The only problem with the article is they assume your ants eat sugar. I haven't seen a sugar ant in 10 years around here. That is why I say, figure out what they are eating and bait them with that.
I've heard of folk making something similar by thinning down waste engine oil. Won't penetrate as much as PT, but it's easy to DIY every few years (and I seem to recall my dad talking me into creosoting fences every few years when I was a kid too - nobody ever thought of it as bad, they just knew to keep the stuff off their skin)
re. PT lumber, there's a real mixture out there - some of the stuff that the big stores sell is junk, some of it not too bad. There doesn't seem to be any consistency, or knowing what you're going to get (same's true with non-PT lumber, too). I usually stockpile a few good bits when I see them, if I happen to know I'll need them for a project a few months down the line.
Yeah, that and there are so many darn people on the planet that things which used to be good in moderation are now considered bad :-)
cheers
Jules
And exactly what was the deleterious unintended consequence of using DDT?
Dead birds, mostly. DDT was instrumental to the decline in the big raptors because the DDT propagated up the food chain. It was basically just because we used DDT indiscriminately with absolutely zero control of where, how much or what we were trying to kill. I doubt DDT is any worse than any other chemical if we were more careful in how we used it.
KC wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@l20g2000yqm.googlegroups.com:
Wadda ya mean? How about the fact that so many peices of PT are not used full size. Ya gotta make a cut. [Yea, I know. posts are whacked off the top]
snipped-for-privacy@aol.com wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com:
So THAT'S what happened to the dinosaurs! All that BS about a meteor...
DDT persists in the environment without breaking down. Stores in fat tissue in humans and showed up in human breast milk. Genetic changes, too?
They have outright BANNED a lot of it -and if the EPA in the USA hasn't, Canada - and in particular Ontario has. NO "cosmetic pesticides" on lawns - which includes herbicides.
The cinch bugs and dandelions will be totally taking over in a few years. If they had the vote they'd take over the government at the next election!!
After the government's behavior in the Gulf of Mexico, I've got *zero* interest in anything these people have to say.
Okay, I'll play. This is a problem because...
I don't know. And evidently neither you nor anyone else does either.
I'll play. By what mechanism did DDT in the food chain kill birds?
The administrative law judge, after hearings at the EPA, after seven months of testimony, concluded: "DDT is not a carcinogenic hazard to man... DDT is not a mutagenic or teratogenic hazard to man... The use of DDT under the regulations involved here do not have a deleterious effect on freshwater fish, estuarine organisms, wild birds or other wildlife."
Nevertheless, the head of the EPA, on his on authority, banned DDT. The head of the EPA that banned DDT was also a member of the Environmental Defense Fund.
Anyway, if you have some alternative information, I'd be glad to hear it.
Nah. Like Arsenic in the water supply, ANY amount is too much for some.
The DDT causes the shells on the eggs to be thinner and they break before the embryo develops into a chick.
I tend to agree people are taking this "chemical menace " thing to far, mostly the lawyers. Lead and asbestos are two prime examples. If you ever touched a brake shoe, there are ambulance chasers who will coach you in how to become a victim and they will take your case to court.
There's never been evidence that ddt was harmful to humans. But it did not ever breakdown. Selective use would still be appropriate and is still available in other countries. But newer insecticides and herbicides that have a short cycle before breaking down is really not a bad idea. It took years to figure out what the effect of ddt was. And it's not really possible to test or anticipate every effect of a complex manufactured chemical on the entire environment. If it breaks down in a few weeks then by nature it is safer. How is that a bad thing?
I don't think so. This conclusion - eggshell thinning - was reached on the basis of two articles in 1967 and 1968. Both researchers measured eggshells collected currently with those collected before 1947. The researchers concluded DDT & DDE were to blame and rejected other possibilities (food supply, radioactivity, oil, lead, mercury, stress, temperature, etc.).
Many other researchers said "Hmm, let's see," and began experimentation.
See: #39 Many experiments on caged-birds demonstrate that DDT and its metabolites (DDD and DDE) do not cause serious egg shell thinning, even at levels many hundreds of times greater than wild birds would ever accumulate.
#40 Experiments associating DDT with egg shell thinning involve doses much higher than would ever be encountered in the wild.
#41 Laboratory egg shell thinning required massive doses of DDE far in excess of anything expected in nature, and massive laboratory doses produce much less thinning than is seen in many of the thin-shelled eggs collected in the wild.
#42 Years of carefully controlled feeding experiments involving levels of DDT as high as present in most wild birds resulted in no tremors, mortality, thinning of egg shells nor reproductive interference.
#43 Egg shell thinning is not correlated with pesticide residues.
#44 Among brown pelican egg shells examined there was no correlation between DDT residue and shell thickness.
#45 Egg shells of red-tailed hawks were reported to be six percent thicker during years of heavy DDT usage than just before DDT use began. Golden eagle egg shells were 5 percent thicker than those produced before DDT use.
In my community, Ehrlich is most famous for the 1980 "Simon-Ehrlich" wager in which an economist, Julian Simon, called Ehrlich's bluff. Simon proposed a wager. Ehrlich was to pick five commodities and Simon would wager that each would be cheaper in ten years. Ehrlich agreed and chose copper, chromium, nickle, tin, and tungsten.
Ehrlich lost and paid off in 1990.
Point is, if Ehrlich was wrong about mass starvation, commodity prices, and other assorted prophecies, there's an excellent chance he was wrong about eggshells.
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"The Population Bomb" "The End of Affluence" "The Race Bomb" "The Population Explosion" "One With Nineveh: Politics, Consumption, and the Human Future "Healing the Planet: Strategies for Solving the Environmental Crisis" "Betrayal of Science and Reason: How Anti-Environmental Rhetoric Threatens Our Future"
Caused the thinning of their egg shells to the point that most eggs cracked before hatching. The comeback of these species, including the Bald Eagle, has been directly tracked to the banning of DDT.
A recent conversation, discussing wasp killer spray, that seems more like a shower and rinse.
Not much. Some of it showed up in higher animals, but little damage was done.
A few dead birds is a small price to pay for reducing malaria, and other insect bourne diseases.
I suppose it really depends on what it breaks down to but the problem is when you have your insecticide properly sequestered and it still breaks down, How long do you want your house to be protected from termites?
no snipped-for-privacy@nowhere.com wrote: > I walked over to my woodpile to pick out a few pieces for a small > job. I had some 2x6 PT stacked on the ground - these pieces had been > there about 3 years. I turn them over and ....... riddled with > termite damage to the point they had zero value.
If one lives in a termite zone, is it not rather stupid to "store" lumber in direct contact with the ground for a month, let alone three years?
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