Chemicals used on our crops and forests are of huge concern to society in general. Especially after problematic pesticides, like DDT, nearly wiped out bald eagles in the United States some decades ago. Now we are ever on the lookout for the next culprit. Which chemical will be the next big problem that affects our children’s development, our water, environment? Luckily for us, after the DDT scare, science and regulators buckled down big time to prevent anything like that from happening again. There is now a rigorous set of guidelines and regulations to ensure anything we put on the landscape is healthy, safe, and will have no adverse unintended affects. Scientists developing these chemicals spend decades ensuring they are safe before they are even considered for commercial use. We discussed why we use chemicals, how we know they are not only safe but could be considered to be the most environmentally supportive system, and the problems that would arise if we stopped using them completely. I know you are shaking your head, thinking “this guy is full of it”…I promise that this is the truth, backed by science. Don’t believe me, fine. At least listen to what the environmental toxicologist has to say, he studies this for a living.
#60-Pesticides with Ryan Prosser