Today, I want to talk about the birds and the bees. Probably not what you’re thinking. Rather, I’m talking about those animals with feathers and wings, most of whom can fly. And also those insects which are important in pollination and the production of fruits and vegetables.

The question is where have all the birds gone and where have all the bees gone?

In the last 100 years, 13 species of birds in the United States have become extinct. In less than 50 years, some States such as New Mexico, Utah and Arizona have lost almost half their bird populations.

In the last 10 years, yearly losses of 30 to 90% of all bee colonies have collapsed

This book, Silent Spring, written by Rachal Carson in 1962 is considered one of the most important books of the 20^th century. It led to the establishment by President Richard Nixon of the Environmental Protection Agency.

It was, if you will, like the canary in the coal mine. When miners went deep underground, they took a canary in a cage with them. If the canary died, it was time for the miners to return to the surface

The primary cause of the loss of so many birds was indiscriminate use of pesticides, especially dicholoro-diphenyl-trichlorol ethane, DDT.

(BTW, if you take my Latin class, you’ll be able to pronounce that too).

DDT has been banned in the US since 1972 and world-wide since 2004. It can only be used in the eradication of malaria, although mosquitoes have become increasing immune from DDT.

Far more toxic is the production of dioxins, the most deadly chemical used by humans. It is often called Agent Orange. It is an herbicide that kills weeds, bushes, trees and eventually people. It was used extensively in Southeast Asia, and after nearly 50 years, continues to kill fish and other animals and generations of birth defects. It is still used in certain areas, even in the U.S.

This is not an economic issue, although the top ten chemical companies in the world net an annual profit of over 40 billion dollars. It is not a political issue, although it has been made into one, It is not even a scientific issue, the science is clear.

It is a moral issue. It goes all the way back to the Book of Genesis when God gave humanity the care of the earth. As a species, we have not been good custodians of the planet.

We are living through the sixth largest extinction of life since life began. Humans could wipe out between one-third and one-half of all the species on the planet within this century. This is one of the most serious pro-life issues facing the human race.

The Church has come to this issue rather slowly. Both Pope St. John-Paul and Emeritus Pope Benedict have written about the moral responsibility of restoring and protecting the environment.

But Pope Francis is about to issue a major letter- called an encyclical-which will be the first time in history the Church, will make environmental protection a major moral teaching.

He has already said that “a Christian who does not protect creation… is a Christian who does not care about the work of God.”

Awareness of the seriousness of this issue continues to grow. Here in Idaho, the World Center for Birds of Prey, established in 1984, helps to conserve endangered raptors around the world. And the center is already famous for having saved the peregrine falcon from extinction.

It will require continued efforts to clean up the mess we have made of the earth. To give one example of many, there is the infamous story of the Cuyahoga River that flows through Cleveland, Ohio. Over the 100 years before 1969, the river would spontaneously catch on fire over 13 times. There were no fish in the river. Finally, in 1969, again under President Nixon, the Clean Water Act was signed into law in June of that year. The river hasn’t caught on fire since and the fish have returned.

There are over 7 billion people on this planet. Without clean water to drink, without clean air to breathe, without sustainable earth to cultivate, millions will die, but not before massive famine and its evil twin, war, will become the greatest tragedy in our lifetime.

This is the legacy given to you students and the survival of your children and their children. In a word, the survival of the human race.

God gave us this creation to care for. We need to bring back the birds. We need to bring back the bees. Humanity cannot survive without the birds and the bees.

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