Record 7 Million People Displaced by Extreme Weather Events in First Half of 2019
People wade through flood waters in a rural neighborhood affected by Cyclone Idai on March 24. Andrew Renneisen / Getty Images
In another sign of the climate crisis, a record seven million people were displaced from their homes by extreme weather events during the first half of 2019, The New York Times reported Thursday.
The number comes from the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre (IDMC), which has been using data from governments, UN humanitarian agencies and news accounts to publish annual reports since 2003. Their mid-year figures for 2019, published Thursday, marked the highest number of disaster displacements the organization has ever recorded by this point in the year. The number was nearly double the number displaced by conflict and violence during the same period this year, The Independent pointed out.
Our latest figures reveal that there were about 10.8M new displacements worldwide between January and June 2019, 7M… https://t.co/nS4z2XsXG1— IDMC (@IDMC)1568272613.0
"In today's changing climate, mass displacement triggered by extreme weather events is becoming the norm," the report authors wrote.
The number was tallied tallied before Hurricane Dorian struck the Bahamas, and the organization predicted it could soar to 22 million by the end of the year, making 2019 one of the worst years for disaster-caused displacement on record. That's because the worst disasters usually occur between June and September, which is when most storms inundate the tropics, The New York Times explained.
Based on past trends and the fact that the majority of weather-related hazards occur in the latter half of the year… https://t.co/iStcfW5Ynj— IDMC (@IDMC)1568285744.0
The extreme weather events covered by the report included
- Cyclone Fani, which displaced 3.4 million people in India and Bangladesh in May
- Cyclone Idai, which displaced 617,000 in Mozambique, Malawi, Zimbabwe and Madagascar in March
- Spring flooding in Iran, which displaced 500,000
Cyclone Vayu also displaced 289,000 in India in June, while flooding displaced 405,000 in the Philippines, 190,000 in Ethiopia and 75,000 in Bolivia. However, not all disaster displacements are equal. The 3.4 million displaced by Fani were evacuated ahead of time, an act that saved lives and showed that India and Bangladesh had learned from past disasters.
There were 7M new displacements associated with more than 950 disaster events in the first half of 2019.… https://t.co/lW9xfXZvza— IDMC (@IDMC)1568314800.0
The IDMC urged both individual countries and the international community to learn from the growing number of weather-related displacements.
"With the impact of climate change, in the future these types of hazards are expected to become more intense," IDMC Director Alexandra Bilak told The New York Times. "Countries that are affected repeatedly like the Bahamas need to prepare for similar, if not worsening, trends."
At the same time, the report urged the world leaders coming together this month for the UN Climate Action Summit in New York to take the figures into account.
"The international community cannot continue to ignore internally displaced people," Bilak said in a press release. "We must support national governments in their efforts to protect and assist IDPs, build peace and invest in sustainable development and climate change adaptation. Only then will we be able to reduce the upheaval, trauma and impoverishment that many millions of people suffer each year, and reverse the trends laid out in this report."From Your Site Articles
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By Jeff Turrentine
Tamara Lindeman certainly doesn't seem particularly anxious, or grief stricken, or angry. In fact, in a recent Zoom conversation, the Toronto-based singer-songwriter (who records and performs under the name The Weather Station) comes across as friendly, thoughtful, and a little shy.
<p>Nevertheless, anxiety, grief, and anger are what fueled Lindeman's creative process for the making of <a href="https://theweatherstation.bandcamp.com/album/ignorance" target="_blank"><em>Ignorance</em></a>, her just-released fifth album. Over skittering drumbeats and densely layered sonic textures that hover somewhere between chilly and ethereal, Lindeman has crafted a 40-minute song cycle that examines our collective climate trauma as experienced through a single, highly agitated psyche.</p><p>"People are like, is it a political album? And I say no, it's an emotional album," she tells me. "I wasn't trying to write about these feelings; it's just that these were the feelings that I was having at the time, so they kept flowing through." Lindeman wrote more than 40 songs over the course of the winter of 2018–2019, much of which she spent in relative isolation. And when she wasn't writing, she was reading. "I had gone down the rabbit hole and had become obsessed with trying to understand the climate crisis," Lindeman says. "I was trying to figure out how I could be of use. Could I become an activist? Do I have that in me?"</p><p>Apparently she does. Lindeman joined the throngs who took to the streets as part of the "<a href="https://www.nrdc.org/onearth/youth-climate-strike-exactly-what-planet-needs-right-now" target="_blank">Fridays for Future</a>" movement inspired by Swedish teen activist Greta Thunberg. She studied the <a href="https://www.nrdc.org/onearth/climate-scientists-world-we-have-only-20-years-theres-no-turning-back" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">massive report</a> released by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) that warned of the catastrophic consequences of failing to curb global carbon emissions immediately. Lindeman even hosted <a href="https://www.facebook.com/events/burdock/elephant-in-the-room/439797363485462/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">a series of public talks</a> on the subject, interviewing economists, activists, political figures, and other artists about the need for climate action.</p><p>Amid all of this, she continued to compose—moving away from the indie-folk that had defined The Weather Station's earlier albums toward a new style that incorporates jazz, chamber pop, and (especially) the lushly produced soundscapes of artists like Kate Bush and Sarah McLachlan. It's a style well suited for a song like "<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OJ9SYLVaIUI" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Robber</a>," <em>Ignorance</em>'s opening track, which sets a tone of foreboding that permeates the entire album. As strings swell nervously, Lindeman sings of a thief who</p><blockquote><em>had permission,</em><br><em>permission by words, permission of thanks, permission of laws, permission of banks,</em><br><em>white tablecloth dinners, convention centers.</em><br><em>It was all done real carefully.</em><br><em><br></em></blockquote>
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<p>"I wrote that song right after I had read an article about Exxon," Lindeman says. "I hadn't known the full story of Exxon—that long before most people knew about climate change, [Exxon] knew about it. Because they had researched it, as far back as 1981." After tasking its own scientists to study whether the burning of fossil fuels could lead to climate change, the oil giant <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/jul/08/exxon-climate-change-1981-climate-denier-funding" target="_blank">sat on its findings for decades</a> and even funded a vast network of climate deniers in order to maximize profits. "They had two paths," Lindeman says, "and they chose, actively, not just to allow it to happen, but to hide what they knew and to make it difficult for us as citizens to fight back."</p><p>Notably, "Robber" never mentions Exxon—or oil, or climate change, for that matter. As she does with all of the songs on <em>Ignorance</em>, Lindeman approaches her subject obliquely. There's no calling out of specific bad actors, and there's certainly no discussion of carbon emissions or sea level rise. She understands that such language would instantly and lethally deflate these songs, plunging them from the realm of art into the wide but shallow pool of didacticism.</p><p>Instead, Lindeman gives us something very much like poetry. In another song, "<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nHY0luoxn9k" target="_blank">Trust</a>," she makes a final appeal to a lover at what feels like the ending of a relationship:</p><blockquote><em>Bring me all the evidence,</em><br><em>the baskets of wild roses,</em><br><em>the crumpled petals and misshapen heads of reeds and rushes,</em><br><em>the bodies of the common birds, robins, crows, and thrushes,</em><br><em>everything that I have loved and all the light touches,</em><br><em>while we still have time.</em><br></blockquote>
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<p>That the lover remains undefined—is it a person or a planet?—is another indication that Lindeman is less interested in preaching than in exploring feelings of profound loss through the use of concrete, if highly personalized, imagery. But this song, too, has its creative origins in a real-life incident. In this case it was the songwriter's despair at witnessing the Canadian government, in the form of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP), <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/dec/20/canada-indigenous-land-defenders-police-documents" target="_blank">attack and arrest</a> members of the Wet'suwet'en First Nation in northern British Columbia for blocking a roadway in an attempt to stop the construction of the <a href="https://vancouversun.com/business/energy/a-primer-on-the-coastal-gaslink-pipeline" target="_blank">Coastal GasLink </a><a href="https://vancouversun.com/business/energy/a-primer-on-the-coastal-gaslink-pipeline" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">pipeline</a> through their ancestral lands.</p><p>"The RCMP was approaching with dogs and helicopters," Lindeman says, recalling the late-2019 event that led to the writing of "Trust." "They looked like an invading army. And I thought: <em>This is my government.</em>" As she followed the conflict on social media, Lindeman recalls, all the lines of communication from the scene suddenly went dead. "No one knew why. There was, like, two hours where the WiFi in the area went down and people weren't able to communicate. And I wrote that song in those two hours, while people were waiting to find out what had happened and if people were OK."</p><p>Lindeman acknowledges some ambivalence about sharing the story, "because obviously it's not my story to tell—I'm not Indigenous," she says. "But I felt, as a citizen, an immense betrayal. This government that had been elected to take action on <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3PhNZDjw1BM" target="_blank">climate and Indigenous reconciliation</a> had essentially invaded people's land in order to protect a pipeline company. And people were there chaining themselves to fences to stop it from happening. Somehow that filtered into the song. There are other things that went into it—from my life, from my subconscious. But that image was the crux of it. Why are we still having to argue over the value of something like water, or a landscape?"</p><p>It's not easy to make poignant, lasting art about climate change. The problem is so immense and all-encompassing that the vocabularies of music, poetry, theater, painting, or film can seem insufficient to the task, but in fact, they may be just what we need. As people and governments mobilize to address this global existential crisis, we need artists to check our work, to hold us accountable, to spur us on. And we need them to remind us of the human toll—both physical and emotional—as we head deeper into an uncertain future.</p><p>And we need to them to be as persistent as the tiny yet full-throated creature Lindeman memorializes in her song "<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gDcxg56nZAo" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Parking Lot</a>":</p><blockquote><em>Waiting outside the club in a parking lot</em><br><em>I watched some bird fly up and land on the rooftop</em><br><em>then up again into the sky, in and out of sight,</em><br><em>flying down again to land on the pavement.</em><br><em>It felt intimate to watch it,</em><br><em>its small chest rising and falling as it sang the same song</em><br><em>over and over and over and over again,</em><br><em>over the traffic and the noise.</em><br><em><br></em></blockquote>
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The U.S. Department of Transportation has called for more research leading to new guidelines for safer intersections, crosswalks, lights, and more. georgeclerk / Getty Images
Walking to work or to the store is better for the climate than driving, so climate advocates encourage people to leave their cars at home when possible.
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<p>But for the past decade, pedestrian safety in the U.S. has been headed in the wrong direction. Fatal accidents involving pedestrians have gone up 44%.</p><p>"We see speed – vehicle speed – is a major factor in pedestrian deaths," says Dan Gelinne of the University of North Carolina's Highway Safety Research Center.</p><p>He says research shows that design can make a big difference.<span></span></p><p>"Changing the roadway design to facilitate lower speeds by vehicles, to improve visibility of pedestrians, to make it more comfortable to walk – these are the things that really are proven to decrease death and injury," Gelinne says.</p>
<p><span style="background-color: initial;">The U.S. Department of Transportation has released a new </span><a target="_blank" href="https://highways.dot.gov/sites/fhwa.dot.gov/files/2020-11/FHWA_PedSafety_ActionPlan_Nov2020.pdf" style="background-color: initial;">pedestrian safety action plan</a><span style="background-color: initial;"> that calls for more research on these solutions.</span><br></p><p>The first-of-its-kind plan will lead to new guidelines for safer intersections, crosswalks, lights, and more.</p><p>"Anything that the plan can do to increase the uptake and the use of these effective roadway design strategies is going to really make a difference," Gelline says.</p><p>And that will help people walk safely wherever they need to go.</p>
<p><em>Reposted with permission from </em><em><a href="https://yaleclimateconnections.org/2021/03/thoughtful-design-can-make-streets-more-walkable/" target="_blank">Yale Climate Connections</a>.</em></p>
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Homes and roads in Dallas, Texas covered in snow. The 2021 winter storm dropped temperatures as low as zero degrees. Isaac Murray / Moment / Getty Images
An independent market monitor says ERCOT, the Texas grid operator, left wholesale electricity prices at the legal maximum for two days longer than necessary, and overcharged power companies $16 billion in the process during the winter storm that caused massive grid and gas system failures and left more than 4 million Texans without electricity.
<p>Potomac Economics, the firm hired by the state to assess ERCOT's performance, recommended to regulators that the charges be reversed. The move could help alleviate stress on Texas power providers facing shortfalls, default, or bankruptcy following the massive price spikes. </p>
<p>The "error" and potential reversal could also have major implications for the Texas <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/wind">wind</a> energy industry. Due to the nature of the financial instruments used by Texas wind firms, those that were unable to produce power during the storm were forced to pay the legal maximum of $9,000 per megawatt hour (the average price in 2020 was $22.18) for four days. At that rate, wind companies could be forced into bankruptcy, owing their counterparties more than their entire wind farm is worth.</p>
<p>As reported by <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/idUSKBN2AW027?utm_campaign=Hot%20News&utm_medium=email&_hsmi=114297436&_hsenc=p2ANqtz--Lf6GquilmyjzmWP5NDaiFS7vFlRay4xhT3Tw1eKfKJJCA2BM0YzrHomC529bhrsEjK0h14PTm5SoPTMfwGJu86hULEw&utm_content=114297436&utm_source=hs_email" target="_blank">Reuters</a>:</p><blockquote>ERCOT's disclosure of those firms behind on their bills "is perfectly fair game," said Patrick Woodson, chief executive of retail power marketer ATG Clean Energy, whose company is not on the list.</blockquote><blockquote>"I hope they will apply the same standards to identifying the market participants who made massive profits during this disaster," he said.</blockquote>
<p><strong>For a deeper dive:</strong><br/></p><p>ERCOT error: <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-03-04/texas-watchdog-says-power-grid-operator-made-16-billion-error?sref=oUjKJw8m&utm_campaign=Hot%20News&utm_medium=email&_hsmi=114297436&_hsenc=p2ANqtz-__ZWo08eT7siApBDxWei2SO5X_4Dbb9MyeahBGiA1uTHRahlo6Y5E7k-T5DJaedfDV3QcSnP8aVipwKh70KRa1_nSrOw&utm_content=114297436&utm_source=hs_email" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Bloomberg</a>, <a href="https://www.texastribune.org/2021/03/04/ercot-texas-electricity-16-billion/?utm_campaign=Hot%20News&utm_medium=email&_hsmi=114297436&_hsenc=p2ANqtz-__w5zt0pzYPmO_go8tZ7nEA4OGTsXFBml-wM3WhvJ9wjSqwV92P00lp4_5D3gOZO7CU225jBqzfbnMo1HFSGWr13AEgA&utm_content=114297436&utm_source=hs_email" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Texas Tribune</a>, <a href="https://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/541662-texas-grid-manager-responsible-for-16-billion-in-overcharges?utm_campaign=Hot%20News&utm_medium=email&_hsmi=114297436&_hsenc=p2ANqtz-8yKXE5XkR2-7RNz9Y4FQO3Q2-HY_t1oVSnpfONgz_krWqfdXLIWqvoDvn840cF1TetHY1Df7uyn45n8bNo8p_6mcRaLw&utm_content=114297436&utm_source=hs_email" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">The Hill</a>, <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/ad2e7ce9-b769-4d57-b6ce-fd1d9123f87c?utm_campaign=Hot%20News&utm_medium=email&_hsmi=114297436&_hsenc=p2ANqtz---dbnzMgh9HYQ_9x0xkSNr4FVnXJLnCForZfX5M7bRfSzCsHGrXNJhc63cxGbRzNckfQICmY9afb2n6fhvsvzzv50sNQ&utm_content=114297436&utm_source=hs_email" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">FT</a>, <a href="https://login.politicopro.com/?redirect=https%3A%2F%2Fsubscriber.politicopro.com%2Farticle%2F2021%2F03%2Fwatchdog-texas-grid-operator-overcharged-16b-during-power-crisis-3987400%3Futm_campaign%3DHot%2520News&utm_medium=email&_hsmi=114297436&_hsenc=p2ANqtz--z-oqFQ5PltKH46X7_AuHz-4u8es1sAhm87tDSuMgxyVQBeE1ndlCqEEOM2hNRo5hLZ4JZ70BoX_zSSq41B_wR3S9YQA&utm_content=114297436&utm_source=hs_email" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Politico Pro</a>; Power companies: <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/idUSKBN2AW027?utm_campaign=Hot%20News&utm_medium=email&_hsmi=114297436&_hsenc=p2ANqtz--Lf6GquilmyjzmWP5NDaiFS7vFlRay4xhT3Tw1eKfKJJCA2BM0YzrHomC529bhrsEjK0h14PTm5SoPTMfwGJu86hULEw&utm_content=114297436&utm_source=hs_email" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Reuters</a>; Wind industry: <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/wind-power-was-thriving-in-texas-then-came-the-freeze-11614871347?mod=hp_lista_pos1&utm_campaign=Hot%20News&utm_medium=email&_hsmi=114297436&_hsenc=p2ANqtz--tLVbIB7cfcGoyUN8pThG7TtEV_yIiAC7n0d1V-LSsPY5ZCG2aYflYXZtN9osYAYgvTqrf86zvsbDiTvuFo50UcY-ORg&utm_content=114297436&utm_source=hs_email" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Wall Street Journal</a>; Climate Signals background: <a href="https://www.climatesignals.org/node/10081?utm_campaign=Hot%20News&utm_medium=email&_hsmi=114297436&_hsenc=p2ANqtz-_74tp_PMuhwr-me_9SqzCg1KRZzvvq7WHb_MtcRJnihfJJcUKZBRBnAIUoY2dX0e5kd4PWXz-pBQe3UQUNq0av4ERH1Q&utm_content=114297436&utm_source=hs_email" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">February 2021 polar vortex breakdown and central U.S. winter storms</a></p><p><em>For more </em><a href="http://ecowatch.com/climate-change-news/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"><em>climate change</em></a><em> and </em><a href="http://ecowatch.com/business/renewables/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"><em>clean energy</em></a><em> news, you can follow Climate Nexus on </em><a href="https://twitter.com/ClimateNexus" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"><em>Twitter</em></a><em> and </em><a href="https://www.facebook.com/ClimateNexus/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"><em>Facebook</em></a><em>, sign up for daily </em><a href="https://www.linktrack.live/hot-news-sign-up" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"><em>Hot News</em></a><em>, and visit their news site, </em><a href="https://nexusmedianews.com/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"><em>Nexus Media News</em></a><em>.</em></p>From Your Site Articles
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About 931 million tons of food waste were generated across the world in 2019, but there are gaps in the data. Wachira Wacharapathom / Getty Images
By Thomas Gordon-Martin
According to a global food waste index released on Thursday, some 931 million tons of food waste were generated across the world in 2019. The report, published by the UN Environment Programme (UNEP), and UK charity WRAP, equates that to 17% of all food available to consumers.
<p>At 61%, the majority was created in households. The retail and food service sectors performed better, generating 13% and 26% respectively. </p><p>The index does not factor in food loss, which differs from <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/learningpack-foodwaste/a-49571717" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">food waste</a> in that it occurs during production, storage or processing and never reaches the consumer. </p><p>"If we want to get serious about tackling climate change, nature and biodiversity loss, and pollution and waste, businesses, governments and citizens around the world have to do their part to reduce food waste." UNEP Executive Director Inger Anderson said in a press release.</p><p><span></span>Six years after the UN agreed to the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), an ambitious set of targets addressing global inequality and climate change, the report focuses attention on halving per capita global food waste by 2030. With that deadline looming, the document's 2019 data underscores the scale of the challenge in a world that saw at least 690 million people affected by hunger in 2019. And that figure is predicted to rise in the wake of the <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/coronavirus-exacerbates-indias-hunger-problem/a-55299109" target="_blank">global pandemic</a>. </p>
<h2>Household Food Waste Is Not Just a Problem in High-Income Countries </h2><p>One key finding points to broadly similar quantities of household food waste — which includes inedible parts such as bones and peel — in high-, upper-middle- and lower-middle-income countries. The global average for lower-middle-income countries such as Pakistan and Vietnam was 91 kilograms (200 pounds) per person, as opposed to 76 kilograms in middle-income countries and 79 kilograms in high-income countries such as Ireland and the United States. </p><p>This breaks with the narrative that food waste is an issue in high-income countries while <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/kenyas-farmers-face-threat-of-new-locust-swarms/a-56599904" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">food loss</a> is more prevalent in lower income states.</p><p>Although the report is missing valuable data about habits in lower-middle-income countries, one possible explanation for higher levels of waste is that more food is cooked at home and therefore more inedible parts are discarded. </p><p>Musa Aamir, co-founder of the food waste charity Rizq in the Pakistani city of Lahore, told DW that the group doesn't operate a food collection service in lower-income neighborhoods because "the quantity of foods recovered from there is practically negligible." </p><p>"When I see the household food waste problem exist, it is inextricably tied to the income structure of the household," Aamir said. </p>
<h2>Data Gaps </h2><p>The report also exposes holes in global data. For example, there is little information from low-income countries or on retail and service waste outside high-income countries. </p><p>"It's a mixed picture," Tom Quested, lead analyst at WRAP, told DW. "Highlighting these data gaps provide(s) the framework for them to be filled," which "is a crucial step towards halving global food wastage by 2030."</p><p>Data gaps correlate closely with the level of national income, and areas with higher coverage include parts of Europe and North America. Data is thinner to nonexistent in lower-income regions such as Northern Africa and Central Asia. </p><p>"Measuring food waste is a relatively new endeavor," Clementine O'Connor from UNEP, co-author of the report told DW in an email, adding that since the problem was previously presented as a developed country issue, many countries lacked the incentive to invest in tracking. </p><p>"This report shows that food waste is a significant issue in nearly every country where it has been measured, and makes a strong financial, food security and environmental case for middle-income countries to begin taking action," O'Connor said. </p>
<h2>U.S. Data Shows Culture of Food Waste </h2><p>The report found that the United States generated some 59 kilograms of household food waste per capita in 2019. That is significantly lower than the global average of 74 kilograms. </p><p>The country's service sector wastage, however, was estimated at 64 kilograms per capita, which is much higher than the global average of 32 kilograms. The authors say this reflects U.S. habits of consuming more meals away from home.</p><p>These findings are supported by a U.S. Department of Agriculture <a href="https://www.ers.usda.gov/webdocs/publications/90228/eib-196_summary.pdf?v=7048.6" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">report</a> that said eating out had been gaining popularity since the 1980s. In 2010, the research found, spending on food away from home surpassed spending on food at home for the first time. </p>
<h2>What Can Be Done About Global Food Waste? </h2><p>To halve global <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/mealsaver-app-promises-to-cut-food-waste/a-38607944" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">food waste</a> by 2030, the index includes a three-tier guide to help countries measure waste on a national level. </p><p>"Approaches for tackling food waste will differ by country," Quested said. "Therefore, to ensure solutions are appropriate for a particular country, they need to be based on evidence relevant to that country."</p><p>The UNEP plans to collect national information every two years. This data will be published at regular intervals up to 2030 and made publicly available. The next results will be reported by February 2023. </p>
<p><em>Reposted with permission from </em><em><a href="https://www.dw.com/en/household-food-waste-unep-environment-climate/a-56768848" target="_blank">Deutsche Welle</a>.</em></p>From Your Site Articles
- 12 Creative Ways to Cut Down on Food Waste in Your Kitchen ... ›
- Can the U.S. Slash Food Waste in Half in the Next Ten Years ... ›
- 23 Organizations Eliminating Food Waste During COVID-19 ... ›
- Food Waste Set to Increase by 33 Percent Within 10 Years - EcoWatch ›
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Producing avocado and almond crops is having a detrimental effect on bees. Molly Aaker / Getty Images
At first glance, you wouldn't think avocados and almonds could harm bees; but a closer look at how these popular crops are produced reveals their potentially detrimental effect on pollinators.
<p>Turns out, bee labor is required to produce most avocados and almonds in the U.S. <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/honeybees" target="_self">Honeybees</a> pollinate most fruits and vegetables in the country, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/voraciously/wp/2018/10/17/sorry-vegans-if-you-dont-eat-honey-avocados-might-be-off-limits-too/" target="_blank">The Washington Post</a> reported. With native bee populations in sharp decline, there aren't enough of them to complete the job naturally or efficiently, The Post added.</p><p>Enter migratory beekeeping. Farmers truck beehives full of European honeybees across the country and into their fields so that the insects can pollinate crops during important fertile periods, The Post reported. Without this practice, farmers would lose about one-third of their crops, including broccoli, blueberries, cherries, apples, melons and lettuce, according to The Post.</p><p>The practice is so widespread that Tracy Reiman, a representative for <a href="https://www.peta.org/" target="_blank">PETA</a>, said, "Average shoppers can't avoid produce that involves migratory beekeeping, any more than they can avoid driving on asphalt," <a href="https://www.veganlifemag.com/vegan-myths-avocados-arent-vegan/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Vegan Life</a> reported.</p><p>In 2013, <a href="https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/migratory-beekeeping-mind-boggling-math/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Scientific American</a> estimated that California's booming almond industry used 31 to 80 billion migrant honeybees a year in order to achieve maximum pollination during almond trees' two-week bloom. California produces up to 80 percent of all the world's almonds, Scientific American noted, and could not achieve such scale without migratory beekeeping.</p>
<img lazy-loadable="true" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yNTcxNzQ3MC9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYzMzkxOTkzOX0.LmTRyoERRLJCuh-ARqeTObYSHcw5Qn8pDPCzjfM51vY/img.jpg?width=980" id="84667" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="884827362b36cf8a6cb07fd06c0d3a23" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" data-width="5489" data-height="3678" />
Migratory beekeeping involves trucking millions of bees across the U.S. to pollinate different crops, including avocados and almonds. Timothy Paule II / Pexels / CC0
<p>According to <a href="https://www.fromthegrapevine.com/israeli-kitchen/beekeeping-how-to-keep-bees" target="_blank">From the Grapevine</a>, American avocados also fully depend on bees' pollination to produce fruit, so farmers have turned to migratory beekeeping as well to fill the void left by wild populations.</p><p>U.S. farmers have become reliant upon the practice, but migratory beekeeping has been called exploitative and harmful to bees. <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2019/05/10/health/avocado-almond-vegan-partner/index.html" target="_blank">CNN</a> reported that commercial beekeeping may injure or kill bees and that transporting them to pollinate crops appears to negatively affect their health and lifespan. Because the honeybees are forced to gather pollen and nectar from a single, monoculture crop — the one they've been brought in to pollinate — they are deprived of their normal diet, which is more diverse and nourishing as it's comprised of a variety of pollens and nectars, Scientific American reported.</p><p>Scientific American added how getting shuttled from crop to crop and field to field across the country boomerangs the bees between feast and famine, especially once the blooms they were brought in to fertilize end.</p><p>Plus, the artificial mass influx of bees guarantees spreading viruses, mites and fungi between the insects as they collide in midair and crawl over each other in their hives, Scientific American reported. According to CNN, some researchers argue that this explains why so many bees die each winter, and even why entire hives suddenly die off in a phenomenon called colony collapse disorder.</p><p>Adding pesticides to the picture, bees don't stand a chance. Many countries still use <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/neonicotinoids" target="_self">neonicotinoid</a> pesticides (neonics), which are believed to kill bees. In Jan. 2021, the <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/bees-pesticide-uk-2649874911.html" target="_self">U.K. faced backlash after approving the emergency use</a> of the toxin on sugar beets, despite pledging not to increase its usage in the wake of Brexit. Although restricted, this family of pesticides is still the most widely used in the U.S., and <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/neonic-pesticides-food-supply-2650056933.html">scientists warn that neonics' continued prevalence</a> could be catastrophic for food supplies, honeybee populations and mass die-offs of native species. Neonics are a primary cause behind the massive honeybee and native bee losses each year, researchers and environmentalists argue.</p><p>In Columbia, mass bee deaths are being blamed directly on avocado farms, <a href="https://phys.org/news/2021-02-colombia-apiarists-avocado-bees.html#:~:text=It%20is%20used%20to%20control,from%20nearby%20passion%20fruit%20orchards." rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Phys.org</a> reported. Avocado exports from Columbia skyrocketed from 1.7 tons in 2014 to 44.5 tons in 2019, and in 2021, Colombia became Europe's largest avocado supplier, Phys.org added. This boom has resulted in the increased use of neonic insecticide fipronil. <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/europe-france-bees-pesticides-2648176911.html" target="_self">Banned in Europe</a> and restricted in the U.S. and China, fipronil is still used in Colombia to grow avocados and citrus for export. This has been bad for neighboring bees, which become contaminated as they buzz through pesticide-treated plantations looking for food.</p><p>"They bring this poison to the hive and kill everyone else," Abdon Salazar, a Columbian beekeeper, lamented to Phys.org after losing 800 hives and 80 million bees in the last two years.</p>
<img lazy-loadable="true" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yNTcxNzQ4OC9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYyMjg5OTQ2NH0.Oq4fBa6JIt8zh9l_2638GKbYaf8eJu6z8HxItBENV3c/img.jpg?width=980" id="10a24" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="e3a3fd25fe54760bf8a0f2c564c4dbf7" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" data-width="5616" data-height="3744" />
Avocado and almond crops depend on bees for proper pollination. FRANK MERIÑO / Pexels / CC0
<p>Salazar and other Columbian beekeepers described "scooping up piles of dead bees" year after year since the avocado and citrus booms began, according to Phys.org. Many have opted to salvage what partial colonies survive and move away from agricultural areas.</p><p>The future of pollinators and the crops they help create is uncertain. According to the United Nations, nearly half of insect pollinators, particularly bees and butterflies, risk global extinction, Phys.org reported. Their decline already has cascading consequences for the economy and beyond. Roughly 1.4 billion jobs and three-quarters of all crops around the world depend on bees and other pollinators for free fertilization services worth billions of dollars, Phys.org noted. Losing wild and native bees could <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/wild-bees-crop-shortage-2646849232.html" target="_self">trigger food security issues</a>.</p><p>Salazar, the beekeeper, warned Phys.org, "The bee is a bioindicator. If bees are dying, what other insects beneficial to the environment... are dying?"</p>
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