Dead Bees...

Fifty thousand bumblebees were found dead in a Target parking lot in Oregon on 21 June.

Fifty thousand bumblebees. Dead. In a single parking-lot.

Hard to imagine.

A pesticide used to "control" aphids is to blame. Bees basically pollinate most of the food human beings eat--directly or indirectly. No bees, no crops--and were not the only ones who eat these crops. No crops? No cows, pigs, chickens, either!

I've tried to avoid politics in this blog, but this seems too important not to say something.

We are basically killing ourselves, here. In trying to "control" (Why the euphemism? The word, as used here, means "kill") aphids, insects who--granted, do damage crops--we're also killing bees. Removing bees from the environment will result in far fewer crops than leaving the aphids "uncontrolled".

Are the people who develop, and deploy, these pesticides really so stupid, shortsighted, (and greedy) that they think pesticides known to kill bees ought to be used at all? I mean, even if virtually all our crops were threatened by aphids, killing off bees in the process of trying to get the aphids under "control" would still be w bad idea--since there wouldn't be a great deal of crops next season, without bees around to pollinate the new crops.

Sure, you might make money, for a while, selling lethal pesticides, but how are you going to enjoy it if you find yourself starving to death, along with vast portions of the life on this planet?

How can any amount of money be worth that risk?

Besides, if you want to "kill" aphids, I can think of an animal that is pretty well-versed in killing insects.

After all, they've had sixty-five million years of practice!