The Silence on the Bees. And the Bats.

[GliderGuider]

The Silence on the Bees. And the Bats.

It bears repeating one more time: When the canary in the cage at the mine face drops dead, the lesson is not that we need to take better care of canaries. The lesson is that we need to get our asses out of that mine before it blows up. If, on the other hand, the miners are dumb enough to watch canary after canary drop lifeless to the bottom of the cage, and do absolutely nothing, well, then, maybe the right thing is to let natural selection run its course.

We are surrounded by dying canaries. Okay, they are not, strictly speaking, canaries, but they are playing the mine-face canaries’ role. The conditions that kill them are coming for us. And the funny thing is that, while it is news of a certain, not-quite-legitimate kind (“environmentalists are concerned that…”) when we notice the first of them dying, their continued dying — an indication that conditions in our mine are getting worse — is not news. Or, worse, it’s “old news,” an oxymoron.

Canary No. 1. Bees. It was first noticed in 2006 that bees were dying in stunningly large numbers. (You could tell it was serious because they gave it a name — Colony Collapse Disorder, which rapidly became an acronym, CCD. As in medicine, things always seem better when the problem has a name.)

Canary No. 2 – Bats. In 2006, the very year we noticed that the bees were dying, bats began to disappear. Coincidence? Of course. Keep mining, we’ll bury the canaries later.

and the starfish, sardines and black rhino.
Global Biotic Collapse; Relax, you're soaking in it.

Tick ... tick ... tick ...

[hatrack]

1. Keep this up, and I'll start calling you "Madge"

[GliderGuider]

2. No problemo. This is my feminine side, after all... nt

[cantbeserious]

3. When The Oligarchs And Corporations Own And Control The Politicians That Own And Control Us

It is difficult to garner interest from those living in a state of media conjured fear.

Sad, but true.

[GliderGuider]

4. We can't afford to recognize the truth of our situation

The predicament is just too damn big and intractable. Admitting the full severity of the problem opens the door to psychological collapse into depression and despair. It's far safer to live in denial of one sort or another.

Whether it's just not paying attention to this sort of news, believing that it's a hoax cooked up by evil scientists to get grant money for bogus studies, or believing that more political or technological change will make improve the situation - they are all techniques to avoid confronting the horror face-to-face. You can't really blame folks, it's rather unfair to expect 7 billion people to all go through psychological collapse simultaneously - at least not before circumstances make it undenaiable.

[pscot]

5. If we acknowledged our predicament

we'd have to do something about it. Much easier to just hunker down and pretend it's not happening.

[GliderGuider]

8. It's also easier to pretend that we can do something about it.

Tireless work, even in a lost cause, tends to keep a person insulated from the truth as well. We see that form of denialism in the relentless exhortations of wind and solar advocates that wash up on these shores like the jetsam in Tacloban.

[pscot]

9. It's an essential part of the programm

The "heroic" aspect of our nature; never to admit the cause is lost. That Times article you posted Sunday brought into focus the Existential issues, but most people don't seem capable of thinking in those terms. We get on by getting on with it. It's what we do. On the bright side, if anyone survives the coming Dark Age, the species will never again have the material means to repeat our mistakes.

[CRH]

6. I've read scattered articles, though nothing definitive, ...

that the increase in wireless transmission can cause problems with navigation for bees. If this eventually is confirmed, it could very well influence bats as well with echolocation.

Think of the explosion of cell phone towers dotting the landscape since early 2000's, perhaps it is a part of the problem.

Some study has shown, bees can be confused and will abandon a hive with a cell phone near in transmission mode.

[Nihil]

7. The motto of modern life: "Keep mining, we’ll bury the canaries later."

> If, on the other hand, the miners are dumb enough to watch canary after canary
> drop lifeless to the bottom of the cage, and do absolutely nothing, well, then,
> maybe the right thing is to let natural selection run its course.

So true, so true.

Thanks for posting it GG.