There is new research showing that neurotoxic pesticides are not just responsible for the catastrophic decline in the world’s bee collapse but are also devastating the world’s population of butterflies, worms, fish and birds. The four-year assessment was carried out by The Task Force on Systemic Pesticides, which advises the International Union for Conservation of Nature has found that neonics are “imperilling the pollinators, habitat engineers and natural pest controllers at the heart of a functioning ecosystem.” It is simply beyond belief that these pesticides have caused such worldwide damage but, due to the powerful pesticide and agribusiness lobby, there has been no serious regulation to curtail the use of these products.
As we have previously discussed, the loss of the honey bees has been not just devastating for the ecosystem but also many businesses that use honey as a sweetener. Yet, many large agribusiness operations love the neonics which are very effective against pest and increases crop yield but they also impair smell and memory in some species, curb procreation, reduce foraging, cause flight difficulties and increase disease susceptibility in other species. They then leach into the soil and have entered our water system.
Like climate change, politicians have continued to question the science and delay any action at the behest of this powerful business interests. The result is a building disaster. Clearly there was a long debate over the cause for the bee die-off but that question appears to have been answered conclusively. The question is whether this and other studies will trigger action before further damage is done to our environment. The only hope is that there are actually businesses who are losing money on the loss of honey bees — a rather sad statement about our commitment to the environment.
Source: Phys.Org
I’m sure the EPA will fund a research project from Monsanto to right this wrong… (tongue in cheek).
Karen S:
I retrieved your post from the spam machine.
As most of you know, I am not a tree hugger. But, I read a lot of this environmental stuff. I just do it w/ a critical eye. Remember the alar hysteria? That said, I have been following this both in literature and w/ a couple bee keepers I have gotten to know from buying honey. And, these bee keepers are in Wi. and Ca. This is A REAL problem w/ possibly dire consequences. Environmentalists too often cry wolf. That makes very legit concerns often fall on deaf ears.
Mugwump, apparently not disturbing enough, because everyone continues to patronize restaurants and buy processed food, consuming prodigious amounts of glyphosate. They are like the WWII Ace who believed that dying was something that happened to someone else.
my comment won’t even post
Issac lays out the case for sanity–reality based solutions that could make even Monsanto rich if they wanted to switch over to organic farming methods. We have the technology to solve many problems, including this one. We have people who need work, jobs that could be created, critters (including humans) who need healthy food and environment to flourish.
Sure you can make a lot of money in toxic food, pesticides, energy and war. You can make that same amount doing things that help the earth and it’s ecosystem. So why do our “leaders” invariably choose the former, not the latter?
I believe our “leaders” may very well be apocalyptic christians who look forward to the end of the world. (See “The Family” by Jeff Sharlot) In fact, they seem eager to help things along. In human history, we have numerous examples of end-timers who “helped” try to bring about the apocalypse. I don’t assume this can only happen in the past. The behavior I see makes me think it is happening right now.
Those who are not true believers are still happy to serve for money and power. These would be most of our political class–a group which cannot honestly be divided among parties, rather they come from Republicans and Democrats alike.
This is why I ask citizens to be very honest about the “leaders” and parties they support. We will not get out of this mess with partisans lying to themselves and others about who is doing what. We will only have a chance if we work together to try and counter the destructive force of those in positions of power. They aren’t going to do the right thing. They aren’t going to do what makes sense. So, we the people have to do those things.
Can anyone find my post?
@samantha
The slopes on the graphs are disturbing.
While you are all asleep at the switch, occupied by the demise of bees, damage to your own kidneys is increasing daily.
Dramatic Increase in Kidney Disease in the US and Abroad Linked To
http://www.greenmedinfo.com/blog/dramatic-increase-kidney-disease-us-and-abroad-linked-roundup-glyphosate
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/24/house-science-committee_n_5525609.html “And at every turn, GOP committee members have been working to deny the reality of global warming –- not surprising, given that at least 20 of the committee’s 22 Republicans are either skeptics or outright deniers of the notion that the world’s climate is steadily warming and that human activity is playing a significant role.” What a mess Lamar Smith has turned this committee into. Oh, well, we were warned that if the republicans took over the house, anti-science texans would be in charge of these highly important committees.
Chem trails?
I wonder how they can isolate the cause to neurotoxic pesticides what with all the aluminum and other nano particulate metallic matter being dispersed in our upper atmosphere ostensibly to reflect back sunlight before it reaches the ground. See: geo-engineering and watch for those long patterns and criss crosses over your heads.
Help! I’ve lost another post!
Thank you for posting this, Professor Turley. Colony Collapse Disorder has been decimating bee populations for a while now. Many crops and plant species depend on them for pollination.
There are several problems. First, studies have discovered thousands of chemical toxins in bees (and their honey), traceable to pesticides and herbicides. Secondly, bees require multiple and varied food sources. Many native plants have been removed, and commercial bee keepers set up their hives to pollinate monoculture crops, so there is only one food source, and that source is heavily contaminated with pesticides. Lastly, these bee keepers move their hives from farm to farm. So when the bees’ immune systems become weakened through exposure to toxins, they fall victim to fungal, viral, and bacterial infections, which then spread like wildfire as colonies are moved around.
I used to live next to a conventional commercial farm, conventional commercial orchard, and conventional nursery. Every single day, I would find dozens of new dead bees on my property. I saw more dead than alive bees. Now that I live in a rural area, and I use neither pesticides nor herbicides on my own property, the only dead bees I’ve ever found drowned in our horses’ waterers. We have a healthy, thriving (and thankfully mellow) bee population of several species, including native and European bees.
Homeowners who want to help their local bees can do two things. Go organic, and plant native plants that are food sources for pollinators. European roses have zero food value for native bees and insects. Most states have online or storefront nurseries that specialize in native plants for your particular area, and then you don’t have to fight your growing zone to garden, such as trying to force riparian European varieties to thrive in dry Southern California. Or native plants from Virginia to thrive in a CA climate that has dry summers and no snow.
Only buy plants from stores that sell neonicotinoid free plants.
Nick wrote “I really am tired of scientists saying they have the ultimate answer and then a year later the ultimate answer changes to something else.”
This has been known for years, but the corporations which manufacture neonicotinoids are playing hardball. In May 2013, I used it as one of the plot elements in “The British Prime Minister’s last day in office,” so I can definitively state that more than one year has passed.
BBC News (“Widespread impacts of neonicotinoids ‘impossible to deny'” quoted Professor Dave Goulson from the University of Sussex: “We have been using these things for 20 years and there’s not a single study that shows they increase yield.”
Even Fox News (“10 crops that would disappear without bees”) admitted that apples, almonds, blueberries, cherries, avocados, cucumbers, onions, grapefruit, oranges, and pumpkins would disappear without bees. They forgot peaches, pears, plums, nectarines, and apricots.
International Union for Conservation of Nature is hardly a neutral observer. They may well be right, but they have skin in the game. I really am tired of scientists saying they have the ultimate answer and then a year later the ultimate answer changes to something else.
Nothing in science is proved conclusively, it is always open to question and reevaluation.
I clearly remember the Director of the FDA signing off on what was later found to be in direct conflict of the Use of DDT.
Big business is a way of life however, when it becomes so powerful that it will use a known lie to gain itself profits and destroy the very system that it claims to be protecting.
EPA, where are you. Oh that’s right, you are being a big bad boy suppressing the average land owner and forcing them to move into the City.
I suggest you review the study of Rats.
Your land grab is quite large and if the Basic eco structure is destroyed, what good would the land be that you helped destroy.Mmmmmmm.
This is truly the fault of our system of government. We are ruled by an oligarchy. Mega agribusiness buys politicians who protect the interests of the puppet masters. It has been proven and is proven around the world that there are solutions to pest infestation and other factors that destroy plants, that are non toxic. They involve the use of carnivorous pests, non toxic plant produced pesticides, and other common sense methods of control. Consumers demand perfect looking fruit and vegetables and agribusiness pollutes the world in meeting that demand.
What is most disturbing is that in the development of non toxic methods of farming there is big, big money to be made by new industries. Fertilizer and pesticide companies along with agribusiness, however, like the status quo and buy politicians to maintain it. When the government protects the oligarchs that, by some, primarily republicans, is seen as American. When people, primarily democrats with a world vision, advocate funding new and safer ways of doing things then that is termed, by the oligarchs, as socialism. Not long ago it was called communism, so I guess we are evolving in our name calling.
The founding fathers would be ashamed.