Alarming decline in bumble bee populations

(Reuters) – Four previously abundant species of bumblebee are close to disappearing in the United States, researchers reported Monday in a study confirming that the agriculturally important bees are being affected worldwide.

They documented a 96 percent decline in the numbers of the four species, and said their range had shrunk by as much as 87 percent. As with honeybees, a pathogen is partly involved, but the researchers also found evidence of inbreeding caused by habitat loss.

“We provide incontrovertible evidence that multiple Bombus species have experienced sharp population declines at the national level,”….

http://uk.reuters.com/article/idUKTRE7023P720110103

Leaked document shows EPA allowed bee-toxic pesticide despite own scientists’ red flags

by Tom Philpott

It’s not just the State and Defense departments that are reeling this month from leaked documents. The Environmental Protection Agency now has some explaining to do, too. In place of dodgy dealings with foreign leaders, this case involves the German agrichemical giant Bayer; a pesticide with an unpronounceable name, clothianidin; and an insect species crucial to food production (as well as a food producer itself), the honeybee….

…An internal EPA memo released Wednesday confirms that the very agency charged with protecting the environment is ignoring the warnings of its own scientists about clothianidin, a pesticide from which Bayer racked up €183 million (about $262 million) in sales in 2009.

Clothianidin has been widely used on corn, the largest U.S. crop, since 2003. Suppliers sell seeds pre-treated with it. Like other members of the neonicotinoid family of pesticides, clothianidin gets “taken up by a plant’s vascular system and expressed through pollen and nectar,” according to Pesticide Action Network of North America (PANNA), which leaked the document along with Beyond Pesticides. That effect makes it highly toxic to a crop’s pests — and also harmful to pollen-hoarding honeybees, which have experienced mysterious annual massive die-offs (known as “colony collapse disorder”) here in the United States at least since 2006.

http://www.grist.org/article/food-2010-12-10-leaked-documents-show-epa-allowed-bee-toxic-pesticide-

My Kids Eat Snails

By Shannon Hayes

…Witnessing this spectacle, my mind travels to the homeschool report that I will have to write up in a few weeks, detailing to school officials the lessons my girls have learned this quarter. My job will be to categorize their development within the pre-defined subjects of math, social studies, language arts, science, phys ed, art and music.

I don’t have an aversion to these basic subjects, per se, but as I wipe garlic cream sauce from snails off 3-year-old Ula’s chin, it grates on me how none of the pre-defined categories for education ask us to consider the most important lessons we must impart to our children. As far as the curriculum standards are concerned, I should be worried about whether or not my 7-year old can read, count and write up to 1000; if she understands decimals; and if she can write a book report. But what I want my children to learn first and foremost is how to take good care of themselves, their families, their community, and their planet. And at their age, I’ve discovered that the most effective means of teaching this is through their palate. It is not so important to me that my kids can explain the significance of a locavore diet at their age. But I do want them to know what food is supposed to taste like when it is a product of a healthy ecosystem. I want them to experience what their bodies feel like when they are nourished in a way that is in harmony with the Earth….

http://energybulletin.net/stories/2010-11-05/my-kids-eat-snails

Sorry, New York Times: The Bee Die-Off Case is Not Closed

By Tom Laskawy

…As I wrote last January, many scientists believe that a novel class of pesticides called neonicotinoids–which are insect neurotoxins-has played a major role in CCD [Colony Collapse Disorder] worldwide. An Italian entomologist at the University of Padua, Vincenzo Girolami, has research currently undergoing peer review showing that bees can be exposed to lethal levels of these pesticides through the use of seeding machines that sow neonicotinoid-coated seeds. These devices throw up a toxic cloud of pesticide as they work: bees fly through the cloud and either die or take the pesticide back to the hive. Once inside, even at low doses, it can cause disorientation or, as Girolami calls it, “intoxication” of whole hives.

The maker of this pesticide is Bayer CropScience. What does a corporation do when it discovers it may have developed and marketed a dangerous and potentially devastating product? Here in America, you confuse, you obfuscate, and you buy off scientists….

http://civileats.com/2010/10/15/sorry-new-york-times-the-bee-die-off-case-is-not-closed/

The “other” carbon problem — ocean acidification by Dave Cohen

Humankind’s assault on the oceans continues apace. A short time ago, we considered the loss of 40% of the phytoplankton in the oceans since 1950. In my post How We Wrecked The Oceans, marine ecologist Jeremy Jackson explains why he believes the sea will be devoid of fish and other large marine organisms sometime in the 2040s. [WHAT?!] And now comes the “other” carbon problem—acidification of the oceans.

As we burn fossil fuels, carbon dioxide (CO₂) is released into the atmosphere. Everyone knows that part, but what they often don’t know is that the oceans act as a enormous carbon “sink” which absorbs as much as 1/3^rd of the released carbon dioxide. So the CO2 is no longer acting as a greenhouse gas in the atmosphere, which sounds good, but unfortunately, we have shifted the problem of dealing with the excess gas from the air to the oceans. Through some fairly simple chemistry, the oceans are becoming more acidic as a result. In other words, through a natural process, the ocean becomes a giant waste dump for our fossil fuel emissions.

http://www.energybulletin.net/node/53854

It’s ALIVE!

http://www.sanftestrukturen.de/index.html

Living homes aka Arborsculpture.

when truth is unbelievable

But seven years after I began a crusade to educate and mobilize my fellow citizens, I find the environmental movement seems largely ineffective, the culture more distracted and people more ambivalent than ever. Climate change is seen as a hoax perpetuated by grant-greedy scientists, peak oil remains the territory of kooks and pessimists and the next iPad version is more important to the public and media than the next version of Earth we are creating by radically altering the atmosphere, biosphere and hydrosphere.

http://www.energybulletin.net/53678

This Is What An Oil-Soaked Ocean Wave Looks Like

http://www.businessinsider.com/oil-spotted-waves-alabama-2010-6

As long as cars are driven, airplanes are flown, and other gigantic machinery propelled, we will see more and more of these waves.  It is simply a side-effect of industrial civilization.

An Even Bigger Spill Looming by Asher Miller

…But why are we wasting a second of our time or energy expecting anything different? The sooner we understand that debating the fossil fuel industry or buying their false, half-measure solutions like “clean coal” is a waste of time, the sooner we can turn our attention to the real work at hand—getting ourselves off fossil fuels. These are the world’s largest, wealthiest corporations. Their mandate is to get the maximum return on shareholder investment. Period. I know what you’re thinking… corporate executives and their shareholders depend on this climate and our oceans just as much as the rest of us. True. But how often do you see a drug dealer stop selling to an addict because he knows the drugs are going to kill him?

http://www.energybulletin.net/node/52918

Conversations with my Mother

Over the past two days, I have been lamenting the fact that it is time to take out the compost, including humanure compost.  It’s not that labor intensive and smelly as it sounds.  The most annoying part is when the buckets are full and you have to shit.

“Ah, man, I have to shit and the humanure buckets are full,” I say as I head upstairs to the bathroom.

“What?!”  My mother says, even when she hears me perfectly well.

“I said I have to shit in the toilet ’cause the buckets are full.”

In an encouraging tone, my mother replies,

“Yeah…  Yeah, that’s OK.”

The next day…

“I gotta get the compost thermometer out of the grand marquis.  It’s in the trunk.”

“Oh.”

I return indoors with the thermometer and enthusiasm, “that’s the most exciting part of humanure composting, to see how high you can get the temperature.  When I was composting upstate, and it was 44 degrees F outside, it was 132 degrees F in the center of the pile.”

“Oooh,  hot shit!!”

Later that day…

“I posted some writing about our interactions about humanure composting.”

“You’re letting people know you’re shitting in a bucket?…”

“…Yeah…”

“…Jesus Christ.”