Why people should care about bees, and beekeeping touches on many topics. But most importantly, the question is how do we present it in a way that is honest and understandable. A world that doesn't have room for pursuits such as beekeeping, gardening, family farms, etc. is a world many of us dread. 

While it is true that the human race could survive with people living in sterile cities and food raised on endless factory farms, beekeepers tend to view such a life as not worth living. So, what is the quality that makes the one world different from the other? 

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Many evolutionary biologists express concern about biodiversity loss and accent the relevance of their field to conservation initiatives. Does regular scientific progress necessarily lead to this espoused sustainability progress? The unquestioned assumption that any and all scientific knowledge -- and associated technology -- contributes to sustainability, however, derives from faith in the importance of objective knowledge for solving global problems. 

Scientists obtain power and become the priests of our era to the extent that they provide a special form of knowledge that can be used to do such wonderful things. And we often consider that the final test of scientific knowledge: we can do things with its results, such as applying it to reverse the decline of an endangered species. Regardless, we know now that the linear view of the relation between science and social outcomes is flawed. 

Science may allow us to do things, but we can assess its contribution to sustainability only by incorporating broader contextual and socio-ecological questions. We typically think of sustainability as doing something out there in the world, when in fact we may need to first reassess the way we are setting the problem. 

Larson, B. (2011). Metaphors for environmental sustainability: redefining our relationship with nature. Yale University Press.

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The bottom line is this: most of us here want to prevent the destruction of the natural world. Unfortunately, this desire hasn’t been sufficient to forestall the devastation of vast areas of wilderness, nor the extinction of some species. 

We have enlisted scientists to the cause and we have produced objectives like “biodiversity” and “sustainability” in place of the old primary values such as God, Nature, or the Great Spirit. 

But these are intrinsically the same: deeply held values which cannot actually be defined in any universally accepted way. Stand up for the values themselves, not their surrogates. We have to describe the kind of world we want, and defend that, not some nebulous idea like “biodiversity.”

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