Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeekly Reading Number 10!

Topic 1: Herbicide Law Suit

This news article covers a lawsuit filed by community water service against Syngenta, a chemicals maker. The suit is being filed because toxic chemicals had been seeping via runoff into community water sources. The lawsuit is being settled for $105 million.

I understand this settlement is considered large and monumental for corporate accountability, but considering 54 million people were affected by this, $2 a person seems like an awfully small amount of money.


Topic 2: Pesticides

This article talks about a pesticides, which even in small doses, cause bees to ignore potential food sources, which can result in entire colonies starving to death.

This is another scary example of how pesticides and other manmade chemicals can negatively affect and destroy the natural environment. This shows once again that no matter how much a chemical is tested, even the smartest scientists cannot predict what it will affect once released to the vast natural environment. Although, this article is not 100% negative, it is good to see scientists making progress in discovering what is causing the sadly rapid decline of bee populations.


Topic 3: Salmon Farming

This article is reporting on a B.C. salmon farm that recently was infected with a virus and had to cull over 500,000 salmon.

I am torn on the issue of farmed fish. On one hand, I believe that natural food is always better than processed, but with current over-fished waters, sustainably farming fish seems to have less harm on the environment. Also I find the fact they still sell infected salmon is a little disturbing. I think in general we, as humans, need to either be informed or find out ourselves a little more information about what we eat.