VC Star
August 17th, 2024
National Honeybee Day on Saturday has a lesson for Monday’s upcoming National Aviation Day.
Considering the way certain types of bee populations have recovered while others are in decline may provide insight into solutions for environmental issues such as the problem of greenhouse gas pollution from air travel.
The flight patterns of the two topics intersect when you buy a plane ticket. Some airlines provide a box you can voluntarily check to be charged extra for “carbon offset.” If you consider checking that box, or directly purchasing from a company such as Terrapass, where offsetting credits are generated through projects including methane capture and forestry, consider the lesson of the bees.
Of the 4,000 bee species in North America, one in four is at risk of extinction, according to the nonprofit Bee Conservancy. However, as Washington State University apiary and laboratory manager Professor Brandon Hopkins told me in an email, honeybee populations are now stable, thanks mostly to measures taken by the West Coast almond industry, which needs honeybees for crop pollination.
Rick Kushman, a spokesperson for the Almond Board of California, cited Hopkins’ research and said, “The reason the almond industry has propped up the bee population so much is because the bee population is so important to the almonds, and almond blossom nutrition is important to the bees as well.”
Kushman added: “You gotta have beekeepers, or else you don’t get bees,” acknowledging both the workers and insects essential to the industry. In California, 7,600 almond growers and 99 processors fund his organization through a 3 cents-per-pound charge levied under the supervision of the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
In other words, to produce California’s biggest crop export by weight, at 2.7 billion pounds shipped from the state last year, almond growers overcame a variety of challenges faced by bees, primarily by working with beekeepers who have been starting new hives faster than environmental challenges could kill the insects.
In Ventura County, avocado growers employ many of those same beekeepers, but the big hitters in the bee business’ funding lineup are the almond growers, whose trees start blooming in February. As the growing season progresses, trucks haul a convoy of bee hives northward with many stops.
Of course, the future of bees is not assured just by boosting birth rates over death rates for species selected to survive under the care of human keepers.
“There are lots of other pollinators in the orchards, and out of concern not just for crops, but also just for sustainability, we care about those too,” said Kushman, pointing out that 86% of farms certified “bee friendly” by the nonprofit Pollinator Partnership are almond farms in California. The Almond Board matches growers to beekeepers, promotes use of bee-friendly cover crops and organizes programs such as BeeWhere, which notifies pesticide applicators of nearby hives to avoid.
Replicating the partial success of bee population recovery in other environmental issues may require a convergence of environmental and economic interests similar to the almond growers and the bees. Buying carbon offsets when taking a trip by plane creates that convergence by funding ventures that would not otherwise be viable.
However, whether buying carbon offsets or simply reducing methane as a greenhouse gas by preventing food discards from going into a landfill, people must be motivated.
Almond growers were motivated by bee population decline. The economic threat to their industry was obvious, the cost to stop the decline was relatively low and the community of almond growers was well organized.
In contrast, climate change is a more distant threat and consequences of inaction are less clear. In addition, though it may cost less than $10 to offset the high atmosphere carbon impact of a short flight, the global cost to meet the goals of the Paris Agreement could be $13.5 trillion, according to the International Energy Agency.
Perhaps the bees can remind us of our obligations to the planet and our opportunity to make a
difference.
Eco-tip: Bee and Aviation days cross environmental flight paths (vcstar.com)
