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There's a big enviromental problem with the notion that things are either approved/acceptable or not; binary. Neonicotinoids are probably good compared to a lo

There's a big enviromental problem with the notion that things are either approved/acceptable or not; binary. Neonicotinoids are probably good compared to a lot of alternatives. But by being one of few approved choices, they are used to such a huge extent that minor problems become major. Another example is gasoline. It's very clean, especially with a catalytic converter. It's so clean that one of the worst things you can say about it is: if billions of people use gasoline, it upsets the balance of CO2. If we use a little more variety, even if average "badness" seems worse, we will be better off. But our policies push us toward homogeneity.

yawz 7y ago
As a beekeeper I can tell you that Neonics are a very bad and serious problem. I’m surprised that people are not much more outraged by poisoning themselves and their children.
- tptacek 7y ago
  Again, the whole point of neonicotinoids is that they're less toxic to mammals than their predecessors (primarily organophosphates) and can be used in smaller amounts. The pollination industry does not appear to be collapsing despite the widespread, longstanding use of neonicotinoids. Who exactly is being poisoned?
  - fhars 7y ago
    Wild insects and birds: https://www.abc.net.au/news/science/2019-09-20/birds-collapse-us-bees-ecology-environment/11520008 https://www.abc.net.au/news/science/2019-09-20/birds-collaps...
  - hanniabu 7y ago
    > The pollination industry does not appear to be collapsing despite the widespread, longstanding use of neonicotinoids Uhhhh, what? It won't happen overnight, just like smoking won't cause you to die after a few pulls. But regardless, there are reported declines from neonicotinoids. https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms12459 https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms12459 https://www.pbs.org/newshour/science/neonicotinoid-pesticides-slowly-killing-bees https://www.pbs.org/newshour/science/neonicotinoid-pesticide... https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/2019/09/widely-used-pesticide-makes-birds-lose-weight/ https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/2019/09/widel...
    - tptacek 7y ago
      You are responding to a different argument than I made. Your claim is that neonicotinoids are harmful to colony-forming bees. My argument is that the harm does not appear to be reflected in the pollination industry, which, in the US, is the essential purpose of those bees. Honey bees are livestock, not wildlife.
      - autoexec 7y ago
        > Honey bees are livestock, not wildlife. What's all this livestock doing in my garden?
        tptacek 7y ago
        Honey bees are a nonnative invasive species and American feral honey bee colonies were largely wiped out, not due to neonicotinoids but rather the Varroa mite, decades ago. There's a very good chance that if you're seeing honey bees in your yard, they belong to someone. Just as likely, you're seeing bees that aren't honey bees but rather solitary native bees.
        autoexec 7y ago
        It's pretty debatable to call the common honey bee 'invasive' but I do still see them around. They might actually belong to someone. I don't know how far from home a bee can get, but several farms outside of town produce local honey. Feral honey bees are still kicking around though and seem to have adapted. There are even people tracking them to try and study how they've managed without treatments. I haven't seen a colony to report though, just one or two flying around from time to time.
        tptacek 7y ago
        This is not in fact debatable.
        7y ago
  - yawz 7y ago
    Many European countries have banned the use of neonicotinoids, but in the U.S. the EPA has ignored the evidence and has turned a blind eye to the science. As a result the environmental damages in the United States continue to grow each year. Here's an interesting study: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0220029 https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal...
    - AtomicNixon 7y ago
      Actually, here's the real story behind how the ban came about. The guidelines were manipulated so that all the realistic field studies had to be discounted. The lab studies basically amounted to "We fed insecticide to bees and it killed them." https://risk-monger.com/issues/agriculture/beegate/ https://risk-monger.com/issues/agriculture/beegate/ As for that Plos One study, take a look at who the authors are and where they work. They're all members of the pesticides action network and the last author on the paper is also a staff scientist for Friends of the Earth, another environmental NGO. Unsurprisingly, she had an article all lined up with The Guardian on the day the paper was released. The paper itself is nothing but a cludge of unrealistic assumptions and bad math. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/aug/07/americas-dependence-on-pesticides-especially-neonics-is-a-war-on-nature https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/aug/07/americ...
  - yawz 7y ago
    And also bear in mind that Neonics are relatively new: 25 years IIRC. They can last for years and minute doses over time will lead to death as surely as larger acute doses. So, our pollinators and we are being poisoned slowly and constantly.
  - EarthMephit 7y ago
    We've seen around a 75% drop in insect population, and its continuing to drop at around 2.5% per year. They are some pretty scary figures https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/2019/02/why-insect-populations-are-plummeting-and-why-it-matters/ https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/2019/02/why-insec...
    - tptacek 7y ago
      The article you're citing does not attribute a 75% drop in insect population to neonicotinoids.
  - drdrey 7y ago
    Not collapsing, but keeping bees healthy is a challenge and their death rate is much higher than it used to be (40% up from 15% according to https://pro.bloombergenvironment.com/business-of-bees-podcast https://pro.bloombergenvironment.com/business-of-bees-podcas...) There is a big decrease in the overall mass of flying insects and with it of the number of birds.
- red-indian 7y ago
  I grow a lot of crops that require pollination, vegetables for market, and I have several small fruit orchards. After European bee colony collapse in my area the european honey bees disappeared. Within one season they were replaced with native pollinators, including literally dozens of species of bees I'd never seen before (because the alien european bees were starving them out), as well as a panoply of wasp species which I hadn't realized were major pollinators. Some of the wasps that moved in have done things like eliminate the Japanese Beetles that were ruining my grape and berry crops. Losing the european honey bees was the best thing ever to happen to me. And these other bees don't seem to get mixed up in the problems with the neonicotinoids. I use neonicotinoids myself for my dogs and cats and for termite control and they are the least toxic solutions for both of these uses. I do not support the use of neonicotinoids as applied directly to flowering crops or lawns with clover etc and consider such use to be highly misguided if not fairly insane. Loss of European honey bees means expensive honey. It doesn't mean a loss of pollinators despite various misguided claims to the contrary that have been promoted for years, some making completely hysterical and unfounded claims of global starvation and the end of humanity. To the contrary in my experience the result is greater pollination and yields following the loss of the alien bee species.
  - sten 7y ago
    Does the use of neonicotinoids not also affect the native pollinators? I was under the impression that the issue is not solely honey bees but all insects. (Honey bees being a useful public face on the problem)
  - yawz 7y ago
    It's naive and misinformed to think that only European honey bees suffer from it. Many European countries have banned the Neonics, but in the US there's a significant resistance to it.
    - tptacek 7y ago
      The first sentence in this comment seems to have nothing to do with the second.
    - 7y ago
- jeffdavis 7y ago
  They seem bad because they are everywhere and neither you nor the bees can escape. If we employed more variety, then some areas would be good for bees and bad for owls, other areas would be good for owls and bad for bees, and things could sort themselves out a bit.
- sova 7y ago
  Stamets et. al have been doing amazing work saving bees with fungal remedies https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-018-32194-8 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-018-32194-8
- AtomicNixon 7y ago
  Really? I find that hard to believe seeing as not one in fifty beekeepers blame pesticides for their losses. Would you prefer the reintroduction of pesticides that actually do for certain kill bees? It's the mites and the diseases they carry.

yawz 7y ago

As a beekeeper I can tell you that Neonics are a very bad and serious problem. I’m surprised that people are not much more outraged by poisoning themselves and their children.

tptacek 7y ago
Again, the whole point of neonicotinoids is that they're less toxic to mammals than their predecessors (primarily organophosphates) and can be used in smaller amounts. The pollination industry does not appear to be collapsing despite the widespread, longstanding use of neonicotinoids. Who exactly is being poisoned?
- fhars 7y ago
  Wild insects and birds: https://www.abc.net.au/news/science/2019-09-20/birds-collapse-us-bees-ecology-environment/11520008 https://www.abc.net.au/news/science/2019-09-20/birds-collaps...
- hanniabu 7y ago
  > The pollination industry does not appear to be collapsing despite the widespread, longstanding use of neonicotinoids Uhhhh, what? It won't happen overnight, just like smoking won't cause you to die after a few pulls. But regardless, there are reported declines from neonicotinoids. https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms12459 https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms12459 https://www.pbs.org/newshour/science/neonicotinoid-pesticides-slowly-killing-bees https://www.pbs.org/newshour/science/neonicotinoid-pesticide... https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/2019/09/widely-used-pesticide-makes-birds-lose-weight/ https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/2019/09/widel...
  - tptacek 7y ago
    You are responding to a different argument than I made. Your claim is that neonicotinoids are harmful to colony-forming bees. My argument is that the harm does not appear to be reflected in the pollination industry, which, in the US, is the essential purpose of those bees. Honey bees are livestock, not wildlife.
    - autoexec 7y ago
      > Honey bees are livestock, not wildlife. What's all this livestock doing in my garden?
      - tptacek 7y ago
        Honey bees are a nonnative invasive species and American feral honey bee colonies were largely wiped out, not due to neonicotinoids but rather the Varroa mite, decades ago. There's a very good chance that if you're seeing honey bees in your yard, they belong to someone. Just as likely, you're seeing bees that aren't honey bees but rather solitary native bees.
        autoexec 7y ago
        It's pretty debatable to call the common honey bee 'invasive' but I do still see them around. They might actually belong to someone. I don't know how far from home a bee can get, but several farms outside of town produce local honey. Feral honey bees are still kicking around though and seem to have adapted. There are even people tracking them to try and study how they've managed without treatments. I haven't seen a colony to report though, just one or two flying around from time to time.
        tptacek 7y ago
        This is not in fact debatable.
        7y ago
- yawz 7y ago
  Many European countries have banned the use of neonicotinoids, but in the U.S. the EPA has ignored the evidence and has turned a blind eye to the science. As a result the environmental damages in the United States continue to grow each year. Here's an interesting study: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0220029 https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal...
  - AtomicNixon 7y ago
    Actually, here's the real story behind how the ban came about. The guidelines were manipulated so that all the realistic field studies had to be discounted. The lab studies basically amounted to "We fed insecticide to bees and it killed them." https://risk-monger.com/issues/agriculture/beegate/ https://risk-monger.com/issues/agriculture/beegate/ As for that Plos One study, take a look at who the authors are and where they work. They're all members of the pesticides action network and the last author on the paper is also a staff scientist for Friends of the Earth, another environmental NGO. Unsurprisingly, she had an article all lined up with The Guardian on the day the paper was released. The paper itself is nothing but a cludge of unrealistic assumptions and bad math. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/aug/07/americas-dependence-on-pesticides-especially-neonics-is-a-war-on-nature https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/aug/07/americ...
- yawz 7y ago
  And also bear in mind that Neonics are relatively new: 25 years IIRC. They can last for years and minute doses over time will lead to death as surely as larger acute doses. So, our pollinators and we are being poisoned slowly and constantly.
- EarthMephit 7y ago
  We've seen around a 75% drop in insect population, and its continuing to drop at around 2.5% per year. They are some pretty scary figures https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/2019/02/why-insect-populations-are-plummeting-and-why-it-matters/ https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/2019/02/why-insec...
  - tptacek 7y ago
    The article you're citing does not attribute a 75% drop in insect population to neonicotinoids.
- drdrey 7y ago
  Not collapsing, but keeping bees healthy is a challenge and their death rate is much higher than it used to be (40% up from 15% according to https://pro.bloombergenvironment.com/business-of-bees-podcast https://pro.bloombergenvironment.com/business-of-bees-podcas...) There is a big decrease in the overall mass of flying insects and with it of the number of birds.
red-indian 7y ago
I grow a lot of crops that require pollination, vegetables for market, and I have several small fruit orchards. After European bee colony collapse in my area the european honey bees disappeared. Within one season they were replaced with native pollinators, including literally dozens of species of bees I'd never seen before (because the alien european bees were starving them out), as well as a panoply of wasp species which I hadn't realized were major pollinators. Some of the wasps that moved in have done things like eliminate the Japanese Beetles that were ruining my grape and berry crops. Losing the european honey bees was the best thing ever to happen to me. And these other bees don't seem to get mixed up in the problems with the neonicotinoids. I use neonicotinoids myself for my dogs and cats and for termite control and they are the least toxic solutions for both of these uses. I do not support the use of neonicotinoids as applied directly to flowering crops or lawns with clover etc and consider such use to be highly misguided if not fairly insane. Loss of European honey bees means expensive honey. It doesn't mean a loss of pollinators despite various misguided claims to the contrary that have been promoted for years, some making completely hysterical and unfounded claims of global starvation and the end of humanity. To the contrary in my experience the result is greater pollination and yields following the loss of the alien bee species.
- sten 7y ago
  Does the use of neonicotinoids not also affect the native pollinators? I was under the impression that the issue is not solely honey bees but all insects. (Honey bees being a useful public face on the problem)
- yawz 7y ago
  It's naive and misinformed to think that only European honey bees suffer from it. Many European countries have banned the Neonics, but in the US there's a significant resistance to it.
  - tptacek 7y ago
    The first sentence in this comment seems to have nothing to do with the second.
  - 7y ago
jeffdavis 7y ago
They seem bad because they are everywhere and neither you nor the bees can escape. If we employed more variety, then some areas would be good for bees and bad for owls, other areas would be good for owls and bad for bees, and things could sort themselves out a bit.
sova 7y ago
Stamets et. al have been doing amazing work saving bees with fungal remedies https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-018-32194-8 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-018-32194-8
AtomicNixon 7y ago
Really? I find that hard to believe seeing as not one in fifty beekeepers blame pesticides for their losses. Would you prefer the reintroduction of pesticides that actually do for certain kill bees? It's the mites and the diseases they carry.