Money, Monarchs and Bt Corn pollen

[Paul Cherubini]

Chip Taylor wrote:
>
> Actually, it is quite easy to outline a variety of scenarios for the impact
> of Bt corn pollen on monarchs from near zero to the loss of perhaps 100
> million monarchs from the fall population.

Please enlighten us with your scenarios.

Back in the 1950's & 1960's when much more toxic and persistent
chlorinated hydrocarbon pesticides were used on Midwest crops (e.g. DDT,
lindane, methoxychlor, dieldrin, aldrin, etc) or extremely acutely toxic
organophosphate insecticides like parathion, any professor
in those days could also have claimed "it would be quite easy to come up
with a variety of scenarios for the impact of [those chemicals] on
monarchs from near zero to the loss of perhaps 100 million monarchs from
the fall population." But monarchs were hugely abundant in the MidWest
during those decades (Urquhart 1960). Would such funding to that
professor have been justified? 

> I could outline all the
> assumptions for these scenarios but this would lead to an endless and
> unproductive debate about these assumptions and conditions. Impact cannot
> be assessed through debate. It takes research and the research requires
> trained personnel, time and MONEY.

I feel the public has a right to know if there is a reasonable
expectation
that Bt corn pollen poses a serious threat to the monarch before handing
over the MONEY. Yes, it may mean endless debate about the models and
assumptions of your scenarios.  But such debate is what goes on in state
legislators and Congress everyday. That is how our system works. That is
how accountability is engineered into the system. That is how we avoid a
fleecing of the American taxpayer. That is how our system helps assure
limited available monies are directed to truly urgent envronmental
concerns.

Investigative reporters or industry representatives could survey many
square miles of existing Bt corn fields in Iowa in mid-July this year
when the pollen is coming off the plants. They could film first hand
just how much (if any) visible deposit of pollen is present on milkweeds
growing inches, let alone 200 feet from the corn. If they rarely find
heavy deposits of pollen on milkweeds anywhere they look and if the wind
or rain fairly quickly removes those deposites, what rationale is there
for asking the
American taxpayer to give you or your collegues a six or seven figure
grant?

After 10 years of annually visiting the Midwest farmland to monitor
monarchs I suspect the reporters and industry people will find healthy
monarchs and caterpillars in abundance along the perfiery of BOTH Bt
corn fields and regular corn fields including those that are treated
with conventional insecticides. I suspect that the percentage of the
milkweed plants, on a per square mile basis, that contains a heavy
deposit of Bt corn pollen will be less than 1%. 

Paul Cherubini, Placerville, California