Widening efforts
to blame neonicotinoid pesticides for honeybee “colony collapse disorder” and
other “beepocalypse” problems have taken a fascinating turn.
Insisting that
scientific evidence shows a clear link between neonics and honeybee population
declines, EU anti-insecticide campaigners persuaded the European Union to
impose a two-year ban on using the chemicals. Farm organizations and the
Union’s Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Department unsuccessfully opposed
the ban, arguing that evidence for a link is not persuasive, and actual field
studies in Canada and elsewhere have found little risk to bees from the
pesticides.
Then this year’s
canola (rapeseed) crop suffered serious losses of 30-50 percent, due to
rampaging flea beetles. Over 44,000 acres (18,000 hectares) were declared a
total loss. Euro farmers blamed the ban.
Now it appears
that the campaign against these newer, safer pesticides – and the scientific
papers that supposedly justify the ban – were all part of a rigged,
carefully orchestrated environmentalist strategy.
A recently leaked
memorandum, dated June 14, 2010, summarizes a discussion earlier
that month among four European scientists who wanted to block neonic use. The
memo says the four agreed to find prominent authors who could write scientific
papers and coordinate their publication in respected journals, so as to “obtain
the necessary policy change to have these pesticides banned.”
“If we are
successful in getting these two papers published,” the memo continues, “there
will be enormous impact, and a campaign led by WWF etc could be launched right
away. It will be much harder for politicians to ignore a research paper and a
policy forum paper” in a major scientific journal. Initial papers would
demonstrate that neonics adversely affect bees, other insects, birds and other
species; they would be written by a carefully selected primary author and a
team of scientists from around the world. Additional papers would be posted
online to support these documents – and a separate paper would simultaneously
call for a ban on the sale and use of neonicotinoids.
(The WWF is the
activist group World Wildlife Fund or World Wide Fund for Nature.)
One meeting
attendee was Piet Wit, chairman of the ecosystems management
commission of the environmentalist organization International Union for
Conservation of Nature. Another was Maarten Bijleveld van Lexmond, who became
chairman of the IUCN’s Task Force on Systemic Pesticides, which was inaugurated
in March 2011, just after the European Union agreed to finance the Task Force
to the tune of €431,337 ($540,000). Vouching for the Task Force as an
“independent and unbiased” scientific “advisory” group was the same Dr. Maarten
Bijleveld, who is also a founding member of the WWF’s Netherlands branch and an
executive officer of the IUCN’s environmental committee.
Further
underscoring the “independent” nature of these organizations, the EU awarded
the IUCN €24,014,125 ($30,000,000) between 2007 and 2013. Moreover, IUCN task
force membership is by invitation only – making it easier to implement the
Systemic Pesticides Task Force’s stated purpose: to “bring together the
scientific evidence needed to underpin action on neonicotinoid pesticides.”
The entire
operation is odorously reminiscent of ClimateGate orchestration of alarmist
research and banning of studies questioning “dangerous manmade climate change”
assertions, and the Environmental Protection Agency’s 1972 DDT ban, regarding which
then-EPA Administrator William Ruckelshaus later admitted that he had not
attended a single minute of his own task force’s lengthy hearings or read a
single page of its findings, which concluded that the insecticide was not dangerous to humans or most wildlife.
The IUCN/WWF
campaign also recalls the equally well coordinated effort by Fenton
Communications, CBS “60 Minutes” and the Natural Resources Defense Council to
ban Alar (a chemical used to keep apples ripening longer on trees), in a way
that would channel millions of dollars to the NRDC. It reminds me of former
Environmental Defense Fund senior scientist Charles Wurster’s assertion that,
“If the environmentalists win on DDT, they will achieve a level of authority
they never had before.”
Never mind that
the Alar scam sent many family apple orchards into bankruptcy – or that
millions of African and Asian parents and children have
died from malaria because radical greens have made DDT largely
unavailable even for disease control. For them, humanitarian concerns rarely
enter the discussion.
As science writer
Hank Campbell
observes, all these campaigns reflect proven strategies “to
manipulate science to achieve a political goal.” They follow the Saul
Alinsky/Big Green script summarized by Madeleine Cosman: Select and vilify a
target. Devise a “scientific study” that predicts a public health disaster.
Release it to the media, before legitimate scientists can analyze and criticize
it. Generate emotional headlines and public reactions. Develop a government
“solution,” and intimidate legislatures or government regulators to impose it.
Coerce manufacturers to stop making and selling the product.
Environmental
pressure groups have repeatedly and successfully employed these steps.
In a recent
speech, Harvard School of Public Health Professor Chensheng Lu claimed that his
“Harvard Study” clearly demonstrated that neonics “are highly likely to be
responsible for triggering Colony Collapse Disorder.” However, pesticide expert
and professional pest exterminator Rich
Kozlovich says the vast majority of scientists who study bees for a
living vigorously disagree. They cite multiple problems, including the fact
that small bee populations were fed “astronomical” levels of insecticide-laced
corn syrup, and the colonies examined for Lu’s paper did not even exhibit CCD
symptoms.
President Obama
has nevertheless relied heavily on all this pseudo-science, to support his June 2014
memorandum instructing relevant U.S. agencies “to develop a plan for
protecting pollinators such as honey bees …in response to mounting concerns
about [their] dwindling populations on American crops.” The “serious” problem,
Mr. Obama insists, “requires immediate attention.”
He is playing his
role in the Big Green script but, as my previous articles have noted (here,
here
and here),
nothing in honest, actual science supports his call for yet another Executive
Branch end-run around the Legislative Branch and a proper vetting of what we do
know about neonics and honeybee problems.
Neonics are vital
for numerous crops: canola, soybeans,
wheat, winter squash, citrus groves
and others.
Derived from a
synthetic form of nicotine and often applied to seeds, “neonicotinoids” are
incorporated into plants to defend them against pests. This allows growers to
be much more targeted in killing crop-threatening insects: only those that
actually feed on the plants are affected. This approach (or spraying) also
means growers can successfully grow crops with far fewer large-scale
insecticide applications, and dramatically reduce reliance on more toxic
pesticides that do harm wildlife, including bees. Real-world field studies have
shown that bees collecting pollen from plants treated with neonics are not
harmed.
Other research
has identified serious problems that truly are afflicting bees in Canada, the
United States, Europe and elsewhere. Varroa mites carry at least 19 bee viruses
and diseases – and parasitic phorid flies, Nosema intestinal fungi and the
tobacco ringspot virus also cause significant colony losses. Beekeepers have
accidentally killed entire hives, while trying to address such problems.
Colony Collapse
Disorder has shown up from time to time for centuries. A hundred years ago it
was called the “disappearing disease.” It now seems to be ebbing, and bee and
beehive numbers are climbing.
We need to let
real science do its job, and stop jumping to conclusions or short-circuiting
the process with politicized papers, anti-neonic campaigns and presidential
memorandums. We need answers, not scapegoats. Otherwise, bee mortality problems
are likely to spread, go untreated and get even worse, while neonic bans cause
widespread crop failures and huge financial losses for farmers.
Paul Driessen is
senior policy analyst for the Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow (www.CFACT.org), author of Eco-Imperialism:
Green power - Black death and coauthor
of Cracking Big
Green: To save the world from the save-the-earth money machine.
