"I hope everyone appreciated my unscheduled demonstration of our safety systems yesterday!"

Throw that in your follow up email and everything will be fine, lol.

> many different metrics to assess environmental impact. Electric tractors are right now reducing agricultural emissions too, so what will your excuse be then?

Oh no... you think emissions from tilling come from tractors... okay, have a nice day.

My advice: if this stuff interests you, seek out an actual education in it. :)

Can you describe in more definite terms what kind of studies you are looking for? Because there are literally entire textbooks dedicated to glyphosate. It's the single most studied pesticide, and there is good reason for it to be the most widely used. It breaks down quickly, works at a low dose, has minimal off-target toxicity, binds soil to prevent runoff, and works as a post-emergent broad-spectrum spray.

>beyond the time we knew it was killing off target organisms

No industrial chemical is going to have zero consequences. How does it compare to the alternatives? How can we mitigate damage further?

>99% of mothers in this human study are living with Glyphosate in their bodies 24/7

Dose matters. 100% of mothers have arsenic in their bodies 24/7. This is not a good approach to evaluating toxicity.

>Still you will claim it is safe

The benefits strongly outweigh the harms, but I still strongly encourage mitigating those harms!

Look how the minimal toxicity of glyphosate has reduced the overall burden of toxicity for agriculture:

Although GE crops have been previously implicated in increasing herbicide use, herbicide increases were more rapid in non-GE crops. Even as herbicide use increased, chronic toxicity associated with herbicide use decreased in two out of six crops, while acute toxicity decreased in four out of six crops. In the final year for which data were available (2014 or 2015), glyphosate accounted for 26% of maize, 43% of soybean and 45% of cotton herbicide applications. However, due to relatively low chronic toxicity, glyphosate contributed only 0.1, 0.3 and 3.5% of the chronic toxicity hazard in those crops, respectively.

Consider how glyphosate has contributed to a reduction in emissions from agriculture:

The adoption of GM insect resistant and herbicide tolerant technology has reduced pesticide spraying by 775.4 million kg (8.3%) and, as a result, decreased the environmental impact associated with herbicide and insecticide use on these crops (as measured by the indicator, the Environmental Impact Quotient (EIQ)) by 18.5%. The technology has also facilitated important cuts in fuel use and tillage changes, resulting in a significant reduction in the release of greenhouse gas emissions from the GM cropping area. In 2018, this was equivalent to removing 15.27 million cars from the roads.

Can you cite some example studies?

I'm not denying that glyphosate does harmful things to cells if you expose them to preposterously high concentrations. I'm arguing that such studies have no relevance. Consumers ingest about 0.5 mg of gly daily, that's far lower than any of the studies showing harm.

You could say that about literally any chemical. Why focus on glyphosate?

You were the one who said it's in the same class as insecticides. It's not.

It just sounds like you aren't familiar with how OECD toxicology studies work. There are standardized protocols to assess chemical interactions with cell culture and animal models.

>Initial studies are often broad and find hints.

They also use unrealistically high doses to search for effects that might be hard to notice at realistic doses.

>because being in the same class with insecticides makes it look bad even though it truly is an organophosphorous compound

I think you're a little confused here. Organophosphates are the insecticide class, and they aren't the same thing as organophosphorous compounds like glyphosate (technically a phosphonate).

What was that about projection?

>truth is not voted on democratically.

Nobody is saying this. We are applying the hierarchy of evidence.

...it's practically nontoxic.

Nature: Although GE crops have been previously implicated in increasing herbicide use, herbicide increases were more rapid in non-GE crops. Even as herbicide use increased, chronic toxicity associated with herbicide use decreased in two out of six crops, while acute toxicity decreased in four out of six crops. In the final year for which data were available (2014 or 2015), glyphosate accounted for 26% of maize, 43% of soybean and 45% of cotton herbicide applications. However, due to relatively low chronic toxicity, glyphosate contributed only 0.1, 0.3 and 3.5% of the chronic toxicity hazard in those crops, respectively.

This is simply not accurate. All agrochems have to pass regulatory standards for agencies relevant to their use.

For example, in the US all pesticide residues are regulated to be at least 100x lower than the no-observed-affect level.

As for funding those studies... of course they are funded by the manufacturers, who else would? Many required studies are, however, conducted by independent certified testing labs.

>It's absurd how much we rely on methods and substances that we understand very little of to produce the food we eat and sell to others

Glyphosate has been studied for decades, there are hundreds of publications and even entire textbooks dedicated solely to it. And the overwhelming conclusion from those studies is that is low risk, especially compared to what it replaced.

... and that's not even touching on the incredible environmental benefits from using it in tandem with crops bred to tolerate it.

> There’s actually fun terms in oceanography for this, spicy and minty, meaning water that is either warm and salty or cold and fresh.

Looking it up, I see these terms are used occasionally. But I have never encountered them in any textbook, or heard them used at conferences. Mostly people just refer to the density, at least in my experience.