State of the Planet

News from the Columbia Climate School

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Buzz Kill

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Approximately 75% of crops benefit from insect pollinators, most of them wild. Recent studies indicate that bees are increasingly stressed by toxins, pathogens, and lack of food. Image credit: Dave Goulson (SCIENCE)
Recent studies indicate that bees are increasingly stressed by toxins, pathogens, and lack of food. Image: Dave Goulson (Science)

 

To feed our own species, we race,

Wild herbage, corn rows replace,

The Earth’s shrinking bower:

To insects, that flower

Is not just a beautiful face.

 

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Further reading:

Bee declines driven by combined stress from parasites, pesticides, and lack of flowers, Goulson et al. 2015 Science

This is one in a series of poems written by Katherine Allen, a researcher in geochemistry and paleoclimate at the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory and the Department of Marine and Coastal Sciences at Rutgers University.

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Columbia Climate School Giving Day on October 28, 2026, featuring students and renewable energy imagery

October 28, 2026 is Columbia Giving Day! Your gift to Columbia Climate School helps advance interdisciplinary research, educate the next generation of leaders, and transform bold ideas into real-world solutions for climate, Earth, and society.

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