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Pesticide believed to kill bees is authorised for use in England

theguardian.com

31–40 of 138 posts

Re: Pesticide believed to kill bees is authorised for use in England

#31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We'd rather have cheap sweet things than expensive sweet things. Then we'll come up with a cheap solution for the consequences that causes even more problems, and on and on. It seems like most of the problems we have as a society are because we choose expedient solutions rather than careful solutions to problems.

Vote with your dollar and buy organic. It’s not cheap, but it sends a message.

[deleted]

Re: Pesticide believed to kill bees is authorised for use in England

#32
post #17
post #13

This is also a consequence of Brexit and the UK aligning with the USA corporate interests.

Are they though? Bayer bought Monsanto a couple years ago. They seem to be aligning themselves with German corporate interest on this one. There doesn't appear to be a US source of the chemical anymore: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-06-07/bayer-clo... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neonicotinoid

Bayer bought Monsanto along with extensive internal discussions with legal on the liabilities facing Monsanto with RoundUp and these adverse findings on some pesticides. Yet, there are human beings who will use stealth and obscurity to sign these approvals and take the money home.

Those who profit are not those who are harmed -- is this not crystal clear that politics must resolve toxic (and highly profitable) chemical industry practices ?

Re: Pesticide believed to kill bees is authorised for use in England

#33

A society of advanced apes with a penchant for destroying their environment decides that a species that is necessary for their survival is better off dead because they don't care for a weird thing called science.

Smugly declaring that your side is based in the "science" and the other side isn't doesn't automatically make it true. The question of whether to allow a pesticide that kills bees is a public policy question, not one of science, though science can certainly be used to inform decisions.

Re: Pesticide believed to kill bees is authorised for use in England

#34
I’m not really sure yet how I feel about this particular case of temporary emergency authorization (which is omitted from the title). I get the chemicals were banned for good reason, but in this case they are trying to prevent a whole commodity sector from collapsing. Tough situation to be in.

The larger issue to me is how warped the debate around saving bees and pollinators has become. I get very frustrated every time I read articles on this topic, because I feel like the way it is presented is very misleading.

It’s always presented in a way that makes it seem like these large farms are dependent on ‘wild’ bees and pollinators. They make it sound like the only thing that matters is our use of evil chemicals, and if you support their use the. You are a piece of shit who doesn’t care about the earth.

In reality, large commercial mono crop farms depend on bee keepers who provide their hives as a service. Their bees are the ones dying en mass, not wild bee populations. You’re not going to find many wild bees or anything else for that matter in these areas, the biome doesn’t support them.

Mono-croping as a practice is an environmental disaster just by it’s nature. There is no biodiversity by design. This in turn makes pests and diseases that harm the beehives brought in by beekeepers that much worse. Then of course, add large scale chemical application on top of that and we’ve created a huge mess.

So really, when you see these articles claiming huge percentages of bees dying, they aren’t wrong. They are just being purposefully misleading about which bees are dying. It is the bees brought in by the “Beekeepers as a service”, not wild bees.

As bad as that is, there is the good thing to remember. Those are ‘farmed’ bees. We can always farm more bees. That might be a hard challenge for the beekeepers, but it’s not the same thing as all the wild bees in the world dying and everyone starving to death. We need to stop confusing the topic with wild bees.

Re: Pesticide believed to kill bees is authorised for use in England

#35
The article title purposefully leaves out the "emergency use authorization" part in order to drum up anger. I think that part should be put in.

11 other countries have joined in the emergency authorization so its not just a UK thing.

This is not a pro/against post about Thiamethoxam. The studies seem a bit divided, and the UK banned out of abundance of caution from a European Food Safety Authority study, versus a larger global study.

Re: Pesticide believed to kill bees is authorised for use in England

#36
post #22
post #13

This is also a consequence of Brexit and the UK aligning with the USA corporate interests.

Hardly, similar emergency authorizations have been applied in other EU countries, in actuality these exemptions were applied last year and the UK is late in doing this... Not sure how the EU really comes into this at all. https://www.efsa.europa.eu/en/news/pesticides-efsa-examine-e...

It's not quite the same to lift the ban entirely (UK) than to give individual, temporary exemptions to farmers that have difficulties for whatever reason.

edit:Welp, I can't read. Seems it's also temporary emergency use.

Re: Pesticide believed to kill bees is authorised for use in England

#37
post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hardly, similar emergency authorizations have been applied in other EU countries, in actuality these exemptions were applied last year and the UK is late in doing this... Not sure how the EU really comes into this at all. https://www.efsa.europa.eu/en/news/pesticides-efsa-examine-e...

It's not quite the same to lift the ban entirely (UK) than to give individual, temporary exemptions to farmers that have difficulties for whatever reason. edit:Welp, I can't read. Seems it's also temporary emergency use.

The article clearly describes it as being an emergency authorization just like in other countries?

Re: Pesticide believed to kill bees is authorised for use in England

#38

Neonics were blamed for colony collapse disorder even though there was zero evidence and bees that die due to pesticides are found dead on the ground below the hive. IIRC, CCD had a migration pattern that was exactly what one would expect from the spread of a disease or parasite and had zero in common with an environmental toxin. The title is accurate depending on what “believed” means. I suppose I gave my kid vaccin…

CCD doesn't have one single cause. Due to a plethora of factors (monocultures, neonics and other -icides, irresponsible use of antibiotics, ignorant beekeeping methods, ... ) the bee population is weakened, clearing the way for parasites like the varroa mite to strike the final blow.

Re: Pesticide believed to kill bees is authorised for use in England

#39

The article title purposefully leaves out the "emergency use authorization" part in order to drum up anger. I think that part should be put in. 11 other countries have joined in the emergency authorization so its not just a UK thing. This is not a pro/against post about Thiamethoxam. The studies seem a bit divided, and the UK banned out of abundance of caution from a European Food Safety Authority study, versus a lar…

I saw the title and immediately thought "is this gonna be BS". Turns out yes.

Re: Pesticide believed to kill bees is authorised for use in England

#40

A society of advanced apes with a penchant for destroying their environment decides that a species that is necessary for their survival is better off dead because they don't care for a weird thing called science.

Advanced ape fails to RTFA
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