I would be for banning the use of all chemicals used by humans to kill any form of life in the environment including all pesticides, herbicides, fungicides etc. The only exception would be for pests that carry diseases that pose a direct threat to human life. (And only where shown through scientific research to be effective).

Giermund, there's no way to craft a pesticide that only targets vectors for human diseases. DDT, for example, was used to kill mosquitos and carry malaria, but its effects were far wider. Banning pesticides will certainly help the environment, but you don't get to grant exceptions.

I actually know that. And thank you. Really more of a political statement by me to try and offer some reasoned or "rational" compromise to those who would otherwise immediately label me an extremist. You'll notice I did add the caveat about scientific study. The list of chemicals used by agribusiness to expand profits is enormous, troubling, and if maintaining a reliable food supply is the end result, it is a by-product of the overall goal of profit seeking, not the other way around. Look at the devastation of Chesapeake Bay. The list of chemicals used by people to decorate their lawns is the the most outrageous to me. We poison and ruin an entire ecosystem for green dandelion-free lawns. We are too lazy to bend over to cut grass finding purchase between cracks in the sidewalk, so we spray with idiot juice. Who reads the label to decide if it's wise to add something that is "hazardous to aquatic invertebrates" to the local and regional environment? These "strategies" should be banned. Mosquito bites I don't mind so much. Eastern Equine Encephalitis is scary but even that disease is probably only here because of human meddling with natural systems. How to direct the obtuse and willfully ignorant in the right direction?

Further evidence of the excessive influence of the chemical industry over our government, which should be serving the people, rather than corporate money.

Just a comment to recognize how refreshing it is to view dialogues that are truly reciprocal and don't include intractable world views! I am able to make this observation because it appears that right-wing trolls are not interested in the catastrophe affecting honeybees (or bats or polar bears or....). With respect to the actual subject matter, I am less than well-informed with regard to the actual science, but I am inclined to believe that unregulated commerce will do whatever it takes to gain an individual advantage, however temporary. There is a lot of noise about NOAA restrictions on the fishery which we abut, but who is responsible if the fishery dies and all the fishermen are out of work, permanently?

Why not just stop the spreading of imidacloprid? If the government needs these honeybees as much as they claim to, why are they exposing them with such chemicals that are killing them. In this article, it seems that the goverment is more concerned about what getting rid of these bees can do to the economy rather than nature itself. It is clear that it can highly affect the market because the foods that are produced through bees are not going to be able to be produced if more bees are getting killed and less are being reproduced. But, what happens to the bees itself? Their hives? How can they keep growing your population?