<http://www.treehugger.com/files/2010/05/nicotine-bees-population-restored-w ith-neonicotinoids-ban.php> "Nicotine Bees" Population Restored With Neonicotinoids Ban
Following France and Germany, last year the Italian Agriculture Ministry suspended the use of a class of pesticides, nicotine-based neonicotinoids, as a "precautionary measure." The compelling results - restored bee populations - prompted the government to uphold the ban. Yesterday, copies of the film 'Nicotine Bees <http://NicotineBees.com> ' were delivered to the US Congress explaining the pesticide's connection to Colony <http://www.treehugger.com/files/2009/04/bee-colony-collapse-disorder-potent ial-cause-and-cure-discovered.php> Collapse Disorder. Despite the evidence, why does CCD remain a 'mystery' in the US? REH COMMENT: And what do you think big American Agribusiness is lobbying to get passed? Laws that require so much expense that the small farmer will driven out of business by their government. Thats their way of pushing deregulation. Just as the Eastern Robber Barons in the 1870s wanted the Western prairie ethnic cleansed of Indians and got the Homestead Act to put small farmers out there to fight Indians and make the way for the trains, so now big business pushes the small farmer out in front to lobby, to keep big business from serious regulation that protects the public. How do you make a suit against Monsanto if your child dies from salmonella from eating one of their products? You cant. They can wait you out and drive you broke. Is the only option you have, to shoot someone? That is coming from the Right, how can balance not require the same from the opposite? Why not? As the NRA points out people are shot in war. Where is the equivalence here? Is war the only option, the great leveler of the field? The social contract was that American justice would remove the necessity for vendetta. Hatfields and McCoys, remember? Some people seem to have such a cheap, shallow knowledge of the history of vendetta or of Mateo Falcone (taught to every freshman when I went to college) that they believe that they can escape their actions with impunity. This years Genghis Khan wears a suit and collects the Artistic spoils from all over the world, has a nice family and can tell you the name of every major wine by taste. Has not the leaders of the American business community declared war on the environment and on the future children of America who will pay the tremendous costs in health for disorders caused by the American system of profit and upper management above all? Are we not all now relegated to the roles of the Quapaw trying to heal 100 years of destruction to their land by big business that gave them no say in how the land would be protected? American business declared war on the land and extracted the bullets for American guns. Just like Picher, Grants, New Mexico, Kellogg Idaho, Cromwell and Ada, Oklahoma where cancer rates are through the ceiling and my own family has suffered inordinate amounts of Alzheimers due to chemical heavy metal pollution when they were children. The lies about the benefits of industry are equaled only by the passivity of the victims families. But does American Industry care? Not unless they can own Custers or Sitting Bulls rifle as toys or Thomas Jeffersons wine, do they care. And then it is not labor that they care about. Labor is expendable. Koch Industries just put a million dollars into removing the California pollution laws so they can buy more toys. And they claim to be libertarians. American libertarians are a pimple on the butt of the International libertarian movement of which I am a member. I taught in the Libertarian Summerhill Schools. I am an Artist and Artists started the Libertarian movement in Europe. America screws its artists. Ayn Rand was a cartoon writer who failed as an artist and became a pedant instead. Someone for second rate minds to look to for rescue, from the inscrutable complexity of their minds. Those Americans dont even know the questions to ask about the meaning of libertarianism. The only Libertarians in America are American Indians who understand how you can refuse to give the government power over a womans body but still support her giving birth, by making it easy for her to be a mother and for her children to have a fighting chance. Ill bet that the politicians and economists who worry so much about the money future of the world, will resist doing anything about this. Thats why they love the so called pro-life stance. Its a distraction to hide what they are really doing. They prefer the mass production of easily replaced organisms whether bees or babies. Fools that they are, they think they are separate and unaffected. That is until they begin to notice that their own memory is getting vague and disappearing. Those of us lived who through Picher and have paid for its after effects, all our lives, have lived through this process of denial, justification and excuse from the private sector. Now, that economic and immoral culture virus, is abroad in the greater world - they preach the future but poison the present and make the future irrelevant to all but their own personal brood. That is why I am mistrust industrial, private sector science unregulated by strict government agencies. But if the government is run by lobbyists and corporate contributions are unchecked, then all is lost. The whole shebang is run on cost effectiveness and for the purpose of profit for the industrial owners and their speculators. Now they want to put Social Security and Medicare in the hands of their speculators. Is this truly the world that people remember and want to return to? Do we really need politicians who kiss the hands and feet of these owners and apologize for bothering them when they create havoc? I reread my fathers letters regularly just to see that I am in the center of the traditions of my family that go back four generations. I am. Meanwhile every species was created and developed by God. Every species is an important part of the circle of life and the network that keeps us viable. What can we say about American Industry except that they have declared war on our children for the purpose of making money. They try to distract us by claiming that we are sucking on the tits of the government by taking Social Security (Republican Senator Alan Simpson quote). Thank you very much! - I paid for my Social Security and Medicare. It belongs to me and I still pay two hundred bucks a month for my medical insurance WITH the VA. AND how can one believe in God and not be offended by an attack on Gods creation for the sake of some alleged aristocrats fourth mansion and third bottle from Andrew Jacksons wine cellar? People who value money over life and the natural world are enemies of both. Only trash believe their inheritance was earned. REH EARLIER COMMENT and Article: This is what Cherokees called Witchcraft and why the old people thought Europeans were witches. Taking the place of the Creator and refusing to learn from nature. (In music, its the theme of the Sorcerers Apprentice by Paul Dukas.) REH http://environmentalresearchweb.org/cws/article/news/43568 Aug 27, 2010 Insecticide implicated in bee decline Honeybees, bumblebees and many other insects are being slowly poisoned to death by persistent insecticides used to protect agricultural crops. Small doses of the toxic chemicals accumulate over time, meaning that there is no safe level of exposure. Thats the conclusion from recent research looking at the long-term effects of a commonly used class of insecticides. As they buzz from flower to flower, bees, moths and hoverflies carry out a vital job. Around one third of agricultural crops are pollinated by these busy insects, a service that is worth £440 m a year to the UK economy alone. But in recent years these valuable pollinators have been struggling, with populations plummeting worldwide. Honeybees in particular have been suffering, with colony collapse disorder (CCD) a phenomenon where the bees desert the hive becoming more common in Europe and North America. Controversy has swirled around the issue, and everything from mobile phones to GM crops have been blamed. Now new studies indicate that insecticides are playing a significant role. The most recent studies have exposed a variety of insects to varying doses of neonicotinoid insecticides over long time periods 12 months or more. Neonicotinoid insecticides are widely used worldwide; they work by acting on the central nervous system of the insect. The chemicals have little affinity for vertebrate nervous systems, so they are much less toxic to mammals and birds. The researchers found that the total dose of insecticide required to kill the insect was smaller if administered over a longer time period ( <http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10646-008-0290-1> Ecotoxicology (2009) 18:343354). In the case of honeybees, up to 6000 times less insecticide was required to kill them if it was administered in multiple tiny doses over a long time period. According to Henk Tennekes, a researcher at Experimental Toxicology Services (ETS) in the Netherlands, these findings make perfect sense. Start by considering a high exposure level, he said. It may cause an early effect, such as cancer or mortality. At a much lower exposure level you may get a late effect. However, as it turns out, in the latter case you need much less of the stuff (in total) to produce the effect. Tennekes describes the findings in a forthcoming paper in <http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.tox.2010.07.005> Toxicology. So how do these insecticides achieve such a powerful long-term effect? The answer lies in the way that they work. Neonicotinoids bind irreversibly to receptors in the central nervous system of insects. An insect has a limited amount of such receptors, explained Jeroen van der Sluijs, a scientist at Utrecht University in the Netherlands, who has also worked on the problem. The damage is cumulative: with every exposure more receptors are blocked until the damage is so big that the insect cannot function anymore and dies. Even small doses over a short time period can cause serious problems. At low doses insects have been observed to become disorientated and less co-ordinated in their movements, making them easier prey for predators. Sub-lethal effects such as this weaken the insect; they particularly jeopardize social insects, which depend on the entire colony being healthy for survival. Right now it still isnt possible to say if neonicotinoids are the sole cause of CCD in honeybees, but it seems likely that they play a significant role. It explains the rapid increase in CCD since 2004, which coincides with the rapid growth in worldwide use of neonicotinoids the most widely used class of insecticides, said van der Sluijs. Currently the insecticides are commonly used to coat seeds, regardless of whether there are many insect pests or not. They leach easily into soil and water and are taken up readily by plants, making the entire plant toxic to insects. And as the new research shows, even at very low levels they have the potential to cause huge damage to insect populations. I think these insecticides need to be replaced by less long-lived alternatives that are less toxic to honeybees and less prone to leaching, said Tennekes. About the author Kate Ravilious is a contributing editor to environmentalresearchweb.
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