released and breed with the wild partners, the pest population of A. albopictus mosquitoes dwindles. Other insects, including other species of mosquito, are not harmed by the practice, says Stephen Dobson, an entomologist at the University of Kentucky in Lexington and founder of MosquitoMate.
MosquitoMate will rear the Wolbachia-infected A. albopictus mosquitoes in its laboratories, and then sort males from females. Then the laboratory males, which don't bite, will be released at treatment sites. When these males mate with wild females, which do not carry the same strain of Wolbachia, the resulting fertilized eggs don't hatch because the paternal chromosomes do not form properly. The company says that over time, as more of the Wolbachia-infected males are released and breed with the wild partners, the pest population of A. albopictus mosquitoes dwindles. Other insects, including other species of mosquito, are not harmed by the practice, says Stephen Dobson, an entomologist at the University of Kentucky in Lexington and founder of MosquitoMate.
Weren't we thaught in school not to mess with the ecosystems and let nature run its course? else we might risk exterminating some species by mistake?
Wait what? Did you just equate genetically modified species being released into the wild with a non-binding international treaty to curb emissions? Wtf?
For the Nth time, the Paris climate agreement is non-binding. If for whatever reason your country does not care about the global climate, you're entirely free to ignore the Paris goals, shut your eyes and keep burning all the oil and the coal you want. There are no sanctions in the treaty for countries that do not meet their goals.
The point of the Paris agreement is to try to get everyone to do what they can to slow down the rate of emissions (and hence warming) to a point where the consequences are more manageable. The point is precisely to try to make sure nations don't get fucked by massive climatic changes.
Comparing such a project, which has a well understood basis in natural science (the greenhouse effect has been well understood for over a century and is demonstrable in a lab) and is based on the voluntary co-operation of nations for the common good of everyone (just like the closing of the hole in the ozone layer, which was also achieved by an international consensus and realization that continuation of past practices would have lead to serious harm for everyone) to an experiment where a single nation starts to release genetically modified insects is just plain dumb. We know that reducing emissions is good for everyone in the mid to long term, and we know this for a fact. We don't know that releasing genetically modified mosquitoes into the wild will not have significant adverse effects.
I understand that this kind of strawman where the Paris treaty is seen as some kind of NWO tool to control what nations can do flies on facebook & al where people get their news from mainly reading headlines of blogposts, but I seriously expect people on this site to have a modicum more of insight into what the treaty actually says before going overboard with the tinfoilhat level of crazy.
"It is the business of the future to be dangerous" -Alfred North Whitehead
The bacteria they're using already exists in nature and already infects mosquitoes. Nothing is being released that isn't already out there. All this conjecture about genetically modified organisms, hybrids, extinction, jumping species, etc. is just knee-jerk fear-mongering by people who have no clue what they're talking about.
There are no genetically-modified mosquitoes here. They are infected with a naturally-occurring bacterium. Please reduce the size of your tinfoil wardrobe.