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Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology

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Subject:
From:
"Peter L. Borst" <[log in to unmask]>
Reply To:
Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology <[log in to unmask]>
Date:
Sat, 22 Dec 2007 10:46:30 -0500
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Sustainability -- of course it's a loaded term, just like truth, love
and justice. I mean, who or what is sustained? I understand that it's
easy and logical to start with yourself, your business, and move on to
your community. I mean, if your own community is a disaster, will you
go somewhere else? And yet, hasn't this been the trend of mankind --
spoil the land and move on, to "new worlds", if need be? Only now, we
have pretty much gotten to be everywhere, so one can't really spoil
things without haven't the consequences come back at you.

It's very sticky to talk about sustaining my business and my town,
because it all starts to sound like looking out for me and to hell
with the rest of you. The keystone of the search for sustainability is
inclusiveness. It wants to sustain people, of course, but as much of
the rest of creation as possible. We know we have displaced and
annihilated countless communities and species as a consequence of
turning the planet into one big factory farm. And, most of us realize
we can't just stop, cold turkey.

So the challenge for this century is how to steer spaceship earth on a
course away from global disaster and toward a vision of health. One
can argue endlessly about how much we should consume, how much we need
to be happy, or to just get by. But the one real objective value that
we can discuss right now is health. When people are dying at age 40,
there is something wrong. When the water is full of germs and
chemicals, when the air is filthy, when the bees fly off and don't
come back, something is wrong.

By agreeing that health -- our own, our community's, our planet's --
is the goal we seek, we can set aside a lot of our differences.
Differences of economic expectations, politics, religion, etc. I
propose that a planet populated by lots of healthy plants and animals
is a better scenario than one in which we have to hole up in isolated
communities afraid that every truck that comes down the highway might
be carrying tainted food, exotic pests or people from other countries.

If global health is achievable, we should work for it. If a healthy
bee industry is possible, then that must be the goal of progressive
beekeepers. If we have healthy bees, everyone benefits. You may be
able to avoid other people's problems for a while but eventually we
will all have to join together as a world community, and work for the
common good. I just don't think the motive of saving my own skin and
to the hell with the rest is sustainable.


-- 
Peter L. Borst
Danby, NY  USA
42.35, -76.50

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