That Crushing Sense of Doom

Welcome to a Monday morning--and some lovely news.
First, Grist has reported on the application of nanotechnology to the application of pesticides. It's felt that by creating these ultra-fine droplets (we're talking about sizes in the billionths of a metre), it will take far less volume to treat the same area. So join me in a (very) cautious "yay" (no exclamation point).
Of course, new technologies bring a host of potential problems with them. And in the case of nano-droplet pesticides, these concerns involve how the nano-particles will react with the macro-world. Tiny particles may allow broader contamination of groundwater, leading to higher levels food-chain concentration. Or new ways in which these pesticides might react with mammalian nervous systems (you know, like ours). Things act very differently in the nano-world.
This is, of course, part of the ongoing commodification of technology that Marx and Engels wrote about over a century ago. Research is only seen as valuable if it can be monetized. Ask our Prime Minister, Stephen Harper; he has stopped pretty much all research that is not in the service of capital. This commodification is one of the reasons that so little pure research is being conducted on Canada (as well as the rest of the developed world). It's all about engineering older discoveries into forms suitable for our commodity culture.

In different news, it looks like 2014 may be one of the top five hottest years on record. But of much more concern is the news, reported in the Guardian, that ocean temperatures are spiking so high that NOAA is having to re-calibrate their scales to accommodate the speed of temperature rise.

Ocean heat content data to a depth of 2,000 meters, from NOAA.

The ocean has been absorbing about 90 percent of global warming energy, so the atmosphere has warmed slower than might have been expected. Because global warming science looks at the amount of energy in the entire climate system, ocean temperatures are essential to understanding how rapid is the rise in global temperatures.
Denialists, by cherry picking atmospheric data, claim that either warming is not happening, or is happening at a much slower rate. The graph above shows the lie in that. So, yes, ocean populations are crashing; yes, we are in the late middle of the Sixth Extinction; and no, humans aren't going to make it. There's simply too many of us too invested in continuing the current system at the cost of everything else. Best case scenario? The koalas take over--all they want is to get stoned and sleep.

Our Daily Bread

Photographer: Klaus Höpfner

The Guardian's Damian Carrington reported yesterday (17 July, '14) that analysis of government data shows that some 60% of bread sold in the UK tests positive for pesticide residue, and that 25% of that tests positive for more than one pesticide.
The main offender? Glyphosate (also known as Round-Up). Rounding out the top three? Chlormequat, a plant growth regulator, and malathion, an organophosphate insecticide.
Interestingly, bread is much more likely to test positive for pesticide residue than other foods--which test positive "only" 40% of the time. Carrington reports:

The official tests are carried out by the government’s expert committee on pesticide residues in food (Prif) and the levels found were below “maximum residue level” (MRL) limits. The Prif experts concluded: “We do not expect these residues to have an effect on health.”

But environmental campaigners point out that these residues only indicate that pesticides were applied properly at source. But Nick Mole, at Pesticide Action Network UK (Pan UK) and an author of the new report on the government figures, points out that “[These residues] are nothing to do with people’s health whatsoever. There is the possibility of harm from the repeated ingestion of low doses of pesticides and no one has done research on the impact of the cocktails of pesticides we are all exposed to. We are all being experimented on without our consent.”
 There doesn't seem to be any solid certainty about the effects of chemical residues in our food or bodies. But in Slow Death by Rubber Duck: The Secret Danger of Everyday Things

Stock image from Vintage Canada

Rick Smith and Bruce Lourie point out that each of us in the developed world are carrying a "toxic load" of over 250 different chemical residues, and that we have no real idea of how our bodies react to the doses of each--let alone what happens in combination.
We can reduce our exposure to pesticides by buying and eating organic food, of course. Regardless of the controversy over whether organic food is more nutritious, we do know that residues are certainly lower (although possibly not non-existent) on organics. There are so many sources of contamination in our environment--from air, foam in furniture, to plastic microbeads in our water--it's nice to know we can actually do something about one source. And it can taste pretty good, too.

Egypt is Drowning

Via AllAfrica:

Egypt's judiciary received on Wednesday a scientific report that confirms that 9 thousand tons of carcinogenic pesticides have entered Egypt in the era of the former regime despite a cabinet decision to ban these products.
A report by a Scientific Committee formed to investigate the case of the entry of carcinogenic pesticides to Egypt during the tenure of the former Ministers of Agriculture Youssef Wali and Amin Abaza.
The report revealed that around 33 banned pesticides entered Egypt despite the ban.
Thirty-five brands of pesticides that are known to cause cancer were banned by Egypt in 1996, yet Wali permitted the chemicals to cross into the country between 1998 and 2004.
The Criminal Court had sentenced Wali to prison for ten years for being convicted with selling an island in the Nile River for less than its original price to a businessman who was close to the former President Hosni Mubarak.
The report explained that there are safer alternative chemicals that can have been used instead of the banned pesticides.
It pointed out that the risk of the banned pesticides is not limited to causing cancer, as many of these products have severe toxic effects even if the level of exposure is at a low dose.
It added that these pesticides lead to genetic abnormalities and delayed formation, growth and death of embryos and ovarian cancer and other diseases.
The members of the Committee based their report on the results of scientific research on the impact of pesticides and its relationship to cancer in Egypt.

The Discussion We're Not Having

Al Jazeera’s Teresa Bo, reporting from Cordoba, Argentina, talks about a current trial over the spraying of "agro-chemicals" on soybeans.




What interests me is the guy saying that the courts aren't the place for this discussion, the National Assembly is the proper venue. While its true that the legislature needs to be having this discussion, it is also true that the courts are the correct venue for this. After all, the citizens are claiming damage from the soybean growers. Litigation remains an important tool for citizens of any allegedly free society.