Talking Pesticides on Turkey Day

celebrates Turkey Day, Thanksgiving was November first. But for all of our non Canadian and non Liberian listeners, we thought we'd bring you an episode today that touches on food issues. So we'll be talking about pesticides a little bit later on in this episode. But first the third iteration of our relatively new Parts Pavilion News Quiz. As you may recall, we bring in a couple of Bloomberg Environment reporters each week and test them on their knowledge of what's been

going on the news. The winner gets an immense sense of pridec and accomplishment. The loser basically just has a bad day and not a whole lot else. And today with us our Bloomberg Environments Sam Pearson and Tiffany Stecker. Thank you guys for joining us. Thanks David. So let's get started. Oh and by the way, you may recall, we've had some issues with the responses from our contestants in the past few weeks. We started off with raising their hands. That didn't work too well. Then we had

a bell that had all kinds of problems. This week we've brought in DIY shakers and contestants. Can you demonstrate them right now? So's okay, So that's what you'll be hearing if someone actually knows the answers to these very I have to say, very difficult questions. Question number one. Congress is back in session after taking a break to go campaign for most of October, and one of the first bills to pass the House during this lame duck session has to do with gray wolves. What would this

bill passed the House this week? Do ooh, we have time? Okay, they both. I'm going to go with Sam. I saw Sam first. Sam. What would the bill do to gray wolves? Oh? It would delist them, right, and which is the more the simple way of saying it. You will start over if you are one correct. The House passed a bill that would force the Fish and Wildlife Service to take gray wolves off of the endangered Species list and would

prevent it from putting them back on the list. There are a lot of ranchers and farmers out there who really want to be able to kill these wolves basically, and they can't because they're on the danger species list. Members of Congress say that the wolves have totally recovered and there's no reason for them to be listed. We will see if the Senate goes along with that, but that bill, perhaps not surprisingly, was a almost a straight party line vote. The score is one to zero, Sam

over Tiffany. Now we go on to the second question here, and we've all heard about the wildfires out in California. Things are pretty bad out there, especially with the type of air pollution called particulate matter, and the World Health Organization says a safe level of this type of pollution is twenty five parts pervillion in the air. That's the name of the show, parts pervilion. Question number two, by how much did air pollution in California exceed this level

last week? And I'm actually looking for a number here. Okay, I'm going to say ten times, but I know that may not be the answer to your specific question. But that is the number of times the California air quality was bad compared to Beijing. Oh, okay, so ten times worse than Beijing. Tiffany going with the bull strategy of not answering the question, and I actually asked Sam. Tiffany

says ten. And remember we're going by price prices, right rules, So one parts pavilion over disqualifies you, but you can go under if you want. Sidney says ten. I well that sounds about right. So do you want to say nine eleven? You know how many times worse is California's air pollution than what the World Health Organization says is safe. We need an answer, maybe twelve times, twelve times. Sam is going for twelve times. In this case, Sam won

again because he is closer to the right answer. Twelve is more than ten. The right answer is sixty times. The air pollution in California is sixty times higher than the safe level designated by the World Health Organization. It has been coming down this week as the fires have kind of started to die out, but last week we had fifteen hundred parts per billion of particulate matter in the air, so things are pretty bad. Out there. The

score is now two to zero, Sam over Tiffany. Will Tiffany be able to save some dignity here or will she get swept? Question number three. Despite decades of efforts to phase out a particular type of peticides called organophosphates, the latest data shows that their use is actually going up in certain places. Where is the use of the past like going up? Tiffany? Okay, thank you, David, I actually wrote this story. So is going up in developing countries,

specifically me and mar is seeing an increase. Mattatg Oscar I saw this is all according to the Food and Agriculture Organization. That of course is the right answer, because yes, you did write the story about that, and we're going to talk about that in a much greater detail in a moment. But now we're going to take a quick break, and congratulations to Sam on winning this week's quiz. But

we'll be right back. All right, So we're back, and we're here with Bloomberg environments Tiffany Stecker talking about all the potentially fatal chemicals they get used on the food you'll be eating for Thanksgiving this week. Not really, but we're I wanted to give you a little bit of a scare there. But Tiffany, let's talk about pesticides. It seems like most environmental officials think that organo phosphates are really bad. Can you talk a little bit about what

they are and what they're used for. So, organo phosphates are a type of pestae insecticide that has a similar chemistry to some of the nerve agent chemicals that are developed in the Second World War. It's not exactly the same thing, but they work by suppressing an enzyme in insects that basically messes up nervous system and kills them. And when humans are exposed, it really depends on the level, but it can. They can get headaches, they can get convulsions or nausea. If they get a lot, they can

they can die. And you know, I mentioned earlier that you know, these these chemicals could be on the food that you're eating and Thanksgiving, but really, you know, one thing we should emphasize is that these are trace amounts, if at all on food. The real issue it sounds like our farm workers who are you know, can potentially be exposed when these fields, the fields they're working and get get sprayed. Is that right, Yes, that's right. So

these sound pretty bad. You know, these are chemicals that were used as nerve agents in World War Two and are now being used on food. So why aren't they being phased out? Why why are these chemicals still in use? And as we mentioned earlier, their use is actually going up in some countries. Well, for starters are very effective, right, There's not a lot of new innovation in the pesticide

and a secticide a world. We're seeing a lot of used generally in older chemistries because it's become so expensive to one develop new products and to get them through the regulatory process to a lot of these countries that are trying to boost their agriculture are also affected by climate change, which in many cases mean more bugs, so they need to use more tools to produce the same amount of food, or even more amount of food than

they needed previously. It's also companies who have these stocks often redirect them to developing countries and that kind Yeah, that was what I found so fascinating about your story is that this is a great example of where you know, tightening environmental regulations in more country can actually cause a worse environmental situation in another country. Maybe even a neighboring country, because I mean, these companies that make these chemicals, they

have them. You know, if they can't sell them in the US, they're going to sell them somewhere else. I mean, is this an example of how, you know, the environmental regulations can have unintended consequences when you look at it globally, I would say yes. If you look at some of the studies from the FDA on what sort of pesticides are found in foods, you'll find examples of band pesticides that are still in our food system and where those

are coming from, usually from imported food fruits and vegetables. Yeah, all right, that was Bloomberg Environment's Tiffany Stecker talking about pesticides. Thank you, Tiffany, and thank you to champion Sam Pearson here who won this week's quiz. If you're going to win the next parts per billion quiz, you're going to need to keep up with the news, and to do that you know where to go our website newsdop Bloomberg environment dot com. That website is newsdop Bloomberg environment dot com.

This episode of parsper Billion was produced by myself and Jessica Coomes Our editor is Marissa Horn, and our audio engineer is Nicholas and Zelada. The music for Parsperbillion this week is a Message by Jizarre and Miniskirt by Chichi Santucci and Enzo Scopa.