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They are among America's busiest workers but they've been declining sharply in recent years due to various factors, including pesticides, mite infestations and loss of genetic diversity. Now Faith Karimi writes at CNN that President Obama has created a task force to address the issue of rapidly diminishing honey bees and other pollinators. "The problem is serious and requires immediate attention to ensure the sustainability of our food production systems, avoid additional economic impact on the agricultural sector, and protect the health of the environment," Obama said in a memo was sent to Cabinet secretaries and agency heads.
Friends of the Earth says that the US needs to immediately ban the use of neonicotinoids, a class of pesticides chemically similar to nicotine that has been linked to bee deaths. "The administration should prevent the release and use of these toxic pesticides until determined safe," says Erich Pica whose organization is conducting a campaign and has collected more than half a million petition signatures asking Home Depot and Lowe's to stop selling plants treated with neonicotinoids (neonics). So why isn't the US moving more quickly to ban neonics? Neonics play "a major role in pest management for pest control, agriculture and the ornamental plant protection industries. They serve as a group of highly effective insecticides with low risk to people and birds, which can be applied systemically to the soil," notes a Texas A&M AgriLife Extension blogger. This is a safer, better pesticide than many alternatives.
Another reason to hold off on a ban: There are still doubts that neonics are the principal cause of bee colony collapse. "In other words, while neonics might be one of the precipitating causes, they might not be the principle cause of colony collapse disorder (CCD) in the US and Europe," says David Clark Scott. "Saving the honey bees may require a more complex solution than banning one group of insecticides. And it may require more investigation into other possible causes of CCD, including parasites, viruses, climate change, bee nutrition, lack of genetic diversity and bee keeping practices."
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Dunbal on Monday June 23 2014, @06:12PM
The answer is - of course not. Bureaucracies are notoriously inefficient and rarely achieve anything at all apart from the creation of new bureaucracies. How this will help bees is unclear, especially since nicotinoids are only PART of the problem. So lots of mediocre people will get mediocre jobs that consist in making other people's job harder or impossible, economic efficiency will decrease overall, taxes will go up to pay for all the new bureaucrats, prices will go up to pay for all the decreased yields, alternate chemicals or decreasing margins due to all the red tape. And the bees will still die.
(Score: 2) by BradTheGeek on Monday June 23 2014, @06:25PM
Yes, because the bureaucracies that banned DDT were ineffective too. I really miss the bald eagle and the condor. And those species weren't pivotal to our food supply. We are doomed.
(Score: 2) by dry on Tuesday June 24 2014, @03:51AM
DDT was also getting ineffective so the chemical companies didn't put up too much of a fight. Be the same with the current crop of insecticides, once the pests evolve to make them ineffective, they'll be banned.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 24 2014, @01:46AM
> Bureaucracies are notoriously inefficient and rarely achieve anything at all apart from the creation of new bureaucracies.
You seem to be a lover of corporations which are just another kind of bureaucracy, therefore your logic is ipso facto false because we aren't still sleeping in trees.
(Score: 2) by Dunbal on Tuesday June 24 2014, @10:52AM
"You seem to be a lover of corporations"
No I don't. Take your non sequitur and leave.
(Score: 3, Informative) by evilviper on Tuesday June 24 2014, @08:14AM
Which is why private industry invented nuclear bombs and reactors? Landed men on the moon and sent probes out of our solar system?
Point me to the privatization projects that saved money without cutting services...
Don't confuse popular Fox News / talk radio talking points for reality.
Hydrogen cyanide is a delicious and necessary part of the human diet.