Submitted by Chris Martenson via PeakProsperity.com
,
As you are aware, honey bees have been suffering from something
called
Colony Collapse Disorder. In practice, what this means is
that the bees simply vanish from their hives, leaving behind their
most precious worldly possessions: honey and larvae.
What causes these mysterious vanishing acts has been something
of a mystery. But because the phenomenon began really ramping up in
2006, we can focus in on some suspects.
While it’s always possible that the bees are suffering ‘death
from a thousand cuts’ -- where it’s no one specific thing but
rather a wide range of minor insults, ranging from loss of forage
to herbicides to fungicides to pesticides -- there’s actually quite
strong evidence pointing to a specific class of pesticides called
neonicotinoids.
This class of pesticides is massively and indiscriminately
toxic. More specific to our investigation here, it was only
introduced into widespread use shortly before the massive bee
die-offs began.
Biocide = Suicide
Actually, it’s not really proper to call neonicotinoids
‘pesticides’ because they don't solely target pests. They should
more accurately be called ‘biocides’ because they kill
allinsects equally and indiscriminately.
How toxic are they?
The neonics are so toxic that it's sufficient to simply lightly
coat a seed with it before planting. When the seed grows to
maturity, the plant will still have enough absorbed toxin
circulating within its system to kill any insect that munches on it
or sucks on its sap.
Think about that for a minute. Coat a kernel of corn with a
neonic, sow it, and the mature plant will still be lethal to a corn
borer when the corn ears develop several months later.
But not just to insects:
"A single corn kernel coated with a neonicotinoid can kill a
song bird." As a long time environmental lawyer and campaigner, I
should not have been stunned by that fact but I was. Shaking my
head in dismay, I read on, "Even a tiny grain of wheat or canola
treated with the ...neonicotinoid... can fatally poison a
bird."
(
Source)
Ugh. Boy, that depresses me -- thinking of the mentality in play
that allows one to conceive of and then use such powerful poisons
simply because one wants to engage in
lazyfarming. Hard farming requires knowing how to rotate
crops, use beneficial natural relationships, and work intimately
with the land on which you farm so as to minimize pest losses while
maximizing the abundance of both your crops and the local
ecosystem.
Sadly, the indiscriminate neonic killers are being used very
widely. The mentality at play might as well be
kill them all and let god sort them out. And
therefore we are literally taking out whole swaths of life; both
observed as in the case of the honey bee, and unobserved in the
case of the many, many organisms not commercially or recreationally
important enough to us to notice and track.
Killing off organisms in an ecosystem using indiscriminate
biocides is quite literally a slow form of suicide for us humans.
As within, so without. You cannot poison and kill of the
world around you without poisoning and killing yourself.
Simply put:
We are killing ourselves. And the data is literally
horrifying.
The Birds and the Bees
If the thesis that neonics are harmful to both pests and other
life forms alike is correct, then we should be able to detect those
effects both with direct studies and indirect measurements.
Here’s where the horrifying part comes in. All of the data
agrees: neonics are stone cold killers.
Insecticides Linked To Farmland Bird Population
Declines
July 10, 2014
A new study in the journal
Nature has found that
use of neonicotinoids is linked to a decline in the
populations of farmland birds across Europe.
For the study, scientists from Radboud University in the
Netherlands and the Dutch Centre for Field Ornithology and Birdlife
Netherlands (SOVON) analyzed long-term data for both farmland bird
populations and chemical amounts in surface water.
They discovered that in locations where water held high
amounts of
imidacloprid, a standard neonicotinoid, bird populations
were known to decrease by an average of 3.5 percent on a yearly
basis.
“In ten years it’s a 35 percent reduction in the local
population, it’s really huge,”study author Hans de
Kroon from Radboud University told Matt McGrath of BBC
News
. “It means the alarm bells are on straight
away.”
The study team said the insecticide is probably coating seeds
that the birds like to eat – as well as leaching into both water
and soil around the sprayed areas.
They added that neonicotinoids can persist in the
environment for up to three years.
(
Source)
Here we have a study that shows huge and dramatic negative
impacts on bird life. A massive culling of
more than a third of the bird populations in ten yearsis a
really disturbing figure. In places where the water held high
concentrations of neonics, bird populations were hit hardest.
The other interesting finding in the above the study was that
the neonics were found in the water supply. They are not
supposed to end up there, but they do, as we now know:
Bee-Killing Pesticides Found in Midwest Rivers
Aug 4, 2014
PESTICIDES LINKED TO
declining bee and bird populations have been found in
streams across the upper Midwest, raising yet more concerns about
these chemicals’ environmental effects.
Researchers from the United States Geological Survey tested
waters at nine sites in Iowa and Nebraska.
They found neonicotinoids in each, frequently at levels
that may harm insects and the life that depends on
them.
“This wasn’t a toxicity study, but there’s research out
there indicating that these concentrations could be of
concern,”said USGS chemist Michelle Hladik, lead author
of the paper describing the survey in the journal
Environmental Pollution
.
(
Source)
Given just how toxic the neonics are, I have to wonder what the
effect of them are on all the insect life that has water in its
life stage: the mayflies, stoneflies and caddis flies. If these
insects are killed, then you will find big declines in the bird
populations that depend on those same insects for their food
supply.
And/or if the insects are carrying sub-lethal levels of the
neonic biocides in them, then the birds may be bio-concentrating
the toxin to detrimental if not lethal levels in their own
bodies.
I have to ask: What sort of a so-called ‘civilized’ nation, in
this day and age, allows toxic levels of pesticides (or biocides as
the case may be) to build up at hazardous levels in surface water
in the first place?
What’s so important about selling a few bucks more to enable
giant chemical firms and certain farmers to practice lazy farming
that we’re willing to sacrifice the complete loss of critical
elements of key ecosystems?
We may not tend to appreciate insects, but they are utterly and
fabulously essential to everything we hold dear. You cannot
just kill them all without upsetting the myriad finely-tuned
systems of which both they and we are components.
While we have a lot of data on honey bees because they are
commercially kept and tracked, the wild bees are not really tracked
all that carefully. But we know enough to conclude that they, too,
are suffering:
Neonicotinoid pesticides dramatically harm wild bees, study
finds
APR 22, 2015
A common type of pesticide is dramatically harming wild
bees, according to a new in-the-field study that outside
experts say may help shift the way the U.S. government looks at a
controversial class of chemicals.
But in the study published by the journal Nature on Wednesday,
honeybees— which get trucked from place to place
to pollinate major crops like almonds—
didn't show the significant ill effects that wild cousins
like bumblebees did. This is a finding some experts found
surprising.A second study published in the same journal
showed that in lab tests
bees are not repelled by the pesticides and in fact may
even prefer pesticide coated crops, making the problem
worse.
Scientists in Sweden were able to conduct a study that was in
the wild, but still had the in-the-lab qualities of having control
groups that researchers covet. They used 16 patches of landscape,
eight where canola seeds were coated with the pesticide and eight
where they weren't, and compared the two areas.
When the first results came in, "I was quite, 'Oh my God,'"
said study lead author Maj Rundlof of Lund University. She said the
reduction in bee health was "much more dramatic than I ever
expected."
In areas treated with the pesticide, there were half as
many wild bees per square meter than there were in areas not
treated,Rundlof said. In the pesticide patches, bumblebee
colonies had "almost no weight gain" compared to the normal
colonies that gained about a pound, she said.
(
Source)
The bumblebees are essential to the overall state of the
ecosystems of the world because they pollinate things that
honeybees don’t. There is some overlap, but the bumblebees are able
to reach deeper into certain flowers and have different platn
preferences than honeybees, so they are not replaceable. They
are unique contributors. If they go away, so will the many plants
that depend on them for their life cycle.
And it gets worse:
Beyond Honeybees: Now Wild Bees and Butterflies May Be in
Trouble
MAY 6, 2014
Among other pollinators, iconic monarch butterfly declines
are well documented:Their numbers are now at a small
fraction of historical levels. And entomologist Art Shapiro of the
University of California, Davis
spent most of the last four decades counting butterflies
across central California, and
found declines in every region
.
These declines don’t just involve butterflies that require very
specific habitats or food sources, and might be expected to be
fragile, but so-called generalist species thought to be highly
adaptable. Many other entomologists have told Black the same
thing.
“Species that used to be in all our yards are dropping out,
but nobody’s monitoring them,” Black said.
(
Source)
It’s the butterflies, too. Certainly in my own personal
experience, I’ve noticed a lot fewer butterflies in my backyard
over the past several years. We plant flowers specifically for bees
and butterflies, so I'm something of a casual tracker of their
types and numbers.
Even more recently, we have solid data showing a dose-response
where the heaviest neonic use correlates with the heaviest honeybee
die-offs:
Bee Die-Offs Are Worst Where Pesticide Use Is
Heaviest
May 14, 2015
The nation’s honeybee crisis has deepened, with colony die-offs
rising sharply over last year’s levels, the latest
survey from the US Department of Agriculture-funded Bee
Informed Partnership shows. A decade or so ago, a mysterious
winter-season phenomenon known as colony-collapse disorder emerged,
in which bee populations would abandon their hives
en masse. These heavy winter-season losses have tapered
off somewhat, but now researchers are finding substantial
summer-season losses, too.
And here’s a map a map depicting where losses are heaviest:
(
Source)
The article goes on to cite much of the direct as well as
circumstantial evidence we have that these biocides are the
culprits for much of the damage cited above. Take a look at
both where the usage of the neonics is heaviest and when they began
to be used in earnest (charts below) and then recall that the bee,
butterfly, and bird declines all began around 2006 and have gotten
measurably and drastically worse in the last few years.
Hmmmm….seems to me that in any court of law, and in the mind of
any reasonable person, there’s enough evidence here to say that
there’s a very big problem and the neonics are the likely
culprits.
One bird that I’ve always loved in the Sparrow Hawk, or American
Kestrel as it is now more properly called. The smallest of
the hawks it is brightly colored and was a very prominent bird of
my childhood. They used to be everywhere.
Now they are quite scarce in my area. And because nobody makes
any money off of them, only a few ‘birders’ seem to notice or
care.
But these mainly insect-eating birds are in serious decline:
American Kestrel Population Drops Dramatically, And Without
Fanfare
Jul 29, 2014
On a national level, the American kestrel (
Falco sparverius) population has been
plummeting.Records from the North American Breeding Bird
Survey, a massive annual data collection effort for more than 400
bird species overseen by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) and
the Canadian Wildlife Service, show the kestrels have declined
by an estimated one and a half percent each year between 1966
and 2010.
The long-term loss is almost 50 percent of the
population.That’s a big drop for a bird considered
abundant in North America.
A handful of things could be causing the lower kestrel numbers,
bird biologists say, including increased predation by Cooper’s
hawks,
continued exposure to pesticides, and competition
at nesting sites by European starlings.
(
Source)
Every biologist struggles to explain the massive losses in their
chosen area of study due to ‘natural causes.’ But the easier
and more obvious choice is ‘
humans are doing something, and it’s killing off this thing I
am studying.’
So when we put all of the above together, it's obvious that
Rachel Carson’s
Silent Springhas taught the US EPA and businesses nothing
at all.
You would think that in the wake of the DDT disaster that we’d
be more careful. But that’s just not the case. The exact same
mistakes are being made here again. And it is beyond a tragedy
because this time it’s being done with our full awareness.
Obviously, the sorts of environmental impact and toxicity
studies that were supposed to be done were either forgone, or done
fraudulently.
The Response
After a lot of hue and cry, and years and years of solid studies
and accumulating evidence, the EPA finally took a stand and issued
new firm rules for the neonics.
However, don't just scan the headlines because you’ll end up
with the wrong impression.
Read more carefully:
EPA Restricts Use of Pesticides Suspected of Killing
Bees
Apr 2, 2015
The EPA has issued a moratorium on use of a type of
pesticide theorized to be responsible for plummeting bee
populations. Neonicotinoids are a class of common
pesticides that recent research has pointed to as being harmful to
birds, bees and other animals.
The EPA previously approved their use, but outcry over the
damage being done has caused the agency to reverse course while
more studies are done.
On Thursday, the EPA sent lettersto people and
companies that have applied for outdoor use of the pesticide,
saying that
new use permits won’t be issued.
New uses of neonicotinoids will no long be approved “until the
data on pollinator health have been received and appropriate risk
assessments completed,” the EPA letter reads.
Existing permits to use them, however, will not be
rescinded —something wildlife and environmental advocacy
groups are unhappy with.
(
Source)
The headline implies that the EPA is now limiting the amount of
neonic being used but that's not the case at all. As a result
of their 'ruling' even more could be used in the near future, or
maybe less, but the ruling itself does nothing to restrict how
neonics are currently being used because it only applies to
'new' uses.
Are you kidding me? This represents the ‘middle ground’ the EPA
sought?
Every single
currentuse of neonics will continue. By the way, one
“use” is using neonics to treat corn. Or wheat, or any other
already approved “use.” Those use maps above will continue
unabated while the EPA 'studies' the issue, a process that could
take a decade or more.
The ruling means that farmers newly considering using these
biocides will not be blocked in any way shape or form as long as
they are going to use them in a way that's already approved.
So, the exceptional and mounting damage will continue.
This is pathetic, and it is an outrage. It represents everything
that is wrong with America today.
There is both economic damage being done to beekeepers and
everybody who depends on their services, and there is massive
environmental and ecosystem damage being done. The EPA has ruled
that a few hundred million dollars of sales for major chemical
companies outweigh every other right in this story, including the
basic right of all life to simply live.
[Note for subscribers, this is a new set of paragraphs inserted
to keep up with recent developments]
More recently, the Obama administration has unveiled the results
of a task force meant to study the plight of the pollinators and
make recommendations on how to support them.
How the White House plans to help the humble bee
maintain its buzz
May 9, 2015
On Tuesday, the Obama administration will announce the first
National Strategy to Promote the Health of Honey Bees and Other
Pollinators, a bureaucratic title for a plan to save the bee, other
small winged animals and their breeding grounds.
The strategy, a copy of which was obtained by The
Washington Post,
will seek to manage the way forests burned by wildfire are
replanted, the way offices are landscaped and the way roadside
habitats where bees feed are preserved.
“What are we doing on bees?” Obama asked Holdren as they
prepared to wrap up an Oval Office meeting in the summer of 2013.
“Are we doing enough?”
That discussion led to the launch of the White House Pollinator
Health Task Force, whose recommendations are being unveiled
Tuesday.
CropLife America chief executive Jay Vroom, whose
group represents pesticide manufacturers and participated in the
task force, said that while his members might disagree with the EPA
at times,
they’ve “continued to be science-based and balanced” at the
agency.
Not at all surprisingly, given the fact that we have 8 years of
increasing and highly obvious evidence of neonicotinoid inflicted
damage, the Obama task force came out with recommendations to study
pesticides for a few more years and then devote a couple of nickels
and a lot of lip service to increasing ‘habitat.’
I know that the task force came up with diddly squat because the
main pesticide promoting trade association representing the
manufacturers of pesticides and other agricultural chemicals, the
ill-named CropLife America, loved the resulting
recommendations.
That’s all I need to know that this task force was a joke, came
up with nothing useful, and ended up protecting narrow economic
interests as opposed to protecting broad life supportive aims.
The very idea that it’s habitat that’s at fault here, rather
than the chemicals is just another insult to everyone of reasonable
intelligence.
The American Way
I find it increasingly difficult to believe in the things the
country in which I live stands for.
In Germany, where the various interests are more carefully
balanced, and where people and beekeepers actually have some say,
things are very different.
From 2008:
Germany bans chemicals linked to honeybee
devastation
Germany has banned a family of pesticides that are blamed
for the deaths of millions of honeybees.The
German Federal Office of Consumer Protection and Food
Safety (BVL) has suspended the registration for eight
pesticide seed treatment products used in rapeseed oil and
sweetcorn.
The move follows reports from German beekeepers in the
Baden-Württemberg region that two thirds of their bees died earlier
this month following the application of a pesticide called
clothianidin.
"It's a real bee emergency,"said Manfred Hederer,
president of the German Professional Beekeepers' Association. "
50-60% of the bees have died on average and some beekeepers
have lost all their hives."
Tests on dead bees showed that 99% of those examined had a
build-up of clothianidin.The chemical, produced
by Bayer CropScience, a subsidiary of the German chemical
giant Bayer, is sold in Europe under the trade name Poncho.
(
Source)
Several things are fascinating here. First, the neonic
clothianidin is actually manufactured by a German company, and
it’s the same company that sells the stuff in the US. You’d think
that, if anything, the German government would work harder to
protect the economic interests of its own companies more than the
US EPA. But you’d be wrong.
Second, this was way back in 2008. German beekeepers had one
very bad incident with the chemical, the appropriate tests were
run, the risk was deemed unacceptable and the pesticide was yanked
from the market.
That’s how these things are supposed to work.
Yet in the US, it is now seven years after
thatand the EPA has only gotten around to nixing
newuses for the compounds that are now widely used and
destroying insects and birds across a huge swath of the
country.
Even if it would cost somebody a whole lot of money, and maybe
even make farming a touch less lazy and require more effort, I
would personally favor banning every and any pesticide and
herbicide and fungicide until all of the appropriate long-term
toxicological studies had been carried out. They are not that
difficult to run, they just cost money and take time.
No ‘grandfathered’ uses. No exceptions. Prove the stuff is safe
or else it cannot be sold or used.
But that’s because I would choose life over money. And that’s
apparently where I part ways with my country, at least as far as
the US government is concerned.
Unintended consequences
The prediction here is easy enough to make. The law of
unintended consequences is going to rear up and bite us. Again.
One cannot simply wipe out entire swaths of insect and bird
populations without causing eventual and massive difficulties.
One day we’ll wake up and wonder why some pest has gotten
totally and uncontrollably out of hand. And if we chase it down,
we’ll discover some beautifully complex natural cycle that involved
a host species, a predator, a plant and animal and a few other
creatures that used to dance to a song that had been written and
perfected over a hundred million years of evolution.
Break the dance, and you break the web of life.
Mark my words, ‘insects’ is going to become a very hot topic
over the next few years. And my sincere hope is that we do not
destroy too much and that we figure this out before it’s too
late.
For now, all I can say is:
Shame on you, EPA. Deep, and lasting shame on all of
you.
Conclusion
All of this leads me here: We desperately need a new
narrative.
The old one not only allows but encourages the neonic story, and
a hundred others just like it, to take root and flourish.
We cannot begin to fight each battle -- neonics and fracking
waste water disposal and leaking Gulf of Mexico wells and money in
politics – and hope for anything more than a slight delay of the
arrival of our miserable end.
Instead we have to have a new narrative where it is emotionally
impossible for an EPA staffer to approve neonics because they would
be too horrified to do so. I could not use them, but that's
because I have an internal narrative that values all life.
While I certainly think people should fight these battles, those
skirmishes are for naught if another crew (that’s us) is not paving
the way for that new narrative at the same time.
If we were to have a new Declaration of Independence, it might
start with these words (
from our group effort):
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that
all people are created equal
and that all life is sacred. That all people are
endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights
and Responsibilities. That among these Rights are
Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness, and among these
Responsibilities are to live in Harmony with Nature, to be Stewards
for the Natural World, and to leave a World Worth Inheriting to our
Posterity."
I am sickened by the damage being done by the neonics and I am
dismayed by the pathetic and weak response by the so-called
regulators at the EPA.
In a healthy culture these people would be packed off to new
jobs, and they would be shunned by thoughtful people until they had
atoned for their ridiculous actions.
But that is not yet the world in which we live.
A more subtle point to be made here is that each of us needs to
prepare for the fact that the people in authority, even when
confronted with compelling and obvious data, will choose to put
profits over life and favor doing nothing over something.
In short, stories like this one cement my view that we face a
future that will be shaped more by disaster than design, and that
we each need to prepare for that as best we can.