Insecticides and us - a couple made in???????? -response

Thank you all for your ideas and thoughts! So, insecticides!

We're considering so many angles of CONSIDERING right now! Let's just put them all out there in the beginning, so we can appreciate how integrated these topics can be - making them ethically bound to many particular causes.

-food: pesticides are used to keep 'pests' at bay so that crops can be grown with minimal 'interference.'

-insects: we love them; they don't know they're going to eat poison and die

-innocent bystanders: birds (as the article mentions) and other innocent bystanders - they have no idea they're in for it - how do we reconcile this?

-chemicals: um, how do we justify putting these in our bodies, in our water supply when we can wash them away, in our compost bins if we compost? Do we HAVE to use these? Is our need for tons of food to supply our cripplingly large human population forcing us into various harmful actions to just get the job done?

-monoculture: is it possible that monocultures present issues that integrated planting could help us avoid - such as critters that would eat or otherwise threaten a crop we desire for human consumption?

-commerce: There are KNOWING individuals who profit off of products that damage the environment and our health. There are also individuals who may or may not know or understand that they work for a company that endorses these things. How do we find ways to allow all these individuals to succeed economically without being flippant about the environment or the health of others - or doing what they have to to 'survive' economically by keeping a job that maintains the roof over their head?

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It is necessary to acknowledge how complex this issue is. It is easy to label things as good or bad, but the last decades have taught me that nothing is that simple, and that such black and white thinking will get us nowhere. Such thinking serves only to further divide cultures that are already fully invested in the cheap divisions that come with political parties and classes. Let us think of IDEAS for their own sake and use our minds to bring us together to find solutions.

Anyone who read the news of the poor birds that died in Charlotte, NC this past week, knows how viscerally nauseating it can be to consider our role in the lives of non-human creatures. Several hundred birds died flying into the windowed walls of the NASCAR Hall of Fame. The images and simply the words that described the scene - planted in my gut a horrible feeling. Of course, this situation was totally unexpected and unintended. It offers us, however, the opportunity to remind ourselves of the way we approach this Earth - with the intentions of a species that does NOT exist in harmony with other species except those we love (like dogs and cats ) and even then we cannot be fully trusted to respect and love those creatures as we are reminded of daily; check any SPCA website.

We do not OWN Earth and yet we subdivide it and rule it ruthlessly with boarders and documents that presume that we are entitled to it without question. What do other species do? They are left to build dens and nests in our abodes and to attempt as best they can - to migrate through our paved landscapes. Insecticides allow us to have more control over a system that we require because of our sheer population. Insects existed before we reached the point of living beyond our means, however threats have become more grave as human populations peak, boarders and politics become more important than direct resource-to-need actions and over-consumption/food-waste runs rampant. In order to supply the world we live in with food, agriculture is a necessity and to grow it with some reliability regarding crop outcome and mitigating risks, measures must be taken - such as insecticides.

So, who cares right? Because if these particular birds die, we can't eat them anyway so it's not a risk to our survival.

Wow...…………………………….

When did we get here?

Although many creatures are PROTECTED by the Wildlife Act or other legislation that is in place to (as it seems) save the wilderness from the whims of humans - it is disheartening to even consider how ADMINISTRATIVE we have made the wild. We have outpaced the natural rhythm of things to such a point that we ourselves cannot keep up and not only the wild is left behind, but we ourselves are inter-generationally fractured.

It is nearly amusing to consider the fines in place for killing Native Birds: $39,652.00 say. In modern times, we don't know how to solve problems without money; money is our base unit of valuation and yet we cannot statistically value nature in any way that fits within our economic valuation scheme. When the Dow closes for the week, do you ever hear anything about - "and now our native bird population has dropped 200 points." NO - money is how we view everything. And so many of us are used to that as our base system of understanding our daily lives, that nature itself becomes this elusive entity - without measurable value.

What if we define each of these eagles/hawks/falcons that died with a monetary value? Would their loss then incur a response from people? Nature does not align with our process of calculation; its tendencies to wax and wane in its temperament, to give and to take - do not align with modern visions many humans have of convenience and entitlement.

If we wish to propagate crops to sustain our ever-growing population while also considering the landscape within which our choices reside, we also need to consider the realities of our population size, the culture of food waste, the culture of economies that move food far from growing regions, the valuation of money over economic gains resultant from exports or labor exploitation.

Insecticides can keep particular insects at bay - but consider the insects' place in the local ecosystem. Human intelligence has allowed us to exist well beyond our own means (physically/environmentally), and so it is easy to shelve the reality that monocultures and overtaking landscapes with pavement and buildings and whatever else. What if, however, we empowered ourselves to consume food produced locally, that didn't have to travel far, that didn't require packaging, that didn't have the pressure of being hyper-protected against insects and other critters because of crop-outcome expectations.

What if we could re-frame the pace at which we lived, the expectations we've come to expect as far as HAVING EVERYTHING WE WANT EVEN WHEN IT IS NOT IN SEASON!

It is empowering to embrace a knowledge of nature that puts you ,in your place. We can accomplish things at such a speed these days that accommodating for the slow speed of nature isn't even a 'PROBLEM' anymore... ….. Problem?

Patience is lacking in our cultures of economies and technologies that do not honor the natural pace of things. As far as insecticides go - I am totally against voluntarily polluting our soil, watertables, air and other creatures. I also do not wish to go hungry.

Is there a way to supply the commercial SENSORY system of our societies with the information required to realize we would rather have clean food and clean water and NOT be apathetic about how that outcome occurs?

Tell me what you learn about where your food comes from. Look at where your food comes from, look at their practices. Are they obscured from you? Are you buying local; does that mean it's reliable? Why? Follow up with me as we continue our conversation.

Also, are you a gardener/farmer? What are your practices? What struggles do you encounter to balance ethics with survival in regards to the ole dollar?