Pesticide and biocide

Date: Sun, 23 Apr 2000 11:53:52 -0300 (ADT)
From: Martin Willison <willison@is.dal.ca>
To: sust-mar@chebucto.ns.ca
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I would like to encourage readers of sust-mar to use the 
terms "poison" and "biocide" in place of "pesticide", except 
where pesticide is clearly appropriate.  Killing living 
things using chemical means is to use a "poison".  If done
for aesthetic reasons, this involves the use of a biocide,
not a pesticide.  The word "pest" refers to something that
causes real harm to humans, such as a plague organism.  
A chemical used for killing is only a "pesticide" if it is
used specifically to kill a pest, and hurts little else.

Most of the killing done using biocides is done out of 
ignorance and hate.  People indiscriminately kill plants in 
their lawns because they have been taught to do so by a 
culture obsessed with control.  They kill home and garden 
insects indiscriminately, without knowing anything about 
their various roles in the garden system.  This is kept 
going by manufacturers and sellers whose only concern is to 
gather money for themselves.  They advertise their destructive 
evil using undisguised messages of hate on television.  

Let's tell it the way it is; the killing substances that 
are spread around for artificial purposes are "biocides", 
which means that they "kill life".  The biocide manufacturers 
have created a culture of hatred in order to make harmless 
creatures into something that people hate, in order that 
these ignorant people will buy poisons they don't need.
It's a filthy business; even worse than the peddling of 
addictive drugs like tobacco and cocaine, which mostly  
kill the user.    

Martin Willison



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