Below you'll find a list of all posts that have been categorized as “Politics”
An interesting piece from the Washington Post about the lengths that some beeks are having to go to help their colonies. Obsessing over bee health was unheard of 50 years ago, said Marla Spivak, a University of Minnesota professor of entomology. “In the past, it was very easy to keep bees. Throw them in a box, and they …
FUD /fəd/, noun fear, uncertainty and doubt, usually evoked intentionally in order to put a competitor at a disadvantage. The Grain Farmers of Ontario have been very vocal opponents of Ontario’s recently approved and soon to be implemented restrictions on the neonicotinoid pesticide seed treatments. If you listen to their argument, it’s going to mean the end of grain farming …
File this under “I don’t even …” Bees may be getting hooked on nectar laced with widely used nicotine-related chemicals in pesticides they cannot even taste, in the same way humans are addicted to cigarettes, new research has found. Adding to evidence of potential harm from the chemicals, another field-scale study published on Wednesday also found that exposure to so-called …
It sounds like two extreme ends of a continuum, but that’s really the debate: In 1981 the Vietnam War was over, for the United States, but it looked to the world like the Cold War was still being fought in Southeast Asia, and it had a nasty new wrinkle. The Soviets were spraying Vietnam and Laos with something that left odd …
Given the crash course in plant pollination that everyone has had since CCD reared its ugly head in the US, it seems kind of silly to have to say it. Of course bees matter. Yet, that’s what a group of Ontario farm organizations “and the agricultural industry that supports them” felt the burning need to say on the weekend. And say …
George Monbiot writes in The Guardian: 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? via Another Silent Spring? | George Monbiot.
Hit off the Globe & Mail’ presses comes word that Ontario is planning to do something about the rampany overuse of neonicotinoid pesticides: http://m.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/pesticide-linked-to-bee-deaths-to-be-restricted-in-ontario/article19480431/?service=mobile It’s not a ban, but it’s a step in the right direction. Hopefully, whatever kind of permit scheme they come up with will make a difference.
Depending on how you view things, the pesticide giants are either straight from the 7th circle of hell or they’re simply poor multinational corporations trying to do a vital job who caught by the law of unintended consequences. I tend to view things in more shades of grey. I think that their behaviour around the revelations of problems with their products …
I had hoped that this article was a spoof when I saw it linked on Google+ this morning, but it’s all too real: While bees pollinate crops, Canadian researchers have found they can also be used to control pest insects and manage disease by dropping off pest control agents while they work. “We thought we can give added value to …