Permaculture Blog

OTNP April 2024 www.puravidaaquatic.com/wordpress/why-i-started-this/

I want to clarify something I said in last months posting with respect to new classes of pesticides that target molting. I said: This is done by looking for chemicals that target, modify, and damage complex DNA regulatory based molting systems …. Couldn’t possibly hurt humans or endangered mammals because we don’t molt. But … these DNA regulatory systems also have homologues in mammals such as mice, and … bats …, and us. What could _possibly_ go wrong?

To expand: Some of the (molting) DNA homologues that occur in mice, bats, and virtually all mammals, make up part of the largest family of transcription factors in the human genome. They are known as zinc finger (ZNF) proteins if you want to look them up. They regulate genetic systems; some of which we have not even started to identify yet! Systems such as brain development (Micro encephaly www.puravidaaquatic.com/wordpress/report-says-monsanto-linked-pesticide-is-to-blame-for-microcephaly-outbreak-not-zika/), cancer defense, immune system regulation, and even organ development. Hey let’s spray a compound that causes an increase in cancer and then another compound that damages our body’s ability to fight that cancer. And then argue for 20+ years about which _one_ is at fault. I would like to reiterate; what could _possibly_ go wrong😀

There is utterly no reason for mega environmental organizations to be hoarding the FOIA information that they have been able to acquire from the government. This is one of the most non-sustainable behaviors with respect to society that I have seen in ages. I am seriously, and passionately encouraging everyone to reconsider _all_ contributions to big businesses that advocate one thing and do another in the name of the environment.

I have sent many emails to dozens of environmental groups, and there are two that have responded in a kind and open manner, and even publish information on pesticide overuse. These two environmental groups are the Center for Biological Diversity, and the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds. Since I’m in North America I would recommend contributing to the Center for Biological Diversity. And I particularly like their recent post https://act.biologicaldiversity.org/1m3X0nfTM0ee5Wmc2euDjg2
If you are in the UK I would encourage it to be the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds.

I would however like to encourage the CfBD to not get lost in the fracking debate. If the CfBD wants to research and identify specific fracking chemicals that it believes are a problem that would be great.

We all know that our native mammalian rodent predators (mountain lions, bobcats) are suffering from the widespread use of rodentcides. But it seems to me that snakes would be even more at risk. A snake gets much much more of it’s nutrition from single meals. And if one of those meals was a poisoned rodent it would receive a much higher concentration of the rodentcide then a mammalian predator. I have called UC schools, Environmental departments, California Department of Fish and Wildlife, I have called snake conservation groups and I am having a hard time finding anyone who will return a call or who knows who I might speak with who has some knowledge of historic snake populations (particularly rodent predators such as rattle, gopher, racers, and red rat) and whether they are declining due to the rodentcides. I did receive one response; a _wonderful_ reply from a woman at the California Department of Fish and Wildlife and she gave me the contact immediately below. Do we even have an estimate of various snake species’ _current_ populations so that in 20 years we could compare: no.

I have recently learned from two different sources of a project sponsored by The Friends Of Griffith Park to learn more about our snake friends. The biggest problem with this research that I can see is that it does not separate the likelihood of acute toxicity by rodentcides from chronic toxicity but it’s wonderful that this group is putting money into much needed research!

Also, while I generally favor mechanical control methods over poisons. I agree that glue traps are particularly problematic.

All of this above; and a great question by Pam from the Sierra Club Margarita Group, is what actually led to my concern about natural rodent control (ie snakes) being poisoned by the chemical companies the same way that mosquito predators are poisoned by aerial spraying by Southern California county programs. And bats being poisoned too! 53$ billion my friends.

I have seen so many insecticide products advertised as being “bee safe” because it has to be ingested.
🛑 … whiskey … tango … foxtrot.
Ever seen a bee cleaning itself — or worse, not cleaning itself right away and taking it back to the hive. I’ve seen many a praying mantis, lace wing, spider (natural predators) cleaning themselves and thus ingesting whatever they have been forced to live in and walk around in. Please remember we are spraying where they live, essentially inside their homes!

Every single item above is why I started thinking about what we could actually _do_ (see the link at the top) about these issues.

I think it is criminal so many conservation organizations are enablers of the big pesticide manufacturers in our national parks. The nature conservancy should not be advocating that they are “conserving nature” while spraying pesticides on ” their” property and refusing to disclose what they are spraying.

😊 I truly believe that there are three little things that _we all_ can start doing today to begin holding our environmental groups accountable once again. 😊. Don’t you be an enabler for these groups.

www.puravidaaquatic.com/wordpress/what-can-anyone-do-about-the-pesticide-use-in-our-national-parks/
www.puravidaaquatic.com/

An outspoken member of the r/NativePlantGardening community expressed disappointment that The Arbor Day Foundation sells invasive plant species.

Source: Gardener raises concerns after suspicious experience with popular nature nonprofit: ‘I’ve also cut them out’

“I think as a nonprofit grows too big they lose their mission and instead focus on fundraising.”

Sound familiar? laughing.

Carbon Robotics LaserWeeders kill weeds among specialty row crops such as baby spinach, broccoli, kale, carrots, lettuce, cilantro, and onions. As you can see in the photos, weeds can’t compete with crops when Carbon Robotics patrols the fields.

Source: Laserweeding results — Carbon Robotics

I fuss about pesticides! I seriously object to pesticides, particularly Roundup, still being sprayed in our national parks!  Why I started this.  We need to support alternatives!  If you want to make a difference contact this company and ask for a handheld system for home gardeners :-)

 We desperately need to stop funding the enablers such as the sierra club, world wildlife fund, and audubon society.

🌿🌲Three little _easy_ things! 🌄

The best to everyone who actually works at and doesn’t depend on others to do their environmental work for them.  Stop enabling the big business environmental say one thing and do another businesses. Promote business alternatives! 

Homeless woman with all of her possessions in a shopping cart just stopped on the side of a highway and carefully picked up a butterfly and carried it very carefully 10 ft off the road talking to it in Spanish, and set it in the sunshine so it could fly away. I saw this from my community garden plot where they have just padlocked the porta potty to make sure that a homeless person can’t use a porta potty. All you arrogant, self-absorbed, money grubbing, entitled, fine examples of human beings could certainly learn a little bit about, and from, the homeless. And I’m not talking to you.

Source: New study finds little-known toxic crop chemical in four out of five people tested

“EWG’s new study on chlormequat is the first of its kind in the U.S.,” said EWG Toxicologist Alexis Temkin, Ph.D, lead author of the study. “The ubiquity of this little-studied pesticide in people raises alarm bells about how it could potentially cause harm without anyone even knowing they’ve consumed it.”

Source: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chlormequat

Chlormequat has been called the “most important inhibitor of gibberellin biosynthesis.”[2] As such, it inhibits cell elongation, resulting in thicker stalks, which are sturdier, facilitating harvesting of cereal crops.[4] It can also be used as an adjuvant for herbicides by retarding their oxidative disposal by plants. This is due to cytochrome P450-inhibition.[3]

An “adjuvant” means an additional compound that enhances the activity of the advertised compound. It’s often one of those proprietary ingredients that manufacturers add but they don’t have to tell you what it is.
“Facilitating harvesting of cereal crops” Anyone want to bet me 2 cents that it is being added to _organic approved_ pesticides?
“cytochrome p450 inhibition” = likely carcinogen

Anybody want to bet me two cents that the integrated pest management is approving this in our national parks? Soon to be your public schools.

https://www.puravidaaquatic.com/wordpress/why-i-started-this/

Pablo Castelló and Francisco Santiago-Ávila

NSW has recently begun the aerial killings of 14,000 feral horses in Kosciuszko in the name of protecting biodiversity. But why should conserving native species diversity take precedence over other inherently valuable expressions of animal life?

Source: Rethinking the mantra of biodiversity: Why the past should not determine the future – ABC Religion & Ethics

Meredith Stevenson, Staff Attorney, Center for Food Safety mstevenson@centerforfoodsafety.org

Source: Federal Court Halts Spraying of Monsanto’s Dicamba Pesticide Across Millions of Acres of Cotton, Soybeans

Center for Food Safety and the Center for Biological Diversity Rock!

Just three easy steps
Summary OTNP Feb2024 I don’t believe I have ever explained to this group as a whole why I started this project.

And for those of you with school-aged children and grandchildren, this is also how I became aware of the increasing pesticide use in elementary and high schools.

I have a PhD in microbiology and was forced to study a little chemistry😃 particularly as it relates to biology. I have been railing against pesticides for 30+ years. It is easy for me to criticize the widespread and indiscriminate pesticide use.

1) We spray five times the entire Gulf of Mexico oil spill on this country in pesticides every year.

2) It is impossible to fight the farm lobby. They are too well-funded and the companies too well entrenched.

3) There are more than 20,000 approved US pesticides! And _none_ are adequately analyzed in conjunction with others to understand unforeseen “thalidomide” effects of different combinations.

But, as I especially recognize in myself, it is far easier to be negative than to be positive. I started looking for a positive solution. A change I believed would be doable.

There is no place we can go and live to get away from the majority of pesticides. I thought we could start generating non-toxic zones where people could choose to live. I decided it might be most effective to start at geographic nodes — with these thoughts:

1 Our national parks could be clean, green, environment machines. And they are not producing food or reliant on the farm lobby.

2 People could get behind protecting not only our children, but natural areas and our endangered species as well.

3 Our big environmental groups, especially the sierra club, audubon society, and world wildlife fund could get behind this idea because of the endangered species connection, and really help push this sustainable idea.

4 Non-toxic regions could spread outward from those nodes.

Several people on this email list were foolish enough to encourage me 😃

I felt that the first requirement was to get a full and honest review and accounting of chemical and non-chemical methods being used in the parks. To be able to maintain adequate records, it was suggested to me that I choose only three parks; I chose Yosemite, Sequoia, and the Everglades. Those parks were environmentally diverse and geographically dispersed. Also, the fact that they had larger areas meant that they could designate non-toxic portions even if they could not make the entire park non-toxic. www.puravidaaquatic.com/wordpress/our-toxic-national-parks/

I have run into nothing but brick walls from the park superintendents, their staff, integrated pest management departments, and quite a few big environmental groups as well. (whiskey tango foxtrot sierra club, world wildlife fund, and audubon society, among others). To this date I have received not a single valid credible response from any of them over many dozens of emails and several calls. Since October of 2023, none of the national park superintendent offices have _ever_ officially admitted that they even have ipm departments (These departments are actually quite large). I am seriously laughing about how hard the park superintendents are trying to hide what they are doing. Could not possibly be that they feel guilty LOL! www.puravidaaquatic.com/wordpress/our-toxic-national-parks-otnp-communication-summary/

I discovered that many tons of pesticides are being approved to be used in our national parks and wilderness areas

https://www.puravidaaquatic.com/wordpress/sloppy-almost-criminally-poor-approval-of-pesticide-use-by-our-national-parks/.

While researching the integrated pest management departments (ipm) in the national parks, I discovered these very large, well funded, connected departments (arms of the pesticide industrial complex) were also working as a group at becoming a _mandatory_ part of pest control for all schools. I was horrified! The ipm system in our national parks has done nothing but block my attempts at communication, hide pesticide use in the parks, break their own restrictions on what they can and cannot spray, where they can and cannot spray, hide their “training” and certification programs, etc, etc. It is as if these ipm depts will only listen and talk to Monsanto/Bayer, Dow chemical, and DuPont’s advertising/sales departments. They seem to me the very very worst of big government. And they are working very hard to be solely in charge of pesticide use in your child’s school.

Obviously it is very difficult for citizens to fight the money in the massive chemical industry. Three Martini lunches by pesticide salespeople and public relations flyers sent to City, County, State, and Federal officials go a long, long way to blind, deafen, and dumb government officials. Citizens rightly have concerns that (despite all the industry advertising) these toxins really are not “drinkable”, and really do cause cancer, and do “harm people and pets;” and maybe even our endangered animals too. However, citizen concerns mostly go completely unheard.

I believe that there are three easy steps that we _can_ do to give our voices much more volume, start making a difference, and encourage our environmental groups to stop being enablers and start walking the walk again. www.puravidaaquatic.com/wordpress/what-can-anyone-do-about-the-pesticide-use-in-our-national-parks/

For past OTNP issues.
https://www.puravidaaquatic.com/wordpress/past-ourtoxicnationalparks-posts/

But you may want to start here. www.puravidaaquatic.com/wordpress/why-i-started-this/

If you have received this as a forward and would like to continue receiving it please email me “vidaaquatic@gmail.com”
And if you would like to donate as little as $5 to the cause, you can Zelle it to vidaaquatic@gmail.com. thank you very much. Bob

In a study published in Nature Medicine, U.K. researchers linked growth hormone treatments to the development of Alzheimer’s. Dementia experts shared input on the findings.

Source: Alzheimer’s disease found to be transmitted through medical procedures decades ago, study finds

But in a study published in Nature Medicine, researchers from the University College London (UCL) linked growth hormone treatments to the development of Alzheimer’s, according to a UCL press release.

The researchers studied patients who received a type of human growth hormone that was extracted from the pituitary glands of deceased people (c-hGH).

Wow does this sound like Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease?