Sampler Platter 05.19.09

colony collapse disorder (4.00 / 6)

The article on imidacloprid and clothianidin is a must-read. It contains much important information beyond the following quotes.

Scientists have started to turn their attention to both products, which are receiving new scrutiny in the U.S., due to a disclosure in December 2007 by Bayer CropScience itself. Bayer scientists found imidacloprid in the nectar and pollen of flowering trees and shrubs at concentrations high enough to kill a honeybee in minutes. The disclosure recently set in motion product reviews by the California Department of Pesticide Regulation and the EPA. The tests are scheduled to wrap up in 2014, though environmentalists, including the Sierra Club, are petitioning the EPA to speed up the work.
...

Bayer CropScience spokesman Jack Boyne says his company's pesticides are not to blame. "We do a lot of research on our products and we feel like we have a very good body of evidence to suggest that pesticides, including insecticides, are not the cause of colony collapse disorder," he says. "Pesticides have been around for a lot of years now and honeybee collapse has only been a factor for the last few years." (Imidacloprid has been approved for use in the U.S. since 1994 and clothianidin has been used since 2003.)
...

Today the EPA's own literature calls it "very highly toxic" to honeybees and other beneficial insects. Its workaround was to slap a label on the product, warning farmers not to spray it on a plant when bees were foraging in the neighborhood.
...

In a statement, the EPA says that before banning a pesticide, it "must find that an 'imminent hazard' exists. The federal courts have ruled that to make this finding, EPA must conclude, among other things, that there is a substantial likelihood that imminent, serious harm will be experienced from use of the pesticide." The EPA did not clarify what is meant by "imminent hazard" and why the death of honeybees does not qualify.

20fucking14. And examination of clothianidin isn't scheduled to even begin until 2012. This is disgraceful. How can the EPA NOT conclude imminent serious harm will be experienced, just on the basis of available data, without waiting for more dilatory testing? Even if these insecticides are not the sole cause of CCD, they obviously are a major cause.

Ah, the power of big ag and money.

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by: count @ Tue May 19, 2009 at 14:12:39 PM UTC

Does anyone know what happened to LadyLiberty? (4.00 / 6)

She posted that great diary and some folks had questions (including me) and then she disappeared.

I'd really love for her to come back and tell us more about her community.

I wish I knew half what the flock of them know
Of where all the berries and other things grow,
Cranberries in bogs and raspberries on top
Of the boulder-strewn mountain, and when they will crop.
--"Blueberries" by Robert Frost

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by: wide eyed lib @ Tue May 19, 2009 at 14:40:18 PM UTC

I'll email her nt (4.00 / 5)

"I can understand someone from Iowa promoting corn and soy, but we are not feeding the world, we are feeding animals and soft drink companies." - Jim Goodman

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by: Jill Richardson @ Tue May 19, 2009 at 17:37:58 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Backyard chickens are certainly (4.00 / 5)

a trend in Portland, OR.  They are considered to be an asset to sustainable living as controllers of pests, generators of excellent fertilizer, consumers of vegetable scraps, and givers of eggs.  Many of my neighbors keep them.  I have five.  Here are three of them:

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by: Sara Reed @ Tue May 19, 2009 at 20:54:41 PM UTC

They look familiar for some reason! (4.00 / 4)

:)

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by: JayinPortland @ Tue May 19, 2009 at 22:00:23 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

hey hows your day going? (4.00 / 4)

Less interesting than you feared, I hope?

"I can understand someone from Iowa promoting corn and soy, but we are not feeding the world, we are feeding animals and soft drink companies." - Jim Goodman

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by: Jill Richardson @ Tue May 19, 2009 at 22:15:01 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Yes, very run-of-the-mill... :) (4.00 / 4)

And that's a good thing, in that the thing that I feared might have happened this afternoon didn't happen.

Phew!

:)

Problem fixed, with no other troubles arising on that issue.

Of course, something else unexpected happened today instead.  Heh.  I'll tell you about it later, if you're around when I get back in...

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by: JayinPortland @ Wed May 20, 2009 at 00:22:06 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

Yes! (4.00 / 3)

(From left to right) Gloria Swanson, Bette Davis, and Lucille Ball.

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by: Sara Reed @ Wed May 20, 2009 at 03:32:06 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

Sara (4.00 / 3)

would you be willing to write a diary about your chickens? It seems like there are big animal rights fights gearing up around the nation and the "anti" side thinks the answer is to talk to people about farm animals. And I agree - let's put it right out there so that people who have never been around chickens know what they are like! And then they can decide if egg laying hens should be debeaked and kept in tightly cramped cages and force molted.

"I can understand someone from Iowa promoting corn and soy, but we are not feeding the world, we are feeding animals and soft drink companies." - Jim Goodman

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by: Jill Richardson @ Wed May 20, 2009 at 06:22:01 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

back yard chickens (4.00 / 1)

We have a dozen plus a few chicks right now. They are totally free range, and wonderful. We do crack open a couple coconuts a day for them, but otherwise they live on bugs and flowers. I never knew how fascinated I would be with chickens, until we got them. I can spend hours just observing their social structures... Its amazing. I often spend an hour or two helping them find grubs under rocks, and branches. The hardest part is nature. Hawaii has mongoose and hawks around every corner, so chicks don't usually last long. During egg season we generally get 6-10 eggs a day. Chickens are the ultimate composters. They gobble up just about everything that we don't, and poop it out in the shape of an egg 12 hours later.  

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by: arthurw @ Thu May 21, 2009 at 04:27:30 AM UTC