I wasn't going to post today, I bombarded this blog with posts to start out with and, well, I figured I needed to give it a rest for a day or so and make sure that what I had to say needed saying. Ya, I guess I need to say this.
I also must add that flying things with stingers kind of creep me out on a basic level. I am not a huge fan of the bee kingdom ordinarily, though I know full well how important they are. With their cousins the wasps, there have been times when I was all too ready to reach for the wasp killer spray when a nest is too close to the door. They likely wouldn't choose me to beat the drum of the flying insect fan club.
I also must add that flying things with stingers kind of creep me out on a basic level. I am not a huge fan of the bee kingdom ordinarily, though I know full well how important they are. With their cousins the wasps, there have been times when I was all too ready to reach for the wasp killer spray when a nest is too close to the door. They likely wouldn't choose me to beat the drum of the flying insect fan club.
50,000 dead in Oregon. Over 30 MILLION dead in Canada. What the hell.
I am not going to bother saying how absolutely critically important bees are to pollenizing our food supply. Honestly, it's beyond that. This is whole communities of living things being wiped out, vast communities of plants being adversely affected. We should be grieving this regardless of its effect on the fucking humans.
The 50,000 mostly bumblebees that died in Oregon died from exposure to ornamental trees that were sprayed with neonicotinoid pesticides. These weren't even food plants, they were fucking ornamental trees in a fucking Target parking lot. For the sake of these trees looking pristine (and not having sex, which is what the bumblebees were there to help with), 50,000 creatures were slain. 50,000 creatures that were a vital part of their ecosystem. Briefly, this was the largest bee slaughter in recorded history. This record was broken within hours.
The 30 million in Canada were also killed with neonicotinoid pesticides, which this past April were outlawed in the EU as a strongly contributing factor in colony collapse disorder. Neonicotinoids are very widely used on soybean crops, so remember that the next time you eat non-organic tofu. Meanwhile, the EPA continues to take its sweet time in considering the matter. Perhaps Bayer Cropscience speaks louder to the ears of the Obama administration and Congress than the voices of environmentalists and the voice of sanity.
I am not going to bother saying how absolutely critically important bees are to pollenizing our food supply. Honestly, it's beyond that. This is whole communities of living things being wiped out, vast communities of plants being adversely affected. We should be grieving this regardless of its effect on the fucking humans.
The 50,000 mostly bumblebees that died in Oregon died from exposure to ornamental trees that were sprayed with neonicotinoid pesticides. These weren't even food plants, they were fucking ornamental trees in a fucking Target parking lot. For the sake of these trees looking pristine (and not having sex, which is what the bumblebees were there to help with), 50,000 creatures were slain. 50,000 creatures that were a vital part of their ecosystem. Briefly, this was the largest bee slaughter in recorded history. This record was broken within hours.
The 30 million in Canada were also killed with neonicotinoid pesticides, which this past April were outlawed in the EU as a strongly contributing factor in colony collapse disorder. Neonicotinoids are very widely used on soybean crops, so remember that the next time you eat non-organic tofu. Meanwhile, the EPA continues to take its sweet time in considering the matter. Perhaps Bayer Cropscience speaks louder to the ears of the Obama administration and Congress than the voices of environmentalists and the voice of sanity.
I don't really have a lot more to add about this abomination. A credit to the people of Portland, there was a memorial service for the bees. Just as they say that funerals are for the living more than the dead, this one was probably more to quicken the conscience of human beings than to commemorate the deceased. No word yet on whether the THIRTY FUCKING MILLION bees killed in Canada will also be similarly memorialized.
More casualties in the name of "progress" and human domination over nature and the greed of the massive pharma-pesti-herbicide industry.
Humans. Don't you hate them?
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