Hold Monsanto Responsible for Killing Monarch Butterflies

Economics 101 taught us about “negative externalities” — a negative output that affects others who did not participate in creating the outcome. A textbook example of a negative externality? Monsanto killing off monarch butterflies with their agricultural herbicide, Roundup.

Monsanto makes Roundup and benefits handsomely from global sales, but Roundup also destroys milkweeds, a plant critical to the survival of the monarch butterfly. Communities that depend on the monarch for tourism are one of the parties that are paying the cost of Roundup, when the monarch migrations dwindles and with it the tourism dollars. You and me, the U.S. taxpayer, are also about to foot part of Monsanto’s bill. I am happy to do this for the butterflies, but I really resent helping Monsanto, already a multi-billion dollar business, increase their bottom line.

In 1996, about one billion monarch butterflies were counted making the 3,000-mile journey from Mexico to the US. For decades, people have flocked to locations in the United States and Mexico to witness this glorious black and orange winged extravaganza. But, in 2014, the number of migrating monarchs fell to fewer than 35 million – a 90 percent decline. Tierra Curry, an entomologist with the Center for Biological Diversity, laments that this reduction would be equivalent to “losing every living person in the US, except those in Florida and Ohio.”


Read more: [link to www.care2.com]