Be Sensible, Not Common

“Common sense is that which tells us the world is flat.”

-Stuart Chase

Any time a politician tells you something is “just common sense” it’s time to lock up your daughters and hide the chickens, because the drivel that is about to follow will invariably place your personal safety at risk in a multiplicity of ways, from your economic welfare to your very physical wellbeing.

What part of this is "Common Sense" and what part requires someone
 to have made an observation not readily seen from the road?

The world is a complex place, home to myriad interlocking processes about which our five senses (six, if you foolishly include the “common” one) provide almost no direct information.  We seek simplicity, “straight talking” and “unmuddled answers” but the truth is that any simple answers are based on fable, and “straight talking” hardly ever has any evidentiary basis.  As for “unmuddled answers” the reality is this – honest answers to most questions seldom accomplish anything more concrete and settled than yet more questions.

E.M. Forster once quipped “beware of muddle” and, while he is one of our favorite authors, the fact remains that his advice is worthless outside the context of personal relationships, and even then relates only to the question of personal commitment.  In terms of certainty of knowledge?  Embrace muddle – it is the only refuge of truth.  Yes, we should rather betray our country than our friends… but we cannot say that we know with certainty anything for which there is not a verifiable testing framework, a way to validate the hypothesis.  When those hypotheses have been tested, however, for God’s sake, don’t ignore the results.

We are wading into these philosophical waters for a particular reason, naturally, and that is to attempt to bridge the gap between “common sensers” (climate change denialists, lawn care specialists, monocropping agriculturalists, etc.) and cold hard truth.

Merely presenting evidence frequently makes no impact upon the opinion of those who cling to the notion that truth should be “plain and simple”; the claims, for example, that global warming is a hoax (!) fly square in the face of overwhelming mounds of not only theoretical reasoning, but actual verifiable empirical measurements of air and (more significantly) ocean temperatures which are virtually incontrovertible evidence of the idea that global temperatures are not only rising, but rising at a rate never before seen at any point in the paleometeorological record.  Essentially, if you are politically conservative, you are statistically highly likely to ignore this evidence, regardless of your education level, and truth be damned.

Another excellent example of proponents of “common sense” ignoring the myriad complex processes around them involves anoxic waters, the so-called “Dead Zones” in our lakes, streams and oceans where a lack of oxygen causes nothing at all to live.  First reported by shrimp fishermen in the Gulf of Mexico in the 1950s, the phenomenon has grown dramatically over the years, such that in places like Lake Erie, there are only tiny slivers of water in which any fish at all live.

The phenomenon of an algal bloom, of course, can occur naturally due to dramatic changes in wind and ocean currents, floods or droughts upstream at the origin of freshwater streams which discharge into saltwater bodies, and a host of other variables.  However, these natural sources of eutrophication (the rapid increase in the nutrients on which algae thrive, which in turn depletes the water of oxygen) do not account for the massive increases in dead zones throughout the world, nor do they explain why the Gulf of Mexico has seen the occasional hypoxic area transform from a some-time and highly localized event to a permanent description of a vast area ranging from the Texas coast just south of the Brazos River discharge eastward to Mississippi and Alabama.

Vast sums of research dollars, hundreds and thousands of experiments, and a wide ranging array of analysts have been applied to the problem over the last fifty years, and the causes of the problem are now more than obvious.  There are numerous factors contributing to the creation of  dead zones throughout the world, but far and away the most noxious is fertilizer runoff.  The Mississippi River is the drainage zone for a little over 40% of the continental United States; much of that area is the so-called “corn belt” – and corn production is dependent almost entirely upon the presence of nitrogen in high concentrations in soil, a state which cannot exist in monocropped agriculture without constant yearly application of high quantities of industrial fertilizer, the very sort which is most likely to wash away disproportionately.

Corn production in the central U.S. has been increasing dramatically since the 1950s; nearly all the forested regions in the Missouri Valley, for example, have been stripped of trees and converted to corn fields, and thanks to the ill-conceived “Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007” still more will be converted to corn production for the purposes of ethanol production.  Even before this stupidity was foist upon us, 1.7 million tons of potassium and nitrogen were being delivered to the Gulf of Mexico via the Mississippi River every year.  The size of the Gulf dead zone has essentially doubled since the late 1980s; it is not likely to shrink any time soon, absent permanent and devastating drought conditions throughout the Midwest.

This is not a thermal picture; it is a picture of areas where no fish
or shellfish or coral reefs, etc. can live -- red means dead.

Meanwhile, there is ample empirical evidence suggesting how dead zones may be reversed.  The collapse of the Soviet Union and the demise of centrally planned economies in the former communist states of Eastern Europe caused fertilizer use in the nations bordering the Black Sea to drop to virtually zero.  The Black Sea dead zone had, prior to the 1990s, been the biggest in the world.  It shrank to practically nothing between 1991 and 2001.  Fishing – which had completely disappeared from the Black Sea in the latter half of the 20^th century (you can’t catch fish who don’t exist) is once again becoming a way of life in the region.  Likewise, the North Sea dead zone has decreased by about a third since nitrogen and other industrial emissions along the Rhine River have been cut.

Similar progress is not likely in the United States any time soon, however, for the simple reason that any attempt to salvage our ecology is met with incredulity and vitriol about how environmentalists are “out to destroy the economy”.  It is hard to see how it is “common sense” to argue that the economy of a dead region is much of an economy, but so it goes.  The Scots aphorism is perhaps apropos here:  “’tis an ill bird wha’ fouls its ain nest.”

In any event, the fishing economy of the Gulf of Mexico is on the order of at least $10 billion dollars.  Absent appropriate management of environmental policy (meaning banning fertilizer) all $10 billion of those dollars (and by all means, feel free to adjust for inflation) will simply disappear in coming decades.  Not trying to be hyperbolic here – just extrapolating from the data.  Science passes no judgments, it merely provides the tools for analysis, and very few of those studying the data have come to any other conclusion than this:  we ignore natural processes at our own peril.

The scope and scale of our impact on the world around us has always exceeded our ability to visualize and conceptualize, and that reality is becoming increasingly apparent any time we step back and attempt to understand any particular phenomenon.  There is a simple reason people used to believe that the world was flat – when you look from horizon to horizon, it seems flat.  Indeed, without the evidence provided by mathematical analysis of a series of observations and experiments, one would have to be a buffoon to believe anything other than that the world was a vast disk, immense perhaps, but certainly not round.

The truth was, is, and ever shall be much greater than what we can take in first hand.

Because of that “simple” reality, we have an obligation to toss common sense on the dung heap of no-longer-respectable notions, and take a long hard look at the impact we are having on the world around us.  What we eat, how and where we live, what we wear, it all matters. 

We at Myrtle’s place have railed against lawns for a while now, because they are bad for us all (killing bees, destroying soil tilth, causing nitrogen runoff, generally looking icky) but that’s really just a jumping-off point.  We are well aware that the vast majority of Americans think lawns are not only “okay” but that they are essential.  The same holds true for all sorts of other things that most folk take for granted, and giving up those harmful things will not at all seem like “common sense” to most people.  But it’s the only kind of sense that matters, if we want to continue living lives worth living.

And on that happy note…

Happy farming!

Save the Bees... Kill Your Lawn... Same Difference

“If you can’t be an athlete, be an athletic supporter.”

–Principal McGee in Grease

Not everybody is cut out for beekeeping.  We are disappointed in how many people are cut out for it who simply will never consider it, for one reason or another, but it is nevertheless a fact with which we are willing to come to terms.

However, bees need our help, and everyone is cut out to help.

There have been numerous writings, many frantic and worried, about colony collapse disorder over the past decade.  Colony collapse disorder is a very real, very palpable threat to civilization as we know it, and that is not hyperbole.  Take away our pollinators, and you take away many of the building blocks of the food chain as currently constituted – how large mammals such as ourselves can adapt to such a calamity is an open

question.

However, we are not writing today with the purpose of spreading panic and hysteria; instead, we offer a solution.  We are a hopeful, optimistic lot by nature, and we see opportunities to not only save the bees, but also to beautify the world around us in ways far too often forgotten since the dawn of the industrial revolution.

First, a little background – several potential culprits have been identified for the mass die-offs of bees which began accelerating during the first decade of the 21^st century.  The first to get attention was an old enemy of the honeybee, the varroa mite; beginning about fifteen years ago, commercial beekeepers noticed an increase in not just mites, but in mites resistant to the chemical treatments they typically apply to keep these pesky parasites in check.  Evolutionary biologists,naturally, pointed out that of course resistant strains are

increasing.  This is the natural outcome of any chemical based pest control method – eventually, you create a strain of superbugs, because the survivors of any treatment are left to breed, and they are genetically more likely to be resistant.  Duh.

There are other reasons for the increase in mites, though, most notably the design of commercial beehives.  Langstroth hives use preformed comb, requiring bees to build their comb to shapes humans have decided we want them to build, instead of in configurations the bees naturally want to utilize; it turns out, the bees are right, and we are wrong.  There are numerous characteristics (size being the most obvious) which bees choose to produce in their offspring in order to respond to their environment, and many of the adaptations they make “on the fly” are dependent upon resizing and reshaping the brood comb in which their young are

reared.  Take away their flexibility… and you leave them vulnerable to outside factors.  Like, say, mites.

Mites, though, are really a symptom and not the source of the problem.  In nature, bees are more than capable of fending off mites through the clever application of oils found naturally in a variety of plants which do not affect the bees, but which are fatal to the parasites.  Lavender, rosemary, creosote, western juniper, these are all plants around which you will frequently find a passel of buzzing bees, and most people never stop to give them a second thought.  None of these plants, though, provide very much in the way of pollen and nectar – the bees are not there to feed, they are there to clean themselves and their hive.

So, no, mites are not the cause of colony collapse.  Instead, they are increasing in number because the bee populations are weaker, more susceptible.  And why?

There are two primary reasons, closely related, and both of which ordinary people can do something to help resolve, whether they keep bees or not.

First, bees have been weakened over the last century by the application of various pesticides, herbicides and fertilizers to a wide variety of domesticated plants, particularly large scale monocropped farm produce, and – more ubiquitously – suburban lawns.  All pesticides are obviously dangerous to any insect population, of course, which is frequently the point.  You put out ant poison because you want to kill ants.  QED.

However… ants are the closest living relatives of the honeybee.  What’s bad for the one is almost always bad for the other.

Beyond this basic fact, which suggests that even “organic” or “natural” pesticide solutions to infestation by ants, etc. are bad for bees, there is an even more insidious level to the story – unsatisfied with wide application of sprays and other application methods, farmers and gardeners began turning to modified crops

(genetically or otherwise) which produce “natural pesticides”.  This is, in fact, the most common form of GMO crop.  In spite of how creepy it sounds, most of these crops are perfectly safe for human consumption.

They are still a horrible crime against humanity, though, for a simple reason:  they are killing our bees.

These crops almost exclusively make use of a class of chemicals known as neonicotinoids; they are fatal to most of the targeted pests for which they were invented.  They are also fatal to bees in concentrations as low as one part per million.  And they are found in most large scale farming operations in everything from alfalfa to zucchini.

They are also found in most of the pretty flowers you buy from the large hardware chains – if you think you are doing bees a favor by planting flowers you’ve bought at Lowe’s or Home Depot, think again.  Even if

you never apply a single drop of pesticide yourself, the plants brought their own pesticide to the party.

The second factor which is in human control is similar to the first – we are putting out all these non-bee friendly crops, including lawns, and this is decreasing the available food supply for our honeybees.  In the 19^th century (and the first half of the 20^th as well) there were hardly any homes with what we would recognize today as a “lawn”.  Wild grasses, wild flowers, wild everything was pretty much the rule of the day.  Even without the invention of the “Victory Garden” in World War I, most people had a few flowers around, in addition to a vegetable plot, and a few herbs.  It was universal.  It was “just what people do” and it was healthy for the bees.  Nobody called the non-modified vegetables “heirloom” back then; they were just “vegetables”.

Modern homes, though, are surrounded by large lawns soaked with fertilizers, pesticides, and herbicides which choke out “weeds”.  So-called weeds, though, do something grasses do not do:  most of them flower.  Every time you kill a dandelion, you starve a bee.  The bees used to be able to feed on every patch of ground for miles around in any direction, as far as the eye could see, no matter where you were in this country.  Now?  They frequently have to fly for miles just to find anything from which they can collect pesticide free pollen and nectar.

The solution to both problems is pretty much the same – replace lawn space (in some cases, at least as much as your homeowner’s association will allow) with wildflowers, heirloom vegetable plots, and all-natural, non-modified flowers with no neonicotinoids.  Plant as much lavender and rosemary as you can.  Replace those boring expanses of grass with clover, or better still, with a blend of all the wildflowers that grow in your region, hopefully with enough variety that at least something is blooming at any given time for more than half the year.

This won’t just help the bees, of course.  Yes, the bees will be thrilled… but so will people.  We live in one of the more picturesque parts of College Station, Texas, in an older neighborhood where lots of people plant a few flowers and herbs, and there are still some vacant lots which have been overseeded with wildflowers, so we are not in one of the cookie cutter neighborhoods with sprawling St. Augustine grass in every

direction.  Still, we are frequently amused by how often people driving by our house slow down (some even stop) just to stare.  All those flowers, all those herbs… people are just not used to the idea that you can have color, texture, layers in a yard.  And the smells!  A bee-friendly garden is a pleasure for all five senses.

We have definite suggestions for what sorts of plants are best for the bees… but the list is so extensive that no one yard could possibly encompass them all.  And this represents a great opportunity, all too often overlooked in an age of conformity, the chance to be truly individual and expressive.  Instead of tending a lawn that looks just like everybody else’s, we can help out our busy bee friends by making our garden spaces beautiful and unique.  Just a thought.  And who knows, maybe if you make your personal spaces bee friendly, you might find you want to keep a hive yourself, for grins and honey.

Happy farming!