EU Bans all Pesticides Harmful to Bees

[Acebird]

And we won't hear our descendants say "Why didn't you do something?"

Except, they are part of the problem.  Got to have it NOW.

[eltalia]

Or is Xenophobia your "thing"?

For someone with such a vocabulary how does pesticides, bees, and food relate to h
hatred of people?  I don't see the point is twisting what others say.

When I read you again dismissing whole nations as easily as you do do
forgive me for pausing to think the core of your argument. Thanks for
clarifying your statement.

Yet the response begs yet another anomaly.
Historicly your attitude to what I do post - do note this is waning - often
carries a load of disdain as window dressing, often focused on language (style).
Your response quoted above implies I do own a vocabulary, something of a
mystery as you also claim I babble in incoherant nonparsable gibberish.
Is consistency beyond you Brian?
Or is it only the case we (royal) get to read the effects of adding water to excess
honey stores then used as throat lubrication?

No biggee, just be nice to know your batting style so a fella can run a homer
once in awhile. Heh ;-)

Bill

[eltalia]

"And we won't hear our descendants say "Why didn't you do something?"".

Assuming Mark those descendants well into the future actually communicate one
 on one!
It is amazing today how frightened the younguns are of actually holding a
conversation together, publicly. Heads dive into phones in waiting rooms,
on planes/trains/buses, all over. (sad)

Bill

[Dallasbeek]

"And we won't hear our descendants say "Why didn't you do something?"".

Assuming Mark those descendants well into the future actually communicate one
 on one!
It is amazing today how frightened the younguns are of actually holding a
conversation together, publicly. Heads dive into phones in waiting rooms,
on planes/trains/buses, all over. (sad)

Bill

Really sad to see people in a restautant or theater text each other or someone else while waiting for service or for movie to start.  Especially irritating when two people in row in front of you are text each other throughout a movie. 

[Acebird]

Especially irritating when two people in row in front of you are text each other throughout a movie.

My take on this is the movie sucked and a waste of 20 bucks.

[bemused]

The heart of the problem isn't neonicotinoids - it never was - the origins of the problem lie with the fundamental philosophy which underpins industrial agriculture, which in turn is attempting to address the problem of supplying enough food to feed an exponential growth in the human population. 

It is worth pointing out that the EU isn't banning neonicotinoids, it is restricting the following treatments: imidacloprid, thiamethoxam and clothianidin. There has been a moratorium on the use of these within the EU for almost five years now. I won't pretend to be an expert in the science but to your point honey bee populations within the EU have remained stable for decades; the dramatic drop in unmanaged populations of pollinators more closely matches the regulatory regime of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) introduced in the 1960s than with these treatments that appeared in the 1990s.

CAP, like many other agricultural subsistence programs, incentivises production to the point it is financially viable to farm every square inch of land; in the process decimating habitats that supported native pollinators. Since the early 2000s CAP has begun to reframe itself as an environmental scheme, but it's caused immense damage whilst making multinational farming organisations millions but driving traditional family farms out of business. Within the EU less than 20% of farmers are below 40.

[KeyLargoBees]

The best (and scariest) part of all of this is that the folks who are supporting the ban of neoniconitoids are all young enough to have no memory of what it was like before seed treatments became the norm and aerial crop dusting was all the rage....on the up side the increased need for crop dusting pilots will give military veterans another option for employment post active duty :-)

[Bamboo]

Assuming Mark those descendants well into the future actually communicate one
 on one!
It is amazing today how frightened the younguns are of actually holding a
conversation together, publicly. Heads dive into phones in waiting rooms,
on planes/trains/buses, all over. (sad)

Bill

Yes my daughter did a paper on it at university. Basically they found that the kids have lost the art of holding a conversation. They are unable to quickly formulate ideas and concepts in their head and then verbalise them. They need time to do it and the time taken to type it out even in shorthand on a keyboard gives them that time to be able to coherently communicate those ideas. A group of kids can be sitting across the table from each other but rather than speak they text. Just watch the panic if you take away their phone or they lose it 

Last weekend, Saturday was a stunning day here so we went off to the beach to have lunch by the water and I saw a really sad sight. Next to us was a family of three Mum Dad and a teenaged son. They sat there the whole time each of them texting or browsing on their phones and in 30 mins didn't say one word to each other. It was one of those spectacular days, not a cloud in the sky, 27C and gentle rolling surf on pristine white sand and these guys missed it all!!

[bemused]

The best (and scariest) part of all of this is that the folks who are supporting the ban of neoniconitoids are all young enough to have no memory of what it was like before seed treatments became the norm and aerial crop dusting was all the rage....on the up side the increased need for crop dusting pilots will give military veterans another option for employment post active duty :-)

The EU has painted them into a similar corner with GMO as the USA did with stem cell research. The EU regulate GMO crops to the point where is very difficult to bring a new corp to market. Whilst GMO in this early stage haven't produced the magical pesticide free corp the potential of the technology to ultimately maintain yields with fewer external input are tremendous. While the EU make it more difficult to bring new treatments and GMO to market farmers, incentivized by the EU agricultural regime, will continue to use chemical pesticides at a higher rate.

[Acebird]

Last weekend, Saturday was a stunning day here so we went off to the beach to have lunch by the water and I saw a really sad sight. Next to us was a family of three Mum Dad and a teenaged son. They sat there the whole time each of them texting or browsing on their phones and in 30 mins didn't say one word to each other. It was one of those spectacular days, not a cloud in the sky, 27C and gentle rolling surf on pristine white sand and these guys missed it all!!

The irony is only engineers lakes social skills now the whole world lacks social skill and the blame for that is social media.

[Ben Framed]

Are things noticeably better in Europe for bees (as well as other bugs) since the banning a few years ago?

Phillip