I Care About The Environment

I was talking with a woman today who keeps honey bees and seems to know a lot about bees in general. She told me that she has not seen a single bumble bee on her property this year. She told me the evidence that they're not around is bumble bees are what pollinate tomato plants and for the first time ever in her life her tomato plants are not making any tomatoes. As she's telling me this another woman spoke up and said her plants aren't making tomatoes either and wondered if it was because of the same reason.

We've all heard reports in recent years about how pesticides, loss of habitat, and changing weather are decimating the bee populations and it really bothers me how so many people just shrug this off. So many fruits and vegetables we eat every single day are pollinated by bees. As bee populations continue to shrink what's going to happen in the short term is you're going to see prices spike for your favorite foods. Not just the individual fruits and vegetables themselves but for everything that's made with them (that red stuff on your pizza isn't paint you know) and in the long run we're going to see spreading famines. This is not doomsday exaggeration, this is working things out to a logical conclusion. If your backyard garden fails this year then why won't the commercial farmer's crop fail in the near future?

Ynotisay · M

It's so crucially important and one of the biggest, and most identifiable, consequences of climate change. I don't know if it's just that maybe people don't like bees and figure the less of them the better or there's zero connection to how the ecosystem works.
Your point about cost is a big one. Maybe that's what will wake people up. The tens of billions of dollars spent on combating wildfires due to climate change (often via the bark beetle) hasn't had an impact. Neither has the medical costs associated with dirty air. Maybe food will do it.
Good post.