This is a skillfully written piece to raise anger. But if you look closely, there are some signs:
This piece refers to a study [1]. As they mention, this Scientific American piece is written by 2 of the 5 authors of the study. 4 out of 5 of the study authors don't work in a conventional academic institution, but in nature conservation non-profits [2, 3]. The study [1] is titled "A Hazard Assessment". If you know the lingo, a hazard is different from a risk. Hazard means: This could potentially be a risk, if right conditions are met. The study itself [1] is a literature search of laboratory and field studies on the impact of pesticides on soil invertebrates. From [1]:
> Conclusion
> This paper constitutes a comprehensive review of the impacts of agricultural pesticides on soil invertebrates. We found that pesticide exposure negatively impacted soil invertebrates in 70.5% of 2,842 tested parameters from 394 reviewed studies.
If you do a literature study on studies on how plant and insect poisons affect insects, the expected result is of course, insect poisons are poisonous to insects. And plant poisons can have observable effects, meeting the conditions of a hazard.
Now, to what extend is farming "Killing the World's Soils", and to what extent can the negative effects of farming be attributed to pesticide use, soil tilling, biodiversity loss etc., this piece is not a high quality contribution.
Think the people putting their names to this peer review should be noted:
EDITED BY
Christophe Darnault
Clemson University, United States
REVIEWED BY
Roberta Fulthorpe
University of Toronto Scarborough, Canada
Alan Kolok
University of Idaho, United States
Kean Goh
California Department of Pesticide Regulation, United States
Do you plan to write a rebuttal to the journal and those who oversaw it at any point? Or just post here?
I think the literature review article in Frontiers in Environmental Science is pretty honest at being what it is. They do literature searches and take notes on the presence and potential of a hazard. It's not a risk analysis, and it's not quantitative, and it doesn't pretend to be.
They conclude (end of Abstract):
> The prevalence of negative effects in our results underscores the need for soil organisms to be represented in any risk analysis of a pesticide that has the potential to contaminate soil, and for any significant risk to be mitigated in a way that will specifically reduce harm to soil organisms and to the many important ecosystem services they provide.
and (end of Conclusions):
> This review presents extensive evidence that pesticides pose a serious threat to soil invertebrates and the essential ecosystem services that they provide. Given the widespread and increasing adoption of seed and soil applied pesticides that pose a particular threat to soil organisms, we strongly support the inclusion of a soil health analysis in the United States pesticide risk assessment process.
And I think there is some distance from these to "Pesticides Are Killing the World’s Soils".
But I don't know how much should it concern the editors or Frontiers in Environmental Science, if same people first publish in their journal, and then go on to write something different in a popular science magazine (Scientific American)?
Note that Tara Cornelisse has a PhD inn Environmental Studies at the University of California Santa Cruz. She also worked as an assistant professor at Canisius College in Buffalo. Just the fact that she works at a nature conservation non-profit does not disqualify her as an expert.
I think the comment you're responding to is valuable, even if the person writing it has no credentials and is themselves biased. Explaining reasons why the author might be biased gives me useful information. If we say "that's bad because they're biased too and also not a researcher", we're essentially saying "We don't want to see any contradiction to research articles published on HN".
This piece refers to a study [1]. As they mention, this Scientific American piece is written by 2 of the 5 authors of the study. 4 out of 5 of the study authors don't work in a conventional academic institution, but in nature conservation non-profits [2, 3]. The study [1] is titled "A Hazard Assessment". If you know the lingo, a hazard is different from a risk. Hazard means: This could potentially be a risk, if right conditions are met. The study itself [1] is a literature search of laboratory and field studies on the impact of pesticides on soil invertebrates. From [1]:
> Conclusion
> This paper constitutes a comprehensive review of the impacts of agricultural pesticides on soil invertebrates. We found that pesticide exposure negatively impacted soil invertebrates in 70.5% of 2,842 tested parameters from 394 reviewed studies.
If you do a literature study on studies on how plant and insect poisons affect insects, the expected result is of course, insect poisons are poisonous to insects. And plant poisons can have observable effects, meeting the conditions of a hazard.
Now, to what extend is farming "Killing the World's Soils", and to what extent can the negative effects of farming be attributed to pesticide use, soil tilling, biodiversity loss etc., this piece is not a high quality contribution.
[1] https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fenvs.2021.6438...
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Center_for_Biological_Diversit...
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friends_of_the_Earth