- This event has passed.
Pesticides and the Environment! Do We Really Want to End It All?
January 6, 2019 @ 2:00 pm - 4:00 pm
PESTICIDES AND THE ENVIRONMENT
DO WE REALLY WANT TO END IT ALL?
Contact: Tom Debor, tadebor@outlook.com
https://sites.google.com/view/kitsapaware/home
Sunday, January 6, 2019, 2-4 PM
Suquamish United Church of Christ, 18732 Division Ave. NE, Suquamish
In this time of epic climate change and environmental disasters, understanding the role of each puzzle part is more important than ever.
This Kitsap Aware forum, presented in conjunction with the Kitsap Environmental Coalition (KEC), provides a brief history of pesticide use, concentrating on the history of herbicides, which are classified by Federal and State agencies as pesticides. This will include a discussion of how these chemicals work, why their usage is classified as safe, and what their short- and long-term effects are, effects that, in fact, clearly demonstrate that the use of these products is unsafe for our environment, our water resources, and our children. Today a great number of the pesticide chemicals and formulations approved as “safe to use” by the U.S. EPA and Department of Agriculture are outlawed or severely restricted and/or regulated in many parts of the world.
We will explore how these chemicals are being commonly applied not just by homeowners and industrial users but by the very governmental agencies charged with regulating their usage. Speakers will discuss how these chemicals are used and how this use has exploded exponentially over the last half century. Learn why this expanded usage is making Rachel Carson’s warning of the “Silent Spring” as relevant now as it was when her book was published in 1962.
Local Impact:
In this day of clear and present danger from climate change, this forum will examine how forest resource companies are applying large amounts of herbicides in Kitsap County after a clear cut timber harvest. The most common chemical being applied is glyphosate, which is the main ingredient in Monsanto/Bayer’s product Roundup. Among other risks, glyphosate is a desiccant, meaning that in addition to killing broadleaf plants, it also acts as a drying agent, thus increasing wildfire danger. On top of this problem, the chemical is dangerous for many species of beneficial insects and amphibians and threatens native plant species as well as salmon streams and consequently orca populations.
Monsanto/Bayer has already lost one major lawsuit in which exposure to glyphosate was linked to the plaintiff’s fatal affliction with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, and thousands of other such suits are working their way through the courts today. A really important point that attendees will learn in detail is that they, their water, and their entire Puget Sound ecosystem are not safe from large scale applications of these chemicals. Not only is Roundup applied in our parks, on our roadsides, and on many school campuses, but additionally thousands of acres of forest are being harvested today or are due to be harvested over the next few years.
Finally you will hear compelling testimony from members of the Jefferson County branch of the KEC, who have lived the experience of having themselves, their property, their children and animals exposed to the application of herbicides by forest resource companies or, worse, agents of their own state government.
The forum will close with a description of the KEC (who they are, what they are doing to change these practices, and what the community can do to help), followed by a Q&A session.
Speakers:
Pam Keeley, Vice President of the KEC
Tom DeBor, KEC Board Member
For more information: http://kitsapenvironmentalcoalition.org/
Sponsors: North Kitsap Indivisible, Resisterhood360,
Bainbridge Island Indivisible, Kitsap Progressive Action Network