7 ms·

Every time you spend a dollar/euro/etc on non-organic produce, food and external products made with pesticide-sprayed stuff, and most animal products, you are u

Every time you spend a dollar/euro/etc on non-organic produce, food and external products made with pesticide-sprayed stuff, and most animal products, you are using the most important vote you have to support the practices that are causing the butterfly decline. You are only 2-5 money steps removed from the process of spraying pesticides all over these butterflies' environment.

bdamm 8y ago
I've become a bit jaded about getting foods labelled "Organic". Plus organic food is damned expensive, which places it in the category of a luxury. I see no evidence that my organic food dollars are doing anything other than lining the pockets of the food distribution industry. Better might be to do everything we can to ensure a well functioning government that is observing the damage to the environment from pesticides and making well reasoned policy adjustments to how those pesticides are approved, used, monitored, and disposed of.
- specialist 8y ago
  "Organic" labeling is the victim of regulatory capture. eg raise the bar via organic certification, thereby favoring the bigger players. Same as it ever was. I mostly buy bulk and staples (less processed foods). Also favor local, co-ops, and farmers markets. But it's not very practical. I wish I had better options, strategies.
stouset 8y ago
If you believe organic foods are not sprayed with pesticides you have been wildly misled. They typically require higher quantities of pesticides than non-organic crops, due to the lesser effectiveness of organic pesticides. And those pesticides are often effective for significantly longer than their non-organic counterparts.
- ip26 8y ago
  Yeah, but what pesticide? I don't really mind if my food get sprayed with lots of ethanol, lemon juice, or soap, which are three organic-approved pesticides.
  - gcheong 8y ago
    This article may give you some information on that with links to the full list on the USDA site. https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2011/06/18/137249264/organic-pesticides-not-an-oxymoron https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2011/06/18/1372492...
- drewwwwww 8y ago
  you may find this four part series on pesticide use on organic farms to be interesting: https://geneticliteracyproject.org/2018/05/21/do-organic-farmers-really-use-more-pesticides-than-conventional-farmers-not-even-close/ https://geneticliteracyproject.org/2018/05/21/do-organic-far...
  - stouset 8y ago
    Thank you for this. I’ll try to keep an open mind while reading it.
  - specialist 8y ago
    That was a great read, thank you.
- eitland 8y ago
  Depends on where you live etc. Around here the branding is "økologisk" and based on what I read here I think it is quite a bit stricter than the US (but I only grew up on a farm, worked on farms and spent a few months in farming school. I haven't practiced farming for 20 years and I didn't specialize in ecologic farming.)
moosey 8y ago
One of the studies showing insect loss was done in Puerto Rico, where pesticide use has gone down in the last several decades, one of the few places in the world with that pattern. The current primary hypothesis is that the increased in temperature cause issues with their internal chemistry, but there is disagreement. More about it here: https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.washingtonpost.com/amphtml/science/2018/10/15/hyperalarming-study-shows-massive-insect-loss/ https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.washingtonpost.com/amphtml/... We cannot use organic farming to feed the world population at it's current size. Food production has multiple requirements, and land use is the weakness of organic farming. The best way to reduce land use, climate altering gasses, pesticide use, and pollution, in agriculture is, hands down, eliminating meat from your diet. This is because about 70% of all agricultural land use in the US for to producing meat. By eliminating meat production it had been suggested that we can cut agricultural land use by 40-50%. This article is a good starting point for more information: http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20160926-what-would-happen-if-the-world-suddenly-went-vegetarian http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20160926-what-would-happen-i... In order to help rebuild insect environments, I would recommend trying to expand The range of local plant life in your area, starting with your lawn if you have one.
- rstuart4133 8y ago
  I'd lay odds it will just be the usual cause - habitat loss. These insects evolved to inhabit in wild environment. Now we moved most of it over to monoculture. There is actually a good documented example. https://academic.oup.com/bioscience/article/55/1/80/248302 https://academic.oup.com/bioscience/article/55/1/80/248302 Back when I was young locust plagues were a thing. They wiped out vast areas crop land. We they came near the cities the eat the washing on the line. I noticed they were dropping off. Now I haven't heard about a locust plague anywhere in at least a decade. Which was odd, because when they were happening we spent huge amounts of money trying to control them. Planes would fly through the things dispensing insecticide, but it wasn't terribly effective because the insect bodies with pile up inside the engines causing them to over heat. In fact nothing we did seem to have much effect. What wiped them out was changes in land use. Part of their life cycle was burring their eggs just below the surface on fertile grass land. Planting crops wasn't a killer issue for them - but ploughing was. Eventually we converted all those locust breeding grounds to crop land, and once we did that they were gone. They are gone forever now - extinct. If you read the article you can see we were triumphant over eliminating a major pest for a while. Now, not so much.

bdamm 8y ago

I've become a bit jaded about getting foods labelled "Organic". Plus organic food is damned expensive, which places it in the category of a luxury. I see no evidence that my organic food dollars are doing anything other than lining the pockets of the food distribution industry. Better might be to do everything we can to ensure a well functioning government that is observing the damage to the environment from pesticides and making well reasoned policy adjustments to how those pesticides are approved, used, monitored, and disposed of.

specialist 8y ago
"Organic" labeling is the victim of regulatory capture. eg raise the bar via organic certification, thereby favoring the bigger players. Same as it ever was. I mostly buy bulk and staples (less processed foods). Also favor local, co-ops, and farmers markets. But it's not very practical. I wish I had better options, strategies.

stouset 8y ago

If you believe organic foods are not sprayed with pesticides you have been wildly misled. They typically require higher quantities of pesticides than non-organic crops, due to the lesser effectiveness of organic pesticides. And those pesticides are often effective for significantly longer than their non-organic counterparts.

ip26 8y ago
Yeah, but what pesticide? I don't really mind if my food get sprayed with lots of ethanol, lemon juice, or soap, which are three organic-approved pesticides.
- gcheong 8y ago
  This article may give you some information on that with links to the full list on the USDA site. https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2011/06/18/137249264/organic-pesticides-not-an-oxymoron https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2011/06/18/1372492...
drewwwwww 8y ago
you may find this four part series on pesticide use on organic farms to be interesting: https://geneticliteracyproject.org/2018/05/21/do-organic-farmers-really-use-more-pesticides-than-conventional-farmers-not-even-close/ https://geneticliteracyproject.org/2018/05/21/do-organic-far...
- stouset 8y ago
  Thank you for this. I’ll try to keep an open mind while reading it.
- specialist 8y ago
  That was a great read, thank you.
eitland 8y ago
Depends on where you live etc. Around here the branding is "økologisk" and based on what I read here I think it is quite a bit stricter than the US (but I only grew up on a farm, worked on farms and spent a few months in farming school. I haven't practiced farming for 20 years and I didn't specialize in ecologic farming.)

moosey 8y ago

One of the studies showing insect loss was done in Puerto Rico, where pesticide use has gone down in the last several decades, one of the few places in the world with that pattern. The current primary hypothesis is that the increased in temperature cause issues with their internal chemistry, but there is disagreement. More about it here: https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.washingtonpost.com/amphtml/science/2018/10/15/hyperalarming-study-shows-massive-insect-loss/ https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.washingtonpost.com/amphtml/... We cannot use organic farming to feed the world population at it's current size. Food production has multiple requirements, and land use is the weakness of organic farming. The best way to reduce land use, climate altering gasses, pesticide use, and pollution, in agriculture is, hands down, eliminating meat from your diet. This is because about 70% of all agricultural land use in the US for to producing meat. By eliminating meat production it had been suggested that we can cut agricultural land use by 40-50%. This article is a good starting point for more information: http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20160926-what-would-happen-if-the-world-suddenly-went-vegetarian http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20160926-what-would-happen-i... In order to help rebuild insect environments, I would recommend trying to expand The range of local plant life in your area, starting with your lawn if you have one.

rstuart4133 8y ago
I'd lay odds it will just be the usual cause - habitat loss. These insects evolved to inhabit in wild environment. Now we moved most of it over to monoculture. There is actually a good documented example. https://academic.oup.com/bioscience/article/55/1/80/248302 https://academic.oup.com/bioscience/article/55/1/80/248302 Back when I was young locust plagues were a thing. They wiped out vast areas crop land. We they came near the cities the eat the washing on the line. I noticed they were dropping off. Now I haven't heard about a locust plague anywhere in at least a decade. Which was odd, because when they were happening we spent huge amounts of money trying to control them. Planes would fly through the things dispensing insecticide, but it wasn't terribly effective because the insect bodies with pile up inside the engines causing them to over heat. In fact nothing we did seem to have much effect. What wiped them out was changes in land use. Part of their life cycle was burring their eggs just below the surface on fertile grass land. Planting crops wasn't a killer issue for them - but ploughing was. Eventually we converted all those locust breeding grounds to crop land, and once we did that they were gone. They are gone forever now - extinct. If you read the article you can see we were triumphant over eliminating a major pest for a while. Now, not so much.