"The likely culprit of the sudden deaths? The loosening of pesticide restrictions"
Why have 500m bees died in Brazil in the past three months?
www.theguardian.com/…
"honeybees in only three months. The speed and scale of the die-offs recall colony collapse disorder, a malady that began decimating bees across North America and Europe in 2006. But the symptoms are tellingly different. Where colony collapse caused worker bees to abandon their hives and disappear, the bees in Brazil are dropping dead on the spot. And where scientists blamed colony collapse on a combination of factors, the evidence in Brazil points to one overarching cause: pesticides."
"The parallels between Brazil’s Amazon crisis and its bee die-offs are many. Just as the relaxation of forestry rules has led to more fires, so have loosened pesticide restrictions exposed more bees to lethal doses. Nearly 300 new products have been fast-tracked for approval since the beginning of the year, including known bee-killers banned or strictly regulated in other countries. And just as burning a rainforest impacts a lot more than trees, so does the loss of bees stretch far past the walls of the hive.
Depending on how you parse the numbers, bee-pollinated crops account for as much as a third of the food in the human diet. Yields of everything from canola to soybeans drop in their absence, while fruits and nuts like blueberries and almonds depend upon them entirely. Beyond agriculture, scientists can only guess at the scale of the problem, but the situation begs a troubling question. If colonies nurtured and tended by professional beekeepers are dying, then what is the fate of bees in the wild?"
"Yes, we should demand better from our leaders, but we should also demand better from ourselves – at the ballot box and beyond. Buried in recent news coverage on Brazil is a remarkable uptick in the demand for organic foods, reflecting a global trend expected to double sales and production in less than five years. It’s a reminder that how we buy food directly impacts the way that we grow it, and organic methods – even if interspersed with conventional fields – support a far greater diversity of pollinators. But to help bees more directly (or when organics are unaffordable), it’s possible to take steps even closer to home through the simple act of planting flowers. Pesticide-free sources of nectar and pollen can increase bee abundance in any habitat, from urban window boxes to city parks, backyard gardens, and even roadside verges. And since well-fed bees are more resilient to other threats, flowers can even be a hedge against pesticides.
Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring gave the environmental movement its most enduring metaphor, a world without birdsong. But she also warned of blossoms without the drone of bees, and there are landscapes where that vision is already becoming too close to the truth. The good news is that bee declines, like deforestation, are preventable tragedies. The first step is taking notice. Now it’s time for action."
Read more: www.theguardian.com/...
Blogathon
September 20-27 on DK
September 20 is the launch of an entire week of global climate action. From Friday September 20 to September 27, people of all generations all over the world will be mobilizing.
Here are the dates for the climate strike
https://globalclimatestrike.net/
It has sign ups for strikes all over the world.