Ban pesticides linked to bee deaths, say MPs | Hacker News Reader

Ban pesticides linked to bee deaths, say MPs

bbc.co.uk

105 pointsdrucken27 comments

The article clearly states that the stuff kills bees. No one argues that. So, rather than debate for two years exactly how many bees are killed by these pesticides, why not all agree that there is a serious die off issue that doesn't need to be exacerbated and ban the stuff. If bees completely rebound, then great. If not, then there's one less thing making the problem worse.

This is purely an economic issue for the companies involved. The first pesticide of this type was registered with the EPA in 1994, with others registered as recently as 2003, and several others still undergoing review. So, these are all relatively recent to market and our food production is not dependent upon their use. Those arguments are simply a red herring. The chemical companies are interested in recouping their research investment and protecting this relatively new market.

Nothing wrong with that goal on its face, but the question is, at what cost?

I was just reading On Food and Cooking: The Science and Lore of the Kitchen by Harold McGee, and that reminded me how recent the presence of Old World honeybees ( Apis mellifera ) is in the New World.

http://animaldiversity.ummz.umich.edu/accounts/Apis_mellifer...

Those bees were brought here to the United States by European settlers, and their progress across North America is part of the rather recent historical record.

It seems prudent to me to check the trade-offs between using different pesticides and continuing to use those apparently implicated in reduction of bee numbers recently in the United States. A report I heard on National Public Radio included comments by companies that distribute the more recent pesticides that those can be reformulated to reduce risk to bees, which seems like a sensible thing to do. What was happening to plants and especially food crops before those pesticides (and, for that matter, before Apis mellifera bees existed in North America) would be well worth considering carefully before deciding what pattern of regulation to follow. Environmental trade-offs happen all the time: they have been happening since long before Homo sapiens came on the scene. Perhaps developing new methods of applying the pesticides most in doubt may be enough to preserve healthy populations of honeybees in the United States.

On Food and Cooking is a fantastic book.

"Neonicotinoids will kill bees, let me be absolutely clear about that."

– DEFRA's chief scientist, who refuses to support a ban on bee–decimating pesticides. Nice touch.

Yeah, what's also funny is how the goalposts keep moving. This stuff was initially sold as not harmful to beneficial insects like bees. Now, it's "OK, we know for a fact that this stuff will kill bees. The question is, how many?"

Go UK, go! Here's a petition to ban them in the US, to be presented to the EPA this Earth Day (4/22): http://www.causes.com/causes/430648-bee-the-change/actions/1...

The UK is voting against the European proposal to ban these, so despite this petition they will probably not be banned.

Previous discussion about bees here with some good insights: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5460508

That's a very ambiguous headline...

"Linked" is too weak of a word, but sadly, by the time the link it's proven it may be too late.

Before the government bans the product you make or use, causing you a lot of monetary loss, reason says that they should think twice. So, IMO nothing will be done, just yet. They are too many special interests and evidence apparently is not conclusive. Last year I remember reading that cell towers might be the culprit, interfering with their navigation or something like that.

If only people had this perspective before taking the risk at first, we wouldn't act like pollution was the norm and unpolluted nature was the aberration. I like your logic, but I would have applied it before introducing something that kills a species we don't want to kill.

"Before the government allows the use of the product never before seen in nature, causing you a lot of monetary loss, reason says that they should think twice. So, IMO nothing will be done, just yet. They are too many special interests and evidence apparently is not conclusive."

The cell tower stuff was a red herring.

Before the government allows the use of the product never before seen in nature, causing you a lot of monetary loss, reason says that they should think twice.

They think and experiment more than twice and pesticides are heavily regulated. The problem is that by the time symptoms show, it can be too late. On the other hand, virtually everything is a tradeoff: the houses we live in, newspapers we read, the meat we eat, the beer we drink etc etc is harmful to some habitat. So if you want certain things, you have to tolerate some other things. Pesticides, fertilizers and GM crops enable us to get much more from the same acre so they are very tempting to use.

Not saying that I'm cool with having all bees die off though.

The problem with your logic is that it assumes everyone is forthright and honest, even with tremendous amounts of money involved. We know what history and human nature teach us about that assumption.

These pesticides were initially sold as unharmful or minimally toxic to bees. Now that we are using it, we have experts telling us that it will absolutely kill bees. That's a pretty dramatic distinction.

Do you honestly believe that in all of their "thinking and experimenting more than twice", no one ever observed that this stuff killed bees and, on the contrary, everyone actually believed it to be unharmful to them?

If you don't trust the experimental results, exactly what process are you proposing?

More experiments? Will you trust those?

Your comments beg the question. The "experimental results" you reference are meaningless if they are not properly disclosed and utilized.

In fact, seems to me that an investigation is in order as to how these supposedly stringent regulatory processes gave us pesticides that were purportedly safe for bees and other beneficial insects, while we now know that they are clearly lethal to bees. They specifically stated that their chemicals do not do something that they clearly do, and that something is ecologically and agriculturally devastating. I find it very difficult to believe that this was completely unknown prior to approval. If you are telling me that you believe it was unknown after utilizing the best processes we have to test and model, then I would say that we clearly need to ban these pesticides and approve nothing else until we are better at determining outcomes.

Beyond that, what I would trust is a regulatory process that does not involve revolving doors between government bureaucrats on the regulatory side and industry. That and a true democracy wherein politicians are not bought by the highest bidder. Those are just starting points.

So, no, I would not trust more experiments performed by the same people, processes, and "oversight" that brought us the last round. You would?

What's the practical alternative, then?

Not the ideal alternative, which we all agree would be nice, but what is something that might actually work?

I'm not sure that I understand your line of questioning. Are you agreeing that there seems to be foul play here? Or are you saying that everyone is honest, but our systems are woefully insufficient? Or both?

Because either would be unacceptable in my view. Yet your point seems to be that it's the best we have, so we should make do. In fact, if you agree that the system as-is is very much less than ideal, then it seems that you would join me in calling for remedy, perhaps using the starting points I've already identified as a basis.

Instead the very nature of your questioning seems to suggest that people who call attention to the problem are somehow in the wrong because they don't have a set of concrete legislation for regulatory change at the ready. It's a bit of a red herring, wherein you agree with me on principle, but rather than demanding answers or solutions from those who are at fault, you instead immediately turn to me and demand solutions, essentially letting those responsible off the hook.

Odd.

What starting points have you identified for a practical solution?

EDIT-

To simplify what I had here before (and make it hopefully less argumenative):

What system would be verifiable and trustworthy? How would that differ from what we have now?

I never claimed to offer a specific, "practical" solution and my last comment pointed out the oddness of you asking me for one vs asking those responsible.

And I'm still not sure why you continue to make that the issue. It's not so much argumentative as it is odd.

In any event, what I did point out are some of the underlying issues that make the current system corruptable (i.e. untrustworthy). I don't really feel like retyping that, so if you're earnestly interested, perhaps you can check my ancestor comment on this thread.

As far as devising "practical" solutions, surely identifying and addressing those core issues might be a starting place.

EDIT: But perhaps the real question is: what exactly is your point?

IIRC new pesticides have to be tested by the government, no need to trust just about everyone that mixed something in their factory or bathtub.

http://www.epa.gov/pesticides/about/aboutus.htm https://secure.pesticides.gov.uk/pestreg/

See my reply to waterlesscloud below. In short, I understand how the process is supposed to work, but like much else in government, the revolving door between regulatory agencies and industry, combined with paid-for politicians, undermines the integrity of the process.

Expected value matters. If the cost of being right vs wrong is heavily skewed, a slight (or in your words, 'weak') change in evidence supporting a conclusion may have a huge impact on the expected value of the outcome.

Think of it like a gun that has a 99% chance of being a harmless toy. If it only has a 1% chance of being a real gun, does that mean that it is okay to play with it like a toy?

I haven't heard that pesticides were a serious contender for bee death. Everything I've read so far recently has pointed to the rise of new parasites.

Even TFA has a section entitled "Why are bees in decline?" in which disease and parasites are the primary culprits.

Seems like a misleading headline and a possibly misguided campaign.

So spraying fields with "almost nicotine" that is designed to target insect nervous systems wouldn't have anything to do with it.

Right. The article clearly states that we are spraying crops that bees pollinate with pesticides that are known to kill them, but people are still acting like it's a mystery.

It may not kill them outright, some scientists think it affects their nervous systems and especially their navigation. They go out to forage for nectar but do not return.

To quote myself[0]:

> We do know that Clothianidin caused the bee deaths in Baden-Württemberg (Germany) in 2008[1], which led to a ban for corn seeds[2].

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5465306 (me, last week)

[1] http://idw-online.de/pages/de/news264587 (press release by Julius Kühn institute, German)

[2] http://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/maispflschmv/BJNR502300009... (neonicotinoid ban for corn seeds, German)

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