Birds and the bees - and the EPA

EPA and the disappearing honeybees

WASHINGTON -- The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is refusing to disclose records about a new class of pesticides that could be playing a role in the disappearance of millions of honeybees in the United States, a lawsuit filed Monday charges. The Natural Resources Defense Council wants to see the studies that the EPA required when it approved a pesticide made by Bayer CropScience five years ago.

The environmental group filed the suit as part of an effort to find out how diligently the EPA is protecting honeybees from dangerous pesticides...

In the last two years, beekeepers have reported unexplained losses of hives - 30 percent and upward - leading to a phenomenon called colony collapse disorder. Scientists believe that the decline in bees is linked to an onslaught of pesticides, mites, parasites and viruses, as well as a loss of habitat and food...

Clothianidin is the pesticide at the center of controversy. It is used to coat corn, sugar beet and sorghum seeds and is part of a class of pesticides called neonicotinoids. The pesticide was blamed for bee deaths in France and Germany, which also is dealing with a colony collapse. Those two countries have suspended its use until further study. An EPA fact sheet from 2003 says clothianidin has the potential for toxic chronic exposure to honey bees, as well as other pollinators, through residues in nectar and pollen...

Scientists presenting at the American Chemical Society national meeting Monday reported that dozens of pesticides had been found in samples of adult bees, broods, pollen and wax collected from honeybee colonies suspected to have died from symptoms of colony collapse disorder, including some neonicotinoids.

Entomologist Gabriela Chavarria, director of Natural Resources Defense Council's Science Center, said over the years bees have had to withstand devastating problems.
Bees pick up deadly farm and home chemicals when they visit flowers, or encounter chemical drift from aerial and other applications. Fifteen years ago, queen bees imported from China brought varroa mites that attacked broods of worker bees. Microscopic tracheal mites invade the hives.

And now the new pesticide, clothianidin, is another problem, Chavarria said. Scientists must find out whether the toxicity has been sufficiently studied, she said. "We want this information now. We cannot continue to wait. Bees are disappearing. Our whole existence depends on them because we eat. The flowers need to be pollinated, and the only ones to do it are the bees."

NEW YORK NEWS
NYC may license urban beekeepers Yeah! I used to live down the block from a rooftop beekeeper in Brooklyn...

Sustainable Fabrics - behind the hype

Organic Clothing blog has a great post analysing the claims of bamboo to be renewable, green, and ecological.

"Bamboo fabric is becoming the Wonder Bread of sustainable textiles. This isn’t to say that bamboo doesn’t have many exceptional qualities. I’m just saying that the green hype is starting to lead to a loss of credibility. Let’s take a short walk through the bamboo green claims and see what’s real and what’s green spin.

Excerpt:
CLAIM: Grown on Environmentally Friendly Bamboo Plantations.
REALITY: Bamboo fabric is spun from bamboo pulp manufactured from bamboo grown on bamboo plantations primarily in China. Because bamboo has so many uses and derived products, growing bamboo has become a significant industry in China. The book Rehabilitation of Degraded Forests to Improve Livelihoods of Poor Farmers in South China by Liu Dachang published in 2003 by the Center International Forestry Research researches in depth the environmental and social damage that have been created by poor and over-harvested forests of all kinds, not just bamboo, in China. Chinese government forest policy reforms within the last twenty years have transferred ownership of most forests to private citizens and businesses. The result has been a lack of government regulations for controlling forest land use and many forests were clear-cut to plant money-making mono-cultures such as bamboo plantations.

Read the whole thing -- M

Freedom to marry

Couples often choose the Massachusetts ruling on Freedom to Marry as a wedding reading:

Excerpt from Goodridge v. Dept. Of Public Health, introduction by Massachusetts Supreme Court Chief Justice Margaret H. Marshall,

...
"Marriage is a vital social institution. The exclusive commitment of two individuals to each other nurtures love and mutual support; it brings stability to our society. … marriage is at once a deeply personal commitment to another human being and a highly public celebration of the ideals of mutuality, companionship, intimacy, fidelity, and family. "It is an association that promotes a way of life, not causes; a harmony in living, not political faiths; a bilateral loyalty, not commercial or social projects."

"Because it fulfills yearnings for security, safe haven, and connection that express our common humanity, marriage is an esteemed institution, and the decision whether and whom to marry is among life's momentous acts of self-definition".

Sometimes national laws and political situations made marriage difficult for some groups, especially in situations where religion seems to intrude into the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and the Right to Marry. This is especially true of places where women's rights are not universally upheld:

UDHR: Article 16.

(1) Men and women of full age, without any limitation due to race, nationality or religion, have the right to marry and to found a family. They are entitled to equal rights as to marriage, during marriage and at its dissolution.

(2) Marriage shall be entered into only with the free and full consent of the intending spouses.

(3) The family is the natural and fundamental group unit of society and is entitled to protection by society and the State.

I'm considering another little blog on the political and social barriers to freedom to marry -- more soon. M