While the WikiLeaks media frenzy may have been focused on the release of tens of thousands of classified military and U.S. State Department documents, it's a leaked Environmental Protection Agency document that has conservationists, environmentalists and beekeepers abuzz.
The November 2nd memo, leaked to a Colorado beekeeper, indicates that the EPA was well-aware that the pesticide Clothianidin posed some serious risks to honey bees. There have been concerns about this chemical from as far back as 2003, and it's already been banned in Germany, France, Italy and Slovenia because of its toxicity. But the EPA chose to sweep all that under the rug to keep the pesticide on the market.
Clothianidin, marketed as "Poncho" by Bayer, is widely used on corn, as well as canola, soy, sugar beets, sunflowers and wheat. As if the $262 million cash crop from last year wasn't enough, Bayer wants to keep expanding the pesticide's use. And the company's original registration was based on some seriously flawed science: they evaluated the wrong crop, with the wrong controls to assess the impact on bees.
This all adds up to some serious questions about the government contributing to Colony Collapse Disorder as they knowingly allowed Bayer to poison bees. And this is about a lot more than honey production ... native habitats, and as much as one-third of America's food supply, rely on the pollination provided by bees.
An enormous marine heatwave off the US west coast is ringing alarm bells among ocean and...
Authorities in Orange county, California have ordered the evacuation of 40,000 people over concerns about a...
More than 17,000 people were under evacuation orders in southern California on Tuesday as a wildfire...
