SFist: San Francisco Screams NO to Apple Moth Spraying

KWillets

Tue, 26 Feb 2008 14:51:01 -0800

From wikipedia: In 1982, California Governor Jerry Brown, who had established a reputation as a strong environmentalist, was confronted with a serious medfly infestation in the San Francisco Bay Area. Under heavy pressure from the state's ag industry, which believed that billions of dollars worth of crops were threatened, Brown authorized a massive response to the infestation. Fleets of helicopters sprayed malathion at night, and the California National Guard set up highway checkpoints and collected many tons of local fruit; in the final stage of the campaign, entomologists released millions of sterile male medflies in an attempt to disrupt the insects' reproductive cycle. Ultimately the infestation was eradicated, but the scale of the action has remained controversial ever since. Some people claimed that malathion was toxic to humans, as well as insects. Many people complained that, while the malathion was not very toxic to humans, the aerosol spray containing it was corrosive to car-paint. During Brown's anti-medfly campaign, Apple Computer cofounder Stephen Wozniak ordered 3000 bumper stickers, reading "Save the Medfly," from a printer and gave them out to random people. Brown delayed too long and had no choice but to spray on a much larger scale than originally proposed.

sagitta100

Tue, 26 Feb 2008 13:05:12 -0800

You think the apple moth spraying is bad? Wait until they try to eradicate the google moth.

icbalaam

Tue, 26 Feb 2008 12:21:56 -0800

One of the gentlemen there was a Vietnam Vet and he brought up Agent Orange and people jumped out of their seats and cheered. It made me start laughing so hard I had to leave the room, not because he was exposed to Agent Orange but because people at the meeting were absolutely nuts. The woman with the shaved head in the photo screamed about testing on people. She was my favorite screamer. On the news a representative from the CDFA or the USDA said, regardless of these meetings and people's objections spraying will occur on August 1, 2008.

mariconsoy

Tue, 26 Feb 2008 10:36:34 -0800

spaying.

RinconHillSF

Tue, 26 Feb 2008 09:56:49 -0800

What are the alternatives to the spraying we're all leery about?

mariconsoy

Tue, 26 Feb 2008 09:31:06 -0800

I am strongly opposed to the spray. MOTHRA might be hurt! She has enough troubles as it is. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iBdRLW3v5xQ

bluecanary

Tue, 26 Feb 2008 09:13:39 -0800

Nice. Seems they also thought DDT was safe at one time, I seem to recall some footage of people standing about half a block away from nuclear blasts thinking they'd be okay and I seem to recall some little thing called Agent Orange that turned out to be pretty bad. Go back to sleep, America, your government is in control.

wsanders

Tue, 26 Feb 2008 09:05:18 -0800

This is San Francisco! City of tolerance! What's wrong with promoting a little diversity of gender identity in apple moths?