25
Oct

Killing Insects and Bees in America

Published on October 25th, 2013

Each day, millions of middle-class Americans across this country spray Roundup, Weed-be-Gone, Termite Spray, Bug Killer, Wasp Spray and hundreds of other poisons onto their sidewalks, driveways, bushes, trees, flowers and onto their lawns. They kill everything that pecks, slithers, crawls, flaps, bites and breathes. Their mass slaughter includes honeybees, bats, flies, butterflies, mosquitoes, wasps, bumblebees and other pollinators. Billions upon trillions of insects suffer death via poisons that disrupt their breathing or digestive tracks.

As human life expands across our country to add no less than 138 million people within 37 years, it devours and disrupts the natural world. It murders anything that flies, bites or burps. According to a High Country News report, Americans kill 11.1 vertebrates crossing our roads (road kill) every second, which totals 1 million daily. That means 365 million creatures lose their lives to tires, boat propellers, fans, boats, jet intakes, aircraft propellers and other mechanical devices every year.

But we face greater costs for our folly when it comes to the pollinators: bees, bats, butterflies, wasps and other insects. Consider the coming collapse of the $30 billion honeybee economy in the U.S.

Honeybees pollinate more than 100 crops – from apples to zucchini – but in recent years, they suffered death by the tens of millions. A new report from the U.S. Department of Agriculture pinpoints the situation as “Colony Collapse Disorder.” Scientists tell us a fungus disorients bees to the point where they become lost. Time Magazine journalist Bryan Walsh said, “Mass deaths in bee colonies may mean disaster for farmers and your favorite foods.” (Source: Time, August 19, 2013, page 24)

Colony Collapse hit 30 percent annually in recent years, and there are now about 2.5 million honeybee colonies in the U.S., down from 6 million in 1947 and 3 million in 1990. That downward spiral leaves “virtually no cushion of bees for pollination.”

With mounting information, it becomes downright frightening. For example: take almonds. California harvests more than 80 percent of the world’s almonds. But you can’t grow the nut without honeybees, and it takes 60 percent of America’s remaining colonies to pollinate that one $4 billion cash crop.

The world-famous Harvard University biologist Edward O. Wilson speculates:

If all mankind were to disappear, the world would regenerate back to the rich state of equilibrium that existed ten thousand years ago. If insects were to vanish, the environment would collapse into chaos.

Scientists report several factors, including disease-carrying parasites to pesticides. We know our chemicals disrupt every living creature in a cornfield, wheat field, potato field, tomato patch and bean acre. Yet we pour, spray and inject endless poisons.

Our civilization depends on bees as the primary pollinators of our food plants. It has been deduced that if our native bees were to die out, the effect on crops and wildflowers would be utterly catastrophic. As these crops and flowers provide food for our wild and farm animals, we could easily lose a third of our regular diet.

Bees allow humanity to thrive. Without them, we won’t survive the 21st century.

Jeff Pettis, USDA, said, “Eliminate the honeybee and agriculture would be permanently diminished. The message is that we are very close to the edge. It’s a roll of the dice now.”

Within the next four decades, our country is expected to grow enormously, virtually all by mass immigration, from 316 million to 438 million people – all capable of using Roundup and hundreds of other poisons to kill the honeybees of the world.

You are donating to :

How much would you like to donate?
$10 $20 $30
Would you like to make regular donations? I would like to make donation(s)
How many times would you like this to recur? (including this payment) *
Name *
Last Name *
Email *
Phone
Address
Additional Note
Loading...