"It was always the same story. At one moment the bee colonies were healthy, had enough food and brood, everything was just fine. And suddenly, in the course of some days, even hours, the beehive was almost empty. The bees were away, had left their own brood, had left everything. And they never came back."(Maja Lunde, The History of the Bees)
In what way does man depend on nature?
Hermann Hausmann - 21.02.2019 @ 21:37
Billions of humans, but where is humanity?
by Irina Berndl & Leandra Kreisser, BG - BRG Kufstein/Austria
We came, saw and destroyed out environment. Nature suffers from industry, animals suffer from the destruction of and therefore our whole ecosystem crashes. As a matter of fact, we have to change something, as long as that is still possible.
As Maja Lunde, the Norwegian writer of “The History of Bees“ describes perfectly, bees are suffering a lot under the circumstances of life that we happen to give them. Humans are an egoistic tribe that, all in all, just look after themselves. All the pesticides and fertilizers we put on plants may keep vermin away, but they keep the bees away too. The less nourishment the bees get, the bigger their chance of becoming completely extinct. Many scientists believe that, when bees die out, humans will be next. In the history of humanity there have been loads of negative episodes and hopefully this will just be an episode as well, which would have to be handled with hand pollination. Sometimes it comes to my mind that probably the majority of the world's population don’t even know about this problem and all the possible bad outcomes. The rain forest is being cut down – animals and nature are destroyed. New factories are built – animals and nature are destroyed. There are hundreds of thousands of such examples. Of course, some people that care about our environment do exist, but if they are only 0,001% of the whole earth’s population, they can’t really change the world for the better. Everybody has to look out for a better life on and of earth.
We truly need to change the world to the better, so get out there and do something!
Translated into English by Leandra Kreisser, BG – BRG Kufstein/Austria
https://de.freeimages.com/photo/bee-on-sunflower-1250725
https://de.freeimages.com/photo/bee-1373570
Hello,
you are right, we came, saw and destroyed our environment, but hopefully we also will correct our mistakes. I’m sure, it’s not too late, but time is running short.
In addition to the loss of biodiversity, we also cause climate change (at least we fasten it). Even though the Earth and its climate are so essential for us, we destroy them.
How dependent we are on nature shows the book “The Survival Game” by Nicky Singer: The Earth is very hot and people from the South flee to the North, because they can’t live there anymore (water shortage, droughts etc.). But, as we can see in the last years, the North doesn’t want these people.
This situation isn’t very unrealistic, so we shouldn’t forget that many, many people will probably lose their home if we go on like we do now (even if it’s not their fault, it’s ours). Therefore, we should take the responsibility we have for those people and stop climate change, not only for us, but for every living being!
What I want to say with my example is that humans are extremely dependent of our nature, she gives us everything we need (or we actually take everything we need) and as soon as she cannot do this any longer, we must go somewhere else to survive.
Victoria Zawadil - 19.05.2019 @ 18:25
Hi Leandra and Irina!
Thank you for writing an interesting article! I really like that you address the importance of protecting animals and plants. The biodiversity issue is often being less talked about in the media, compared to the climate change, although scientists like Johan Rockström have shown that the loss of biodiversity is a bigger problem, by minting the planetary boundaries (follow the link for more information).
Currently, we are living in the sixth mass extinction epoch and the definition of such mass extinction is that more than 75 percent of all existing species are extinguished. When so many species die out, the ecosystems will be disturbed and we will find it difficult to find food.
One of the first authors who put the problem with pesticides into light was Rachel Carson. She wrote the book “Silent spring” in 1962. She criticized the DDT and the title refers to a spring without any birds, because they died out as a result of the loss of insects. This book actually led to change which I think is amazing! I haven't read the book myself, but I want to and I thought I could recommend it anyway.
Follow these links if you want to know more about the planetary boundaries:
Picture Planetary Boundaries : https://www.nature.com/articles/461472a/figures/1
Article Johan Rockström : https://www.nature.com/articles/461472a
Tilda Wulff - 31.05.2019 @ 10:36
Hi Irina and Leandra!
First of all, I can fully understand the problem which this article dealt with . Most of the people on this planet just don’t care about what they do and what will happen, if they continue this unacceptable behaviour. They cut down the forests to produce more paper, but these people never think , that the trees purify the air, provide us oxygen, which is vital to existence. Here fits perfectly a tought which says that „Humans are the only creature in this world, who cut the trees, make paper from it and then write „Save Trees” on it.” I think it’s very sad that nowadays the people just destroy their enviroment and don’t care about such things like global warming and pollution. If we don’t do anything we will pay for it in the future. We have to change our attitude and save the planet on which we live.
Aisa Palkovics - 10.06.2019 @ 20:13
Hello everyone!
I really liked your article and I found it interesting, especially the part with hand pollination. It's hard to imagine this situation because it's the worst scenario. We would have to be extremely organized and put away any wars and economics problems we have nowadays.
In the book "This changes everything", we can find reasons why we can´t deal with climate changes at the moment. It exposes corruptions that profit from ignoring this huge problem mistreating the nature.
It´s really complicated to solve this problem because it´s not only about money but it´s also about cooperation with other countries.
Adrian Vassi - 03.10.2019 @ 14:18