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TH: Re: Chemical controls



 Post-To: Tree-House@Majordomo.Flora.Com (Community Forestry) ----------
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 Date: Mon, 19 May 1997 12:46:40 GMT
 From: Roberta Rivett <Roberta@Islandnet.com>
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 On 18 May 1997 00:25:53 -0000, you wrote:

> On Fri, 16 May 1997, Roberta Rivett wrote:
>
>> They may be  long-term solutions and certainly are vastly preferable to the
>> chemical approach, but I read in Edward Tenner's "Why Things Bite Back:
>> Technology and the Revenge of Unintended Consequences"  that B.
>> thuringiensis applications to control various larval forms are contributing
>> to the development of strains resistant to the bacillus.
>> 
>> Heavy sigh.

> I agree with you, but I should contribute a small point here.  OK -
> biological controls promote immunity in the pests that they target,
> but that is not exclusively a complaint against organics.  Inorganics
> are capable of promoting resiliency just as well.  I can't document
> the rumor of a few years' back claiming that urban rats were becoming
> addicted to strychnine (OK - that's organic too), but there's no
> clear reason why a non-living hazard should be more ecologically
> predictable than a living one ...

I am not aware that non-living hazards should be more ecologically
predictable than living ones either.  It is easy to speculate that living
ones, being the more dynamic, could be less predictable.    It seems to be
a case of finding the "least worst" solution, and recognizing that in this
matter as in most others, magic bullets do not exist.  

Roberta Rivett