Sister Earth

Wanted: Pollinators

Today I was thinking about the ongoing honey bee collapse while making an orchard mason bee condo. If you haven't heard about it yet, vast numbers of colonies of honey bees are disappearing all over North American and Europe. The disappearances started last year but the news only recently hit the mainstream media. What is startling is that no one knows what has happened to them. Certainly honey bees are very susceptible to epidemics, being colonial, and to pesticides, being insects, but at least some of them will die in the hive, giving beekeepers some evidence to work with. They don't just vanish.

From what little I know about bees, it seems likely that whatever the problem is, it is affecting their ability to navigate and find their way back to the hive. One possible culprit I've heard about is the new nicotine-based pesticides which have been known to cause disorientation in insects. We may be witnessing another case of Silent Spring, except that the sound that has been silenced by pesticides is the buzzing of bees in the flowers.

The problem for the species that has probably caused all this is that a large proportion of our food, perhaps a third, is dependent on the industrial honey bee pollination. I say industrial because it is very much an industry. The way modern agriculture works is that the farmer eliminates all the natural vegetation on the farm and kills all the non-crop plants with chemicals, thus eliminating all the habitat and food plants for native pollinators. The farmer must then pay to import hives of honey bees for pollination services. It is astonishing that farmers would rather squeeze in that extra acre than leave some habitat for pollinators (not to mention other beneficial species, such as wasps, snakes, songbirds, and raptors).

This is just another reminder of what a house of cards our food supply is. One third of our agriculture is dependent on one very vulnerable species, and the rest is not much better off. Global warming is already decreasing grain production, and will continue to do so. The years of surpluses are over, and we are rapidly eating our way through our reserves. I should say eating and driving, because we are now competing with our own cars for fuel. Those who can't compete—that is, most of the world—will have to go the way of the bees.

If you would like to promote native pollinators, try making an orchard mason bee condo. Nothing could be simpler: you basically drill a bunch of holes in some wood. For full instructions, visit Gardening in Western Washington.

Easter 2007

Poor Lazarus and the Good Samaritan

I ran across a local news story today that could have come straight out of the Gospels. A homeless citizen collapsed on the grounds of his Legislature, and was noticed and resuscitated by a legislator with a history of care for the homeless. Here is how one newspaper described the incident (in part):

Cowichan-Ladysmith MLA Doug Routley was walking toward the provincial legislature in Victoria at around 8 a.m. when he noticed a disheveled man sitting on the ground. “When I got to him, I asked him if he was OK,” Routley said. “He was breathing, his eyes were glazed over and he was stiffening up.” Routley glanced to the security department as he mulled the option of alerting employees there. When his eyes returned to the disenfranchised man, he was lying on the ground and no longer breathing.

Immediately, Routley began administering CPR; meanwhile, he was contacting 911 with his phone pinned between his shoulder and ear. “Someone out there really cares about this guy,” he was thinking. “There’s a man lying there whose parents, 40 years earlier, struggled with what to name him.”

Soon, an employee at the legislative library raced out to help. That employee was Shawna Duffill, a registered first-aid attendant, whose husband had just dropped her off at work. “I saw Mr. Routley attending to the patient, who was unresponsive,” she said. “I just knew instantly he needed some help.” “I thought it was incredible,” she continued. “To be honest, I might not even have noticed if he wasn’t already attending to the man.”

It wasn’t long before two security guards were on the scene with a portable defibrillator. Duffill used it on the man, who was breathing by the time an ambulance arrived to take him away.

The incident left Routley more than a bit shaken. “I was in tears,” he said. “I’m not quite sure why. “I don’t know how he ended up there, but there’s something wrong when people who are clearly not able to take care of themselves are left to fend for themselves.”

[In other news reports, Routley went on to say, "It seems tragic that he should end up that way, right on the lawn of the legislature, this ornate building that is his in a way.”]

Routley, former NDP housing critic, has been a key player in helping bring a permanent homeless shelter to the Cowichan Valley. He’s also known in the community as an affordable housing advocate. He said Tuesday’s incident has inspired him to challenge every MLA to start putting a greater emphasis on establishing social equality. “We have to take a look at what’s really holding people back,” he said.

While the other news reports emphasized the Mr. Routley's heroism, the victim's body odour, and the importance of learning CPR, Routley's home town newspaper, through its editorial choices, boldly interpreted the challenging symbolism of this event: our government is failing in its moral obligation to take care of the poor. I should note that Routley is a member of the social-democratic opposition, not the government. The party in power has not simply neglected the poor but has been actively removing their support systems (despite huge budget surpluses) so that we are now experiencing an explosion of poverty and homelessness in B.C. This government has created a new generation of Lazaruses, and the Good Samaritans can do little more than bring them back from the brink of death if they happen to see them fall. Yes Mr. Routley, there is definitely something wrong here.