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Pesticide believed to kill bees is authorised for use in England

theguardian.com

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

#61

Post by armedpacifist »

billiob wrote: post #51

It is like in France, there shouldn't be that much of an issue. Iirc, the use of use of neonicotinoid on beet is with coated seeds. Then, the beets are harvested way before they even produce a flower thus the bees will not pollinate such infected plants.

This isn't about neonics specifically, it's about a range of pesticides that are being used. Again, it doesn't affect only honey bees. Honey bees exist in an ecosystem of pollinators of which they contrive only a small percentage.

There's also the fact that neonics ao. are persistent for at least a couple of years, affecting the crops after the one for which they were originally intended. That is why along with temporarily allowing certain pesticides, certain crops are being prohibited or enforced as a follow up crop.

It gets complicated pretty quickly. Laissez-faire indeed...

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

#62

Post by [deleted] »

turbinerneiter wrote: post #58

Here is what I learned about this particular pesticide, from my cousin, who is a farmer who also sometimes plants sugar beets. 1. This particular pesticide comes in the form of a pill, which is planted with the seed. 2. It is very targeted on a particular pest (german name is Rübenrüsselkäfer). 3. Without it, the whole field will be lost. 4. The replacement is a conventional broad band pesticide. It kills everything.…

[deleted]

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

#63

Post by tchalla »

40four wrote: post #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 ti…

Monoculture is a high risk strategy for every facet of life - farms, investments, gene pools, markets etc. I feel you - I wish we talked about implications and made an explicit risk/reward trade off for any such decision.

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

#64

Post by Chris2048 »

lwhi wrote: post #41
Chris2048 wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

How's it been shown to be BS?

It fails to mention the authorizations are "Emergency authorizations", thereby omitting relevant information to make the title more click-baity

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

#66

Post by antihero »

tchalla wrote: post #63
40four wrote: post #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 ti…

Monoculture is a high risk strategy for every facet of life - farms, investments, gene pools, markets etc. I feel you - I wish we talked about implications and made an explicit risk/reward trade off for any such decision.

One could argue that this stems in fact from the division of labour itself.

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

#67

Post by rdiddly »

NikolaeVarius wrote: post #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 lar…

I do agree with you, but I also think an appropriate measure of skepticism should be applied to all "emergencies" as well. People do all sorts of stupid counter-productive things when they're all freaked-out and not thinking straight because of an "emergency." And people in a position to create or exaggerate emergencies will do so cynically in order to manipulate an otherwise non-compliant public into accepting all sorts of stuff that's against their interests.

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

#68

Post by stinos »

40four wrote: post #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 ti…

You make a very good point, but your post reads a bit too much like 'wild bees are fine'. I think you know what follows, but just for completeness and for other readers: they aren't, at all, just like insects in general (the numbers are so unbelievably insane I'm nog even going to look up the latest one but just say '70% decrease in the last couple of decades' and it will be ballpark correct, unfortunately). And unlike the domestic bees they cannot be bred (or at least not easily). Pesticides likely also play a role in there, small perhaps, habitat loss is estimated to be the main factor. Which mono-crops also is the key player in of course; not just because those fields are no habitat but also because upscaling leads to destroying the surroundings, and so on.

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

#69

Post by TeaDrunk »

40four wrote: post #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 ti…

Wild bee populations have also dropped like a stone and that is also worth worrying for.

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

#70

Post by Technically »

liaukovv wrote: post #55
ineedasername wrote: post #15

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.

This approach appears to work since we thrive as a species.

What are you comparing us to? We don't have a control group for intelligent species.
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