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Read the rules in the OP before posting, please.In order to ensure that this thread continues to meet TL standards and follows the proper guidelines, we will be enforcing the rules in the OP more strictly. Be sure to give them a re-read to refresh your memory! The vast majority of you are contributing in a healthy way, keep it up! NOTE: When providing a source, explain why you feel it is relevant and what purpose it adds to the discussion if it's not obvious. Also take note that unsubstantiated tweets/posts meant only to rekindle old arguments can result in a mod action. |
On October 25 2014 00:34 farvacola wrote:I was going to point to the Rotenone-pyrethrin vs. imidan debate as a good example of where synthetic pesticides are almost certainly better than their "natural" alternatives, but oneofthem is on the ball. Here's a bit from a very interesting study on the cancer risks associated with pesticide use. Show nested quote +Thus, epidemiological studies do not support the idea that synthetic pesticide residues are important for human cancer. Although some epidemiologic studies find an association between cancer and low levels of some industrial pollutants, the studies often have weak or inconsistent results, rely on ecological correlations or indirect exposure assessments, use small sample sizes, and do not control for confounding factors such as composition of the diet, which is a potentially important confounding factor. Outside the workplace, the levels of exposure to synthetic pollutants or pesticide residues are low and rarely seem toxicologically plausible as a causal factor when compared to the wide variety of naturally occurring chemicals to which all people are exposed (Ames et al. , 1987, 1990a; Gold et al., 1992). Whereas public perceptions tend to identify chemicals as being only synthetic and only synthetic chemicals as being toxic, every natural chemical is also toxic at some dose, and the vast proportion of chemicals to which humans are exposed are naturally occurring (see Section 38.2). Pesticide Residues in Food and Cancer Risk: A Critical Analysis Yeah but the point is not about synthetic vs organic, it's about the scale of using, and production process that discard environmental cost before profit. That's like the fifth time I repeat this point.
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Cayman Islands24199 Posts
On October 25 2014 00:34 WhiteDog wrote:
If your point is that the real problem is a problem of usage, then we agree. no, some of the natural ones are categorically more toxic.
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Cayman Islands24199 Posts
you do realize the only criteria for selection of 'natural' or 'organic' is that they are not synthesized chemically? this is a piss poor condition for selecting environmentally friendly chemicals, many of which have been developed for the very purpose of minimizing environmental impact.
the issue of farming practice is however real and urgent, but you can also use best available practices together with the best chemicals for much better effect. i don't see why large scale factory farming is suddenly caused by synthetic chemical use or GM technology.
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On October 25 2014 00:36 oneofthem wrote:Show nested quote +On October 25 2014 00:34 WhiteDog wrote:
If your point is that the real problem is a problem of usage, then we agree. no, some of the natural ones are categorically more toxic. Some natural are more toxic than some synthetic yes, what's your point ?
On October 25 2014 00:40 oneofthem wrote: you do realize the only criteria for selection of 'natural' or 'organic' is that they are not synthesized chemically? this is a piss poor condition for selecting environmentally friendly chemicals, many of which have been developed for the very purpose of minimizing environmental impact.
the issue of farming practice is however real and urgent, but you can also use best available practices together with the best chemicals for much better effect. i don't see why large scale factory farming is suddenly caused by synthetic chemical use or GM technology. And do you even read my post ? I never said using only natural pesticides is the way to go, I said we should think on the scale and the production process, maybe you can continue talking to yourself some more. Or maybe you consider that pesticides overall have no impact on environment, being natural or synthetics ?
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Cayman Islands24199 Posts
i was only challenging specific claims you've made, such as "natural pesticides should be used ... because environment" or some such. there was nothing about scale when you made those remarks. maybe read your own post?
ok let' me directly quote you here.
Natural pesticides have less impact on environment and health, so using more of them is less of a problem.
so this is obviously a clear statement on impact per unit, not some quantity point. it would not even make any sense if you were talking about scale of use here.
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On October 25 2014 00:44 oneofthem wrote: i was only challenging specific claims you've made, such as "natural pesticides should be used ... because environment" or some such. there was nothing about scale when you made those remarks. maybe read your own post? Yeah and five posts before I talked about reasonable agriculture - a specific status in France - that use pesticides (no distinctions between synthetical or natural) but under a certain scale. So I was pretty clear that I was not necessarily opposing natural and synthetic, just the scale of using.
I thought natural were less harmful, yes. Turns out it's not always the case, how does that change my point ?
And just under the post you linked I wrote :
To be fair, natural pesticides are not the solution but at the very least let's control this more and think on a bigger plan.
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Cayman Islands24199 Posts
well now you have abandoned the point on natural pesticides and whatnot. mission accomplished! where's my monsanto dollars
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On October 25 2014 00:52 oneofthem wrote: well now you have abandoned the point on natural pesticides and whatnot. mission accomplished! where's my monsanto dollars So you push away most of my arguments, I suppose focusing on the distinction between natural and synthetic is your way of saying you can't really answer the real problem behind our agriculture process.
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there was never an argument on the need for better farming methods and whatnot
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On October 25 2014 01:05 oneofthem wrote: there was never an argument on the need for better farming methods and whatnot Well that was my whole point, and how GMO is nothing but a tool that support the same methods - it is not produced in order to lessen the impact on environment, nor does it is made in order to protect or enhance biodiversity, but it is only create in order to increase productivity and facilitate the usage of pesticides. Not to mention that it goes with legal practice and contract that ensure a complete dependancy of the farmers.
But well there's no argument you're right.
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it does not facilitate the use of herbicides, rather, herbicides were and will be used whether you have GM or not. large scale farming came before GM seeds anyway, with hybrid seeds having monoculture genes as well. this is just a separate problem entirely.
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On October 25 2014 01:16 oneofthem wrote: it does not facilitate the use of herbicides, rather, herbicides were and will be used whether you have GM or not. large scale farming came before GM seeds anyway, with hybrid seeds having monoculture genes as well. this is just a separate problem entirely. Yes it does facilitate the use of herbicides. Two kinds of GM crops exist - those that produce a pesticide from within the plant, and those that confer herbicide resistance to a crop. The vast majority of cultivated GMO have herbicide tolerance and this is the reason why there is an increase in herbicid usage after the arrival of GMO - this has been discussed already. Organic food is not only about using natural pesticides by the way, it's about using trap or natural pest control such as coccinella. Monoculture is also vastly different with and without GMO, as even in monoculture non GMO the crop diversity is way higher. It's true that the real reasons as to why the diversity is less with GMO has nothing to do with the technology in itself tho.
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we've been over this already.
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If all 50 states legalized marijuana and the federal government ended prohibition of the plant, the marijuana industry in the United States would be worth $35 billion just six years from now.
That's according to a new report from GreenWave Advisors, a research and advisory firm that serves the emerging marijuana industry in the U.S., which found that if all 50 states and the federal government legalized cannabis, combined sales for both medical and retail marijuana could balloon to $35 billion a year by 2020.
If the federal government doesn't end prohibition and the trajectory of state legalization continues on its current path, with more, but not all, states legalizing marijuana in some form, the industry in 2020 would still be worth $21 billion, GreenWave projects.
In its $21 billion 2020 model, GreenWave predicts 12 states plus the District of Columbia to have legalized recreational marijuana (besides Colorado and Washington, which legalized it in 2012). Those states are: Alaska, Arizona, California, Hawaii, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Nevada, New Hampshire, Oregon, Rhode Island and Vermont, according to data GreenWave provided to The Huffington Post from the full report. By that same year, the model assumes, 37 states will have legalized medical marijuana. To date, 23 states and the District of Columbia have legalized marijuana for medical use.
Source
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On October 24 2014 16:48 WhiteDog wrote:Show nested quote +On October 24 2014 08:41 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On October 24 2014 08:27 WhiteDog wrote:On October 24 2014 08:11 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On October 24 2014 07:47 WhiteDog wrote:On October 24 2014 07:29 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On October 24 2014 06:43 WhiteDog wrote: When I buy vegetable, I check their origin. It's an information that is always given, and it has no impact on the quality of the food : I do that because I prevent myself from buying vegetable from countries that have bad labor pratice / economic practice / environmental practice. I don't want my money to be feeding such practice, and I hope (while knowing it's completly ridiculous) that by my selective buying I will promote better practice in said countries. It has nothing to do with the idea of a threat of the said food in itself and I saw no people in this thread saying that consuming GM food will increase you chance to get cancer : it is the business practice and the agricultural practice that is in question, and the impact of those practice on the world at large. GMO, most of the time, comes with a whole package, that goes from shady legal practice - altho necessary, to a certain extent, to assure profit - intensive farming and monoculture that, from my perspective, is not beneficial to our society. It is for that kind of reason that I'd prefer a label - and yes it's hypocritical because there are plenty of other goods that bear the same kind or even more problems than the production of GMO, but on those I have no knowledge.
There is also a complete difference between the fact that farmer select the best crop at the end of each year and end up genetically selecting the best strain, with the GMO, for obvious reasons - what it mean for the balance of power between the farmer and the food industry for exemple. Again, Jonny showing what he knows best, nitpicking others and making broad and easy metaphore to support his point of view. How am I nitpicking? My 'broad and easy metaphor' is how the Washington State Academy of Science put it, and how Neil deGrasse Tyson put it as well ( link, link, link). There just isn't a substantial difference between non-GMO genetic modification and GMO genetic modification. Many non-GMO genetic modification techniques use genetic analysis to help isolate the desired traits. It's really not a whole lot different from GMOs. Romanticizing farmers dutifully keeping the best seeds at the end of the harvest is recalling a past that hasn't existed for a long time. Example: In part to circumvent the controversy surrounding GMOs, fruit and vegetable breeders at both universities and private companies have been turning to an alternative way of modifying the food we eat: a sophisticated approach known as marker-assisted breeding that marries traditional plant breeding with rapidly improving tools for isolating and examining alleles and other sequences of DNA that serve as “markers” for specific traits. Although these tools are not brand-new, they are becoming faster, cheaper and more useful all the time. “The impact of genomics on plant breeding is almost beyond my comprehension,” says Shelley Jansky, a potato breeder who works for both the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the University of Wisconsin–Madison. “To give an example: I had a grad student here five years ago who spent three years trying to identify DNA sequences associated with disease resistance. After hundreds of hours in the lab he ended up with 18 genetic markers. Now I have grad students who can get 8,000 markers for each of 200 individual plants within a matter of weeks. Progress has been exponential in last five years.” linkAs for the business practices that come with GMOs, yes, some 'bad' things occur, but some good things occur as well. Lumping them together doesn't help anyone. GMOs often help farmers use less chemicals and focus on safer chemicals to grow crops - that's a good thing! Yet you want a GMO label so you can ... make bad decisions like assume that GMOs mean negative environmental consequences? Well the academy of science has an incomplete vision on the subject, and that's perfectly normal in a sense since they're only scientist - their activity is based on cutting reality into "objects" simple enough to be understood. My political and economic vision see this metaphore as stupid. Nitpicking is your opus operatum. I've already discussed my problem with GMO and modern agriculture at large in previous posts. I don't believe any good will come from GMO who are commercialized by the private sector, but maybe that's my snobism and ignorance who's talking. May I add that GMO does not necessarily mean less chemicals. http://www.forbes.com/sites/bethhoffman/2013/07/02/gmo-crops-mean-more-herbicide-not-less/Over the past 15 years, farmers around the world have planted ever larger tracts of genetically engineered crops.
According to the USDA, in 2012 more than 93 percent of soy planted was “herbicide tolerant,” engineered to withstand herbicides (sold by the same companies who patent and sell the seeds). Likewise, 73 percent of all corn now is also genetically modified to withstand chemicals produced to kill competing weeds.
One of the main arguments behind creating these engineered crops is that farmers then need to use less herbicide and pesticide. This makes farms more eco-friendly, say proponents of genetically modified (GM) crops, and GM seeds also allow farmers to spend less on “inputs” (chemicals), thereby making a greater profit.
But a new study released by Food & Water Watch yesterday finds the goal of reduced chemical use has not panned out as planned. In fact, according to the USDA and EPA data used in the report, the quick adoption of genetically engineered crops by farmers has increased herbicide use over the past 9 years in the U.S. The report follows on the heels of another such study by Washington State University research professor Charles Benbrook just last year.
Both reports focus on “superweeds.” It turns out that spraying a pesticide repeatedly selects for weeds which also resist the chemical. Ever more resistant weeds are then bred, able to withstand increasing amounts – and often different forms – of herbicide.
At the center of debate is the pesticide glyphosate, the active ingredient in Monsanto Round Up. Food & Water Watch found that the “total volume of glyphosate applied to the three biggest GE crops — corn, cotton and soybeans — increased 10-fold from 15 million pounds in 1996 to 159 million pounds in 2012.” Overall pesticide use decreased only in the first few years GE crops were used (42 percent between 1998 and 2001) and has since then risen by 26 percent from 2001 to 2010.. Plantings went up as well, so your source isn't really accurate. Here's USDA: Herbicide use dipped down then back up a bit, but... Despite the relatively minor effect HT [Herbicide-tolerant] crop adoption has had on overall herbicide usage, HT crop adoption has enabled farmers to substitute glyphosate (which many HT crops are designed to tolerate) for more traditional herbicides. Because glyphosate is significantly less toxic and less persistent than traditional herbicides, the net impact of HT crop adoption is an improvement in environmental quality and a reduction in health risks. linkBut please keep citing misinformation, you're making my case for me Edit: To GH - if you plant more corn you use more chemicals. If you switch to a safer chemical you will use more of the safer chemical. My source is perfectly accurate, and I never said that chemicals went up with GMO : I carefully said that it does not necessarily mean a decrease in chemical usage. I know perfectly well that the ratio between chemical and production hasn't went up, but absolute chemicals has gone up. GMO is used as a tool to continue and pursue a specific agricultural production process that is, in my opinion, detrimental to our society. The simple fact that weed create a resistance to the heavy usage of said pesticide will force Mosanto and the like to create new pesticide, more efficient in killing weed and also more dangerous for the eco system. In the long run, well you might understand the end result. Citing absolute numbers is bad. GMOs have lead to a decrease in insecticide use, and a move to safer herbicides. The only other statement you can make is that organics would have lead to greater reduction in insecticide / herbicide use. An increase in chemical use due to an increase in production is NOT the same as an increase in chemical use due to GMOs. I know you understand this... Having to create new pesticides has nothing to do with GMOs. Resistances to glycines has been weaker than with many other herbicides: + Show Spoiler + Absolute numbers are not bad, and again that's your opus operatum at play, unable to understand that only absolute numbers are relevant if you want to evaluate the impact of a specific production process on environment or health : it depends on what you want to witness. That there is an increase in productivity, we all agree, but it does not change the production process, GMO today are only engineered to improve productivity and facilitate the use of pesticides - which is completly understandable since Mosanto produce both the GMO and the pesticides. Stop discarding all informations that does not go in your way please ? The same goes for your resistance to glycines : what I see from the graph you gave is that glycines are only heavily used since the end of 1990 and not that the resistance to them is weaker. A quick search tells me 2000 is also the date where the pattern became public for exemple or that RoundUp was the most sold out herbicides by the end of 1997. Note that glycines are not the only chemicals present in RoundUp and is actually pretty useless by itself (it does not penetrate the plant without its adjuvants). Those adjuvants usually have more toxicity, like the POE-15. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23000283Show nested quote + The compositions in adjuvants were analyzed by mass spectrometry. Here we demonstrate that all formulations are more toxic than glyphosate, and we separated experimentally three groups of formulations differentially toxic according to their concentrations in ethoxylated adjuvants. Among them, POE-15 clearly appears to be the most toxic principle against human cells, even if others are not excluded. It begins to be active with negative dose-dependent effects on cellular respiration and membrane integrity between 1 and 3ppm, at environmental/occupational doses. We demonstrate in addition that POE-15 induces necrosis when its first micellization process occurs, by contrast to glyphosate which is known to promote endocrine disrupting effects after entering cells. Altogether, these results challenge the establishment of guidance values such as the acceptable daily intake of glyphosate, when these are mostly based on a long term in vivo test of glyphosate alone. Since pesticides are always used with adjuvants that could change their toxicity, the necessity to assess their whole formulations as mixtures becomes obvious. This challenges the concept of active principle of pesticides for non-target species. And yes the resistance is absolutly normal, maybe the solution would be to discuss on production / usage of chemical (as opposed to natural pesticides and herbicides) and solve some of the output problem by increasing supply, etc. Or to say in economic language, the optimum of production is not necessarily the highest production, but a level of production that would take the impact on environment and health into account. The hell is wrong with you? Absolute use went up because production went up. Production didn't go up because "fuck it let's grow more food", production went up because during that period there was a global boom in agriculture driven by demand from developing countries. Someone would have grown more food or people would have faced food shortages. Trying to link increased production of food to 'use of GMOs' is just so flawed that I'm having a hard time understanding how you're even coming to that conclusion.
So what that GMOs 'facilitate' the use of pesticides? Money 'facilitates' the use of pesticides. Better ban money! So does gravity. Better ban that too! GMOs have lead to less chemicals used. Whether they 'facilitate' the use or not is a red herring. The introduction of GMOs have contributed to a healthier environment due to less and less harmful use of chemicals. Amazingly, you're arguing the exact opposite of what the facts tell us.
It seems like you've decided, without looking to the facts first, that GMOs are bad and you're willing to grab onto whatever flimsy rationale you can find to maintain that belief.
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On October 25 2014 02:04 JonnyBNoHo wrote:Show nested quote +On October 24 2014 16:48 WhiteDog wrote:On October 24 2014 08:41 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On October 24 2014 08:27 WhiteDog wrote:On October 24 2014 08:11 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On October 24 2014 07:47 WhiteDog wrote:On October 24 2014 07:29 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On October 24 2014 06:43 WhiteDog wrote: When I buy vegetable, I check their origin. It's an information that is always given, and it has no impact on the quality of the food : I do that because I prevent myself from buying vegetable from countries that have bad labor pratice / economic practice / environmental practice. I don't want my money to be feeding such practice, and I hope (while knowing it's completly ridiculous) that by my selective buying I will promote better practice in said countries. It has nothing to do with the idea of a threat of the said food in itself and I saw no people in this thread saying that consuming GM food will increase you chance to get cancer : it is the business practice and the agricultural practice that is in question, and the impact of those practice on the world at large. GMO, most of the time, comes with a whole package, that goes from shady legal practice - altho necessary, to a certain extent, to assure profit - intensive farming and monoculture that, from my perspective, is not beneficial to our society. It is for that kind of reason that I'd prefer a label - and yes it's hypocritical because there are plenty of other goods that bear the same kind or even more problems than the production of GMO, but on those I have no knowledge.
There is also a complete difference between the fact that farmer select the best crop at the end of each year and end up genetically selecting the best strain, with the GMO, for obvious reasons - what it mean for the balance of power between the farmer and the food industry for exemple. Again, Jonny showing what he knows best, nitpicking others and making broad and easy metaphore to support his point of view. How am I nitpicking? My 'broad and easy metaphor' is how the Washington State Academy of Science put it, and how Neil deGrasse Tyson put it as well ( link, link, link). There just isn't a substantial difference between non-GMO genetic modification and GMO genetic modification. Many non-GMO genetic modification techniques use genetic analysis to help isolate the desired traits. It's really not a whole lot different from GMOs. Romanticizing farmers dutifully keeping the best seeds at the end of the harvest is recalling a past that hasn't existed for a long time. Example: In part to circumvent the controversy surrounding GMOs, fruit and vegetable breeders at both universities and private companies have been turning to an alternative way of modifying the food we eat: a sophisticated approach known as marker-assisted breeding that marries traditional plant breeding with rapidly improving tools for isolating and examining alleles and other sequences of DNA that serve as “markers” for specific traits. Although these tools are not brand-new, they are becoming faster, cheaper and more useful all the time. “The impact of genomics on plant breeding is almost beyond my comprehension,” says Shelley Jansky, a potato breeder who works for both the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the University of Wisconsin–Madison. “To give an example: I had a grad student here five years ago who spent three years trying to identify DNA sequences associated with disease resistance. After hundreds of hours in the lab he ended up with 18 genetic markers. Now I have grad students who can get 8,000 markers for each of 200 individual plants within a matter of weeks. Progress has been exponential in last five years.” linkAs for the business practices that come with GMOs, yes, some 'bad' things occur, but some good things occur as well. Lumping them together doesn't help anyone. GMOs often help farmers use less chemicals and focus on safer chemicals to grow crops - that's a good thing! Yet you want a GMO label so you can ... make bad decisions like assume that GMOs mean negative environmental consequences? Well the academy of science has an incomplete vision on the subject, and that's perfectly normal in a sense since they're only scientist - their activity is based on cutting reality into "objects" simple enough to be understood. My political and economic vision see this metaphore as stupid. Nitpicking is your opus operatum. I've already discussed my problem with GMO and modern agriculture at large in previous posts. I don't believe any good will come from GMO who are commercialized by the private sector, but maybe that's my snobism and ignorance who's talking. May I add that GMO does not necessarily mean less chemicals. http://www.forbes.com/sites/bethhoffman/2013/07/02/gmo-crops-mean-more-herbicide-not-less/Over the past 15 years, farmers around the world have planted ever larger tracts of genetically engineered crops.
According to the USDA, in 2012 more than 93 percent of soy planted was “herbicide tolerant,” engineered to withstand herbicides (sold by the same companies who patent and sell the seeds). Likewise, 73 percent of all corn now is also genetically modified to withstand chemicals produced to kill competing weeds.
One of the main arguments behind creating these engineered crops is that farmers then need to use less herbicide and pesticide. This makes farms more eco-friendly, say proponents of genetically modified (GM) crops, and GM seeds also allow farmers to spend less on “inputs” (chemicals), thereby making a greater profit.
But a new study released by Food & Water Watch yesterday finds the goal of reduced chemical use has not panned out as planned. In fact, according to the USDA and EPA data used in the report, the quick adoption of genetically engineered crops by farmers has increased herbicide use over the past 9 years in the U.S. The report follows on the heels of another such study by Washington State University research professor Charles Benbrook just last year.
Both reports focus on “superweeds.” It turns out that spraying a pesticide repeatedly selects for weeds which also resist the chemical. Ever more resistant weeds are then bred, able to withstand increasing amounts – and often different forms – of herbicide.
At the center of debate is the pesticide glyphosate, the active ingredient in Monsanto Round Up. Food & Water Watch found that the “total volume of glyphosate applied to the three biggest GE crops — corn, cotton and soybeans — increased 10-fold from 15 million pounds in 1996 to 159 million pounds in 2012.” Overall pesticide use decreased only in the first few years GE crops were used (42 percent between 1998 and 2001) and has since then risen by 26 percent from 2001 to 2010.. Plantings went up as well, so your source isn't really accurate. Here's USDA: Herbicide use dipped down then back up a bit, but... Despite the relatively minor effect HT [Herbicide-tolerant] crop adoption has had on overall herbicide usage, HT crop adoption has enabled farmers to substitute glyphosate (which many HT crops are designed to tolerate) for more traditional herbicides. Because glyphosate is significantly less toxic and less persistent than traditional herbicides, the net impact of HT crop adoption is an improvement in environmental quality and a reduction in health risks. linkBut please keep citing misinformation, you're making my case for me Edit: To GH - if you plant more corn you use more chemicals. If you switch to a safer chemical you will use more of the safer chemical. My source is perfectly accurate, and I never said that chemicals went up with GMO : I carefully said that it does not necessarily mean a decrease in chemical usage. I know perfectly well that the ratio between chemical and production hasn't went up, but absolute chemicals has gone up. GMO is used as a tool to continue and pursue a specific agricultural production process that is, in my opinion, detrimental to our society. The simple fact that weed create a resistance to the heavy usage of said pesticide will force Mosanto and the like to create new pesticide, more efficient in killing weed and also more dangerous for the eco system. In the long run, well you might understand the end result. Citing absolute numbers is bad. GMOs have lead to a decrease in insecticide use, and a move to safer herbicides. The only other statement you can make is that organics would have lead to greater reduction in insecticide / herbicide use. An increase in chemical use due to an increase in production is NOT the same as an increase in chemical use due to GMOs. I know you understand this... Having to create new pesticides has nothing to do with GMOs. Resistances to glycines has been weaker than with many other herbicides: + Show Spoiler + Absolute numbers are not bad, and again that's your opus operatum at play, unable to understand that only absolute numbers are relevant if you want to evaluate the impact of a specific production process on environment or health : it depends on what you want to witness. That there is an increase in productivity, we all agree, but it does not change the production process, GMO today are only engineered to improve productivity and facilitate the use of pesticides - which is completly understandable since Mosanto produce both the GMO and the pesticides. Stop discarding all informations that does not go in your way please ? The same goes for your resistance to glycines : what I see from the graph you gave is that glycines are only heavily used since the end of 1990 and not that the resistance to them is weaker. A quick search tells me 2000 is also the date where the pattern became public for exemple or that RoundUp was the most sold out herbicides by the end of 1997. Note that glycines are not the only chemicals present in RoundUp and is actually pretty useless by itself (it does not penetrate the plant without its adjuvants). Those adjuvants usually have more toxicity, like the POE-15. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23000283 The compositions in adjuvants were analyzed by mass spectrometry. Here we demonstrate that all formulations are more toxic than glyphosate, and we separated experimentally three groups of formulations differentially toxic according to their concentrations in ethoxylated adjuvants. Among them, POE-15 clearly appears to be the most toxic principle against human cells, even if others are not excluded. It begins to be active with negative dose-dependent effects on cellular respiration and membrane integrity between 1 and 3ppm, at environmental/occupational doses. We demonstrate in addition that POE-15 induces necrosis when its first micellization process occurs, by contrast to glyphosate which is known to promote endocrine disrupting effects after entering cells. Altogether, these results challenge the establishment of guidance values such as the acceptable daily intake of glyphosate, when these are mostly based on a long term in vivo test of glyphosate alone. Since pesticides are always used with adjuvants that could change their toxicity, the necessity to assess their whole formulations as mixtures becomes obvious. This challenges the concept of active principle of pesticides for non-target species. And yes the resistance is absolutly normal, maybe the solution would be to discuss on production / usage of chemical (as opposed to natural pesticides and herbicides) and solve some of the output problem by increasing supply, etc. Or to say in economic language, the optimum of production is not necessarily the highest production, but a level of production that would take the impact on environment and health into account. The hell is wrong with you? Absolute use went up because production went up. Production didn't go up because "fuck it let's grow more food", production went up because during that period there was a global boom in agriculture driven by demand from developing countries. Someone would have grown more food or people would have faced food shortages. Trying to link increased production of food to 'use of GMOs' is just so flawed that I'm having a hard time understanding how you're even coming to that conclusion. So what that GMOs 'facilitate' the use of pesticides? Money 'facilitates' the use of pesticides. Better ban money! So does gravity. Better ban that too! GMOs have lead to less chemicals used. Whether they 'facilitate' the use or not is a red herring. The introduction of GMOs have contributed to a healthier environment due to less and less harmful use of chemicals. Amazingly, you're arguing the exact opposite of what the facts tell us. It seems like you've decided, without looking to the facts first, that GMOs are bad and you're willing to grab onto whatever flimsy rationale you can find to maintain that belief. You're the one who is not looking at the fact.
GMO haven't created a healthier environment, the use of herbicide per unit produced has gone up since the introduction of GMO, and only insecticide as gone down : the end result is not a healthier environment. Overall, there is an absolute increase in pesticide and herbicide use, so the production process still create more environmental damage than before, with or without GMO, altho it also produce more food. Meanwhile, there is a huge waste of a substantial part of production, people who just eat more than they should, and others that don't have access to the necessary food : increasing production is not necessarily the only solution. Crop rotation has gone down, diversity too, farmers are more dependant on specific firms than they were before. Plus I never defended the idea of an absolute ban on GMO, but you're so talking alone in your own world that you don't actually read what people write but make assumptions. But continue to live in your fairy land, and see the stats how you want them to.
Altho the ban in France is a great thing : we don't really need Mosanto messing with our agriculture.
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On October 25 2014 03:00 WhiteDog wrote:Show nested quote +On October 25 2014 02:04 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On October 24 2014 16:48 WhiteDog wrote:On October 24 2014 08:41 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On October 24 2014 08:27 WhiteDog wrote:On October 24 2014 08:11 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On October 24 2014 07:47 WhiteDog wrote:On October 24 2014 07:29 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On October 24 2014 06:43 WhiteDog wrote: When I buy vegetable, I check their origin. It's an information that is always given, and it has no impact on the quality of the food : I do that because I prevent myself from buying vegetable from countries that have bad labor pratice / economic practice / environmental practice. I don't want my money to be feeding such practice, and I hope (while knowing it's completly ridiculous) that by my selective buying I will promote better practice in said countries. It has nothing to do with the idea of a threat of the said food in itself and I saw no people in this thread saying that consuming GM food will increase you chance to get cancer : it is the business practice and the agricultural practice that is in question, and the impact of those practice on the world at large. GMO, most of the time, comes with a whole package, that goes from shady legal practice - altho necessary, to a certain extent, to assure profit - intensive farming and monoculture that, from my perspective, is not beneficial to our society. It is for that kind of reason that I'd prefer a label - and yes it's hypocritical because there are plenty of other goods that bear the same kind or even more problems than the production of GMO, but on those I have no knowledge.
There is also a complete difference between the fact that farmer select the best crop at the end of each year and end up genetically selecting the best strain, with the GMO, for obvious reasons - what it mean for the balance of power between the farmer and the food industry for exemple. Again, Jonny showing what he knows best, nitpicking others and making broad and easy metaphore to support his point of view. How am I nitpicking? My 'broad and easy metaphor' is how the Washington State Academy of Science put it, and how Neil deGrasse Tyson put it as well ( link, link, link). There just isn't a substantial difference between non-GMO genetic modification and GMO genetic modification. Many non-GMO genetic modification techniques use genetic analysis to help isolate the desired traits. It's really not a whole lot different from GMOs. Romanticizing farmers dutifully keeping the best seeds at the end of the harvest is recalling a past that hasn't existed for a long time. Example: In part to circumvent the controversy surrounding GMOs, fruit and vegetable breeders at both universities and private companies have been turning to an alternative way of modifying the food we eat: a sophisticated approach known as marker-assisted breeding that marries traditional plant breeding with rapidly improving tools for isolating and examining alleles and other sequences of DNA that serve as “markers” for specific traits. Although these tools are not brand-new, they are becoming faster, cheaper and more useful all the time. “The impact of genomics on plant breeding is almost beyond my comprehension,” says Shelley Jansky, a potato breeder who works for both the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the University of Wisconsin–Madison. “To give an example: I had a grad student here five years ago who spent three years trying to identify DNA sequences associated with disease resistance. After hundreds of hours in the lab he ended up with 18 genetic markers. Now I have grad students who can get 8,000 markers for each of 200 individual plants within a matter of weeks. Progress has been exponential in last five years.” linkAs for the business practices that come with GMOs, yes, some 'bad' things occur, but some good things occur as well. Lumping them together doesn't help anyone. GMOs often help farmers use less chemicals and focus on safer chemicals to grow crops - that's a good thing! Yet you want a GMO label so you can ... make bad decisions like assume that GMOs mean negative environmental consequences? Well the academy of science has an incomplete vision on the subject, and that's perfectly normal in a sense since they're only scientist - their activity is based on cutting reality into "objects" simple enough to be understood. My political and economic vision see this metaphore as stupid. Nitpicking is your opus operatum. I've already discussed my problem with GMO and modern agriculture at large in previous posts. I don't believe any good will come from GMO who are commercialized by the private sector, but maybe that's my snobism and ignorance who's talking. May I add that GMO does not necessarily mean less chemicals. http://www.forbes.com/sites/bethhoffman/2013/07/02/gmo-crops-mean-more-herbicide-not-less/Over the past 15 years, farmers around the world have planted ever larger tracts of genetically engineered crops.
According to the USDA, in 2012 more than 93 percent of soy planted was “herbicide tolerant,” engineered to withstand herbicides (sold by the same companies who patent and sell the seeds). Likewise, 73 percent of all corn now is also genetically modified to withstand chemicals produced to kill competing weeds.
One of the main arguments behind creating these engineered crops is that farmers then need to use less herbicide and pesticide. This makes farms more eco-friendly, say proponents of genetically modified (GM) crops, and GM seeds also allow farmers to spend less on “inputs” (chemicals), thereby making a greater profit.
But a new study released by Food & Water Watch yesterday finds the goal of reduced chemical use has not panned out as planned. In fact, according to the USDA and EPA data used in the report, the quick adoption of genetically engineered crops by farmers has increased herbicide use over the past 9 years in the U.S. The report follows on the heels of another such study by Washington State University research professor Charles Benbrook just last year.
Both reports focus on “superweeds.” It turns out that spraying a pesticide repeatedly selects for weeds which also resist the chemical. Ever more resistant weeds are then bred, able to withstand increasing amounts – and often different forms – of herbicide.
At the center of debate is the pesticide glyphosate, the active ingredient in Monsanto Round Up. Food & Water Watch found that the “total volume of glyphosate applied to the three biggest GE crops — corn, cotton and soybeans — increased 10-fold from 15 million pounds in 1996 to 159 million pounds in 2012.” Overall pesticide use decreased only in the first few years GE crops were used (42 percent between 1998 and 2001) and has since then risen by 26 percent from 2001 to 2010.. Plantings went up as well, so your source isn't really accurate. Here's USDA: Herbicide use dipped down then back up a bit, but... Despite the relatively minor effect HT [Herbicide-tolerant] crop adoption has had on overall herbicide usage, HT crop adoption has enabled farmers to substitute glyphosate (which many HT crops are designed to tolerate) for more traditional herbicides. Because glyphosate is significantly less toxic and less persistent than traditional herbicides, the net impact of HT crop adoption is an improvement in environmental quality and a reduction in health risks. linkBut please keep citing misinformation, you're making my case for me Edit: To GH - if you plant more corn you use more chemicals. If you switch to a safer chemical you will use more of the safer chemical. My source is perfectly accurate, and I never said that chemicals went up with GMO : I carefully said that it does not necessarily mean a decrease in chemical usage. I know perfectly well that the ratio between chemical and production hasn't went up, but absolute chemicals has gone up. GMO is used as a tool to continue and pursue a specific agricultural production process that is, in my opinion, detrimental to our society. The simple fact that weed create a resistance to the heavy usage of said pesticide will force Mosanto and the like to create new pesticide, more efficient in killing weed and also more dangerous for the eco system. In the long run, well you might understand the end result. Citing absolute numbers is bad. GMOs have lead to a decrease in insecticide use, and a move to safer herbicides. The only other statement you can make is that organics would have lead to greater reduction in insecticide / herbicide use. An increase in chemical use due to an increase in production is NOT the same as an increase in chemical use due to GMOs. I know you understand this... Having to create new pesticides has nothing to do with GMOs. Resistances to glycines has been weaker than with many other herbicides: + Show Spoiler + Absolute numbers are not bad, and again that's your opus operatum at play, unable to understand that only absolute numbers are relevant if you want to evaluate the impact of a specific production process on environment or health : it depends on what you want to witness. That there is an increase in productivity, we all agree, but it does not change the production process, GMO today are only engineered to improve productivity and facilitate the use of pesticides - which is completly understandable since Mosanto produce both the GMO and the pesticides. Stop discarding all informations that does not go in your way please ? The same goes for your resistance to glycines : what I see from the graph you gave is that glycines are only heavily used since the end of 1990 and not that the resistance to them is weaker. A quick search tells me 2000 is also the date where the pattern became public for exemple or that RoundUp was the most sold out herbicides by the end of 1997. Note that glycines are not the only chemicals present in RoundUp and is actually pretty useless by itself (it does not penetrate the plant without its adjuvants). Those adjuvants usually have more toxicity, like the POE-15. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23000283 The compositions in adjuvants were analyzed by mass spectrometry. Here we demonstrate that all formulations are more toxic than glyphosate, and we separated experimentally three groups of formulations differentially toxic according to their concentrations in ethoxylated adjuvants. Among them, POE-15 clearly appears to be the most toxic principle against human cells, even if others are not excluded. It begins to be active with negative dose-dependent effects on cellular respiration and membrane integrity between 1 and 3ppm, at environmental/occupational doses. We demonstrate in addition that POE-15 induces necrosis when its first micellization process occurs, by contrast to glyphosate which is known to promote endocrine disrupting effects after entering cells. Altogether, these results challenge the establishment of guidance values such as the acceptable daily intake of glyphosate, when these are mostly based on a long term in vivo test of glyphosate alone. Since pesticides are always used with adjuvants that could change their toxicity, the necessity to assess their whole formulations as mixtures becomes obvious. This challenges the concept of active principle of pesticides for non-target species. And yes the resistance is absolutly normal, maybe the solution would be to discuss on production / usage of chemical (as opposed to natural pesticides and herbicides) and solve some of the output problem by increasing supply, etc. Or to say in economic language, the optimum of production is not necessarily the highest production, but a level of production that would take the impact on environment and health into account. The hell is wrong with you? Absolute use went up because production went up. Production didn't go up because "fuck it let's grow more food", production went up because during that period there was a global boom in agriculture driven by demand from developing countries. Someone would have grown more food or people would have faced food shortages. Trying to link increased production of food to 'use of GMOs' is just so flawed that I'm having a hard time understanding how you're even coming to that conclusion. So what that GMOs 'facilitate' the use of pesticides? Money 'facilitates' the use of pesticides. Better ban money! So does gravity. Better ban that too! GMOs have lead to less chemicals used. Whether they 'facilitate' the use or not is a red herring. The introduction of GMOs have contributed to a healthier environment due to less and less harmful use of chemicals. Amazingly, you're arguing the exact opposite of what the facts tell us. It seems like you've decided, without looking to the facts first, that GMOs are bad and you're willing to grab onto whatever flimsy rationale you can find to maintain that belief. You're the one who is not looking at the fact. GMO haven't created a healthier environment, the use of herbicide per unit produced has gone up since the introduction of GMO, and only insecticide as gone down : the end result is not a healthier environment. Overall, there is an absolute increase in pesticide and herbicide use, so the production process still create more environmental damage than before, with or without GMO, altho it also produce more food. Meanwhile, there is a huge waste of a substantial part of production, people who just eat more than they should, and others that don't have access to the necessary food : increasing production is not necessarily the only solution. Crop rotation has gone down, diversity too, farmers are more dependant on specific firms than they were before. Plus I never defended the idea of an absolute ban on GMO, but you're so talking alone in your own world that you don't actually read what people write but make assumptions. But continue to live in your fairy land, and see the stats how you want them to. Altho the ban in France is a great thing : we don't really need Mosanto messing with our agriculture. No. I posted the facts - per unit use of chemicals has gone down. Moreover, the chemicals that are being used are safer. The net effect is a healthier environment.
I'll repeat from the USDA: Despite the relatively minor effect HT [Herbicide-tolerant] crop adoption has had on overall herbicide usage, HT crop adoption has enabled farmers to substitute glyphosate (which many HT crops are designed to tolerate) for more traditional herbicides. Because glyphosate is significantly less toxic and less persistent than traditional herbicides, the net impact of HT crop adoption is an improvement in environmental quality and a reduction in health risks.
Facts are facts. If you are going to refuse to accept facts for what they are, there's no point in discussing this with you any further.
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On October 25 2014 03:15 JonnyBNoHo wrote:Show nested quote +On October 25 2014 03:00 WhiteDog wrote:On October 25 2014 02:04 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On October 24 2014 16:48 WhiteDog wrote:On October 24 2014 08:41 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On October 24 2014 08:27 WhiteDog wrote:On October 24 2014 08:11 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On October 24 2014 07:47 WhiteDog wrote:On October 24 2014 07:29 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On October 24 2014 06:43 WhiteDog wrote: When I buy vegetable, I check their origin. It's an information that is always given, and it has no impact on the quality of the food : I do that because I prevent myself from buying vegetable from countries that have bad labor pratice / economic practice / environmental practice. I don't want my money to be feeding such practice, and I hope (while knowing it's completly ridiculous) that by my selective buying I will promote better practice in said countries. It has nothing to do with the idea of a threat of the said food in itself and I saw no people in this thread saying that consuming GM food will increase you chance to get cancer : it is the business practice and the agricultural practice that is in question, and the impact of those practice on the world at large. GMO, most of the time, comes with a whole package, that goes from shady legal practice - altho necessary, to a certain extent, to assure profit - intensive farming and monoculture that, from my perspective, is not beneficial to our society. It is for that kind of reason that I'd prefer a label - and yes it's hypocritical because there are plenty of other goods that bear the same kind or even more problems than the production of GMO, but on those I have no knowledge.
There is also a complete difference between the fact that farmer select the best crop at the end of each year and end up genetically selecting the best strain, with the GMO, for obvious reasons - what it mean for the balance of power between the farmer and the food industry for exemple. Again, Jonny showing what he knows best, nitpicking others and making broad and easy metaphore to support his point of view. How am I nitpicking? My 'broad and easy metaphor' is how the Washington State Academy of Science put it, and how Neil deGrasse Tyson put it as well ( link, link, link). There just isn't a substantial difference between non-GMO genetic modification and GMO genetic modification. Many non-GMO genetic modification techniques use genetic analysis to help isolate the desired traits. It's really not a whole lot different from GMOs. Romanticizing farmers dutifully keeping the best seeds at the end of the harvest is recalling a past that hasn't existed for a long time. Example: In part to circumvent the controversy surrounding GMOs, fruit and vegetable breeders at both universities and private companies have been turning to an alternative way of modifying the food we eat: a sophisticated approach known as marker-assisted breeding that marries traditional plant breeding with rapidly improving tools for isolating and examining alleles and other sequences of DNA that serve as “markers” for specific traits. Although these tools are not brand-new, they are becoming faster, cheaper and more useful all the time. “The impact of genomics on plant breeding is almost beyond my comprehension,” says Shelley Jansky, a potato breeder who works for both the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the University of Wisconsin–Madison. “To give an example: I had a grad student here five years ago who spent three years trying to identify DNA sequences associated with disease resistance. After hundreds of hours in the lab he ended up with 18 genetic markers. Now I have grad students who can get 8,000 markers for each of 200 individual plants within a matter of weeks. Progress has been exponential in last five years.” linkAs for the business practices that come with GMOs, yes, some 'bad' things occur, but some good things occur as well. Lumping them together doesn't help anyone. GMOs often help farmers use less chemicals and focus on safer chemicals to grow crops - that's a good thing! Yet you want a GMO label so you can ... make bad decisions like assume that GMOs mean negative environmental consequences? Well the academy of science has an incomplete vision on the subject, and that's perfectly normal in a sense since they're only scientist - their activity is based on cutting reality into "objects" simple enough to be understood. My political and economic vision see this metaphore as stupid. Nitpicking is your opus operatum. I've already discussed my problem with GMO and modern agriculture at large in previous posts. I don't believe any good will come from GMO who are commercialized by the private sector, but maybe that's my snobism and ignorance who's talking. May I add that GMO does not necessarily mean less chemicals. http://www.forbes.com/sites/bethhoffman/2013/07/02/gmo-crops-mean-more-herbicide-not-less/Over the past 15 years, farmers around the world have planted ever larger tracts of genetically engineered crops.
According to the USDA, in 2012 more than 93 percent of soy planted was “herbicide tolerant,” engineered to withstand herbicides (sold by the same companies who patent and sell the seeds). Likewise, 73 percent of all corn now is also genetically modified to withstand chemicals produced to kill competing weeds.
One of the main arguments behind creating these engineered crops is that farmers then need to use less herbicide and pesticide. This makes farms more eco-friendly, say proponents of genetically modified (GM) crops, and GM seeds also allow farmers to spend less on “inputs” (chemicals), thereby making a greater profit.
But a new study released by Food & Water Watch yesterday finds the goal of reduced chemical use has not panned out as planned. In fact, according to the USDA and EPA data used in the report, the quick adoption of genetically engineered crops by farmers has increased herbicide use over the past 9 years in the U.S. The report follows on the heels of another such study by Washington State University research professor Charles Benbrook just last year.
Both reports focus on “superweeds.” It turns out that spraying a pesticide repeatedly selects for weeds which also resist the chemical. Ever more resistant weeds are then bred, able to withstand increasing amounts – and often different forms – of herbicide.
At the center of debate is the pesticide glyphosate, the active ingredient in Monsanto Round Up. Food & Water Watch found that the “total volume of glyphosate applied to the three biggest GE crops — corn, cotton and soybeans — increased 10-fold from 15 million pounds in 1996 to 159 million pounds in 2012.” Overall pesticide use decreased only in the first few years GE crops were used (42 percent between 1998 and 2001) and has since then risen by 26 percent from 2001 to 2010.. Plantings went up as well, so your source isn't really accurate. Here's USDA: Herbicide use dipped down then back up a bit, but... Despite the relatively minor effect HT [Herbicide-tolerant] crop adoption has had on overall herbicide usage, HT crop adoption has enabled farmers to substitute glyphosate (which many HT crops are designed to tolerate) for more traditional herbicides. Because glyphosate is significantly less toxic and less persistent than traditional herbicides, the net impact of HT crop adoption is an improvement in environmental quality and a reduction in health risks. linkBut please keep citing misinformation, you're making my case for me Edit: To GH - if you plant more corn you use more chemicals. If you switch to a safer chemical you will use more of the safer chemical. My source is perfectly accurate, and I never said that chemicals went up with GMO : I carefully said that it does not necessarily mean a decrease in chemical usage. I know perfectly well that the ratio between chemical and production hasn't went up, but absolute chemicals has gone up. GMO is used as a tool to continue and pursue a specific agricultural production process that is, in my opinion, detrimental to our society. The simple fact that weed create a resistance to the heavy usage of said pesticide will force Mosanto and the like to create new pesticide, more efficient in killing weed and also more dangerous for the eco system. In the long run, well you might understand the end result. Citing absolute numbers is bad. GMOs have lead to a decrease in insecticide use, and a move to safer herbicides. The only other statement you can make is that organics would have lead to greater reduction in insecticide / herbicide use. An increase in chemical use due to an increase in production is NOT the same as an increase in chemical use due to GMOs. I know you understand this... Having to create new pesticides has nothing to do with GMOs. Resistances to glycines has been weaker than with many other herbicides: + Show Spoiler + Absolute numbers are not bad, and again that's your opus operatum at play, unable to understand that only absolute numbers are relevant if you want to evaluate the impact of a specific production process on environment or health : it depends on what you want to witness. That there is an increase in productivity, we all agree, but it does not change the production process, GMO today are only engineered to improve productivity and facilitate the use of pesticides - which is completly understandable since Mosanto produce both the GMO and the pesticides. Stop discarding all informations that does not go in your way please ? The same goes for your resistance to glycines : what I see from the graph you gave is that glycines are only heavily used since the end of 1990 and not that the resistance to them is weaker. A quick search tells me 2000 is also the date where the pattern became public for exemple or that RoundUp was the most sold out herbicides by the end of 1997. Note that glycines are not the only chemicals present in RoundUp and is actually pretty useless by itself (it does not penetrate the plant without its adjuvants). Those adjuvants usually have more toxicity, like the POE-15. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23000283 The compositions in adjuvants were analyzed by mass spectrometry. Here we demonstrate that all formulations are more toxic than glyphosate, and we separated experimentally three groups of formulations differentially toxic according to their concentrations in ethoxylated adjuvants. Among them, POE-15 clearly appears to be the most toxic principle against human cells, even if others are not excluded. It begins to be active with negative dose-dependent effects on cellular respiration and membrane integrity between 1 and 3ppm, at environmental/occupational doses. We demonstrate in addition that POE-15 induces necrosis when its first micellization process occurs, by contrast to glyphosate which is known to promote endocrine disrupting effects after entering cells. Altogether, these results challenge the establishment of guidance values such as the acceptable daily intake of glyphosate, when these are mostly based on a long term in vivo test of glyphosate alone. Since pesticides are always used with adjuvants that could change their toxicity, the necessity to assess their whole formulations as mixtures becomes obvious. This challenges the concept of active principle of pesticides for non-target species. And yes the resistance is absolutly normal, maybe the solution would be to discuss on production / usage of chemical (as opposed to natural pesticides and herbicides) and solve some of the output problem by increasing supply, etc. Or to say in economic language, the optimum of production is not necessarily the highest production, but a level of production that would take the impact on environment and health into account. The hell is wrong with you? Absolute use went up because production went up. Production didn't go up because "fuck it let's grow more food", production went up because during that period there was a global boom in agriculture driven by demand from developing countries. Someone would have grown more food or people would have faced food shortages. Trying to link increased production of food to 'use of GMOs' is just so flawed that I'm having a hard time understanding how you're even coming to that conclusion. So what that GMOs 'facilitate' the use of pesticides? Money 'facilitates' the use of pesticides. Better ban money! So does gravity. Better ban that too! GMOs have lead to less chemicals used. Whether they 'facilitate' the use or not is a red herring. The introduction of GMOs have contributed to a healthier environment due to less and less harmful use of chemicals. Amazingly, you're arguing the exact opposite of what the facts tell us. It seems like you've decided, without looking to the facts first, that GMOs are bad and you're willing to grab onto whatever flimsy rationale you can find to maintain that belief. You're the one who is not looking at the fact. GMO haven't created a healthier environment, the use of herbicide per unit produced has gone up since the introduction of GMO, and only insecticide as gone down : the end result is not a healthier environment. Overall, there is an absolute increase in pesticide and herbicide use, so the production process still create more environmental damage than before, with or without GMO, altho it also produce more food. Meanwhile, there is a huge waste of a substantial part of production, people who just eat more than they should, and others that don't have access to the necessary food : increasing production is not necessarily the only solution. Crop rotation has gone down, diversity too, farmers are more dependant on specific firms than they were before. Plus I never defended the idea of an absolute ban on GMO, but you're so talking alone in your own world that you don't actually read what people write but make assumptions. But continue to live in your fairy land, and see the stats how you want them to. Altho the ban in France is a great thing : we don't really need Mosanto messing with our agriculture. No. I posted the facts - per unit use of chemicals has gone down. Moreover, the chemicals that are being used are safer. The net effect is a healthier environment. I'll repeat from the USDA: Show nested quote +Despite the relatively minor effect HT [Herbicide-tolerant] crop adoption has had on overall herbicide usage, HT crop adoption has enabled farmers to substitute glyphosate (which many HT crops are designed to tolerate) for more traditional herbicides. Because glyphosate is significantly less toxic and less persistent than traditional herbicides, the net impact of HT crop adoption is an improvement in environmental quality and a reduction in health risks. Facts are facts. If you are going to refuse to accept facts for what they are, there's no point in discussing this with you any further. It's just wrong, you gave herbicide per unit produced and it has gone up.
Up or down ?
As for the glyphosate, I posted a research showing that the RoundUp is made with glyphosate AND some other adjuvants who have a way higher toxicity than the glysophate. The glysophate is useless by itself, it cannot penetrate the plant, and need other chemicals to really act. The RoundUp is not made of ONE chemical only. You're also putting aside the fact that we could substitute this way of producing that rely heavily on pesticides and herbicides and think about better production process, that maximize crop rotation for exemple (something GMO could absolutly do). Again, if you refuse to see the full picture then just stop arguing.
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Cayman Islands24199 Posts
examples of these toxic surfactants pls
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On October 25 2014 03:26 oneofthem wrote: examples of these toxic surfactants pls From a previous post :
Note that glycines are not the only chemicals present in RoundUp and is actually pretty useless by itself (it does not penetrate the plant without its adjuvants). Those adjuvants usually have more toxicity, like the POE-15. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23000283Show nested quote +Pesticides are always used in formulations as mixtures of an active principle with adjuvants. Glyphosate, the active ingredient of the major pesticide in the world, is an herbicide supposed to be specific on plant metabolism. Its adjuvants are generally considered as inert diluents. Since side effects for all these compounds have been claimed, we studied potential active principles for toxicity on human cells for 9 glyphosate-based formulations. For this we detailed their compositions and toxicities, and as controls we used a major adjuvant (the polyethoxylated tallowamine POE-15), glyphosate alone, and a total formulation without glyphosate. This was performed after 24h exposures on hepatic (HepG2), embryonic (HEK293) and placental (JEG3) cell lines. We measured mitochondrial activities, membrane degradations, and caspases 3/7 activities. The compositions in adjuvants were analyzed by mass spectrometry. Here we demonstrate that all formulations are more toxic than glyphosate, and we separated experimentally three groups of formulations differentially toxic according to their concentrations in ethoxylated adjuvants. Among them, POE-15 clearly appears to be the most toxic principle against human cells, even if others are not excluded. It begins to be active with negative dose-dependent effects on cellular respiration and membrane integrity between 1 and 3ppm, at environmental/occupational doses. We demonstrate in addition that POE-15 induces necrosis when its first micellization process occurs, by contrast to glyphosate which is known to promote endocrine disrupting effects after entering cells. Altogether, these results challenge the establishment of guidance values such as the acceptable daily intake of glyphosate, when these are mostly based on a long term in vivo test of glyphosate alone. Since pesticides are always used with adjuvants that could change their toxicity, the necessity to assess their whole formulations as mixtures becomes obvious. This challenges the concept of active principle of pesticides for non-target species.
A quick research on glyphosate would have shown that it has no or almost effect by itself because it does not adhere well to leafs and does not penetrate the plant. It needs adjuvants to really play its part as an effective herbicide.
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