Thursday, February 14, 2013

Musings: Bee Love

I like Valentine's Day because it's always great to put the emphasis on love. I just can't understand why it's so often celebrated with such unloving commodities: blood diamonds, chocolate harvested with child labor, gold extracted in toxic ways and flowers raised in South America through practices that exploit women and use heavy applications of pesticides.

Unfortunately, we have heavy applications of pesticides happening right here, in the GMO fields that now stretch from Lihue to Mana. And as National Geographic reports, some of those very same pesticides, particularly imidacloprid, are apparently contributing to the demise of honey bees, a crucial pollinator:

A new study shows that long-term exposure to a combination of certain pesticides might impair the bee's ability to carry out its pollen mission.
"Any impairment in their ability to do this could have a strong effect on their survival," said Geraldine Wright, a neuroscientist at Newcastle University in England and co-author of a new study posted online February 7, 2013, in the Journal of Experimental Biology.

This study shows that when pesticides are combined, the impact on bees is far worse than exposure to just one pesticide.
Opposition to the pesticides used in the GMO fields is just one reason why folks rallied against GMOs yesterday. It was a sizable and lively crowd that lined the sidewalks on both sides of the Safeway intersection in Kapaa during the crush of pau hana traffic.

You can check it out in a video set to Makana's anti-GMO song, which has such salient lyrics as these:

Here comes the story of the GMO
 It’s on your plate and you probably don’t know 
And no real tests were ever done 
Just a big PR push and one company controls the food of all the world
The regulators ain’t workin’ for you 
They sold you out and you ain’t got a clue 
“It must be safe” I heard you say 
“I don’t believe they’d ever play with the health of our children,
would they?”
Monsanto and the others all make great claims
 Of feeding the world… and pests they overcame 
But yields are shrinking and the pests are getting bigger
 And no one knows what’s coming cause they pulled an early trigger
Remember the butterflies and bees that all died
 And the quarter million farmer suicides 
You think you might start asking why? 
So many living things would die from a thing that’s meant to feed the world
And all the cheerleaders talk of ending world starvation
 But it ain’t from lack of food, it’s from economic segregation
 They say Genetic Engineering is old as growing food 
But we know it ain’t the same in fact it’s way more crude
It ain’t science when you’re aiming a gun
 And praying the DNA don’t come undone
 They’re playin’ cowboy with our genes 
Ignoring all the unforeseen risks, they made a laboratory of Kauai
50 nations label transgenic food
  But out here in the US the consumer’s gettin’ screwed 
It didn’t change the price of food to label it elsewhere
 Now they’re spending millions just to keep us unaware
This is the story of the GMO 
It’s on your plate and you probably don’t know
 There never was a dry run 
Put on a grocery shelf, not one test to prove the safety of the food
Wake up, everybody. Time to bee love, before it's too late.

19 comments:

Anonymous said...

Yes, thanks, Joan!!!! My wish is that more people will study the issue and become aware of the problems caused by the whole gmo scenario.

Anonymous said...

Update from Walter Ritte:

HERE IS AN UP DATE:

TIME FOR STRATEGIES AND TALK ARE OVER. WE ARE IN THE MIDDLE OF A LEGISLATIVE WAR TO LABEL GMOs HAWAII. THE BATTLE WAS FURIOUS YESTERDAY (THE 13TH), WITH ALL THE BIOTEC GUNS (INDUSTRY'S TOP GUNS, LOBBYIST, FARM BUREAU, DEPARTMENT OF AG, ETC.) VS THE VOICE OF THE PEOPLE. WE WON BY A SINGLE VOTE A SINGLE BATTLE WITH CASUALTIES TO THE BILL. THE WAR IS FAR FROM OVER.

HB 174 NOW GOES TO THE "HOUSE FINANCE COMMITTEE" (FIN), SO WE ARE NOW IN ANOTHER BATTLE (PHONE CALLS, EMAILS, TESTIMONIES, GATHERING THE TROOPS ETC.) WALK THE WALK STOP THE TALK!!!! WE NEED A 1) HEARING ON HB 174 AND 2) MAJORITY VOTES OF THE COMMITTEE TO PASS IT OUT!!

ON THE SENATE SIDE WE NEED PRESSURE ON SEN ROZ BAKER TO HEAR SB 615, OUR BEST SHOT AT A SENATE BILL FOR LABELING GMOs IN HAWAII. THESE ARE THE TWO MAIN FRONTS IN THIS WAR!!! LETS WIN THIS ONE, ITS TIME FOR A LABELING BILL IN HAWAII!!!!!

I. CALL FIN COMMITTEE MEMBERS AND ASK FOR THEIR SUPPORT (17 OF THEM)
II. CALL ROZ BAKER ASK FOR A HEARING

Anonymous said...

fly back to the mainland all you anti GMO hairy hippies

Anonymous said...

Sheeesh. This site has turned into a crank site. I agree with 2:31. Just leave already. Chicago is calling.

Anonymous said...

Why would any educated intelligent conscious person or politician support poisoning the soil, air and water and pollute the ocean and fish we eat with chemicals ....threaten to destroy organic farming on the island and poison people living near by.... in order to make money for a European based multi-billion dollar Chemical AG corporation?

Dr Shibai

Anonymous said...

Why is it so difficult to allow the customer to make an informed decision?

This is a ridiculous fight fully funded by those who don't want an educated consumer.

Anonymous said...

Anon. 2:31 PM and 8:20 PM, what a couple of fools!! Walter Ritte is as Hawaiian as they come. He was instrumental in getting Kahoolave returned to Hawaii and cleaned of some of the bombs after the military was finished using it for target practice. That was back in the 70's, probably before you moved here.

The Hawaiians stood up to the GMO seed companies on Molokai and told them to pack it up and leave. They did not want that poisonous industry in their back yards and made them go.

The slightest bit of research would show what a sham that industry is. It is all about control of the food source and nothing else, while it poisons the land and all that lives on it

Dawson said...

> "fly back to the mainland all you anti GMO hairy hippies" <

Thanks for giving the lie to the myth that Spiro Agnew is dead.

Anonymous said...

Walter is Hawaiian, not a hippie. He does great work, but sorry to tell you, the chemical companies are still operating on and poisoning molokai

Anonymous said...

Ritte what a real hawaiian name. 100%

Anonymous said...

miss your smiling face, tender voice, and hope to see you soon

Anonymous said...

>"The slightest bit of research would show what a sham that industry is. It is all about control of the food source and nothing else, while it poisons the land and all that lives on it"<

This is the problem, blanket statements that offer nothing but a false information. I am not against GMO's but do agree that labeling would allow freedom of choice, the free market would then decide if people care or not.
But to say the industry is a sham is a lie, GMO research has helped in many parts of the world to allow crops to be grown where they couldnt before. Even people that were in at the start of the GMO movement have changed there minds after seeing more in depth studies, please follow the link,

http://www.dailycamera.com/guest-opinions/ci_22451933/commentary-anti-gmo-crusader-changes-mind-why

But please go on with your conspiracy theory like rants, you will find that educated people will research, and then finding your statements to be false, conclude that you are a fool and dismiss any good ideas you may have.
The message must be honest or it will not be heard!!!!

Anonymous said...

Any comment on the article in the HNL newspaper that has M. Trask supporting the PLDC bill in order for the Hawaiian community to move independently into the 21st century.

Anonymous said...

To February 15 at 7:54 AM: just because your last name is not Dumbass doesn't mean that you're not a dumbass.

Anonymous said...

6:29 PM

Good one!

Anonymous said...

Stick to the issue. The issue is right to choose. If I believe GMO's are not safe, than I have the right to know if its in my food. For those who believe its safe, than its a non-issue for you. We live in a democracy that needs to work for all. Labeling anti-gmo people as transplants, hippies, etc is ignorant. Personally, I don't want to eat anything that is literally sprayed to death, but doesn't die. Enough connections have been made between pesticide exposure and childhood leukemia and cancer. I'd prefer to err on the side of safety rather than trust the word of chemical corporations that are profit motivated.

Anonymous said...

you need to fear science, not satan

Anonymous said...

Shauna is a fattican cause she ate the GMO!

Anonymous said...

But the research paid for by the people who manufacture the stuff says it's completely safe.