That boundary between science and beekeeping is an area where this list has excelled over the years. A full range of views has often been expressed, issues are chewed over, revisited, and for those willing to listen their views have clarified and improved. Certainly mine have.
As far as pesticides go, this list has found a way through invective, propaganda and opinion so that those who wanted to listen now have a reasonably balanced view. For global warming, we're mostly still citing websites set up to promote a pro-oil industry view. Is it time to move on and consider the science properly rather than just snippets that suit one view? Like the pesticide issue, mainstream science doesn't have a tight consensus, but also like the pesticide issue scientific opinion is very much more in agreement than the impression given in the media including the internet.
For me, man-made global warming and other forms or anthropomorphic global change (acidification of the oceans, loss of biodiversity, globalisation of pests and diseases) are a given. Yes, global climate systems are complex, multifactorial, liable to show fluctuations on a variety of timescales, and the detail of all of that is controversial. However the extreme folly of continuing to pump a large amount of stored carbon into our planet's atmosphere just seems obvious.
I live in a small country which has pledged itself to a major shift the way it generates power, transports people and how its people live their lives. The Scottish Government's targets are to reduce (from 1990 levels) carbon emissions by 42% by 2020 and 80% by 2050. Impossible? Maybe, but they are trying and large sections of society and willing to support that. But what happens if other nations don't do something similar?
Now for the anecdotes: in the UK we're experiencing one of the mildest (perhaps the mildest) winter ever. There have been several such winters in the last decade and the odd cooler one, but this one is exceptional. That, with a late mild autumn, means that many of us are seeing the strongest early spring colonies in a long while. Some global warming here would improve beekeeping, but if it means more starvation, mass migration and various levels of unrest who'd want that?
best wishes
Gavin
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