Ian, well the bees are not being driven to extinction: there are
fewer beekeepers. Statistics depended upon beekeeping as a
hobby. Beekeeping has become less popular and with fewer people
counting the bees, there seems to be fewer bees.
I work in animal trapping and one of the things we deal with is
bees. There's no bee shortage but there is DEFINITELY a growing
shortage of beekeepers. We used to be able to "trap live bees"
because we'd just pass it on to a local beekeeper. But over the
past 12 years, fewer and fewer people bother with it; beekeepers
get old and die and their grandkids don't share the passion.
We have ONE GUY left that we can turn to. But he's old himself
and eventually we'll have to change our literature and no longer
be able to help people by removing bees nests live.
Mix in a story linked to the drug that caused birth defects that
were extremely scary and real (and I could've been a victim of
it myself, had I been carried a few months or a year earlier
than I was)... and mentally link it to _suspected_ pesticide
pollutants (DDT) that, as far as I know, ended up being
disproven.. but once the ball got rolling, its hard to stop an
idea from the public mind.... and toss in a few big name
chemical companies.... you get a spreadable meme.
Agent Orange was:
[1]
https://en.wikipedia.org/.../2,4,5-Trichlorophenoxyacetic...
and
[2]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2,4-Dichlorophenoxyacetic_acid
Thalidomide is not known to be a carcinogen, although they're
revisiting the possibility of a particular type of cancer, due
to growing concerns likely fed by grassroots media efforts. (my
opinion)
[3]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thalidomide#Carcinogenicity
References
Visible links
1.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2,4,5-Trichlorophenoxyacetic_acid
2.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2,4-Dichlorophenoxyacetic_acid
3.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thalidomide#Carcinogenicity
