We were trying to catch a queen bee which slipped into a local cafe on Sunday while we were enjoying cold drinks. Cup in hand and hoping for a quick rescue, we approached the bee carefully when it landed on the window behind a group of regulars. One of the men came to help with a napkin and we assumed he was going to attempt a brave catch and release. However, before we understood what was happening, he crushed this beautiful insect between his fingers not aware that he had just snuffed the life from the most important cross pollinators we have – a species which is now threatened with mass extinction.
We were crushed, too.
After years of working hard to increase public awareness about environmental issues, it was difficult to believe that some people still see this insect as a nuisance rather than a giver of life. When we kill one of these guys, especially a queen, we kill ourselves.
The human species is the only one which not only destroys its own home and but the very mechanisms which allow us to have food at all. If there was anything to be learned from this, it is that there is more educating to be done so that all people have a better understanding of our intricate relationship with nature and how our own lives are contingent on honouring that.
Last weekend was the second one that parks in the area were open to the public. With the nice weather, they were packed with huge recreational vehicles looking more like homes on wheels than camping accommodations. I learned that the parks are now in fact called recreational areas, not camp sites where users go to enjoy nature’s rehabilitative benefits. ATVs paraded Prelude roads kicking up dust and polluting the atmosphere with noise. And in the ditches outside the park, some dug new trenches in virgin territory destroying the ground and potential nesting areas for our birding community.
It is a handful of people negatively impacting the land this way and ruining it for those who delight in the sound of birds rather than machines. It is this lack of appreciation for nature’s gifts that manifest in people asking for plastic bags at the grocery store instead of bringing reusables. They have no idea of how that affects the world around them from a general failure to connect the dots. It is a sad commentary on our level of awareness that the federal government has to convince the public to ban single use plastics when it should be the public demanding the government do that. It is, after all, our own survival that depends on it.
We are so disconnected from the natural order that we find it easy to abuse the system that lets us live at all. We are headed for the sixth mass extinction – which we created. A recent analysis by Earth.org showed that more than 400 vertebrate species became extinct in the last century, extinctions that would have taken up to 10,000 years in the normal course of evolution.
Our lifestyle caused the floods in the southern part of the territory, droughts on the prairies, fires in Manitoba and now the New Brunswick shoreline is being washed into the ocean with each rain storm causing untold distress to those who live there. It will cost millions to repair the damage and no amount of financial compensation that can cover the cost of lost photographs and memorabilia. Yet it is nothing that nature is doing to us; it is only reacting to the way we live.
What can we do? We can refuse to use plastic or use it as a last resort only. We can say no to environmentally unfriendly infrastructure knowing that our short-terms gains will destroy us. We can walk carefully on virgin land leaving small human footprints rather than massive tire marks and we can photograph rather than cut down or kill. Finally, we can gently catch that bee and put her outside where she and her workers will get busy pollinating and making food for us. Acts such as these will save us; how we are living now will not.
We have become a disposable society and, in the process, the earth became disposable too.
We have been on this path of destruction for a very short time considering the planet’s long history – we have milliseconds to turn this sinking ship around. It can be done … but only if we start now.
Are we up for the challenge? Let’s hope so. Thanks for your actions.