Insect 'apocalypse' in U.S. driven by 50x increase in toxic pesticides: study • Hacker News Board

Re: Insect 'apocalypse' in U.S. driven by 50x increase in toxic pesticides: study

#161

Post by selimthegrim » Sun, Aug 11, 2019, 2:50 PM UTC

jyounker wrote: post #123

pfdietz wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Totally serious. The anti-Roundup fervor is of a kind with anti-GMO fervor. The goal of it is to provide a pretext to exclude cheaper US agricultural products from Europe.

I don’t trust the research that was done on roundup. Supposedly it degrades within six months. The reality is that it doesn’t. We know this because the city of Davis, CA does public composting. Yard trimmings are scooped up, taken to the city compost yard, and over a year or som it becomes compost. Residents can pick up a quantity of free compost every year. Around ‘97-‘98 the city compost started killing many kinds…

Wasn’t there a city worker suing Monsanto over this?

Re: Insect 'apocalypse' in U.S. driven by 50x increase in toxic pesticides: study

#162

Post by elorant » Sun, Aug 11, 2019, 2:52 PM UTC

bbddg wrote: post #121

elorant wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a mix of both. If you want to eat tomatoes in the middle of winter agriculture will have to use a lot of pesticides. If society didn't have ridiculous expectations my guess is that the industry would use more sustainable methods of growing food.

Everyone wants to eat tomatoes in the middle of winter! I also want ice cream that tastes great but has no calories. If some company makes an ice cream like that but we find out 10 years later it's leading to the extinction of many insect species on the planet. Is it really my fault for buying the ice cream? Not the producers fault for using chemicals with such huge downsides?

Of course you're fucking responsible. We all are in some way. And that's the thing. We need to start acting more responsibly instead of expecting someone else to solve our problems. We can't live in a world where we consume meat three times a week. Demand drives the market and what the market does is deforesting huge areas to grow grass to feed the cows which in turn add tons of methane to the atmosphere. Companies won't change unless we change our habits.

And no, not everyone wants to eat tomatoes in the middle of winter. People who are more knowledgeable about food production never eat fruits and vegetables out of their seasons.

Re: Insect 'apocalypse' in U.S. driven by 50x increase in toxic pesticides: study

#163

Post by sixstringtheory » Sun, Aug 11, 2019, 2:55 PM UTC

vkou wrote: post #32

romaaeterna wrote: post #19

Neonicotinoids are new since 1994, so they get pointed to as the cause of Honeybee collapse, because what else could it be? Well, a lot of things can cause a decline in insect populations, including non-human mediated things like new diseases, new parasites, or new competitors. And there are some good reasons to think that neonicotinoids are unlikely to be a serious cause after all. https://i.imgur.com/HaWyRr7.png Wh…

> Well, a lot of things can cause a decline in insect populations, including non-human mediated things like new diseases, new parasites, or new competitors. Which may affect a few species. But not insects all across the board. > What's the cost of getting this wrong? You make farming more expensive overall... 1. Farming relies on pollinating insects. Insect die-off is a great way to make it more expensive. 2. What is…

I’m flabbergasted as to why this comment is downvoted. They’ve simply provided some counterpoints and asked a question. That’s how discussion and debate work. Maybe they’re wrong and there are good counter-counterpoints, but if so you should provide them instead of downvoting.

I have to say I agree with their points and reiterate their question, so I’d like to see some actual responses if any can even be made.

Furthermore, positioning increased insecticide use as ameliorating climate change is just madness.

Re: Insect 'apocalypse' in U.S. driven by 50x increase in toxic pesticides: study

#164

Post by adrr » Sun, Aug 11, 2019, 2:56 PM UTC

jimhi wrote: post #50

rollthehard6 wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reminds of all those times we are told that 'customers demanded X', as if we all stood outside supermarkets with placards saying, "We demand huge strawberries that don't taste of anything". The market does what helps the market, it often isn't good for people or the planet they inhabit - that's the story of our current era and customers need to demand change on that basis.

We did demand X though. The supermarkets had both tasteless strawberries and organic ones and we made our choice. Many supermarkets still have organic ones and we still pick the cheaper, larger, less tasty one.

Organic doesn’t mean pesticide free. The pesticides used are “natural” instead of man made. Organic also means manure based fertilizer which means risk of food borne diseases like Ecoli 157h and salmonella.

Re: Insect 'apocalypse' in U.S. driven by 50x increase in toxic pesticides: study

#165

Post by PeterStuer » Sun, Aug 11, 2019, 2:57 PM UTC

taneq wrote: post #87

rollthehard6 wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reminds of all those times we are told that 'customers demanded X', as if we all stood outside supermarkets with placards saying, "We demand huge strawberries that don't taste of anything". The market does what helps the market, it often isn't good for people or the planet they inhabit - that's the story of our current era and customers need to demand change on that basis.

Yeah but when faced with the choice between the tomatoes that were $8.50/kg and really nice but would go off in 2 days, vs. the tomatoes that were $4.50/kg and still nice and red and lasted a whole week but were pretty tasteless, you bought the latter, didn't you? Customers demand things by paying money for them.

Negative externalities are not priced in. The whole neoliberal market game is to extract benefits while pushing the burdens onto others. Vote with your wallet is only honest if all externalities would be priced in, otherwise it is just a vehicle for shifting the blame onto the hapless consumer.

Re: Insect 'apocalypse' in U.S. driven by 50x increase in toxic pesticides: study

#166

Post by AnthonyMouse » Sun, Aug 11, 2019, 2:57 PM UTC

neom wrote: post #132

bbddg wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Customers in many cases don't have the information to know the potential long term damages of buying the $4.50/kg tomatoes. It's insane to put that burden on the end user as opposed to the tomato grower. How in the world is the customer supposed to know what pesticides are used and what the damages could be? Trying to flatten all these problems into the failings of individual customer decisions completely obfuscates…

What's extra weird is that everything got really cheap, yet most people don't have any money, and the environment is in disarray. I'd imagine history is not going to look kindly on the wealthy.

> I'd imagine history is not going to look kindly on the wealthy.

That's assuming the money is going to the wealthy, which isn't really compatible with things being cheap.

What really happened is that other things -- like housing -- got more expensive. But most of that money didn't go to Bill Gates, it went to grandma when she retired to Florida and sold her house to a millennial for four times what she paid for it in real dollars, whose huge mortgage payment is in turn now eating more than all of the money saved from having crappy tomatoes.

Re: Insect 'apocalypse' in U.S. driven by 50x increase in toxic pesticides: study

#167

Post by [deleted] » Sun, Aug 11, 2019, 3:03 PM UTC

gravelc wrote: post #65

mhkool wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

with Roundup that story was "it only interferes with the shikimate pathway" and now we know that it is not true. You simply cannot give any guarantee whatsoever that the dsRNA-based poison that you consider safe, really is safe or has unforeseen fatal effects. You should read more about agriculture and look at the many success stories of farmers who produce in large scale without using poisons. Then you might underst…

Provide me an example then. Organic pesticides that can be used on organically-certified farms are still poisons. White oil, soap spray etc. is all a poison if you're an insect. I don't know of any modern production system that's free of poisons (if you want to refer to poisons as anything that kills an insect, which seems to be the case), but willing to be educated.

[deleted]

Re: Insect 'apocalypse' in U.S. driven by 50x increase in toxic pesticides: study

#168

Post by chiefalchemist » Sun, Aug 11, 2019, 3:06 PM UTC

Not to jump slightly off topic, but it boggles my mind how this topic (i.e., toxins) has not been included in the (cost of) healthcare "debate" in the USA. How did health of the individual - which is a function of lifestyle and environment - become completely disconnected from the cost of trying to maintain that individual as a productive member of society?

Obesity gets a free pass. Sedentary gets a free pass. Toxins in the environment gets a free pass. Etc. What are (my fellow) Americans reading, watching, and talking about if these things this simple are completely foreign to them?

Re: Insect 'apocalypse' in U.S. driven by 50x increase in toxic pesticides: study

#169

Post by DennisP » Sun, Aug 11, 2019, 3:07 PM UTC

obituary_latte wrote: post #36

blodovnik wrote: post #25

There’s no surprise here is there? We, as a society, poison pretty much everything as a standard part of the agricultural process. The outcome -the goal - of that is of course, death of vast numbers of insects. Mission accomplished. It’s a success story, strangely. The only thing that seems weird to me is how society was so easily convinced that soaking all our food in poison is OK and not a problem all good thumbs u…

Is it that society was convinced? Or was/is it that it is more “out of sight, out of mind”? I think for the layperson, little matters other than how much does it cost? If there is some invisible but safe-for-us chemical that increases yield and decreases cost, all the better for us, right? I think this is one of the great things to come out of the invention of the web. We are becoming better informed and this kind of…

Considering the amount of pesticide that homeowners spray in their own yards, I'd say most of society was pretty much convinced.

Re: Insect 'apocalypse' in U.S. driven by 50x increase in toxic pesticides: study

#170

Post by Theodores » Sun, Aug 11, 2019, 3:08 PM UTC

mhkool wrote: post #52

obituary_latte wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it that society was convinced? Or was/is it that it is more “out of sight, out of mind”? I think for the layperson, little matters other than how much does it cost? If there is some invisible but safe-for-us chemical that increases yield and decreases cost, all the better for us, right? I think this is one of the great things to come out of the invention of the web. We are becoming better informed and this kind of…

you are neglecting the negative effects of spraying billions of tons of Roundup on the planet before the public knows for sure that it is a dangerous poison. Same with neonics, we sprayed too much and the insect populations shrunk too much and will not revive quickly since the poison is still in plants and soil. The obvious thing is that industries work for profit and have no sympathy with insects or the health of in…

For me the example of what you cite is the wonder product 'Scotchgard'.

You could put it on your shoes from new and they would stay looking new, you could spray it on furniture and it would survive spills from coffee/tea/wine. You could coat your whole house with Scotchgard and be blissfully unaware that it was a bio-hazard.

Plus who thought negatively of the 3M corporation?

3M was a brand that you trusted, it was a sign of quality and familiar through 'Scotchtape™' and 'Post-It™' notes. Their reflective products were literally brilliant and life saving. Smart people used Scotchgard. Stupid people that didn't care about their belongings didn't.

But now we know that perfluorooctane sulfonate (PFOS - the magic ingredient) is not what you want in your blood. Pretty much stands to reason when you think about it, but nobody in the 1980's thought that carpets laced with the stuff would lead to people being poisoned with it.

The same chemical was used in bulk by the military for fire-fighting kit and other uses, plus the factories making things like shoes, carpets and everything else led to a pollution problem. So now, along with Strontium-90 we all have a little bit of perfluorooctane sulfonate in our bodies. Lovely.

Since the chemicals are not 'food' or 'medicines' there is no regulation on what is a safe level to have in the water supply.

But we now know that from the early 1970's the people at 3M knew there was a problem. But they kept quiet and just marketed more and more variations of the product. I only learned recently that PFOS was evil. I had also stopped using it without thinking about it. Partly due to other products such as Gore-Tex™ coming along there is way as a consumer that you realise the old product has been phased out. You just pay the premium for the new and improved water repellent to not even know the old one was 'evil'.

But the execs at 3M knew all along. Like the execs at Philip Morris. Or at Exxon. Or at Monsanto.