Beepocalypse

[sabotabby]

There's something poetic about the beepocalypse*; it won't be a nuclear holocaust that does us in, or even global-warming-related flooding, but a sudden absence of bees.**



Caused by, of course, that quintessential sign of social decay, the cell phone.

This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a ring-tone.***

* © king_felix
** Do you think that I can get anyone to form a band with me called A Sudden Absence of Bees? No, I don't think so either. No one likes my band names.
*** © Tumbleweed

Comments

[mistersmearcase.livejournal.com]

Wait, what do cell phones have to do with it?

I am down with your band names. I had an imaginary band for a while called Bad Breast. It was a psychoanalytic joke, deeply hilarious.

TRADEMARK! COPYRIGHT! PATENT PENDING!!!

[nom-de-grr.livejournal.com]

It must be made absolutely clear that king_felix is borrowing the term "beepocalypse" from our IRL conversations, and anytime he uses it, he owes me a cool million.

[flummoxicated.livejournal.com]

Won't someone please think of the bees?

I like your band name!

[cpxbrex.livejournal.com]

I actually doubt it's cell phones. First, the guy, Jochen Kuhn, who is proposing that as a hypothesis has been smack talking cell phones for 15 years. This career is basically trying to prove that cell phones will destroy the world, which doesn't seem the most honest place to do science from -- I'm very hinky about presuppositionalism in his claims.

Also, where they winter bee hives isn't precisely cell phone central. Plus, so far, and this has been as true in Europe as America, past a certain latitude, colonies have not been undergoing CCD. So, colonies collapsing in America, but so far Canadian beens seem to resist this. You see the same thing in Europe. In Poland and Germany, you see some CCD, but none in Scandinavian countries.

My guess is that the poor bees are just overtired and quite sick. In the US, pretty much every bee in America comes to around 400,000 acres in California to pollinate almond trees. This gives any one bee colony that might be fucked up the opportunity to spread whatever it's gotten to every other bee in America. This is true to a lesser extent in bee colonies in every country, but it's worst in the US because of the economy of almond production in particular. (Tho' I also suspect it's caused by a number of things. All of this travel also means, for instance, that every pesticide in the USA ends up in every bee in America.)

But I seriously doubt that cell phone towers have more than a tangential role to play, because the destruction of colonies seems unconnected to the concentration of cell phone signals and because the researcher who is heading the research is emotionally involved with proving cell phones hurt people.

[5-miles.livejournal.com]

Lately I have been thinking about raising bees, maybe there is no point.

That article fills me with terror. I am going to go post it in my journal.

[chailash.livejournal.com]

I've heard about this. It frightens me. I am going to start becoming a hermit and hide in the cellar of my house in France while the world ends.

At least I will be drunk while it happens.

[apperception.livejournal.com]

I wanna call my band "Municipal Pool"

[springheel-jack.livejournal.com]

Heh. It's awesome! It's not true, but it's awesome.

[sadie-sabot.livejournal.com]

cell phones or no, something is killing the bees, and it's terrifying. i want to know what i can do for the bees, seriously. I can't keep bees, but maybe I cna grow some special bee friendly plant?

we are just so fucked.

[woe-cruel-world.livejournal.com]

didn't Einstien say we'd have like 4 years left on earth after all the bees died?

the bulldog picture is really convincing :-S

[emak-bakia.livejournal.com]

No one likes my band names, either. If we can make a combination of A Sudden Absence of Bees and Kronstadt Flunky, then I'll form a band with you.