U.S. Requests Exemptions to Ozone Pact for Chemical

[Khephra]

The United States is seeking to make more American farmers and industries exempt from an international ban on methyl bromide, a popular pesticide that damages Earth's protective ozone layer, Bush administration officials said yesterday.

Last year, the administration sought to exclude a variety of farmers and food producers from the ban, which takes effect next year under a treaty outlawing substances that harm the ozone layer. The exempt businesses would be allowed 21.9 million pounds of methyl bromide next year and 20.8 million pounds in 2006 in uses like fumigating stored grain and treating golf-course sod and strawberry fields.

The new request, filed with United Nations treaty administrators last weekend, would add 1.1 million pounds to the 2005 request, to be used by producers of cut flowers, processed meats and tobacco seedlings.

Some American growers say methyl bromide remains vital to compete with countries where cheap laborers do weeding and pest control. Critics of the American requests said the exemptions could undermine the 1987 ozone treaty. Use of methyl bromide has been cut 70 percent in industrialized countries since 1999 under the treaty.

more

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/03/04/science/04OZON.html

[KissMyAsscroft]

1. Its like he hates the environment...

.

[Khephra]

3. A lot of fundies don't think we're going to around much longer...

so why worry about the environment? The Rapture is coming soon, remember? Jesus will fix it all up!

(Almost direct quotes from a fundie I once hung out with in school.)

[jamesinca]

5. He does not hate the environment

But if he can end the world tomorrow he will be the last president the US ever had and that is an unimportant title in a world that does not exist. It is an important thing to have on your resume when applying to the afterlife.

Outside of that piece of twisted reasoning I can not see why he is doing this.

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

2. In effect, the USA is at war with New Zealand. (nt)

[Dogmudgeon]

4. We need MeBr to compete with other countries' workers, BUT ...

... no protection, no re-training, no extended benefits for the hundreds of thousands of people whose jobs have been "offshored" -- again, in the name of "competetiveness".

The real destructive substance is Bushit.

--bkl
No meds from Canada, either.

[chenGOD]

6. Of course....

farms could start hiring people again. Imagine that, people working!!!

Sorry, no malice is directed towards you,BNL.:beer: :toast:
I just got a bit steamed today when I read an article in the paper today about how the purpose of businesses is to make money. That's funny, here was poor old naieve me thinking that the purpose of businesses was to provide goods and services for people to utilise.