On 09/06/16 17:27, Martin wrote:
On Thu, 09 Jun 2016 15:06:01 +0100, Timothy Murphy wrote:

Martin wrote:

lifting the ban (just for 18 months) failed to get
a qualified majority of EU states:

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-he...e-idUSKCN0YS0Y
06 June 2016

The URL doesn't work

Sorry, should be
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-eu-glyphosate-idUSKCN0YS0Y0

"The U.N.'s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and World Health
Organization (WHO) said in May glyphosate was unlikely to pose a risk to people
exposed to it through food.

The finding matches that of the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA), an
independent agency funded by the European Union, but runs counter to a March
2015 study by the WHO's Lyon-based International Agency for Research on Cancer
(IARC).
"That agency said the chemical was probably able to cause cancer and classified
it as a 'Group 2A' carcinogen. It assessed whether the substance can cause
cancer in any way - regardless of real-life conditions on typical levels of
human exposure or consumption."

You might find this of interest:
http://www.politico.eu/article/europ...an-commission/

And I find the last paragraph here is a real ROTFLMAO comment:
http://www.theguardian.com/environme...-of-glyphosate

EU decisions democratic? I have been trying to find a link to an EU
webpage which shows how that voting decision panned out. In other words,
how the countries actually voted - all we know from the Reuters article
is that Malta voted against. There seem to be dozens of articles like
the Reuters one commenting on the latest (non) decision, but none seem
to reference where their information came from (I assume it was from a
press release, but I can't find that, either). It seems there is nothing
like a "qualified majority" for avoiding any possibility of a democratic
decision, is there?

What comes next? Well, you might like to watch the first video he
http://euranetplus-inside.eu/which-p...ns-glyphosate/

I was so glad to hear from that paragon of common sense, Bart Staes,
that glyphosate kills bacteria and algae in the soil. In fact it seems
to kill everything (about 10.00 in). And it was wonderful to be assured
that yields from organic farming are "at least as high" as those from
conventional farming (at about 9.15 in). But I didn't hear anything
specific about what specifics "Plan B" will use in practice. Never mind,
they are organic, so must be safe, effective, and productive, and so we
have absolutely nothing to worry about.

I am sure than anyone who bothered to read the penultimate paragraph in
my post on 15 April in the thread "Glyphosate and the EU" would have
thought they were the ravings of a lunatic. I'll just repeat it here to
save time looking for it:

"Oh, well, the writing has been on the wall for some time for all amateur
chemical pesticide products. Once glyphosate has gone the Greens will
look for the next target. Neonics will be the first. Pyrethrins might be
the last as they are based on a "natural" chemical. Within a couple of
years there won't be any. Then they will target all the professional
agricultural products. It' would be interesting to see, when the first
food shortages appear after a devastating pest attack (will it be a
fungus, insect, or something else, I wonder), who starts blaming whom."

Would you still consider this fantasy after the latest EU vote?

--

Jeff