So I have come down to rescue them from the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land into a good and spacious land, a land flowing with milk and honey Exodus 3:8
This is one of roughly sixty reference to honey in the bible. It was the original sweetener and highly valued in most cultures.
Most of you are aware of the book entitled Silent Spring, written by environmentalist Rachel Carson in the early 1960's. It awakened North Americans to the dangers of pesticides and the possibility that the season of Spring would no longer be announced by songbirds, victims of chemical poisoning. As a result of her book some of the pesticides were banned while the use of others was curtailed.
Carson also warned of a "fruitless fall," aware that there was a similar threat to insects and particularly to the honey bees we depend upon to cross-pollinate everything from orchard crops to berries to cucumbers, pumpkins, tomatoes. In recent years honey bees, a species introduced to North America from Europe have been mysteriously disappearing in droves -- about a quarter of honey bee populations have already gone AWOL and no one knows why.
I am reading Rowan Jacobsen's book Fruitless Fall, (yup, I tend to read several books at the same time) which looks at the little miracle of bee pollination and tries to discover what it happening to these tiny but essential critters. You may be unaware that the real money in bee cultivation is not in producing honey anymore. The cash flows from trucking hives around from crop to crop for brief stays which will vastly increase yields. The trouble is, exposure to chemicals and the very process of constant displacement may be killing the bee that laid the golden honey (forgive my paraphrase.)
As a former small-scale beekeeper this saddens me and concerns me deeply. How do we keep screwing things up in terms of ecological balance? This is not a minor problem. Total collapse would change the way we eat and lead to vast problems in North American agriculture.
Have you heard about this? Do you make a point of buying local honey? Do you think we can change the factory-style approach to agriculture which provides cheap food but makes us vulnerable?
5 comments:
All scary, frustrating points to be sure, David. How DO we continue to screw this place up so royally, and feel no way about it?
I recently read Henry David Thoreau's 1847 masterpiece "Walden" which chronicled his two year trial of subsistence living by the Walden pond in Conord, MA. I can say with confidence that if you are concerned about the planet, or the direction of humankind's sensitivities and priorities, you should read this mighty tome.
It seems that we're forever stuck in the wheelhouse of acquiring 'stuff' - bigger houses, faster cars, bigger yields and days jam-packed with any and all manner of frantic activity.
If only we could hit the emergency stop on all of this and look critically at where our consumerism, steroidal capitalism and greed is directing not only ourselves, but the planet.
If only we could just learn to be still; or, if we cannot, I wonder will we just continue to "lead lives of quiet desperation" as Thoreau so aptly put it one hundred sixty years ago.
Where and what is the end point of that way of living?
It is all scary, and we are trying to cut down on "stuff" despite my other half's e-mail to you about yesterday's sermon......
I buy locally produced honey and find between that and the local maple syrup I get, that I am trying to use these as sweeteners rather than sugar. In some recipes it is working.....
I want to live with hope -- I believe it is the Christian mandate. I feel that the only way to do that is to pay attention rather than numb myself to the world around me. That may dismay me and scare me at times, but it is better than denial. As you point out Nancy, we keep doing what we can.
Thoreau's Walden is now surrounded by homes. There really are too many of us humans who want so much.
One of the St. Paul's ministers preached on "you shall not covet" on Sunday, Ian. Take a look at that message.
Eating locally can be very difficult, even living in rural Saskatchewan where almost everyone grows a garden. We do buy local honey. It's a gift to have someone in a neighbouring community offering local honey. I can also buy our spelt flour locally. During the winter months though, it is difficult to find anything local and organic. Unfortunately, even during the summers, I have not had much success with my garden; but I will try again because I do find it important.
Something tells me that there is a lot of light-coloured canola honey in Saskatchewan. Unfortunately the intensely cold winters make it difficult to over-winter hives.
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