Poisons Beware

Poisons Beware

Glyphosate, the active ingredient in Roundup and many other herbicides, was discussed in the EU Parliament on December 1st 2015.

Draft Motion for a Resolution prepared for the EU Parliamentary Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety, March 2016

A draft Motion prepared for the EU Parliamentary Committe for the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety in March 2016.

It's time to wise up! Look around, what's happening?

The practice of spraying the roads with insecticides in the summertime is potentially harmful and needs urgent review.

The Green Group of the European Parliament organized urine tests for the herbicide glyphosate on 48 volunteer MEPs. 

When the World Health Organization defined Glyphosate as “probably carcinogenic to humans”, it should have put an immediate stop to the sale and use of Glyphosate-based herbicides.

Are there alternatives to using chemical pesticides? Yes, of course.

The manufacturers have claimed that the herbicide Roundup, whose active ingredient is glyphosate, is "safe enough to drink", and many people are naive enough to believe this.

Pesticides safe? Pull the other one, it's got bells on!

From October 1st 2016, the sale of Roundup (Croatian Cidokor) and 11 other similar glyphosate-based herbicides was banned in the European Union. The ban should serve as a wake-up call to all users, supporters and promoters of pesticides.

The look of abject terror on the monkey's face is a haunting picture, the stuff of nightmares for anyone with an ounce of empathy for torture victims, whether human or animal. Animals are frontline victims of dangerous chemicals.

Just as the use of insecticides does not solve a mosquito problem, vermin are not controlled by repeated use of poisons.

A bee sting can cause a severe allergic reaction in a vulnerable person. Under current Croatian law, insects which cause allergic reactions must be subjected to an annual programme of suppression.

Our request to Croatian local and national authorities to review the insect suppression programme has produced a lamentable response so far. It's hard getting the message across, but we will keep trying.

Because we at Eco Hvar are very concerned about the shortcomings of the mosquito liquidation programme on Hvar and around Croatia, we have petitioned the Minister for Health to re-consider the methods used.

The campaign to eliminate mosquitoes through routine insect spraying is not working! And it's dangerous. We at Eco Hvar are asking for change.

Would I find myself driving home through a mist of toxic chemicals if I caught the 20:30 ferry back from Split? That was the question on 27th September 2017.

For several years, the local councils of Jelsa, Stari Grad and Hvar have routinely sprayed the streets against mosquitoes, flies and other 'flying pests'. Is this a good thing?

The programme aimed at killing mosquitoes is causing environmental disaster!

Bees are dying at a frightening rate. Humankind - unkindly - is decimating biodiversity.

Chemical poison use is out of control in much of the modern world. Safeguards exist in theory, in practice they are inadequate. At each level of responsibility, practices need to be improved. These are our suggestions for achieving vital improvements.

This is a guide to the systems governing chemical pesticide regulation, registers and laws, with an overview of some of the many problems arising from pesticide use.

The concept of exterminating people, for whatever reason, is unacceptable in civilized societies.

Results from testing a dust sample taken from a house in Svirče on Hvar on June 22nd 2021.

Testing people on Hvar Island for pesticides via hair samples is an ongoing project, conducted by Eco Hvar. These are the preliminary results from the Kudzu laboratory which tested for 100 pesticides.

A listing of selected pesticides which are, or have been in common use in Croatia, with the official warnings of their side-effects and the known side-effects of their active constituents.

An overview of the scientific evidence for claims that glyphosate-based herbicides are or are not safe.

Scientific evidence of the dangers surrounding chemical pesticides commonly used on Hvar and in other parts of Croatia.

CHEMICAL PESTICIDE USE AT CURRENT LEVELS IS NEITHER SAFE NOR SUSTAINABLE!

Towards the end of 2023, the European Parliament and the European Commission showed that they are not willing or able to protect European citizens from the ill-effects of chemical pesticides. So what needs to be done?

You are here: Home poisons be aware

Eco Environment News feeds

  • Campaigners say last-minute compromise plays into the hands of petrostates and industry influences

    Campaigners are blaming developed countries for capitulating at the last minute to pressure from fossil fuel and industry lobbyists, and slowing progress towards the first global treaty to cut plastic waste.

    Delegates concluded talks in Ottawa, Canada, late on Monday, with no agreement on a proposal for global reductions in the $712bn (£610bn) plastic production industry by 2040 to address twin issues of plastic waste and huge carbon emissions.

    Continue reading...

  • Some crops completely wiped out and dramatic falls in yields being predicted in county which reflects crisis in rest of UK

    With his farm almost entirely surrounded by the banks of the River Severn in north Shropshire, Ed Tate is used to flooding on his land – but this year, the sheer level of rainfall is the worst he has ever seen.

    He points to a field where about 20% of wheat crops have failed as they have been covered with rainwater that has pooled in muddy puddles, in areas that would usually be a sea of green by now.

    Continue reading...

  • Politicians fear perceived costs of green transition are driving poor and rural voters to parties such as AfD

    Raising his voice above the pounding drums and honking tractors, Lutz Jankus, a city councillor from the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD), distanced himself from the furious protest unfurling before him.

    “They’re rightwing extremists,” he said about Free Saxony, a loose political movement that includes neo-Nazis and skinheads, as his colleagues began to pack up their tent on the side of the square in the centre of Görlitz.

    Continue reading...

  • Long Dean, Cotswolds: The relentless rainfall we’ve had this year continues to dominate the farm, and we’ve had a significant loss here too

    I decided this morning that I couldn’t wait any longer and I whistled the cattle through to the river meadow. Grass, which has been growing and green all winter, is now shin high in places, but there are areas of wet where heavy trampling would disproportionately damage the soil structure.

    April did what April does, namely cruel winds and sharp showers, perpetuating a more or less eight-month long mono-season – or perhaps that should be monsoon. Since finishing the last of my hay, I’ve had to balance protecting sodden ground from heavy trampling with losing the benefit of spring grazing. The cattle are looking at their most bucolic, blue sky unfurled overhead, a constellation of dandelions at their feet. Already they are shedding their winter coats, but, almost in contradiction, they continue to wear muddy stockings up to their hocks.

    Continue reading...

  • In a first, researchers were able to compare records of people who drank polluted water in Veneto, Italy, with neighbors who did not

    For the first time, researchers have formally shown that exposure to toxic PFAS increases the likelihood of death by cardiovascular disease, adding a new level of concern to the controversial chemicals’ wide use.

    The findings are especially significant because proving an association with death by chemical exposure is difficult, but researchers were able to establish it by reviewing death records from northern Italy’s Veneto region, where many residents for decades drank water highly contaminated with PFAS, also called “forever chemicals”.

    Continue reading...

  • Analysts say impact on wheat, barley, oats and oilseed rape harvests means price rises on beer, bread and biscuits and more food imported

    UK harvests of important crops could be down by nearly a fifth this year due to the unprecedented wet weather farmers have faced, increasing the likelihood that the prices of bread, beer and biscuits will rise.

    Analysis by the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit (ECIU) has estimated that the amount of wheat, barley, oats and oilseed rape could drop by 4m tonnes this year, a reduction of 17.5% compared with 2023.

    Continue reading...

  • Native forest logging will cease in south-east Queensland this year – but how long will it take forests to recover?

    It’s just after 8pm when Jess Lovegrove-Walsh, walking down a pitch-black fire trail through bushland about 100km west of Brisbane, trains her spotlight on a pair of laser-red eyes deep in the canopy.

    “That’s a big long tail, it’s either a possum or a glider,” she yells, as a fellow ecologist from the Wildlife Preservation Society of Queensland, Paul Revie, runs ahead with his camera.

    Continue reading...

  • Scientists stunned by scale of destruction after summer of storm surges, cyclones and floods

    Beneath the turquoise waters off Heron Island lies a huge, brain-shaped Porites coral that, in health, would be a rude shade of purplish-brown. Today that coral outcrop, or bommie, shines snow white.

    Prof Terry Hughes, a coral bleaching expert at James Cook University, estimates this living boulder is at least 300 years old.

    Continue reading...

  • League is in unique position to help with climate crisis, setting ambitious goal for a 50% drop in its carbon footprint by 2030

    From a climate perspective, the world is in peril. It’s undeniable at this point. Today, though, there are organizations working to find solutions. But when it comes to the universe of pro sports, which has long been a source of pollution like other big businesses, where can answers be found? That’s the question those within leagues like the National Basketball Association are debating now. While the NBA has its own challenges when it comes to air travel and its carbon footprint, the league is also progressing forward with substantive changes, small and large, to assuage the climate crisis. And it’s in a unique position to do just that.

    Unlike anonymous research departments or lesser-known scientific organizations, the NBA is one of the most popular outfits in the world. It’s on the minds and lips of millions of people on a daily basis. This gives it the chance to manufacture change. A point not lost on many around the league.

    Continue reading...

  • After the trauma of losing their spouse and breadwinner to the Sundarbans’ great predator, women are cast out by their superstitious communities. But they are coming together to rebuild their lives

    Nobody saw exactly what happened in the minutes leading up to Aziz Murad’s death. But when his friends got back to the boat where they had left him, they found only his severed hand in the fishing net he was untying.

    “We were only gone for about five minutes,” says Abu Sufyan, who was first to reach the boat. “When we got back, he was gone and there was blood everywhere.”

    Continue reading...

Eco Health News feeds

Eco Nature News feeds

  • Countries around the world are trying to bring fish populations back from the brink after decades of overfishing. But some marine protected areas are falling short with a certain type of fish. Here’s why.

  • In the third year of the sweeping global PBS series “Changing Planet,” Conservation International CEO M. Sanjayan explores how climate change is affecting some of Earth’s most vulnerable ecosystems — and the groundbreaking science that’s offering hope.

  • A new documentary takes viewers on a trip around the world to explore one of nature’s most powerful — yet overlooked — climate allies: blue carbon.

  • Kenya’s Reteti Elephant Sanctuary — the first community-owned elephant sanctuary in East Africa — provides a place for injured elephants to heal and a home for elephants orphaned by poaching.

  • Earth lost 3.7 million hectares (9.2 million acres) of tropical forest last year, an area nearly the size of the Netherlands. Yet amid these sobering findings, there are signs of hope.

  • Earth has lost 2 billion metric tons of “irrecoverable carbon” since 2018 — an amount greater than the United States’ annual greenhouse gas emissions — underscoring the need to halt deforestation and expand protected areas.

  • As dangerous heatwaves shatter records around the world, a new study provides the most comprehensive review yet of how to stop deforestation — a major cause of climate-warming greenhouse gases, second only to fossil fuel emissions.

  • Every day, billions of cups of coffee are consumed around the world — and experts say demand could triple over the next 30 years. So, how will all those lattes, espressos and cold brews affect the environment?

  • In an announcement today at New York Climate Week, nine philanthropic organizations pledged US$ 5 billion over the next decade to support the creation and expansion of protected areas, sustainable management of the world’s oceans and Indigenous-led conservation.

  • Ana Gloria Guzmán-Mora is the executive director of Conservation International’s Costa Rica program, where she works with local communities and governments to help them meet their goals for protecting the planet.