Bayer and Monsanto seek Answers to Mass Honeybee Die-Off
Nope, your eyes aren’t deceiving you. This is NOT a typo. Bayer and Monsanto are just shocked — shocked! — at the global die-off of honeybees, and they’re determined to get to the bottom of this mystery.
In other news: The finance industry is horrified at the record number of illegal foreclosures, and they want to find out just what the hell is going on here. And Mexico’s most notorious drug cartel wants to know why Juarez has such a high crime rate.
Monsanto is holding a “Bee Summit.” Bayer AG is breaking ground on a “Bee Care Center.” And Sygenta AG is funding research into the causes of the mass honeybee bee die-off.
The phone calls are coming from INSIDE the house!!!!
Monsanto’s chief technology officer, Robert Fraley, said:
“Everybody is concerned by it.”
[sniff] It’s so touching when crocodiles cry.
The European Union has already voted to ban neonicotinoids, aka “neonics,” the class of pesticides used on corn and other major crops, as well as people’s lawns. Scientific research has shown neonicotinoids to be the main cause of the bee die-off.
Fortunately the United States doesn’t listen to them rabid environmentalists, especially when corporate profits — i.e. FREEDOM! — might be jeopardized. The companies who manufacture neonicotinoids, and the companies who coat their seeds with them, have a better idea of what’s killing all the bees: mites. Some sort of mysterious mite just materialized out of thin air and start killing trillions of bees.
Uh huh.
The Center for Food Safety has filed a lawsuit against the EPA, accusing the EPA of not regulating pesticides closely enough because they’re beholden to the Chemical and Big Ag Syndicates. A lawyer for the Center for Food Safety said:
“They may have a lot of money. But... we're going to win.”
One can hope.
Labels: Bayer AG, Monsanto honeybee die-off, neonicotinoids, neonics, Sygenta AG
posted by Tom Harper @ 1:58 PM
10 Comments:
When did the EPA lose their balls? Was the EPA bought out by Big Ag and Big Pharma? When did all these "Centers" (i.e., 501(c)3 orgs) come about to "monitor" what the government does? Now we have non-profits making sure the government does it's job? That's obscene.
The EPA has also given out 1500 exemptions to the Safe Drinking Act to mining and energy companies because lobbyists asked them to. (see ProPublica) We fund the EPA through our taxes and they turn around and grant "exemptions" to companies to pollute our drinking water. Why is the EPA subject to lobbyists (funded by corps) to go against the law? Why would ANY government agency be subject to the whims of lobbyists? What about the FDA - do they take lobbyists' money to so they can shoot our food with poison? Guess who pays for the lobbyists - we do by buying stuff from the companies that do this lobbying.
I'm really starting to think that everyone in DC (Congress, agencies, lobbyists, etc.) are all a bunch of sociopaths and we are paying them to screw us.
The only reason why Monsanto would be concerned about the honeybees is that everything we eat is pollinated by them. Without the bees, we'll all starve.
So weird seeing someone named Lisa make sense!
Erik
If Bayer is involved then trust me, I know they're up to no good
Erik
Lisa - I know! I thought the same thing, when Bush appointed Gale Norton to head the Dept. of the Interior, after she had spent her entire life trying to dismantle it and poison Colorado!
What's up with that? I don't know how to vote anymore!
Great post Tom. In ten years, Michelle Bachman is going to be complaining about the high divorce rate amoung gay people. Just watch. Fucking morons.
Erik - I'm testing some beta "Bayer" nanno-bot bees in my yard this spring. They perform fair with apples, but just on small trees or low branches. You are right though, something evil about them! Also seems like they drive the yellowjackets away, which last year did a decent job with my apples.
Lisa G: The EPA lost their balls a long time ago, that's for sure. Polluters, Big Ag and Big Pharm lobbyists all have a tight scrotal grip on the EPA and every other "regulatory" agency that's supposed to protect the public and not big industry.
I think Monsanto is scared shitless that their pesticide might be banned, and their only hope is to convince gullible people (of which there's no shortage) that a mite is causing the bee die-offs.
Erik: Yup, a different Lisa.
I'll take your word for it about Bayer.
Anonymous: As long as Michele Bachmann is out of office in ten years, I don't care what she complains about.
Erik - I know of this Lisa that you speak of. She gives all Lisas a bad name because of her stupidity.
If these agencies aren't working for our benefit, we should scrap them and start over. They have no ethics.
Bachmann really need a sanity test. That woman is batshit insane.
Even if Monsanto's pesticide was banned, I'm sure they'd get an exemption from the EPA. Don't they realize that they are harming themselves?
Angencies, governments, local, federal, just an expression of ourselves and way more ethical than a random selection of citizens. We write the laws, create the structure, vote the motherfuckers in, and furthermore, we vote with our dollars, buying things, empowering the comapanies that make the shit we buy, to make more stuff, employ more people, and spread the love around the world. Now they, companies, or "corporations" are not only permanent fixtures but "people" too. No going back. We can vote once a year and we vote everyday. Perfect democracy.
Scrapping such an important agency, now, in this climate, with half the country having lost their minds, and creating a new one would be suicide. Think Homeland Security. My worst memory in life, is hearing about that, by hearing Joe Lieberman talk about it.
It's all fucking downhill for a few years, more people, more death, more poison, more pollution, more anger, we just need to cling to the regulations we have, hope the new ones help, if we get any, and hope once we have twenty years of people out there working, who were raised on the internets (2000-2020). It will all be natural, automatic and fast, the change, or "institutionalized change" just few years away - you wake up, or "the world" wakes up in the morning, it decides what it wants to do. Simple as that.
In thirty years, they will find that their grandparents voted quaint. "Why did you vote grandma, when you all knew what you wanted?"
It will be strange, possibly wonderful, but would be worth being around just to see how the loonies act. Oh, wait, it's happening now.
Nelsonmuntzing. (scroll all the way down)
Lisa G: I guess the "other" Lisa is more ubiquitous than I thought.
Anon. @7:13: Very good points. We're always voting whenever we spend money. If you buy Roundup to kill the weeds in your garden, you're voting for Monsanto. If you get a burger at a fast food place, you're voting for the factory farms that produced what you ate.
Everyone needs to be aware of this. We can't count on corrupt government agencies to do the job our taxes are paying them to do.
Randal: Excellent news. We should all do what Hungary has done.
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