It took tens of thousands of people, dollars and hours to fight back the ambitions of a few agricultural capitalists, but good sense has at least temporarily prevailed here in California. After making their water-tight case for spraying most of Northern California with an untested pesticide to kill a harmless moth, the state government has backed down.

One of the arguments that the spray was safe was that the active ingredient wasn't a straightforward toxin. It was a pheromone, which was meant to pose less of a threat, and able to degrade quickly. The claims of the chemical companies hasn't quite matched the reality, though. ... read more »

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Posted on 30 June, 2008 - 15:28

My friend Patrick Wilkinson has put together a fine video about the upcoming spraying of large parts of California in the ongoing war on the Light Brown Apple Moth (LBAM, pronounced el-bam).

As Patrick's film suggests, there'd better be something mighty scary about this moth to warrant monthly aerial spraying over most of Northern California over the next five years.

So what's the danger? Will the moth summon forth the apocalypse? No. Is it the harbinger of some strange Africanized disease? Not even. Will it ravage California's agriculture? Kinda. But not actually by eating anything or laying anything or causing anything to be damaged.

The reason LBAM is a menace is, er, NAFTA. ... read more »

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Posted on 31 May, 2008 - 04:03