It's bad enough the shit is fouling our waters, it's also apparently causing mass extinction events. Or as it's sometimes known, colony collapse disorder. Whatever you call it, it's not good!
Beekeepers and some researchers say there is growing evidence that a powerful new class of pesticides known as neonicotinoids, incorporated into the plants themselves, could be an important factor. The pesticides are absorbed by plants and transported throughout a plant's vascular tissue, making the plant potentially toxic to insects.Four professional beekeepers and five environmental and consumer groups said they would try to get a court to order the EPA to take action. The groups filed their lawsuit against the EPA in the Northern District Court of California, demanding that the regulatory agency suspend the use of pesticides clothianidin and thiamethoxam.
In the United States, such pesticides are routinely used on more than 100 million acres of corn, wheat, soy and cotton, and are in some home gardening products.
The scary thing is, this was entirely foreseeable, because it, well, it was:
Every spring millions of bee colonies are trucked to the Central Valley of California and other agricultural areas to replace the wild pollinators, which have all but disappeared in many parts of the country. These bees are routinely fed high-fructose corn syrup instead of their own nutritious honey. And in an effort to boost productivity, the queens are now artificially inseminated, which has led to a disturbing decline in bee genetic diversity. Bees are also dusted with chemical poisons to control mites and other pathogens that have flourished in the overcrowded commercial colonies.In 1923, Rudolph Steiner, the German founder of biodynamic agriculture, a precursor of the modern organic movement, predicted that within a hundred years artificial industrial techniques used to breed honey bees would lead to the species’ collapse.
It would really not be a good thing for the bees to go away forever because, you know, it would seriously mess with the global food supply. But I guess we can now scratch fruits and vegetables from our diet, and add junk food to the jellyfish that's already on the menu at Mad Max's Doomsday Diner.
---Baron V
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