28 March 2015

A Monsanto apologist defends herbicides - LOL


When asked about the toxicity of Roundup (glyphosate), Patrick Moore asserts that it's "safe enough to drink."  Then...

(The verbal exchange reminds me of a classic John Clarke / Bryan Dawe sketch.)

11 comments:

  1. For curious minds: Glyphosate poisoning

    Ingestion of >85 mL of the concentrated formulation is likely to cause significant toxicity in adults. Gastrointestinal corrosive effects, with mouth, throat and epigastric pain and dysphagia are common. Renal and hepatic impairment are also frequent and usually reflect reduced organ perfusion. Respiratory distress, impaired consciousness, pulmonary oedema, infiltration on chest x-ray, shock, arrythmias, renal failure requiring haemodialysis, metabolic acidosis and hyperkalaemia may supervene in severe cases. Bradycardia and ventricular arrhythmias are often present pre-terminally.

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    1. For comparison, 85 mL is about a half to a third of the acute lethal dose of table salt.

      http://avogadro.chem.iastate.edu/MSDS/nacl.htm

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  2. He's just a scientist who for some unbeknownst reason goes out of his way to defend a a multimillion dollar product for a multibillion dollar conglomerate.

    He's not an idiot.

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    Replies
    1. LOL ...He's not an idiot, just a greedy SOB.

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    2. Patrick Moore is the founder of Greenpeace.

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    3. "He used to be an early member of Greenpeace, in which he was an environmental activist from 1971 to 1986. He is a frequent public speaker at meetings of industry associations, universities, and policy groups.

      He has sharply and publicly differed with many policies of major environmental groups, such as Greenpeace itself, on other issues including forestry, biotechnology, aquaculture, and the use of chemicals for many applications. According to Greenpeace, he is "a paid spokesman for the nuclear industry, the logging industry, and genetic engineering industry." He is an outspoken proponent of nuclear energy and skeptical of sole human responsibility for climate change." (from his Wikipedia entry)

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  3. Monsanto created a poison that kills all plants, then created soy beans and other crops that are resistant to this poison. That's pretty nifty, they wanted a poison that decays quickly over time, mostly because they wanted to sell roundup and seeds on a regular basis and also so it doesn't linger in the environment too long. But see there is a contradiction here, you want to poison and then not. Spraying a universal poison (proudly called Roundup) into the environment is all kinds of stupid for obvious reasons, even though this principle is often used in the lab. Classic example of using a science in its infancy for evil = for quick profit.
    This was a failure of Monstanto and of Bush government, who allowed such lunacy.

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  4. Replies
    1. Title and text amended accordingly. I had been wanting to add the Clarke and Dawe reference anyway. Tx, Drabkikker.

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    2. "Patrick Moore founded Greenspirit Strategies Ltd. in 1991, a communications strategy firm that promotes energy-intensive industries including "mining, energy, forestry, aquaculture, biotechnology, pharmaceuticals and manufacturing,"

      http://mediamatters.org/research/2014/02/27/who-is-patrick-moore-a-look-at-the-former-green/198266

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  5. Hyperbole is bad, as the lobbyist has learned. He meant, "Glyphosate is about as safe as table salt but breaks down as it hits dirt."

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