Pesticides are killing the world's soils
scientificamerican.com
Pesticides are killing the world's soils
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Re: Pesticides are killing the world's soils
#2glycophosphates
Re: Pesticides are killing the world's soils
#3I'm dismayed at how little we seem to know about pesticides, neonicotinoids for example but probably a host of other types. It certainly stands to reason that industrial application of poisons is going to kill a lot of species and destabilize ecosystems.
The decline of insect populations over several decades - which to me is symbolized by the near-extinction of the monarch butterfly, is probably more destabilizing to our environment than the loss of charismatic megafauna would be.
Pesticide policy, if the example of DDT holds, can at least be changed - and hopefully soils and insect populations can recover with protection and management in the same way that raptor populations have recovered in recent years. It will take a lot of work.
Re: Pesticides are killing the world's soils
#4Bees do touch soil. Quite often they like to collect water from rich, wet soils and dirty water. It's thought that they enjoy dirty water over clean water due to minerals.
Re: Pesticides are killing the world's soils
#5I'm dismayed at how little we seem to know about pesticides, neonicotinoids for example but probably a host of other types. It certainly stands to reason that industrial application of poisons is going to kill a lot of species and destabilize ecosystems. The decline of insect populations over several decades - which to me is symbolized by the near-extinction of the monarch butterfly, is probably more destabilizing to…
If anything I'd say the problem is we don't understand enough about how soil and its corresponding ecosystem works, the article even says that:
> Currently, regulators completely ignore pesticides’ harm to earthworms, springtails, beetles and thousands of other subterranean species.
Pesticides and herbicides are designed to kill certain things, with the assumption that "this is bad because it's not what I want to grow or it damages my crops", but that's missing a big part of the picture.
The permaculture movement seems to be taking the right path, hopefully some of those concepts can be adopted by big ag before they damage the soil too much.
Re: Pesticides are killing the world's soils
#6Remind me to buy a pack of cotton t-shirts with "Stop pesticides" logo
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organic_cotton#Ecological_foot...
Re: Pesticides are killing the world's soils
#7If people cared they wouldn't be doing it
Re: Pesticides are killing the world's soils
#8Dengue is a serious health threat in Singapore. Fogging (1) is pretty common.
Now, the Singapore government says fogging should be used judiciously, not routinely. But, that doesn't seem to be the case. Many condos will fog once a week, year-round. Supposedly all operations must be submitted in the an "E-fogging Submission System", but as far as I can tell, there's no visibility into this.
Singapore has also recently declared a "climate change emergency", and I'd consider biodiversity, at the very least, a part of that.
My point is that: if the Singapore Government is unable or unwilling to manage this with a sense of urgency (or "emergency"), then I'm not generally hopeful.
Re: Pesticides are killing the world's soils
#9Small time farmers who are at the mercy of handful of Big Corp. will do everything at their hands to increase the yield for meeting the demand laid down upon them or they perish.
So this is not just a technical problem.
Re: Pesticides are killing the world's soils
#10Remind me to buy a pack of cotton t-shirts with "Stop pesticides" logo https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organic_cotton#Ecological_foot...
Interesting new fabric tech such as Tencel "cotton" (from fast growth drought resistant trees such as Eucalyptus) and Piñatex leather (food waste of pineapples) are hopeful alternatives.