Permaculture Blog

Meredith Stevenson, Staff Attorney, Center for Food Safety mstevenson@centerforfoodsafety.org

Source: Federal Court Halts Spraying of Monsanto’s Dicamba Pesticide Across Millions of Acres of Cotton, Soybeans

Center for Food Safety and the Center for Biological Diversity Rock!

Summary OTNP Feb2024 I don’t believe I have ever explained to this group as a whole why I started this project.

And for those of you with school-aged children and grandchildren, this is also how I became aware of the increasing pesticide use in elementary and high schools.

I have a PhD in microbiology and was forced to study a little chemistry😃 particularly as it relates to biology. I have been railing against pesticides for 30+ years. It is easy for me to criticize the widespread and indiscriminate pesticide use.

1) We spray five times the entire Gulf of Mexico oil spill on this country in pesticides every year.

2) It is impossible to fight the farm lobby. They are too well-funded and the companies too well entrenched.

3) There are more than 20,000 approved US pesticides! And _none_ are adequately analyzed in conjunction with others to understand unforeseen “thalidomide” effects of different combinations.

But, as I especially recognize in myself, it is far easier to be negative than to be positive. I started looking for a positive solution. A change I believed would be doable.

There is no place we can go and live to get away from the majority of pesticides. I thought we could start generating non-toxic zones where people could choose to live. I decided it might be most effective to start at geographic nodes — with these thoughts:

1 Our national parks could be clean, green, environment machines. And they are not producing food or reliant on the farm lobby.

2 People could get behind protecting not only our children, but natural areas and our endangered species as well.

3 Our big environmental groups, especially the sierra club, audubon society, and world wildlife fund could get behind this idea because of the endangered species connection, and really help push this sustainable idea.

4 Non-toxic regions could spread outward from those nodes.

Several people on this email list were foolish enough to encourage me 😃

I felt that the first requirement was to get a full and honest review and accounting of chemical and non-chemical methods being used in the parks. To be able to maintain adequate records, it was suggested to me that I choose only three parks; I chose Yosemite, Sequoia, and the Everglades. Those parks were environmentally diverse and geographically dispersed. Also, the fact that they had larger areas meant that they could designate non-toxic portions even if they could not make the entire park non-toxic. www.puravidaaquatic.com/wordpress/our-toxic-national-parks/

I have run into nothing but brick walls from the park superintendents, their staff, integrated pest management departments, and quite a few big environmental groups as well. (whiskey tango foxtrot sierra club, world wildlife fund, and audubon society, among others). To this date I have received not a single valid credible response from any of them over many dozens of emails and several calls. In 4 months none of the national park superintendent offices have ever officially admitted that they even have ipm departments (These departments are actually quite large). I am seriously laughing about how hard they are trying to hide what they are doing. Could not possibly be that they feel guilty LOL! www.puravidaaquatic.com/wordpress/our-toxic-national-parks-otnp-communication-summary/

While researching the integrated pest management departments (ipm) in the national parks, I discovered these very large, well funded, connected departments (arms of the pesticide industrial complex) were also working as a group at becoming a _mandatory_ part of pest control for all schools. I was horrified! The ipm system in our national parks has done nothing but block my attempts at communication, hide pesticide use in the parks, break their own restrictions on what they can and cannot spray, where they can and cannot spray, hide their “training” and certification programs, etc, etc. It is as if these ipm depts will only listen and talk to Monsanto/Bayer, Dow chemical, and DuPont’s advertising/sales departments. They seem to me the very very worst of big government. And are working hard to be solely in charge of pesticide use in your child’s school.

Obviously it is very difficult for citizens to fight the money in the massive chemical industry. Three Martini lunches by pesticide salespeople and public relations flyers sent to City, County, State, and Federal officials go a long, long way to blind, deafen, and dumb government officials. Citizens rightly have concerns that (despite all the industry advertising) these toxins really are not “drinkable”, and really do cause cancer, and do “harm people and pets;” and maybe even our endangered animals too. However, citizen concerns mostly go completely unheard.

I believe that there are three little easy things that we _can_ do to give our voices much more volume, start making a difference, and encourage our environmental groups to stop being enablers and start walking the walk again. www.puravidaaquatic.com/wordpress/what-can-anyone-do-about-the-pesticide-use-in-our-national-parks/

The best to you all my friends!

Bob
www.puravidaaquatic.com/

In a study published in Nature Medicine, U.K. researchers linked growth hormone treatments to the development of Alzheimer’s. Dementia experts shared input on the findings.

Source: Alzheimer’s disease found to be transmitted through medical procedures decades ago, study finds

But in a study published in Nature Medicine, researchers from the University College London (UCL) linked growth hormone treatments to the development of Alzheimer’s, according to a UCL press release.

The researchers studied patients who received a type of human growth hormone that was extracted from the pituitary glands of deceased people (c-hGH).

Wow does this sound like Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease?

Flying mammals are a boon to U.S. economy Those bats in the belfry are worth billions. By keeping insect pests in check, bats save U.S. farmers as much as $53 b

Source: Billion-dollar Bats

Do you think that the pesticide manufacturers look on that as a savings/profit to them? That 53 billion in savings to our farmers and us is estimated to be that amount because the chemical industry is calculated to be losing that amount of money to those damn bats. Farmers are saving money by _not having to spend on more pesticides_.

Do you really think that in the chemical company boardrooms they are trying to save bats?

Just say’n

Source: https://phys-org.cdn.ampproject.org/v/s/phys.org/news/2024-01-western-honey-bee-food-intestinal.amp?amp_gsa=1&amp_js_v=a9&usqp=mq331AQIUAKwASCAAgM%3D#amp_tf=From%20%251%24s&aoh=17061351630754&referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com&ampshare=https%3A%2F%2Fphys.org%2Fnews%2F2024-01-western-honey-bee-food-intestinal.html

Bacteria have adapted to all terrestrial environments. Some have evolved to survive in the gut of animals, where they play an important role for their host; they provide energy by degrading indigestible food, they train and regulate the immune system, they protect against invasion by pathogenic bacteria, and they synthesize neuroactive molecules that regulate the behavior and cognition of their host.

These are great advantages for the host, but what advantages do the bacteria derive? Certainly, the host provides a comfortable home, but does the host also provide nutrients to native bacteria that enable them to colonize?

This is also my point when I posted 3 Reasons– No 4 Reasons– Why We’re Fatter Than 30 Years Ago

It costs us energy to keep our microbes happy! The more people that think about that everyday the healthier and happier they will be :-)

It is also a huge reason why some of the pesticides that are also known to be antibiotics are so dangerous for us and our endangered animals.

Be well my friends!

Center for Biological Diversity: Pesticide Use on Crops Grown in Refuges Spikes in California, Oregon, Arkansas, Tennessee, Maryland

Source: Analysis: 490,000 Pounds of Toxic Pesticides Sprayed on National Wildlife Refuges

Our wildlife refuges, our national parks, and in many cases even our food is being poisoned by Monsanto/Bayer, Dupont, and Dow chemical.

It really is time to say enough and to start doing three little things to change this.

What can anyone do about the pesticide use in our national parks.

Source: Study shows western honey bee synthesizes food for its intestinal bacteria

By measuring metabolites in the gut, the scientists discovered that the bee synthesizes multiple acids (citric acid, malic acid, 3-hydroxy-3-methylglutaric acid, etc.) that are exported into the gut and were less abundant when S. alvi was present. These results led them to pose an unexpected hypothesis: Does the bee directly enable S. alvi to colonize its gut by furnishing the necessary nutrients?

Hea hea hea hea.
I love biology :-)

I had a very good friend of mine send me an email that questioned the expense of the animal crossing over the 101 freeway in Northern Los Angeles County. He reported that it would cost $85 million and that that was an excessive amount for the few mountain lions in the Santa Monica mountains. It was sort of a good point but then I started thinking about it and sent him this response back.

Ed my friend Wow! That seems excessive.
But we are not looking at an increase of the mountain lion numbers we are looking at minimally sustaining the ones we’ve got. So that is actually 20,000$ per lion in CA. Bet you that the vet bill for P22 was much higher than that.

California’s budget is $291 billion.
85 million of that is equivalent to
Someone making $291,000 a year and spending 85$ on something in their backyard.

I think we can afford the “$85” for the 4000 mountain lions.
If someone’s income was 291,000$ ca. $300,000 a year it would be roughly equivalent to one half a cent for every mountain lion.

And it’s not just the mountain lions it’s all the other aspects of the ecology too. I wonder how many cars get damaged hitting deer in that section? Maybe the insurance companies want this to decrease their accident damage costs. I just found https://www.ucdavis.edu/climate/news/conflict-solutions-california-wildlife-and-drivers and I didn’t see any specific information on the 101 but if you look at the map it’s a hotspot for animal vehicle collisions. Hmmmmm maybe we’re saving money? I even tried to find the cost of trapping and subsequent veterinary procedures to P22 but couldn’t find anything but I would bet it was well over 20,000$

I don’t know that this overpass is the best way to benefit the lions, and I don’t know why the planners made this particular one on the 101 an overpass as opposed to an underpass like in Temecula. The animals don’t care what it looks like, just that they can get across. And I don’t know that it should have cost 85 million. And I think in some ways it’s a bottleneck for animals trying to cross. But in the big picture in my opinion I think that the mountain lions need our help. And if it costs a total of $85 out of 300,000 I’m fine with that. Be well my friend! And thank you for prodding my curiosity.

The Alliance for Food and Farming (AFF), a California trade association, wants you to have less information about pesticide residues on the fruits and vegetables you buy. That’s not too surprising; since the Alliance represents more than 50 large produce growers and marketers and the suppliers who sell them pesticides and fertilizer.

Source: Taxpayers Funding Pro-Pesticide PR Campaign

The California Department of Food and Agriculture is sending the Alliance $180,000 in federal funds to finance its plan to combat pesticide industry critics

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Source: https://www.biologicaldiversity.org/publications/emailarchive/viewemail.php?email=Wolverines%20need%20full%20protection2024-01-12T130429Z.html

Wolverines are an awesome part of our environment. They 100% need our help and protection. The national park service should not be bending and breaking their own pesticide use regulations and The fish and wildlife service should not be breaking their rules! Funny how both of these Federal entities end in “service”. Chuckling.

Best