The most serious issue facing the world today is more far reaching than the financial crises and worse than war. It is the serious threat we pose to ourselves through over-population and pollution of our environment.
The end days of the oil industry are brought into stark reality by the risk taken and inability to repair an oil well off the coast of America that threatens all sea life in the Gulf of Mexico. Rampant capitalism and growth entail mistakes and this one is huge. Failure to build into the cost of oil the risk it presents when drilling for it offshore results in “unexpected disaster”.
The entire problem of messing with nature without taking adequate measures to protect the environment are illustrated in this catastrophe. It brings the viability of the entire oil industry with its wars and pollution, also un-costed, into question.
Possibly more severe is the mysterious disappearance of honey bees. Why are they abandoning their hives? Instead of coming up with answers, there seems to be a hope the problem is temporary and will resolve itself, but it is not. It is getting more severe with each passing year and it threatens the crops of the world. Our trusted little friends who pollenate flowers are dying and it is being caused by something we have not noticed?
The “most likely” theory is some disease or parasite is at work, but logic indicates that it is just as likely that we are to blame. If for example, it is our genetic modification of crops causing the bees to stop recognising them, and they therefore simply end up starving themselves as they can no longer gather the right ingredients or are unable to produce enough royal jelly to make queens, then they would die externally to the hive. In fact the genetic modification of plant may be messing with the bees ability to navigate home as ancient reliable signals now appear like a colour blindness test with flashing lights.
Suddenly their life cycle, interrupted, no longer works. Our failure since 2006 to properly establish what is causing this may cause the most horrible food crisis in much of the world, and is therefore a horror far worse than oil wars or even marine pollution.
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