| ▲ | tastyfreeze 8 hours ago |
| It is my hope that humans can ditch their love affair with pesticides. This is just one example of the unintended impact of pesticides. I have also found dying birds in my yard a few days after the neighbor sprayed their house perimeter for ants. No toxicology report but there was no sign of any physical damage. |
|
| ▲ | gravelc 4 hours ago | parent | next [-] |
| Pesticides form the backbone of crop protection. Without them, we're looking at at least a 40% reduction in global yield, and much greater uncertainty in food supply chains (the oil shocks show how bad that can be). Pesticides per se are not the problem; synthetic broad-spectrum pesticides with many unintended effects are. They're often toxic to people and ecosystems, and resistance among pests and pathogens is increasing anyway, so their days are numbered to a degree. Biopesticides, which are generally safer and much more sustainable, offer a real solution to at least the safety issue. I work on RNAi-based biopesticides (sprayed dsRNA) - non-GM, doesn't impact beneficial species, doesn't hang around in the environment, etc. Already ubiquitous in nature (and part of our diet). Peptide-based biopesticides are another approach that is going well. Both approaches are now commercialised by smaller players (e.g. for varroa mite control in bee hives by GreenLight), and not by the Bayer, Syngenta types. |
| |
| ▲ | sawjet 2 hours ago | parent [-] | | When you say it's part of our diet, does that mean it's safe to consume? |
|
|
| ▲ | nomel 7 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| I had a salesman come to our place saying that a neighbor had spiders, so their whole backyard was treated! I laughed and shut the door. |
| |
| ▲ | groovy2shoes 3 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | i had a salesman say he noticed i had a lot of spiders around outside. he asked who i currently use for pest control. i said, "the spiders." he excused himself and left. maybe they don't make great decorations, but the spiders generally stay in their webs and don't bother me. i once watched one defeat a wasp twice its size. i might feel differently if we had any dangerous spiders around here (just black widows, and they stay in dark hidey holes), but i'm happy to trade a little space for their services. | | |
| ▲ | SOLAR_FIELDS 2 hours ago | parent [-] | | Indeed I live somewhere that has both black widow and brown recluse and they are about the only two spiders I will actually exterminate. Even the fast scary hunter and wolf spiders get a pass |
| |
| ▲ | porknubbins 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | This was my about reaction when I was renting a house and a guy was going door to door to get people to sign up for yard bug spraying. Wait the bugs are already outside and you want to kill them? That’s where they live. |
|
|
| ▲ | downboots 8 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| We'll hopefully look back at these like we now see asbestos. All our scientific advancement doesn't automatically cure myopia. https://www.sciencehistory.org/stories/disappearing-pod/how-... |
| |
| ▲ | Intralexical 4 hours ago | parent [-] | | Asbestos... Lead, CFCs, mercury, cadmium, radium, petroleum, DDT, BPA, microplastics, PFAS, organophosphates, pyrethrins... The more wonder materials turn out to be devastating for human health or environmental stability, the more I think maybe the "no (synthetic) chemicals" crowd have a point. Or rather, that maybe we're learning the wrong lesson each time. Maybe instead of "asbestos is bad" or "DDT is bad", the real lesson should have been "biological and ecological systems are incredibly fragile outside of the exact combination of environmental conditions and chemical inputs they've specifically evolved to handle". Too much complexity, too many delicate mechanisms and feedback loops. Can't afford to keep playing whack-a-mole, every generation we replace the old poisons and add some new ones. If we keep introducing new molecules and quantities of substances that evolution hasn't had a chance to adapt to, then we shouldn't be surprised that we keep breaking things. But let's not pretend we don't use pesticides for a reason. People gotta eat, and pyrethrins are already an improvement AFAIU, less toxic to mammals, similar to molecules that exist in nature. But still, a cudgel. Maybe we need to take ecological engineering seriously, control pest species by simultaneously cultivating stable ecosystems of insectivores/predators and hyperparasites, poison spray not required... |
|
|
| ▲ | ceejayoz 8 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| We had a really bad year of mosquitos and got one of the spraying services in. An hour later, monarch having a seizure on our porch. Oops. Never again. |
| |
| ▲ | _heimdall 8 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Yep, its clever how well chemical companies have sold us general poisons as being highly specific to certain plants/insects/animals. That's not to say something can't work better on one particular type of biotic, but its still harmful to the others as well. | |
| ▲ | hedora 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | The only things that work around here are the thermacell repellents (they have a little butane fire that evaporates stuff off a mesh pad). Their effect seems pretty localized in time and space, but I wonder what's in them, and how problematic it is. | |
| ▲ | NewJazz 7 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Mosquito dunks and clear standing or pooling water. | | |
| ▲ | acdha 6 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | This stopped working in the mid-Atlantic when invasive tiger mosquitoes arrived. They need like a bottle cap sized amount of water so even things like a flower can hold enough water for them to reproduce. We’re using scented lures which have the right salt + lipid combo to attract mosquitoes. It helps but I still wish Nathan Myrvold had seriously developed that “photonic fence” product. | | |
| ▲ | cevn 4 hours ago | parent [-] | | I think the next best thing is an automatic turret that fires salt bullets or something, maybe AI. Hopefully it doesn't take an eye out, but if it took out like 1million mosquitoes for 1 eye, worth it? | | |
| ▲ | NewJazz 4 hours ago | parent [-] | | I think you would run out of eyes before running out of mosquitos. | | |
| ▲ | cevn 3 hours ago | parent [-] | | Fuck it, everyone wear safety goggles outside and try not to make any jerky movements. |
|
|
| |
| ▲ | ceejayoz 6 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | There’s a swamp near us and a bunch of neighbors. |
|
|
|
| ▲ | throwaway27448 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Zero chance. There is too much to be made by killing everything to love about life for us not to do it |
|
| ▲ | micromacrofoot 8 hours ago | parent | prev [-] |
| it is not love, we need to make it unprofitable homeowners have nothing on farms, acres and acres of pesticides and monocultures |
| |
| ▲ | fooqux 7 hours ago | parent [-] | | > we need to make it unprofitable Hard to do that when the very thing you're fighting against drastically lowers the cost of the product. No, this is what regulation and laws are for. Too bad science and the like seem to be on the way out currently. :/ | | |
| ▲ | micromacrofoot 5 hours ago | parent [-] | | yeah exactly, it can be done but it's harder and more expensive (though likely not as expensive as meat industry subsidies) |
|
|
