Guest essay by Jim Steele
Director emeritus Sierra Nevada Field Campus, San Francisco State University
A recent Guardian article “Wild bees on the decline in key US agricultural ecosystems” adds further support to my analysis that debunked an earlier claim by Kerr 2015 that climate change had been killing wild bees. I had argued that an agricultural trend where increasing acreage of natural and agricultural habitats have been increasingly converted to corn for silage and biofuels in addition to the importation of exotic European diseases. Using corn for biofuel makes no sense in terms of CO2 reduction or energy efficiency, et due to global warming hysteria government agencies have subsidized the spread of corn fields. Corn is wind pollinated and provides no nectar resources for pollinators. Corn has been steadily replacing pollinator friendly wild plants and pollinator friendly agricultural plants like soybean.
Cornfields also require irrigation that has also increased the extraction of groundwater. Groundwater extraction has now been projected to raise sea level by 0.87 mm/year, accounting for 25% of the estimate current sea level rise.
According to the Guradian, “The study estimated that wild bee numbers diminished in 23% of the continental United States between 2008 and 2013 in a trend driven by conversion of their natural habitat into farmland including corn for biofuel production.” [Emphasis mine]
“The study followed a 2014 memorandum by Barack Obama creating a task force to study pollinator losses. The task force in May called for preserving wide swathes of pollinator habitats.”
Inappropriate biofuel subsidies are driven by CO2 alarmism. As I continue to warn, bad climate science will only lead to bad environmental stewardship!
Jim Steele is author of Landscapes & Cycles: An Environmentalist’s Journey to Climate Skepticism
I’ll stick to Varroa and winter kill from cyclic global cooling as the main problems, not neonicitinoids or similar. Based on evidence and experience.
It is not just the honey bees. We have found large nos. of Bumble bees of many varieties with mites, in our garden in the NW of England over the last few years. Not, though, in the last year as we’ve seen very few bees at all. Very disappointing as we run the garden for birds and insects, as well as us.
Kerr 2015: They got to blame it on Co2 global warming or not get funded. No funds, no food on the table.
Let’s also not forget it was the environmentalists and climate change scientists who sold everyone on the “ethanol is good for the environment” line.
Now they all think it is actually bad for the environment. The real problem is that they never do good science – just narrative-supporting science/made up storylines.
exactly Bill Illis. All the running around to convert to a green plan has not been very good for the environment or the economy. In the Pacific Northwest the urge to “hug trees” resulted in poor forest management and, in the end, sick forests that burn down led by a complete myth as to what was shrinking spotted owl habitat.
I recently received the January Bee Culture magazine in the mail. As backyard bee keepers my wife and I enjoy the magazine as a way to keep up to date on the current information and products. Imagine our surprise when the current magazine had the following article.
http://www.beeculture.com/climate-change-a-bee-problem-we-can-potentially-solve-part-1/
The simplistic comments that lead up to “It appears that we must transition to renewable energy sources (solar, wind, hydro, geothermal and biomass) and stop burning fossil fuels as soon as possible.”
I much prefer to read about beekeeping and beekeeping products but not subscribe to a magazine for climate hysteria.
Wow … what a guilt trip with a heavy dose of spin.
I’m actually in Vermont visiting as part of my holiday rounds. My general impression is that folks are a hearty bunch, well meaning but generally goofy and self righteous thinking concerning the environment. I have to say I haven’t met many original Vermonters so take my observations with a grain of salt.
Happy New Year
Martin –
Why not cancel your subscription to avoid getting Part 2 in the mailbox?
I was a magazine junky, but cancelled five of them (Sci. Amer. was the first – at least 10 years ago). They (SA) didn’t care. I told all five I was not asking for a refund – I just did not WANT their magazine in my mailbox anymore, and why. Four were more small-scale, esoteric publications who had very little advertising, so subscriber fees were significant. One of them sent a pro-rated refund anyway. Later they published letters (I read on newsstand) to the editor and they remarked that they had had cancellations.
The problem was the demonstrably “low-information” nature of the CAGW articles. Junior High? I guess if you publish an “off topic” item you risk insulting the intelligence (especially when the authors are totally wrong) of a few readers who happen to know the topic fairly well.
“Inappropriate biofuel subsidies are driven by CO2 alarmism. As I continue to warn, bad climate science will only lead to bad environmental stewardship!”
Sounds like, yet again, the truth was hiding in plain sight. Biofuels also impoverish peasants, raise prices and do not improve the weather.
Like most personal options concerning energy, much can be accomplished on a local or personal level. I am an opportunistic bodiesel scavenger. Works for me and a few buddies but doubt it can suffice on a large scale.
The masses need fossils till nuke becomes the thing.
Happy New Year
This just one of thousands of native bees:
Sorry for the wiki.stupid link, easy find of a native bee picture.
Native bees are abundant, prolific and efficient.
http://www.danforthlab.entomology.cornell.edu/files/all/pollinators_guide_web.pdf
http://entomology.cals.cornell.edu/extension/wild-pollinators
http://extension.psu.edu/publications/uf023
Ever get bit by a sweat bee? Yup, it is a working bee. No honey stores though. It is easy to build your local population up, just plant flowers they like and put up a nest box or two. Native bees are not terribly territorial and nest next to each other.
Now Jim Steele:
I realize that you are only repeating claims, but exactly which rivers are running bank full with all of that irrigated water?
Sea level rise attributed to irrigation is some desk jockey adding up irrigation estimates and then assuming that all of their imaginary irrigation water is flowing to the sea.
Flying across the Western states and one can easily see the irrigated fields below; hint, they’re the green ones in a sea of brown.
Are underwater sources over utilized/drained? Yes!
Is the irrigation absolutely necessary? Probably.
Is the irrigated water used correctly? No!
Too many times I’ve passed irrigation sprayers, spraying during mid-day and later.
A TheoK, Indeed I am repeating the projections from Wada 2012. Granted my bias gives extra credence to the Dutch who have bee studying these issues more intensely than most, but the methods they employed in this study seem robust. I do no defend their estimates as infallible. But I do advocate that more research money must be invested in critically understanding groundwater extraction and its contribution to sea level rise versus of CO2 warming. I suspect you did not read the link to Wada 2012, and I am curious about your evaluation of their methods once you have read it.
I also suggest that your eyeball method that asks “which rivers are running bank full with all of that irrigated water?” will lead you astray. From my experience in observing hydrologically disrupted watersheds, it is the dry steams that are likely indicators of depleted groundwater. When the water table drops perennial streams become intermittent streams. The trickle in a stream during a summer drought might reflect groundwater extraction in an otherwise dry stream bed that has already lost its natural subsurface flow.
Jim:
You are correct. I am using the eyeball method.
Dry streams indicate one of many things; the first is natural variance. Even in the abundant water soaked regions, one can find dry stream beds waiting for that extra wet period that leaves enough water to fill their beds, temporarily.
Another is lower water tables. But only in areas where the water table is a direct supplier of water to their flow.
Water tables, or aquifers, are not just found at the surface. Aquifers are found wherever the ground strata capture water that permeated through.
Some wells are 20-30 feet deep; that is a surface water table.
Other wells source their water from far below.
Surface water tables are more likely from recent rain sources; when they are depleted, e.g. golf courses, other wells dry up, certain kinds of ponds and marshes also dry up and moving water loses quantity.
Deep aquifers have much less effect on surface water tables. Many of the large deep aquifers were filled at the end of the last ice age. Draining them usually requires lengthy refill time, worse if there is not substantial water sources.
A large irrigation plot requires a substantial water supply. In the more arid areas, the shallow water tables can not supply enough water, or the rancher will have trouble with their own drinking sources for humans and wildlife.
I use a shallow well exclusively for my water. Washing the car, seriously depletes my supply of water. It takes hours to get a decent flow again, and a day or so before I can consider washing the other car. Washing the car during a rainstorm is actually fun.
The other part of the equation is that I’ve visited and fished a number of rivers even in the Western USA. Enough freshwater from irrigation to raise sea levels should be filling rivers and streams bank full.
Instead, spend some time looking at the Colorado river and consider that we keep promising Mexico that we’ll let some water through, maybe.
California, recognizing the shortage of water in the West sought and purchased water rights to water sources up and down the coast and well into Nevada. If California got access to a water flow, they’ve pretty well drained the water dry.
Ranches near the Northwest rivers source most of their irrigation water from the rivers. Which is why there have been so many legal battles of sufficient water being left in the river for fish. First the Indians had to get court orders to maintain their fishing rights and then again for enough water to support the fish. Sportspeople, Natives and environmentalists have supported these ongoing legal wrangles.
I lived in New Orleans for five years. They track the river extensively there and would surely notice significant increases in normal water flow.
Which brings us back to the question; where is the water? Irrigation water is not filling the rivers. That fact can be attested to by many officials watching and tracking river flows; indeed many of them are concerned about lower flows.
And no, I did not follow the link back to WADA 2012. As a finance and Budget manager for years, I long ago lost any belief in ‘estimates’ as having anything more than brief validity.
The only reasons I ever used estimates for farther away than next week is when management insists. Even the best estimate is an unverified guess.
Once, at the national level, I was thrown into a disastrous project to find out what was wrong with a portion specifically written for a business customer; with orders to fix the issue and make the customer happy.
To identify the problem took only minutes when the program manager ranted at me about ‘better’ numbers than they ever had. Identifying the specific failure and whether it could be easily fixed took a few more hours as I talked to programmers on both sides.
The problem, explicitly, was that the new program was cutting off using actual work hours after 6PM Friday and estimating differences to 12AM. Yes, the formula was elegant and got estimates to within a half hour or so at the total; but generically so. Great if people at field levels only tracked work hours generically as a total.
At the HQ level, it was hard to get across, that field managers look at far more than just totals. Many of them look at totals only to see if they are within budget, after that they look to ensure that pay hours are captured correctly. Four hours here, three hours there, two hours OT to ‘x’ are related directly back to who was working when. Errors in hourly totals meant people are paid incorrectly; people who have budgets for every penny they earn. Incorrect pay means very unhappy workers.
After my report, the VPs decided to accept my solution for correction which was to continue running the old program until the new allegedly more accurate program matched it’s accuracy. No more estimating work hours. The business customer thought I walked on air and could fly, because he fought with the program manager for months about the need for actual hours. The customer knew what was wrong, but couldn’t identify why.
And that was using a darn accurate estimate!? Made by people who verified their mathematical formulas. Without on the ground constant verification, estimates like irrigated water causing sea level rise are worse than useless; they’re used for the wrong purposes.
Thanks, Dr. Steele. Always good to learn from you.
It seems easier and more rewarding to learn about the complexities of sea level assessment than about the fear of sea level rise.
Happy New Year!
The forest I live, in the coastal mountains of central California, has a very healthy wild bee population and has had for the 35 years I’ve lived there. The area has sparse agriculture, almost exclusively wine grapes with a few truck gardens here and there, and I don’t know of any bee keepers. I hear horror stories in the news but they seem exclusive to large ag regions (CA Central Valley for example) and I’ve always suspected disease transmitted by professional keepers moving hives all over the country. It seems the most likely explanation considering it’s not really a “natural” thing for bees to do.
It never ceases to amaze me that the tree hugger’s knee jerk response to just about anything they don’t understand is either pesticides, herbicides or cAGW (Computer Aided Global Warming). No proof, no time for epidemiology, just start shouting doom from the rooftops. And it seems you can’t ever reason with them; if it’s not one of their pet boogermen, they won’t listen. Don’t even bother with evidence.
It was pleasant (tough unexpected in this forum) to read so many intelligent discussions of the real cause, especially ristvan’s well educated and articulate discussion. I hadn’t heard at all about the Varroa infestation, which I’d expect to be common knowledge by now given the media attention paid to the subject. I guess it’s another example of no one wanting to discuss the real problem if if doesn’t support the party line; particularly tragic given the solution, which would seem to be prohibiting moving infected colonies? We have many agricultural restrictions on importing pests, this would seem to be an important one to add, but I’ve seen nothing on the subject and California is particularly sensitive to those sorts of things normally.
The Paris Climate Agreement abolishes all forms of climate change, extreme weather events, and rising sea levels for now and for all time. It is a done deal and we here in the USA do not have to pay anything for it because we are a poor nation with a large national debt, trade deficit, and unfunded liabilities. Climate change no longer exists so it should be of no concern to us any more. Because climate change and global warming have been abolished for now and for all time, they cannot possible be the cause of anything.
I guess I’m as big a bee lover as anyone (as long as they keep their distance ), but where is the decline in the fruits of their missing labor showing up ??
Are harvests down ??
I would ask all owners of a garden to ask themselves if they want to keep up with the competitive cosmetic trends. It shows that you care about fashion and that you have the money to keep up in the competitive games of my ‘lawn is greener than yours’, and ‘my lawn has not a single grasshopper’ and I’m proud that the soil around the lawn is bare between shrubs. Everything tidy (in the northern district where I live the word tidy does not just mean orderly but also means good or better than the norm or average. We have a wildlife crisis – not just few bees. and by the way, I have lots of wild bees and several of their nests and they have never stung me. Fashion-centred gardens lack anything for a hedgehog to eat or make a nest in. A fashion garden will have a seed feeder for the birds, so you can enjoy seeing them and feel good about looking after them, but host no caterpillars or other protein for them to raise young. And as for turning the verges of the highway outside your gate into lawns – what right do you have to kill all those insects and wild plants?
I live in N Charleston, SC, and have since 1966, mostly. It’s not just honey bees, here, it’s most flying night bugs. When I moved here in the late 60s, every Summer, any unguarded light outside, every night there wasn’t a gale warning or massive tstorms, had its own massive cloud of flying insects thick enough to reduce its light output quite noticibly. This storm of flying bugs supported an amazing array of predators, such as green tree frogs. These frogs would pack themselves up behind and inside any light fixture to sleep the day away, protected by their own avian predators until the sun set each night. Then, they would emerge renewed for a night of gorging themselves, disgustingly, on a wide variety of moths, flies, and other strange UFOs buzzing maddenly around the light in a breeding frenzy that kept the whole swarm of bugs and predators fed and bred.
Today, that is almost completely extinct. People stopped buying “bug lights”, those yellow lights the bugs were supposed to not see, decades ago. Even in the intensely bright lights under a gas station roof, today, there is rarely a single buzzing insect to be found! Something has killed 99.9% of this porch light ecosystem. I live right on the Ashley River across from beautiful Magnolia Gardens Plantation and Tourist Trap (http://www.magnoliaplantation.com/), where millions of flowering plants coexist with a massive SC swamp and former rice plantation on the tidal river. The only bugs we must contend with now are huge “Palmetto Bugs”, the giant cockroaches of the South, small german cockroaches, both of which are very successful in this environment and, of course, mosquitoes, all of whom are totally immune to any insecticide that won’t kill the humans, too. Ground insects, especially fire ants and boring ants are also doing great. Fire ant mounds will kill any pet that steps on them.
Something horrible happened across SC that has caused a mass extinction of flying insects……