Environment America: Bees! Bees! Bees! (Add your name to ban this pesticide)

Environment America via Daily Kos<campaigns@dailykos.com>   
11 January 2018 at 00:52
Reply-To: campaigns@dailykos.com

Dear Reader,

We have a chance to help save bees and other pollinators from extinction.

This year, the Environmental Protection Agency is reviewing one of the most widely used bee-killing neonicotinoid pesticides, called imidacloprid -- and they’ve asked the public to weigh in.

Sign the petition to join Environment America and tell the EPA to ban the pesticides that are killing bees, including imidacloprid.

ADD YOUR NAME

In 2016, the EPA published a report acknowledging that the widespread use of imidacloprid and other neonicotinoid pesticides threatened already dwindling honey bee populations.1

But instead of banning the pesticide, the EPA is backing away from restrictions it has in place to protect bees from harmful pesticides.2 And this summer, a federal judge ruled that the EPA broke the law when it approved 59 pesticides without taking into account their impacts on protected endangered species, including the rusty patched bumblebee.3

Currently, eight bee species are listed as endangered, while alarming recent studies have found that more than 700 bee species are in decline, and 347 of them are at risk of extinction.4

The EPA has the power to protect the bees by banning the pesticides they know hurt them. And since we rely on bees to pollinate 71 of the 100 crops that provide 90 percent of the world's food, the stakes couldn't be higher.

We need to protect our food supply and our environment by banning these bee-killing pesticides.

Sign the petition to join Environment America and tell the EPA to ban the pesticides that are killing bees including imidacloprid.

ADD YOUR NAME

Thanks for standing up for the bees,

Margie Alt
Environment America Executive Director

1. EPA Says Pesticides Threaten Honeybees, The Santa Barbara Independent, Feb. 1, 2016.
2. EPA's bee decisions are sweet for growers, but they sting environmentalists, The Los Angeles Times, January 13, 2017.
3. Minnesota beekeepers win a round against EPA on insecticide approval, StarTribune, May 11, 2017.
4. More than 700 North American Bee Species Are Headed Toward Extinction, Time, March 2, 2017.

Paid for by Environment America.

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