Roundup (cancer causing substance) cases underway

[randomq]

ElysianWort, if it turns out roundup is a carcinogen, what will we use in its place? How will we keep weeds or bugs from overtaking crops? Is there a better technology out there, or will we be condemning the third world to starvation?

[kalakoa]

if it turns out roundup is a carcinogen, what will we use in its place?

Better question: once nature evolves roundup-resistance, what will we use instead?

Bonus round: will nature evolve faster than the lawsuits are settled?

[Punatic007]

An old friend who moved off island is a micro-biology professor, very organic eating and living type guy. He claimed roundup was pretty harmless and couldn't understand the hype. So unless the formula has changed since then, a little over 15 yrs ago, I'm still using it.

[HereOnThePrimalEdge]

what will we use in its place?

And after Roundup kills all the yard workers who use it almost daily on their yard maintenance jobs, in applications around trees, driveway edges, and large areas of cleared pahoehoe, what will we do then?

I alternate between thinking of the planet as home — dear and familiar stone hearth and garden — and as a hard land of exile in which we are all sojourners. Today I favor the latter view. The word “sojourner”... invokes a nomadic people’s sense of vagrancy, a praying people’s knowledge of estrangement, a thinking people’s intuition of sharp loss: “For we are strangers before thee, and sojourners, as were all our fathers: our days on the earth are as a shadow, and there is none abiding.” - Annie Dillard

[Rob Tucker]

what will we do then?

Probably go back to more dangerous stuff that kills everything it touches.

[ElysianWort]

Nothing in it's place. Go back to the Pioneer style farming where you fed your family and anyone around in the neighborhood that wanted to trade farm produce for other goods and services.

It's such a backwards way of thinking, (in my opinion) expecting a chemical made in a lab far away will solve your short term problems in the garden. You have bugs or other gardening issues to get rid of? There's a ton of simple remedies that can be created in your kitchen with items you are okay eating. You have weeds? Pull them up. You have trees you don't want? Cut them down or burn it out. People got lazy. It's almost as if we started cheating and taking short cuts with chemicals and they turn out to bite back in the long run. I guess it enables some of us that aren't good at farming to be okay at it. Some things we already had right and we took too far with technology.

[PaulW]

I agree! While we're at it, let's ban those dangerous cars and all walk again, anything else is laziness.

[ElysianWort]

I didn't say I was a mennonite. My old world beliefs don't extend to transportation. Cars kill us in a different manner from pesticides.

[MarkP]

ElysianWort:
IMO you have no idea what you are saying. Turning back the clock to manual labor without the benefit of modern agricultural chemicals would result widespread starvation. Now maybe that is necessary for true sustainability but I don't think you will get that many volunteers.

There is a veterinary anti-inflamatory drug that unfortunately is deadly to vultures. Its widespread use in India in particular where they tend to use oxen to plow and tend to let nature take its course when the animal dies has resulted in the near extinction of many common vulture species when they consume the tainted carcass. In a cascade effect the number of feral dogs has skyrocketed. Dogs carry rabies and bite people. Vultures don't. Now THAT's an example of a chemical that should be squashed. It is important to not be the boy that cried wolf over every internet generated cause celebre lest the real threats get lost in the noise.

[Midnight Rambler]

Non-Hodgkins lymphoma is pretty common, so it seems like it would be hard to tie to glyphosate exposure.

quote:

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Originally posted by ElysianWort

Nothing in it's place. Go back to the Pioneer style farming where you fed your family and anyone around in the neighborhood that wanted to trade farm produce for other goods and services.#8236;

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Also, say goodbye to nearly all science, technology, and art (because there’s not enough of a food surplus to support that many non-farming people), and go back to a global population of 500 million. Who gets to decide if you make the cut?

Of course, this is ignoring the fact that pioneer-era farming used an array of horribly toxic substances for pest control, like lead arsenate (great combination of elements). Modern chemicals were developed precisely because they’re safer! Something that has a 5% chance of giving you cancer if you get it all over yourself every day for 20 years is a big improvement over something that will kill you immediately if a few drops get on your skin.