By Jim Roth, Director and Chair of the Firm’s Clean Energy Practice Group. This column was originally published in The Journal Record on April 9, 2018.
Jim Roth is a Director and Chair of the firm’s Clean Energy Practice.
Roth: The latest buzzzz on pollinators
Nothing says, “April Fool’s” like a high of 40 degrees the day after it was 72. It was a rather timely coincidence since by last column featured the difficult work of climatologists in determining just what the crazy weather might do next. It isn’t just humans that the changing weather affects; climate change impacts bees and butterflies, crops, streams and lakes, bird migration, and ultimately, entire ecosystems.
The monarchs are just getting to Oklahoma on their 2,000-plus mile spring journey. These amazing insects take cues from the environment and cannot survive a long, cold winter, so climate change is especially harmful for them. If you are looking for a way to attract them to your yard, they rely on milkweed as their sole host plant. Of course, reducing or eliminating your use of pesticides and herbicides is important, too.
Honey bees have gotten more attention in the past decade or more, as does anything we are at risk of losing. While there are many possible reasons for this phenomenon called Colony Collapse Disorder, the fact is, we lost 10 million beehives between 2007 to 2013, which is twice as many as normal. Thanks to awareness and action, great efforts are in place to save these pollinators, whose work our very food web relies upon.
Losing bees and butterflies has economic impacts on the agricultural industry since many crops, worldwide, are pollinated by Western honey bees. Around one-third of the food we consume relies upon pollinators like butterflies and bees. Dramatic weather can lower the quantity and quality of crops in an area due to drought, heat waves, and heavy rainfall. Oklahoma is an agriculture state so we know firsthand how distressing and unproductive a drought followed by a gully-washer can be.
So what can we do? We can focus on what we know and stay tuned to what scientists continue to discover. We know that climate change’s effect on agriculture is felt the strongest in the world’s poorest countries, so we can support efforts to teach these populations farming techniques that support a more stable food supply.
We know pesticides can be especially devastating to water sources, with the algal blooms in Lake Erie as one disturbing example; so we can cease or minimize our use of pesticides and herbicides, or use natural versions. We can opt for native grasses, flowers, and plants, which will both help our pollinators and require less water to survive. We can purchase local food from our co-ops and farms. There are tons of great resources online to learn more about each of these fascinating topics.
For us Oklahomans interested in helping, please check out a great resource provided by the Tulsa Zoo and the Kerr Center for Sustainable Agriculture, in Poteau, Oklahoma, and their “Native Plants for Native Pollinators in Oklahoma” guide.
Jim Roth, a former Oklahoma corporation commissioner, is an attorney with Phillips Murrah P.C. in Oklahoma City, where his practice focuses on clean, green energy for Oklahoma.