INTELLIGENT PEST MANAGEMENT®

The Art of War - In any war, one must have a sword (an offensive weapon) and a shield (defensive protection) - when we choose to only use volatile, synthetic pesticide poisons to "control" pests, we have no shield, no protection and our only "weapon" is attacking us and not our enemy.

Early in the 1990s we knew that in our ongoing war against home and garden pests, over 70 million American households made more than 4 billion pesticide applications each and every year. At least 85% of Americans or 84.5 million households maintain a poison arsenal of at least 3-4 synthetic poisons ranging from no pest strips, pesticidal shampoos, aerosols, granules, liquids and dusts. There are over 21,000 different over-the-counter household synthetic pesticide poison products containing over 300 active ingredients and as many as 1,700 "inert" ingredients per a 1990 EPA study prepared by Research Triangle Institute. The "National Home & Garden Pesticide Use Survey" found at least 75% of all American households use insecticide poisons, and consider cockroaches and ants as their leading pest enemies.

In 1993, there were over 140,000 reported pesticide poison exposures; 93% of these involved home poison use reported nationwide to poison control centers - about 25% had (acute) pesticide poisoning symptoms (over half involved children under 6).

The poison industry is very aware that volatile, synthetic pesticide poisons kill beneficial insects and fungus better than they do the pests. One University that tests pesticide poisons on pest populations for the poison industry wrote me how they use synthetic insecticide poisons and fungicide poisons to protect their pest populations! An example of predator-prey relationships that are adversely affected by pesticide poisons is a black fly predator, the caddisfly, which is susceptible to permethrin at rates lower than those necessary to control blackfly. The phytoseiid mites have an LD₅₀ 15 times lower to permethrin than the spider mites on which they prey. Obviously, many beneficial insects, e.g., bees, are also killed when one "treats" pests with volatile, synthetic pesticide poisons!

The Chinese Sage, Sun Tzu's "The Art of War" written in China 500 B.C. clearly warned: "There has never been a protracted war from which a country has benefited."

Dr. Leaky has now estimated that we are losing approximately 50,000 to 100,000 species of plants, animals and insects every year because of man's "footprint". Yet after waging an ever increasing war on insects pests, using enough "registered" poison to literally contaminate the entire world and every living organism, we have not even controlled, much less eliminated, even one pest species!

Since the 1940's advent of volatile, synthetic pesticide poisons we have waged an ever increasing protracted war against pest populations and now our air, water, food, mother's milk, blood, and adipose tissue all "normally" contain significant residues of these poisons, their metabolites, their "inerts" and contaminates! We have suffered an ever-increasing array of health effects, damages, and deaths - yet our pest "enemy" continues not only to flourish, but to increase. We have continually killed our own allies (the beneficials), poisoned our own water, air, and food and, thereby, sickened, wounded or killed ourselves and our own forces and continually ignored our enemy's natural weaknesses and engaged in warfare using only one (useless) weapon! We have totally forgotten how to protect ourselves and how to successfully wage war on our pest enemy.

In 1950 fewer than 20 species of insects showed signs of synthetic pesticide resistance. In 1960 Rachel Carson had documented 137 species were resistant to at least one pesticide poison and noted it was the early rumblings of an avalanche of synthetic pesticide resistance. By 1990 the number of documented pesticide-resistant insect and mite species was 504 and, obviously, is still increasing. In addition to over one-half of the resistant pest insects and mites, we have many other pesticide resistances developing, e.g., bacteria, fungus, weeds, etc. Volatile pesticide poisons do not effectively control, much less even diminish the pests against which they are continually used/misused!

In 1993, 1 in 7 Americans got cancer. We have spent many billions of dollars on cancer research (a river of gold); yet now 1 out of every 2 Americans will get cancer and in the near future, breast cancer will be the #1 killer and prostate cancer will be the #2 killer of Americans! In the 1990s, one in eight women got breast cancer.

From 1960 to the 1990s, more than 950,000 died from breast cancer - almost half of these deaths had occurred in the last 10 years! Putting this in perspective - only 617,000 Americans have died in all the wars our country has fought this century! Unless we desire the demise of our own race, we must stop releasing tons of virtually untested, unstable, synthetic pesticide poisons that are creating a synergistic contamination that no one can honestly say they can truly assess all of the human health risks for and which still does not even control our pest enemy! Some of the "inerts" can continue to contaminate for much longer than the active poison ingredients, e.g., some inerts have a half-life of greater than 880 years!

Yet, the U. S. annually now blasts itself with about 4.5 billion pounds of volatile, synthetic pesticide poison which, obviously, provide fewer and fewer "benefits".

By 1964, 2/3's of all U. S. insecticides were used on only 3 crops: cotton, corn, and apples per the Mrak Commission (In 1969, the U. S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare prepared a landmark report on the environmental health consequences of pesticides - The Mrak Commission). Pimental et. al., in Environmental and economic impacts noted that despite a thousand-fold increase in the U. S. use of insecticide poisons on corn-losses to insects have an increased 400%!

Cornell University researcher, David Pimental in Silent Scourge, Audubon, Jan./Feb. 1997 estimates that of the roughly 672 million birds annually exposed to pesticides in the U. S. - 10% - (at least) 67 million - of our allies are killed annually! (Note: Back then, about 5 to 6 billion pounds of insecticides, herbicides, fungicides, rodenticides, and other biocide active ingredients were yearly added to the world's environment.)

The concepts of synthetic pesticide resistance, pest resurgence and the development of secondary pest problems have been taught (and then ignored) in introductory science classes for literally decades! Since synthetic pesticide poisons were introduced into agriculture at the end of World War II, total crop losses due to insect damage (despite a tenfold increase in insecticide poison) have almost doubled - from 7% in the 1940's, when all agriculture was essentially organic, to 13% by the end of the 1980's. In 1945 almost no insecticide poison use was used on corn and the USDA noted insect damage only averaged about 3.5%. In the 1990s, despite more than one thousandfold increase in the use of synthetic insecticide poisons on corn, losses to insects then averaged 12%! Entomological Journals are filled with pesticide resistance problems developing all over the world - obviously, synthetic pesticides quickly create resistant or immune pests. Pestisafes® normally do not create resistant or immune pest species!

In the 1990s approximately 5% of all farms controlled over half of the Nation's agricultural production and our smaller farmers were already going out of business by the thousands, all while economic consolidations using mergers, takeovers, and conglomerations in the food and poison industry are being magnified a hundred-fold - we now are almost totally dependent on the poison industry - and their resulting contamination for our "food".

In 1981, A. Robert Abbou'd as president of Occidental Petroleum, a giant energy corporation, spent $800 million to acquire Iowa beef processors and said "we're going to be running onto a food scarcity situation in the 1990's in the same way we have an energy shortage in the 1980's. We will continue to build in this area." Occidental Petroleum also is known for its Hooker chemical subsidiary and Love Canal controversy/contaminations.

A few multinational corporations and "banksters" now own the new "biotechnology" that is genetically altering or "modifying" all of our (hybrid) seeds, livestock embryos and/or other living organisms - shifting the ability to produce food from our farmers to the "scientists" and therefore to those that actually own them, their "science" and their chemical poisons and their patents - all at the expense of environmental safety, nutritional value, and biological diversity and therefore our future (altered) harvests - all are sacrificed on the corporate altar of expediency and profit - yet we still are being told the same old propaganda/lies that there still is nothing to "worry" about - "Hold still please...Trust in me, just in me...Shut your eyes..." - the snake, Kaa, in The Jungle Book.

We can no longer produce our own seed as farmers did since the beginning of time. Genesis 1:12: "and the earth brought forth grass, and herb yielding seed after his kind, and the tree yielding fruit, whose seed was in itself, after his kind; and G-d saw that it was good." Today we must look to man and not G-d for our daily bread.

The clarity of Sun Tzu's thought is still acted upon by Chinese generals of today; it is "The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting." This supreme art is what I have continually developed upon in my intelligent pest management® manuals, The Best Control© and The Best Control II© and this little book. I, like Sun Tzu, believe "The skillful strategist should be able to subdue the enemy's army without engaging it, to take his cities without laying siege to them, and to overthrow his State without bloodying swords".

One of Sun Tzu's admirers was Mao Tse Tung - in Chiang Kai - Shek's army - most of the younger officers considered Sun Tzu's thoughts to be out-of-date and hardly worth study in the era of mechanized weapons. Chairman Mao Tse-Tung disagreed with his enemy and in May, 1928 wrote "on protracted war", selected works Vol. II page 156 that "The object of war is specifically to preserve oneself and destroy the enemy" (to destroy the enemy means to disarm him or "deprive him of the power to resist", and does not mean to destroy every member of his forces physically.).

This "truth" taken from the "Little Red Book", contains the essence to true IPM. To use toxic, volatile poisons that do not preserve us, but rather destroy our own people, pets, and natural allies without even diminishing, much less destroying our pest enemy, but which in truth actually preserve our pest enemy and even prosper our pest enemy is to insure the annihilation of those living things (including yourself) you are trying to protect and preserve!

All of the guiding principles of military operations grow out of this one basic principle: to strive to the utmost to preserve one's own strength and destroy that of the enemy . . . to release nerve gases, hormonal disrupters, carcinogens, mutagens, etc. (poisons) into or onto one's own person, ambient air, food, or water is to insure our own eventual defeat or destruction - while preserving that of our resistant enemy, and totally ignores the basis of all successful military principles! The communist Chinese Red Army defeated General Chiang Kai-Shek using this very principle and Mao noted that "without preparedness - superiority is not real superiority and there can be no initiative either. Having grasped this point, a force which is inferior, but prepared can often defeat a superior enemy by surprise attack." I warn you our "inferior" pest enemy is already resistant to our "superior' pesticides and is already winning the war - common sense (which is not too common) and the use of true IPM as detailed in the Intelligent Pest Management® manual, The Best Control©, The Best Control II© and this little version will yet turn the tide in our favor.

The purpose of True Integrated Pest Management or Intelligent Pest Management® or Imaginative Pest Management or Innovative Pest Management (IPM) or Ecologically Based Pest Management (EBPM) is to render an area more or less permanently uninhabitable for the pest - in as environmentally safe a manner as possible...often it does not even destroy the pest. Rather than simply trying to control pests temporarily at best, using volatile, synthetic pesticide poisons which are very harmful to people, pets and the environment, IPM is dedicated to removing the causes rather than treating the symptoms. Passive IPM is simply allowing natural programs, predators and controls to remain in place. Active or true IPM can be easily understood if you can relate the pest's needs to your own needs and home.

If you came home and found every room was filled with foam or concrete (caulking) or that your home had been altered so that your heating/air conditioning were not working or were removed (temperature changes) all the locks changed and/or all windows and doors were boarded over (exclusion) and/or steel bars were installed over all windows and doors (screening) all plumbing, gas and electricity lines removed, all food supplies, clothing, furniture and beds either removed or secured in such a way you could not gain access (sanitation and habitat reduction) to your own home or even the things you need to survive you would move - if you still did not move the police would come and take you away (vacuums and/or traps). You now can understand how we will use true IPM techniques to permanently eliminate the conditions conducive to an infestation and, thus, the pest. All of us are capable of waging war on pests, directly or indirectly, especially using Pestisafes® and common sense.

What we must first understand is our enemy - his exact location, weaknesses, strengths, habits and preferences. Remember to remove the cause rather than treat the symptom. If you avoid the use and misuse of poison, you will avoid resistance and contamination problems, conserve beneficials, the environment and yourself.

Robert Metcalf, an entomologist, said, "The greatest single factor in preventing insects from overwhelming the rest of the world is the . . . warfare which they carry out among themselves". Remember the old childhood riddle: The enemy of my enemy, is a friend of mine?

Rachael Carson said, "The second neglected fact is the truly explosive power of a species to reproduce once the resistance of the environment has been weakened". The greatest weapon you have is your imagination - never depend on any one tool other than your brain and always seek a better, safer way!

Even if the tool does not work - there are many, many others that will! Seek out knowledge with the same desire - you seek out the source and/or the pest - This manual will always need continual revision - there always will be one more safe, alternative pest control to try - rather than any dangerous, volatile poison! True IPM is not an acronym for "Include Pesticides Monthly" or "Increase Pesticide Marketing" or "Integrated Pesticide Management" - it stops the terrible poison "game" I call environmental roulette and it safely and far more effectively stops the pests!

ECOLOGICAL NARCOTICS - The use of volatile, synthetic pesticide poisons to "control or eliminate" pests is, obviously, not working. With any chemical dependency, routine use invariably makes worse the very problem it will supposedly eliminate, correct, control or fix. Using volatile pesticide poisons has not only created resistant pests, it has actually increased their numbers and damages and the severity of their attacks. Trying to drown one's sorrows in alcohol only creates bigger problems and greater sorrows and then even greater dependency and greater sorrow and problems. It's time to get clean and sober!

Definition of True IPM: Intelligent Pest Management® (IPM) is the coordinated use of pest and environmental information with available pest management methods to prevent unacceptable levels of pest damage by the most economical means, and with the least possible hazard to people and the environment. The goal of true IPM approach is to manage pests and the environment so as to balance costs, benefits, human health and environmental quality. True IPM systems utilize a high quantity and quality of technical information on the pest and its interaction with the environment (site). Because true IPM programs apply a holistic approach to pest management decision-making, they take advantage of all low risk management options, emphasizing natural biological methods, and the appropriate use of selective Pestisafes® and, as a last resort, selective, non-volatile, pesticides. True IPM's strategies incorporate environmental considerations by emphasizing pest management measures that minimize intrusion on natural bio-diversity ecosystems. 

Many alternatives to volatile, synthetic pesticide poison

Thus, true IPM is:

• A system utilizing multiple methods that will not create resistance,

• A decision-making process,

• A risk reduction system,

• Information intensive,

• Biologically based,

• Safety conscious,

• Cost effective,

• Site specific and uses

• Many alternatives to volatile, synthetic pesticide poisons.

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