permaculture

[Lawrence London <lfljvenaura@gmail.com>]

     Monbiot.com <http://www.monbiot.com/>
------------------------------
  Another Silent Spring?
<http://www.monbiot.com/2014/07/15/another-silent-spring/>
 Posted: 15 Jul 2014 12:40 PM PDT
Neonicotinoids appear to have devastating effects across the natural world:
we need a global moratorium.
 By George Monbiot, published in the Guardian 16th July 2014
Here’s our choice. We wait and see whether a class of powerful pesticides,
made by Bayer and Syngenta, is indeed pushing entire ecosystems to
oblivion, or we suspend their use while proper trials are conducted. The
natural world versus two chemical companies: how hard can this be?
Papers published over the past few weeks suggest that neonicotinoids,
pesticides implicated in killing or disabling bees, have similar effects on
much of life on earth. On land and in water, these neurotoxins appear to be
degrading entire foodchains. Licensed before sufficient tests were
conducted, they are now the world’s most widely used pesticides. We are
just beginning to understand what we’ve walked into.
A paper in Nature last week showed a strong correlation between
neonicotinoid concentrations and the decline of birds such as swallows,
skylarks, yellowhammers, wagtails, starlings and whitethroats(1). It
couldn’t demonstrate causation, but it was elegantly designed to exclude
competing factors. The precipitous loss of insects caused by this pesticide
is the simplest and most obvious explanation, as all these birds depend on
insects to feed their young. Where the chemical was heavily used, bird
populations fell by 3.5% a year; where it was not, they held up. At this
rate, it doesn’t take long to engineer a world without song.
Another paper reports that residues of neonicotinoids were found in all the
soil samples the researchers took(2): these chemicals are highly
persistant. Sold to farmers as precise and targeted, they are some of the
least discriminate pesticides ever produced. When they are used to treat
seeds, just 5% is absorbed by the plant: the rest soaks into the soil, with
potentially lethal impacts on the animals that maintain its structure and
fertility(3).
They are also water-soluble. Recent papers suggest a collapse in the
diversity and abundance of invertebrates in water running off farms where
neonicotinoids are used(4,5.6). Mayflies and caddisflies, essential to the
survival of many aquatic ecosystems, are especially vulnerable(7).
Another new paper provides compelling evidence linking these chemicals to
colony collapse disorder: the sudden disappearance of honeybees that’s now
trashing the livelihoods of beekeepers in the US(8). Half the colonies
exposed to neonicotinoids disappeared in the course of one winter; none of
the untreated swarms vanished.
Worldwide contamination, indiscriminately wiping out wild animals,
including those on which farming depends: these are the findings of an
analysis of 800 scientific papers, also just published(9). How much more
obvious does the case for action need to be?
Sure, there is plenty that we don’t yet know. We know almost nothing about
the long-term, cumulative effects of these chemicals, or about what
neonicotinoids do to birds that eat contaminated seeds, to mammal and
amphibian populations, to coral reefs or marine life of any kind(10).
Governments went into it blind, approving neonicotinoids before they had
even a fraction of the necessary knowledge.
Far from being essential to food production, these pesticides are a serious
threat to food supplies, through their likely impacts on bees and soil
animals. They are well-designed for lazy farming, but their advantages
vanish in the face of more sophisticated methods such as integrated pest
management(11). The only sensible response to the little we know so far is
a global moratorium, pending further research, for all purposes except the
control of human diseases.
In August 1962, after extracts from Rachel Carson’s forthcoming book Silent
Spring were published, President Kennedy launched a commission to
investigate the impacts of the pesticide DDT. Within 10 years it was banned
from use in the United States, except for public health emergencies(12).
This was despite lawsuits and a massive lobbying and disinformation
campaign by the chemicals industry. Alongside the usual accusations of
hysteria and other alleged female pathologies, it suggested that Carson was
seeking to destroy American farming on behalf of the Soviet Union(13). The
smears continue to this day. Corporate front groups concocted a myth that
DDT was banned worldwide as a result Carson’s book, causing the deaths of
millions through malaria(14,15). In fact the ban (through the Stockholm
Convention) is for agricultural purposes but not disease control(16). DDT
would soon have become useless against malaria had it continued to be used
by farmers: the wider their exposure, the more quickly mosquitoes become
resistant. Kennedy and his successors held firm.
Compare this with the British government’s response to attempts to control
neonicotinoids. It threw everything it had against an EU proposal to
suspend their use on flowering crops. Owen Paterson, the worst environment
secretary this country has ever suffered, who was struck down by the Curse
of Monbiot on Monday night(17), wrote privately to Syngenta to reassure it
that “our efforts [to stop the suspension] will continue and intensify in
the coming days”(18). His department commissioned a study claiming to show
that bees were not being harmed(19). It was so flawed that no journal would
take it. The lead author soon left to work for Syngenta(20).
The government’s chief scientist, Sir Mark Walport, made wildly misleading
statements about the science and used scare tactics and emotional blackmail
to try to keep the pesticides in circulation(21). Fortunately the
government’s campaign failed, and a two-year moratorium, though limited
only to certain flowering crops, came into force across the EU in December
2013(22).
The case for a global moratorium is just as strong, so once more the
government weighs in on the wrong side. Ian Boyd, chief scientist at the
environment department, sought last week to dismiss the new Nature
paper(23). His article was so slapdash that he couldn’t even get the lead
author’s name right(24). He insisted that there was insufficient evidence
to draw conclusions. So did he announce a massive research programme to
resolve the uncertainties? Did he hell. Uncertainty suits these people, and
they will exploit it as ruthlessly as they can.
Will the new secretary of state, Liz Truss, champion science, not chemical
companies? I would love to believe that there might be a remaining glimmer
of recognition that governments exist to protect us from exploitation and
destruction. Kennedy knew it, for all his faults. Like him, our politicians
have a clear choice: surrender to corporate bullies or defend the living
world. What will they do?
www.monbiot.com
References:
1. http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nature13531.html
2. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ps.3836/abstract
3. http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nature13642.html
4.
http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0062374
5. http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11356-014-3180-5
6. This paper, which documents the rising volumes of neonicotinoids
entering freshwater ecosystems, is also worth reading:
http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0092821
7.
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/etc.2201/abstract;jsessionid=7D179770D208D74961658788EE2E1698.f03t01?deniedAccessCustomisedMessage=&userIsAuthenticated=false
8. http://www.bulletinofinsectology.org/pdfarticles/vol67-2014-125-130lu.pdf
9.
http://www.tfsp.info/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/8_ESPR_11356_2014_3229_OnlinePDF.pdf
10.
http://www.tfsp.info/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/8_ESPR_11356_2014_3229_OnlinePDF.pdf
11. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1365-2664.12111/abstract
12.
http://www.epa.gov/pesticides/factsheets/chemicals/ddt-brief-history-status.htm
13.
http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science/2012/09/silent_spring_turns_50_biographer_william_souder_clears_up_myths_about_rachel_carson_.html
14. http://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/magazine/rehabilitatingcarson
15. http://www.monbiot.com/2010/11/10/a-charming-falsehood/
16.
http://chm.pops.int/TheConvention/Overview/TextoftheConvention/tabid/2232/Default.aspx
– See Annex B
17.
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/damian-carrington-blog/2014/jul/15/cameron-reshuffle-owen-paterson-liz-truss
18.
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2013/apr/28/europe-insecticides-ban-save-bees
19.
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/damian-carrington-blog/2013/jun/05/bees-neonicotinoids-pesticides
20.
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2013/jul/26/government-bee-scientist-pesticide-firm
21.
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/apr/29/beware-rise-government-scientists-lobbyists
22.
http://ec.europa.eu/food/archive/animal/liveanimals/bees/neonicotinoids_en.htm
23.
https://ianlboyd.wordpress.com/2014/07/10/more-is-sometimes-less-a-response-to-the-hollman-et-al-paper/
24. He has since corrected the title, which last week read “More is
sometimes less: a response to the Hollman et al paper”, but his mistake has
been preserved in the URL:
https://ianlboyd.wordpress.com/2014/07/10/more-is-sometimes-less-a-response-to-the-hollman-et-al-paper/


  --
Lawrence F. London
lfljvenaura@gmail.com
http://www.avantgeared.com
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Skype: lawrence.f.london