Things may be quiet here the next few days now that John has taken his talents to South Beach. I’ll also be traveling a bit bringing only my iPad, so my posts, like my appeal, may become more selective.
Here’s something neat via two readers.
If all the mosquitos in the world die off, it’s all good and I mean all good.
If all the bees in the world die, we’re screwed. And it could be that mobile phones are killing them.
Megan McArdle would say that this obvious contradiction proves how irrational modern scientists are. After all, if mobile phones can kill bees, why can’t they call kill mosquitos? And if the extinction of bees is so bad as all the eco-doomers claim, then how could it be okay for mosquitos to become extinct?
That’s all I’ve got tonight.
Betsy
Because you know mosquitoes. They’d just drone on and on.
Alex
The mobile phone – bee connection is BS. Debunked here:
http://membracid.wordpress.com/2010/07/06/bees-cell-phones-and-bs-again/
Violet
McMegan would say it’s the fault of the bees for not being Libtardian enough, what with that whole commie pinko soshulist “worker bee” nonsense.
FormerSwingVoter
I understand that its a Lebron reference, but that really sounds like it could be a euphemism for something dirty.
Pancake
He’s in South Beach?
Isn’t that like where the odd ones go?
13th Generation
I would like to remind everyone of this:
I don’t even know where to begin..
Corner Stone
That implies that some actually find you appealing. Is there a patient zero?
DougJ
@Corner Stone:
That was kind of a weak put down.
Anyway, it’s a Spinal Tap reference.
demo woman
Was Erik chased off already?
Calming Influence
Oh, that’s just great. Maybe if you had mentioned that in the original post, I wouldn’t have crushed my cell phone with a brick. Thanks a lot, asshole.
(edit: +5)
Lee Hartmann
@DougJ:
spinal tap references are always welcome.
see: too much perspective.
also.
13th Generation
Sorry for omitting the source..
That’s McMegan: Stupid Bitch
Corner Stone
@DougJ: I’m cooking and insulting at the same time. But that’s no excuse.
I’ll try to step it up to your level par excellence.
Comrade Mary
Oh, God. The debunking is worth it for this alone:
I’m scrotumless, but I get the point.
EDIT: And I’d like to add that the nature news site (see the mosquitoes link) is a gorgeous, simple piece of design. I simply must steal more visual ideas from them along with the BBC.
The Dangerman
@Comrade Mary:
Well, fuck me; I’d heard cell phones can stop bullets and, well, along with the chest vest, I thought it might be useful to protect, ya know…
More importantly, if bees go extinct, the little slaves can’t work, so, to hell with Frozen Concentrated Orange Juice, I’m going long on Honey.
Jager
Cellphones strapped to scrotums*? I was castigated for flirting in Trader Joes!
*I suppose they would have be set on ‘Vibrate” rather than a ring tone like “Dirty deeds Done Cheap”
BR
Even if the cellphone-bee connection is bunk, it’s well documented that honeybees are dying off more than in the past, and that nobody is exactly sure why. Though signs point to multiple causes rather than a single reason.
Linda Featheringill
@demo woman:
“Was Erik chased off?”
Yeah. Where is the alleged Erik?
Linda Featheringill
“If the bees die off, we are screwed.”
Actually, other insects pollinate plants.
Nellcote
So did you hear the one about Rooodeeee Guiliani’s daughter getting busted for shoplifting makeup in NYC?
Nellcote
Another 11th dimensional chess move…there are now beehives in the organic garden at the WH.
Vince CA
Everyone beat me to the debunked mobile-phone-killing-bees story. So instead, I’ll just mention that CCD is probably not one thing, but a host of infections. Once one particularly nasty virus gets a foothold, it’s only a matter time before the bee dies of a host of other things. What that one nasty bug is ranges from region to region.
It’s really more of a problem of moving bees around. As pollinating bee hives become more valuable, beekeepers are more willing to let them cross state lines. But by doing so, they’re stressed by the travel, then exposed to strange germs. More colonies collapse, the remaining hives become even more valuable, and the CCD rate keeps ratcheting up.
The solution is off course better hive sanitation, but there needs to be more incentives to keep bees near the places where they’ll be needed when the fruit and nut trees bloom.
Also, since I’m a mason bee fanatic, more cherry, apple, apricot, peach, and and almond farmers should use mason bees. They’re native to North America (unlike honey bees) and thus less susceptible to New World infections. And since they only fly one time a year, they’re exposed to far fewer germs.
mem from somerville
Here’s a nice bee fact-check post I came across the other day:
http://morethanhoney-blog.de/2010/07/25/the-pleasures-of-fact-checking/
Hat tip to agro.biodiver.se http://agro.biodiver.se/2010/08/nibbles-cryocourse-pollination-stats-corn-domestication/
Paul
“If we eradicated them (mosquitoes) tomorrow, the ecosystems where they are active will hiccup and then get on with life. Something better or worse would take over.”
Worse than mosquitoes? Maybe dogs with bees in their mouths and when they bark they shoot bees at you?
Steeplejack
@13th Generation:
You provided no link, but that’s got to be Megan McArdle. I would recognize that screechy voice anywhere.
Draylon Hogg
Scientific research in the UK has linked CCD to the intensive use of Neonicotinoid pesticides in farming. But the big companies who make them have denied this saying that their product is full of Vitamin C, promotes rugged individualism and makes bees more attractive to the opposite sex.
HL_guy
Not only do other insects (including native bees- Apis mellifera is not native to N. America) pollinate crops, but most ‘staple foods,’ which tend to be cereal grains, are members of the grass family, and are primarily wind-pollinated. So if all the honeybees die, we won’t lose all our food, we will just have to pay a whole lot more for all the real tasty stuff, like fleshy fruits and nuts. Wheat and corn would seem to be the winners in this scenario.
bob h
If all the mosquitos in the world die off, it’s all good and I mean all good.
Very few mosquitos this Summer in New Jersey, where they usually are a major annoyance.
brantl
They don’t really know how much collateral damage they would get, so saying it’s all good is just so much moonshine. The clincher line in that article? “Something better or worse would take it’s place.” And they don’t know what would take its place, and whether it would be better or worse.
Much as no one likes it, disease vectors weed out the weak n a species, and helps species evolve.
Both of your premises have been effectively debunked, Dougj.
One of the things that is under-reported on the bee thing is that moving hives of bees all over hell and gone to pollinate stuff gives them an excellent chance of meeting biologicals that are local to areas other than their own, that can make them sick.
brantl
@Linda Featheringill: Not nearly as many as bees do, dear.
canuckistani
Mosquitoes are nature’s way of turning mammalian biomass into fish and are a pretty fundamental element of the food chain. Well, if we wipe ’em out, maybe there will be a niche for flying lamprey eels in a million years.
Tom Hilton
Still, we shouldn’t take any chances; we should still ban all cell phones. Do it for the bees…just in case.
Stolen Dormouse
Don’t f*ck with Mother Nature! Removing a major component of the ecosystem (mosquitos and their larvae) can have many, unintended and negative consequences.
Mosquitos may be annoying, but if you kill them off, you wipe out a whole level of the food chain–they are the main food for many species of birds and bats, which supply birdshit and guano (natural sources of nitrogen-rich compounds that promote plant growth). The beautiful dragonflies live by eating mosquito larvae in small bodies of water.
That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try to keep discarded tires from filling up with water or change the water in birdbaths.