To Bee or Not to Bee? What is behind the bee colony collapse? Or is there one?
Posted on February 6, 2014 by admin
Even we at ACSH were surprised at this one. The discussion about the reasons behind the so-called “beepocalypse” has been entirely focused on its cause. Some suspects have been cell towers, pesticides, and infectious diseases—Tobacco Ringspot Virus being the latest theory.But if you follow some of the references in Jon Entine’s recent Forbes op-ed, entitled “Bee Deaths Reversal: As Evidence Points Away From Neonics As Driver, Pressure Builds To Rethink Ban,” you will end up here: A 2013 article entitled “Everyone calm down, there is no “bee-pocalypse,” which appeared on the Quartz website – a business news publication of the Atlantic Media Company. In this piece, author Shawn Regan, a research fellow at the Property and Environment Research Center in Bozeman, Montana drops a data bombshell from a USDA report — bee colonies are just fine. The graph (below) clearly indicates that there has been no collapse.
This Appeared Here.....
Pesticides
Pesticide-Free Does Not Mean Pest-Free
By Leonard Douglen Tuesday, August 26, 2008
Recently a weekly newspaper serving the Princeton area published an article, “Playing without Pesticides” in which it reported on two “Pesticide Free” signs posted near two elementary school yards of Mansfield, “signifying that the school has taken a natural approach to managing pests and cleaning.”
The article also took note of the Integrated Pest Management (IPM) program that schools in New Jersey are required to have. As the Executive Director of the New Jersey Pest Management Association, I know something of this IPM program because the Association was instrumental in assisting the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection to write it and because the Association provides our members with the scientific and technical information necessary to implement it……
By Leonard Douglen Tuesday, August 26, 2008
Recently a weekly newspaper serving the Princeton area published an article, “Playing without Pesticides” in which it reported on two “Pesticide Free” signs posted near two elementary school yards of Mansfield, “signifying that the school has taken a natural approach to managing pests and cleaning.”
The article also took note of the Integrated Pest Management (IPM) program that schools in New Jersey are required to have. As the Executive Director of the New Jersey Pest Management Association, I know something of this IPM program because the Association was instrumental in assisting the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection to write it and because the Association provides our members with the scientific and technical information necessary to implement it……
Energy: Coal
The Social Responsibility of Coal
by Paul Driessen Tuesday, November 11, 2008
Relying more on coal generates benefits that are too often ignored
They get little credit for their efforts, but most resource extraction, manufacturing and power generation companies strive to be “socially responsible” – by emphasizing energy efficiency, resource conservation, pollution control and worker safety in producing the raw materials, consumer products and electricity that improve, safeguard and enrich our lives.
It’s not easy, due to the nature of their business, public intolerance for any ecological impacts – and the fact that “corporate social responsibility” is often defined and used by activist groups to promote ideological agendas. Above all, activists want to engineer a “wholesale transformation” of our energy and economic system, away from hydrocarbon fuels and into “eco-friendly” renewable resources; reduce our living standards to “sustainable” levels (their definition again); and give them power over the power that sustains our modern society.
This “hard green” version of CSR largely ignores socio-economic considerations, the many benefits of fossil fuel and nuclear power, the significant land and environmental impacts of wind, solar and ethanol – and the oppressive effects of soaring energy prices on jobs and poor families…….
Saving lives with coal
By Paul Driessen Wednesday, January 7, 2009
There is no such thing as “clean coal,” environmentalists insist. Burning coal to generate electricity emits soot particles that cause respiratory problems, lung cancer and heart disease, killing 24,000 Americans annually, they argue.
It’s the kind of claim that eco-activist Bruce Hamilton says “builds the Sierra Club,” by generating cash and lobbying clout for his and similar groups.
It’s also disingenuous, unethical and harmful.
Since 1970, unhealthy power plant pollutants have been reduced by almost 95% per unit of energy produced. Particulate emissions (soot) decreased 90% below 1970 levels, even as coal use tripled, and new technologies and regulations will nearly eliminate most coal-related pollution by 2020, notes air quality expert Joel Schwartz......
by Paul Driessen Tuesday, November 11, 2008
Relying more on coal generates benefits that are too often ignored
They get little credit for their efforts, but most resource extraction, manufacturing and power generation companies strive to be “socially responsible” – by emphasizing energy efficiency, resource conservation, pollution control and worker safety in producing the raw materials, consumer products and electricity that improve, safeguard and enrich our lives.
It’s not easy, due to the nature of their business, public intolerance for any ecological impacts – and the fact that “corporate social responsibility” is often defined and used by activist groups to promote ideological agendas. Above all, activists want to engineer a “wholesale transformation” of our energy and economic system, away from hydrocarbon fuels and into “eco-friendly” renewable resources; reduce our living standards to “sustainable” levels (their definition again); and give them power over the power that sustains our modern society.
This “hard green” version of CSR largely ignores socio-economic considerations, the many benefits of fossil fuel and nuclear power, the significant land and environmental impacts of wind, solar and ethanol – and the oppressive effects of soaring energy prices on jobs and poor families…….
Saving lives with coal
By Paul Driessen Wednesday, January 7, 2009
There is no such thing as “clean coal,” environmentalists insist. Burning coal to generate electricity emits soot particles that cause respiratory problems, lung cancer and heart disease, killing 24,000 Americans annually, they argue.
It’s the kind of claim that eco-activist Bruce Hamilton says “builds the Sierra Club,” by generating cash and lobbying clout for his and similar groups.
It’s also disingenuous, unethical and harmful.
Since 1970, unhealthy power plant pollutants have been reduced by almost 95% per unit of energy produced. Particulate emissions (soot) decreased 90% below 1970 levels, even as coal use tripled, and new technologies and regulations will nearly eliminate most coal-related pollution by 2020, notes air quality expert Joel Schwartz......
Green Pest Control and Integrated Pest Management
Through The Looking Glass
For all the years that I have been in pest control I have had to defend what we do, how we do it, and the products we use. Okay, so what? Am I any different than anyone else in pest control? If you had asked me that question 27 years ago I could have emphatically said NO! That was a time when we all came from the same paradigm! Do we today? Well now, that is a different story. Let's talk about that!
Ohio’s pest control industry has had the good fortune of always having had a few good leaders with a clear vision as to what the industry needs. Not just for what is good for them, or for merely what is good in the here and now, but a vision that goes beyond the horizon! The creation of what became the National Pest Management Association is one such example. Ohio’s pest controllers were among the first national leaders that formed what eventually became the National Pest Management Association. This is probably why Ohio pest controllers have been so involved over the years. They were there early and have remained involved through the generations ever since. Another reason is that Ohio pest controllers are passionate about our industry and the issues that face us. As new people came into the industry that passion became infectious to those who are now two, three and four generation pest controllers. People who weren’t around in the early days, but who were no less willing to reach out and carry the standard of their fallen comrades and predecessors……
Response to comments
By Rich Kozlovich Saturday, October 18, 2008
There are so many egregious issues in this paragraph that If you had sent this piece of information to me privately I would have responded privately, and I would have never published it. I am really surprised at your whole approach to this issue. In Ohio we had Litulis Kilgore, another unlicensed person making illegal applications. This is known as the "Proof by Example" fallacy. Just because they used pesticides for profit doesn’t make them exterminators and it is intellectually irresponsible to use people such as this as examples for why legitimate operators should be all hot and bothered to adopt a philosophy that is antithetical to good pest control and good public health!........
By Rich Kozlovich Wednesday, June 25, 2008
Heisenberg’s uncertainty Theory – The more closely you study the subject the less clearly defined it becomes.
Heisenberg’s uncertainty Theory – The more closely you study the subject the less clearly defined it becomes.
May I be so bold as to entertain the thought that this
certainly would apply to those who attempt to define Integrated Pest Management
(IPM) or Green for the structural pest control industry? Here is the reality we
are faced with; we have agreed to use these terms without agreeing on what they
mean. I hear the statement often; “we all know what IPM is or; we all know what
Green means”. Really? The reality is that there is “no universally accepted
definition of the IPM and Green phenomena; there is no consensus as to their
range, their ideological origins, or the modalities of action, which
characterize them.”
by Chris Donaghy, President of Residex
Saturday, July 26, 2008
Green Cool-Aide: The Taste is Sweet, but the
Hangover Could be Deadly
Like a heavy bank of fog rolling off the cold Pacific Ocean into San Francisco, or a dense London fog where it is hard to see where the road begins and ends, the Green Movement is shrouding our industry with a blanket of confusion and potential risk. The anti-pesticide groups are there in the clearing and they can see perfectly through the green mist that we find so alluring yet confusing as an industry. The anti-pesticide movement couldn’t be happier as the manufacturers, pest management companies and support associations pull in so many directions that they can hear the fabric of our once united front tearing away. In order for our industry to reunite and to be known again as the protectors of health and property, we must revisit the archives of our most successful moments in history as well as the anti-pesticide’s most prominent moment in history to understand how we came to this place, and why we need to define “Green”.
By Rich Kozlovich Saturday,
September 20, 2008Like a heavy bank of fog rolling off the cold Pacific Ocean into San Francisco, or a dense London fog where it is hard to see where the road begins and ends, the Green Movement is shrouding our industry with a blanket of confusion and potential risk. The anti-pesticide groups are there in the clearing and they can see perfectly through the green mist that we find so alluring yet confusing as an industry. The anti-pesticide movement couldn’t be happier as the manufacturers, pest management companies and support associations pull in so many directions that they can hear the fabric of our once united front tearing away. In order for our industry to reunite and to be known again as the protectors of health and property, we must revisit the archives of our most successful moments in history as well as the anti-pesticide’s most prominent moment in history to understand how we came to this place, and why we need to define “Green”.
For all the years that I have been in pest control I have had to defend what we do, how we do it, and the products we use. Okay, so what? Am I any different than anyone else in pest control? If you had asked me that question 27 years ago I could have emphatically said NO! That was a time when we all came from the same paradigm! Do we today? Well now, that is a different story. Let's talk about that!
Ohio’s pest control industry has had the good fortune of always having had a few good leaders with a clear vision as to what the industry needs. Not just for what is good for them, or for merely what is good in the here and now, but a vision that goes beyond the horizon! The creation of what became the National Pest Management Association is one such example. Ohio’s pest controllers were among the first national leaders that formed what eventually became the National Pest Management Association. This is probably why Ohio pest controllers have been so involved over the years. They were there early and have remained involved through the generations ever since. Another reason is that Ohio pest controllers are passionate about our industry and the issues that face us. As new people came into the industry that passion became infectious to those who are now two, three and four generation pest controllers. People who weren’t around in the early days, but who were no less willing to reach out and carry the standard of their fallen comrades and predecessors……
Response to comments
By Rich Kozlovich Sunday,
September 21, 2008
Over the weekend
I received a comment from a Southern California pest controller and I wish to
respond. Below is his comment to my article Sub-Prime Pest Control. I had
expected some comments because the home mortgage issue has so many racial
overtones. That is always touchy and difficult in this country and excites the
emotions. I chose to go with it anyway; because the underlying principles are
the same…we just have to get past race to appreciate it......
By Rich Kozlovich Saturday, October 18, 2008
I wrote the article “Sub-Prime Pest
Control” and posted it on September 20th, 2008. Gerry Weitz of
Hearts Pest Management in San Diego took umbrage with my views and so I
published a Response to
Comments". Gerry has responded and here are his comments with
my second response
I believe my observation about you being a sincere individual is a valid one, but I fear that you are under the influence of misinformation and fallacious thinking.
I believe my observation about you being a sincere individual is a valid one, but I fear that you are under the influence of misinformation and fallacious thinking.
Here are just a few examples
I have experienced:
My very first exposure in the industry was with a man who came to my house to do a gopher fumigation in our back yard. He did not have a license to do landscape gopher work! As things turned out, I bought the company from him. I didn't realize the remifications of the practices of the former owner until I tried to expand the business and the former owner told me I couldn't report my chemical usage to the state because our gopher applications were not approved! To solve the problem I had to hire a landscape operator until I got my own landscape operator license.
My very first exposure in the industry was with a man who came to my house to do a gopher fumigation in our back yard. He did not have a license to do landscape gopher work! As things turned out, I bought the company from him. I didn't realize the remifications of the practices of the former owner until I tried to expand the business and the former owner told me I couldn't report my chemical usage to the state because our gopher applications were not approved! To solve the problem I had to hire a landscape operator until I got my own landscape operator license.
There are so many egregious issues in this paragraph that If you had sent this piece of information to me privately I would have responded privately, and I would have never published it. I am really surprised at your whole approach to this issue. In Ohio we had Litulis Kilgore, another unlicensed person making illegal applications. This is known as the "Proof by Example" fallacy. Just because they used pesticides for profit doesn’t make them exterminators and it is intellectually irresponsible to use people such as this as examples for why legitimate operators should be all hot and bothered to adopt a philosophy that is antithetical to good pest control and good public health!........
Green Mysticism
Get Your Story Right
(Note: A new extremist religion/ideology is taking hold in public consciousness across the world. This new religion has a grand myth or narrative with which it hopes to shape human consciousness and thereby enslave the human spirit. This religion exhibits many of the basic themes and drives of previous religious movements- an unchallengeable truth impervious to scientific fact, the demand for a strictly constrained and regulated lifestyle in accordance with the core beliefs, an orientation to fear as a basic motivation, and so on. The material below outlines some of the basic features of this new environmental religion and points to facts that counter its central themes.)
All of us inform our lives with stories and we live our lives as individual stories. Living a story is essential to what it means to be human. And various groups in our societies present us grander stories or narratives that powerfully influence our own personal adventures. Many of us live our lives in terms of some in-group story, whether it be religious, ideological, scientific or other.
Global warming alarmism is perhaps the most prominent public story being that is being embraced across the Earth today. While there has been some effort to place this story within the realm of science, at core it is just the latest version of the same old doom/salvation narratives held by our ancestors. Nonetheless, this story has successfully lodged itself in the public consciousness because it resonates with a number of widely accepted themes that have long been beaten into human consciousness. These would include:
Life and ecosystems are fragile (the “great planetary imperilment myth”,according to www.ecofascism.com )……
Is Green Another Word For Pagan?
Wednesday, June 11, 2008 by Wendell Krossa
Anne Gardiner presents a good summary of some of the pagan mythology behind modern environmental thought. Alston Chase similarly traces something of the mythological roots of this movement in his book In A Dark Wood.
Gardiner also expresses the great battle for human minds and freedom that this environmental movement is shaping up to be. It is becoming the defining issue of our time- the environmentalist assault on human freedom. Some have suggested that it could become a totalitarianism that would outdo totalitarianisms of the past because it wants to legislate human behavior in constraining detail that other movements did not engage. And it demands a reversal of the human enterprise (and humanity itself) on a scale that few other movements envisioned.
But I am not sure that Gardiner's alternative is up to the task of countering the core mythology of environmentalism. The Christian story is also one of human sacrifice and this does little to effectively challenge the similar pagan call for human sacrifice. Competing against one form of mythology with a similar story does not really resolve anything fundamental. Also, the Christian belief system assumes a fallen humanity which is little improvement on the devaluation of humanity offered by environmental paganism.....
June 2008 By Anne Barbeau Gardiner
In the past thirty years, scientist James Lovelock, Fellow of the Royal Society in England and originator of the Gaia Theory, has published several books on Gaia. It was around 1970 that Lovelock first came up with the name "Gaia" for the Earth (he usually puts a capital E on Earth). In his latest outing, The Revenge of Gaia: Why the Earth is Fighting Back -- and How We Can Still Save Humanity, he assures us several times that he uses the name as a metaphor. But it turns out that for him a metaphor is not just a rhetorical device: He finds Gaia a "useful metaphor" because the present ecological crisis "requires us to know the true nature of the Earth and imagine it as the largest living thing in the solar system." Here the metaphor Gaia turns out to be the way to know the true nature of the planet. Then Lovelock invites us to a change of "heart and mind" so that we may "instinctively sense" Gaia as a living planet. How can we instinctively sense a metaphor? Evidently, Gaia is for him far more than a trope. While he admits that the name offends the "scientifically correct," he declares that he is "unrepentant" about using it because this metaphor is a "path to the primitive feelings of the unconscious part of our minds." That's the part he thinks we can use to contact Gaia……
Throughout his work, Lovelock keeps switching between the calm, dispassionate tones of a scientist and the frenzied shrieks of a seer. But why does he need to act as Gaia's prophet? Because he has embraced Deep Ecology……
(Note: A new extremist religion/ideology is taking hold in public consciousness across the world. This new religion has a grand myth or narrative with which it hopes to shape human consciousness and thereby enslave the human spirit. This religion exhibits many of the basic themes and drives of previous religious movements- an unchallengeable truth impervious to scientific fact, the demand for a strictly constrained and regulated lifestyle in accordance with the core beliefs, an orientation to fear as a basic motivation, and so on. The material below outlines some of the basic features of this new environmental religion and points to facts that counter its central themes.)
All of us inform our lives with stories and we live our lives as individual stories. Living a story is essential to what it means to be human. And various groups in our societies present us grander stories or narratives that powerfully influence our own personal adventures. Many of us live our lives in terms of some in-group story, whether it be religious, ideological, scientific or other.
Global warming alarmism is perhaps the most prominent public story being that is being embraced across the Earth today. While there has been some effort to place this story within the realm of science, at core it is just the latest version of the same old doom/salvation narratives held by our ancestors. Nonetheless, this story has successfully lodged itself in the public consciousness because it resonates with a number of widely accepted themes that have long been beaten into human consciousness. These would include:
Life and ecosystems are fragile (the “great planetary imperilment myth”,according to www.ecofascism.com )……
Is Green Another Word For Pagan?
Wednesday, June 11, 2008 by Wendell Krossa
Anne Gardiner presents a good summary of some of the pagan mythology behind modern environmental thought. Alston Chase similarly traces something of the mythological roots of this movement in his book In A Dark Wood.
Gardiner also expresses the great battle for human minds and freedom that this environmental movement is shaping up to be. It is becoming the defining issue of our time- the environmentalist assault on human freedom. Some have suggested that it could become a totalitarianism that would outdo totalitarianisms of the past because it wants to legislate human behavior in constraining detail that other movements did not engage. And it demands a reversal of the human enterprise (and humanity itself) on a scale that few other movements envisioned.
But I am not sure that Gardiner's alternative is up to the task of countering the core mythology of environmentalism. The Christian story is also one of human sacrifice and this does little to effectively challenge the similar pagan call for human sacrifice. Competing against one form of mythology with a similar story does not really resolve anything fundamental. Also, the Christian belief system assumes a fallen humanity which is little improvement on the devaluation of humanity offered by environmental paganism.....
June 2008 By Anne Barbeau Gardiner
In the past thirty years, scientist James Lovelock, Fellow of the Royal Society in England and originator of the Gaia Theory, has published several books on Gaia. It was around 1970 that Lovelock first came up with the name "Gaia" for the Earth (he usually puts a capital E on Earth). In his latest outing, The Revenge of Gaia: Why the Earth is Fighting Back -- and How We Can Still Save Humanity, he assures us several times that he uses the name as a metaphor. But it turns out that for him a metaphor is not just a rhetorical device: He finds Gaia a "useful metaphor" because the present ecological crisis "requires us to know the true nature of the Earth and imagine it as the largest living thing in the solar system." Here the metaphor Gaia turns out to be the way to know the true nature of the planet. Then Lovelock invites us to a change of "heart and mind" so that we may "instinctively sense" Gaia as a living planet. How can we instinctively sense a metaphor? Evidently, Gaia is for him far more than a trope. While he admits that the name offends the "scientifically correct," he declares that he is "unrepentant" about using it because this metaphor is a "path to the primitive feelings of the unconscious part of our minds." That's the part he thinks we can use to contact Gaia……
Throughout his work, Lovelock keeps switching between the calm, dispassionate tones of a scientist and the frenzied shrieks of a seer. But why does he need to act as Gaia's prophet? Because he has embraced Deep Ecology……
Green Commentary
ECO-ANTI
What Does It Mean To BeGreen?
By Rich Kozlovich
Mike Potter once said that the greatest challenge of the 21st century for the pest control industry will be the control of bedbugs. While controlling bedbugs may be our greatest pest control challenge, the real challenge for the pesticide application, manufacturing and distribution industries will be to define what it means to be “green”.
The people in pest control have a rational concern for the environment. We are trained to do good things for people while not harming the environment. Furthermore we actually believe that we do good things for people while not harming the environment, and we do. We believe that we are part of that thin gray line that is the first line of defense in the war for public health, and we are. We are the “hunters” that keep the tribe healthy. However, being concerned about the environment along with good health and being green are two entirely different things.......
Saturday, February 9, 2008 By John Ray
It is the nature of intellectuals to think that they know better than anyone else. So they rarely defend the status quo. They mostly want to change it in some way that would suit themselves -- mostly to get the money away from those dumb capitalists and channel it in a direction that will be better for intellectuals. In short, intellectuals usually lean Left to at least some degree. Conservatives can take the status quo or leave it, depending on what the particular status quo happens to be. But a loathing of the status quo is intrinsic to Leftism -- so much so that they may often oppose a status quo that they themselves have been instrumental in creating -- with the now-common Green/Left opposition to wind farms (a shout-out to Ted Kennedy here) being one rather amusing example......
By Rich Kozlovich Friday, February 22, 2008
Recently at RISE’s annual Industry Grassroots Breakfast Karen Reardon, director of communications and grassroots, announced that RISE was going to attempt to increase its “army of industry advocates” by 600, increasing the membership to 1000 by 2009.
To work to develop a grassroots movement nationwide in support of the nation’s pesticide applicators is a work to be applauded. However, I find it most distressing when someone in a position of responsibility, such as RISE President, Mr. Allen James, states that “We’re being left behind in the green sustainability movement,” “In fact, we’re being looked at as the demon in this one.”
What does “green sustainability” mean? This desire to jump on the “phrases without any possible hope of definition” bandwagon is becoming pandemic in the pesticide application industries. No one can define “green”. Actually everyone can define “green”, because it is unendingly definable depending on your personal philosophy. Remember “organic” when it first was touted. It meant no pesticides then. Now they have a list of pesticides….oops…..now the meaning changed......
By Rich Kozlovich Sunday, April 6, 2008
By Rich Kozlovich, Tuesday, April 29, 2008
Everyone who knows me knows what my position is regarding our industry going green. However, I have found that there are misconceptions as to what I think going green really means. First off, being green has nothing to do with whichever products or techniques are being used to control pests.
Some months ago I bought a steamer to use on bed bug jobs. As I was walking out with the steamer an industry friend, who knows me very well, said, “Rich, what is happening here? Is this IPM?” (IPM stands for Integrated Pest Management for those outside of pest control) I responded by saying, “No, it’s pest control”. Although he knew the answer and agrees with me, he just had to bust my chops.....
By Rich Kozlovich
Anti-Human,
Anti-Human Life Quality Advance Illogic Theory/Action
By Dave Dietz: Submitted to Green Notes on 11/31/07
In the early 19th Century (1811, to be exact), Luddites (modern day eco extremists) tried to stop life progress by stopping labor and life saving change. Misguided Luddites tried to stop, to turn back the change now known as the Industrial Revolution. They failed and human lives and life quality advanced ...But today, again we face a popularly perceived movement that is, in fact, an anti-human, anti-human life quality advance protest simply clothed in a popular, important symbol of our time. In fact, honest headlines today should truthfully read:.....
In the early 19th Century (1811, to be exact), Luddites (modern day eco extremists) tried to stop life progress by stopping labor and life saving change. Misguided Luddites tried to stop, to turn back the change now known as the Industrial Revolution. They failed and human lives and life quality advanced ...But today, again we face a popularly perceived movement that is, in fact, an anti-human, anti-human life quality advance protest simply clothed in a popular, important symbol of our time. In fact, honest headlines today should truthfully read:.....
What Does It Mean To BeGreen?
By Rich Kozlovich
Mike Potter once said that the greatest challenge of the 21st century for the pest control industry will be the control of bedbugs. While controlling bedbugs may be our greatest pest control challenge, the real challenge for the pesticide application, manufacturing and distribution industries will be to define what it means to be “green”.
The people in pest control have a rational concern for the environment. We are trained to do good things for people while not harming the environment. Furthermore we actually believe that we do good things for people while not harming the environment, and we do. We believe that we are part of that thin gray line that is the first line of defense in the war for public health, and we are. We are the “hunters” that keep the tribe healthy. However, being concerned about the environment along with good health and being green are two entirely different things.......
Saturday, February 9, 2008 By John Ray
It is the nature of intellectuals to think that they know better than anyone else. So they rarely defend the status quo. They mostly want to change it in some way that would suit themselves -- mostly to get the money away from those dumb capitalists and channel it in a direction that will be better for intellectuals. In short, intellectuals usually lean Left to at least some degree. Conservatives can take the status quo or leave it, depending on what the particular status quo happens to be. But a loathing of the status quo is intrinsic to Leftism -- so much so that they may often oppose a status quo that they themselves have been instrumental in creating -- with the now-common Green/Left opposition to wind farms (a shout-out to Ted Kennedy here) being one rather amusing example......
By Rich Kozlovich Friday, February 22, 2008
Recently at RISE’s annual Industry Grassroots Breakfast Karen Reardon, director of communications and grassroots, announced that RISE was going to attempt to increase its “army of industry advocates” by 600, increasing the membership to 1000 by 2009.
To work to develop a grassroots movement nationwide in support of the nation’s pesticide applicators is a work to be applauded. However, I find it most distressing when someone in a position of responsibility, such as RISE President, Mr. Allen James, states that “We’re being left behind in the green sustainability movement,” “In fact, we’re being looked at as the demon in this one.”
What does “green sustainability” mean? This desire to jump on the “phrases without any possible hope of definition” bandwagon is becoming pandemic in the pesticide application industries. No one can define “green”. Actually everyone can define “green”, because it is unendingly definable depending on your personal philosophy. Remember “organic” when it first was touted. It meant no pesticides then. Now they have a list of pesticides….oops…..now the meaning changed......
By Rich Kozlovich Monday, March 24, 2008
Many years ago I was watching a television show dealing with how seriously peer pressure impacts children, in this case teenage children. They demonstrated a study using a classroom as the lab for this experiment in human nature. Two sentences appeared on the blackboard, sentence “A” and sentence “B”. The class was asked; “Which sentence was the longest?” I don’t actually remember which sentence was the longest, but for this commentary let’s say that sentence “B” was actually the longest. This test was structured in such a way that only a small number of the kids in each group was unaware as to what was going on and could vote which- ever way they saw fit. All the rest were in on it and their job was to vote for sentence “A” as being the longest when in reality it was the shortest. Now the question! How many of the test students voted along with the crowd for sentence “A” as being the longest, ignoring the obvious truth that sentence “B” was in reality longer? It appears that 93% of the test subjects chose to go along with the crowd rather that have the courage and integrity to stand up for the evidence of their own eyes. Going along to get along!.....
Many years ago I was watching a television show dealing with how seriously peer pressure impacts children, in this case teenage children. They demonstrated a study using a classroom as the lab for this experiment in human nature. Two sentences appeared on the blackboard, sentence “A” and sentence “B”. The class was asked; “Which sentence was the longest?” I don’t actually remember which sentence was the longest, but for this commentary let’s say that sentence “B” was actually the longest. This test was structured in such a way that only a small number of the kids in each group was unaware as to what was going on and could vote which- ever way they saw fit. All the rest were in on it and their job was to vote for sentence “A” as being the longest when in reality it was the shortest. Now the question! How many of the test students voted along with the crowd for sentence “A” as being the longest, ignoring the obvious truth that sentence “B” was in reality longer? It appears that 93% of the test subjects chose to go along with the crowd rather that have the courage and integrity to stand up for the evidence of their own eyes. Going along to get along!.....
By Rich Kozlovich Sunday, April 6, 2008
Since I have been
publishing Green Notes as a weekly E-Newsletter I have gotten some feedback
from readers who have been appreciative and supportive and a number of them
have sent me updates on issues and articles worth linking. There also have been
some new acquaintances…… who have been….let us say…..not as supportive. But
that is what Green Notes is all about; forcing dialogue about issues facing our
industry. Green issues in particular. It really comes down to what it means to
be green and why we would want to be green. We have to ask; what is this
overwhelming need to change what and who we are?....
By Rich Kozlovich, Tuesday, April 29, 2008
Everyone who knows me knows what my position is regarding our industry going green. However, I have found that there are misconceptions as to what I think going green really means. First off, being green has nothing to do with whichever products or techniques are being used to control pests.
Some months ago I bought a steamer to use on bed bug jobs. As I was walking out with the steamer an industry friend, who knows me very well, said, “Rich, what is happening here? Is this IPM?” (IPM stands for Integrated Pest Management for those outside of pest control) I responded by saying, “No, it’s pest control”. Although he knew the answer and agrees with me, he just had to bust my chops.....
By Rich Kozlovich
History is a funny thing.
We have always heard how history keeps repeating itself and how we keep missing
the message. Why is that?
Because we don’t study history, and when we do, we don’t really study history, because most of what we get in school is very basic and the real lessons that need to be learned can’t be learned without the details and nuances as a result most of it would qualify as propaganda. Finally, as a society, we just don’t seem to care! We think it’s just a bunch of old dusty records that don’t really apply to our time. Yet we know that history does repeat itself constantly. The names, places and events might be different, but the underlying principles are all the same. The patterns of human conduct constantly repeat over and over again. Why? Because the one thing all of humanity has had in common all though the all of the ages is that we are human. We are still motivated by the same wants, needs and desires that all men have been motivated by forever.
What has this to do with the pest control industry you may ask? Every person or corporation involved in the pesticide manufacturing and application industries is one of the three following people. Neville Chamberlain, Winston Churchill or Vidkun Quisling......
Because we don’t study history, and when we do, we don’t really study history, because most of what we get in school is very basic and the real lessons that need to be learned can’t be learned without the details and nuances as a result most of it would qualify as propaganda. Finally, as a society, we just don’t seem to care! We think it’s just a bunch of old dusty records that don’t really apply to our time. Yet we know that history does repeat itself constantly. The names, places and events might be different, but the underlying principles are all the same. The patterns of human conduct constantly repeat over and over again. Why? Because the one thing all of humanity has had in common all though the all of the ages is that we are human. We are still motivated by the same wants, needs and desires that all men have been motivated by forever.
What has this to do with the pest control industry you may ask? Every person or corporation involved in the pesticide manufacturing and application industries is one of the three following people. Neville Chamberlain, Winston Churchill or Vidkun Quisling......
Energy: Solar
Solar power realities
This is from an e-mail to Jon Ray's blog "Greenie Watch", Jon says; A comment by someone who knows from professional experience -- received via a reader. The report focuses on Tasmania, which is in roughly the equivalent latitude to Italy. So what is bad in Tasmania will be worse in Britain (for instance). As for Sweden or Canada, stop laughing! Jon Ray, Tuesday, July 22, 2008
I am one of those people who supply and maintain solar and wind power installations to power electronic systems at remote (unpowered) sites -- e.g. two way radios up on mountain tops. Twenty plus years ago, a couple of us had a good look at the possibility of making a dollar or two out of flogging this emerging technology to the great unwashed. We didn't bother because it didn't stack up energy wise or financially. I admit the efficiency of the solar panels us mere mortals can afford has improved a bit since then (at least 8%) but the figures are still similar. A loose look at the energy required to make the things verses the energy output of them during their average lifetime was not really surprising. The panel would return enough energy in the first year to smelt the aluminum in its frame and its mounting and transport the manufactured panel to us. We could not get energy figures for melting the silicon so the wafers could be grown and then cut up to make the semiconductors but overall it will be high so we guessed that it would take at least 100Kwh . This equates to 3 years output from the panel used up by the time it is delivered on site.....
This is from an e-mail to Jon Ray's blog "Greenie Watch", Jon says; A comment by someone who knows from professional experience -- received via a reader. The report focuses on Tasmania, which is in roughly the equivalent latitude to Italy. So what is bad in Tasmania will be worse in Britain (for instance). As for Sweden or Canada, stop laughing! Jon Ray, Tuesday, July 22, 2008
I am one of those people who supply and maintain solar and wind power installations to power electronic systems at remote (unpowered) sites -- e.g. two way radios up on mountain tops. Twenty plus years ago, a couple of us had a good look at the possibility of making a dollar or two out of flogging this emerging technology to the great unwashed. We didn't bother because it didn't stack up energy wise or financially. I admit the efficiency of the solar panels us mere mortals can afford has improved a bit since then (at least 8%) but the figures are still similar. A loose look at the energy required to make the things verses the energy output of them during their average lifetime was not really surprising. The panel would return enough energy in the first year to smelt the aluminum in its frame and its mounting and transport the manufactured panel to us. We could not get energy figures for melting the silicon so the wafers could be grown and then cut up to make the semiconductors but overall it will be high so we guessed that it would take at least 100Kwh . This equates to 3 years output from the panel used up by the time it is delivered on site.....
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