It all started with peak oil, the point when the maximum rate of extraction is reached, after which production begins to decline By Gwynne Dyer PEAK OIL is so last year. Now we can worry about peak everything: peak food, peak soil, peak fertiliser, even peak bees. Let’s start small. We depend on bees to pollinate plants that account for about one-third of the world’s food supply, but since 2006 bee colonies in the United States have been dying off at an unprecedented rate. More recently the same “colony collapse disorder” has appeared in China, Egypt and Japan. Many suspect that the main cause is a widely used type of pesticides called neonicotinoids, but the evidence is not yet conclusive. The fact remains that one-third of the American bee population has disappeared in the past decade. If the losses spread and deepen, we may face serious food shortages. Then […]