Disappearing Bees October 28, 2007 08:28:18 PM
Unless you follow the news, this may sound a bit obscure, but for some mysterious reason, bees are disappearing! Specifically I'm talking about honey bees, the natural and most important component to large scale pollination. This topic keeps coming up on various news stations, and quite frankly it's really starting to freak me out. I mean with out bees doing their job, many crops like tomatoes, blueberries, and lots of other produce we take for granted at the grocery store won't be able to cross germinate, so they won't diversify, they'd only be able to reproduce with neighboring plants generation after generation. In human terms thats the equivalent to inbreeding. Each subsequent generation would be less and less resistant to contaminants, insects, and disease. Crops would get harder and harder to grow, get very expensive in the stores, and ultimately become scarce.
This is such a bizarre crisis, I really don't think people realize how big this problem is at this very moment! According to some bee keepers across the united states, 2/3 of all their bees have just vanished this summer! Like not necessarily die, but just, not return to the hive. Bees can normally fly up to 2 miles from the hive and still be able to find their way back. Farmers are saying that they just barely made it through this season of crops, they have no idea what will happen next year. TWO freaken THIRDS! Gone!
This is so big that the US dept of Agriculture has immediately dispatched several dedicated research groups and has put several university's top scientists on them. Experts are estimating that at the current rate of bee hive death, there will be none left by 2035. We would be forced to eat only grains and corn. Other fruits and vegetables would become rare delicacies and have to be grown in controlled green houses. To me this just seems like another scary sci-fi movie coming to life.
So I don't have any idea what I think is the direct cause for this, but I do know that we humans have taken this planet for granted so much that we have done nothing but completely fuck things up since we could walk upright. Global warming may be denied by every politician with a 2k+ salary, but the facts are facts. There is more CO2 in the atmosphere now than there ever was, this has been proven by atmospheric ice sampling and correlation shows us that the more CO2 is present, the higher the average climate temp will be.
Honestly, I think the bees going away is yet another sign. It's been said so many times that animals are more in tune with the planet. Sure we were given the 'gift' of reason, the ability to open our eyes to the hows and whys, but at the same time, we've lost touch with nature. So if this is a sign, what is it trying to tell us? Are we on the brink of another global catastrophe, is another ice age just a century away?
User:
Anonymous
COMMENT: There has to be a reason, I'm sure they'll find it out soon. Animals ARE indeed more in tune with nature though. I think it's cats. They leave when the people in the house get too stressed for whatever the reason.