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Pesticides are killing the world's soils

scientificamerican.com

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Re: Pesticides are killing the world's soils

#141

Post by exoque »

pjc50 wrote: post #102
andy_ppp wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is awesome, under what conditions would Brexit be a) possible and b) reversed in the Swiss model?

You can actually see the same dynamic playing out with Swiss access to the EEA: https://www.euronews.com/2021/05/27/what-s-the-future-of-eu-... The debate doesn't seem to be being carried out in quite such a stupid way as it was in the UK, but everyone is clear that it's the public objection to immigrants that is the flashpoint.

How did you get that from the article? The agreements in place already allow immigration from eu countries, not a lot would have changed in this regard. The main problem is the further erosion of swiss direct democratic rights and sovereignty.

Re: Pesticides are killing the world's soils

#142

Post by tomp »

andy_ppp wrote: post #72
BelenusMordred wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I feel like they are quite drastic initiatives To me the greatest thing about Switzerland's direct democracy is that society gets the opportunity to make mistakes and learn from them with a very quick turnaround. If it really is a bad thing or has unintended consequences, the people will revert it back soon enough. I doubt that is the case, but time will tell. The problem with modern 2-party systems in the West is…

This is awesome, under what conditions would Brexit be a) possible and b) reversed in the Swiss model?

No, Brexit isn’t possible in Switzerland.

People voted for what is essentially Brexit, but the politicians refused to implement it.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_Swiss_immigration_initi...

Re: Pesticides are killing the world's soils

#143

Post by refurb »

mrpopo wrote: post #59
Mengkudulangsat wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A healthy ecosystem in Singapore will be chock-full of mosquitoes and no humans. The island started out as a swamp.

And yet 5 million humans swarmed in and Singapore is among the highest nominal GDP countries in the world. Shows that there's little hope bringing balance between humanity and other species in the current economic system.

Well it wasn't 5M until recently. And one could argue that putting 5M people into a tiny island is being efficient with space, leaving vast swaths of Malaysia untouched (where it wouldn't be if Singapore wasn't so dense).

Re: Pesticides are killing the world's soils

#144

Post by rapnie »

In The Netherlands we have what we proudly call "The Green Heart", the rural area inbetween the cities of Amsterdam, The Hague, Rotterdam, Eindhoven and Utrecht. But while this looks nice to the untrained eye, green pastures and all, it might as well be a desert. Monocrop grasslands with little to no life in the ground, hardly any insects let alone birds. Grown on industrial fertilizer, and sprayed with insecticides. It is quite sad.

Netherlands, a tiny tiny country, has this crazy intensive meat and poultry industry. We are largest chicken exporter in the world [0] and no. 6 in pork exports [1]. And in agriculture we are surprisingly number 2 worldwide after the USA [2].

While this is all nice and stuff for our economy, it has many downsides. Small, sustainable farmers find it very hard to eek out a living, and even the large producers find it ever harder to get good income. All the animals crammed together in mega stables pose pandemic risks, and overall the environment is suffering.

But what the technology being used shows is that higher yields are well possible, also with way more sustainable production methods. This should be the focus and then export that expertise around the world so we can all benefit.

I hope that in Netherlands itself we can scale back the crazy industrial race to the bottom, replacing with a mixture of traditional small-scale best-practice and innovative new agrotech.

[0] https://www.worldstopexports.com/chicken-exports-by-country/ (2019)

[1] https://www.bizvibe.com/blog/food-beverages/top-pork-produci... (2018)

[2] https://humboldt.global/top-agricultural-exporters/

Re: Pesticides are killing the world's soils

#145

Post by sampo »

Apanatshka wrote: post #137
BelenusMordred wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I feel like they are quite drastic initiatives To me the greatest thing about Switzerland's direct democracy is that society gets the opportunity to make mistakes and learn from them with a very quick turnaround. If it really is a bad thing or has unintended consequences, the people will revert it back soon enough. I doubt that is the case, but time will tell. The problem with modern 2-party systems in the West is…

An important and sometimes forgotten thing about democracy is that it isn't as simple as the majority rules. It's the majority rules while taking minorities into account. In a well functioning representational democracy this is kept in mind my career politicians. In a hybrid between representational and direct like in Switzerland, the population can overrule and just go with majority rule. For example, the Swiss pens…

> For example, the Swiss pension system is similar to others in Europe, where the current working population pay taxes almost directly towards pensions of the retired. Since this system will break down if taxes aren't increased like crazy or pensions lowered, politicians have been trying to change the system. But there are too many people soon to be retired or already retired that care less about their country's youth and future than their own pension, so they keep blocking changes. So every democratic system has its tradeoffs...

Other European countries (not all) have similar pension systems that you describe, with same problems, and even though they don't have the Swiss direct democracy, they have been equally unable to change their systems.

Re: Pesticides are killing the world's soils

#146

Post by LatteLazy »

rmason wrote: post #28

I've watched the entire cycle in the past thirty years as a former agronomist. We were able to genetically modify plants so they generated natural pesticides as a defense against insects. This allowed us to stop spraying thousands of tons of less insecticides. But the very people complaining about spraying chemicals rejected these new enhanced plants saying they weren't 'natural'. We have been breeding plants to do t…

If you can breed plants to make their own pesticide, why use techniques like CRISPR? If you can't why pretend GMOs are the same selective breeding?

If the pesticides stay in the plant, you're asking customers to eat a lot of pesticides. Are you sure they're safe? You can't wash them off after all. If they don't then they'll leak into the soil and kill it just like externally provided pesticides won't they?

I am unconvinced by the case for GMOs (in case you hadn't guessed :)). But questioning it isn't anti-science. Quite the opposite: it should be A-OK to make all the points above. The fact that I will be down voted for doing so sort of demonstrates my concern: no one is questioning this tech because doing so is "antiscience" and unexamined changes are almost always bad...

As something of a "peace offering", "look I can be reasonable" closing point, I like ideas like Golden Rice, created to have improved nutritional content. I am not blanket opposed. I just don't think opposition is always fear mongering or that the usual points in support for more GMOs hold much water...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_rice

Re: Pesticides are killing the world's soils

#147

Post by soco »

Apanatshka wrote: post #137
BelenusMordred wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I feel like they are quite drastic initiatives To me the greatest thing about Switzerland's direct democracy is that society gets the opportunity to make mistakes and learn from them with a very quick turnaround. If it really is a bad thing or has unintended consequences, the people will revert it back soon enough. I doubt that is the case, but time will tell. The problem with modern 2-party systems in the West is…

An important and sometimes forgotten thing about democracy is that it isn't as simple as the majority rules. It's the majority rules while taking minorities into account. In a well functioning representational democracy this is kept in mind my career politicians. In a hybrid between representational and direct like in Switzerland, the population can overrule and just go with majority rule. For example, the Swiss pens…

Only partly right. The Swiss pension system is based on 3 pillars, and you described only the first one, namely the solidarity pillar. The second one is the mandatory saving which accumulates only for you, and there's a third one, optional savings - also tax exempt (up to some extent). So while yes the usually older politicians are looking at their own retirement horizon, there's wiggle room from the other two pillars. And adaptations of all three happen almost every second year with the goal to at least push further away the breaking point.

Re: Pesticides are killing the world's soils

#148

Post by soco »

dosshell wrote: post #123
BelenusMordred wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I feel like they are quite drastic initiatives To me the greatest thing about Switzerland's direct democracy is that society gets the opportunity to make mistakes and learn from them with a very quick turnaround. If it really is a bad thing or has unintended consequences, the people will revert it back soon enough. I doubt that is the case, but time will tell. The problem with modern 2-party systems in the West is…

> The problem with modern 2-party systems in the West Could you elaborate on this? Very few countries i know in the west have a 2-party system.

It's a common mistake to judge the entire west from an US perspective. But the UK is not very far from the 2 parties system either.

Re: Pesticides are killing the world's soils

#149

Post by tremon »

dylan604 wrote: post #27
fy20 wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 gro…

> before they damage the soil too much. That really depends on the definition of 'too much'. Does too much mean arid dry wasteland that no longer supports life at all? Does it mean the native flora&fauna no longer grow and everything that does grow must be artificially supported mean too much? Does using it all mean too much (I lean this way personally).

Yes.

What does "using it all" even mean, given soil is a renewable resource? Should we "use all energy" from the Sun if we could, if that would mean we'd turn it into a brown dwarf 100 years from now?

Re: Pesticides are killing the world's soils

#150

Post by soco »

tomp wrote: post #142
andy_ppp wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is awesome, under what conditions would Brexit be a) possible and b) reversed in the Swiss model?

No, Brexit isn’t possible in Switzerland. People voted for what is essentially Brexit, but the politicians refused to implement it. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_Swiss_immigration_initi...

Actually it is implemented as we speak, after years of tough negotiations, because that's the beauty of Swiss initiatives, they give the tone but not the legal terms - ensuring there's negotiation room, both internal and external. So depending on your personal definition it is succeeding or failing, but the fact is it is happening, there's no doubt about it. It's also not a "Brexit" because Switzerland never was part of the EU so using that name makes the discussion highly confusing for an outsider.
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