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TechnoratiWhy Flowers Have Lost Their Scent
Pollution is dulling the scent of flowers and impeding some of the most basic processes of nature, disrupting insect life and imperilling food supplies, a new study suggests.
The potentially hugely significant research - funded by the blue-chip US National Science Foundation - has found that gases mainly formed from the emissions of car exhausts prevent flowers from attracting bees and other insects in order to pollinate them. And the scientists who have conducted the study fear that insects' ability to repel enemies and attract mates may also be impeded.
The researchers - at the University of Virginia - say that pollution is dramatically cutting the distance travelled by the scent of flowers. Professor Jose Fuentes, who led the study, said: "Scent molecules produced by flowers in a less polluted environment could travel for roughly 1,000 to 1,200 metres. But today they may travel only 200 to 300 metres. This makes it increasingly difficult for bees and other insects to locate the flowers."
The researchers - who worked on the scent given off by snapdragons - found that the molecules are volatile, and quickly bond with pollutants such as ozone and nitrate radicals, mainly formed from vehicle emissions. This chemically alters the molecules so that they no longer smell like flowers. A vicious cycle is therefore set up where insects struggle to get enough food and the plants do not get pollinated enough to proliferate.
Already bees - which pollinate most of the world's crops - are in unprecedented decline in Britain and across much of the globe. At least a quarter of America's 2.5 million honey bee colonies have been mysteriously wiped out by colony collapse disorder (CCD), where hives are found suddenly deserted.
The crisis has now spread to Europe. Politicians insist that CCD has not yet been found in Britain, but the insects have been declining here too, and the agriculture minister Lord Rooker has warned that "the honey bee population could be wiped out in 10 years".
The researchers do not believe that they have found the cause of CCD, but say that pollution is making life more difficult for bees and other insects in many ways."
© 2008 The Independent
31 Comments so far
Show AllPeaceman.
Thanks for all the good information and keep driven safely.
Jim Glover: Glad you liked it. They have some good stuff on that site. Give my regards to your friend, Mike Reilly. I do admire these kinds of people.
A footnote on scrubbers or smokestacks. I'm a truck driver, Jim, and the new Volvo tractors from Sweden have some kind of apparatus on them that burns the exhaust so thoroughly, according to the mechanic, that you can breath the exhaust from the smokestack and it wouldn't bother you. Why don't American truck manufacturers build the same kind of truck?
I haven't had a chance to view the Al Gore video yet. I agree. We don't need new coal or nuclear plants. If our top scientists and engineers worked on non-polluting, renewable resource power plants and energy systems instead of working for the death and destruction industry, aka the military-industrial complex, the world would follow and this planet might just survive.
Jamers April 20th, 2008 10:55 pm
All the old frigg'in farts with there hyped up diesel pickups just to haul a skinny old crabby man and a garantutan wife and of course a barky stupid ass miniture asshole dawg!
Don't think it's just Arkansas!
I hate to generalize but; this is the profile of the people here most resistant to change. BUT! Not Always.
Peaceman, thanks for the link to treehuggers.
I found Al Gores new video there at http://www.treehugger.com/files/2008/04/al-gore-slide-show-new-thinking-on-climate-crisis-addicted-to-...
Also a good friend of mine, Mike Reilly, is working like crazy developing a huge swamp wetland on the land of a Coal plant in North Carolina where the cattails that he cleans and plants hundreds of thousands of them are used to clean the effluent smoke of the plant..
He has to go back and replant most and put up a netting over the wetland because the wild geese ate the last batch he planted...He lives in Sarasota and travels up there for the Job and has a crew up there to help.
He says a new law means that all the coal plants are goin to have to scrub their smoke now.
We still need to quit burning coal and building new Coal and Nuclear Plants also.
In spite of sandyk77's snippy comment I enjoy reading the comments. They make me laugh, give me ideas, I always appreciate the shared links, and most of all, the comradeship of fellow travelers.
I believe that more and more people are waking up to the fact that we are in trouble. I understand that most Americans are more worried about their jobs and the economy right now, but I think that pretty soon the environment will get their attention. I always have hope.
kathyodat
To all of you: I want to share a wonderful eco-friendly website with ideas, solutions and products with you.
www.treehugger.com
sandyk77: Good for you! Way to go! I'll eat organically grown greens with bug holes any day of the week (or pieces of tree-ripened fruit pecked by our feathered friends) before I consume pesticide laden produce that only looks good but has less nutritional value.
So glad to hear about the honey bee comeback.
Anita Linker: Let's keep singing that song hoping others will catch on. The masses are up against the most powerful propaganda machine the world has ever seen. Monopolistic capitalism is insatiable and will crush everything in its way unless we citizens around the globe unite and put an end to it. Nothing is sacred to them...but the root of evil. They rather "de-flower" the land for a profit than to live in harmony with it.
Man is like an irritating flea on the Earth's back. She will shake us off eventually if we keep biting.
We own a house in the country and we stopped using pesticides 4 years ago.
Amazing things happened!
We now have more good bugs and our bad bug problem has become almost non existent. We have plenty of Praying Mantis and no infestation of Japanese beetles. We decided it is better to share with nature (yes we have some bug holes in our leaves) and compared to posioning our environment AND US I can share with the bugs and to hell with Monsanto & Dow Chemical!
Oh, and our honey bees are making a comeback now that we don't poison their environment!
This article cries out for a chorus of:
Where have all the flowers gone
Long time passing
Where have all the flowers gone
Long time ago
Where have all the flowers gone
Pollution ruined them, every one
Oh when will we ever learn
Oh when will we ever learn
Ya know, I just left HuffPo to read some more intelligent comments and found that no one here is any smarter, they just use bigger words.
The real problem with America is we're the most stupid people on the planet but we just know we are better than the rest of the good folk in this world.
Yeah, but what about the "methane burps" that are going to kill us all?
truenorth wrote: "I think this tunnel vision - ignoring the gestalt in pursuit of an isolated benefit - is at the root of our failure to continually improve our overall global condition."
I completely agree. Gregory Bateson used to call this process "conscious purpose," that type of intelligence we so often hold up as the crowning achievement of humanity. If we want D, we do A, B, and C, and get D. Then we are happy we got what we wanted and stop thinking about the fact the A, B, and C have their own effects, and that everything is connected in a complex interdependence.
For years it has been clear that even with my best intentions, pretty much anything I do will have negative consequences along these lines. So my approach has been to do as little as possible. Less driving, less consumption, less heating, less mucking with the natural world to try to make it fit some culturally-sanctioned idea of how things should be. It is a very un-American approach, and seems to indicate a profound lack of ambition to my friends. And I know it is practically meaningless in the big scheme of things with 6+ billion people on the planet. Maybe in the end, we are no more intelligent than yeast, multiplying until all resources are exhausted and living in waste products. We're certainly headed in that direction.
The real tragedy is that we are taking so many other innocent forms of life with us by destroying the environment we share with them.
My wife and I were taking a walk by the oceanfront today, and came across an EARTHDAY celebration....a electric band was playing from a generator, they were on the flatbed of a massive transport truck, and surrounded by hundreds of SUV's of everyone who DROVE the couple of blocks to participate....I think the organizors kind of missed the whole point of the excersize.
All the old frigg'in farts with there hyped up diesel pickups just to haul a skinny old crabby man and a garantutan wife and of course a barky stupid ass miniture asshole dawg!
That,z who I am blaming and of course corporate GREED,Wall World ,China ,Bush and any one from Arkanas!
That'z my story and I'm sticking to it like Honey on Toast......where has all the Honey gone long time passing .Oh,when will they ever learn,when will they ever learn?
All the old frigg'in farts with there hyped up diesel pickups just to all a skinny old crabby man and a garantutan wife and of course a barky stupid ass miniture asshole dawg!
That,z who I am blaming and of course corporate GREED,Wall World ,China ,Bush and any one from Arkanas!
That'z my story and I'm sticking to it like Honey on Toast......where has all the Honey gone long time passing .Oh,when will they ever learn,when will they ever learn?
If we would devote 25% of what we do on the military-petroleum complez, I know the human element, called love and genuis would go a long way to solving many planetary problems, bu alas the moneyed few have all corrupted themselves and the rest with "Making Money",,so small farms sustainable Ag, transport, electricity, and living together on this "The only living water planet" is past being a part of reality, to bad, cancel the party, the gig is over, we are in the last days, no doubt, what do the Mayans say, May 12, 2012,,,seems about right, The Dept of Defense has even said, things are looking tough, resource wise, so arm to the teeth??? some preparedness, is draining the economy, as well as this dumbass war/for more of the same, oil
Wilmoor, your comment brought back memories of growing up with a honeysuckle vine lining almost one full side of our back yard fence. It was always covered with bees (as was the clover mixed in with our lawn. I used to like to pick the flowers and pull their stems out back wards to taste the nectar. Sweet memories of youth!
I have a large honeysuckle vine on the side trellis of my patio; a good sized gardenia bush on my patio, and a yard full of sweet alyssum. With dogs on either side of me, I needed all the help I could get. Apparently the scent of my sweet-smelling, and very profuse-blooming plants reach the neighbors, but sitting only a couple of feet between the vine and the bush, I wasn't smelling them at all. I had to stick my nose almost on the flowers to smell them. I thought they'd lost their smell. Then discovered I was the one who'd lost it.
Strange that the content of the article does not address the claim in the title. The content does not say that flowers have lost their scent, only that scent does not travel as far before being bound to the increased number of other particles.
In fact ornamental flowers, at least, are also losing their fragrance.
Some years ago i planted Nicotania, and after noticing the clouds of perfume they pumped out at dusk, thought about planting a flower garden that would present changing "scent scapes" throughout the day and evening. When i asked the gardener to help me pick the most strongly scented flowers and to explain when and under what conditions they released fragrance i was told that flowers don't have much scent anymore as they are not bred for that but only for size and colour.
I think this tunnel vision - ignoring the gestalt in pursuit of an isolated benefit - is at the root of our failure to continually improve our overall global condition.
peace
Bush did it.
There can be no successful defiance of Natural Laws.
All we can do is live as natural a life as possible in the present system. My food is wrapped in packaging and cans. Until I walk to a local food co-op and bring my own packaging to carry away things in bulk, I am part of the problem, and so are you.
Overcoming laziness is key.
Earth's eviction notice to humans is in the mail. Those who suspect this are determined to do as much damage as possible before the sheriff shows up.
If humans are destroyed by birds and the bees and the flowers and the trees, it would show Nature has a sense of irony.
So where are Monsteranto's Frankenbugs or perhaps the Pentagrams Nanobots to buzz about impregnating the lilys of the field?
How long before the sci-fi thriller "Soylent Green" becomes reality?
DON'T READ THIS ARTICLE! MAN IS BETTER THAN GOD! WE NEED GM FLOWERS NOW! just kidding....heeheeheehee
flowers have lost their scent because humans have lost all sense of priorities.
Headline of the future: Monsanto hires troops of human "bees" to pollinate GMOs.
Time to wake up and smell the roses?
My friend Galen, I'm afraid that the planet is in charge now and shutting down humans seems more likely.....
Yet more CLEAR EVIDENCE that it is time to shut down this obscene parody of life that we call Western 'Civilization'.