Review of “Insecticides: A Licence to Kill” (2021)

Moving picture, 57 minutes

Seen in 2022.

I saw the shorter version.

The hypothesis that neonicotinoid pesticides are the main cause of insects dying in vast numbers in the developed world.

The end credits assert that this documentary is based on scientific reports, but the distributor of the film does not appear to have published its bibliography. A lot of the talking points are dubious in the absence of those studies. This includes the claim, unopposed within the film, that crop productivity is (consistently) higher without pesticides. That claim amounts to a conspiracy theory, which is worse than Carson’s advocacy for biological pest control in Silent Spring (1962).

moving picture non-fiction