Sherry Chandler

Indigenous

It was Rebecca who first pointed out to me that honeybees are not indigenous to North America. They’re European immigrants, just like most of us. (Well, maybe not most of us any more.)

Since learning that, I’ve been less inclined to tear up at poetic elegies to the honeybees, though having been raised with an uncle who was a beekeeper, I remain fond on honeybees. After all, they’ve been here since the 17th century and most people whose families have been here that long consider themselves “native.”

Still, we do have honest-injun native species of pollinators:

Pollinators comprise a diversity of wild creatures, from birds and bats to butterflies, moths, beetles, flies and even the odd land mammal or reptile. But �there�s no question that bees are the most important in most ecosystems,� says [Rachel] Winfree, who calls the insects �the 800-pound gorillas� of the pollinator world. Unlike social honeybees, imported to North America in the 1600s, the majority of the continent�s native bees are solitary, nesting in burrows on the ground or small holes in wood rather than building hives. Worldwide, there are some 20,000 bee species, 4,000 of them found in North America.

And they are essential:

Bees and other pollinators are essential to human survival. �Without them, you�d lose most of your plants, and ultimately everything else,� says Winfree. To produce seeds and reproduce, three-quarters of the world�s flowering plant species rely on animal pollinators. (The others use the less precise methods of wind or water to transfer pollen between male and female flower parts.) Animal-dependent plants include more than two-thirds of the world�s crop species, whose fruits and seeds provide more than 30 percent of the foods and beverages we consume. Scientists estimate that in the United States alone, native bees perform up to $3 billion worth of pollination services annually.

Natural ecosystems and their inhabitants also rely on pollinators. Many North American songbirds, for instance, feed on the fruits, seeds and berries of plants pollinated by animals. Pollinating insects themselves, especially their plump larvae, provide protein for adult songbirds and their fast-growing fledglings. Even the notoriously carnivorous grizzly bear depends more directly on pollinators than one might expect. According to wildlife ecologist Kimberly Winter, NWF�s habitat programs manager, in some places between 80 and 90 percent of the bear�s diet is made up of fruits, nuts, bulbs and roots of animal-pollinated plants. On an ecosystem level, �losing a pollinator can have a domino effect on countless other species,� she says.

The good news is that there currently exist enough native pollinators to keep us going. We see a lot of bee activity around our place. Many of them I’m glad to say are bumble bees.

The bad news is that these native pollinators are also in decline. The reasons are numerous — imported disease, pesticides, loss of habitat, global warming — and I refer you to Laura Tangley’s “The Buzz on Native Pollinators” for more information.

June 22-28 is National Pollinator Week.. Check around your area for activities. Meantime, the National Wildlife Federation has some suggestions for encouraging native pollinators in your area. These include:

• To provide pollinators with the best sources of food�and to prevent the spread of invasive species�choose as many plants native to your region as possible. For specific recommendations, consult the Pollinator Partnership�s free ecoregional planting guide for your area (www.pollinator.org); all you need is a zip code.
• Select plants that provide a lot of nectar and pollen. Many ornamentals have been specifically bred to produce little or none of these essential foods.
• Plant a diversity of species so your yard will provide bees, butterflies and other animals with nectar and pollen from spring through fall. To attract bats and nocturnal moths, consider night-blooming plants in addition to day-bloomers.
• Be a �messy� gardener: Leave some patches of unmulched soil and brush piles that bees, birds and other animals can use to construct nests. Consider building or purchasing a bee house for wood-nesting wasps and bees.
• During hot, dry periods, provide water in shallow birdbaths or pools where pollinators can easily alight. Some wasps and bees need mud to build their nests, and butterflies like to gather in muddy puddles.
• Do not use pesticides, and encourage your neighbors to reduce their reliance on these chemicals. According to Winter, more pesticides are used in urban areas today than in agricultural regions of the United States.

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  For more tips, check out these sites: www.nwf.org and www.xerces.org.

  bumblebees, Environmentalism 5 Comments

• Unbridled Destruction

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  Posted on May 18th, 2009sherryGreen issues

  For those of you who wonder about the altered license plate below that reads Kentucky Unbridled Destruction, take a look at this from Grist:

  As American citizens in Mingo County and other areas of the flood-stricken Kentucky and West Virginia coalfields continue to dig themselves out of the muck, indefatigable Charleston Gazette reporter Ken Ward is reporting on his Coal Tattoo blog that the EPA has �signed off on almost all (87.5 percent, to be exact) of the mountaintop removal permits that has so far been reviewed under the initiative announced in March.�

  . . .

  Have 42 out of 48 permits for mountaintop removal�the process of blowing up our nation�s oldest and most diverse mountains, razing historic communities, poisoning watersheds, and causing massive erosion and flooding, which Vice President Al Gore has termed �a crime, and ought to be treated as a crime��been cleared as �environmentally responsible� by the Obama administration�s EPA?

  Since President Barack Obama has taken office, an estimated 300 million pounds of ammonium nitrate/fuel oil explosives have been detonated across our American mountains.

  I like my cheap electricity. I remember, just barely, when there was no electricity in the country in Kentucky. Many members of my family have prospered as employes of the Rural Electric Co-ops and have been considered heroes for going out, as linemen, in sleet, snow, flood, to keep the power on.

  But my dears, this mountaintop removal is wrong!

  Link from Morning Porch.

  Environmentalism No Comments

• License plate billboards

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  Posted on May 17th, 2009sherryGreen issues

  

  I saw one of these plates the other day, on a big-ass SUV. Seemed appropriate. As black seemed the appropriate color.

  Guess we know where our government stands on this one. And possibly our people too:

  HAZARD � The coal industry in Kentucky has received a new billboard in the form of a license plate that was unveiled to the region last week.

  The black plate with white lettering and the words �Coal keeps the lights on� as well as the Friends of Coal logo has become a common sight on vehicles throughout Eastern Kentucky since they were first released in March, and they were unveiled to the region during a press conference in Hazard on Friday.

  The press conference was broadcast live on several different media outlets as a way to get the word out about the new plates.

  �This probably covered 20 plus counties. We wanted a lot of people to know,� Perry County Clerk and Coordinator of Coal Mining Our Future Haven King said. �This is one of the best advertisements we can have on a car whether it�s in Lexington, Louisville, Covington, Virginia Beach, Myrtle Beach, or Daytona Beach. I think is one of the best things we can have.�

  . . .

  Others who spoke, like Senator Tom Jensen from Laurel County and Lt. Gov. Daniel Mongiardo, also talked about the need for other forms of energy while pointing out that coal would be needed as well to sustain the nation�s growing population and energy demand.

  �People who are opposed to coal need to turn off their electricity because 95 percent of the electricity in our state is supplied by coal and coal miners and we appreciate that. It�s the cheapest energy we can get. I think you ought to look at hydro, wind, and solar, but you�re not going to replace coal,� Jensen said while Mongiardo pointed out that coal is a major contributor to the nation�s security.

  �It�s extremely important to understand that the number one obligation of our federal government is national security and the only way to have a higher degree of national security is to have a higher degree of energy independence and that means use everything that�s ours, everything that�s American, and coal is American,� he said.

  �We need to be looking at everything that will make us more energy independent because that will make us more secure in this country. That means wind, hydro, solar, and also the oil, gas, and coal,� Mongiardo continued.

  Of course, this is also a state where you can get a Choose Life license plate, so the idea of neutrality is one we honor in the breach.

  Mind you, I know this is far from a black and white issue, though the license plate might have one think otherwise. But the fact is that mountaintop removal coal “mining” doesn’t employ many miners. And it’s only cheap if you don’t count in the cost the total destruction of a unique natural habitat and the damage to our water supply.

  I just want to know where I can get my “Stop Mountaintop Removal” plate.

  Or for that matter, the one that says I Believe in the Right to Choose.

  __________
  Thanks for the link and the graphic go to Charlie Hughes.

  Environmentalism, King coal 6 Comments

• Endangered Species Day

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  Posted on May 15th, 2009sherryGreen issues

  It’s Endangered Species Day. Here are some things going on in Kentucky.

  Environmentalism No Comments

• Earth Day turns 39

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  Posted on April 22nd, 2009sherryGeneral, Green issues, Poets

  and it has a blog and a nifty ecological footprint calculator. I am currently using up four earths. What can I say? They didn’t bother to ask me about my thermostat.

  Here is a poem from Richard Taylor. I love this one, i may have posted it before:

  Sizing my Ecological Footprint

  Lime is how I paint myself, moderately
  geen, before unearthing a website
  that gauges my impact on the planet.

  Putting my best foot forward, I cite
  recycling sports pages by the bale,
  bandoleers of Bud Lites, scalloped

  plastic trays of microwave dinners.
  If my windows lack double panes,
  I compensate with thermowear,

  my furnace never topping a summit
  of sixty lean degrees. I gloat
  when data inform my office mate

  that if all of us imitated his sleek
  suburban life we would need
  a boost of 9.3 additional earths.

  Then I weigh in at 7.2, reminded
  of my faulty septic field,
  my clunker coughing up its oily spew,

  my children three, some guilty shares
  of Global Oil, lapsed Sierra dues—
  an ecological footprint not so deep as wide,

  like say, a tarred Nike with gripper treads,
  not hooves that mangle as they strut but blend
  in tainted paths with anyone’s, with yours.

  — Richard Taylor, from Braintree (Scienter Press, 2004)

  Check out Earth Days of the Bluegrass of ongoing Earth Month activities.

  Earth Day, Environmentalism, Kentucky poets, poetry, Richard Taylor No Comments

• Earth Days in the Bluegrass

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  Posted on April 14th, 2009sherryGeneral, Green issues

  Celebrate Earth Days in the Bluegrass 2009 every day this month.

  Kim Browning to speak on Fair Trade Chocolate: The Sweet Taste of Justice on April 15 (tax day).

  Earth Day, Environmentalism No Comments

• Windmills revisited

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  Posted on February 8th, 2009sherryGreen issues

  I said it wasn’t simple. Here’s the view from Pocahontas County:

  Here in West Virginia, we get a good close look at surface coal mines (Imagine calling something “mountain top removal” to improve public relations.), natural gas drilling, and under-inspected fly ash containment ponds, as well as the sort of rural poverty that causes communities to welcome these things for the jobs and money they bring in. I keep files of news clippings on these subjects, but I usually get too depressed by the issues to post them. There’s no energy without cost, and weighing those costs is a series of grim tradeoffs.

  Chris [Bolgiano] makes a case for community-scale, rather than industrial-scale, wind power, and I can agree wholeheartedly there. I hope someday to afford my own small windmill, along with some solar panels for our ridge top home. I’m sure most of my neighbors would desire these things too if they were not so pricey. Who wouldn’t want to save on electric bills? She’s also spot-on concerning the marginal nature of wind power on Appalachia’s high ridges–it wouldn’t be profitable to build unsubsidized wind farms here.

  Still, most natural resource extraction is government subsidized in some way. Chris observes Industrial wind power has a place, and T. Boone Pickens knows exactly where that is: On the plains, where winds are incessant. Other potentially low impact sites are mid-western crop fields, eastern strip mines, and off-shore waters, much closer to the coastal cities that need the power. Unfortunately, the people that live in those places don’t find the wind farms “low impact.” (Except perhaps on those strip mines where everyone has moved away because there is no more safe drinking water.)

  Rebecca includes a number of links to articles on this subject if you’re interested and want to follow up. As always, I suggest following the link and reading the original.

  Environmentalism, global warming, green economy, Mountaintop Removal, Wind Power 1 Comment