permaculture

["John Schinnerer" <johns@eco-living.net>]

Aloha,

As detailed in some of the material Larry London posted links to, it's not
all that cut-and-dried either way (any pun's a good pun, I say... ;-) - and
I would prefer to err on the side of caution.

What the manufacturers say, especially about what their products are
"designed" to do, may be rather different from the actual consequences in
the real world (GMOs are but one recent example...).  The info about "inert"
ingredients that are actually more toxic in various ways than the "active"
ingredient is one example.  Research by other than Monsanto or their hired
guns that says the stuff breaks down neither how nor when they say, and in
fact is found in fish years later, is another.

Given that "invasive exotics" didn't smother life as we know it during the
very large number of years before humans created chemical herbicides, I
reckon there are always other ways to deal with such situations.  Maybe not
as quick, maybe not as "easy," but with less unknown long-range
consequences.  Especially since we humans created most of these problems
ourselves - seems a bit unfair to poison everything for our mistakes (and a
bit stupid to poison ourselves).

John Schinnerer
----------------------------------------------
Human Habitat Design
Cultural & Ecological Designing
john@eco-living.net
http://eco-living.net