Fears for crops as shock figures from America show scale of bee catastrophe

[ensho]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/may/02/food-fear-mystery-beehives-collapse


The world may be on the brink of biological disaster after news that a third of US bee colonies did not survive the winter

(DOES ANYTHING MORE NEED TO BE SAID?)

-snip-

A global review of honeybee deaths by the World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE) reported last week that there was no one single cause, but pointed the finger at the "irresponsible use" of pesticides that may damage bee health and make them more susceptible to diseases. Bernard Vallat, the OIE's director-general, warned: "Bees contribute to global food security, and their extinction would represent a terrible biological disaster."

Dave Hackenberg of Hackenberg Apiaries, the Pennsylvania-based commercial beekeeper who first raised the alarm about CCD, said that last year had been the worst yet for bee losses, with 62% of his 2,600 hives dying between May 2009 and April 2010. "It's getting worse," he said. "The AIA survey doesn't give you the full picture because it is only measuring losses through the winter. In the summer the bees are exposed to lots of pesticides. Farmers mix them together and no one has any idea what the effects might be."
-snip-
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we are losing a food source from the Gulf

and now loss of crops because of lack of bees

more and more of less and less

[AnArmyVeteran]

1. The Guardian, BBC, etc are better than all major US media combined!

[City Lights]

6. !

:thumbsup:

[lazarus]

2. kick

this is a major disaster on the way.

[Newest Reality]

3. Well, the

Earth has a bad case of Humans and it looks fatal ;)

The Western mindset is bereft, (well except for New Age platitudes) of a deep-felt sense of the inexplicable connection of all life and its relationship to the planet. That willful ignorance will eventually prove that the ideas held by many indigenous peoples are not merely magical thinking or mythical nature worship, but rather, a deep, visceral awareness born of a communion with nature itself.

With our vast numbers and Koyaanisqatsi ways, it does not take religion or politics, or even philosophy and science to explain or understand the outcome of treating your environment with contempt and abandon. Little is being done to stem or reverse the process we have set in place and it is most likely irreversible. The Church of the Technofix will not bring salvation, though some want to believe that it will. No, we are on a trajectory that will certainly decrease our numbers and irrevocably alter the extremely ignorant and environmentally brutal modern life we have come to think is non-negotiable and sustainable in any way. However, the very wealthy who oversaw this may retreat and reserve that lifestyle for themselves, if that is possible. Vast numbers of us will expire and for the rest, well we are going to Serf City and Slave Alley, if I might be so bold in my prognostication.

We have dying bee colonies and dying bats, as well as extinctions of numerous species in progress. Now, we see yet another horrific and tremendous shock to the fragile ecosystem in the form of black specter spreading its toxic wings across the Gulf and ready to spread like a dark plague on a grim journey as it hitchhikes the loop of ocean currents.

Our way of life will end and we are at the crest of the hill now, observing the valley that our species will transverse.

[truebrit71]

4. Hmm..not good...

..

[upi402]

5. I've been screaming this for years

To anyone who will listen -which is almost nobody. They like their green lawns here, and weed-free too.

I have an 'insecticide free' placard in my yard which shows to the street. The guy down the road had to come challenge me on the 'global warming lie'. I didn't waste my time and stopped talking to him, which is getting more common in this area recently.

[glinda]

7. Our Government needs to put this up front along with other environmental regulations

as well as work with other Nations on this asap. This is a global disaster.