Anti-1080 protesters as irrational as meth contaminated State Housing hysteria

By
Martyn Bradbury
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35
18

I’ve been inundated on Facebook with anti-1080 activists who have taken great exception at my scathing criticism of their unscientific hysteria and have been startled and frightened by the utter lack of reason within a large chunk of the environmental activist whanau.

If you are freaking out about 1080, vaccinations and fluoride in the water, wait until you hear about this thing called global warming. It’ll make you appreciate how petty your fears really are.

I can not take seriously people who are anti 1080, anti vaccinations and anti fluoride in water but who don’t believe in global warming – it’s the most insane position a human being can take, and yet time and time again I’ve found myself in social media battles over the weekend with ‘environmental activists’ who are convinced global warming is a hoax while screaming about 1080, vaccinations and fluoridation in water.

It’s the most bizarre thing I think I’ve ever witnessed.

I had no idea how scientifically illiterate so many activists were and how social media has warped people into echo chambers of pure ignorance – this has been as eye opening as it has been depressing!

I have read much of what the anti 1080 crew have posted and am not convinced at all of their conclusions.

Yes, 1080 is a nasty poison. 

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Yes we are one of the few country’s in the world who use it.

Of course it will sometimes kill things it’s not supposed to kill.

Sure, the Chemical Industry isn’t particularly nice.

Should we look to utilise hunters more – I certainly think from a job creation point of view that we should.

But, we have a unique landscape that is huge and difficult to reach which is why we use the stuff and without it rats, stoats and possums – you know the introduced vermin of the country, would decimate our local and indigenous wild life in a couple of years leaving our forests full of pests with very little bird life.

1080 is an opportunity cost, if we didn’t use it the results from an explosion of vermin are far, far, far worse environmentally than using it. You know, the same rational logic we use for vaccinations.

To claim there is some vast shadowy conspiracy behind this all is Cameron Slater-eske in its absurdity.

This entire debate has come across as a bit cultish devoid of basic reason.

Let me be clear – global warming poses an existential threat to our species in a way that makes the threat from vaccinations, fluoride in water and 1080 combined and amplified a thousand times could never reach.

It’s like complaining about a cut finger when you are about to be decapitated – if this green ignorance masquerading as activism is the future of the environmental movement in NZ – we are doomed! I can’t take people screaming about 1080 seriously when we as a species face civilisation collapse in less than a century.

You want to be righteously fearful of something – look at this…

…how can you complain about 1080 or fluoride in the water or anti-vaccination nonsense when Global Warming will burn us off large chunks of the planet within most of our lifetimes?

PS – I swear if someone mentions the UN’s ‘Agenda 21’ to me one more time, I will fucking scream.

 

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35 COMMENTS

  1. You forgot chemtrails and HAARP, both critical to bring the Bilderberg New World Order to fruition. Never heard of Agenda 21 until your piece, but I guess it’s also part of the NWO conspiracy? I need to look into this, it sounds so wonderfully kooky.

  3. I see. So you link up anti 1080 poisoning with being an anti-vaxxer,and anti fluoride. When posters suggest that this is not a valid way of debating and the argument seems to be swinging in favour of the anti-1080 group you then double down and bring in global warming! Perhaps your next post will bring in Putin Apologists, Trump deplorables,Anti roundup Monsanto activists, Chem trails,Feminists opposed to transgender in their toilets,misogenists, and anti-vaping!!!

  4. I wish people wouldn’t conflate every concern about 1080 as being from conspiracy theorist anti nutters.
    It’s a shit tactic that DoC and their F and B stormtroopers uses to shut down sensible debate and it’s polarising.
    Science is meant to be questioned and retested.
    What do you make of an average greater than 12 percent kea mortality per monitored 1080 drop as I linked on one of your other threads?
    If you don’t like people being anti science then how about you engage with some facts too?
    Your comparison of aerial poison to a vaccine is way off- no vaccine will h thos “ side effects “ would get registration.
    “ first do no harm”

    As far as anti vax anti fluoride anti global warming people (none of which I am by the way if it helps your pigeonholing), I think there is an increasing lack of trust in science, corporations and government from years of misuse of science, propaganda and plain lies.
    The message you should be taking away isn’t how insane some people are, but how unfortunately 1080 is now the lightning rod for that betrayed trust.

    • It’s a phenomenon which confirms I belong to the lower middle class since it’s rife among my family. You need to address it Martyn. Why reason doesn’t suit people. And why in the lap of wealth (comparatively) ‘suits’ edges into and over objectivity in people’s views of reality.

      Sorry Keepcalm I technicaled into your column. Information is all now open and the humans are coming to terms with balance in the light of revealed imperfection. How much good we’ve seen and created. The Bible and Pilgrim’s Progress don’t help much. The confusion is to the benefit of those who like it. That is, a great positive programme would carry all before it if a ruling class addicted to focus groups would see better.

  5. Anti 1080 activists have difficulty putting the case when they have to rely on emotive anecdotal “evidence”, selective information and outright lies. The fiasco over the roadkill native birds on parliament’s steps, originally put out as victims if 1080, is evidence that these activisrs are emotion-driven, fact-challenged hysterics. I have little time for people who have to rely on misinformation to push their cause.

    Lets be clear, with 1080 our forests would end up denuded and empty of wildlife. That is the scenario pushed by misguided anti1080 “activists”.

    • re “Lets be clear, with 1080 our forests would end up denuded and empty of wildlife. That is the scenario pushed by misguided anti1080 “activists”

      ….this sentence doesnt make much sense, especially given your previous arguments

      …so you support the anti 1080 activists now?

  6. Oh lawdy tell me about it !
    Our community Facebook page has been bombarded with anti 1080 shit and it’s depressing to see .

    Edited : I used to trap possums , on a 600 acre block next to kahurangi national park . Back then , 30 years ago possum were winning , the trees in the park were dying at a rapid rate and the place was so over run you’d run over 20 possums driving home from the pub at night .
    Now when you see a possum you tell people about it ( ” saw a possum last night coming down from the track ” )
    Let me be clear .
    There is NO WAY trappers can get into a huge chunk of NZ back country ..All this bullshit about using people on the dolze to trap possums is just INSANE .
    All this crap about ‘silent forests ‘ is bullshit . DOC dropped 1080 in Kahurangi a year or so ago and 5he birdsong is as loud and impressive as ever .
    I know about 50 people in our local rural community who squawk and holler about 1080 ALL THE EFFING TIME …Half of 5hem own cats and dogs , half of them are hunters ( who regularly release pigs and deer into the bush to keep hunting stock numbers up ) and most of them don’t have a fuckin clue what’s actually going on in the world.

    Welcome to the real world mate , we’re surrounded by stupid …As Dawkins points out : 50% of humans are of below average intelligence .

      • MS has made strong points. People would do well to take note of what he’s pointed out. Especially the asinine suggestion of employing trappers to rid forests of stoars, possums, rats, etc. It is impractical, expensive, and we dont have enough skilled people in bushcraft to do it.

        MS appears to speak with some exoerience.

      • I know many rural people disagree .
        The pig and deer hunters who want to see numbers of pig and deer increase ( how bloody green of them ) and the crystal chewing hippies and tinfoil hat wearers , most of whom.own cats and dogs ( hello ???) and haven’t walked more than ten metres into the bush in years .

        Go to Kahuarangi National Park and listen for yourself .
        I’d rather we could just ask possums and rats , nicely, to leave, but they won’t , so 1080 is all we have at the moment.

        Tbh I can’t be fcuked with the anti crowd any more , they’re so out of touch with what goes on in our native forest , they wouldn’t know a Tui from a budgie

        • @MS…identity politics is not science

          You dont seem to have read the above link …an anti -1080 environmentalist , a scientist expert, who also has rural land in the countryside …and who fits none of your stereotypes ( as many who oppose 1080 do not fit your stereotypes )

          DR NEIL HAYES, ROYAL CHARTERED ENVIRONMENTALIST SAYS “DOC’S AERIAL 1080 PROGRAM HAS ABSOLUTELY NOTHING WHATEVER TO DO WITH THE ELIMINATION OF PREDATORS … IT IS A BILLION DOLLAR BUSINESS”
          SEPTEMBER 9, 2018 PAM VERNON 4 COMMENTS
          A CHARTERED ENVIRONMENTALIST SPEAKS OUT ON 1080 POISON

          “I have just received this summary of DoC’s 1080 poison programme from Dr.Neil Hayes, who was awarded a QSM in recognition of his thirty-four years of continuous involvement in attempting to save the rare and critically endangered NZ Brown Teal (Anas chlorotis) from extinction, and is a Royal Chartered Environmentalist (CEnv).

          …”Dr. Hayes says :

          “The Department Of Conservation’s aerial bombardment of 1080 is a very serious environmental disaster and is by far the most successful propaganda campaign ever to take place in New Zealand (and possibly the WORLD!). The DOC program has absolutely nothing whatever to do with the elimination of predators. It is simply a billion dollar business; for these reasons:

          There are now very few possums & only 0.004% carry Bovine TB
          1080 has little effect on feral cats, ferret, stoat or weasel numbers – all of which carry Bovine TB.
          1080 has little effect on rat numbers (DOC’s mythical annual ‘explosion’ of rat numbers in areas that have been aerially bombarded with 1080 on numerous occasions confirms that the DOC 1080 program is all about money, because there is still an abundance of rats!)
          1080 has little effect of hedgehog numbers.
          The movement of domestic cattle is mainly responsible for the spread of Bovine TB !
          It is a billion dollar industry that is now totally out of control !

          The DOC program has so far:

          Eliminated over 10,000 domestic animals
          Pushed already endangered birds closer towards extinction, with over 10,000 Kea being killed by 1080 in the past five years!
          Has pushed two of the world’s rarest species of frogs closer towards extinction.
          Has contaminated rivers, lakes and town water supplies.
          Has eliminated invertebrates in creeks, streams and rivers.
          Has poisoned fresh-water trout, thereby destroying a major part of our tourism industry.
          Has cost New Zealand tax-payers several billion dollars!
          Has eliminated millions of endemic bush birds and in areas where here the poison has been dropped the BUSH IS SILENT.

          DOC’s 1080 program has nothing whatever to do with eliminating predators – all of which are readily eliminated by trapping and reside only in the forest fringes.”

          https://envirowatchrangitikei.wordpress.com/2018/09/09/dr-neil-hayes-royal-chartered-environmentalist-says-docs-aerial-1080-program-has-absolutely-nothing-whatever-to-do-with-the-elimination-of-predators-it-is-a-billion-dollar-business/

  7. The Ban-1080 group aren’t the same as environmentalists, although there may be some with a boot in both camps. The vast majority of environmentalists support its use. The Ban 1080 group involve a lot of hunters who care for the environment in as much as it is a home for deer and pigs.

    On the other hand, I do see similarities between Ban 1080 supporters and Trump supporters. They both see themselves as outsiders, distrust government and the establishment and support conspiracy theories..

    One further sub group of the Ban 1080 supporters are old hippies and artists who never assimilated with the mainstream to any degree. While the key intellectual arguments and leaders of the hippy movement brought the key ideas of the movement such as women’s rights and environmentalism into the mainstream back in the 1970s and 1980s, what is left of the recalcitrant ageing hippies lack the intellectual rigour of the youthful movement.

  8. It is NONSENSE to say birds and our native fauna can’t adapt to live around introduced predators. As evidence for this you can walk around almost any suburb in Auckland and experience hordes of Tui, fat bloated Kereru, random Parrots, all manner of other birds, you will find Green Geckos, Skinks, Moreporks, the lot. All of these species THRIVING IN CLOSE PROXIMITY TO CATS, DOGS, AND VARIOUS RATS & MUSTELIDS.

    How can this be? Because adaptation and evolution. The simple fact is our so called ecologists are incompetent and they lie about things.

    • That’s nonsense. You can’t adapt as a species if your young are all predated on. It takes hundreds of thousands of years, or millions, to adapt. Youre expecting birdlife evolved over tens if millions of years to adapt within a few YEARS or DECADES ?? That simpky doesn’t wash.

      We’ve already had dozens of species go extinct with the presence of humans and associated introduced pests. Tell us how well moa, huia, snipe and others adapted?

      Sadly, its our birdlife that pay the price for such ignorance.

    • its all about the money boys, guess you all missed the posts about folks getting poisoned bye this shit, but hey slip them blinders back down and slip back into that fantasy world you really live in.
      Enjoy your chemicals with everything cancer infested world a bit longer till your shoved in a hole.
      We know about Global Warming Martain, but did you ever think that the war to stop that shit must start with a battle we can win locally?
      From small marsupials large possums grow, from acorns, trees etc.
      Heres a ground swell localized movement building momentum, attacked by both left and right.
      You dont have to be right to show up and protest,but if you protest enough you will change things.

    • There are quite a few non-insane anti-1080 people – legitimate concerns around alternatives, animal suffering or just wanting to protect game species for hunting.

      Unfortunately it’s an issue that seems, for whatever reason, to have also attracted the lunatic fringe – Exhibit A below

      https://www.facebook.com/www.logic.org.nz/posts/914991698691642?__xts__%5B0%5D=68.ARBhfH7-b01bS94CHp9AJt6yaCWCOS2SlWueypoT3zU6j7gYjzOINYdVTEbjM0iobyZKy488omI54g8Ot8hVvGaiMm61SMjd3tuUSrXn6GkLRkkgtszS7cOQJTxbbMbBDxN_wdvY90Xrp-w4Gf1SXnLzHZCRAWfGei-if4fqu0HmVou-yYwH&__tn__=-R

  9. You’re an idiot who has never studied why global warming is a hoax. Are you aware the temperature has not risen in 14+ years?

    You’re the one drinking the echo chamber kool-aid… And oh, PS Agenda 21…

  10. Are you aware the temperature has not risen in 14 + years? If you are the one who is is drinking the echo chamber kool-aid.

    It’s obvious that you have not studied why global warming is a hoax.

    OH yeah, PS – Agenda 21

  11. Martyn your good friends at the spinoff have a very interesting article on the anti 1080 movement use of Facebook. It’s slanted pro 1080 and only gives one side if the story -but interesting history of the last few months of protestors given. Also some disturbing threats alleged.
    Sorry can’t link from this phone, saw link to spinoff article from Federated Mountain Clubs FB page.

  12. Moa lives matters too. All sorts of interesting birds down here that evolved with virtually no natural predators (apart from the Moa and the Haast Eagle).

    As a result, a lot of our bird species are flightless, or have limited flight capacity.

    Well, a lot of our bird species used to be flightless or have limited flight capacity. A lot of them have either been hunted to extinction, or are now critically endangered.

    Still, every few years or so down in the fiordlands, there is a sighting of some supposed extinct bird species, so there is still hope that somewhere down there, there are some a small, undiscovered populations of these extinct birds.

    I’d also expect normal people show you no mercy for your obvious stupidity from now on.

  14. Sigh … This is what you get when everyone has the interweb … Trumpian climate change deniers get a megaphone.

    True story , I used to be opposed to 1080 and refused DOC permission to drop it on our land ( which borders a national Park ) however I’ve read the science and FACTS and the next drop in our area will include our 600 acres .
    Our neighbour is opposed to 1080 , however her cat kills 2-3 native birds a day and she hasn’t been into the bush for years ( while claiming on her FB page that all the birds are dead ) I just ignore her .

    • @ MS…more identity politics ….stick to the science…what is the science behind other countries banning 1080?

      IN 2004 THE DHS WAS ASKED TO BAN THE PRODUCTION OF ODORLESS, TASTELESS 1080 – THE MOST TOXIC PESTICIDE REGISTERED BY WHO – BECAUSE IT COULD BE USED BY TERRORISTS TO POISON US WATER SUPPLIES
      SEPTEMBER 14, 2018

      Note : Tull was closed only recently. Clearly NZers have not been the only people concerned about the toxicity of 1080 & its contamination of waterways. In the UK and the EU it was banned.

      ( see link above)

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