“Save the bees!” You’ve heard this call to action before, but what’s the buzz really about? Turns out, bees are incredibly important in nature and in human food production. According to an EarthDay.Org report, there are more than 20,000 distinct bee species worldwide. In the U.S., there are native bees (more than 4,000 species) and […]
By Andrea Germanos Environmental and food safety advocates highlighted Thursday the decline in iconic pollinators following new analyses released by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency showing three widely used neonicotinoid insecticides are “likely to adversely affect” the majority of the endangered plants and animals the agency assessed. “Now the EPA can’t ignore the fact that […]
Extreme heat waves have made this a devastating summer for the endangered salmon species of the U.S. West Coast. In mid July, California wildlife officials warned that almost all of the young Chinook salmon in the Sacramento River would likely die because of lower water levels and higher water temperatures. Weeks later, a conservation group […]
By John R. Platt It’s a dirty world out there — but it doesn’t have to be. That message rings out from a slate of important new books covering the fight against various pollutants around the world. They examine everything from pesticides to air pollution and from mining waste to the trash that accumulates all […]
By Jessica Corbett Public health experts and labor rights advocates celebrated Wednesday after the Biden administration announced that it “will stop the use of the pesticide chlorpyrifos on all food to better protect human health, particularly that of children and farmworkers,” following decades of demands for government intervention spurred by safety concerns. The Environmental Protection […]
By Kathleen Merrigan Organic food once was viewed as a niche category for health nuts and hippies, but today it’s a routine choice for millions of Americans. For years following passage of the Organic Foods Production Act of 1990, which established national organic standards, consumers had to seek out organic products at food co-ops and […]
Ornamental plant nurseries — with their high concentration of different flowers — are an important food source for pollinators. In fact, University of California (UC), Riverside entomologists Jacob Cecala and Erin E. Wilson Rankin counted more than 150 species of wild bees at nurseries in California alone. Despite this, very little research has been done […]
It is clear that the world’s pollinators are under threat. A 2019 study found that almost half of all insects have disappeared since 1970 and 41 percent of insect species are at risk of extinction. Further, one in six bee species have gone locally extinct in at least one area, as AFP pointed out. But […]
The hot, dry weather baking the U.S. West is causing another problem for the beleaguered region: an overabundance of grasshoppers. The crop-devouring insects are native to the region, and normally their population is too small to cause alarm, The Guardian explained. But warmer, drier winters beginning in 2020 created the ideal conditions for more of […]
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