The Law of Interdependence
Via Neverness:
Earth Day Cometh and Earth Day Goeth (and Where Have All the Bees Gone?)
Below is an extract from an Earth Day essay (dated 20/04/2007) by Paul Watson - "founder of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society and a significant, albeit controversial, figure in the environmental movement and the movement for animal rights":
Albert Einstein once wrote that "if the bee disappeared off the surface of the globe, then man would have only four years of life left. No more bees, no more pollination, no more plants, no more animals, no more man."
That is the Law of Interdependence.
Forget global warming folks. The disappearance of the honeybee could end our existence as human beings on this planet far sooner than we think.
And the honey bee is in fact now disappearing. Why? We don't know why. It could be genetically modified crops, it could be pesticides or it could be that our cell phones are interfering with their ability to navigate.
Whatever the cause the fact is that they are disappearing. All around the world bees are disappearing in a crisis called Colony Collapse Disorder.
We hold on to our place on this planet by only a toehold. If anything happens to the grass family, we are screwed. If the earthworms disappear, we are in big trouble. If the bees disappear, well according to Albert Einstein who was considered somewhat smarter than most of us, we will have only four years. Just enough time to get a college degree to discover that everything you learned is relatively useless when sitting on the doorstep of global ecological annihilation.
We are cutting down the forest and plundering the oceans of life. We are polluting the soil, the air and the water and we are rapidly running out of fresh water to drink.
Only corporations like Coke and Pepsi have figured out that water is more valuable than gold. That is why they are bottling it in plastic bottles and selling it. This week I saw a bottle of water in my hotel room that I could have drunk for only $4.
A fascinating read.
Related reading: SA tackles climate change
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6 Comments
Ah, well spotted ndorfin. ;) Either way it gets the point across nicely.
It is just european honey bees that seem to be affected, other types (there are thousands of bee species by the way) seem to be doing just fine , if not better than their european cousins, maybe the european bee has been “cultivated” too much and has become genetically less competitive than other species? I see it as evolution in practice… you know that old adage… adapt or die.
Seems like the polar bear is also doing better than the global warmers say… they are finding that bears are finding hunting easier because there is less ice!
We all forget that ice covered Greenland got it’s name when it was not covered in ice during the last “global warming” in the 13th century… ask the Vikings, they had great fun during that hot spell. Many blonde haired people today can say thanks to that period they exist today… :-)
Hey Coda,
As a bee keeper I thought I’d pipe in for 2 reasons.
1. My colonies that I keep have recently been vandalized. By vandalized I mean, they were torn apart to try and get honey out and left destroyed. Most likely suspects…bergies….so in this case my collapse, was certainly man made. I lost 5 of 9 colonies at this site! :(
2. The major market hit by this colony collapse is commercial US farmers, who use a LARGE number of insecticides to control pests like mites and wax-moth. The loss appears to not affect production when chemicals aren’t used.
…on a side note…the “Killer Bee” or “Africanised Honey Bee”, which is destroyed on sight in the US, is the strain of honey we that South African bee keeps work with every day….without fear of being killed….silly Yanks.
D.
za_bullet: always enlightening, my asian friend ;P (that had me laughing out loud, by the way… the resemblance is uncanny!) – a bee keeper, who would have guessed! Sounds like a fascinating hobby.
Via IOL today: New clue may solve mystery of vanishing bees
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12 June 2007
ndorfin04:18 pm
Sif coda. There’s a Snopes entry about Einstein’s supposed quite and it’s included in the very same linked wiki-page :P
That aside, the topic of disappearing bees is distressing. Could it be “greenhouse” environmentalist banter or a genuine concern? So far it only seems to be a real problem in the US where bees don’t occur naturally. (I love how they associate the problem with loss of revenue!)
Entertaining reading none-the-less. Thanks.