This is why we need to stop fearing GMOs

Amen Alana!

I don't think anyone can refute that statement.

I can absolutely refute that statement because you are assuming something is toxic. Dosage equals poison. If you banned pesticides worldwide you would see BILLIONS die. Not just from food shortages but from disease brought on by pests. If you all want to live in the Middle Ages be my guest. The world is moving on without you

(td)(td)(td)(td)(td)(td)(td)(td)(td)(td)(td)(td)(td)(td)(td)(td)(td)(td)(td)(td)(td)(td)(td)(td)(td)(td)(td)(td)(td)(td)(td)(td)(td)(td)(td)(td)(td)(td)(td)(td)(td)(td)(td)(td)(td)(td)(td)(td)(td)(td)(td)(td)(td)(td)(td)(td)

Lol. You can thumbs down all you want. Facts are facts. Unless you want Earth to turn into a Monty Python skit, pesticides are necessary. But but but Organic. Sorry. They use pesticides too. They also grow food in poop

Which Monty Python skit would the Earth turn into, if pesticide use were to be stopped?

...acording to a 1998 analysis by the California Public Interest Research Group, nearly four million Californians live within half a mile of heavy applications of pesticides, a third of which are “designated by state or federal regulatory agencies as carcinogens, reproductive toxins or acute nerve poisons.”

earthisland article

From the same earth island article:

The Gulf of Toxins
The Gulf of Mexico is afflicted with a “dead zone” stretching across several thousand square miles along the Louisiana-Texas coast. A massive algae bloom feasts on a steady diet ofpesticide application nitrogen and other nutrients flowing downstream from the Mississippi River. In summer, when the rivers flow peaks, the bloom spreads and chokes the Gulfs northern coasts, cutting off oxygen that supports sea life. In 1999 the zone ballooned to nearly 12,500 square miles – the size of New Jersey. The depleted water near the bottom of the Gulf contains less than two parts per million of dissolved oxygen, not enough to sustain fish or bottom-dwelling life.

One of the chief contributors to this dead zone is American agriculture and its countless tributaries of petroleum-based fertilizers, pesticides, and animal feces overflowing from giant factory farms. The Mississippi River Basin, which drains an area representing about 41 percent of the contiguous US, is home to the majority of the nations agricultural chemicals. About seven million metric tons of nitrogen in commercial fertilizers are applied in the Basin each year, and the annual load of nitrates poured from the Mississippi River into the Gulf has tripled since the late 1950s, when pesticides and synthetic fertilizers began to dominate the agricultural scene. Another key ingredient is on the rise: billions of tons of factory-farm animal waste, overloaded with nitrogen and other potentially damaging nutrients.

The dead zone is from fertilizer run off. Again technology is helping with that. Site specific applications using remote soil testing and GPS makes it possible to actually soil test and apply fertilizer based on actual soil needs in a specific area. Toxicity of pesticides ar based on the active ingredient before they mix it with hundred of gallons of water compared to quarts of pesticides. By the time it hits the target plant you can measure the active ingredients in nanograms. I will not say the system is perfect, but it is getting better. The idea that farmers indiscriminately use fertilizers and pesticides is not accurate. First, they aren't free and farmer's work on low returns. Secondly, they have a vested interest in protecting the soil. The idea behind RoundUp ready crops is this. It negates the need to till the soil. By not tilling erosion is mitigated, organic material is produced from dying weed tissue. I love Ridge to Reef farm. I think they are fantastic, but even they know their limits. They, at most, can help feed 1% of Virgin Islanders. The downfall of organic is lower yields.

Today’s Pesticides Mean Trouble for Tomorrow’s Children

“We are drowning our world in untested and unsafe chemicals, and the price we are paying in terms of our reproductive health is of serious concern,”

http://www.takepart.com/article/2015/10/02/food-chemical-exposure-public-health?cmpid=tpdaily-eml-2015-10-2

http://news.yahoo.com/much-europes-farmland-remain-gmo-free-183543241.html

here is more info for you

http://www.takepart.com/article/2014/07/31/us-bans-gmos-bee-killing-pesticides-national-wildlife-refuges

and another one

Again, all the science shows GMOs are safe. The reason European countries are not growing it is political. They still import it. A lot of it. Hey better for American farmers.

Again, you cannot continue to super saturate the planet with pesticides and think there's going to be no effect or price to pay.

Here's one for you, Sparty.
http://www.care2.com/greenliving/has-monsanto-hid-evidence-of-roundups-health-risks-for-decades.html

If you use words like "saturate" there can be no discussion. It makes it sound like pesticides just sit in puddles on earth. Most are broken down by microbial activity fairly quickly. Some are more persistent. Without pesticides billions would die. I refuse to be part of a world where that is acceptable.

The cited article is very liberally peppered with "could bes", "maybes" and "possiblies" and nothing definitive.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/bethhoffman/2013/07/02/gmo-crops-mean-more-herbicide-not-less/

More glyphosate. Less atrazine, paraquat etc. stuff that was WAY more toxic than Roundup

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/12/17/un-report-organic-farming_n_4461577.html

http://www.technologywater.com/post/69995394390/un-report-says-small-scale-organic-farming-only

http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0111629

Sparty you never answered this question:

Which Monty Python skit would the Earth turn into, if pesticide use were to be stopped?

Oh sorry. In the Holy Grail where Eric Idle is walking around with cart barking, "Bring out your dead"

http://youtu.be/grbSQ6O6kbs

haha, well, one could argue that the dead will be "brought out" because they have died from illness brought on by pesticide exposure!

Read this article - OneEarth Generation Toxic

Here is an excerpt:

The center’s early studies found significant associations between pollutants measured in the mothers and difficult birth outcomes, including low birth weight and small head circumference. The main culprits were PAH and chlorpyrifos, a then-common organophosphate pesticide used indoors to kill roaches and bedbugs. (Later the team would look at flame retardants.) Perera also documented that these chemicals damaged cellular DNA. Chlorpyrifos was found in the umbilical cords of virtually every mother in the early samples. Since 2001 it has been phased out of residential use, but exterminators are still caught using it. It also remains a common agricultural pesticide and so ends up as a residue in food. Perera and her colleagues knew that reduced head circumference had been linked to lower IQ scores, and animal experiments had shown that chlorpyrifos killed developing brain cells and induced behavioral changes in rats. In some well-known experiments, for example, rats given low doses of the pesticide while in the womb or shortly after birth later had trouble learning their way around a maze.

Chlorpyrifos is safe when sprayed at labeled rates.. It is being phased out, like most organophosphates. The technology continues to improve where lower and lower amounts of active ingredient is needed. Not just improved sanitation, but also chemical controls of rodents and fleas/ticks is the reason plague isn't more prevalent. I don't wanteople to think that I'm pro pesticide. I, not. I'm pro human existence, and until someone can tell me a way to feed and protect 7 billion people from Mother Nature who couldn't give two fu@k$ about us, I'm all ears. Technology is the answer. Not reverting back 500 years of agriculture. Guess what? They ate an all organic pesticide free diet and died at 37