THE MOST DIRE THREAT ON OUR PLANET--BUT WAIT! WHAT ARE THE KARDASHIANS WEARING?!

Honeybees are dying. So are other pollinators. Butterflies and songbird populations are rapidly diminishing.

What is the cause? Numbers of credible scientific studies from across the globe point to pesticides, particularly the types of pesticides classified as neonicotinoids.

As a concerned beekeeper, realizing that nobody else was doing so, I did a survey of all the greenhouses, big-box stores and hardware stores in my area in Arizona. After a lot of legwork, emails, and phone calls, I discovered to my dismay that EVERY SINGLE ONE within a radius of many miles was selling bedding plants, shrubs, and trees that had been treated with neonicotinoids, the bee-killing, butterfly-killing, and pollinator-killing pesticides. Every petunia and geranium, and just about all other non-edible plants for sale in my area--and I'll bet in yours too!--have been treated with bee-killing pesticides, even in the better nurseries that grow native plants! It is rampant this year in the USA.

The growers whom I contacted shrugged and said, "Well, it's legal." Despite our pleas to the EPA, neonicotinoids ARE legal (they have only recently decided to ban some new versions of these toxins, but not the ones that are in our back yards.) Most neonicotinoids are illegal in the European Union, who acknowledge that they are killing bees, but most are legal here in the USA, even though we are losing 30% of our bees and incredible numbers of our pollinators every single year!

We need local grass-root activitists. We need people to band together and SHOUT about this! Lowe's, after being petitioned about this, pledged to "phase out" bee-killing pesticides on the plants they sell; they are going to do this over a course of four years. Although many applaud their decision, I don't think a four-year time period, while they rake in profits and kill more bees, butterflies, and songbirds, is anything to congratulate them on. Farmers are, naturally, responsible for using these pesticides, but now, in the USA, we can also find them on nearly every flower, shrub or tree we purchase to plant in our yards.

Neonicotinoids do not wash off. They remain on the plant for six months to six years. That's right. If you buy a tree treated with this stuff--and most trees are--the toxins eventually go into the soil, both to contaminate nearby plants, and to be sucked back up by the host plant to move into the nectar and pollen the bees require for survival.

Home Depot was found to be selling milkweed that had been treated with these poisons. Monarch caterpillars placed on this milkweed died. The store has apparently generously (and I'm being sarcastic) agreed to stop doing this BY THE END OF THIS YEAR'S GROWING SEASON! Meanwhile, everyone who buys milkweed at Home Depot, thinking they are helping the monarchs, are only helping them die. While Home Depot, after being petitioned, reluctantly agreed to label the plants they sell that are treated with bee-killing toxins, that is not going to take place until, again, the end of this year's planting season. They get a huge thumbs down for dragging their feet.

Of those who supply big-box stores (but not in my area, sadly), there is only one large grower, Bonnie Plants, who has completely stopped using neonicotinoids.

As a beekeeper, I have been studying the hard science. There are plenty of credible, well researched studies available. There are a few contradictory studies, and guess what? Although they are published under different names, nearly all of them appear to be spin put out by--guess who?--the manufacturers of these poisons!

By the way, neonicotinoids are also in many of the lawn and garden-care products bought by consumers. They are listed under a variety of names. And who reads labels on such products? The solution is not to buy ANYTHING with pesticide in it.

The skeptic in me thinks that as long as the Kardashians continue to be in the headlines, the media won't pay attention to what I consider the most dire issue on the planet. If we lose our pollinators, who are responsible for 90% of wildlife plants and most of our fruit and vegetables, Earth will become awfully bleak, if not uninhabitable. The optimist in me believes, however, in the power of the internet and communication.

Call your congresspeople! Call the EPA! Yes, a commission was created to study the bee crisis, but they do not plan to draw any conclusions for several more years. Meanwhile, the bees continue to die. Most importantly, talk to your local nurseries! Don't buy bedding plants unless you are positive they have not been treated (and, I discovered sadly in my research, the store folk & nursery employees will and do lie about this).

Also, please boycott Bayer aspirin, as Bayer manufactures these pesticides.

Image and article copyrighted, M. E. Raines
Please do not copy without permission from the author. Feel free, however, to link to this article

TOXIC REPORT: The Udall-Vitter Bill

A new Senate bill (the Udall-Vitter bill) is the first in 39 years to control and regulate toxic substances in the chemical industry.

Question: Who is writing this bill?Answer: The chemical industry!

Says California Senator Barbara Boxer, "Call me old-fashioned, but a bill to protect the public from harmful chemicals should not be written by chemical industry lobbyists. The voices of our families must not be drowned out by the very industry whose documented harmful impacts must be addressed, or the whole exercise is a sham."

Thank you, Senator Boxer, for being a voice against this blatant corruption that will have horrible consequences for our health and our planet. Is anyone listening? Does anyone care any longer?

THE CRUELEST SOUNDS

One of the cruelest sounds on Earth is the low, penetrating rumble of a bulldozer raping and bespoiling a piece of our once-beautiful planet, permanently destroying yet another ecosystem, yet another piece where nature will no longer be allowed to thrive.

There is a failure to acknowledge the life, from insects to plants, that has developed on the land we break up and claim for ourselves. Worse, the vibrations of the bulldozers are only the precursors of more destruction to come, for instead of being allowed to bloom with all of its life force and diversity, the land being torn apart is usually doomed to be suffocated in concrete and weed killers.

How does a child feel when it is forced to watch its parents be tortured, their bodies ripped apart? This is how I feel when I hear the mean, relentless noise of a bulldozer hurting yet another patch of our once-sacred earth. Such a sadness it brings...

THE HYPOCRISY OF MOURNING SAUDI KING ABDULLAH

We are appalled to see how the world is fawning over the Saudi royal family and lowering flags out of false respect for the death of the incredibly cruel King Abdullah.

This Saudi leader that the world now pretends to mourn was a repressive tyrant whose regime has, among countless terrible acts:
executed people whose crime was that they were accused of being witches,
dragged people through the streets and beheaded them,
flogged women for the outrageous crime of driving a car,
and, most recently, sentenced liberal blogger Raif Badawi, who only wanted more freedom, to 1,000 lashes for blasphemy.
Nearly all of the 9/11 hijackers were Saudis!

We try to teach our children how to stand up to bullies, but how can we do this when our own government--liberal and conservative alike--acts with such utter hypocrisy?
We are not endorsing more hatred in the world. We are, however, unhappy that the our own country, with all it stands for, bows before such tyrants. Why?

Oil!

There is, to us, an obvious solution. That solution is to turn to solar and wind (and use the tools available to us to design these resources so they don't kill such great numbers of birds while we're at it.)

We need our politicians to make solar affordable for everyone, not just the rich, so that we can all put solar panels on top of our homes and businesses. We need electric cars that can be plugged into outlets where the energy comes from solar and wind power. This would also put a stop to the devastation caused by oil spills and fracking.

Then we need, gently, to teach our crueler neighbors on Planet Earth about kindness and freedom, rather than fawning over them. It's time to stop the kindergarteners from running the school.

DO NOT BUY LEATHER FROM CHINA

The Chinese are slaughtering dogs for leather in the manufacture of items like leather gloves. Photos of these dogs, cruelly confined and treated, are heart-breaking. According to PETA, these dogs can be skinned while still alive. Please spread the word and boycott all Chinese leather.

http://www.voanews.com/content/rights-groups-critize-use-of-dog-skin-in-china/2562508.html

TURN OFF YOUR OUTDOOR LIGHTS--AND SOME OF THE INDOOR ONES, TOO!

According to the International Dark Sky Association, there are five appalling facts about light pollution you may not have known:

1. Exposure to artificial light at night, particularly light with blue in it like that from TVs and computer screens, puts your health at risk.

2. Light pollution kills millions of birds a year, both from collisions into lit buildings and by disrupting their migratory instincts, as birds navigate at night by starlight and moonlight.

3. Light pollution contributes to climate change by using energy that heats our atmosphere.

4. The seasonal cycle of trees and plants is disrupted by artificial light.

5. Light in the skies from Los Angeles at night can be seen in an airplane from 200 miles away.

Read more about this by going to http://darksky.org/resources/434

CASCADIAN FARMS, GENERAL MILLS, GREEN WASHING, AND BEES

In a sickening example of green washing, Cascadian Farms, a food group owned by General Mills, has recently begun a media blitz dedicated to saving the bees.

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This is hypocrisy at its worst, like slave-owners having an enormous plantation with thousands of slaves, setting aside one small field where there are no slaves, and then proudly proclaiming that they are abolitionists! 

The bulk of food General Mills sells now contains genetically modified ingredients, including many of those nostalgic cereal brands we all grew up with. Anything that has non-organic sugar, cornstarch, canola oil, corn syrup, corn oil, milk (cows may be fed GMO alfa), soy (including soybean oil and soy lecithin), and even eggs (as chickens are fed soy) most certainly contains genetically modified (GMO) ingredients. There is good reason, based on solid studies, showing that GMOs might have dangerous and unwanted consequences in our bodies. But that's not what this article is about. 

Genetically modified food was altered so that it could withstand huge doses of toxic pesticides--the pesticides that are killing our bees, and are the source of Colony Collapse Disorder, killing 30% of our bees and other pollinators each year!

While the fast disappearance of our honeybees is one of the biggest disasters on this planet, Cascadian Farms' bee-saving blitz is blatant green-washing. People need to become aware of what is really going on at General Mills, where 90% of the company is involved in selling us products implicated in killing our bees. Cascadian Farms: if you really want to save bees, start with your parent company!

Note: General Mills has spent over 2 million dollars to defeat GMO labeling in the USA, even though such labeling is standard in other countries. Here are some General Mills brands, all of which almost certainly contain some GMO ingredients: Betty Crocker, Pillsbury, Bisquick, Fiber One, Chex cereals, Wheaties, Kix, Old El Paso, Haagen Dasz Ice Cream, Yoplait. They own many other groups, including Macaroni's Grill.