I think the biggest problem is psychology. Lots of people are very attached to a semi-detached-suburban idea of what looks nice and neat in gardens - and this has been reinforced for years of course by weedkiller etc adverts.
We use only tools and hands in the garden, but you need a different aesthetic, one that values and enjoys weeds (aka wild flowers). In our large gravel courtyard and patios we adopt the ‘editing’ approach - we pull out some ‘weeds’ - docks, for example - but just leave most. The gravel has turned into what can only be described as a hard-standing meadow - alive with bees etc… To the suburban eye it no doubt looks untidy - one of our neighbours thinks so - but once you’ve made your own psychological adjustment, it’s really very beautiful.
But the definition of toxic in this case. Often its the narrow terms of reference so missing an area simply not paid to cover and who does the paying of the piper?
I think you’re wrong about this Billy - and @Toovey27 is right. The well-known water hoax is amusing but misleading - saying ‘water’ is a chemical in the context here is not precision in language because language doesn’t work like that. All meaning in language is context-dependent - and here ‘chemicals’ clearly do not mean substances that occur in huge quantities in natural garden eco-systems anyway. It means manufactured substances that, precisely, would not be found in the same forms or quantities in those eco-systems unless people put them there.
You’ve also been very selective in your reading of The Guardian article - which alludes to other studies - most importantly in my view the famous ‘bee’ studies - as Einstein said, if the bees go, we go - but many others cited by Prof Christopher Portier, specialist on the World Health Organization panel that found glyphosate to be “probably carcinogenic to humans” in 2015 - a position he has now firmed up to “Glyphosate fuels cancer”.
Reference to the dihydrogen monoxide “hoax” was, in some ways, a case of reductio ad absurdum - though with a serious point.
It is *not* really the case that “every time you spray chemicals, things die” because there are many chemicals that I could spray which would not cause anything to die.
Even if we stick with chemicals that I might want to spray to cause some things to die (e.g. “weeds”) there is little evidence (for some of them) that other things (e.g. beneficial insects) will, as a consequence, also die - almost certainly that is the case for both acetic acid (vinegar, but doubtless a “chemical”) or pelargonic acid (equally “chemical”, but derived from a natural base) - though I’d accept the argument that the latter is not as widely used as glyphosate so it is difficult to be certain it would not be harmful if used in the same huge quantities.
And how do we consider those “chemicals” such as antibiotics which are quite certainly intended to make things die but naturally produced by one species (e.g. fungi) to given them a competitive edge over another (e.g. bacteria) when both are trying to make use of the same resource.
It is just not helpful to just talk of “chemicals” - it is too imprecise a term.
Also, please note, my position is one of agreement that glyphosate use should be scaled back immensely - it has been horrendously overused. Did you know that one of its uses is pre harvest to kill grain crops to encourage “dry down” for harvest?
Used to that extent even the most innocuous compound is going to throw up problems.
It is almost certainly the case that glyphosate is carcinogenic - but then so are millions of other compounds in regular use. Breathing the air in the “developed” world is carcinogenic FFS.
But glyphosate is actually pretty non-toxic, you need large quantities to show these effects, as I pointed out, though they undoubtedly exist.
Actually I barely read the Guardian article at all having drilled down to the HEAL article. Not that I disagree - there is concern that glyphosate is harming bee colonies and it has been massively overused - it isn’t a great intellectual leap to the idea that we should stop using it.
Sure - but, again, many things fuel cancer and to a greater extent than glyphosate. Alcohol almost certainly fuels bowel cancer (and a good few others), as does red meat consumption. HRT fuels breast cancer, sun exposure fuels melanoma and other skin cancers, smoking fuels lung cancer, asbestos fuels (or fuelled) mesothelioma, mineral oil exposure fuels skin and bladder cancer, radiation from medical and natural sources fuels many types of cancer, obesity fuels cancer, HPV fuels cancer of the cervix.
I could go on.
How many of the world’s cancers are caused by glyphosate as opposed to the above - frankly the evidence is not there for many, ubiquitous as it is the average person is exposed to microgrammes or nanograms of the stuff.
Now, you see, this is where I think *you* are wrong (not to mention a bit unfair) because - while my world view is very different from @Toovey27 and I reach my conclusion from a completely different direction, as I said above, it is the same where glyphosate is concerned.
It’s just that I think it is a chemical which is basically OK as far as these things go - it’s unfortunate that rather than selective sensible use, the world has been drenched with the stuff and over use has turned a good thing into a distinctly bad one (a not uncommon phenomenon BTW).
As for the bees - yes, glyphosate might be implicated. But I’ll bet widespread use of organophosphate insecticides will be an even bigger cause (the clue being in the term insecticide).
Which from a medical point is guessing because they dont know. (Thats fuel cancer) whether or not it does is one study, what it does to the kidneys another likewise the gut microbiome etc but who pays for the double blind randomised studies?
It seems to mess up the bees and that is bad enough.
Persnally I believe a lot of people suffer problems of one type or another becsuse their bodies can no longer deal with the attack because the body is busy dealing with a host of other issues caused by made made stuff. Remove a lot of that from life and our bodies can repair a lot of the issues. Autophagy being good for the body from toe to brain.
We are years away from understanding the complex ways our bodies fonction at microbiology levels, so the risk factors you mentioned are just basic research nothing more. Unless you have a crystal ball.
No one is going to dispute the link between smoking and cancer, nor radiation, nor HPV, nor mineral oils. Alcohol and red meat - maybe a little more tenuous but the evidence is stacking up.
In the UK there are 375,000 new cancers per year - how many do you think are likely to be due to glyphosate. A handful at best.
Look up stochastic effects and, for that matter the multi-hit hypothesis.
Cancer is multifactorial and ultimately down to DNA damage which is not repaired - there is a random element to it so, to a certain extent, one person getting cancer and another not is the luck of the draw.
Though there are also medical conditions which increase the risk of developing cancer.
The risk isn’t necessarily a mystery, though the specific cause may be unknown at this time. human beings are diverse organisms, and some will be genetically susceptible to potential carcinogens while others will have much better resistance. There may also be environmental, dietary, lifestyle and psychological factors that play a role. This is self-evident, since for example, we see some individuals smoking heavily over a long life without dying of smoking related diseases, while others succumb after a relatively short time. We are approaching the point where individual genetic analysis may be able to predict these things.
I agree, thats why the autophagy scenario fits so well. Constant grazing, bad foods (or the aditives)
In bad foods damaging and not allowing the body to rid itself of damaged DNA. Cancer turning off autophagy so the body doesnt break down cancer cells. The random element is the part used in the medical field to just guess away what they dont yet know. Please dont take that the wrong way. The cholesterol hypothesis that just doesnt fit the data or the microscopic examination. The newest studies on the gut microbiome, why a controlled meal affectes the body one way yet in a different way for the same meal on another day. The medical field has been very good but there is an awfully long way to go in our understanding.
My comment was that you 're wrong about language. There is nothing wrong with @Toovey27 's usage of words like ‘chemicals’ in this context. The meaning is perfectly clear - and the rest of his/her post is also clear: s/he doesn’t spray anything - because there is really no need - so your comments on vinegar etc are really just a kind of ‘whataboutery’.
I take the same view as Toovey not because I think I or anybody else knows all the ecological effects of all the substances we might spray in the garden, but precisely because I don’t think anybody does really know - and moreover, I don’t think we need to spray anything anyway. The ‘whatabout’ line misfires on this - you seem to deploy it as an argument against the precautionary approach to the use of chemicals, but logically it is in favour of it.
It was also good to see Toovey’s provision of a link to a decent article, that in turn provided lots of supporting evidence - not just the one paper you looked at.
I wonder if there’s a link between the impulse to over-literal interpretation of language - the expectation of a one-to-one correspondence of words to things, rather than a significance arising from relationships within the whole structure - de Saussure’s example of ‘the 8.30 train’ being the usual example - and the atomised, instrumentalist, enlightenment version of science - linked historically with blundering destructive interventions - as opposed to the ecological, relative, incomplete, uncertain, post-modern scientific world we are now in?
Since people are discussing use of chemicals in the garden, hearing the suggestion of using salt concerns me. Used sparingly and in places where it will be washed away with frequent rain it’s not great, but probably won’t do lasting harm. Used repeatedly in places where it can build up will likely make the soil too hostile for plant growth. In addition it will get washed into nearby water sources and streams, which it might also poison if they don’t have a continuous flow through.
Vinegar is fine and will be broken down eventually.
Don’t assume that because something is natural it’s harmless.
