Saturday, January 19, 2008

Save the world (fruit & veggie dept.)


Now that the Ron Paul campaign for president has capitulated (see previous post), perhaps it's time to take a cue from our friends at Radar and do something else to save the planet (other than crush the fiat monetary system) -- BEEKEEPING.

As Radar reminds us:

...bees are really important, but since late 2006 they've been disappearing for reasons nobody can quite explain. And it's not just honey supplies that will suffer if the bees bite it. You can also kiss your fruits and veggies good-bye. "You could have the perfect field, soil, and sun, and if the pollinator was not there you'd have a vine and no fruit," says Dr. Jeff Pettis, head USDA bee researcher. With honeybees pollinating more than a quarter of the world's food supply, that's a lot of empty vines (and stomachs). The financial impact of a bee-free season would be $75 billion. Perhaps Albert Einstein put it best: "If the bee disappears from the surface of the Earth, man will have no more than four years to live."


Radar's suggestion: go to betterbee.com and spend $215 to start a beehive. It could be a better investment than sending Ron Paul your dough to run a TV commercial in Nevada.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I'm sorry, Banjo, I just don't buy the bee disappearance line.

I saw four swarms of bees last year. I had never seen even one before that. I know that is not scientific data, but it does lead me to bee-lieve that the proponents of a bee shortage might be just another bunch of scare-mongers.

jdallen