Permaculture Blog

Here is some fantastic writing. And I was amused flabbergasted tickled that he used many of the same words I have used myself. Granted I have used them in other situations such as school children and environmental issues but I wanted to send a quick post. The more we can get critical thinking into the newscycle the better.
www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/profile/charles-davis.html
freecharlesdavis.com/about/
PuraVidaAquatic.com

My friends,

Chemical companies slip stuff by us everyday. I had a client recently who is a member of the Audubon Society probably a member of the Sierra Club and yet spayed her trees for bugs. Beatles to be exact as if birds didn’t eat bugs.

The spray that she had a company use — she didn’t know what it was. When pressed, she finally talked to the company and found out that it was Chemical X2ZY or something. She didn’t know what that was and apparently didn’t care.

I’m sure that she believes that she is a good Christian, a good liberal, a good member of society, and very smart lady. And yet given all of the above she didn’t even know that she was “spraying” a neonicotinoid pesticide that was stable for more than 9 months onto her trees, where it would be incorporated into the leaves and blooms and flowers!

Poor bees!

It is hard to be “up on” and aware of everything going on around us. It takes effort to be aware that what you are doing is a problem. It takes effort to _learn_ . I do not believe that our role in the world is to be ignorant. I do not believe that it is enlightenment to be lazy and not wish to learn.

PuraVidaAquatic.com

Just got this email and thought I would post it.

On May 21, 2018 11:05 AM, wrote:
Greetings all,

After three years of robust input from our project stakeholders, the Steering Committee of the Tree Care for Birds and other Wildlife Project offer a new view on the timing of tree care to prevent harm to nesting birds. We hope you find it both informative and encouraging. And we hope it will continue to inspire stronger partnerships between us in the coming years.

treecareforbirds.com/re-thinking-a-moratorium-on-tree-care-for-birds/

Best regards,

Cavity Conservation Initiative 949-412-0588 www.cavityconservation.com Facebook page treecareforbirds.com Facebook Page

Best to all Bob

Dragonflies; some of the best mosquito predators around, should be coming out of the water this time of year.

Many species of dragonflies have spent the winter as larvae in the water. In the spring they crawl out on a leaf, or branch, or rock. Then they split their skin, crawl out, and expand their wings just like a butterfly does. Once their wings have dried, they fly away to become some of the best mosquito predators around.

They thus leave their larval skin shell behind.

I have seen only one correctly pupated dragonfly shell this spring but I do keep seeing dead larva like the one shown in my hand in the picture.

They float to the top and have an orangeish appearance in their tissues that is unusual. They are all the age that they should climb out and transform into dragonflies but instead they die.

This is the classic behavior of the action of a certain class (IGRs) of insecticides on insects.

From Wikipedia:
— The insecticides ….

that inhibit ecdysone can cause pupal mortality by interrupting the transformation of larval tissues into adult tissues during the pupal stage.[4]

The Aquatic systems I’m looking at are well away from any agricultural area and quite diverse. And it is thus my opinion that there has been aerial spraying of IGR insecticides in the Temecula area.

This is annoying to me on several levels. First: It kills the very mosquito predators that we want. It thus promotes the jobs of the vector control bureaucrats.

But it also negates the efforts that so many people are making to assist the monarch butterfly population.

This class of insecticide also target’s butterflies, such as Monarchs.

Bob
PuraVidaAquatic.com

I moved recently, but I was able to save six Pacific chorus frog tadpoles and put them in a small constructed wetland I developed. last year they became frogs and this year three began singing in my wetland plant containers.

They ended up having a lot of tadpoles and I have since built a small Greenhouse and was moving some of my plants into the greenhouse when I came across Mr. or Mrs. – Frogpole.

And decided at the same time to post something I have recently seen about Roundup being an endocrine disruptor in tadpoles. Oh my.

gmfreescotland.blogspot.com/2012/04/tadpole-tails.html?m=1

The best to you all

PuraVidaAquatic.com

Increased awareness of the health consequences of eating too much sugar has fueled a dramatic uptick in the consumption of zero-calorie artificial sweeteners in recent decades. However, new research finds sugar replacements can also cause health changes that are linked with diabetes and obesity, suggesting that switching from regular to diet soda may be a case of ‘out of the frying pan, into the fire.’

Source: Why zero-calorie sweeteners can still lead to diabetes, obesity

Well This may be why.

Best to all.

Between illegal settlements, military encroachments and a rigged project approval process, Israel is crushing Palestinian agriculture by denying access to water and things are getting worse.

Source: Israel control of Palestinian water supply hits farmers

This is the reality of access to clean water. It hits to the core of the UN studies about access to clean water.

Water is used in this case as an economic cruise missile. Target the successful farmers and you win the land.

I usually wish everyone the best and honestly I do but maybe there’s something useful about just getting mad too.

Bob

Lawn chemicals, particularly, ones containing 2,4-D, have been linked to at least two types of canine cancers. Studies found that lawn chemicals travel to neighboring yards and inside homes, and chemicals have been found in the urine of dogs whose owners did not spray their lawns. The authors of the studies state how their findings […]

Source: Studies Link Canine Cancers to Lawn Chemicals

I originally saw this story at https://m.facebook.com/groups/982959398459301?view=permalink&id=1669806323107935&fs=2&ref=m_notif&notif_t=group_activity.

There are two general class of “lawn chemicals”: insecticides and herbicides. 2,4-D is an herbicide. It is a plant growth regulator that has been modified with chlorines to cause uncontrolled growth in plants, particularly the class of plants known as broadleaf.

Cancer is uncontrolled growth of animal cells. Genetically we are astoundingly similar to plants we have many many of the same enzyme systems. It’s just that the regulation and control have been modified and subtly changed. It is very likely in my opinion that chemicals we use for destroying anything in our way: weeds, insects, animals such as gophers, are tracked around, spread around, brought into our homes. Payback is a ….

One of my greatest fears is the new class of insecticides known as molt inhibitors. It is my guess that they were behind the micro encephaly in Brazil.

We know very little about how these growth and regulatory systems interact. And what might be the similarities in many cases between insects and us. Almost all insect enzymes have homologs in humans. What do you think the insecticide that targets that enzyme will do to us? And why do we believe that the medical drugs that we take to benefit us have side effects but something that targets an enzyme in an insects nervous system

_and kills it_

can’t have any side effects on our nervous system.

Best to you all
Bob

Finch Frolic Garden

https://www.meetup.com/SanDiegoPermaculture/events/249550662/

PuraVidaAquatic.com

Vegan musician, activist, author, and restaurateur, Moby, is turning his backyard pool into a tree and plant-filled pollinator paradise for bees, butterflies, and other creatures vital to the ecosystem.

Source: Vegan Musician and Activist Moby is Turning His Pool Into a Paradise for Bees

Good for him! Although I certainly wish that I could get information about turning your swimming pool into a pond pool2pond out to more people.

I am sure that it cost him a fair penny to fill in that pool with soil. And he has lost the benefits of that water resource in his backyard for native beneficial insects other than just the honey bees. Also bees need a Non-toxic Water Resource in the summer time in order to cool their hives. My guess is that he’s got a lot of trees and flowers and plants but not a lot of water for the critters. But that’s just a guess.

But again I welcome his beginning work at providing bees and other native pollinators and other beneficial insects a safe habitat in his backyard let’s start adding bats and dragonflies and damselflies and Pacific chorus frogs and so many more to the list.
Best to all
Bob