All the bees are dying

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Lest pointless, oddball polls about principality schoolboard elections in Bulgaria become the lifeblood of this once proud forum, I thought I'd start some new topics about subjects of actual importance.

One that I find incredibly troubling is the recent phenomenon of what has come to be known as honeybee colony collapse disorder, or CCD. Put simply, bee colonies are dying off in record numbers and no one knows for sure why.

http://science.time.com/2013/05/07/...s-are-still-dying-and-we-still-dont-know-why/

The whole thing is worth a read, but it's hardly the authoritative piece on the matter. Googling the term "colony collapse disorder" brings up over 700K hits.

I think it's obvious from the description how dire this could be for the world food supply and the natural landscape in general if the trend isn't reversed, and quickly. Is anyone else as freaked out about this as I am?

 

Bees over here have been on the bleedin' roids I'm sure. They're chuffing huge!

 

It happened on Doctor Who as well. It turned out the bees were all returning to their home planet, which had been stolen by the Daleks.

 

I first saw an article about it in 2008. According to that particular vid one of the main causes was a diseased (cultured) bee strain.

The fact remains that, regardless of what is actually causing it, the phenomenon is real. A major pollinating agent has suddenly experienced a massive decline. Some believe it's simply the bees' time, others worry that it might become a precedent for other pollinating agents. Consider that around 1/3 of the food people eat are from flowering plants.

 

The problem is the insanely unbalanced position we as a species inhabit in the ecology of the Earth. It's very worrying. As one comment in the article said, a very important step in halting and hopefully reversing these dangerous changes is getting our population growth under control. I agree with that, but I think it's just as important to improve our ability to affect the natural environment on far less intrusive level, e.g., implementing safer or no pesticides and fertilisers, clearing up the North Pacific Gyre, changing the chemical nasties in our shampoos and detergents, getting off our fossil fuel addiction, and many, many more things. I'd also like our governments to really start promoting increasing the variety of vegetables grown by farmers, to combat the incredible drop in variety of commercially grown food.

 

I've wanted to reply to this thread, as the bees' disappearance does worry me, but I really have nothing to say. I had no idea on how we can help the situation. That said, I think MrMermaid's suggestions sound particularly apt. I especially liked the suggestion about increasing the variety of vegetables, and in general, support family farms more. I just wonder if enough people will actually follow through on those.

 

These are nice thoughts, but they really aren't within our ability right now. If we stopped using non-organic fertilizers and pesticides, we simply don't have enough food to feed everyone. And I don't mean we're a little short - about a billion people would need to die off if we went the all organic route. I, for one, would not want to be the person who decides which billion people that is.

And the fossil fuel addicition I don't see ending in our lifetimes. Hell, in the last five years with the oil and natural gas boom in the US (fracking), it is expected that by the end of the decade the US will become a net oil EXPORTER. Granted, I doubt that will cause a huge plummet in the price of oil on the global market. Every year, China and India need more oil. and so even though the US demand is shrinking by the year, it's growing by a faster rate in developing nations. We will still need all the oil we can pump - it just will be going to different places.