The sun heats the object and causes it to emit vapor, it emits more vapor on the side facing the sun, these emissions have a measurable affect on the orbit.
I had a similar experience at a major university in chemistry lab freshman year. The class required a subscription to a site that was owned by a professor. Everyone in the department used it. All the TA’s said they didn’t want to hear anyone complaining about a $25/semester subscription because they had to do it too. All the telemetry from the lab was taken with these machines that were also sold by the professor’s company (to the school). The lab reports were virtual. They involved answering questions on a web form that would have appeared dated in 1996. Every time you submitted an answer it checked the answer according to your recorded lab data. If you were “correct” it moved on and if not, it gave you a few more tries and then marked that question wrong. One slight recompense was that it would tell you the formula you should have been using to answer the question when you were wrong. There was no human oversight as evidenced by the time I answered the question correctly and it reported the wrong formula, an email to the TA went unanswered.
“Involuntary consumerism” as you say. I’m sure there are many examples. I just wanted to share another anecdote.
>The regulation itself is about 60 pages, and references numerous other regulations itself. It most certainly adds up to hundreds of pages of regulation. Not that that changes anything, usage of the word in this way still precludes the possibility of any sort of concise definition.
Most of those references are to other parts of the same document. As I said before, the world is complex, biotechnology is complex, and agriculture is complex. If you have any suggestions on what parts of the 60-odd pages are unnecessary or superfluous, feel free to share.
>Then why are inter-jurisdiction equivalence programs so complex? Typically only including a short list of equivalent countries, with all other imports requiring recertification. Oh, except with USDA Organic. That doesn’t have an equivalence program.
The US does, in fact, have an equivalency program with the EU. [0] earlier you claimed that certification bodies had different, unique definitions. That’s not true. Why is it complicated to meet the standards from different countries? Because you’re meeting standards from different countries, stuff has to be legal to produce, legal to export, legal to ship, legal to import, and legal to sell. Lots of people think there is too much regulation in the modern world, perhaps you are one of them, can you suggest something constructive that meets the goals of the program?
>Come up with a label that doesn’t unduly prejudice consumers
Can you show that consumers are unduly prejudiced by the current system?
>and doesn’t strip another word of its meaning. The word organic did used to have a very clear meaning before “organic” farming came about.
“Organic” had several clear meanings and has not lost any, however it has gained another clear meaning and people who use it don’t seem to see a problem.
>If you were to ask an average consumer whether they knew their organic food was allowed to be treated with chemical pesticides and synthetic opioid painkillers, I bet they’d be pretty surprised by that.
In general, they would be right to be surprised about the chemical pesticide and the synthetic opioid because 1) pests are systematically controlled with non-chemical means and 2) chemical pesticides and synthetic opioids are only permitted to be used as a last resort, when other means of controlling pesticides and ensuring the health and welfare of animals are found to be insufficient. Organic farmers are not permitted to routinely dope up their cattle or spray their crops. [1]
>GDPR is a complex set of regulations. People understand this when they talk about it, even if they don’t understand all of the rules. Thankfully it’s not called Privacy Certified, with a restriction preventing any non-certified business from using the word “privacy” to describe their product.
If people were generally mistaken about the way organic food is produced, I could agree with you that there was a problem. However most of the misinformation I see comes from people who are critical of the organic food program. I agree that the term isn’t perfect, I had a person tell me “there’s no difference between organic and inorganic food” and that was funny. But since there’s not really any such thing as “inorganic food” I’m still not sure what problem you see with the term. It’s not as though consumers of organic food are confused about the general principles. They buy organic food because they want to minimize their exposure to pesticides and to minimize their impact on the environment[2], organic regulations are written in order to achieve this goal while still permitting the producers to stay in business. If you want to criticize the organic program because it’s not strict enough when it comes to limiting these substances, that’s fine. But it already requires that the farmers use these substances as a last resort when other methods have failed, and the evidence suggests that it’s effective at achieving the goals, at least to some degree. [3]
>The USDA has its own unique, long winded definition, so does the EU, and so do many other countries, and private organisations.
It’s not “hundreds of pages” as you originally claimed, and the interpretation does not vary substantially among certification bodies, as you implied.
Supposing arguendo that there are major differences between the definitions in the US, EU, and elsewhere, perhaps that is a feature, not a bug. Many other regulations are different from country to country, and to some degree that’s the point of having different countries. Can you explain what the problem is?
>In this context the world has no relation at all to its original meaning, it cannot possibly be concisely defined, as the only way to define it is with an exhaustive set of rules and regulations, and has no consistent meaning, because you can only talk about it in the context of the rules and regulations defined by one of many organisations at a time.
The modern world (to include agricultural technology) is indeed complex and consequently the laws reflect that. It’s not that difficult for the professionals to understand the details, and while I agree that the handful of pages of regulations are a bit too much for the average consumer, that’s the point of distilling them to a few principles and a regulated label. This way the consumer doesn’t need to decipher fine print on every label if they want to be cautious and environmentally responsible with their purchases.
Do you have an alternative to the current system to suggest? As it stands it’s pretty good for everyone. Firms that want to use modern biotech are able to do so, firms that want to hew a more cautious course are able to pursue organic certification, and consumers have a variety of products to choose from without being overburdened by complexity in an unfamiliar domain. There’s always room for improvement, can you suggest a way to improve this system without disrupting things for all the current stakeholders (consumers, biotech producers, and organic producers)?
>Depending on who you ask, each certifying body will have their own unique definition that amounts to hundreds of pages of regulations. “Organic” is equally as meaningless and nonsensical as “chemical free”.
That’s not accurate in the United States. All the organic certifying bodies are required to apply the same rules.
>§205.501 General requirements for accreditation.
(a) A private or governmental entity accredited as a certifying agent under this subpart must:
(1) Have sufficient expertise in organic production or handling techniques to fully comply with and implement the terms and conditions of the organic certification program established under the Act and the regulations in this part;
(2) Demonstrate the ability to fully comply with the requirements for accreditation set forth in this subpart;
(3) Carry out the provisions of the Act and the regulations in this part, including the provisions of §§205.402 through 205.406 and §205.670;
>How is only allowing "natural" pesticides not appealing to the naturalistic fallacy? If you really care about improving ecosystems, you should be using the best knowledge and techniques available.
Because “what is best” is not always obvious, especially when something is relatively new. Pesticides in general are prohibited, and if the conditions for an exception are met, then the criteria for selecting a pesticide are that it based on precaution. It’s not that “natural stuff is ok and synthetics are not” otherwise the organic program would permit natural substances such as rotenone that have been shown to be harmful. The perspective is that synthetic substances are also subject to the precautionary principle, and should be studied to determine the safety and efficacy before they are permitted. Much of what we call “organic” is just “the way things were routinely done before the invention of selective herbicides” and when credible concerns about those substances and practices were raised, the rules were changed to reflect that understanding.
>You'd be overgeneralising to say every modern pesticide had this problem though.
Agriculture is a broad field (!) and one can usually find exceptions somewhere to blanket statements.
Is there a reason why some selective herbicides wouldn’t create selective pressure and thereby select for weeds that are resistant to that substance? I think that’s how evolution works and that’s the basic mechanism here. You haven’t seen resistance for the newer substances simply because there hasn’t been enough time for resistance to develop.
Why is this not a problem for pesticides used in organic farming? Probably because pesticides used in organic farming are not selective which means they will damage/kill your crops as readily as they will competitor organisms. Modern herbicides are selective, which means they kill the weeds and leave your crops alone, because the crops have resistant traits. These resistant traits are the ones that evolve in the weeds.
It’s driven more by a holistic understanding of the ecosystem as a whole than by any sort of naturalistic fallacy, at least on the producer side. Modern pesticides are creating resistant weeds, such that now farmers who rely on chemistry to control the competitor organisms are finding weeds that are resistant to glyphosate and gluphosinate in their fields.
>achieve that by using nonsynthetic fertilizers, herbicides and pesticides in large quantities
Citation needed.
In fact, the organic program requires farmers to manage the weeds and insects using methods besides pesticides, and only allows non-routine pesticide use in the exceptional case.
>friend works in food safety testing labs, and most of products that exceed the allowed limits of various unhealthy substances or are near the limits come from certified organic farms.
This is likely due to contamination and fraud, since the letter and the spirit of the law in the United States do not permit routine use of pesticides of any type.
In practice, organic farms are required to use pesticides as a last resort, whereas conventional farms use as much pesticide as they feel is necessary routinely. Furthermore, pesticides that are approved for organic use are non-selective, meaning that they must be applied carefully or they will damage the crop. Modern conventional agriculture is dominated by selective herbicides that are used in volume, because the crops are resistant to their effects. This means that the amount of pesticide used by a conventional farming operation dwarfs that of an organic farm.
>What makes organic farming different, then? It's not the use of pesticides, it's the origin of the pesticides used.
This is not exactly truthful, at least in the United States. Organic farmers are required to manage competitor organisms with non-chemical methods as a matter of practice. They are only permitted to use approved organic pesticides when the other means are insufficient, and it has to be documented. If an ostensibly organic farm relies on chemical management routinely, that violates the letter and the spirit of the organic program regulations and should cause certification to be withdrawn.
>b) Pest problems may be controlled through mechanical or physical methods including but not limited to:
(1) Augmentation or introduction of predators or parasites of the pest species;
(2) Development of habitat for natural enemies of pests;
(3) Nonsynthetic controls such as lures, traps, and repellents.
(c) Weed problems may be controlled through:
(1) Mulching with fully biodegradable materials;
(2) Mowing;
(3) Livestock grazing;
(4) Hand weeding and mechanical cultivation;
(5) Flame, heat, or electrical means; or
(6) Plastic or other synthetic mulches: Provided, That, they are removed from the field at the end of the growing or harvest season.
(d) Disease problems may be controlled through:
(1) Management practices which suppress the spread of disease organisms; or
(2) Application of nonsynthetic biological, botanical, or mineral inputs.
(e) When the practices provided for in paragraphs (a) through (d) of this section are insufficient to prevent or control crop pests, weeds, and diseases, a biological or botanical substance or a substance included on the National List of synthetic substances allowed for use in organic crop production may be applied to prevent, suppress, or control pests, weeds, or diseases: Provided, That, the conditions for using the substance are documented in the organic system plan.
(f) The producer must not use lumber treated with arsenate or other prohibited materials for new installations or replacement purposes in contact with soil or livestock.
Tl;dr, you’re only permitted to use pesticides in organic farming when nothing else works to control the organisms, and you have to stop using them as soon as the organisms are controlled. Organic farmers are not permitted to routinely spray their fields.
See the section on 2l/Borisov
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comet#Long_period