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

nationalgeographic.com

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

#61

Post by mhkool »

gravelc wrote: post #43
superpermutat0r wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These products can only be successful if tested for several generations. Pesticides also had a similar narrative and ended up being used in large quantities. Their effects on environment and human health are only discovered today and were unimaginable before. It was insanely unscientific to allow massive pesticide use and it would be insanely unscientific to allow RNAi-based pesticides without testing them for decade…

As dsRNA is ubiquitous in nature, I would disagree. There is no equivalence with synthetic pesticides when it comes to the active ingredient. There's no new molecular structure, no genetic modification, no new protein produced. It's chemically identical to what you consume every day. It doesn't hang around in the environment. The status quo is we keep doing what we are currently doing for decades. The risks of doing…

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 understand that there is no need for poisons.

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

#62

Post by gravelc »

mhkool wrote: post #57
gravelc wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Using emotive terms like 'poisoner' to tar people trying to develop safer alternatives to current products is rather disengenuous.

People who give advise are advisors, people who kill are murderers, people who have kids are parents and people who produce or spray poisons are poinsoners. Using the word "poisoner" is not calling some names, it is simply using the correct word for the person that we are discussing.

Are vaccine and antibiotics producers poisoners? I guess we all are, and I can live with that.

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

#63

Post by FakeComments »

gravelc wrote: post #51
blodovnik wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. Not better, more targeted poisons. Just stop poisoning and killing. Why is it the words of the poisoners are always so positive and optimistic, telling a beneficial tale of forward looking improvement. The words have been the same since the poisoning started in the 20th century through generation after generation of new better less dangerous poisons. Your message is this “oh no we’re no working on bad poisons, we…

Using emotive terms like 'poisoner' to tar people trying to develop safer alternatives to current products is rather disengenuous.

It’s not at all: you’re trying to develop a more targeted poison.

You’re a poison maker, by trade.

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

#64

Post by mhkool »

gravelc wrote: post #26
vosper wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What potential risks can you think of for this approach?

The active ingredient is double-stranded RNA, which we all consume every day (from viruses in fruit and veges), so no issues for human health via ingestion pathway. A poorly designed dsRNA that has too much homology to a gene of a related beneficial species could impact it if it took up the dsRNA. dsRNA doesn't hang around in the environment, so the beneficial organism would have to be there at the time of spraying.…

You are making an assumtpion that your dsRNA is safe. The same type of assumption was made with Roundup where Roundup "only" effected a single pathway. We now know that this assumption was wrong and that Roundup causes cancer. Making assumptions is a very dangerous game.

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

#65

Post by gravelc »

mhkool wrote: post #61
gravelc wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As dsRNA is ubiquitous in nature, I would disagree. There is no equivalence with synthetic pesticides when it comes to the active ingredient. There's no new molecular structure, no genetic modification, no new protein produced. It's chemically identical to what you consume every day. It doesn't hang around in the environment. The status quo is we keep doing what we are currently doing for decades. The risks of doing…

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.

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

#66

Post by elorant »

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…

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.

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

#67

Post by nobodyandproud »

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.

I pay a premium for tasty, often seasonal fruit like strawberries and peaches because the difference in taste is night and day.

One tastes better than candy. The other will teach kids not to eat fruit.

A tip: Use your nose to sniff and distinguish between what’s ripe and tasty and what’s merely visually appealing.

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

#68

Post by peignoir »

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…

If it helps the place where I’ve seen nature taking back was Chernobyl. Looks like radioactivity is far less toxic than humans.

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

#69

Post by danmaz74 »

blodovnik wrote: post #47
gravelc wrote: post #22

I'm part of a group developing RNAi-based pesticides which are topically applied (so non-GM). They are extremely species specific; when designed properly they can avoid even close relatives of the target insect, and the by-product of the active ingredient is degraded RNA, which is harmless. The OECD had a meeting on it recently to help develop a regulatory framework - link here if interested ( https://www.oecd.org/ch…

No. Not better, more targeted poisons. Just stop poisoning and killing. Why is it the words of the poisoners are always so positive and optimistic, telling a beneficial tale of forward looking improvement. The words have been the same since the poisoning started in the 20th century through generation after generation of new better less dangerous poisons. Your message is this “oh no we’re no working on bad poisons, we…

Antibiotics are poisons for bacteria. Many life-saving medicines are poisons if you take too much of them. Should we call doctors poisoners?

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

#70

Post by enriquto »

Retric wrote: post #56
jimhi wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Except, they don’t actually give you a way to judge taste. With apples people learn of better tasting variety, but strawberries are unlabeled.

aren't they? here in France there are a few labelled varieties (not as many labels as apples, though)
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