Man-made disaster: Bees and bananas

I was reading this article on how bees are dying at an alarming rate because of the use of fungicides. We humans already know that pesticides can be harmful to bees, which is why there are labels on the cans warning us not to use them when there are pollinating bees around. However, the latest findings published in the Guardian revealed that fungicides, though they are not targeted at killing bees, do affect bee behaviour, immune systems and even long-term health and reproduction. Even more shocking is the fact that fungicides may actually cause crops to kill more bees than they sustain. So out goes the argument that bees need those crops grown in chemical cocktail farms.

I really hope something is done about it because if you didn't already know, bees are very important to our the balancing of our ecosystem. As quoted from this article, here is an apocalyptic quote attributed to Albert Einstein (although there is no proof he actually said it): “If the bee disappeared off the surface of the globe then man would only have four years left to live.”

This very interesting article which I found online elaborates a whole lot more on the personal narratives of people affected by the voluminous deaths of the honey bees. It also provides more evidence to show that this is really happening. Apparently, WiFi can also cause bees to get lost and not find their way home to the hives. If this is backed by strong evidence, I am NEVER using WiFi or any form of internet roaming besides LAN cables near a nature reserve again.

From that first bee article, I stumbled upon an article on BANANAS. You can read it here. In summary, it says how the Cavendish breed of bananas are at risk because of a pathogen called Tropical Race 4, a strain of the infamous Panama disease which decimated the Big Mikes (another breed of bananas which taste sweeter and are more fragrant than Cavendish). Apparently Big Mikes are only available in some parts of Southeast Asia now. I want to try it before it goes extinct.

You see, the problem is that we humans like to engineer everything, from bananas to other kinds of crops and even metals (the list goes on forever). Okay, that might be sort of crucial to our survival as a species but we have to consider the impact on other living & non-living things in our environment. Can you imagine this: one day we would have successfully created tiny drones that mimic the behaviour of bees so we can pollinate flowers instead of having real bees? NO! That is a terrible thing to do, not to mention those mechanical bees will not be able to evolve naturally along with the flowers and humans are prone to many errors. We would very likely be not be diligent enough to keep updating those bees because there are so many other better things to do. We should just leave the bees alone. Better yet, we should try to protect them by not using extensive amounts of fungicides/pesticides/insecticides and whatever else there is.