Global Warning – Sunset Observer #28, by Whitney Farmer – Un Pop Culture | @MDWorld

March 14, 2014 Whitney Farmer 8 Comments

Last week, I was driving towards the stoplight by IKEA that would let me turn onto the 405 Northbound and return home. As I came near to the intersection, I saw what appeared to be a swirl of leaves and debris from what we used to call dust devils when I was a kid. Our eyes used to follow these mini tornados into the sky as our parents would drive us across deserts or dry farmland during road trips.

I slowed as I drove the car into the turn lane and brought the car to a stop. Then I realized that I had driven into – not a dust devil – but into a swarm of bees.

I recovered from a fear of bees a couple of years ago when I started gardening again. We would work side-by-side and they paid no attention to me. But I’ve never grown tired of looking at them. They have so much work to do, and fewer of their migrant teammates to come alongside them because of the rise of colony collapse syndrome. In some areas of China, pear trees have to be pollinated by humans with feathers in order to have any fruit harvest. Why a pear doesn’t cost $100.00USD because of this shows me that somewhere someone is taking a loss in the hopes that something will change for the better in the future. When is hoping for a better future hopeless?

But at that stoplight by IKEA, my compassion for bees and any living creature that stood in the way wasn’t what kept me from plowing my car out of danger. Rather, I realized that I could make things worse by running over little bee bodies. The pheromones would drive them mad. Also, if I wrecked the car trying to escape, the windows might get cracked and they might be able to get to me.

So, I decided to think like a bee.

I thought that the vibration from the running engine and anything else might make them curious because this is how they talk with each other. So I put the car in park and turned it off. Next, I turned off the stereo which I probably was playing too loud anyway, a habit of mine during sunny days which here is all of the time. Then I thought of where a bee might be able to get in and get me if completely determined. Windows up. Air conditioning off. Vents closed. Possibly not all necessary actions, but it calmed me to have something to do.

Then, I had nothing left to do but wait. And watch. As my heart beat slower, I realized that I was safe in the eye of a storm. Around me was a swirl of small souls with stingers, but I was able to watch them at close range with glass protecting both sides of the altercation. Something had happened to them that had angered or frightened or confused them. They were responding the only way that they knew. If needed, they would die as they protected each other. I saw them crawl on the various bits of the car, trying to sting the hood or themselves in the rear view mirror. Nothing retaliated against them, and after a time they didn’t seem to have an appetite for destruction. The velocity of their flights seemed to decrease and become more tranquil. They began to just walk around on the window. Then they rose together like a cloud, and flew away. And then the light changed. I started the car and merged onto the freeway.

There were a couple of bee attacks in Southern California in the last week. I hope my bees weren’t to blame. One woman had over 1,000 stingers in her. Not much feels right about the land right now.  Our drought still has teeth. When you wake up to sunny days that would somewhere else be called ‘beautiful’ and lift the spirits, here they are called ‘dry’ and remind us that we live in what would be a desert if not for unstopping efforts to control the environment. Our efforts have displayed more an awareness of entitlement rather than a sense of stewardship. And it is only a matter of time…

Once upon a time, some jerk brought some bees from Africa to South America in order to make more money from more honey. But the bees didn’t want to work in the humid heat. They wanted to fight and fly. Now they are here and our faint hope is that they will be less adversarial the longer they stay and mate with the locals.

Anthropologist Margaret Mead was once asked what was the first evidence of civilization that she had discovered. She didn’t say art or tools. Dr. Mead said that it was the presence of a healed femur bone in an excavated gravesite. Before this time, a broken thighbone was a death sentence. For it to heal meant that someone had shown compassion over enough time for the broken bone to knit together. The wounded one had been cared for by another. This is civilization.

Russia has swarmed into Crimea. Like killer bees, perhaps the best solution would be to leave them alone. Eventually, they will be making honey with the locals, and helping heal wounds. And like Jacques Cousteau’s proposed solution to the Cold War, the children of rulers will be raised by their enemies, making war inconceivable because of family ties.

But I don’t think Putin is done. There are other temperate lands to explore and subjugate.

And we watch the storm from behind the glass. What should we do when the light turns green?

Quote of the Blog, from Vladimir Putin: “My English is very bad.”

NEXT TIME: Roadtrip…?

Image: Map of the Crimean Region, drawn – frantically – by Mary Frances Farmer during a news report when she was struck anew with the truth that the world had again changed, and that she needed to be reoriented.