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Large agriculture has been an ecological disaster for decades. Pesticides, fertilizer runoff, heavy usage of herbicides, water mismanagement and foolish introd
by linuxftw 8y ago
Large agriculture has been an ecological disaster for decades. Pesticides, fertilizer runoff, heavy usage of herbicides, water mismanagement and foolish introductions of non-native species to counteract invasive pests making situations worse.
Pollution, pollution, pollution. Is climate change making some kind of impact? Possibly. But it pales in comparison with reckless use of poisons and chemicals.
- dTal 8y agoTFA is about a roughly 80% drop in biomass in a pristine, protected tropical rainforest, in a country where pesticide use has dropped 80 percent.
- tremon 8y agoHow about delayed effects? I can't read the article, but does the article mention what the natural decay rate of these pesticides is?
- AstralStorm 8y agoHere is the linked study: http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2018/10/09/1722477115 http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2018/10/09/1722477115
- linuxftw 8y agoIt doesn't make note of any specific pesticides or actual amounts of pesticides applied, source material only references 'hectacres subject to pesticide application' with no direct reference to the data source (only a link to a USGOV site where the data allegedly was derived). The report also makes the claim: "Most pesticides have half-lives measured in days, not decades (60)" Reference 60 links to [1]. Nowhere on that page does it make any claims about 'most' pesticides, nor does the study attempt to link any type of pesticide to that the ones reported there. Clearly, the impact of pesticides was dismissed without any real effort to verify the impact of pesticides. [1]: http://npic.orst.edu/factsheets/half-life.html http://npic.orst.edu/factsheets/half-life.html