Honeybees and Foolishness

It’s been a while since I’ve written a blog on the HOI website. I had always wanted to write a novel, so I did, and that’s what I’ve been working on for the past year. Working maybe an exaggeration, I seldom write more than 2-3 hours in a day and have enjoyed it.

Today, I’d like to write a short piece on honeybees. Not because you are vitally interested in honeybees, but rather because their plight is a micro-cosm of the problems that confront the environment of our present day world. There has been ample literature and dialogue in the media about Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD), a catch-all term that indicates a die-off of honeybee colonies that ranges from 30 to 70 percent of domestic colonies in the U.S. (there are very few wild colonies that still survive). That number is in contrast to the 2-5 percent in the last half of the 20th century.

Evidence leans toward a syndrome rather than disease, although there are some that believe a virus is one of the culprits. Most of the colony die-offs occur during winter months when the hive is most vulnerable. The Varroa mite is another critter blamed for CCD, but many healthy hives have small infestations of Varroa. Viruses and Varroa mites have been around for as long as the honeybee, and it would be reasonable to assume that evolutionary adaptation, one to the other, occurs without causing a major disruption of the population like the one we see today.

My daughter, Amy, lives in Durango, Colorado and has been keeping bees for three years. It’s a hobby; she has a full-time job as a midwife. She has never lost a hive, and has havested honey in each of the last two years. A more experienced beekeeper who has given her help and advice believes that hives kept by hobbyists have much reduced incidents of CCD compared to commercial bee keepers. Bruce says commercial bees are under constant stress from over-havesting and location disruption (commercial beekeepers typically move their hives to pollinate a variety of fruit crops during a season).

Also in the CCD puzzle is the effect of pesticides. A great deal of evidence has been gathered that would point to pesticide contamination and drift as an important factor in CCD. Because fruit agriculture relies on honeybees to provide about sixty percent of pollination, the importance of the honeybee is gigantic in the tangled web of the human and animal food web. So what is happening in America to ensure the roll of the honeybee. Sadly, not much. Most commercial bee keepers sell their product to corporate food producers, and are caught in the same race for quanity and low price as pork, chicken, corn, soybean, and beef producers. A few weeks ago our Congressman from the 18th district of Illinois filed a bill that would prevent the EPA from investigating the well doumented harmful effects on humans of atrazine. Mr. Schock was doing the bidding of high-end campaign donors; Farm Bureau, Monsanto, and other herbicide producers, merchants and appliers. Not that bees are know to be impacted by herbicides. Know is that herbicide drift can land on pollen sources that honeybees havest and consume along with flower nectur. Nectur is used to make honey and pollen is used to make bee bread. Both are used by bees for their own sustenance. It’s not a giant leap to the suspision that atrazine, the most widely used herbicide in the midwest, contaminates honey and bee bread.

Congressman Aaron Schock’s foolishness is as common in Congress, state legislatures, county boards, and city councils as fles on a homeless dog. It’s a culture that only voters can disrupt…..or not. Mother Nature may have already said, “Time’s up.”

It’s BP, Mr. President

The President went to the Gulf to find out whose butt to kick. I hope he did. It would be BP of course. While the government was a compliant enabler, the buck stops at the British oil giant. I would offer a way that Mr. Obama can accomplish his goal and save his administration’s credibility. He should issue a ruling that all new deep (more than 1,000 feet) wells must have either a back-up blow-out preventer or a separate relief well. The former is required by all of the countries surrounding the North Sea, and BP has no difficulty in compling with that requirement. In addition the President must require that existing deep wells phase in one of the two safe-guards, within 10 years. The underlying problem is that there are 4,000 oil rigs in the Gulf and most of them are in deep water. BP and other oil drillers have proved that their technology will not prevent a blow-out, and if another occurs, which is bound to happen, they have no way to stop the leakage.

Prince William Sound, Alaska has not conmpletly rcovered fron the 1986 Exxon Valdez oil spill and it probably never will. Ecosystems were irreversibly degraded. We should expect even greater permanent damage in the Gulf because the amount of oil leakage is so much greater.

Trees and Windows

I’m sure some of you already understand the point I’m about to make. Which would be the value of deciduous trees and south windows around and in your home. My wife and I visited a home this week that we had not seen before, although we have been friends with this family for a few years. The gentleman and his wife had previously remarked of their low Ameren bills, which seem very low to me. They have electric heat. But, upon seeing their house, the low-cost of electricity was explained. The house has two above ground floors with south facing windows. Lots of windows. The home is surrounded by leaf-dropping deciduous trees that provide shade in the summer and allow sunshine in winter. Low bills, and a nice environmental complement. A perfect recipe for natural cooling in the summer and free heat in the winter.

I read a lot of material about conserving energy, how families and singles can conserve energy, and the benefits to theirselves, as well as to Mother Earth, but I seldom see windows and trees on the list of “to do’s.

My wife and I have a window builder coming soon to give us an estimate on a large south window. Oak trees came with the house.

Oil for Tots

When Deepwater Horizon exploded and 3,600 barrels, or more, of crude oil poured from the sea floor, one mile below the surface, the discouraging , but typical response from BP, was that everything was “under control”. Let’s see, eleven were killed, the entire Gulf of Mexico is threatend from oil pollution, and “under control” is the best they can do. The government response was what a majority of “media experts” termed tepid. What was learned from this? Discouraging, but the same as it has been for dozens of other oil spills and explosions. Nothing. With an exception. It doesn’t take a W. Bush in the White House to muster a tepid response to a disaster. In fairness, the Bush response wasm worse than tepid, unforgivably incompetent would do nicely.

In the 1970′s the media hyped an energy crisis. It wasn’t. Instead it was a moment of reality. The easy oil was running out and future oil would be extracted at greater cost and risk. President Jimmy Carter recognized the danger of becoming dependent on oil. He turned down the thermostat and installed solar panels on the White House. Ronald Reagan canceled Carter’s energy policies, removed the solar panels, and chose a religious fanatic, and known opponent of the environment as Secretary of Interior. James Watt was his name. Every President and Congressman since has, in large and small part, has pushed planet earth into an energy hole that will doom America to a lower standard of living for the middle class. Until the majority of Americans get in touch with the reality of diminishing oil and the innate hazard of burning coal, nothing will change this downward slide. It is past time for a maximum national effort to develop alternative energy. Mother Nature isn’t waiting.

The salient question is, can democracy extricate a nation from a rock-and-a-hard-place? Namely, the price of using oil and coal, and the inertia of big payoffs from the extraction industry and the votes  they buy. Only the public can break this cycle. The predominate Baby Boomers and what’s left of the Greatest Generation have not, so far, shone any inclination for recognizing the peril they bequeath the tots of America.

Nuclear Power, Difficult but Doable

This opinion will not be popular with some members, and certainly isn’t in tune with National Sierra Club doctrine. I advocate that nuclear energy should be a significant part of our country’s alternative energy mix. There are zero energy sources that don’t have some negative attachments. The road to success is, of course, picking the best alternatives of the alternatives. Conventional energy is oil, coal, and gas in the U.S. We could look to France where 90% of electrically energy comes from nuclear power. But, the logistics in France, a much smaller population and area, are less formidable than here at home.

That nuclear power is clean with little negative environmental impact is enormously beneficial. There are two very high hurdles; cost and storage of spent fuel. Spent fuel become relatively simple if we could eliminate one factor. That would be Harry Reid, leader of the U.S. Senate. Harry represents Nevada, a state like many, with a not-in-my-backyard thinking majority of voters. Nevada also happens to be the home of Yucca Mountain, a barren piece of real estate in which the U.S. government has invested five billion dollars to build a safe nuclear fuel repository. With new leadership in the Senate, the storage of spent nuclear fuel at Yucca Mt. become a likely solution to the storage problem. Harry, according the poles, is in real danger in the fall election. If defeated, his replacement would have little power in this anachronistically ruled body that is so fond of admiring their imaginary image in the magic mirror they have created in their own minds. Walla, Yucca Mt. is open for business.

The cost issue is a very high barrier. We have many active nuclear power plants in our country, some have been on-line for 40 or more years. Meanwhile, no new plants have been built for two decades, primarily because of skyrocketing costs. Some of the expenses have come from safety regulations, and some have come from inflation of building materials. The federal government would have to subsidize, and why not, it already subsidizes oil, gas, coal and several of the alternative sources of energy. A stringent review of safety requirements just might reveal ways to soften their impact. France is not the economic equivalent of the U.S., so how did it afford to build scores of nuclear power plants?

Wind, geothermal, and biofuels are important, and clean alternative power sources. Each, like nuclear, has its drawbacks, but compared to the environmental hazards of the big three, oil, coal and gas, each looks like the end of the energy rainbow.