If you have not have heard yet, North America's bee population is disappearing.
Who cares, right? Well not so fast. Bees are responsible for pollinating fruit trees, nut trees, and various crops. Without bees, frankly we're fucked. We could very well face massive food shortages.
Am I being hysterical? Perhaps. But ask yourself why this isn't being widely reported. Why isn't the media telling the American People about the severity of the bee shortage?
Well I have a theory that goes a little like this:
The media will does its best to drum up fear over things that we need not fear such as SARS, the flu, and terrorism. But when something comes along that we should truly fear; something that we should truly be alerted about so that we can take action, the media falls deadly silent.
We should all be concerned about the disappearnce of the honey bees. No one is quite sure why they are disappearing. The latest guesses are that celluar phone signals interfere with a bees navigation system preventing them from finding their way back to their hives.
Others say it could be powerlines, cordless phones, cell phones, cell phone towers, or a combination thereof.
But whatever the reason why, it doesn't really matter. Sure, we need researchers to figure out what's going on so that we can solve the problem.
But what if it turns out to be cell phones? Will you give up your cell phone? We're talking about potentially the fate of the world here...If you paused on that note then you might have some real soul searching to do.
There's another odd thing going on with this bee dilema.
A quote is being attributed to Einstein that may have never been made by Einstein and it goes a little like this:
"If the bee disappeared off the surface of the globe, then man would only have four years of life left." - Albert Einstein
It appears this quote may not be true; Einstein may have never made this statement.
It's really a shame because the disappearance of the bees is an extremely serious issue. But it appears that some may have tried to couple the disappearance of the bees with Einstien in order to help draw more public attention to the potential disaster we are facing. After all, if Einstein said it then we all must take it seriously, right?
It's very strange how fast this urban myth has proliferated across the globe with Einstein's supposed quote appearing in numours news paper articles, broadcast news, and even on Real Time with Bill Maher.
I really would not like to see this urban myth take away from the seriousness of the situation we are currently facing.
We could all very well be starving to death within 4 years unless we are willing to eat each other to stay alive.
Ok, now for the links
Could mobile phones be killing millions of bees
Are Cell Phones Killing Bees?
Einstein on bees urban legend...
Einstein's quote on bees debated
2 comments:
I agree, and have the same fears.
Some of my friends feel the same.
We regularly report and write poems about this ecological disaster.
We are at www.endofempire.org
Einstein and the disappearance of the bees may not have been the quotation of Eistein but lets say that statement is true then lets puts matters into perspective with the warming of the globe and mankinds parasitic greed then jump forward 4 years and that brings the human race to the Mayan calander of the year 2012, need I say more...
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