4 ms·

I like when studies show institutional knowledge. Any beekeeper can tell you that RoundUp messes with their hives, this confirms it.

PaulHoule 3y ago
I had bees move into a window in my basement years ago, eventually that hive died but a beekeeper set up hives near our creek. A beehive has more departures and arrivals than any airport and the complexity of their behavior is staggering. Any poison that made bees just a little bit stupid could have a major impact on the effectiveness of a hive — and if you take responsibility for bees there is a huge list of problems that can endanger a hive.
- pests 3y ago
  Amazing book I am almost finishing up - Honeybee Democracy - How honeybees make collective decisions―and what we can learn from this amazing democratic process https://www.amazon.com/Honeybee-Democracy-Thomas-D-Seeley/dp/0691147213 https://www.amazon.com/Honeybee-Democracy-Thomas-D-Seeley/dp... From what I read, I can only imagine the traffic!
throwawaay31aq 3y ago
[dead]
- shortlongterm 3y ago
  It's easy in America. As soon as your industry becomes big enough you can afford to petition (lobby) the government to write regulations that favor your busines in your industry. Fortunately any American can petition their government. Collectively we could hire our own lobbyist to write better laws (and regulations).
  - pkaye 3y ago
    Meanwhile the EU food safety regulator is okay to continue using it. https://www.politico.eu/article/glyphosate-is-safe-to-use-in-agriculture-says-eu-food-safety-watchdog/ https://www.politico.eu/article/glyphosate-is-safe-to-use-in...
  - jonhohle 3y ago
    Maybe we should all dedicate a percentage of our income to hire lobbyists that would represent our interests to the government /s
    - bozhark 3y ago
      And call them politicians?
  - pc86 3y ago
    Our representatives are supposed to be our lobbyists. Part of the problem is people ignore when their lobbyist is doing a bad job when they wear the right color uniform, and refuse to acknowledge any good they do when they wear the other color uniform.
  - damnesian 3y ago
    lobbyists aren't supposed to write laws, but the reality is they probably do. Politics are pay-to-play. We do have organizations that started as citizens coming together to try to influence government, but unless you have a lot of money to throw around, your public interest research group is almost impossible to hear. Who do you think has outized influence- a group of citizens proposing common-sense reforms, or industry lobbyists paid a lot of money to protect an industry's bottom line?
    - nielsbot 3y ago
      I mean, take ALEC for instance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Legislative_Exchange_Council https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Legislative_Exchange_... Laws written by corporations. Also, anybody who doesn’t think corporations buy legislators is being very naive.
  - totetsu 3y ago
    The Drilled podcast covers in detail the history of how corporations in America engineered their right to use their money and influence for political speech.
- justrealist 3y ago
  US bulk agriculture exports are what keep vast swathes of the developing world from starving. GMOs, herbicides and pesticides are how the US produces immense quantities of cheap food for the rest of the world [1]. I don't really care what the rest of the world whines about, when the US is the country actually keeping millions of the global poor alive. [1] https://www.ers.usda.gov/topics/international-markets-u-s-trade/u-s-agricultural-trade/u-s-agricultural-trade-at-a-glance/ https://www.ers.usda.gov/topics/international-markets-u-s-tr...
  - miguelazo 3y ago
    No. The US (and European) ag subsidies are what fuel overproduction, undermine local production and markets in other countries, creating dependencies and poor diets.
    - justrealist 3y ago
      Ah yes. If only the US didn't sell food to subsaharan Africa, they'd learn to pull themselves up by their bootstraps! It's really the handouts that makes them dependent on the US government. The horseshoe theory of politics truly explains a lot.
      - miguelazo 3y ago
        This is literally what happened in Haiti with rice. Even Slick Willie finally apologized for it. https://www.democracynow.org/2016/10/11/bill_clinton_s_trade_policies_destroyed https://www.democracynow.org/2016/10/11/bill_clinton_s_trade...
    - soligern 3y ago
      Overproduction? Of food?
      - hammock 3y ago
        Yes. Specific foods. Such as corn, sugar and soybean. “The US sugar program relies on import quotas and limits on domestic production to ensure domestic prices for raw and refined sugar are, on average, about 100% higher than world prices. 4,000 or so farms that raise sugar beet and sugarcane, many of which also plant most of their cropland to other heavily subsidized commodities such as corn and soybeans.” https://www.aei.org/research-products/report/recapping-the-effects-of-the-us-sugar-program/ https://www.aei.org/research-products/report/recapping-the-e...
- gus_massa 3y ago
  >> An average of almost 130 pounds of glyphosate herbicides were sprayed per square mile in U.S. counties. Is this the weight of pure glyphosate, or it includes the solvents like water? Wikipedia says that the density of glyphosate is 1.7 but they have no units. Let's assume it's g/cm^3 (the density of water is 1g/cm^3, so it's a good guess.) From https://www.wolframalpha.com/input?i=130pounds+%2F+%281.7g%2Fcm%5E3%29+%2F+1+square+mile&lang=es https://www.wolframalpha.com/input?i=130pounds+%2F+%281.7g%2... this is 0.00001mm ~= 0.0000005 inches . 130kg sounds like a lot, but it's actually that a square mile is very big.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - monkpit 3y ago
    Only 17% of the US landmass is used for agriculture, so averaging it out like this doesn’t make much sense.
    - gus_massa 3y ago
      https://www.wolframalpha.com/input?i=130pounds+%2F+%281.7g%2Fcm%5E3%29+%2F+1+square+mile+%2F+17%25 https://www.wolframalpha.com/input?i=130pounds+%2F+%281.7g%2... 0.00008mm ~= 0.000003 inches
      - pests 3y ago
        In the linked article it actually shows max concentrations at 500. So for those areas it (basically) really is your original number. It's further telling with this quote: > Iowa and Illinois, where the most corn and soy crops are grown, accounted for 15% of national usage Which means some states heavy skew the results and many, many areas of the country are below 100 or near 0.

PaulHoule 3y ago

I had bees move into a window in my basement years ago, eventually that hive died but a beekeeper set up hives near our creek. A beehive has more departures and arrivals than any airport and the complexity of their behavior is staggering. Any poison that made bees just a little bit stupid could have a major impact on the effectiveness of a hive — and if you take responsibility for bees there is a huge list of problems that can endanger a hive.

pests 3y ago
Amazing book I am almost finishing up - Honeybee Democracy - How honeybees make collective decisions―and what we can learn from this amazing democratic process https://www.amazon.com/Honeybee-Democracy-Thomas-D-Seeley/dp/0691147213 https://www.amazon.com/Honeybee-Democracy-Thomas-D-Seeley/dp... From what I read, I can only imagine the traffic!

throwawaay31aq 3y ago

[dead]

shortlongterm 3y ago
It's easy in America. As soon as your industry becomes big enough you can afford to petition (lobby) the government to write regulations that favor your busines in your industry. Fortunately any American can petition their government. Collectively we could hire our own lobbyist to write better laws (and regulations).
- pkaye 3y ago
  Meanwhile the EU food safety regulator is okay to continue using it. https://www.politico.eu/article/glyphosate-is-safe-to-use-in-agriculture-says-eu-food-safety-watchdog/ https://www.politico.eu/article/glyphosate-is-safe-to-use-in...
- jonhohle 3y ago
  Maybe we should all dedicate a percentage of our income to hire lobbyists that would represent our interests to the government /s
  - bozhark 3y ago
    And call them politicians?
- pc86 3y ago
  Our representatives are supposed to be our lobbyists. Part of the problem is people ignore when their lobbyist is doing a bad job when they wear the right color uniform, and refuse to acknowledge any good they do when they wear the other color uniform.
- damnesian 3y ago
  lobbyists aren't supposed to write laws, but the reality is they probably do. Politics are pay-to-play. We do have organizations that started as citizens coming together to try to influence government, but unless you have a lot of money to throw around, your public interest research group is almost impossible to hear. Who do you think has outized influence- a group of citizens proposing common-sense reforms, or industry lobbyists paid a lot of money to protect an industry's bottom line?
  - nielsbot 3y ago
    I mean, take ALEC for instance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Legislative_Exchange_Council https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Legislative_Exchange_... Laws written by corporations. Also, anybody who doesn’t think corporations buy legislators is being very naive.
- totetsu 3y ago
  The Drilled podcast covers in detail the history of how corporations in America engineered their right to use their money and influence for political speech.
justrealist 3y ago
US bulk agriculture exports are what keep vast swathes of the developing world from starving. GMOs, herbicides and pesticides are how the US produces immense quantities of cheap food for the rest of the world [1]. I don't really care what the rest of the world whines about, when the US is the country actually keeping millions of the global poor alive. [1] https://www.ers.usda.gov/topics/international-markets-u-s-trade/u-s-agricultural-trade/u-s-agricultural-trade-at-a-glance/ https://www.ers.usda.gov/topics/international-markets-u-s-tr...
- miguelazo 3y ago
  No. The US (and European) ag subsidies are what fuel overproduction, undermine local production and markets in other countries, creating dependencies and poor diets.
  - justrealist 3y ago
    Ah yes. If only the US didn't sell food to subsaharan Africa, they'd learn to pull themselves up by their bootstraps! It's really the handouts that makes them dependent on the US government. The horseshoe theory of politics truly explains a lot.
    - miguelazo 3y ago
      This is literally what happened in Haiti with rice. Even Slick Willie finally apologized for it. https://www.democracynow.org/2016/10/11/bill_clinton_s_trade_policies_destroyed https://www.democracynow.org/2016/10/11/bill_clinton_s_trade...
  - soligern 3y ago
    Overproduction? Of food?
    - hammock 3y ago
      Yes. Specific foods. Such as corn, sugar and soybean. “The US sugar program relies on import quotas and limits on domestic production to ensure domestic prices for raw and refined sugar are, on average, about 100% higher than world prices. 4,000 or so farms that raise sugar beet and sugarcane, many of which also plant most of their cropland to other heavily subsidized commodities such as corn and soybeans.” https://www.aei.org/research-products/report/recapping-the-effects-of-the-us-sugar-program/ https://www.aei.org/research-products/report/recapping-the-e...
gus_massa 3y ago
>> An average of almost 130 pounds of glyphosate herbicides were sprayed per square mile in U.S. counties. Is this the weight of pure glyphosate, or it includes the solvents like water? Wikipedia says that the density of glyphosate is 1.7 but they have no units. Let's assume it's g/cm^3 (the density of water is 1g/cm^3, so it's a good guess.) From https://www.wolframalpha.com/input?i=130pounds+%2F+%281.7g%2Fcm%5E3%29+%2F+1+square+mile&lang=es https://www.wolframalpha.com/input?i=130pounds+%2F+%281.7g%2... this is 0.00001mm ~= 0.0000005 inches . 130kg sounds like a lot, but it's actually that a square mile is very big.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- monkpit 3y ago
  Only 17% of the US landmass is used for agriculture, so averaging it out like this doesn’t make much sense.
  - gus_massa 3y ago
    https://www.wolframalpha.com/input?i=130pounds+%2F+%281.7g%2Fcm%5E3%29+%2F+1+square+mile+%2F+17%25 https://www.wolframalpha.com/input?i=130pounds+%2F+%281.7g%2... 0.00008mm ~= 0.000003 inches
    - pests 3y ago
      In the linked article it actually shows max concentrations at 500. So for those areas it (basically) really is your original number. It's further telling with this quote: > Iowa and Illinois, where the most corn and soy crops are grown, accounted for 15% of national usage Which means some states heavy skew the results and many, many areas of the country are below 100 or near 0.