Tragedy of the Commons: Bees and Neonics
Pause for a second to envision the environment without bees. It would be a lot less pleasant than the one you currently know. For starters, you would likely starve. Bees provide the majority of pollination assistance that nurtures agriculture. However, the bee population is diminishing due to multiple factors, yet the primary factor is a class of insecticide chemicals acknowledged as neonicotinoids or neonics. The neonic pesticide is beneficial for various farmers because their crops remained shielded and unharmed from "sap-sucking" and "leaf-chewing" insects ("What Farmers Need to Know About Neonicotinoid Pesticides", 1). However, neonics have acute, harmful effects to bees when initially applied and they can also persist in the environment for years, causing long-term chronic damage as well (Ellis et al, 2017).
In fact, neonics is sprayed around the seeds of the plants and is essentially practiced on corn and soybean crops. The pesticide is able to be preserved in the environment for an extended duration and leach into subsurface soil water which can affect neighboring plants. As the farmers are spraying the pesticide, it can drift and corrupt unintended land mass. Once the plants take in the …show more content…
In a Target parking lot in Oregon, over 50,000 bees were found dead due to the neonic pesticides being sprayed on nearby trees. This tragedy of the commons is compromising the future and posterity of the bees, and this decline is from human-induced behavior. In an attempt to alleviate any use of the deadly neonic pesticide, the EPA has created a plan to warn potential buyers and retailers from purchasing and selling any pesticide/insecticides that could cause harm to the bee population. The EPA has created bee-protective pesticide labels to put on all pesticides that contain
Pause for a second to envision the environment without bees. It would be a lot less pleasant than the one you currently know. For starters, you would likely starve. Bees provide the majority of pollination assistance that nurtures agriculture. However, the bee population is diminishing due to multiple factors, yet the primary factor is a class of insecticide chemicals acknowledged as neonicotinoids or neonics. The neonic pesticide is beneficial for various farmers because their crops remained shielded and unharmed from "sap-sucking" and "leaf-chewing" insects ("What Farmers Need to Know About Neonicotinoid Pesticides", 1). However, neonics have acute, harmful effects to bees when initially applied and they can also persist in the environment for years, causing long-term chronic damage as well (Ellis et al, 2017).
In fact, neonics is sprayed around the seeds of the plants and is essentially practiced on corn and soybean crops. The pesticide is able to be preserved in the environment for an extended duration and leach into subsurface soil water which can affect neighboring plants. As the farmers are spraying the pesticide, it can drift and corrupt unintended land mass. Once the plants take in the …show more content…
In a Target parking lot in Oregon, over 50,000 bees were found dead due to the neonic pesticides being sprayed on nearby trees. This tragedy of the commons is compromising the future and posterity of the bees, and this decline is from human-induced behavior. In an attempt to alleviate any use of the deadly neonic pesticide, the EPA has created a plan to warn potential buyers and retailers from purchasing and selling any pesticide/insecticides that could cause harm to the bee population. The EPA has created bee-protective pesticide labels to put on all pesticides that contain