The Chemical That Must Not Be Named
Delegates from 191 nations are on the verge of an agreement under the Montreal Protocol for faster elimination of ozone-depleting chemicals, but the United States insists it must continue to use the banned pesticide methyl bromide.
MONTREAL - Even as another enormous ozone hole forms over the Antarctic this week, the rest of the world appears to be giving in to U.S. demands despite the fact that the use of methyl bromide in developed countries was supposed to have been completely phased out by Jan. 1, 2005 under the Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer.
‘It’s a black mark on this meeting. It is the chemical that must not be named,’ said David Doniger, climate policy director at the Natural Resources Defence Council, a U.S. environmental group.
‘There is a powerful lobby group of strawberry and vegetable growers in Washington,’ Doniger told IPS.
Methyl bromide is a highly toxic fumigant pesticide which is injected into soil to sterilise it before planting crops. It is also used as a post-harvest decontaminant of products and storage areas. Although it is highly effective in eradicating pests such as nematodes, weeds, insects and rodents, it depletes the ozone layer and poses a danger to human health.
While alternatives exist for more than 93 percent of the applications of methyl bromide, some countries such as the U.S., Japan and Israel claimed that because of regulatory restrictions, availability, cost and local conditions, they had little choice but to continue its use as a pest control. And so despite the ban, the Montreal Protocol allows ‘critical use exemptions’ for countries to continue to use banned substances for a short period of time until they can find a substitute.
In 2006, the United States received an exemption to use 8,000 tonnes of methyl bromide, compared to 5,000 tonnes for the rest of the developed world combined.
At the 19th Meeting of the Parties here in Montreal, the committee reporting on methyl bromide use reported ‘excellent progress’ in the continuing phase-out of the chemical and that not many applications for critical use exemptions had been received. The notable exception continues to be the U.S., which has applied for 6,500 tonnes for 2008 and 5,000 tonnes for 2009, even as the rest of the developed world has dropped significantly to just 1,900 and 1,400 tonnes, respectively.
The delegate from Switzerland expressed concern that some countries were asking for large amounts and that 40 percent of the stocks were not being used for critical uses. The United States maintains a large inventory of methyl bromide in excess of 8,000 tonnes, but the U.S. representative said these would be used up by 2009.
Emissions of methyl bromide have an immediate impact on the ozone layer, noted Janos Mate of Greenpeace International.
‘Scientists think it has three to 10 times the impact of other chemicals,’ Mate told IPS.
The ozone layer will be at its ‘most delicate’ over next few decades before it begins to significantly recover. Climate change is slowing this recovery, and the impacts are not fully understood, he said.
The ozone layer is the part of the atmosphere 25 kilometres up that acts as a shield protecting life on Earth from damaging ultraviolet rays, which can cause sunburns, skin cancer and cataracts. The rays can also harm marine life.
In the past two years, ozone holes larger than Europe have opened over the Antarctic and Southern Ocean. The World Metrological Organisation reported this week that the hole is back and bigger than ever. And it could grow larger as spring returns to the southern hemisphere.
Climate change appears to playing a role in the formation of these holes. Paradoxically, as the Earth warms at the surface, in the polar regions the upper atmosphere is getting colder, creating just the right conditions for chemicals like chlorine and bromine to destroy ozone.
Last year, researchers at the University of Colorado at Boulder discovered that winds circling high above the far northern hemisphere have a much greater impact on upper stratospheric ozone levels than previously thought. Those winds appear to be increasing with climate change, translating into less ozone in the upper stratosphere.
Meantime, the U.S. growers lobby group is upset that the U.S. delegation isn’t pushing for higher volumes of methyl bromide, claiming that they could get far higher amounts under the Protocol’s rules because economically viable alternatives are not yet available.
‘It’s time to inject some common sense into this process,’ said Charles Hall of the Georgia Fruit and Vegetable Growers Association in a statement.
U.S. growers have never understood that methyl bromide is destroying the ozone layer, said Doniger.
Italy, Greece and Spain have nearly eliminated their use in agriculture, he added.
‘We’re all suffering with a thinner ozone layer just to benefit a few U.S. companies,’ said Mate.
© 2007 IPS - Inter Press Service
Maybe someday the US will live up the standards that it holds the rest of the world to.
Not today apparently. We’re still the masters of hipocrisy.
Alternatives to methyl bromide have to be found and our government is NOT doing enough at the same time that it pulls the rug out from under these agreements. That is morally reprehensible!
More money needs to be going into research. Let your representatives know that.
Meanwhile, buy only organic strawberries, almonds and walnuts.
Kudos to Doniger and NRDC for trying to get methyl bromide banned now.
Too bad NRDC didn’t push harder in the past when there was a more sympathetic administration.
As I recollect, NRDC was criticized in the 90’s for not strongly lobbying the Clinton/Gore administration regarding methyl bromide, especially as Mary Nichols, a former staffer of NRDC, had gone over to the EPA; unfortunately she defended extending the use of methyl bromide.
Sadly, this is an example of NRDC’s record which enabled weak policy by Clinton/Gore and dismayed the grassroots. Other examples of NRDC’s dubious if not environmentally harmful actions include supporting NAFTA, going to bat for Enron, designing and defending electricity deregulation in California, supporting massive multi-billion dollar bailouts for nuclear power plants, betraying the Los Angeles grassroots on the matter of development at the Ballona Wetlands while raising money from David Geffen whose Dreamworks studio was pushing the development, and more.
So much for NRDC’s self description as “the earth’s best defense” and “the most effective environmental group.”
bernardo @ NonprofitWatch.org
http://www.NonprofitWatch.org
srelf wrote: “… buy only organic strawberries, almonds and walnuts.”
Unfortunately, methyl bromide is allowed in the new, improved, watered-down, big-business-friendly, US organic certification standards, brought to you by Mall*Wart and numerous other big-business grocers who have noticed that they can make more money by slapping the “Certified Organic” label on the same old crap.
Did you realize that because Anheiser-Busch claims they can’t find enough organic hops on the open market, they can sell beer labeled “Certified Organic” that contains hops grown with pesticides and fertilizers? This is brought to you by the Friedman free-market types who think if you show up at the cashier with enough money, God will put more oil in the ground! Surely, if A-B can’t find enough organic hops, they’re not paying enough for them. Allowing 38 non-organic ingredients in “Certified Organic” food only depresses demand for organic versions of those ingredients.
You want real organic? The only safe, reliable place to get that is by buying it from someone you know. Or buy it in Canada, which is about ten years behind the US in the relentless slide to fascism, so big business has not really started to intrude in the organic food market yet.
Time to plant your Victory Garden in your yard or on the window-ledge if you don’t have a yard.
Victory over corporate agribusiness!
Victory over corporate poisoning!
Victory over corporate indifference to human life (while safe organic foods are available to the corporate Rich ‘friends’)!
Poison Corporate Food Sucks!!!
it’s quite simple really, if we do not live in harmony with nature, it will eventually be our demise. first we have to stop blowing each other up.
As I said in another post, “Mother nature is coming and boy is she pissed!” We have been just smart enough to circumvent the natural population limiting processes of disease and famine with antibiotics and artificial fertilizers, and so far we haven’t blown ourselves off the map, but one of these days we’ll hit the limit and nature will swat us like a housewife swatting an annoying fly in her kitchen. I think it is getting close.
RestoreDemocracy, you are right on the money. We have to start taking more responsibility for what we eat. Feck the corporate farming industry. Read New York Magazine article “Green 1/55 of an Acre” Sept 17, 07.
When the depression hits, its use will cease.
Don’t worry about it next year.
RestoreDemocracy, you are right - grow your own or you can’t be sure what is in it.
Jan Steinman:
I didn’t think MBr was allowed on organics. Are you sure about that? If so, how much is allowed?
From the U.S. EPA:
“Organic strawberry production is an effective integrated approach that offers an alternative to methyl bromide use for California strawberries. Organic producers do not use methyl bromide or any other synthetic pesticide or fertilizer in the production of certified organic strawberries.”
…and from Pesticide Action Network North America:
Organic strawberry growers use a variety of non-chemical alternatives, including crop rotation, pest-resistant root stocks and biological control, to produce strawberries without methyl bromide.
Hey how about that? We love a chemical that sterilizes the ground as well as depletes Our Ozone. For What? Crops like Strawberries?
Attention ! Is there any other Rachel Carsons out there?
I didn’t think so.
I guess Tuesday Is Soylent Green Day .
Anyone happen to watch Bill Moyer’s Journel last night?
Note to self: Boycott Strawberries.
Meanwhile, back at the Republicrat “Maxtrix”, were consumerism and indifference to overpopulation for resources continue to march along,
The neo-CON reaction to this additional ozone life threating danger? Naturally, it’s to:
Buy more cosmetic and suntan lotion stock…..
“What is this Republicrat Matrix?” I bet you are asking?
Do you want to know what IT is?
The Republicrat Matrix is everywhere. It is all around us. Even now in this very room. You can see it when you look out your window. Or when you turn on your television. You can FEEL IT when you go to work… When you go to church…. When you pay your taxes.
It is the world that has been pulled over your American eyes, to blind you from the truth.
What Truth?
That you are a SLAVE, Neo. Like everyone else, you were born into NeoCon bondage. Born into a prison that you cannot smell or taste or touch. A FOX NEWs prison for your MIND.
Unfortunately, no one can be told what the Republicrat Matrix is. You have to see it for yourself.
This is your last chance. After this there is no turning back.
You take the Blue pill, the story ends, and you wake up at Wal-mart, and believe…… whatever it is you want to believe. You take the Red pill, you stay in Greenland, and I show you how far the rabbit-hole goes….
Remember, all that common dreams is offering you is the truth.
LOL pacplyer… I took the red pill & went to New Zealand (unfortunately I am living in the States again, but its only temporary).
How amny people have been to Australia or New Zealand here? I ask this because SUNLIGHT FEELS DIFFERENT there. It was one of the first things I noticed. And sunblock is a must at all times. Melanoma rates in NZ are extremely high as well.
Just the latest example of the continuing message from the US government:
“The concerns of our industries are more valuable than our concern for your lives.”
As evidenced by the comments thus far it is almost impossible to express the frustration which the methyl bromide exemptions to the U.S. have engendered in those of us who care about the state of the Ozone Layer.
These exemptions represent more than a simple payoff to the AG Industry by the Bush administration. This was and remains a blatant attempt by BushCo to wreck this treaty.
It wasn’t stated in the above article but Methyl Bromide is used in open loop systems and has an ODP of at least .7. This is huge. CFC12, one of the base refrigerants targeted in the original Treaty has an ODP of 1.0. HCFC22 which is currently being phased out for it’s contribution to ozone depletion has an ODP of .05. In other words it is only five percent as destructive to the ozone layer as the base refrigerant CFC12. Methyl Bromide is at least seventy percent as destructive and is used in open loop systems. In other words all of it is available as a carrier for destroying the ozone layer.
The really egregious thing here is that this chemical was well on the way to being gone when the Bush administration stepped in and strong armed the process.
As the preacher might say: there will be a special place in Hell for these folks. In the meantime buy organic strawberrys, almonds and walnuts and speak up whenever you can.
I have not seen mention of what company manufactures methyl bromide. I’m thinking that the reason behind all of this is the corporation that’s making the stuff is making the rules. Wouldn’t a worldwide boycott be in order. Maybe it’s a good project for Public Citizen or another group with an impressive membership.
Info on major methyl bromide manufacturers:
http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=904
The solution? BUY ORGANIC!
What are the names of the companies that make this chemical, that distribute this chemical, that benefit from this chemical? Let’s open the book of the unnamed chemical a bit further.
By sterilizing the earth, all good bacteria and earthworms are destroyed too. This is insane. It makes the food less nutricious and destroys the soil causing the land to be less and less productive. When corporate and government power merge, there is hell to pay.
Methyl Bromide is only one of many life-deadly, neurotoxic chemcials manufactured by sociopathic corporations and allowed for widespread use by industry-corrupted US gov regulatory agencies.
When in 2003 Gore Vidal half-humorously speculated that the average American’s general brain dullness was due to the government “…something in the public drinking water…” he was more on-the-mark than he may have known.
Just as horrific: Even if sane people manage to get these toxins banned in the US or western Europe, multinational corps simply re-double efforts to export them to countrys with no regs whatsoever.
A minimum of about 230,000 Americans have been poisoned to the point of disability just by Dursban, alone (generic: chlorpyrifos.) This Dow Co. “product” is widely distributed and still in extensive use. A potent neuro-immune dysregulator, Chloropyrifos has been allowed by the US gov to be routinely applied to homes and public places for the past 20 years (such as day-care centers), until collectively-acting day-care centers, which logged and mutually shared heath effects data, filed a class action lawsuit against EPA and Dow three years ago — which merely resulted in heigntened label wornings for use in day-care centers and homes.
Successful lawsuits by US Chlorpyrifos victims — alone - have cost Dow,Inc. about $200 million, since 1994. A small cost of doing business, for Dow, which still makes annual billions on its Chloropyrifos formula — slightly altered and re-registerd every few years to make it even more toxic via New and Improved, unregulated ‘inert ingredients’ - and thus newly patenable ad infinitum.
In order to receive their toxic tort awards, 95% of individual plaintiffs who are awarded damages from use of Chloropyrifos, voluntarily signed Consent Decrees which completely muzzled their 1st Amendment rights to talk about their cases publicly. Thus, the scant public info about this and other kinds of poisons is only known because corporate product liability payouts must be legally listed on publicly-available (bust case/plaintiff-blind) IRS resports. Only a few environmental orgs research such info, and try to publish it in various largely-ignored news venuex
Chloropyrifos and Methyl Bromide are just two of scores of provenly life-deadly, brain-destroying chemicals in widespread use which, like Depleted Uranium in military-field use, are allowed in the name of either ‘economic benefit’ or ‘national security.’
Allowed, we should all recognize, by a now-wordlwide governning/regulatory system that shows itself to be both morally insane — and functionally suicidal even the profiteers..!
A worldwide, bogus Epistemology of Progess grips the human species, and it infects the political and economic systems of virtually all industrialized nations.
The unregulated greed of corporate capitalism is the leading edge of this self-destructive epistemology, true enough. But there has been just as much greed-in-intent and self-destructiveness in-action, in former socialist systems, like the USSR, as well.
Belchning angry slogans that blame one tyranical system over another will no longer solve the chemcial-toxin crises all humans now face in extremis.
Though it’s fair to say this:
American-based corporations are chiefly responsible for developing and distributing the worst of these chemicals, and for spinning the objective science that proves their use to be insane.
America’s diseased culture threatens its own citizens and the world in more ways than just its foreign policy.
America is no super power. It’s the first Duperpower; duplicitous; a nation of dupes lead by The Dupe of dupes; suffering from collective consumptive materialistic psychosis to the point of orchestrating its own destruction along with that of all other life on the planet.
A super power would be superb in every way. Have great respectful relations with all its neighbors. Be capable and able to provide all its citizens with a quality of life that is balanced and in harmony with nature, while ensuring liberty to all. A super power would have ideals and set a shining example of how to live by them. A nation worthy of the description ’super’ would be super in every way. It would be a constructive creative nation.
But America corrupts language like no other nation on earth. The indigenous natives had it right “You speak with forked tongue…”
But the America that exists today has trashed all its ideals while believing in the mythology that has created it as a monster, savaging civilization. That mythology has nothing to do with reality, and everything to do with producing the kind of people who are inimical to life in all that they do. That mythology, is what carries the seeds of destruction into the hearts and minds of Americans, and has them believing themselves as some sort of super race, beyond reproach, incapable of misjudgment or fallibility, and certainly of ownership of its irresponsibility. That mythology has got to be cut out like a cancer and given a thorough irradiation to prevent any further metastatization. America needs to learn honesty and humility if it is to become anything like the sort of citizen or friend of the world that the world will welcome or trust ever again. But America is paralyzed by its mythology. A mythology its Elite rely upon to ensure a tractable population that can be easily managed. Pretending to love and worship a Christian god, this nation in fact worships Mars, the God of War and Destruction. That’s the truth and we all know it now. There is nothing honest about America except a few solitary voices, who have courage beyond the pale to speak Truth to ‘power’. Apart from these courageous few, there is nothing to be trusted in America. Duplicity and dishonesty all the way, that’s the truth of the much vaunted American Way. Plundering, pillaging, raping, polluting and torturing the earth and its population with no sense of consequence. It’s disgusting, loathsome, despicable, and utterly intolerable behavior to a world that wants peace and true civilization. We could have had this already, if it had not been for the Duperpower. So let’s stop calling this nation a superpower–that’s part of the mythology that keeps America believing its own crap ideas. Duperpower. Duperpower. Duperpower. Because that’s what it does: dupe itself and everybody else.
The true superpowers of the world are the nations that quietly go about their business demonstrating their true commitment to ideals in how they treat their own people. They have no vast armies. Their people live quality lives and enjoy the best of healthy living in communities that are not gated patrolled fortresses. These nations do not make the headlines, have low crime and high prosperity. Their leaders speak truth to their people and have the respect of the people because they have earned it by being true. They threaten nobody, and are true friends to everybody. They have few scandals. These are the superpowers of an advanced human civilization and that’s who we should be looking to as a world, for examples of enlightened leadership and great governance, that does not seek to impose its will upon any.
To use the vernacular: America, you need to get your shit together, and flush it.
A friend and I have a little wordplay, we indulge in from time to time. It goes like this…
“With fiends like you, who needs enemas?”
And the answer is: Everybody!
“Straw Burial”
We love our Methyl Bromide,
We cannot get enough,
Pour gallons on our crops and fields
-We like that poison stuff!
But when toxic crops have ripened
And we reap in what we’ve sown,
We’ll cry out loud to Nature: “Oh!
-please don’t make us groan!”
THEN we’ll try *Organic*,
And THEN we’ll talk more sense!
But until that day arrives,
~ We’ll just sit
on the
fence…
_________________
(UCD, Sept ‘07)
My strawberries don’t need no stinkin methyl Bromide. Must be why the store bought ones don’t have any taste. If everyone would buy a few strawberry plants, the growers could be put out of business. No more methyl bromide. Strawberries are easy to grow, and spread very quickly. They have produced everbearing varieties that produce berries all summer. Homegrown flavor can not be beat. All the methyl bromide we saved, we could use to fumigate the congree, Senate and White house. They are just full of vermin from all 50 states.
hey fellow environmentalists, turn your frustration into action. Dennis Kucinich will turn the department of agriculture into the department of sustainable organic agriculture, among other things. Support him.