Before the government allows the use of the product never before seen in nature, causing you a lot of monetary loss, reason says that they should think twice.
They think and experiment more than twice and pesticides are heavily regulated. The problem is that by the time symptoms show, it can be too late. On the other hand, virtually everything is a tradeoff: the houses we live in, newspapers we read, the meat we eat, the beer we drink etc etc is harmful to some habitat. So if you want certain things, you have to tolerate some other things. Pesticides, fertilizers and GM crops enable us to get much more from the same acre so they are very tempting to use.
Not saying that I'm cool with having all bees die off though.
The problem with your logic is that it assumes everyone is forthright and honest, even with tremendous amounts of money involved. We know what history and human nature teach us about that assumption.
These pesticides were initially sold as unharmful or minimally toxic to bees. Now that we are using it, we have experts telling us that it will absolutely kill bees. That's a pretty dramatic distinction.
Do you honestly believe that in all of their "thinking and experimenting more than twice", no one ever observed that this stuff killed bees and, on the contrary, everyone actually believed it to be unharmful to them?
Your comments beg the question. The "experimental results" you reference are meaningless if they are not properly disclosed and utilized.
In fact, seems to me that an investigation is in order as to how these supposedly stringent regulatory processes gave us pesticides that were purportedly safe for bees and other beneficial insects, while we now know that they are clearly lethal to bees. They specifically stated that their chemicals do not do something that they clearly do, and that something is ecologically and agriculturally devastating. I find it very difficult to believe that this was completely unknown prior to approval. If you are telling me that you believe it was unknown after utilizing the best processes we have to test and model, then I would say that we clearly need to ban these pesticides and approve nothing else until we are better at determining outcomes.
Beyond that, what I would trust is a regulatory process that does not involve revolving doors between government bureaucrats on the regulatory side and industry. That and a true democracy wherein politicians are not bought by the highest bidder. Those are just starting points.
So, no, I would not trust more experiments performed by the same people, processes, and "oversight" that brought us the last round. You would?
I'm not sure that I understand your line of questioning. Are you agreeing that there seems to be foul play here? Or are you saying that everyone is honest, but our systems are woefully insufficient? Or both?
Because either would be unacceptable in my view. Yet your point seems to be that it's the best we have, so we should make do. In fact, if you agree that the system as-is is very much less than ideal, then it seems that you would join me in calling for remedy, perhaps using the starting points I've already identified as a basis.
Instead the very nature of your questioning seems to suggest that people who call attention to the problem are somehow in the wrong because they don't have a set of concrete legislation for regulatory change at the ready. It's a bit of a red herring, wherein you agree with me on principle, but rather than demanding answers or solutions from those who are at fault, you instead immediately turn to me and demand solutions, essentially letting those responsible off the hook.
I never claimed to offer a specific, "practical" solution and my last comment pointed out the oddness of you asking me for one vs asking those responsible.
And I'm still not sure why you continue to make that the issue. It's not so much argumentative as it is odd.
In any event, what I did point out are some of the underlying issues that make the current system corruptable (i.e. untrustworthy). I don't really feel like retyping that, so if you're earnestly interested, perhaps you can check my ancestor comment on this thread.
As far as devising "practical" solutions, surely identifying and addressing those core issues might be a starting place.
EDIT: But perhaps the real question is: what exactly is your point?
See my reply to waterlesscloud below. In short, I understand how the process is supposed to work, but like much else in government, the revolving door between regulatory agencies and industry, combined with paid-for politicians, undermines the integrity of the process.
They think and experiment more than twice and pesticides are heavily regulated. The problem is that by the time symptoms show, it can be too late. On the other hand, virtually everything is a tradeoff: the houses we live in, newspapers we read, the meat we eat, the beer we drink etc etc is harmful to some habitat. So if you want certain things, you have to tolerate some other things. Pesticides, fertilizers and GM crops enable us to get much more from the same acre so they are very tempting to use.
Not saying that I'm cool with having all bees die off though.