Nutshell
Indispensable pollinators of a lot of our food, bees are linchpins within the interconnectedness of our insane, unsustainable system of global industrial agriculture — perhaps, even, to human survival.
They pollinate more than 70 of the 100 crops that provide 90% of the world’s food.
And they’re dying in droves RIGHT NOW.
Causes appear to be a complex confluence of factors
- pesticides AND the interaction of multiple pesticides / fungicides (which weakens immunity and increases the likelihood of…)
- disease / infection (pathogens — bacterial, viral, fungal) / Varroa mites (parasite) / Nosema ceranae (parasite)
- lack of proper nutrition
- environmental stresses from habitat misuse / abuse / destruction, and climate disruption (more about that a little further down)
Albert Einstein is often said to have stated:
“If the bee disappears from the surface of the Earth, man would have no more than four years to live.”
This article takes issue with the attribution of the quote to Einstein, but details why such a warning would not be far from the truth in the catastrophic event of a bee-less world.
Obvious short-term responses
- Ban harmful pesticides / fungicides
- Transition from the current madness of industrial agriculture to the sanity of ecological farming. (See more from Greenpeace at SOS-bees.org.) But…
Reality
Difficult as it is to communicate, absorb and process, let alone accept, a much bigger picture must be faced. And there’s no time — NONE — to spare.
Our shared atmosphere is on an accelerating course to reach a state of potentially unsurvivable, global climate extremes during the lives of today’s children. (See: Compilation: +4C by 2060s or sooner catastrophic / incompatible with organized civilization.)
No less than the fate of all generations of all peoples and most species (bees included) hangs in the balance RIGHT NOW. And only emergency international action at emergency (world war-time) speed FAST *may be* proportional enough to confront the scale, scope and urgency of what is already the greatest crime against humanity, most life and most future life EVER. (Compilation: Betrayal of Life.)
Watch the videos in the playlist above for an overview. Further info in the resources below.
More
Sign petitions
- Sign Petition – 3 million to save the bees, Avaaz.org
- Sign Petition – Ontario: Ban the use of neonicotinoid pesticides, Change.org
- Sign Petition – Save the bees, Greenpeace.org
- Sign Petition – Save the bees please, Sierra Club Canada
Selected articles, posts, reports
- Article – Huge honey bee losses across Canada dash hopes of upturn, CBC
- Article – Scientists discover what’s killing bees — worse than you thought, QZ.com
- Article – Neonicotinoids are the new DDT killing the natural world, Guardian
- Article – America one bad Winter away from food disaster from dying bees, QZ.com
- List – Foods we would lose if we don’t save the bees, NaturalSociety.com
- Article + Pics – What your supermarket would look like if all bees died off, Grist
- Post – Bee-killing germs could result in fewer food options, Huffpost
- Article + Video – Ontario honey bees dropping like flies, Toronto Star
- Article + Videos – This pollinator porn will make you love bees, Grist
- Article – Scientists getting grip on Colony Collapse Disorder, Huffpost
- Article – Honey bees aren’t the only pollinators in danger, J. Upton, Grist
- Article – Honey bee decline linked to killer virus, D. Carrington, The Guardian
- Article – Pesticides blamed for bee decline, Jonathan Owen, The Independent
- Article – Human survival may be at stake DailyGreen.com
- Collected blogs – Bees, Greenpeace.org
- Reports
- Report – Crop pollination exposes Honey Bees to pesticides which alters their susceptibility to the gut pathogen Nosema Ceranae, PLOS ONE
- Report – Bees in Decline, Greenpeace.org (PDF)
Selected websites, pages, documentaries, Wikipedia
- Campaign page – SOS bees – Save the bees, Greenpeace.org (Europe)
- Website – Ontario Beekeeper’s Association (OBA) (Canada)
- Web page – OBA – Neonicotinoid bee poisonings (Canada)
- Web page – Bees, Sierra Club Canada
- Web page – Bring back the pollinators campaign, Xerces.org (North America)
- Web page – Bumble Bee, Xerces.org (North America)
- Documentary – Silence of the Bees, Nature episode, PBS
- Documentary – Vanishing of the Bees, VanishingoftheBees.com
- Documentary – Queen of the Sun, QueenoftheSun.com
- Wikipedia – Bee
- Wikipedia – Honey Bee
- Wikipedia – List of diseases of the honey bee
- Wikipedia – Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD)
- Wikipedia – Neonicotinoids
- Wikipedia – Fungicides
- Wikipedia – Nosema Ceranae (parasite)
- Wikipedia – Varroa Destructor (parasite)
- Wikipedia – Ecological Farming
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