Well, the environmentalist apparently just won’t give up.
Now they’ve conducted a new study written up in the prestigious Scientific American…
…which claims to demonstrate that antimicrobial silver particles escaping into the environment from fabrics and other silver-impregnated products will end up in the sludge from wastewater treatment plants…
… and thereby pose a dire threat to any plant life the sludge gets spread on.
Since spreading wastewater sludge on crops is a big business, the environmentalists claim we might be in for some pretty meager pickings in future farming seasons due to the silver-content of the sludge.
Again, With This “Sky is Falling” Nonsense
Hmmm. This couldn’t possibly be another “sky is falling” scare tactic from the environmentalists, could it?
Only a few weeks ago environmentalists were claiming – with straight faces, mind you -- that silver-impregnated socks designed to help kill the germs that cause stinky feet are a cause of global warming.
Yes, I said global warming. They also claimed that silver is “killing the planet.”
Before that they were proclaiming silver to be “toxic to Fathead Minnows.”
I suppose before long they’ll claim that silver is a terrorist threat, and ask the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to set up airport-style TSA groping stations at stores that carry undergarments embedded with antimicrobial silver particles.
The Scam That Just Won’t Quit
For those who might want a little bit of common-sense thrown into the mix, here’s an excerpt from my online comment to the above-linked Scientific American article:
Here we go again, with the old "silver is dangerous to the environment" scam.
What’s wrong with the idea that silver might be a threat to the environment? Well, consider the following:
There are extremely high silver content-laden soils throughout the silver mining areas of California, Colorado, Nevada, etc., yet the soils are teeming with uncountable numbers of plant and animal life.
There are extremely high silver content-laden rivers and streams, yet they too are teeming with innumerable eco-systems and bio-systems.
You could just as easily make the case that silver -- rather than being detrimental to ecology and life -- is instead essential to it.
It seems the only places silver turns out to be harmful is in the "controlled studies" conducted by environmentalist researchers.
Go figure.
Do you think the environmentalists at Scientific American will listen to reason? (Hint: Don’t hold your breath.)
Silver Aids Plant Growth
I know of dozens of people who use nanoscale colloidal silver to keep their plants healthier, and make their fruits and vegetables grow faster and stronger in their home gardens.
A non-published experiment during the last growing season demonstrated that tomato seeds planted in soil treated with small amounts of nanosilver produced 30% more sprouts than the same amount of seeds planted in non-silver-treated soil.
What’s more, the plants grew nearly twice as fast over the first 15 days of the experiment before leveling out and growing normally after that. They started out faster, and stayed larger and hardier than the plants in the non-silver-treated soil. That’s a sign of superior health. Not harm.
My wife sprayed her garden with nano-scale colloidal silver all growing season long last year, at least once every week, and sometimes twice…
…and she won a blue ribbon award for her veggies at the local fair. (Not to mention feeding me week after week all summer long with fresh organic squash, tomatoes, black berries, artichokes, cantelope and more!)
What’s more, for the first time in over 10 years of gardening, her garden was still producing crops all of the way through to early of November, well after the first frost!
Silver Protects Against Crop Blight
I've used nanoscale colloidal silver to kill mid-season tomato fungus by spraying it onto the leaves and stems of the affected plant, and spraying small amounts onto the soil at the base of the plant.
The tomato fungus is effectively obliterated and the plants grow healthier and stronger and produce beautiful fruit afterwards.
Brooks Bradley, of the Harborne Research Foundation, has stated regarding the beneficial effects of colloidal silver on plants:
“…we performed some limited, plant-oriented evaluations utilizing colloidal silver. Our initial investigation involved experiments designed to determine if colloidal silver would yield beneficial effects on ‘fire-blight’ associated with pear trees and pyracantha shrubs.
The only effective protocol we had found, prior to our colloidal silver evaluations, was the application of streptomycin (water soluble form) in an aerosol spray.
A solution of 10 ppm strength colloidal silver mixed at the rate of 1 pint colloidal silver to 2.5 gallons of water and 1/4 teaspoon household detergent was applied to affected trees (in various states of challenge, from 10% to 50% foliage involvement).
Visually detectable improvement manifested within 48 hours. Marked improvement and pathogenic stabilization evidenced within 72 hours.
New leaf growth---in former areas of heavy attack---started to appear within 7 days of the initial treatment. This protocol was repeatable (we performed it 4 times).”
Interestingly, in a 2009 study, published in the Korean journal Plant Pathology, colloidal silver nanoparticles were found to dramatically inhibit the growth of several species of a sclerotium-forming phyto-pathogenic fungus.
In other words, the silver was tested against a fungus known to infect and kill crops – particularly important crop plants such as rice, lettuce and others that feed millions of people every year globally.
The study’s authors noted:
“Our data clearly demonstrated that the silver nanoparticles strongly inhibited the fungal growth and sclerotial germination growth…
…This study suggests the possibility of using silver nanoparticles as an alternative to pesticides, for sclerotium-forming phytopathogenic fungal control.”
Preserving Plant Life With Silver
Far from harming plant life, it turns out colloidal silver nanoparticles may well be an exemplary method of preserving plant life and preventing the loss of crop foods essential to mankind’s survival!
But not if the radical environmentalists here in the US get their way.
They would apparently prefer it if we had to continue using environmentally harsh chemical pesticides to control such crop-destroying fungi, rather than a safe, natural substance that came from the environment in the first place!
And last but not least, the EPA itself has stated in its own written reports on silver:
“In terrestrial plants, silver concentrations are usually less than 1.0 mg/kg ash weight (equivalent to less than 0.1 mg/kg DW) and are higher in trees, shrubs, and other plants near regions of silver mining; seeds, nuts, and fruits usually contain higher silver concentrations than other plant parts.”
In other words, according to the EPA it is quite normal for plants to contain silver.
And while plants, trees and shrubs growing near silver mines generally contain far higher levels of silver than other plants, it doesn’t seem to harm them –
-- they still produce seeds, nuts and fruits like any other plant. That is to say, they still propagate successfully. The only difference being, the seeds, nuts and fruits contain higher levels of silver!
Hmmm. Maybe I’ll move to silver-mining country and get my seeds, nuts and fruits there!
Beware the Progress-Robbing Neo-Luddite Mentality
The radical environmentalists are always crying "The sky is falling."
God help us all due to the breakthroughs we could enjoy, were it not for certain radical environmentalist spoilers posing as saviors, while continuously mucking up progress.
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