EPA proposes ban on two toxic pesticides, limits on use of many others

Break on Through to the Other 'Cide

As part of a congressionally mandated 10-year review, the U.S. EPA this week recommended banning two particularly toxic pesticides and putting thousands of restrictions on the use of others. Out of 231 "active ingredients" reviewed by the agency, the two singled out for bans are lindane, which is used primarily on grain seeds and which persists in the environment and has been called by EPA "quite toxic to humans," and carbofuran, which is used on a range of crops and has been especially lethal to birds. The chemical review employed new safety guidelines on the risks posed to kids, and also examined the effects of cumulative exposure. Enviros applauded the decisions on lindane and carbofuran, but some said the agency hadn't gone far enough in limiting other pesticides. Also, some scientists at EPA and other federal agencies have criticized the way the review was conducted, saying the EPA gave in to pressure from pesticide manufacturers and rushed safety reviews.

straight to the source: Los Angeles Times, Marla Cone, 04 Aug 2006

straight to the source: The New York Times, Michael Janofsky, 04 Aug 2006

straight to the source: Los Angeles Times, Marla Cone, 02 Aug 2006

ADVERTISING POLICY

Comments: (4 comments)

You are not logged in. Thus, you cannot post a comment. If you have a Gristmill account, log in below. If you don't have a Gristmill account, well, by all means go make one! Meet you back here in five.

Global warming and Religious morons

Why do you waste space voicing the opions of religious small brains? This guy believes in the supernatural desguised as dogma. We want facts not blowhards. No speculation, no guesses, no psychics, we want facts! Does 100 plus degrees all over the US ring a bell???

by RobPellucid at 6:42 PM on 04 Aug 2006

Feeling the Warm Sky

"Of course, no individual weather event can definitively be traced to global warming;". But the heat felt outside on any clear day is directly related to global warming.

Put a hot skillet outside on a stump under a blue sky or under a clear night sky and it will not cool down as fast as it did last year while the air temperature remains the same.

In technical terms, the sky has a blackbody temperature that radiates infrared. This infrared radiation affects the comfort level of people and slows night cooling of the gound.

Building designers know that warm walls make air feel warmer and cold walls make air feel colder. The difference is significant. Closing shutters on nighttime windows makes rooms feel instantly warmer, significantly reducing the need for heating air.

We can feel the radient heat from the sky. This is not the same as air temperature. (Of coures, air temperature is also affected by a warm radient sky warming the Earth.)

by sunflower at 7:48 PM on 04 Aug 2006

Re-irradiation on the spelling

Radiant ground heat is the other blackbody, of course.

Great story on this evening's NewsHour With Jim Lehrer PBS on global warming consensus and "criminal" inaction.

by sunflower at 8:05 PM on 04 Aug 2006

Religious Moran Might Be Our Salvation

Over the last couple of week David has been trying to show us the light of religious thinking in presenting our sense of good and evil to world. He makes the good argument that for many seeing things in the terms of religious good and evil is a clearer choice and one that can be retained under strong opposition. Religious leaders such as Richard Cizik and Jim Ball of National Association of Evangelicals have been doing their part to get more religious leaders to adopt this view that abusing the earth is not what God intended when he gave us dominion. We were to exercise some wisdom.

For whatever reason many of us take a very intellectual view of policy and in fact are uncomfortable assuming a stance of it simply being a sin. And of course if it is not something you truly believe you can not fake it.

I think David points us in a correct direction. I think that it is wrong to abuse the world and the people in it and I think that religious leaders have an obligation to carry that message forward. Rev. Robinson may be one of those leaders.

It takes a lot of people to make up the world, it is a mix of creeds, races, nationalities, and etc. All in all that mix makes us better. I believe that Rev. Robertson has probably caused a number of people to alter their thinking in a favorable manner regarding global warming.

One thing we have to realize is that as global warming gets to be better understood people whom we have little regard will become supporters. It is even very possible that republican leaders, such as Sen. Snowe and others may become new conservative leaders who will support greenhouse gas controls. It will not just be liberal intellectuals who will carry the word.

Personally I like the liberals intellectuals better, but truth has a way of finding many speakers.

by ffletcher at 9:35 PM on 04 Aug 2006

The comments of Grist users reflect the opinions of those individuals only, and do not necessarily reflect the viewpoints of Grist, its staff, its board members, their psychotherapists, or their aestheticians. Got it?