
Mark Ruffalo spoke yesterday at Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania as part of a campus residency. He was awarded the 2015 Rose-Walters Prize for Environmental Activism by the college in May. He was on campus yesterday to "educate students on activism and the importance of water quality awareness," according to PennLive. Ruffalo, who describes himself as "an actor and accidental environmentalist," told the group of students that he was very troubled by the top Republican presidential candidates' stances on climate change.
When asked by a student how he felt about the fact that both Donald Trump and Ben Carson deny human-caused climate change, Ruffalo turned the question back to the students. "How do you guys feel about it?" he asked the group of students.
He then said, "You've had a whole political party turn their back on the science that 97 percent of the world has accepted." Ruffalo blamed the corrupting influence of money and industry lobbyists for the current state of American politics.
"It's a phenomenon unlike anything ever seen in American history," he said, then considered, "maybe slavery. Money blinds people. It's all about money."
"To see the top two candidates ignoring [the issue of climate change], I can see how it could be very discouraging," he concluded.
Ruffalo also spoke of "extreme energy," such as fracking and mountaintop removal, which he's worked tirelessly to stop. He called it an issue of "social justice," wherein those most economically and socially disadvantaged in our society are those most affected by the negative consequences of dirty energy extraction. "It's an attitude about exploitation and violence," he said. "There is a sort of cynicism that if we dump on these people, we can get away with it."
Ruffalo is founder of the non-profit Water Defense, a board member of Americans Against Fracking and a board member of The Solutions Project, an organization dedicated to transitioning to 100 percent renewable energy. Using research from professors at Stanford University, the organization has laid out a 50-state plan to power the U.S. entirely on renewables by 2050. Ruffalo has used his celebrity status to broadcast his message on popular shows such as the Daily Show with Jon Stewart.
"I'm an actor—what do I know?" he said. "But I can stand next to people so that their stories get heard. I would say that the most powerful narrative came from the people living in those places. Those stories catch people's attention."
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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.
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>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>EcoWatch Daily Newsletter
Australia is one of the most biodiverse countries in the world. It is home to more than 7% of all the world's plant and animal species, many of which are endemic. One such species, the Pharohylaeus lactiferus bee, was recently rediscovered after spending nearly 100 years out of sight from humans.
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