Let's save the bees please...

Today I decided in the interest of not being burning hot (and foot pain of unknown origin) that I would wear my chonclas (flip flops) to work. Which would have in fact been fine, if not for the fact that several women along my route were throwing water into the street utilizing a bowl! I don't know why, but I do know that it made my route very muddy thereby making the chonclas not the best shoe for traversing the long walk to the center. Then as I neared the turn to the center a suicidal bee dive-bombed by hand, which I saw happening in a sort of slow motion so I slapped it down, hah take that evil bees of the world!

Seriously though on the subject of bees, they are disappearing. Albert Einstein said, if the bee disappeared off the surface of the globe, then man would only have four years of life left. No more bees, no more pollination. No more plants. No more animals. No more man. Well here's the thing people, bees are disappearing! Some people attribute this phenomenon to cell phones and the increased waves which disrupt their mating patterns and ability to fly (hence the suicidal one that ran into my hand). Many people (including myself) have turned to cell phones instead of regular land line phones, making the estimate of worldwide cell phone users over a billion.

Others put it down to pesticides and chemicals. But whatever the reason, the fact is that we should be taking it seriously. A New York Times Article claims that bees pollinate over $14 billion in US crops and that current bee losses are being reported from 30 to 70% around the country. You can read the full article here:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/27/business/27bees.html?ex=1330232400&en=3aaa0148837b8977&ei=5088

Bees are not something that I think about in the course of my everyday life. Nor do I pretend to have a great interest in saving them as a species, but I realize, as we all should, the grave danger we risk by destabilizing our natural environment to the extent that species are dying off. Whether it is the bees or the birds or bears or fish, every creature has a part to play in the ecosphere that is our world and as technology moves forward it must do so in a naturally sustainable way.

I don't pretend to be a big naturalist or environmentalist mainly because my allergies keep me away from nature as much as possible. But, even I understand that we need to make changes or our world is not going to survive us. We are the cause of so much destruction including deforestation, toxic dumping, and now the loss of the bees. What are we willing to give up for the world to survive? Not just for the future generations, but now we are talking about for us, because if what Einstein said is true and our survival depends on the bees, we need to make a concerted effort to repair the damage that is being done. So will we give up our cell phones, our microwaves, our toxic chemicals? How much sacrifice are we willing to make to ensure our survival, not just that of some unknown future generations? I believe we can combat this loss of bees but we need to make a strong commitment. As with so many issues that we struggle to address, the question remains how much are we willing to give and to give up?