Where are the bees?

Do you ever think about that juicy apple and wonder how it came to be?  Sure it was grown on a tree and it needed sunlight and water. Do you think about the pollination of the apple tree’s bloom?  You probably think much about it.  Have you noticed you see a lot less bees floating from flower to flower in your yard?  I have. I have a love hate relationship with bees. I know they are the great pollinator and that I can thank them for my fruits and veggies but I am allergic too.  When we were kids we had a pool and the yard was covered in clover.  Each year, at least once, I would get stung while running barefoot through the yard after a pool toy. I would spend the next five days lying on the couch with a swollen foot covered in meat tenderizer or ice to reduce the swelling.  I am not upset about losing a few days of summer play to a bee sting each year.  That is just part of life.  No big deal.  Now that I am older I fight the suburbian urge to treat my lawn with chemicals creating a solid grass carpet.  I hate the smell of the pesticides the neighbors use. 

I had heard that it was the pesticides that were killing the bees.  So I have done a bit of research on the situation and I think it is a bit of everything, though the pesticides are making it worse.  It is like cancer in us.  It is typically not 1 thing that triggers cancer but a combination of diet, pollution, exercise and DNA that allows one person to develop cancer and the next to not.  I think it is the same for the bees.  The pesticides are definitely having the biggest impact but they are not the only thing that is killing them.  Mites, viruses, bacteria and modern industrial bee keeping are weakling the colonies.

There are reports that Bayer’s neonicotinoid pesticides are killing off bees.  Neonicotinoid pesticides is a synthetic chemicals derived from nicotine.  It is reported that when a bee lands on and begins collecting pollen from plants sprayed with the pesticides they become disorganized, confused and often unable to fly off the plant.  The bees fall from the flower and die.  This is why in Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) results in abandoned hives with just a few dead infant bees and a queen inside.  National Resources Defense Council, Greenpeace, Europe and many others are working to ban these products.  We can’t rely on the government and organizations alone to stop the use of these products.  We must do our part to help our great pollinators.  Avoid using Bayer’s pesticides products and consider holistic garden practices, signing petitions and write  Bayer and your congressmen.

Take a look at Change.org’s petition

http://www.change.org/petitions/epa-save-our-bees-and-the-food-we-eat-ban-bayer-s-chemicals-now

Resources:

http://www.motherjones.com/tom-philpott/2012/01/bee-killing-pesticides-not-just-corn-fields

http://www.honeybeesanctuary.org/page7/page8/page8.html

http://www.greenpeace.org/international/en/news/Blogs/makingwaves/eu-bans-three-bee-killer-pesticides-a-light-o/blog/45023/

Vanishing of the Bees Documentary

http://switchboard.nrdc.org/blogs/jsass/the_scientific_evidence_agains.html/

http://www.honeybeesanctuary.org/page7/page8/page8.html

My Thoughts on the Great Coal Debate

In the USA we have an abundant supply of coal.  Coal was generated over long periods of time from the breakdown of plant matter.  It is a black sedimentary rock that contains carbon, hydrogen, sulfur, oxygen, nitrogen among other minerals.  It has been used as a fuel for hundreds of years as it is a slow burning but dirty fuel.  Today about 44% of the US’s electric comes from coal. 

There are a few advantages to coal.  These are:  in the USA we have a lot of it, a lot of technology to mine it and a lot of technology to burn it.  Some also say it is cheap.  The disadvantage: we have ruined many ecosystems and removed many mountain tops to get it; many people have died mining it; burning it releases tons of emissions that have been linked to Climate Change, respiratory problems, cancer and many other diseases.  So though some say it is a cheap fuel it is only because the disadvantages do not have a price tag in our current market.  If we could put a price tag on these disadvantages we would find that coal is very expensive. 

OK we do have the infrastructure to mine, transport and burn coal so naturally there has been funds directed to understanding if there are ways of making coal clean and to compete with low emission energy such as solar and wind.   There are two developments in the US.

1 The EPA has begun reducing the emission allowed in the coal burning power plants.  This is forcing older dirtier plants to close and newer ones to invest in new technology to remove more toxins from the emissions of the plant. 

2. Clean Coal: several new technologies that are designed to remove much of the carbon out of the coal or the emissions and turn it into a product that can be placed into locations other than the air.  This is done by scrubbing the coal or the emissions or through gasifying the coal and removing it in the process among other processes. 

Clean Coal sounds like a good idea.  What are the issues with it then? It is a new technology that can be very costly and some are not very effective.  Once the carbon is separated from the coal, the issue becomes what to do with it.  This is the same issue we face with manure ponds, coal ash ponds, natural gas fracking waste water, consumer waste and nuclear toxic waste.  Much of this can be cleaned, recycled and put back into the environment but that is expensive.  So the option has been to inject or bury it into other locations.  In the case of Clean Coal the carbon is then being injected into salt mines or old gas drilling mines or even into the ocean.  My issue with this is we need studies to show what the impact is to the environment when this is done.  I do not agree with injecting it into the deep ocean as, the ocean, is suffering so much today with all the other toxic materials in it and the whole planet’s ecosystem is dependent on it.  When the carbon is injected into the land and old mines I am concerned that there may be issues as we have seen with industrial fracking and geothermal. 

In my opinion the US’s energy is better spent on technologies to improve energy conservation in home and industry and in the grid.  As well as invest in improving renewable technologies.  After all “We have not inherited this earth from our parents to do with it what we will. We have borrowed it from our children and we must be careful to use it in their interests as well as our own” Moses Henry Cass

Resources:

http://science.howstuffworks.com/environmental/green-science/clean-coal.htm

http://www.mnn.com/earth-matters/energy/stories/what-is-clean-coal