For the taste of mangos for the delightfulness of cherries for the crunchiness of apples for the health packed into carrots we must take care of pollinators.
We owe a debt to tiny often annoying biting midges and stinging bees for the delightful treats of everything from chocolate ice cream and blueberry pie to almond butter and mango sticky rice. Because alfalfa is a pollinated crop and is fed to cows, even your next bite of pizza is connected to those flying things we like to spray with all kinds of nasty chemicals.
Pollinators are not doing well in our world and yet they are the bedrock of our food supply. I am not sure which statistic would wake us up to the crisis we are facing, that one in three bites of food is dependent on these tiny, maligned creatures or that 35 % of our most coveted fruits and vegetables would disappear without them leaving us only wind pollinated crops and much smaller grocery stores. So yes, we could still have our cereal crops but with no alfalfa good luck pouring milk on your Cheerios and don’t even think about substituting almond milk for almond trees relies on bees.
Each year pollinators struggle to fight off the ills of the growing human enterprise which fuels the bulldozing of habitat and pollutes the air and water with pesticides meant to keep food crops pest free. How ironic, sad and self-defeating to hurt the ones that give us so much joy and health.
“Eat your fruits and vegetables” parents and doctors advise and they are right, they are packed with nutrition but only when grown in healthy soils and not sprayed with carcinogenic chemicals. Now we have to worry about them no longer existing because we are ignoring what they need most, room to live in a pollution free, climate stable world.
Cement is an often-ignored enemy of pollinators for it covers up the soil where plants grow. In 2021 the US used 109 million metric tons of cement to construct expanded housing, bridges, freeways, dams runways all in the name of growth. One metric ton weighs over 2200 pounds, that’s a lot of cement in a world which needs to make a connection between growth and the next time you want to indulge in a cone of double chocolate cherry ice cream.
The more people, the more cement. The more cement the less pollinators, the less pollinators the less almond butter sandwiches. Going the store and seeing empty shelves of my favorite fruits is enough for me to ask, why do we keep growing when it is obviously not sustainable. Why do we worship growth when it will literally kill us or make life less pleasurable? Have pleas to have small families worked? Turns out that we have had some success in achieving smaller average size families, but this is being undermined by growing our population with those from other countries.
In the name of maintaining our bloated economy and jobs that need filling we are adding to the cement load. We are building up and out to accommodate growth of those who will need a growing food supply while we are busy killing off the creatures who give us our food. It is the very definition of insanity to keep doing something detrimental in light of new information. To serve the unsustainable stream of people coming in to seek a better life in the US, we have built 1 million apartment units in 3 years with another million to be built by 2025. All of those people will expect to be greeted by produce in the grocery stores and one issue is whether or not will even be there.
Next week is Pollinator week. There will be the usual calls to take actions to protect our bees, flies, bats and butterflies. But if I were a betting person, I would bet the farm that stopping growth in the US will not be on the list of calls to action. Most environmental groups would rather stay out of the controversy of reducing growth, which is happening mainly due to immigration, then to give out the whole message of how to help them.
Want your chocolate cake and eat it too? Then attach our growth and how it is happening to the well-being of pollinators and the success of your next birthday party.