Killer Cell Phones: Why Honeybees Are Dying Worldwide

 “What would happen if honeybees became extinct? … Honeybees play a critical role in the world's food chain: they pollinate 75 percent of all the crops consumed by humans, many of which are also consumed by animals. Thus the extinction of honeybees would precipitate a global food crisis of almost unthinkable proportions… Human survival is dependent on the survival of honeybees.”

Justin Soutar, the author of “Killer Cell Phones: Why Honeybees Are Dying Worldwide” (published on opednews.com 4 October 2011 - following is a shortened version) discusses the suspected causes of the unprecedented global honeybee die-off:  pests, predators, disease, pesticide sprays, climate change, and mobile phones.  He concludes that mobile phones play an important role in the death of bees.

“In the last ten years the world's use of cell phones has exploded dramatically, and an ever-growing global network of cell phone transmitter towers established to meet this demand now continuously fills much of the Earth's air with a thick invisible web of electromagnetic radiation.  Moreover, the negative effects of this artificial radiation on living organisms are already well known and documented by scientists. (Take, for example, the well-established link between increased cell phone use and increased rates of human brain cancer.) Furthermore, the steepest declines in honeybee populations have been observed in the United States and Europe--where cell phone use is greater than anywhere else in the world.

“Nothing matches the worldwide decline in honeybee population like the worldwide increase in cell phone transmissions during the same time frame. Thus, it is reasonable to draw a link between the two and theorize that the former is the main cause of the latter.

“In a study conducted last year (2010), researchers at Panjab University in Chandigarh, India fitted cell phones to a beehive and activated them twice a day for 15 minutes each. Within three months, honey production had ceased, the queen laid half as many eggs, and the hive population had fallen significantly. (See "Study links bee decline to cell phones," at http://articles.cnn.com/2010-06-30/world/bee.decline.mobile.phones_1_bee-populations-cell-phone-radiation-ofcom?_s=PM:WORLD)

“The modern handheld cell phone is a staple of globalized twenty-first century life… Who ever thought this nifty little multi-purpose gadget would pose a threat to the environment?

“It's unfortunate, but true: Within just the last ten years, the increasingly widespread and heavy global use of cell phones has placed the world's honeybee population at risk. We are literally buzzing the bees out of existence. Meanwhile, the global pace of construction of new cell phone towers continues unabated, and worldwide cell phone transmissions continue increasing by the day, filling the Earth's atmosphere with more and more artificial radio waves. If this trend continues into the next few years, we can expect further drastic reductions in the global honeybee population.

“Given the enormity of the stakes involved, it is imperative that we take decisive measures soon to protect the endangered honeybees… Here are a few ideas:

1) Spread the word. Tell everyone you know about what you've learned in this article. The more people who know about it, the better.

2) Use your cell phone less. Keep it turned off most of the time if you can.

3) Buy land phones, which don't emit harmful radio waves, for your home and office, and use your cell phone for calls only when away from those places.

4) At the local level, cities, counties and states could pass ordinances and laws preventing the construction of additional cell phone towers in certain.

5) Since honeybees continue to flourish in areas without cell phone service, it would make common sense for the governments of individual countries (especially in the United States and Europe) to review their existing communications policies and enact stricter nationwide regulations for cell phone transmissions.

6) Since more than 9 in 10 Americans now own cell phones, permanent nationwide moratorium on the construction of new cell phone towers should be seriously considered.

7) Our federal government could build on the model of the National Radio Quiet Zone, a 13,000-square-mile area straddling the Virginia-West Virginia border that was set aside in 1958 to protect the National Radio Astronomy Observatory from unwanted manmade radio interference. Within this zone, artificial radio transmissions, including cell phone services, are limited but not entirely eliminated. Similar protected zones could be established in America's sprawling, thinly-populated agricultural regions (such as in the middle states and parts of California) where cell phone services are less in demand and where honeybees are especially needed to pollinate the crops that feed much of the world.

"Such efforts to curtail cell phone transmissions, for the good of honeybees and for our own good, will likely be met with powerful opposition from the big cell phone companies. These huge businesses make a killing on cell phones, netting hundreds of billions of dollars annually, so their multibillionaire kings will not take kindly the least threat to the continued expansion of their global empire. They don't really care what happens to the bees (or to us) as long as they can keep their annual profits swelling. Thus they'll conveniently deny any connection between cell phone use and declining bee rates (just as they denied that there was any connection between cell phone use and brain cancer). But such opposition shouldn't discourage us--because denying an inconvenient truth doesn't make it go away."