Bird decline 'smoking gun' for pesticide's effects

[piscator]

From the article, it may not be a case of toxicity, but simply that the total number of insects available as prey, particularly when feeding nestlings, may have significantly declined in agricultural areas.

Doesn't matter the mechanism of the decline. You fuck with an ecosystem, you fuck with the whole ecosystem! There are better ways to limit the impact of pests than spraying chemicals, the long-term effects of which you have no idea about, all over everything. Dare I say it, GMO is a better way to go.

"GMO" meaning selecting* via genetic sequence, without the fuss and bother of having to grow out entire Punnet Squares?
Or, "GMO" meaning ADM and Monsanto patent trolling pollen, or color-corrected Atlantic salmon hybrids farmed in net cages in British Columbia?

GMO to inbuild resistance to the pest organism. The dodgy business practices of Monsanto et al. are a smokescreen (not to mention a matter for legislation.) Dismissing the entire process out of hand because some business cunts have ripped people off (they do that if you let them - get used to it!) or because some ill-infomed greenpeacer has Frankenstein nightmares, is silly. Look at the science without prejudice. It is not the answer to everything, of course not, but it is better than carpet bombing the countryside with chemicals and then lawyering-up to deny deny deny that they are responsible for any ill-effects in the surrounding areas...

Assuming I'm not aware that all hybrids are GMOs is also a smokescreen. "GMOs" just tossed out there brings in a host of implications, especially since "accelerated hybridization" is being touted and enforced by the same sector that gave us uDDT and Paraquat. I don't trust the American agroscience industries to act in anything but their perceived best interests, and the Law of Unintended Consequences may be an adage, but it's a good one.

[JimC]

Piscator, I agree that you cannot automatically trust the corporate world to produce technologies which are environmentally benign. However, XC's point remains valid, that GM technologies have the potential to improve agricultural outcomes while reducing the overall use of synthetic pesticides and herbicides. Rather than seeing all GM products as the work of the devil (which some green groups do, as an irrational gut reaction), each GM proposal needs to be examined skeptically, but on its merits.

[piscator]

Piscator, I agree that you cannot automatically trust the corporate world to produce technologies which are environmentally benign. However, XC's point remains valid, that GM technologies have the potential to improve agricultural outcomes while reducing the overall use of synthetic pesticides and herbicides. Rather than seeing all GM products as the work of the devil (which some green groups do, as an irrational gut reaction), each GM proposal needs to be examined skeptically, but on its merits.

But like I said, I'm not that guy. I grow and consume GMOs already, like most everyone else. But I also remember how long it took the American tobacco industry to admit smoking might be a teeny bit bad for some people.

A business' moral chain starts and ends with "Is there profit in it?" Moreover, it follows that if a business can externalize costs to raise profit, so much the better.

You break the bee cycle with, say, a manmade blight, a lot less plants get pollinated. So what do you do - splice an a gene set that makes a squash not need bees to spread pollen, or fix the bee problem you caused in the first place?

I'm quite sure that we'll break enough ocean ecosystems so that vast fish farms chocked full of GMO seed stock will soon become necessary.
There are regions in my country (and other countries) that could feed just about everyone on the planet, and well. A lot of that productivity has to do with GMOs, but most of it is due to pouring diesel through 12-cylinder John Deere and International Harvester engines. Most American farm economic problems are based in overproduction, BTW.

Had some great corn on the cob over the 4th. Both yellow and white kernels in straight rows, sweet like candy. An exceptional butter and salt delivery device. I theorized it was a by-product of the engineering effort to develop a more profitable ethanol constituent.

[piscator]