Environmental full-cost accounting

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_full-cost_accounting 

Environmental full-cost accounting (EFCA) is a method of cost accounting that traces direct costs and allocates indirect costs by collecting and presenting information about the possible environmental, social and economical costs and benefits or advantages – in short, about the "triple bottom line" – for each proposed alternative. It is also known as true-cost accounting (TCA), but, as definitions for "true" and "full" are inherently subjective, experts consider both terms problematical.

Since costs and advantages are usually considered in terms of environmental, economic and social impacts, full or true cost efforts are collectively called the "triple bottom line". Many standards now exist in this area including Ecological Footprint, eco-labels, and the United Nations International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives approach to triple bottom line using the ecoBudget metric. The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) has several accredited standards useful in FCA or TCA including for greenhouse gases, the ISO 26000 series for corporate social responsibility coming in 2010, and the ISO 19011 standard for audits including all these.

Because of this evolution of terminology in the public sector use especially, the term full-cost accounting is now more commonly used in management accounting, e.g. infrastructure management and finance. Use of the terms FCA or TCA usually indicate relatively conservative extensions of current management practices, and incremental improvements to GAAP to deal with waste output or resource input.

These have the advantage of avoiding the more contentious questions of social cost.

Concepts

Full-cost accounting embodies several key concepts that distinguish it from standard accounting techniques. The following list highlights the basic tenets of FCA.

Accounting for:

1. Costs rather than outlays (see explanation below);
2. Hidden costs and externalities;
3. Overhead and indirect costs;
4. Past and future outlays;
5. Costs according to lifecycle of the product.

Costs rather than outlays

Expenditure of cash to acquire or use a resource. A cost is the cash value of the resource as it is used. For example, an outlay is made when a vehicle is purchased, but the cost of the vehicle is incurred over its active life (e.g., ten years). The cost of the vehicle must be allocated over a period of time because every year of its use contributes to the depreciation of the vehicle's value.

Hidden costs

The value of goods and services is reflected as a cost even if no cash outlay is involved. One community might receive a grant from a state, for example, to purchase equipment. This equipment has value, even though the community did not pay for it in cash. The equipment, therefore, should be valued in an FCA analysis.

Government subsidies in the energy and food production industries keep true costs low through artificially cheap product pricing. This price manipulation encourages unsustainable practices and further hides negative externalities endemic to fossil fuel production and modern mechanized agriculture.

Overhead and indirect costs

FCA accounts for all overhead and indirect costs, including those that are shared with other public agencies. Overhead and indirect costs might include legal services, administrative support, data processing, billing, and purchasing. Environmental costs as indirect costs include the full range of costs throughout the life-cycle of a product (Life cycle assessment), some of which even do not show up in the firm's bottom line.  It also contains fixed overhead, fixed administration expense etc.

Past and future outlays

Past and future cash outlays often do not appear on annual budgets under cash accounting systems. Past (or upfront) costs are initial investments necessary to implement services such as the acquisition of vehicles, equipment, or facilities. Future (or back-end) outlays are costs incurred to complete operations such as facility closure and postclosure care, equipment retirement, and post-employment health and retirement benefits.

Examples

Waste management

The State of Florida uses the term full-cost accounting for its solid waste management. In this instance, FCA is a systematic approach for identifying, summing, and reporting the actual costs of solid waste management. It takes into account past and future outlays, overhead (oversight and support services) costs, and operating costs.

Integrated solid waste management systems consist of a variety of municipal solid waste (MSW) activities and paths. Activities are the building blocks of the system, which may include waste collection, operation of transfer stations, transport to waste management facilities, waste processing and disposal, and sale of byproducts. Paths are the directions that MSW follows in the course of integrated solid waste management (i.e., the point of generation through processing and ultimate disposition) and include recycling, composting, waste-to-energy, and landfill disposal. The cost of some activities is shared between paths. Understanding the costs of MSW activities is often necessary for compiling the costs of the entire solid waste system, and helps municipalities evaluate whether to provide a service itself or contract out for it. However, in considering changes that affect how much MSW ends up being recycled, composted, converted to energy, or landfilled, the analyst should focus the costs of the different paths. Understanding the full costs of each MSW path is an essential first step in discussing whether to shift the flows of MSW one way another.

Benefits

Identify the costs of MSW management

When municipalities handle MSW services through general tax funds, the costs of MSW management can get lost among other expenditures. With FCA, managers can have more control over MSW costs because they know what the costs are.

See through the peaks and valleys in MSW cash expenditures

Using techniques such as depreciation and amortization, FCA produces a more accurate picture of the costs of MSW programs, without the distortions that can result from focusing solely on a given year's cash expenditures.

Explain MSW costs to citizens more clearly

FCA helps you collect and compile the information needed to explain to citizens what solid waste management actually costs. Although some people might think that solid waste management is free (because they are not billed specifically for MSW services), others might overestimate its cost. FCA can result in "bottom line" numbers that speak directly to residents. In addition, public officials can use FCA results to respond to specific public concerns.

Adopt a business-like approach to MSW management

By focusing attention on costs, FCA fosters a more businesslike approach to MSW management. Consumers of goods and services increasingly expect value, which means an appropriate balance between quality and cost of service. FCA can help identify opportunities for streamlining services, eliminating inefficiencies, and facilitating cost-saving efforts through informed planning and decision-making.

Develop a stronger position in negotiating with vendors

When considering privatization of MSW services, solid waste managers can use FCA to learn what it costs (or would cost) to do the work. As a result, FCA better positions public agencies for negotiations and decision-making. FCA also can help communities with publicly run operations determine whether their costs are competitive with the private sector.

Evaluate the appropriate mix of MSW services

FCA gives managers the ability to evaluate the cost of each element of their solid waste system, such as recycling, composting, waste-to-energy, and landfilling. FCA can help managers avoid common mistakes in thinking about solid waste management, notably the error of treating avoided costs as revenues.

Fine-tune MSW programs

As more communities use FCA and report the results, managers might be able to "benchmark" their operations to similar communities or norms. This comparison can suggest options for "re-engineering" current operations. Furthermore, when cities, counties, and towns know what it costs to manage MSW independently, they can better identify any savings that might come from working together.

Food and Agriculture

Over the last ten years there has been considerable attention for Full Cost Accounting (FCA) or True Cost Accounting (TCA) in the field of food and agriculture. In 2013 and 2016, the Sustainable Food Trust organised two conferences on True Cost Accounting in food and farming, in the UK and the USA respectively. The FAO published two studies in 2014 and 2015 with a TCA-analysis of the impact of food wastage ("Food wastage footprint: full cost accounting") and another TCA-analysis of the total impact of world food production on Natural Capital ("Natural Capital Impacts in Agriculture"). In the first report, the FAO comes to the conclusion that the yearly hidden impact of food wastage on Natural Capital amounts to USD 700 billion while the hidden impact on social capital amounts to USD 900 billion dollars. In the second report, the FAO estimates the environmental damage of the world food production at USD 2330 billion per year.

Motives for adoption

Various motives for adoption of FCA/TCA have been identified. The most significant of which tend to involve anticipating market or regulatory problems associated with ignoring the comprehensive outcome of the whole process or event accounted for. In green economics, this is the major concern and basis for critiques of such measures as GDP. The public sector has tended to move more towards longer term measures to avoid accusations of political favoritism towards specific solutions that seem to make financial or economic sense in the short term, but not longer term.

Corporate decision makers sometimes call on FCA/TCA measures to decide whether to initiate recalls, practice voluntary product stewardship (a form of recall at the end of a product's useful life). This can be motivated as a hedge against future liabilities arising from those who are negatively affected by the waste a product becomes. Advanced theories of FCA, such as Natural Step, focus firmly on these. According to Ray Anderson, who instituted a form of FCA/TCA at Interface Carpet, used it to rule out decisions that increase Ecological Footprint and focus the company more clearly on a sustainable marketing strategy.

The urban ecology and industrial ecology approaches inherently advocate FCA — treating the built environment as a sort of ecosystem to minimize its own wastes.

Eco-costs

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eco-costs 

Eco-costs are the costs of the environmental burden of a product on the basis of prevention of that burden. They are the costs which should be made to reduce the environmental pollution and materials depletion in our world to a level which is in line with the carrying capacity of our earth.

For example: for each 1000 kg CO₂ emission, one should invest €116,- in offshore windmill parks (plus in the other CO₂ reduction systems at that price or less). When this is done consequently, the total CO₂ emissions in the world will be reduced by 65% compared to the emissions in 2008. As a result, global warming will stabilise. In short: "the eco-costs of 1000kg CO₂ are € 116,-".

Fig 1: Calculation structure of the eco-costs 2017

Similar calculations can be made on the environmental burden of acidification, eutrophication, summer smog, fine dust, eco-toxicity, and the use of metals, rare earths, fossil fuels, water and land (nature). As such, the eco-costs are 'external costs', since they are not yet integrated in the real life costs of current production chains (Life Cycle Costs). The eco-costs should be regarded as hidden obligations.

The eco-costs of a product are the sum of all eco-costs of emissions and use of resources during the life cycle "from cradle to cradle". The widely accepted method to make such a calculation is called life cycle assessment (LCA), which is basically a mass and energy balance, defined in the ISO 14040, and the ISO 14044 (for the building industry the EN 15804).

The practical use of eco-costs is to compare the sustainability of several product types with the same functionality. The advantage of eco-costs is that they are expressed in a standardized monetary value (€) which appears to be easily understood 'by instinct'. Also the calculation is transparent and relatively easy, compared to damage based models which have the disadvantage of extremely complex calculations with subjective weighting of the various aspects contributing to the overall environmental burden.

The system of eco-costs is part of the bigger model of the ecocosts/value ratio, EVR.

Background information

Fig 2: Eco-costs are based on marginal prevention costs at the no-effect-level (the costs in euro/kg of the technical measure) .

The eco-costs system has been introduced in 1999 on conferences, and published in 2000-2004 in the International Journal of LCA, and in the Journal of Cleaner Production. In 2007 the system has been updated, and published in 2010. The next updates were in 2012 and 2017. It is planned to update the system every 5 years to incorporate the latest developments in science.

The concept of eco-costs has been made operational with general databases of the Delft University of Technology, and is described at www.ecocostsvalue.com.

The method of the eco-costs is based on the sum of the marginal prevention costs (end of pipe as well as system integrated) for toxic emissions related to human health as well as ecosystems, emissions that cause global warming, and resource depletion (metals, rare earths, fossil fuels, water, and land-use). For a visual display of the system see Figure 1.

Marginal prevention costs of toxic emissions are derived from the so-called prevention curve as depicted in Figure 2. The basic idea behind such a curve is that a country (or a group of countries, such as the European Union), must take prevention measures to reduce toxic emissions (more than one measure is required to reach the target). From the point of view of the economy, the cheapest measures (in terms of euro/kg) are taken first. At a certain point at the curve, the reduction of the emissions is sufficient to bring the concentration of the pollution below the so-called no-effect-level. The no-effect-level of CO
2 emissions is the level that the emissions and the natural absorption of the earth are in equilibrium again at a maximum temperature rise of 2 degrees C. The no-effect-level of a toxic emission is the level where the concentration in nature is well below the toxicity threshold (most natural toxic substances have a toxicity threshold, below which they might even have a beneficial effect), or below the natural background level. For human toxicity the 'no-observed-adverse-effect level' is used. The eco-costs are the marginal prevention costs of the last measure of the prevention curve to reach the no-effect-level. See the abovementioned references 4 and 8 for a full description of the calculation method (note that in the calculation 'classes' of emissions with the same 'midpoint' are combined, as explained below).

The classical way to calculate a 'single indicator' in LCA is based on the damage of the emissions. Pollutants are grouped in 'classes', multiplied by a 'characterisation' factor to account for their relative importance within a class, and totalised to the level of their 'midpoint' effect (global warming, acidification, nutrification, etc.). The classical problem is then to determine the relative importance of each midpoint effect. In damage based systems this is done by 'normalisation' (= comparison with the pollution in a country or a region) and 'weighting' (= giving each midpoint a weight, to take the relative importance into account) by an expert panel.

The calculation of the eco-costs is based on classification and characterisation tables as well (combining tables from IPCC, the USEtox model (usetox.org), and tables of the ILCD, however has a different approach to the normalisation and weighting steps. Normalisation is done by calculating the marginal prevention costs for a region (i.e. the European Union), as described above. The weighting step is not required in the eco-costs system, since the total result is the sum of the eco-costs of all midpoints. The advantage of such a calculation is that the marginal prevention costs are related to the cost of the most expensive Best Available Technology which is needed to meet the target, and the corresponding level of Tradable Emission Rights which is required in future. From a business point of view, the eco-costs are the costs of non-compliance with future governmental regulations. Example from the past: NOx emissions of Volkswagen diesel.

The eco-costs have been calculated for the situation in the European Union. It is expected that the situation in some states in the US, like California and Pennsylvania, give similar results. It might be argued that the eco-costs are also an indication of the marginal prevention costs for other parts of the globe, under the condition of a level playing field for production companies.

Eco-costs 2017

The method of the eco-costs 2017 (version 1.6) comprises tables of over 36.000 emissions, and has been made operational by special database for SimaPro: Idematapp 2020 and Idemat2020 (based on LCIs from Ecoinvent V3.5), Agri Footprint, and a database for CES (Cambridge Engineering Selector). Over 10.000 materials and processes are covered in total. Excel look-up tables are provided at www.ecocostsvalue.com.

For emissions of toxic substances, the following set of multipliers (marginal prevention costs) is used in the eco-costs 2017 system:

eco-costs of	equivalent
acidification	8.75 €/kg SOx equivalent
eutrophication	4.17 €/kg phosphate equivalent
ecotoxicity	340.0 €/kg Cu equivalent
human toxicity	3754 €/kg Benzo(a)pyrene equivalent
summer smog (respiratory diseases)	6.0 €/kg NOx equivalent
fine dust	35.0 €/kg fine dust PM2.5
global warming (GWP 100)	0.116 €/kg CO2 equivalent

The characterisation ('midpoint') tables which are applied in the eco-costs 2017 system, are recommended by the ILCD:

• IPPC 2013, 100 years, for greenhouse gasses
• USETOX 2, for human toxicity (carcinogens), and ecotoxicity
• ILCD recommended tables for acidification, eutrification, and photochemical oxidant formation (summer smog)
• UNEP/SETAC 2016, for fine dust PM2.5 (for PM10 the default factors are used of the ILCD Midpoint+)

In addition to abovementioned eco-costs for emissions, there is a set of eco-costs to characterize the 'midpoints' of resource depletion:

• eco-costs of abiotic scarcity (metals, including rare earth, and energy carriers)
• eco-costs of land-use change (based on loss of biodiversity, of vascular plants and mammals, used for eco-costs of tropical hardwood)
• eco-costs of water scarcity (based on the Baseline Water Stress indicator - BWS - of countries)
• eco-costs of landfill

The abovementioned marginal prevention costs at midpoint level can be combined to 'endpoints' in three groups, plus global warming as a separate group:

eco-costs of human health	= the sum of carcinogens, summer smog, fine dust
eco-costs of ecosystems	= the sum of acidification, eutrophication, ecotoxicity
eco-costs of resource scarcity	= the sum of abiotic scarcity, land-use, water, and land-fill
eco-costs of global warming	= the sum of CO2 and other greenhouse gases (the GWP 100 table)
total eco-costs	= the sum of human health, ecosystems, resource scarcity and global warming

Since the endpoints have the same monetary unit (e.g. euro, dollar), they are added up to the total eco-costs without applying a 'subjective' weighting system. This is an advantage of the eco-costs system (see also ISO 14044 section 4.4.3.4 and 4.4.5). So called 'double counting' (ISO 14044 section 4.4.2.2.3) is avoided. The eco-costs system is in compliance with ISO 14008 (“Monetary valuation of environmental impacts and related environmental aspects”), and uses the ‘averting costs method’, also called ‘(marginal) prevention costs method’ (see section 6.3).

The issue of the 'plastic soup' is dealt with in the midpoint 'use of energy carriers' (in products). In the calculation of the marginal prevention costs (i.e. the eco-costs) the price of feedstock for plastics, diesel and gasoline, is based on the system alternative of substitution by 'second generation' oil from biomass (pyrolysis of agricultural waste, wood harvesting waste, or algae), and producing bio-degradable plastics from it. By this substitution, the increase of plastic soup is stopped. However, the problem of the plastic soup that exists already is not resolved by this prevention measure.

The eco-costs of global warming (also called eco-costs of carbon footprint) can be used as an indicator for the carbon footprint. The eco-costs of resource scarcity can be regarded as an indicator for 'circularity' in the theory of the circular economy. However, it is advised to include human toxicity and eco-toxicity, and include the eco-costs of global warming in the calculations on the circular economy as well. The eco-costs of global warming are required to reveal the difference between fossil-based products and bio-based products, since biogenic CO₂ is not counted in LCA (biogenic CO₂ is part of the natural recycle loop in the biosphere). Therefore, total eco-costs can be regarded as a robust indicator for cradle-to-cradle calculations in LCA for products and services in the theory of the circular economy. Since the economic viability of a business model is also an important aspect of the circular economy, the added value of a product-service system should be part of the analysis. This requires the two dimensional approach of Eco-efficient Value Creation  as described at the Wikipedia page on the model of the ecocosts/value ratio, EVR.

The Delft University of Technology has developed a single indicator for S-LCA as well, the so-called s-eco-costs, to incorporate the sometimes appalling working conditions in production chains (e.g. production of garments, mining of metals). Aspects are the low minimum wages in developing countries (the "fair wage deficit"), the aspects of "child labour" and extreme poverty", the aspect of "excessive working hours", and the aspect of "OSH (Occupational Safety and Health)". The s-eco-costs system has been published in the Journal of Cleaner Production.

Prevention costs versus damage costs

Prevention measures will decrease the costs of the damage, related to environmental pollution. The damage costs are in most cases the same (or a bit higher) compared to the prevention costs. So the total effect of prevention measures on our society is that it results in a better environment at no extra costs.

Discussion

There are many 'single indicators' for LCA. Basically, they fall into three categories:

• single issue
• damage based
• prevention based

The best known 'single issue' indicator is the carbon footprint: the total emissions of kg CO₂, or kg CO₂ equivalent (taking methane and some other greenhouse gasses into account as well). The advantage of a single issue indicator is, that its calculation is simple and transparent, without any complex assumptions. It is easy as well to communicate to the public. The disadvantage is that is ignores the problems caused by other pollutants and it is not suitable for cradle-to-cradle calculations (because materials depletion is not taken into account).

The most common single indicators are damage based. This stems from the period of the 1990s, when LCA was developed to make people aware of the damage of production and consumption. The advantage of damage based single indicators is, that they make people aware of the fact that they should consume less, and make companies aware that they should produce cleaner. The disadvantage is that these damage based systems are very complex, not transparent for others than who make the computer calculations, need many assumptions, and suffer from the subjective normalization and weighting procedure as last step, to combine the 3 scores for human health, ecosystems and resource depletion. Communication of the result is not easy, since the result is expressed in 'points' (scientific attempts to express the results in money were not very successful so far, because of methodological flaws and uncertainties).

Prevention based indicators, like the system of the eco-costs, are relatively new. The advantage, in comparison to the damage based systems, is that the calculations are relatively easy and transparent, and that the results can be explained in terms of money and in measures to be taken. The system is focused on the decision taking processes of architects, business people, designers and engineers. The advantage is that it provides 1 single endpoint in euro's, without the need of normalization and weighting. The disadvantage is that the system is not focused on the fact that people should consume less.

The eco-costs are calculated for the situation of the European Union, but are applicable worldwide under the assumption of a level playing field for business, and under the precautionary principle. There are two other prevention based systems, developed after the introduction of the eco-costs, which are based on the local circumstances of a specific country:

• In the Netherlands, 'shadow prices' have been developed in 2004 by TNO/MEP on basis of a local prevention curve: it are the costs of the most expensive prevention measure required by the Dutch government for each midpoint. It is obvious that such costs are relevant for the local companies, but such a shadow price system doesn't have any meaning outside the Netherlands, since it is not based on the no-effect-level
• In Japan, a group of universities have developed a set of data for maximum abatement costs (MAC, similar to the midpoint multipliers of the eco-costs as given in the previous section), for the Japanese conditions. The development of the MAC method started in 2002 and has been published in 2005. The so-called avoidable abatement cost (AAC) in this method is comparable to the eco-costs.

Five available databases

In line with the policy of the Delft University of Technology to bring LCA calculations within reach of everybody, open access excel databases (tables) are made available on the internet, free of charge. Experts on LCA who want to use the eco-costs as a single indicator, can download the full database for Simapro (the Eco-costs Method as well as the Idematapp LCIs), when they have a Simapro licence. Engineers, designers and architects can have databases, free of charge, for CES and ArchiCAD software, provided that they have a licence for the software.

The following databases are available:

• excel tables on www.ecocostsvalue.com, tab data (look-up tables for designers and engineers):
  • an excel table with data on emissions and materials depletion (more than 35.000 substances), see
  • an excel table on products and processes, based on LCIs of Ecoinvent, Idemat, and Agri Footprint (more than 10,000 lines), only for students at the campus, see
• an import SimaPro database for the method and an import SimaPro database for Idemat LCIs (software for LCA specialists. www.simapro.com) for people who have a Simapro licence
• a database for Cambridge Engineering Selector, Level 2 (software for designers and engineers who have a software licence)
• a dataset for ArchiCAD (software for architects)
• the IdematApp for Sustainable Materials Selection (available in the App Store of Apple and in the Google Play store). See for more information www.idematapp.com.

Biodiversity loss

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biodiversity_loss 

Biodiversity loss includes the extinction of species (plant or animal) worldwide, as well as the local reduction or loss of species in a certain habitat, resulting in a loss of biological diversity.

The latter phenomenon can be temporary or permanent, depending on whether the environmental degradation that leads to the loss is reversible through ecological restoration/ecological resilience or effectively permanent (e.g. through land loss). Global extinction has so far been proven to be irreversible.

Even though permanent global species loss is a more dramatic phenomenon than regional changes in species composition, even minor changes from a healthy stable state can have dramatic influence on the food web and the food chain insofar as reductions in only one species can adversely affect the entire chain (coextinction), leading to an overall reduction in biodiversity, possible alternative stable states of an ecosystem notwithstanding. Ecological effects of biodiversity are usually counteracted by its loss. Reduced biodiversity in particular leads to reduced ecosystem services and eventually poses an immediate danger for food security, also for humankind.

Loss rate

Demonstrator against biodiversity loss, at Extinction Rebellion (2018).

You know, when we first set up WWF, our objective was to save endangered species from extinction. But we have failed completely; we haven’t managed to save a single one. If only we had put all that money into condoms, we might have done some good.

— Sir Peter Scott, Founder of the World Wide Fund for Nature, Cosmos Magazine, 2010

The current rate of global diversity loss is estimated to be 100 to 1000 times higher than the (naturally occurring) background extinction rate and expected to still grow in the upcoming years.

Locally bounded loss rates can be measured using species richness and its variation over time. Raw counts may not be as ecologically relevant as relative or absolute abundances. Taking into account the relative frequencies, a considerable number of biodiversity indexes has been developed. Besides richness, evenness and heterogeneity are considered to be the main dimensions along which diversity can be measured.

As with all diversity measures, it is essential to accurately classify the spatial and temporal scope of the observation. "Definitions tend to become less precise as the complexity of the subject increases and the associated spatial and temporal scales widen." Biodiversity itself is not a single concept but can be split up into various scales (e.g. ecosystem diversity vs. habitat diversity or even biodiversity vs. habitat diversity) or different subcategories (e.g. phylogenetic diversity, species diversity, genetic diversity, nucleotide diversity). The question of net loss in confined regions is often a matter of debate but longer observation times are generally thought to be beneficial to loss estimates.

To compare rates between different geographic regions latitudinal gradients in species diversity should also be considered.

Human-driven biodiversity loss and ecological effects

Biodiversity is traditionally defined as the variety of life on Earth in all its forms and it comprises the number of species, their genetic variation and the interaction of these lifeforms. However, from past few years the human-driven biodiversity loss are causing more severe and longer-lasting impacts.

Change in land use

Examples of changes in land use include deforestation, intensive monoculture, and urbanization.

The UN's Global Biodiversity Outlook 2014 estimates that 70 percent of the projected loss of terrestrial biodiversity are caused by agriculture use. Moreover, more than 1/3 of the planet's land surface is utilised for crops and grazing of livestock. Agriculture destroys biodiversity by converting natural habitats to intensely managed systems and by releasing pollutants, including greenhouse gases. Food value chains further amplify impacts including through energy use, transport and waste. The direct effects of urban growth on habitat loss are well understood: Building construction often results in habitat destruction and fragmentation. The rise of urbanization greatly reduced biodiversity when large areas of natural habitat are fragmented. Small habitat patches are unable to support the same level of genetic or taxonomic diversity as they formerly could while some of the more sensitive species may become locally extinct.

Pollution

Pollution from burning fossil fuels such as oil, coal and gas can remain in the air as particle pollutants or fall to the ground as acid rain. Acid rain, which is primarily composed of sulfuric and nitric acid, causes acidification of lakes, streams and sensitive forest soils, and contributes to slower forest growth and tree damage at high elevations. Moreover, Carbon dioxide released from burning fossil fuels and biomass, deforestation, and agricultural practices contributes to greenhouse gases, which prevent heat from escaping the earth’s surface. With the increase in temperature expected from increasing greenhouse gases, there will be higher levels of air pollution, greater variability in weather patterns, and changes in the distribution of vegetation in the landscape. These two factors play a huge role towards biodiversity loss and entirely depended on human-driven factors.

Ecological effects of biodiversity loss

Biodiversity loss also threatens the structure and proper functioning of the ecosystem. Although all ecosystems are able to adapt to the stresses associated with reductions in biodiversity to some degree, biodiversity loss reduces an ecosystem’s complexity, as roles once played by multiple interacting species or multiple interacting individuals are played by fewer or none. The effects of species loss or changes in composition, and the mechanisms by which the effects manifest themselves, can differ among ecosystem properties, ecosystem types, and pathways of potential community change. At higher levels of extinction (41 to 60 percent of species), the effects of species loss ranked with those of many other major drivers of environmental change, such as ozone pollution, acid deposition on forests and nutrient pollution. Finally, the effects are also seen on human needs such clean water, air and food production over-time. For example, studies over the last two decades have demonstrated that more biologically diverse ecosystems are more productive. As a result, there has been growing concern that the very high rates of modern extinctions – due to habitat loss, overharvesting and other human-caused environmental changes – could reduce nature’s ability to provide goods and services like food, clean water and a stable climate. 

Factors

DPSIR: drivers, pressures, state, impact and response model of intervention

Major factors for biotic stress and the ensuing accelerating loss rate are, amongst other threats:

1. Habitat loss and degradation

   Land use intensification (and ensuing land loss/habitat loss) has been identified to be a significant factor in loss of ecological services due to direct effects as well as biodiversity loss.

2. Climate change through heat stress and drought stress
3. Excessive nutrient load and other forms of pollution
4. Over-exploitation and unsustainable use (e.g. unsustainable fishing methods) we are currently using 25% more natural resources than the planet
5. Armed conflict, which disrupts human livelihoods and institutions, contributes to habitat loss, and intensifies over-exploitation of economically valuable species, leading to population declines and local extinctions.
6. Invasive alien species that effectively compete for a niche, replacing indigenous species
7. Human activity has left the Earth struggling to sustain life, due to the demands humans have. As well as leaving around 30% of mammal, amphibian, and bird species endangered.

Insect loss

In 2017, various publications describe the dramatic reduction in absolute insect biomass and number of species in Germany and North America over a period of 27 years. As possible reasons for the decline, the authors highlight neonicotinoids and other agrochemicals. Writing in the journal PLOS One, Hallman et al. (2017) conclude that "the widespread insect biomass decline is alarming."

Birds loss

Certain types of pesticides named Neonicotinoids probably contributing to decline of certain bird species.

Food and agriculture

In 2019, the UN's Food and Agriculture Organization produced its first report on The State of the World’s Biodiversity for Food and Agriculture, which warned that "Many key components of biodiversity for food and agriculture at genetic, species and ecosystem levels are in decline." The report states that this is being caused by “a variety of drivers operating at a range of levels” and more specifically that “major global trends such as changes in climate, international markets and demography give rise to more immediate drivers such as land-use change, pollution and overuse of external inputs, overharvesting and the proliferation of invasive species. Interactions between drivers often exacerbate their effects on BFA [i.e. biodiversity for food and agriculture]. Demographic changes, urbanization, markets, trade and consumer preferences are reported [by the countries that provided inputs to the report] to have a strong influence on food systems, frequently with negative consequences for BFA and the ecosystem services it provides. However, such drivers are also reported to open opportunities to make food systems more sustainable, for example through the development of markets for biodiversity-friendly products.” It further states that “the driver mentioned by the highest number of countries as having negative effects on regulating and supporting ecosystem services [in food and agricultural production systems] is changes in land and water use and management” and that  “loss and degradation of forest and aquatic ecosystems and, in many production systems, transition to intensive production of a reduced number of species, breeds and varieties, remain major drivers of loss of BFA and ecosystem services.”

The 2019 IPBES Global Assessment Report on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services asserts that industrial farming is a significant factor in collapsing biodiversity. The health of humans is largely dependent on the product of an ecosystem. With biodiversity loss, a huge impact on human health comes as well. Biodiversity makes it possible for humans to have a sustainable level of soils and the means to have the genetic factors in order to have food.

Native species richness loss

Humans have altered plant richness in regional landscapes worldwide transforming more than 75% of the terrestrial biomes to the "anthropogenic biomes." This is seen through loss of native species being replaced and out competed by agriculture. Models indicate that about half of the biosphere has seen a "substantial net anthropogenic change" in species richness. 

Solutions

There are so many conservation challenges when dealing with biodiversity loss that a joint effort needs to be made through public policies, economic solutions, monitoring and education by governments, NGOs, conservationists etc. Incentives are required to protect species and conserve their natural habitat and disincentivize habitat loss and degradation (e.g. implementing sustainable development). Other ways to achieve this goal are enforcing laws that prevent poaching wildlife, protect species from overhunting and overfishing and keep the ecosystems they rely on intact and secure from species invasions and land use conversion. 

Environmental organizations

Earth's 25 terrestrial hot spots of biodiversity. These regions contain a number of plant and animal species and have been subjected to high levels of habitat destruction by human activity.

There are many organizations devoted to the cause of prioritizing conservation efforts such as the Red List of Threatened Species from the International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN) and the United States Endangered Species Act. British environmental scientist Norman Myers and his colleagues have identified 25 terrestrial biodiversity hotspots that could serve as priorities for habitat protection.

Many governments in the world have conserved portions of their territories under the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), a multilateral treaty signed in 1992–3. The 20 Aichi Biodiversity Targets, part of the CBD's Strategic Plan 2011–2020, were published in 2010. Since 2010, approximately 164 countries have developed plans to reach their conservation targets, including the protection of 17 percent of terrestrial and inland waters  and 10 percent of coastal and marine areas.

In 2019 the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services, an international organization, reported that up to a million plant and animal species are facing extinction because of human activities.

According to the 2020 United Nations' Global Biodiversity Outlook report, of the 20 biodiversity goals laid out by the Aichi Biodiversity Targets in 2010, only 6 were "partially achieved" by the deadline of 2020. The report highlighted that if the status quo is not changed, biodiversity will continue to decline due to "currently unsustainable patterns of production and consumption, population growth and technological developments". The report also singled out Australia, Brazil and Cameroon and the Galapagos Islands (Ecuador) for having had one of its animals lost to extinction in the past 10 years.

Pollinator decline

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pollinator_decline 

 

A dead carpenter bee

Pollinator decline is a theoretical reduction in abundance of insect and other animal pollinators in many ecosystems worldwide that began at the end of the 20th century. Most, but not all, data used to formulate this concept comes from honeybees and bumblebees in Europe and North America. Some species are doing better than others, some are stable. Worldwide, managed honey bee populations are increasing. There is as yet no hard evidence pollinator decline exists. The theory gained currency in the media in the early 2000s and was primarily based on the problems the US honey industry was facing at the time (colony collapse disorder), and the observed decline in biodiversity in European wild bee populations.

Worldwide, the bee population has been increasing steadily since 1975, based on honey production. China is responsible for most of the growth. The period of time with the lowest growth in worldwide honey production was between 1991 to 1999, this is clearly due to the economic collapse after the dissolution of communism in the former Soviet sphere of influence. As of 2020 the production has increased further by 50% compared to 2000, when people first began to publish about 'pollinator decline'. However, in the United States, due to the varroa mite, other diseases and economic conditions the managed hive industry is shrinking, increasing the service costs for the speciality crops which depend on it. In the US, wild and managed bees contribute to $15 billion in crop value. As of 2009, the amount of hives in the USA has been shrinking at a steady pace since 1961.

Pollinators participate in the sexual reproduction of many plants by ensuring cross-pollination, essential for some species and a major factor in ensuring genetic diversity for others. Since plants are the primary food source for animals, the possible reduction or disappearance of pollinators has been referred to as an "armageddon" by some journalists.

Evidence

Colony collapse disorder has attracted much public attention. It is claimed that if bee-keepers find maintaining their hives too difficult, everyone will starve to death. According to a 2013 blog the winter losses of beehives had increased in recent years in Europe and the United States, with a hive failure rate up to 50%.

A 2017 German study, using 1,500 samples from 63 sites, indicated that the biomass of flying insects in that area had declined by three-quarters in the previous 25 years. One 2009 study stated that while the bee population had increased by 45% over the past 50 years, the amount of crops which use bees had increased by 300%; although there is absolutely no evidence this has caused any problems, the authors propose it might cause "future pollination problems".

In mathematical models of the networks linking different plants and their many pollinators, such a network can continue to function very well under increasingly harsh conditions, but when conditions become extremely harsh, the entire network fails simultaneously.

Possible explanations

Although there is no evidence that pollinator decline exists, a number of possible reasons for the theoretical concept have been proposed, such as exposure to pathogens, parasites, and pesticides; habitat destruction; climate change; market forces; intra- and interspecific competition with native and invasive species; and genetic alterations.

Honey bees are an invasive species throughout most of the world where they have been introduced, and the constant growth in the amount of these pollinators may possibly cause a decrease in pollinators. Light pollution has been suggested a number of times as a possible reason for the possible decline in flying insects. One study found that air pollution, such as from cars, has been inhibiting the ability of pollinators such as bees and butterflies to find the fragrances of flowers. Pollutants such as ozone, hydroxyl, and nitrate radicals bond quickly with volatile scent molecules of flowers, which consequently travel shorter distances intact. Pollinators must thus travel longer distances to find flowers.

Pollinators may also face an increased risk of extinction because of global warming due to alterations in the seasonal behaviour of species. Climate change can cause bees to emerge at times in the year when flowering plants were not available.

Consequences

Seven out of the ten most important crops in the world, in terms of volume, are pollinated by wind (maize, rice and wheat) or have vegetative propagation (banana, sugar cane, potato, beet, and cassava) and thus do not require animal pollinators for food production. Additionally crops such as sugar beet, spinach and onions are self-pollinating and do not require insects. Nonetheless, an estimated 87.5% of the world's flowering plant species are animal-pollinated, and 60% of crop plant species use animal pollinators. This includes the majority of fruits, many vegetables, and also fodder. According to the USDA 80% of insect crop pollination in the US is due to honey bees.

A study which examined how fifteen plant species said to be dependent on animals for pollination would be impacted by pollinator decline, by excluding pollinators from them with domes, found that while most species do not suffer any impacts from decline in terms of reduced fertilization rates (seed set), three species did.

The expected direct reduction in total agricultural production in the US in the absence of animal pollination is expected to be 3 to 8 %, with smaller impacts on agricultural production diversity. Of all the possible consequences, the most important effect of pollinator decline for humans in Brazil, according to one 2016 study, would be the drop in income from high-value cash crops, and would impact the agricultural sector the most. A 2000 study about the economic effects of the honey bee on US food crops calculated that it helped to produce US$14.6 billion in monetary value. In 2009 another study calculated the worldwide value of the 100 crops that need pollinators at €153 billion (not including production costs). Despite the dire predictions, the theorised decline in pollinators has had no effect on food production, with yields of both animal-pollinated and non-animal-pollinated crops increasing at the same rate, over the period of supposed pollinator decline.

Possible nutritional consequences

A 2015 study looked at the nutritional consequences of pollinator decline. It investigated if four third world populations might in the future potentially be at possible risk of malnutrition, assuming humans did not change their diet or have access to supplements, but concluded that this cannot be reliably predicted. According to their model, the size of the effect that pollinator decline had on a population depends on the local diet, and vitamin A is the most likely nutrient to become deficient, as it is already deficient.

More studies also identified vitamin A as the most pollinator-dependent nutrient. Another 2015 study also modeled what would happen should 100% of pollinators die off. In that scenario, 71 million people in low-income countries would become deficient in vitamin A, and the vitamin A intake of 2.2 billion people who are already consuming less than the recommended amount would further decline. Similarly, 173 million people would become deficient in folate, and 1.23 million people would further lessen their intake. Additionally, the global fruit supply would decrease by 22.9%, the global vegetable supply would decrease by 16.3%, and the global supply of nuts and seeds would decrease by 22.1%. This would lead to 1.42 million additional deaths each year from diseases, as well as 27 million disability-adjusted life years. In a less extreme scenario wherein only 50% of pollinators die off, 700,000 additional deaths would occur each year, as well as 13.2 million disability-adjusted years.

A melon plant, a crop requiring a pollinator and a good source of vitamin A

One study estimated that 70% of dietary vitamin A worldwide is found in crops that are animal pollinated, as well as 55% of folate. At present, eating plants which are pollinated by animals is responsible for only 9%, 20%, and 29% of calcium, fluoride, and iron intake, respectively, with most coming from meat and dairy. 74% of all globally produced lipids are found in oils from plants that are animal pollinated, as well as 98% of vitamin C.

Solutions

Efforts are being made to sustain pollinator diversity in agricultural and natural ecosystems by some environmental groups. In 2014 the Obama administration published "the Economic Challenge Posed by Declining Pollinator Populations" fact sheet, which stated that the 2015 budget proposal recommended congress appropriate approximately $50 million for pollinator habitat maintenance and to double the area in the Conservation Reserve Program dedicated to pollinator health, as well as recommending to "increase funding for surveys to determine the impacts on pollinator losses".

Some international initiatives highlight the need for public participation and awareness of pollinator conservation. Pollinators and their health have become growing concerns for the public. Around 18 states within America have responded to these concerns by creating legislation to address the issue. According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, the enacted legislation in those states addresses five specific areas relating to pollinator decline: awareness, research, pesticides, habitat protection and beekeeping.

Bees and toxic chemicals

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

A male Xylocopa virginica (Eastern Carpenter bee) on Redbud (Cercis canadensis).

Bees can suffer serious effects from toxic chemicals in their environments. These include various synthetic chemicals, particularly insecticides, as well as a variety of naturally occurring chemicals from plants, such as ethanol resulting from the fermentation of organic materials. Bee intoxication can result from exposure to ethanol from fermented nectar, ripe fruits, and manmade and natural chemicals in the environment.

The effects of alcohol on bees are sufficiently similar to the effects of alcohol on humans that honey bees have been used as models of human ethanol intoxication. The metabolism of bees and humans is sufficiently different that bees can safely collect nectars from plants that contain compounds toxic to humans. The honey produced by bees from these toxic nectars can be poisonous if consumed by humans. Many humans have eaten toxic honey and become seriously ill as a result.

Natural processes can also introduce toxic substances into nontoxic honey produced from nontoxic nectar. Microorganisms in honey can convert some of the sugars in honey to ethanol. This process of ethanol fermentation is intentionally harnessed to produce the alcoholic beverage called mead from fermented honey.

Ethanol

Effects of intoxication

Bee showing its proboscis, or tongue.

The introduction of certain chemical substances—such as ethanol or pesticides or defensive toxic biochemicals produced by plants—to a bee's environment can cause the bee to display abnormal or unusual behavior and disorientation. In sufficient quantities, such chemicals can poison and even kill the bee. The effects of alcohol on bees have long been recognized. For example, John Cumming described the effect in an 1864 publication on beekeeping.

When bees become intoxicated from ethanol consumption or poisoned with other chemicals, their balance is affected, and they are wobbly when they walk. Charles Abramson's group at Oklahoma State University has put inebriated bees on running wheels, where they exhibit locomotion difficulties. They also put honey bees in shuttle-boxes that used a stimulus to encourage the bees to move, and found that they were less mobile as they became more intoxicated.

A temulent bee is more likely to stick out its tongue, or proboscis. Inebriated bees spend more time flying. If a bee is sufficiently intoxicated, it will just lie on its back and wiggle its legs. Inebriated bees typically have many more flying accidents as well. Some bees that consume ethanol become too inebriated to find their way back to the hive, and will die as a result. Bozic et al. (2006) found that alcohol consumption by honeybees disrupts foraging and social behaviors, and has some similar effects to poisoning with insecticides. Some bees become more aggressive after consuming alcohol.

Exposure to alcohol can have a prolonged effect on bees, lasting as long as 48 hours. This phenomenon is also observed in fruit flies and is connected to the neurotransmitter octopamine in fruit flies, which is also present in bees.

Bees as ethanol inebriation models

In 1999, research by David Sandeman led to the realization that bee inebriation models are potentially valuable for understanding vertebrate and even human ethanol intoxication:

"Advances over the past three decades in our understanding of nervous systems are impressive and come from a multifaceted approach to the study of both vertebrate and invertebrate animals. An almost unexpected by-product of the parallel investigation of vertebrate and invertebrate nervous systems that is explored in this article is the emergent view of an intricate web of evolutionary homology and convergence exhibited in the structure and function of the nervous systems of these two large, paraphyletic groups of animals."

The behavior of honey bees intoxicated by ethanol is being studied by scientists at The Ohio State University, Oklahoma State University, University of Ljubljana in Slovenia, and other sites as a potential model of the effects of alcohol on humans. At the Oklahoma State University, for example, Abramson's research found significant correlations between the reactions of bees and other vertebrates to ethanol exposure:

"The purpose of this experiment was to test the feasibility of creating an animal model of ethanol consumption using social insects.... The experiments on consumption, locomotion, and learning suggest that exposure to ethanol influences behavior of honey bees similarly to that observed in experiments with analogous vertebrates."

It has thus been found that "the honey bee nervous system is similar to that of vertebrates". These similarities are pronounced enough to even make it possible to derive information on the functioning of human brains from how bees react to certain chemicals. Julie Mustard, a researcher at Ohio State, explained that:

"On the molecular level, the brains of honey bees and humans work the same. Knowing how chronic alcohol use affects genes and proteins in the honey bee brain may help us eventually understand how alcoholism affects memory and behavior in humans, as well as the molecular basis of addiction."

The evaluation of a bee model for ethanol inebration of vertebrates has just begun, but appears to be promising. The bees are fed ethanol solutions and their behavior observed. Researchers place the bees in tiny harnesses, and feed them varying concentrations of alcohol introduced into sugar solutions. Tests of locomotion, foraging, social interaction and aggressiveness are performed. Mustard has noted that "Alcohol affects bees and humans in similar ways—it impairs motor functioning along with learning and memory processing." The interaction of bees with antabuse (disulfiram, a common medication administered as a treatment for alcoholism) has been tested as well.

Bee exposure to other toxic and inebriating chemicals

Synthetic chemicals

Bees can be severely and even fatally affected by pesticides, fertilizers, and other chemicals that man has introduced into the environment. They can appear inebriated and dizzy, and even die. This is serious because it has substantial economic consequences for agriculture.

Bumblebee

This problem has been the object of growing concern. For example, researchers at the University of Hohenheim are studying how bees can be poisoned by exposure to seed disinfectants. In France, the Ministry of Agriculture commissioned an expert group, the Scientific and Technical Committee for the Multifactorial Study on Bees (CST), to study the intoxicating and sometimes fatal effects of chemicals used in agriculture on bees. Researchers at the Bee Research Institute and the Department of Food Chemistry and Analysis in the Czech Republic have pondered the intoxicating effects of various chemicals used to treat winter rapeseed crops. Romania suffered a severe case of widespread bee intoxication and extensive bee mortality from deltamethrin in 2002. The United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) even has published standards for testing chemicals for bee intoxication.

Natural compounds

Bees and other Hymenoptera can also be substantially affected by natural compounds in the environment besides ethanol. For example, Dariusz L. Szlachetko of the Department of Plant Taxonomy and Nature Conservation, Gdańsk University observed wasps in Poland acting in a very sleepy (possibly inebriated) manner after eating nectar derived from the North American orchid Neottia.

Detzel and Wink (1993) published an extensive review of 63 types of plant allelochemicals (alkaloids, terpenes, glycosides, etc.) and their effects on bees when consumed. It was found that 39 chemical compounds repelled bees (primarily alkaloids, coumarins, and saponins) and three terpene compounds attracted bees. They report that 17 out of 29 allelochemicals are toxic at some levels (especially alkaloids, saponins, cardiac glycosides and cyanogenic glycosides).

Various plants are known to have pollen which is toxic to honey bees, in some cases killing the adults (e.g., Toxicoscordion), in other cases creating a problem only when passed to the brood (e.g., Heliconia). Other plants which have toxic pollen are Spathodea campanulata and Ochroma lagopus. Both the pollen and nectar of the California Buckeye (Aesculus californica) are toxic to honeybees, and it is thought that other members of the Buckeye family are also.

Bee inebriation in pollination

Bucket orchid

Some plants reportedly rely on using intoxicating chemicals to produce inebriated bees, and use this inebriation as part of their reproductive strategy. One plant that some claim uses this mechanism is the South American bucket orchid (Coryanthes sp.), an epiphyte. The bucket orchid attracts male euglossine bees with its scent, derived from a variety of aromatic compounds. The bees store these compounds in specialized spongy pouches inside their swollen hind legs, as they appear to use the scent (or derivatives thereof) in order to attract females.

The flower is constructed in such a way as to make the surface almost impossible to cling to, with smooth, downward-pointing hairs; the bees commonly slip and fall into the fluid in the bucket, and the only navigable route out is a narrow, constricting passage that either glues a "pollinium" (a pollen sack) on their body (if the flower has not yet been visited) or removes any pollinium that is there (if the flower has already been visited). The passageway constricts after a bee has entered, and holds it there for a few minutes, allowing the glue to dry and securing the pollinium. It has been suggested that this process involves "inebriation" of the bees, but this effect has never been confirmed.

In this way, the bucket orchid passes its pollen from flower to flower. This mechanism is almost but not quite species specific, as it is possible for a few closely related bees to pollinate any given species of orchid, as long as the bees are similar in size and are attracted by the same compounds.

Van der Pijl and Dodson (1966) observed that bees of the genera Eulaema and Xylocopa exhibit symptoms of inebriation after consuming nectar from the orchids Sobralia violacea and Sobralia rosea. The Gongora horichiana orchid was suspected by Lanau (1992) of producing pheromones like a female euglossine bee and even somewhat resembles a female euglossine bee shape, using these characteristics to spread its pollen:

"A hapless male bee, blind drunk with the flower's overpowering pheromones, might well mistake a toadstool for a suitable mate, but the flower has made at least a modest attempt at recreating a beelike gestalt."

This seems unlikely, given that no one has ever documented that female euglossines produce pheromones; male euglossines produce pheromones using the chemicals they collect from orchids, and these pheromones attract females, rather than the converse, as Cullina (2004) suggests.

Toxic honey

Grayanotoxin

Some substances which are toxic to humans have no effect on bees. If bees obtain their nectar from certain flowers, the resulting honey can be psychoactive, or even toxic to humans, but innocuous to bees and their larvae. Poisoning from this honey is called mad honey disease.

Accidental intoxication of humans by mad honey has been well documented by several Classical authors, notably Xenophon, while the deliberate use of such honey as a medicine and intoxicant (even hallucinogen) is still practiced by the Gurung tribe of Nepal, who have a long tradition of hazardous cliff-climbing to wrest the precious commodity from the nests of Apis laboriosa, the giant Himalayan honeybee. The honey thus collected by the Gurung owes its inebriating properties to the nectar which the giant bees gather from a deep red-flowered species of Rhododendron, which, in turn, owes its toxicity to the compound grayanotoxin, widespread in the plant family Ericaceae, to which the genus Rhododendron belongs.

Morphine

Morphine-containing honey has been reported in areas where opium poppy cultivation is widespread.

Ethanol

Honey made from the nectar of any plant can ferment to produce ethanol, for example in mead. Animals, such as birds, that have consumed honey fermented in the sun can be found incapable of flight or other normal movement. Sometimes honey is fermented intentionally to produce mead, an alcoholic beverage made of honey, water, and yeast. The word for "drunk" in classical Greek is sometimes translated as "honey-intoxicated" and indeed the shared Indo-European antiquity of such a conception is enshrined in the names of at least two (euhemerised) goddesses of personified intoxication : the Irish Medb (see also Maeve (Irish name) ) and the Indian Madhavi of the Mahabharata (- see page Yayati), cognate with the English word mead and the Russian word for bear медведь ( - medved - literally 'honey-eater').