There is no doubt in my mind that Rachel Carson is a saviour for contribution to the Earth. She raised awareness on our use of pesticides that affects over everyday lives. Her book, Silent Spring, is a modern classic, yet I've never gone to a single school where they require it. Why are books like To Kill Mockingbird, by Harper Lee, and The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald, preached and taught as the American literature bibles? But I'm getting into a different topic entirely. My focus today is on one thing: pesticides.
The literal definition of pesticides is "a substance used for destroying insects or other organisms harmful to cultivated plants or to animals." Etymologically, it is related to words like suicide and homicide. The roots of the word pesticide are "pest", an informal word for destructive insects (that oddly has its own origin from the Bubonic Plague), and "-cide", which ultimately comes from the Latin caedere, meaning "kill".
So, we can see that pesticides are meant to kill insects. Pests denotes an organism, plant or animal, that is detrimental to the humans, mainly human concerns, like agriculture. The belief that animals that are not valuable to humans, i.e. "pests", stems from anthrocentricism, in which one believes that humans are the center of all things. But there are other ethical views on this as well, including biocentricism, which is viewing all living things have an extrinsic value. People who promote biocentricism often promote conservation of biodiversity, animal rights, and environmental protection. Ecocentricism, though, is the philosophy that denotes a nature-centered world, as opposed to a human-centered world.
In his article, "Ecocentricism: The Chord that Harmonizes Humans and Earth", originally published in TheTrumpeter, J. Stan Rowe describes ecocentricism as:
".... grounded in the belief that, compared to theundoubted importance of the human part, the whole ecosphere is even more significant and consequential: more inclusive, more complex, more integrated, more creative, more beautiful, more mysterious, and older than time. The "environment" that anthropocentrism misperceives as materials designed to be used exclusively by humans, to serve the needs of humanity, is in the profoundest sense humanity's source and support: its ingenious, inventive life-giving matrix. Ecocentrism goes beyond biocentrism with its fixation on organisms, for in the ecocentric view people are inseparable from the inorganic/organic nature that encapsulates them. They are particlesand waves, body and spirit, in the context of Earth's ambient energy."
Pesticides are not all harmful to bee. They vary in their effect on bees, but the ones that have an effect are deadly. In a March 2012 study, the scientists showed that even a small dosage of pesticides can be lethal. The bees can suffer from orientation disorder, in which they can no longer locate their hive. One pesticide is currently under study, a neonic called Cruiser, which is currently used in France and could be outlawed soon. As of April 2013, the European Union has restricted its use of thiamethoxam, clothianidin, and imadacloprid – all of which are neonics.
It is no secret the average lifespan of worker bees is only about a month. Per day, about 100 bees die in a normal hive, so what's the big deal of bees dying? Numbers don't lie, and bees are dying at higher rates.
It isn't all a sad story. In the 1974, the US banned aldrin and dieldrin, two highly toxic insecticides, and in 2002, California banned the use of lindane (sometimes erroneously called BHC, short for benzene hexachloride), an agriculture insecticide as well as a pharmaceutical treatment for lice and scabies.
Goal for today: Join the Fight!
I do not own the poster you see above. To purchase, please go to www.beverlybees.com/product/no-spraying-sign/.
Go on twitter and start trending #fightforbees.
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