Rethinking Pesticides Summary

"Rethinking Pesticides" by Scott Hoffman Black touches on the issues that pesticides have forced upon the ecosystem for millennia. Black mentions that even the Romans burned sulfur to kill insects and pests, and in the 1600s, people were even using a mixture of honey and arsenic to kill ants. Black’s overall goal in this article is to make people realize we need to study the effects of these chemicals on the whole environment before we simply use them for the “next quick fix.” He mentions that in the 1950s, arsenic-based pesticides were replaced by DDT, which was promoted to be an improvement and not as harmful to humans. But because we wanted a quick fix, it was devastating to the environment and the food chain. Once we became aware of this, DDT was removed and we quickly tried to find another quick fix. This fix came in 1975 with organophosphates and carbamates. This “fix” again soon became known to impact the ecosystem so it was replaced in 1990 with neonicotinoids. These again boasted that they were less toxic to birds, mammals, and humans, and they were different in the sense that they were absorbed by the plant, making the leaves, stems, and roots toxic to the pests. They thought this would be better, but they were wrong yet again. The plant …show more content…
According to the Xerces Society, this was the largest known incident of bumblebee deaths ever recorded in the country. Scott Black, executive director of the Xerces Society and the author of the first article we read, made a statement in the post saying that the pesticide that was used on the tree was applied while it was flowering, which violated the product’s instructions. Bumblebees are very important to Oregon’s ecosystem as they contribute to blueberries, raspberries, blackberries, and crop seed production, and the loss of bees could be devastating to the state of