Posted in Health & Environment, tagged adverse, agency, agriculture, anthropogenic, Apidae, approval, asthma, autism, autoimmune, babies, bathroom cleaners, Bayer, bee, beekeepers, biomagnification, biomarkers, biomonitoring, blame, Bloomberg, butterfly effect, buyer, cancer, carcinogen, care, chemistry, children, cleaners, coating, colonies, colony collapse disorder, commercial, companies, consequences, control act, cooking, cookware, cord blood, corporate interests, court, crops, death, decline, demand, die-off, disease, DNA, DuPont, effects, empower, empowerment, enlightened consumer, environmental, EPA, epidemic, epigenetics, famine, farming, fate, fertilize, food, food chain, fungus, future, genes, genetic code, GMO, grandchildren, groups, harm, harvest, have our backs, Health & Environment, hives, homologue, honeybees, hunger, illness, immune system, impact, industrial, ingredient, inherited, injunction, insect, institute, Internet, judge, lawmakers, learning disabilities, legislature, look in the mirror, lost headline, magnifier, market, marketplace, Media & Social Media, mice, mirror, mite, modern, modified, Movento, mutate, national, new year, New York, newborns, nonstick, numbers, nutrition, packaging, pans, parasite, pest, pesticides, PFOA, phase out, pocketbook, policy, pollen, pollinators, population, precautionary principle, profile, profitable, protection, public health, public interest, rationalize, reaction, reduction, reflection, regulators, represent, reproduction, research, retailers, risk, risk factor, ruling, safety, science, Scotchguard, self interest, serve, shopper, shrinking, sick, smart consumer, Spirotetramat, stain repellents, Stainmaster, stay, stewardship program, stock, stores, study, substances, take charge, Teflon, tipping point, toxic, traits, trigger, trouble, tumor, voting with our wallets, weeds, welfare, withdraw, working group, zero on January 6, 2010|
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Remember that story a few years back about the mysterious honeybee affliction known as Colony Collapse Disorder? It didn’t remain in the headlines for long but it should have: Honeybees pollinate up to 1/3 of the world’s crops. Lose them and we lose a great deal of human civilization to malnutrition.
I was reminded of this sad phenomena over the holidays when, from city to city, county to county, I kept stepping over dead and dying honeybees. Not just one, but several. Not merely one week, but several weeks in a row. Three years earlier — and what first brought CCD to my attention when I came online in search of an explanation — I took a walk in a local park and saw hundreds of bees dying on the ground. It was all I could do to keep my dog from stepping on them, a number of them still trying, fruitlessly so, to fly. A few weeks later at another park, I saw the same phenomena. The carnage became so commonplace that year that I eventually lost count.
Now here comes a late-breaking 2009 headline nearly lost amidst end-of-year festivities:
Bayer ‘Disappointed’ in Ruling on Chemical That May Harm Bees | Bloomberg.com
Bayer’s newest chemical wonder, Spirotetramat, was not on the market when CCD surfaced, but what is alarming about this story is that the EPA apparently approved it, critics allege, knowing that it could heighten or accelerate the harm to a critical link in the food chain.
Our food chain.
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Posted in Health & Environment, tagged affect, Ann Arbor, appearances, artificial, attendance, blessings, bonds, Bowling Alone, breakdown, caregiver, cave, challenges, charity, church, closing, club, commitment, commonalities, community, comparisons, competition, connectedness, consequences, cope, data, development, diagnosis, difficult, dignity, displaced, downsized, Easy Street, economic, effect, effort, employees, fear, friends, friendships, group, groups, hard times, hardship, hermit, how to, identity, illness, implications, individuals, involvement, isolation, Jennie E. Brand, job, job loss, job market, join, Joneses, keeping up, laid off, layoff, leave, livelihood, lives, lonely, long-term impact, longitudinal, Los Angeles, lose, loss, luck, meeting, membership, miss, model, needs, nonprofit, normalcy, notice, organization, outgroup, participation, personal, pride, prime of life, professional, PTA, reach out and touch someone, reciprocal, reconnect, recovery, reestablish, regain, regroup, rejection, religious, relocating, repercussions, researchers, respond, restructuring, retreat, safety net, service, sever, shorten, skills, social contract, Social Forces, social lives, social science, socialize, sociologists, spiritual, starting over, study, superficial, support group, team, tough people, tough times, trials, UCLA, unemployed, University of California, University of Michigan, US News and World Report, Wisconsin high school graduates, workforce, youth on July 24, 2009|
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Don’t be a stranger.
That’s the message of a 45-year-long study according to US News and World Report in “Job Loss Has Long-Term Impact on Social Lives“.
Once someone in the prime of life suffers a layoff or is otherwise displaced from the workforce, community connections — anything from a PTA meeting, charity involvement, sporting team or church attendance — are severed for good at least 35 percent of the time, study results show.
Perhaps this comes as a surprise. It shouldn’t. How many of us have grown distant from someone simply because they left our school, workplace, club or church?
And how many of us, by the same token, have isolated ourselves because we fear that others will judge us when the chips are down?
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