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"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

"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.

spodek 14y ago
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.
- OGinparadise 14y ago
  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.
  - unclebucknasty 14y ago
    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?
    - waterlesscloud 14y ago
      If you don't trust the experimental results, exactly what process are you proposing? More experiments? Will you trust those?
      - unclebucknasty 14y ago
        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?
        14y ago
saosebastiao 14y ago
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?

spodek 14y ago

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.

OGinparadise 14y ago
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.
- unclebucknasty 14y ago
  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?
  - waterlesscloud 14y ago
    If you don't trust the experimental results, exactly what process are you proposing? More experiments? Will you trust those?
    - unclebucknasty 14y ago
      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?
      - 14y ago

saosebastiao 14y ago

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?