Well, Earth Day has come again, and there was a lot of media attention on ways to save the Earth. Meanwhile, every year in the manicured yards of suburbia, pesticides and herbicides are wreaking havoc with the health of humans, especially children.
Although professional landscapers must take classes and obtain a pesticide applicator’s license, homeowners can purchase bug- and weed-killing chemicals at any garden center and use them indiscriminately and in any amounts.
According to an organic land care pamphlet published by the Northeast Organic Farming Association of Connecticut and Massachusetts: “In a review of case-controlled studies and case reports, childhood cancers linked to pesticides include leukemia, brain cancer, Wilm’s tumor, softtissue sarcoma, Ewing’s sarcoma, non- Hodgkin’s lymphoma, and cancers of the colorectum and testes.”
In his book, “The Organic Suburbanite,” Warren Schultz states, “On the average, suburbanites use 10 times more pesticides per area in their yards than farmers do on their fields.”
He also states: “2, 4-D [is] the weedkilling ingredient found in most weed-andfeed lawn products, and it is also a carcinogen. Two studies by the National Cancer Institute showed an increased incidence of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma among farmers who use 2, 4-D. A later NCI study showed that dogs whose owner’s lawns were treated with 2, 4-D four or more times per year were twice as likely to contract canine malignant lymphoma.” What if we stopped spraying pesticides and herbicides today? Would insects and weeds take over? The true answer is “no.” The Creator has built into all of nature a system of checks and balances. Spraying chemical pesticides and herbicides actually disrupts the natural balance of nature.
Listen to Paul Sachs in an excerpt from his book, “Edaphos, Dynamics of a Natural Soil System”: “Pests, in general, are organisms that interfere with human enterprise activities. If we ranked pests simply by how much they disrupt an environment, humans would be at the top of the list.”
Man, in his foolishness, seeks to control all of nature. Now, like a twisted plot of a horror movie, the pests are becoming resistant to chemicals while our children are the ones who are becoming sick.
What can one person do? Here are some suggestions: Go to your local library and start learning about organic methods of gardening. Seek out organic lawn care companies. Pick up a copy of Organic Life magazine, read it and share the information. Teach a child about the exquisite balance and beauty of nature. Learn to identify the ladybugs and other beneficial insects in your yard.
Call your local cooperative extension office and get free information about gardening without chemicals. Visit www.nofanj.org, the website of the Northeast Organic Farming Association.
Let us begin to garden in harmony with nature and make every day Earth Day.
Karen Breuel
Howell