In my policy/engineering studies class we have been discussing environmental policy. For class on Thursday Professor Nicodemus asked that we watch two short TED talks about environmental issues. The first video was about Colony Collapse Disorder and the other was about the destruction of the Earth’s oceans.

Both videos were extremely fascinating but the video “A Plea for Bees” brought up some points that specifically related to this class. (Check out the link here: http://www.ted.com/talks/dennis_vanengelsdorp_a_plea_for_bees ) The presenter, Dennis vanEngelsdorp, talked a lot about CCD. It is extremely expensive to reproduce these colonies year after year but if this continues to happen our pollinators will be no longer. I think that it is often forgotten how important bees are. Bees pollinate the plants that produce many of our foods and they keep ecosystems thriving by pollinating different plant species. Though they are small and have an annoying sting– bees are extremely valuable.

vanEngelsdorp also discussed Nature Deficit Disorder in this TED talk. He mentions how humans are falling out of touch with nature and are forgetting our connection to it. In Nature Wars Sterna talks about NDD as well (202). He says on page 186: “At the same time, they have distanced themselves from the landscape they inhabit and traverse, and in doing so they have come to treat and mistreat the environment and its natural inhabitants in mindless ways, either unintentionally or with the best of intentions”. In our modern society we no longer have to deal with nature day to day and instead just manage it rather than interact with it. We let nature be an escape rather than a reality of our lives. So although it is great to get away from our problems and “get out into nature” is this only worsening the separation between us and nature? If we aren’t incorporating nature into our daily lives then we are only separating ourselves from it even more.

In the TED talk vanEngelsdorp suggests that to get back to nature we become beekeepers. Beekeeping will not only teach us about bees and pollinating but it will also benefit the bee populations that are fighting CCD. He also suggests that instead of having lawns we have meadows. Meadows will benefit both the bee populations and fight NDD. Having meadows for lawns would help cure us of NDD as real nature would be in our own front and backyards. As we know lawns are so useless and are really just a cultural practice and serve very little purpose. Despite this, one classmate in policy mentioned that her town fines residents if their grass grows past a certain length. With rules like this we are only sinking ourselves deeper into the Nature Deficit Disorder hole that we’ve created. There is no pill to cure our NDD so I say lets start working on those lawn meadows.