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neonicotinoids
Stopping the ‘Insect Apocalypse’ in the Garden of Capitalism
If neonics are so dangerous, what is the Environmental Protection Agency doing about it? Not very much, as it turns out
Jul 02, 2023
I was reading about bumble bees recently—specifically, their looming demise, thanks to human greed and ignorance—and started thinking about the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. We should have eaten from it!
Well, we did, but then apparently upchucked everything we learned and, in the process, fooled ourselves into thinking that technology has allowed us to recreate the Garden of Eden from which we’d been banned. You might call it the Garden of Capitalism, in which humans can take what they want without consequences, forever and ever and ever. This seems to be the myth at the core of dominant global culture.
But of course there are consequences, which we officially refuse to let ourselves see. For instance, Amy van Saun, an attorney for the nonprofit Center for Food Safety, writing about the shocking disappearance of bees and other pollinators of much of the food we eat (fruit, vegetables, nuts), notes that one of the primary causes is the ever-increasing use of pesticides, in particular, something called neonicotinoids (or “neonics”), which wreak their own special hell on the planet’s ecosystems.
Like cluster bombs, land mines, Agent Orange, depleted uranium, “they persist in the environment,” almost as though—forgive the analogy—commercial farming is like an ongoing war on nature.
Neonicotinoids “are the most widely used insecticides in the world,” she writes. “Unlike traditional pesticides, which are typically applied to plant surfaces, neonics... are absorbed and transported through all parts of the plant tissue.
“ ...Modeled after nicotine, neonicotinoids interfere with insects’ nervous systems, causing tremors, paralysis, and eventually, death. Neonicotinoids are so toxic that one corn seed treated with them contains enough insecticide to kill over 80,000 honey bees.”
And, like cluster bombs, land mines, Agent Orange, depleted uranium, “they persist in the environment,” almost as though—forgive the analogy—commercial farming is like an ongoing war on nature.
If neonics are so dangerous, what is the Environmental Protection Agency doing about it? Not very much, as it turns out, despite scientific evidence of their danger, which is why Center for Food Safety, along with the Pesticide Action Network North America, are suing the agency. As van Saun writes, “almost half of all U.S. farmland is planted with pesticide-coated seeds,” but the agency refuses to regulate them.
The result, according to a U.N. report, is that cropland is approximately 50 times more toxic than it was a quarter of a century ago, at the beginning of the 21st century, and the world is currently experiencing an “insect apocalypse.”
And indeed, it begins to appear that the EPA has a mission that transcends “environmental protection.” It may well be that this agency—part of a governmental culture that supports and benefits from wealth and war—has a mission that is more about official denial of the dangers of planetary exploitation. The EPA’s refusal to acknowledge the damage caused by neonics is just a small part of it.
“Critics accuse the EPA of being inappropriately cozy with the pesticide industry, and biasing its decisions to favor companies selling pesticides,” the Guardian writes. “Several EPA scientists came forward last year, publicly alleging that EPA management routinely pressures EPA scientists to tamper with risk assessments of chemicals in ways that downplayed the harm the chemicals could pose...
“The scientists complained, among other things, that key managers move back and forth between industry jobs and positions at the EPA.”
This is when I started hearing an alarm go off in my head: Cultural malfunction alert! Cultural malfunction alert! This is what things look like when exploitation prevails: when grabbing all the goodies you can is at the cultural core, rather than something a bit more complex, such as understanding—and revering—the eco-reality (also known as nature) in which we live.
And beyond that, can we not create a culture that faces the paradoxes of life with a certain level of openness and a continued interest in learning? Life is not something to be reduced to simplistic opposites: win vs. lose, good vs. evil. There is darkness within all of us, but we can’t let it determine our fate or shape our understanding of the world. Yet I fear this is the nature of “modern,” as opposed to Indigenous, culture. Humanity, over the past few millennia, has moved its sense of reverence away from Mother Earth and essentially to Father Sky, rather than continuing to revere both. As a result, Mother Earth is ours to do with as we choose.
This is what things look like when exploitation prevails...
The opposite viewpoint—apparently the indigenous viewpoint, which European land-grabbers called “savage”—isn’t quite so simple. The natural world, while rife with struggle, can’t be reduced to “survival of the fittest.” Rather, it exists in a state of complex cooperation among all concerned—plants, animals—and evolves via the interdependence of all life.
As Rupert Ross wrote in his remarkable book about Indigenous culture, Returning to the Teachings: “The Lakotah had no language for insulting other orders of existence: pest... waste... weed.”
Back to pesticides then. Back to weed killers. Back to climate change and the apparent inability of the polluters who purport to be in charge of Planet Earth to address it adequately: Superficial change won’t do it. The change has to be cultural. It has to be spiritual.
Believe me, if we fail to change who we are and the bees—the pollinators—disappear, we’ll all feel the sting.
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Why We Are Fighting to Save the Pollinators From Neonics
We all eat, and we all rely on honeybees and other pollinators to create and sustain our food supply. This is a battle humanity cannot afford to lose.
Jun 27, 2023
One of every three bites of food we eat comes from a crop pollinated by bees. This bee-powered nourishment includes apples, blueberries, tomatoes, bananas, avocados, cashews, and almonds–a harvest of more than 130 fruits, vegetables, and nuts. Yet, all this is imperiled by a severe decline of bees and other pollinators worldwide.
A shocking new study just found that mass pollinator loss has already caused half a million early human deaths a year by drastically reducing the global supply of fruits, vegetables, and nuts. Between April 2018 to April 2019, the managed bee population in the U.S. decreased by a stunning 40.7%, which experts call "unsustainable."
Why is there such a crisis with these vital spark plugs of our food and fiber? An overwhelming number of scientific studies link these bee declines to pesticides, demonstrating the far-reaching impacts toxic chemical pesticides have on our environment. These bee-harmful pesticides have many long-term detrimental effects and pose an increased risk to fragile ecosystems.
While there are many tactics being used to stop toxic pesticides and protect pollinators and other species, courts are one of the best–and sometimes only–hope for creating meaningful change on the ground.
The pesticides most directly linked to pollinator declines are a group of systemic insecticides called neonicotinoids. These "neonics," as they're often called, are the most widely used insecticides in the world. Unlike traditional pesticides, which are typically applied to plant surfaces, neonics are systemic—meaning they are absorbed and transported through all parts of the plant tissue.
Honey bees and other pollinators are exposed to these toxic chemicals through pollen, nectar, dust, dew droplets on plant leaves, and in the soil where many native bee species nest. Modeled after nicotine, neonicotinoids interfere with insects' nervous systems, causing tremors, paralysis, and eventually, death. Neonicotinoids are so toxic that one corn seed treated with them contains enough insecticide to kill over 80,000 honey bees.
Neonicotinoids are especially dangerous because they persist in the environment and can accumulate quickly–causing contamination of surface water, groundwater, and soil, endangering species that inhabit these ecosystems. This contamination has created widespread harm to aquatic invertebrates, such as mollusks and crustaceans, both vital to aquatic habitats; and evidence shows neonics have potential long-term impacts on waterfowl, rangeland birds, and other wild animals.
Imagine a world with no apples, melons, squash, broccoli or almonds. Three quarters of the crops we consume rely on pollinators, and if we're going to save them from extinction, scientists agree–we must ban the pesticides largely responsible for their demise.
Unfortunately, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)–which was created to protect our health and the environment from chemicals such as pesticides–continues to approve and register pesticides that are known to harm and kill pollinators such as bees and butterflies.
Last June, a federal court ruled that EPA's reapproval of glyphosate, the main ingredient in Roundup, was unlawful for all uses. It even rebuked the agency for ignoring real-world evidence of cancer risks from glyphosate, and for failing to consider impacts to endangered species. While the court ordered EPA to redo its human health and ecological risk assessments by October 2022, the agency blew its deadline and now says it won't complete this vital review until 2026. Meanwhile, pollinators will continue to suffer harm from this toxic pesticide, one of the most widely sprayed in the U.S. and the world.
Equally disturbing is the ongoing proliferation of unregulated pesticide-coated seeds, which are quietly decimating our bees, birds, and butterflies. Just one GMO corn seed coated with neonicotinoid pesticides contains enough pesticide to kill over 80,000 bees or one songbird. Pesticide giants like Monsanto have been selling these deadly seeds with no safety testing or regulation for decades. Now, almost half of all U.S. farmland is planted with pesticide-coated seeds. And despite a Center for Food Safety petition to EPA and our subsequent lawsuit against EPA for denying that petition, the agency refuses to regulate these seeds. Without regulation under national pesticide laws, there is no balancing of the vast harms they cause against their minimal or nonexistent benefit, and for those that may be allowed, there are no instructions to the farmers planting them about how to mitigate impacts or safely dispose of unused seed. With the vast majority of neonic use going to seed coatings, it is illogical and unlawful for EPA not to uphold its duty to protect our environment and people from this unnecessary pesticide use.
To save these essential pollinators, habitats, and biodiversity, we must continue to take these corporations–and the government agencies created to regulate them–to court.
The list of EPA failures goes on. Use of a little known super-pesticide made from one of the same ingredients as Agent Orange is skyrocketing across the United States. Now sold under the name Enlist, it threatens hundreds of endangered species and is linked to Parkinson's disease, non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, and other reproductive problems in humans. The pesticide industry's excuse for this revival of an old and dangerous pesticide is the widespread resistance of weeds to the pesticide Roundup. This resistance stems from Monsanto's push to convert all commodity crops (like corn, soy, and canola) to genetically engineered, glyphosate-resistant varieties — encouraging the indiscriminate spraying of glyphosate upon them. Natural evolution of weeds means development of a resistance to glyphosate, and the chemical companies are now trotting out older, deadlier chemicals to deal with the problem of their own creation. Despite these deadly risks, in 2022 EPA reapproved Enlist for seven more years.
While there are many tactics being used to stop toxic pesticides and protect pollinators and other species, courts are one of the best–and sometimes only–hope for creating meaningful change on the ground. Often, the only way to halt corporations from using toxic chemicals, and usurping democracy and regulatory integrity, is through litigation.
To save these essential pollinators, habitats, and biodiversity, we must continue to take these corporations–and the government agencies created to regulate them–to court. We all eat, and we all rely on honeybees and other pollinators to create and sustain our food supply. It is a moral and ecological imperative that we do everything possible to sustain them.
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'Landmark Victory': New York Passes Nation's First Legislation Restricting Bee-Killing Pesticides
The Birds and Bees Protection Act would eliminate 80 to 90% of the neonics used in New York each year by banning applications that are either easily replaceable or do not give an economic boost to farmers.
Jun 10, 2023
New York state on Friday became the first state in the nation to pass legislation restricting neonicotinoid pesticides (neonics) that are toxic to bees and other pollinators and wildlife.
The Birds and Bees Protection Act would eliminate 80 to 90% of the neonics used in New York each year by banning applications that are either easily replaceable or do not give an economic boost to farmers.
"Every year for the past decade, New York beekeepers have lost more than 40% of their bee colonies—largely due to neonic pesticides," bill sponsor State Senator Brad Hoylman-Sigal said in a statement. "Today, in this landmark victory for our pollinators, economy, and farming industry, New York is working to reverse that trend."
\u201cHUGE thank you to @bradhoylman and @SenatorHarckham in getting The Birds and Bees Protection Act through the Senate. What a victory for pollinators, clean water, and healthy communities \ud83d\udc1d\ud83d\udc1b\ud83c\udf0e\ud83c\udf33\ud83e\udd86\u201d— SC Atlantic Chapter (@SC Atlantic Chapter) 1686179366
The bill passed the New York State Senate on Wednesday and the New York State Assembly on Friday and now goes to Gov. Kathy Hochul for signature. It bans the use of neonics to coat corn, soybean, and wheat seeds as well as for lawns and gardens.
"Pollinators are vital members of healthy ecosystems and our food supply chain," New York Assemblymember Deborah J. Glick said in a statement. "Protecting them by limiting toxins that pose adverse effects and health risks is an important step forward in our work to stop poisoning the environment and create a healthier New York."
\u201c@DeborahJGlick you've been a tireless leader on A7640. THANK YOU for your dedication to getting the Birds and Bees Protection Act passed this year.\u201d— SC Atlantic Chapter (@SC Atlantic Chapter) 1686360116
Neonics are a class of pesticides that work by attacking the nervous systems of insect pests, as the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) explains. A lethal dose will cause paralysis and death, while non-lethal effects include memory, immune, navigation, and fertility problems.
They are one of the deadliest pesticides out there, yet they are also the leading insecticide used in the U.S. This is a problem because about 95% of neonics used to coat seeds don't enter the plant at all, but instead spread into the environment via the soil, where they do not break down easily.
The concern is that neonics don't just harm target species but also beneficial insects like bees and butterflies.
"It's critical that we passed this bill to protect the health of humans and other living beings on our planet."
"They also harm the development of birds and mammals; and studies have linked ingredients of neoicotinoid insecticides with adverse human health outcomes as well," New York state Sen. Pete Harckham, another bill supporter, said in a statement. "It's critical that we passed this bill to protect the health of humans and other living beings on our planet."
The legislation was based in part on a Cornell University study that found that most neonic use in New York did not actually provide an economic benefit or could easily be swapped out for a safer alternative. It also comes about a month after an Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) assessment found that three common neonic chemicals threaten 11% of the species on the U.S. endangered species list.
"The Birds and the Bees Protection Act is the first-in-the-nation to limit neonic coated seeds, which contaminate our soil, our waterways, and our bodies," Dan Raichel, the acting director of NRDC's Pollinator Initiative, said in a statement. "We've long known neonics kill bees, but we now see links between neonics and mass losses of birds, the collapse of fisheries, developmental risks in people, and vast water contamination in New York."
The U.S. has long lagged behind similar countries in regulating neonics. The EU has banned their outdoor use, and Canada has largely stopped using them to coat seeds.
The new legislation was passed a little more than a week after the Center for Food Safety and the Pesticide Action Network North America (PANNA) sued the EPA over its failure to regulate the toxic chemicals.
"For too long, EPA has allowed pesticide-coated seeds to jeopardize threatened and endangered species across the country."
"For too long, EPA has allowed pesticide-coated seeds to jeopardize threatened and endangered species across the country," PANNA senior scientist and plaintiff Margaret Reeves said in a statement at the time. "EPA must close the regulatory loophole for toxic pesticide-coated seeds to prevent further harm to wildlife, ecosystems, and people."
While environmental groups continue to push for national regulations, they celebrated change in New York.
"Today is a great day for pollinators, clean water, and healthier communities," Caitlin Ferrante, the conservation program manager of the Sierra Club Atlantic Chapter, said in a statement.
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