Climate Change, the Bees, and Why You Should Care

Earlier this year Cheerios launched a campaign to help replenish recently dwindling honey bee populations nationally and in Canada. They removed their classic “Buzz” Bee icon, and gave consumers a link to the “Bring Back the Bees” campaign homepage, where they asked users to enter their addresses and emails. Cheerios would then send them a pack of seeds to plant that would attract local bees, encouraging pollination and population increase. Excitingly, Cheerios have already surpassed their 100 million seeds goal by hitting 1.5 billion seeds sent and are unfortunately no longer sending consumers seeds. According to Cheerios, they launched this campaign because “people need bees. And now bees need people.” But why do people need bees? According to the Natural Resources Defense Council, “more than $15 billion a year in U.S. crops are pollinated by bees, including apples, berries, cantaloupes, cucumbers, alfalfa, and almonds. U.S. honey bees also produce about $150 million in honey annually.” If the current decline were to continue, there would be a huge shift in the United States economy. If honey bees completely died off, many would be out of work. If you thought over $15 billion less annually in the economy was bad, buckle up. Bees are pollinators for at least 30% of crops we consume on a daily basis as Americans. According to GreenPeace, “seventy out of the top 100 human food crops — which supply about 90 percent of the world’s nutrition — are pollinated by bees.” Clearly, as humans, we need bees. If they die, we starve. According to chemistry teacher Mr. Hawk, “if the honey bee disappears, so does the main pollinator for the crops. This will lead to a decrease in food production for humans, less available food for herbivorous animals to eat, and when they die off, fewer animals for the carnivores to eat. It would be a cascading effect of misery.” We need to face the facts - bees are dying, and industrial agriculture and climate change are killing them. According to research done by the USDA, Oregon lost an average of 5.96% of colonies monthly, and the United States lost an average of 1.94% of its colonies monthly. According to the studies,

(Photo Credit: Bring Back the Bees Campaign)

on the colonies include pests like mites, disease, pesticides, weather, and starvation. One issue that has been plaguing bees directly stems from climate change. Bees migrate north, and have been landing further and further South since the data collection began, in 1901, to when the collection ended in 1974. According to the author, Jeremy Kerr, University of Ottawa instructor, "they just aren’t colonizing new areas and establishing new populations fast enough to track rapid human-caused climate change.” “The largest concern is that the increase in global adjusted temperatures has changed the dates that flowers bloom. The earlier the flowers bloom, the less bees can pollinate due to a limited amount of available nectar...The schedule change has been something bees have a hard time adjusting to. Their populations will begin to decline dramatically if this same process of earlier and earlier blooming happens with flowers.” explained Hawk. Bees aren't the only things climate change has impacted lately. Unironically, our local climate has been all over the place. In 2016, our school had a total of nine snow days, and already in May we are experiencing 80 degree days, and Hillsboro experienced a 102 degree day in August. All of this rather uncharacteristic can be attributed to global warming and general climate change from buildup of greenhouse gases. These greenhouse gases are normally attributed to cars in everyday conversation, but a much larger cause is the recent trends towards industrial agriculture. This includes CAFOs, known as Confined Animal Feeding Operations, which are an enormous contributor to greenhouse gases. “Their waste is concentrated and becomes an environmental problem, not the convenient source of fertilizer that manure can be for more diverse, less massively scaled farms.”, according to the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS). Industrial Agriculture doesn't just affect climate change. The use of highly sophisticated pesticides have their hand in killing bees, as previously mentioned. According to UCS, “Herbicides and insecticides harm wildlife and can pose human health risks as well.” Environmental health is a largely intertwined and complicated web of science and research.“It will take a concentrated, worldwide effort to help control the damage that we have caused. We are not at the event horizon of our destruction. Yet!”, said Hawk. Despite all of the complex fields of thought and controversy, the health of the environment can be boiled down to one, simple solution; we need to take better care of the environment. Our environment needs our help. We need to push our leaders to prioritize the environment over industry. “The change has to begin locally and individually, and until it does, we will only continue down this sad path that we have begun. Get involved, educate yourself, help others, start small, and start today. It isn't too late.”, stated Mr. Hawk. To help from home, plant flowers, reduce your gasoline and power use, and buy locally. Save the bees, (and the) people!