Climate change is affecting bees and pollination - 21 Sep 2010  
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Professor James Thompson of the University of Toronto in Canada observed that pollination of some plants has dramatically decreased in the last 17 years, some by as much as 50%.

His study in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado, USA is one of the longest-ever observations of the pollination process. He comments that although bee numbers have declined, what was most crucial was that climate change has driven the plants and flowers to open at times that are no longer matched to when the bees
emerge from hibernation to pollinate them.

Other insects vital to pollination, such as butterflies, have also suffered declines due to habitat loss and climate change. Professor James Thompson said: “This is sobering because it suggests that pollination is vulnerable even in a relatively pristine environment that is free of pesticides and human disturbance but still subject
to climate change.”

Such a finding is especially alarming as one-third of the world’s fruits and vegetables depend on pollinators including bees to flower and grow. Our gratitude Professor James Thompson for this comprehensive study that reflects another aspect of the disturbing implications of climate change on our natural world.

Let us turn toward conscientious decisions and concern for the environment that ease these conditions and restore our pristine planet. During an August 2009 videoconference in Thailand, Supreme Master Ching Hai spoke about the important roles of all animal species, including the bees, while also noting their keen awareness of human-caused climate change and what must be done about it.

Supreme Master Ching Hai: It is almost too much to try to convey the importance of each and every inhabitant friend to the environment as a whole. The tiny bees contribute to pollination, that we could not replace, not only for flowers but vital food crops. We cannot replace their work even, as a human.

The animal friends are in pollination more aware of climate change than we are because they are the ones on the frontlines holding up nature’s delicate web of life. They are also, sadly, the first-hand victims of global warming, as we have witnessed and discovered.

They are in our hands, the humans’ hands. They know that the solution lies not so much in words but in daily actions, and the essential change that will be the most restorative for our world is to be vegan.

That is the essence of what we need to stabilize the planet, to bless the world through our everyday benevolent actions, meaning be vegan.

http://www.watoday.com.au/breaking-news-world/climate-change-affecting-bees-20100906-14wz6.html
http://www.physorg.com/news202966309.html
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/science-news/7980954/Bee-decline-already-having-dramatic-effect-
on-pollination-of-plants.html
http://www.thaindian.com/newsportal/enviornment/bee-decline-could-slash-food-output-finds-
study_100423925.html#ixzz0ylPRrEyV