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Supreme Court to hear arguments in landmark Roundup weedkiller case

nytimes.com

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Re: Supreme Court to hear arguments in landmark Roundup weedkiller case

#91

Post by tptacek »

rpmisms wrote: post #85
ottah wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I will never understand this bizarre obsession with gut flora. We don't know what is normal, what is a beneficial ratio or when a change happens if that is good or bad thing. No one besides the people who study these things should be much attention to gut microbiomes. We just don't have enough information to let this be an influence on decision making.

We know that it's really important to neurological function, which is enough reason to be careful.

By itself, it's simply an argument that proves too much. Anything you ingest impacts your gut flora. There can be gut microbiome hypos about glyphosate! But you have to actually have them; you can't stop at "it impacts gut flora".

Re: Supreme Court to hear arguments in landmark Roundup weedkiller case

#92

Post by HDThoreaun »

victorbjorklund wrote: post #74
tptacek wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No in fact you do not. This is an Internet/activist myth.

Source that it is legal to keep the profits and the plants from a patented crop that can’t be prove you have intentionally planted it there? As far as I understand Montosanto claims it would always belong to them no matter how the seed ended up there.

There is absolutely no case law suggesting it is illegal to harvest and keep accidentally cross contaminated seed. Seeing as farming seeds is default legal there would need to be precedent otherwise for such an act to be illegal.

Re: Supreme Court to hear arguments in landmark Roundup weedkiller case

#93

Post by tptacek »

victorbjorklund wrote: post #74
tptacek wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No in fact you do not. This is an Internet/activist myth.

Source that it is legal to keep the profits and the plants from a patented crop that can’t be prove you have intentionally planted it there? As far as I understand Montosanto claims it would always belong to them no matter how the seed ended up there.

Feel free to cite the case they've brought where they claim that!

They have sued farmers for innocently acquiring their seeds (through the wind or whatever) and then spraying their crops with Roundup (ie: using the whole system).

Re: Supreme Court to hear arguments in landmark Roundup weedkiller case

#94

Post by HDThoreaun »

jayd16 wrote: post #9
gustavus wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Increased work and fuel means increased costs, increased costs means increased prices, increased prices means less food available for purchase by those on the margins, less food means starvation.

So anything that effects food prices, regardless of magnitude, causes mass starvation?

Anything that causes food prices to rise a lot causes starvation yea, when prices go up people consume less.

Re: Supreme Court to hear arguments in landmark Roundup weedkiller case

#95

Post by parineum »

themafia wrote: post #44
tptacek wrote: post #14

As is so often the case for controversies before the Supreme Court, this case isn't so much about glyphosate as it is about the interface between federal and state law. Since 1991, the EPA has held that glyphosate is not carcinogenic; it was (at the time) categorized "Group E", which means that not only is there not evidence for it being carcinogenic, but that there is material evidence that it is not. Later, IARC (i…

> a weird backstory to public opposition to glyphosate which has very little to do with glyphosate itself Is it required that the public have a "good reason" for wanting something? > glyphosate is relatively benign and relatively inert compared other common crop and landscape treatments We used to spray DDT everywhere. This isn't exactly a resounding recommendation. Perhaps there's a case for using as little additive…

> Is it required that the public have a "good reason" for wanting something?

Not required but it's a nice to have, especially if the thing they want done is to have the desired outcome.

Re: Supreme Court to hear arguments in landmark Roundup weedkiller case

#96

Post by tptacek »

bigbadfeline wrote: post #80
mapt wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are inferring from our crude understanding of processes in general. Evidence is more specific. Do you have an exclusion trial comparing glyphosate vs non-glyphosate diets? This is amenable to natural experiments where one country bans it on a specific date and the neighbor does not.

> Do you have an exclusion trial comparing glyphosate vs non-glyphosate diets? That's a rather sneaky way to invert the issue. It's fishing for random luck when you ask for more and harder to obtain evidence given existing facts pointing to possible harm. A single study that doesn't show harm doesn't refute those that do. You have to provide hard evidence that glyphosate (or another non-essential ingredient) does not…

You can't even get smoked fish accepted through precautionary-principle logic like that. This is the same reasoning that puts cancer warnings on bags of potato chips.

Re: Supreme Court to hear arguments in landmark Roundup weedkiller case

#97

Post by parineum »

yosamino wrote: post #32
quickthrowman wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There's a weird backstory to public opposition to glyphosate which has very little to do with glyphosate itself (as someone else on this thread pointed out, glyphosate is relatively benign and relatively inert compared other common crop and landscape treatments), but rather with the idea that glyphosate is part of the technology stack of GM crops. I still don’t understand why people seem to care about genetically m…

Apart from the health aspect, there is the thing were these GMOs are patented and the business model is one where farmers are not allowed to keep a portion of this years yield to use to seed for next year, but essentially get roped into a subscription model for the crops they plant. Essentially turning > You wouldn't download a car into > You wouldn't plant your seed for your crop. Which is obviously absurd. So while…

> Apart from the health aspect, there is the thing were these GMOs are patented and the business model is one where farmers are not allowed to keep a portion of this years yield to use to seed for next year, but essentially get roped into a subscription model for the crops they plant.

They don't get roped into anything. They elect to do that because the crop yields are significantly better and justify the cost. Further, at least part of the reasoning for not allowing replanting is to avoid genetic deviation in future generations of crop.

Re: Supreme Court to hear arguments in landmark Roundup weedkiller case

#98

Post by vkou »

tptacek wrote: post #96
bigbadfeline wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Do you have an exclusion trial comparing glyphosate vs non-glyphosate diets? That's a rather sneaky way to invert the issue. It's fishing for random luck when you ask for more and harder to obtain evidence given existing facts pointing to possible harm. A single study that doesn't show harm doesn't refute those that do. You have to provide hard evidence that glyphosate (or another non-essential ingredient) does not…

You can't even get smoked fish accepted through precautionary-principle logic like that. This is the same reasoning that puts cancer warnings on bags of potato chips.

Smoked fish is a side, wheat is a staple. Degree matters.

If 90% of the raw food at the grocery were 'processed' in the same way that a smoked fish, or a french fry was, I think we'd have very valid reasons to be displeased with many of the myriad problems that come with that.

Re: Supreme Court to hear arguments in landmark Roundup weedkiller case

#99

Post by vkou »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #73
mindslight wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It sounds like this would actually be good to decide now if the court were truly a "conservative" court - there is no legitimate reason for preemption to apply to labeling laws (even as broken as California's labeling law is), as labeling a product a certain way is not a mutually-exclusive action. But I expect the rank hypocrisy will win out, especially with the "culture war" backdrop of California delenda est.

> there is no legitimate reason for preemption to apply to labeling laws (even as broken as California's labeling law is), as labeling a product a certain way is not a mutually-exclusive action. That's not really what preemption is about. A major point of having "interstate commerce" -- actual products crossing state lines -- at the federal level, is to prevent states from enacting trade barriers. Suppose California…

> Meanwhile if the stuff is actually dangerous then it's dangerous in all 50 states, so the warning label should either be everywhere or nowhere according to the evidence, right?

Only if other states or the federal government give that much of a shit about food safety, which is not a guarantee, both in theory and in practice. They might, for instance, care more about agri-profits than California does.

> So they could preempt California from requiring labeling on products shipped from Ohio, or require specific federal labeling on the things that are, but only California gets to decide about the things that never leave California.

That's just a regulatory-arbitrage race to the bottom. You'd just have out-of-state producers that don't have to follow any of your laws out-competing local ones.

Re: Supreme Court to hear arguments in landmark Roundup weedkiller case

#100

Post by themafia »

parineum wrote: post #95
themafia wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> a weird backstory to public opposition to glyphosate which has very little to do with glyphosate itself Is it required that the public have a "good reason" for wanting something? > glyphosate is relatively benign and relatively inert compared other common crop and landscape treatments We used to spray DDT everywhere. This isn't exactly a resounding recommendation. Perhaps there's a case for using as little additive…

> Is it required that the public have a "good reason" for wanting something? Not required but it's a nice to have, especially if the thing they want done is to have the desired outcome.

The desired outcome is simply not using Glyphosate. I'm not seeing how "reasonability" of this idea impacts it's implementation.

If you find someone using it you severely fine them and/or put them in jail.

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