I finished the NYer article. I have a hard time with Elizabeth Kolbert. I haven't quite decided what I think about her. Her mission is to raise awareness about the dangers to our world, especially global warming. I think that is, overall, a very laudable goal.
She writes in an engaging and factual way -- also good.
What bothers me is that she seems to omit or marginalize the facts that indicate that maybe the sky isn't actually falling right this minute.
It's a long article, with a whole lot of scary stuff about CCD, and how it might be caused by certain new kinds of pesticides and other varied this-is-why-it's-happening-now explanations, and then she tosses off a parenthetical on the last page about how die-offs have happened 14 times in the last century.
That's kind of major. If bees have been able to come back from this 14 times, maybe they can come back from it a 15th time and this isn't so so so horrible...?? (And that has something to do with how far back records have been kept, not that the die-offs STARTED in 1900 or whatever...)
I get that she feels like people have to be whapped over the head to pay attention to the actual seriousness of some of these actual issues, but the whapping I see makes me somewhat skeptical of what she has to say, as a whole.
I meant to say: "I was thrilled to see just one solitary bee ...." Not what I actually said. 
