Weeds!

An interesting bit of enviro-hypocrisy last week. Due to Toronto's garbage strike, the city had to spray the temporary garbage dumps to keep insects and rodents from feeding on the piles and spreading disease. The problem, these same pesticides were declared to be unsafe by the city and the province and fall under the sweeping pesticide ban levied last year. Now, the city has turned around and is assuring residents that these pesticides are perfectly safe. So which one is it? Are they safe or not?

I think this speaks loads about the environmental movement. Do as we say, not as we do. Just look at Al Gore's pollution belching trips around the world and his huge mansion while he tells us to cut back. Anyway, this whole issue with spraying garbage dumps in Toronto just shows how ludicrous the pesticide law actually was. Both the Federal Government and the United Nations have certified common household pesticides as safe and warned that bans could actually make things much worse. Case in point, I don't know about you but I've noticed a heck of a lot more weeds around than last year. My grandma's garden is infested with them. Since she's 86, she is incapable of pulling them and always found using "Weed-n-Feed" to be much easier. I had removed them all by hand a month ago but when I visited again just last week, it was as if I had done nothing at all. In fact there are now twice as many! I've also noticed my allergies to be particularly bad this year. Maybe it's a coincidence but I never used to get them until the pesticide bans started going up a couple of years ago. Furthermore, the Town of Milton is currently undergoing a major infestation of Giant Hogweed. This particular plant secretes a highly toxic chemical in its sap which causes extreme photo-sensitivity. If you should get it on your skin or in your eyes, it violently reacts with UV radiation in sunlight causing painful chemical burns to the skin that require hospitalization if not treated soon enough. It can't simply be mowed down because of this. Hazmat suits are literally a requirement for the job of removing the plant. The only way of effectively controlling this dangerous weed is, yep you guessed it, herbicides that the government has now banned. Giant Hogweed is said to have caused 16,000 injuries in Germany during 2003, and allowing its cultivation on your land is banned in the UK. As I said before, the United Nations did warn that this would happen should there be sweeping umbrella bans of pesticides. We took away our most important tool for controlling invasive species that do far more harm to our environment and safety than a bottle of Roundup ever will. With no natural predators and no human intervention, populations of dangerous pests such as Giant Hogweed, rats, and bed bugs will explode. I hope Mr. McGuinty and Mr. Miller are happy for putting people's safety and well being at risk in order to appease misinformed environmentalists.