TO BEE OR NOT TO BEE HAPPY ON THIS EARTH DAY

Pointed threats, they bluff with scorn
Suicide remarks are torn
From the fool’s gold mouthpiece
The hollow horn plays wasted words
Proved to warn
That he not busy being born
Is busy dying.

Bob Dylan

"It's Alright, Ma (I'm Only Bleeding)"

Don’t forget to smell the roses.

That is…

If there are any roses left to smell.

Bees are having trouble finding the roses these days.

Pollution from our vehicles is decreasing the scent of

Flowers.

Bees are having more difficulty “smelling” and finding the

Flowers.

There is less and less pollination.

Less pollination means less food to eat

And

Fewer flowers to smell.

Here.

On earth.

Are you and I.

Standing at a Crossroads.

Standing at a Great Divide.

One direction leads to

Death;

The other direction leads to

Life.

Are we going to get busier at being born?

I turn off the lights when I leave the room.

I recycle.

I don’t pray enough.

Are things as bad they seem to be?

How much worse can things get?

We cannot hope for change anymore.

We must change.

So that there are more days to celebrate the Earth…

On this

Earth

Day…

And thousands more to come!

IT’S THE OIL STUPID!

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Nature

Why flowers have lost their scent

Pollution is stifling the fragrance of plants and preventing bees from pollinating them – endangering one of the most essential cycles of nature, writes Environment Editor Geoffrey Lean.

Sunday

20 April 2008

Pollution is dulling the scent of flowers and impeding some of the most basic processes of nature, disrupting insect life and imperiling food supplies, a new study suggests.

The potentially hugely significant research – funded by the blue-chip US National Science Foundation – has found that gases mainly formed from the emissions of car exhausts prevent flowers from attracting bees and other insects in order to pollinate them. And the scientists who have conducted the study fear that insects' ability to repel enemies and attract mates may also be impeded.

The researchers – at the University of Virginia – say that pollution is dramatically cutting the distance travelled by the scent of flowers. Professor Jose Fuentes, who led the study, said:

"Scent molecules produced by flowers in a less polluted environment could travel for roughly 1,000 to 1,200 metres. But today they may travel only 200 to 300 metres. This makes it increasingly difficult for bees and other insects to locate the flowers."

The researchers – who worked on the scent given off by snapdragons – found that the molecules are volatile, and quickly bond with pollutants such as ozone and nitrate radicals, mainly formed from vehicle emissions. This chemically alters the molecules so that they no longer smell like flowers. A vicious cycle is therefore set up where insects struggle to get enough food and the plants do not get pollinated enough to proliferate.

Already bees – which pollinate most of the world's crops – are in unprecedented decline in Britain and across much of the globe. At least a quarter of America's 2.5 million honey bee colonies have been mysteriously wiped out by colony collapse disorder (CCD), where hives are found suddenly deserted.

The crisis has now spread to Europe. Politicians insist that CCD has not yet been found in Britain, but the insects have been declining here too, and the agriculture minister Lord Rooker has warned that "the honey bee population could be wiped out in 10 years".

The researchers do not believe that they have found the cause of CCD, but say that pollution is making life more difficult for bees and other insects in many ways.

http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/nature/why-flowers-have-lost-their-scent-812168.html

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P.S. I went back and found this post (from April 25, 2007) where I wrote about this same topic:

TO BE A BEE OR NOT TO BE

"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."
Albert Einstein


All this stupid fighting on our planet might come to an end sooner than we expect.
Our planet's bees have been dropping like flies.
First it was the frogs.
Now it's the bees.
The honey-makers also help pollinate the plants that we eat---that chickens eat---that cows eat...
Well, almost all the creatures on our beautiful planet!
What is killing the bees?
Global Warming?
Electromagnetic radiation?
Rush Limbaugh?
Scientists are trying to find out.
Let's hope that Einstein was wrong.

By Mad Plato

***********

TORONTO (CP) - A mysterious malady that is causing honeybees to disappear en masse from their hives in parts of North America and Europe may be linked to radiation from cellphones and other high-tech communications devices, a study by German researchers suggests.
While the theory has created a lot of buzz in the beekeeping world, apiarists say there could be any number of reasons why the bees are deserting their hives and presumably dying off in large numbers, including changing weather patterns and mite or other kinds of infestations.
What they do agree on is that whatever is causing the phenomenon, known as colony collapse disorder (CCD), it is playing havoc with the production of honey and other products from the hive - and threatening the growing of fruit and vegetable crops, which depend on bees for pollination.
The small study, led by Prof. Jochen Kuhn of Landau University, suggests that radiation from widely used cellphones may mess up the bees' homing abilities by interfering with the neurological mechanisms that govern learning and memory. It also appears to disrupt the insects' ability to communicate with each other.

[From radiation may be killing bees
By Sheryl Ubelacker
Canadian Press
April 21, 2007]