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 chemistryđŸ˜ƒ 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 đŸ˜ƒ
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!