July 13, 2023

Silent Spring (1/3): Glyphosate reloaded

33 minutes

When the book „Silent Spring“ was published 60 years ago, author Rachel Carson shaped the environmental movement as we now know it. But globally, the use of pesticides is still rising steadily, with devastating impacts on human health and the environment: in Europe biodiversity is declining rapidly. Already ten years ago, the International Agency for Research on Cancer classified glyphosate as probably carcinogenic. Now the European Commission finally wants to act and reduce the use of pesticides by 50 percent until 2030 and reassess the approval of glyphosate. But the pesticide lobby, together with the conservative EEP group in Parliament, is up in arms against binding reduction targets and blames the war in Ukraine to justify the need for high-input agriculture. In this episode, we will learn about pesticide scandals in recent years and how millions of Europeans are raising their voices against toxic pesticides.

The podcast includes interviews with:

• Nina Holland - researcher at Corporate Europe Observatory (CEO), Brussels, Belgium

• Jeffrey Smith - consumer activist and author, Iowa, USA

• John Barton - Corporate Communications Officer at Monsanto (today: Bayer), St. Louis, Missouri, USA

• Dr. Kate Guyton - Senior Toxicologist at the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), Lyon, France

• Christopher Portier - Toxicologist, Switzerland

• Karl Bär – Parliamentarian The Greens, Berlin, Germany

• Veronika Feicht – Umweltinstitut München, Munich, Germany

Shownotes:

Many years of original research; The conducted interviews and original sound recordings come from Europe and the USA.

Study: “Loud lobby for a silent spring” by Corporate Europe Observatory (CEO): https://corporateeurope.org/en/2022/03/loud-lobby-silent-spring

Study: „Nature’s Dangerous Decline ‘Unprecedented’; Species Extinction Rates ‘Accelerating’” by the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES): https://ipbes.net/news/Media-Release-Global-Assessment

Study: „Assessment Report on Pollinators, Pollination and Food Production“ by the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES): https://ipbes.net/assessment-reports/pollinators

New York Times article: „Attack of the „Super Weeds“: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/18/magazine/superweeds-monsanto.html

Evaluation Study: „The Carcinogenicity of Glyphosate“ by Kate Guyton, International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC): https://www.europarl.europa.eu/cmsdata/129121/PH%20Glyphosate_Guyton.pdf

This podcast is an English adaptation of the German podcast series "Stummer Frühling" published in December 2022.

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By Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung