In the
midst of all this busting out all over, the EPA approved Dow's new
systemic insecticide, sulfoxaflor, which it acknowledges is highly
toxic to honey bees. Seems the feds aren't concerned because they
don't anticipate any “catastrophic effects” on bees. Just the
usual slow simmer in the increasingly toxic soup. Besides,
“industry” is clamoring for a “new and improved” pesticide because – surprise! – the bugs are becoming increasingly resistant to the stuff already used to kill them, including the
neonicotinoids linked to hive collapse. Oh, but no worries, this new
chemical is “softer” than the ones it's replacing. It's
“beneficial.” You know, better living through chemistry.
So how
long do you suppose we can keep upping the poison ante? I mean, before
everything folds?
It seems
Europeans are far more worried about this than Americans, who are
dulled and dazed by GMO high fructose corn syrup, bad TV and a quest
for the almighty dollar. As The Washington Post reports, America's
devotion to pesticides and GMO crops may jam up EU trade talks:
U.S.
crops inspire fear among everyone from French wine producers to
German corn growers. Many European farmers say that plants that are
carefully engineered to do everything from boosting production to
repelling pests have uncertain environmental consequences and, once
growing, spread uncontrollably via pollen that can float for miles on
the wind.
In the
United States last year, genetically modified crops comprised 88
percent of all corn, 94 percent of cotton and 93 percent of soybeans,
according to Agriculture Department figures. In the European Union,
they covered less than 1 percent of farmland, mostly in Spain,
according to the European Commission.
Just two
genetically modified crop types are approved for planting in the
European Union, out of a far wider range of species used elsewhere.
But one of the two, a BASF potato, is no longer marketed; the other,
a Monsanto corn breed, is banned for growing in France, Germany and
elsewhere, despite findings from both U.S. and E.U. food regulators
that the produce is safe. [Many U.S.-grown products are banned from
Europe.] One exception is the American-grown genetically modified
soybean, which dominates the European animal feed market.
The
difference in approaches, analysts say, is that U.S. regulators tend
to rely on short-term scientific studies about safety to give new
technologies a green light. European regulators tend to be far more
cautious, focusing more on what they might not know than on what they
do know.
But even
the Europeans may not be spared the consequences of what Dr. Robert
S. Lawrence, director of the Johns Hopkins' Center for a Livable
Future, terms “a dramatic assault on the security of the food
supply.” As NBC News reports:
“We’re
in a situation where the food supply is more vulnerable than it has
ever been,” added Lee Hannah, senior fellow at Conservation
International, a global nonprofit that advocates for sustainable
policies.
It seems
that GMOs and pesticides are only part of the problem. There's also
the growing impact from atmospheric carbon dioxide, which last week
reached concentrations likely not experienced on Earth since the Pliocene era, some 4.5 million years ago. The warm, moist air is
allowing pathogens to thrive at a time when global trade is
expediting the movement of plant pests and diseases. Citrus, coffee,
chocolate, wine, maple syrup and salmon are just some of the foods
that are either likely to suffer, or already getting hit.
America's
reliance on mono-cropping poses another grave risk, according to Hannah:
“For
instance, corn plants in the American Midwest are grown closer
together and taller than they have been in the past because we’re
genetically engineering them to do that. That produces a lot more
food. But it also makes that corn more vulnerable to disease, which,
if it gets into that mono-culture system, can sweep through it much
as a disease will go through a city a lot faster than it does a rural
countryside."
Although the human race has faced famines of
its own making in the past, this is a whole new ballgame, Lawrence says:
“So
there are precedents but they’ve all been local and people just
abandoned those areas and moved on. What’s very sobering about the
situation today: This is global and there isn’t any other place to
go on this spaceship Earth.”
And it's
not just about the humans, either, but all the other life forms that
inhabit this beautiful planet.
Speaking
of which, you know how the Navy is always trying to convince us that
its sonar is perfectly safe for marine mammals? So safe that it wants
to use even more of it, year-round, in waters surrounding the
Hawaiian Islands? Well, it's apparently not so benign as the Navy has
claimed. As a new study published in Nature reports:
The
Canary Islands used to be a hotspot for mass strandings [of whales
and dolphins], but there have been no mass beachings since the
Spanish government imposed a moratorium on naval exercises in these
waters in 2004.
So couldn't we impose a similar ban here?
I know
the precautionary principle is often pooh-poohed as unscientific, and frequently bad for business, but
how about if we, as humans, just exercise a little common sense? As
the time-worn adage reminds us: Err on the side of caution.
Unless,
of course, you don't care if it all turns to shit, so long as you're
raking in a pile of cash along the way.
I don't think I've ever heard the precautionary principle called "unscientific." As a matter of fact it's at the very heart of scientific inquiry. To assume something is true until proven false is illogical. That's why you set up a study- to see if something is true... you can't prove a negative.
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