“The honeybee is in no way endangered. If there’s a top ten list of what’s killing honey bee colonies, I’d put pesticides at number 11.”

There has been a recent surge in the number and intensity of campaigns by environmental groups lobbying to ban many farm pesticides, which they claim is causing widespread declines in the global bee population. In June, the New York State legislature passed a first-in-the-nation bill that would cut by 80-90% the use of neonicotinoids, a class of of pesticides that has become enormously popular among farmers. The bill is sitting on the governor’s desk, while pressure from activists to sign the measure into law are escalating.

For years, journalists and environmental bloggers have been churning out story after story claiming that insects are vanishing, in the United States and globally. There is no question that insects are in decline which lends credence to reasonable concerns as insects are crucial components of many ecosystems. More interesting and of scientific value and far less clear is ‘why’, how severe is the decline, and whether the drop-off portends, as many environmentalists claim, environmental armageddon.

After a decade of debate, the causes of the mid-2000s spike in bee deaths is coming into focus. Culprits are multifactorial, a rebuke of simplistic fingering of pesticides. Time for targeted solutions.

The meme targeting neonics with the not-all-that vulnerable honeybee as their symbol is a powerful fund-raising tool for activists.

Discarding this valuable crop protection tool is a questionable strategy.

Why is Europe allowing what has been called ‘a bizarrely one-sided piece of politicized science’ to determine agricultural policy?

With neither the facts nor the science on their side, environmental advocacy groups are simply pounding the table.

There is an inevitable consequence when technically inexpert politicians and politically-influenced bureaucrats allow public policy to be driven by dogmatic campaigners with predetermined agendas.

The future of a controversial agricultural pesticide remains in limbo, thanks to scientific uncertainty and political malfeasance.