> On 30 Jun 2014, at 03:56, James Fischer  wrote:>Must we waste tax dollars to gather irrefutable proof of the obvious for the satisfaction of the willfully ignorant?<

Presumably not must but there is a case for government extravagance. 

There was an article in the UK press a week or so back that asked 'Will Politics or Technology save the Planet?' 

The article reviewed the fantastic achievements  of entrepreneurs like Gates and Jobs and how much their work has changed the lives of so many of us. But then looked at the limitations - dissemination could only be through market forces.

It then looked at the hugely wasteful government programmes such as the space race  and at the fall out from those - and concluded that wasteful though they were, the added expenditure had been vital in creating opportunities for the entrepreneurs to flourish.  So the article concluded that both government programmes and entrepreneurs were needed. 

An example of government intervention is the possibility of inducing or requiring farmers to plant insect friendly strips.  To be effective this has to be on a wide scale. How can anyone pooh-pooh it with out trial?  In principle it would amount to the government setting up a new nation-wide nature reserve, hiring land off farmers that, as has been said,  is often of poorer agricultural quality and paying them to manage it. The US long ago set the huge nature reserves such as Yellowstone - do beekeepers grumble at the cost of maintaining those just because it does not put extras dollars in their own pockets?   

In UK we already have farm stewardship schemes which include paying farmers to ring fields with a strip of pollen rich plants, using land impoverished by centuries of hedge growing.  Wildlife groups report a surge in wild bees and butterflies. 

The superior attitude to Obama's initiative by some on this list may therefore miss an opportunity both to encourage government expenditure on bees that could have benefits beyond the expected and also opportunities to participate and so reduce the waste by pushing the focus into the most likely profitable areas of experiment.  

The initiative should be about conserving all pollinators , indeed about the heritage of all insects and wildlife, so if beekeepers do not participate the emphasis could shift to wild bees.  

The list tends to concentrate on the interests of the large commercial beekeepers and not on the much larger number of hobbyists who maintain honeybees with the local mix of wildlife.  We are regularly reminded that the large outfits view bees only as something to exploit commercially, not as a part of a healthy balanced sustainable ecology. Perhaos it will be the hobbyists who benefit the most from Obama's initiative.  

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