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Insects Could Vanish Within a Century At Current Rate of Decline, Says Global Review (theguardian.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: The world's insects are hurtling down the path to extinction, threatening a "catastrophic collapse of nature's ecosystems," according to the first global scientific review. More than 40% of insect species are declining and a third are endangered, the analysis found. The rate of extinction is eight times faster than that of mammals, birds and reptiles. The total mass of insects is falling by a precipitous 2.5% a year, according to the best data available, suggesting they could vanish within a century. The planet is at the start of a sixth mass extinction in its history, with huge losses already reported in larger animals that are easier to study. But insects are by far the most varied and abundant animals, outweighing humanity by 17 times. They are "essential" for the proper functioning of all ecosystems, the researchers say, as food for other creatures, pollinators and recyclers of nutrients.
Insect population collapses have recently been reported in Germany and Puerto Rico, but the review strongly indicates the crisis is global. The researchers set out their conclusions in unusually forceful terms for a peer-reviewed scientific paper: "The [insect] trends confirm that the sixth major extinction event is profoundly impacting [on] life forms on our planet. The analysis, published in the journal Biological Conservation, says intensive agriculture is the main driver of the declines, particularly the heavy use of pesticides. Urbanization and climate change are also significant factors. "One of the biggest impacts of insect loss is on the many birds, reptiles, amphibians and fish that eat insects," the study says, noting a recent study in Puerto Rico where there was a 98% fall in ground insects over 35 years. Butterflies and moths are among the worst hit.
Insect population collapses have recently been reported in Germany and Puerto Rico, but the review strongly indicates the crisis is global. The researchers set out their conclusions in unusually forceful terms for a peer-reviewed scientific paper: "The [insect] trends confirm that the sixth major extinction event is profoundly impacting [on] life forms on our planet. The analysis, published in the journal Biological Conservation, says intensive agriculture is the main driver of the declines, particularly the heavy use of pesticides. Urbanization and climate change are also significant factors. "One of the biggest impacts of insect loss is on the many birds, reptiles, amphibians and fish that eat insects," the study says, noting a recent study in Puerto Rico where there was a 98% fall in ground insects over 35 years. Butterflies and moths are among the worst hit.
By the time this whips back around to fuck humanity, the denialist will be spouting off how mass extinctions happened in the past without human influence. Perfectly normal part of the lifecycle in Earth.
Insects are a keystone species in many food webs. Without insects, many plant waste products (wood logs, dead grasses, fallen leaves, etc) would not break down fast enough for the carbon and nutrients to be recycled into the food chain, or otherwise returned to the ecosystem.
Add to that, that insects are essential pollinators for many plant species, including (and especially) those that are valuable human agricultural crops, (or are otherwise essential to other macrofauna), and you end up with bad juju very quickly.
The loss of insect species at this rate is alarming. Very alarming. Making quips about mother fucking donald trump, or wasting everyone's goddamn time with pointing fingers at one political group or the other to preserve their complacent lifestyles and personal peace of mind--- rather than being mindful and alert about this problem, and going for the needed fixes to prevent the looming catastrophe this represents--- It is fucking damning as hell about why this catastrophe has happened in the first place; It's part of the problem, not any solution.
Just as true as the original headline: "Insect researchers could vanish within a century!"
The italicized word is doing a lot of work in both sentences....
The party of stupid and the party of evil get together and do something both stupid and evil, then call it bipartisan.
The entire planet Earth could spontaneously explode in 15 minutes.
It won't, but it could. It COULD.
What happens when the food supply declines, because nutrients don't cycle with fauna, because pollinators are gone, because all the interrelated parts of nature unravel? That is the basis for a planet habitable to humans.
Do we use more pesticides to fight harder for what's left, considering that pesticides cause the implosion of the very ecosystem benefits we depend on to raise food to begin with? Then we're finished.
What happens to poor people when sustenance and shelter and resources that once came freely become scarce? I'm sure the rich will have their hydroponic gardens - atop places where oaks once rivaled wheat fields for output and salmon arrived to spawn in such numbers that it appeared possible to walk across rivers on their back. If manufactured solutions are a replacement for ecosystems for the many, though, why aren't we all snapping up real estate in places like the Sahara or Antarctica?
We are turning an Eden into a much more barren world, because we so insist on dominating and concentrating its wealth. We don't live where ecosystems aren't established. Humans have got to learn to share the world with others - or else.
Lets talk for a minute, objectively, about alarmist fake-news.
Okay.
The above is anecdotal evidence; one person, one observation.
Not it's not. It's a scholarly paper with many observations of insect biomass and local tempertature..
Am I going to seriously make a change to my lifestyle because the never fallable Brad Lister, scientist extraordinair, made an observation? No. The bar of evidence is a study. I need hard data.
The data are decribed in the paper linked above. Knock yourself out.
Lowest price I can find for me to get copies was around $6k.
So there's two possibilities here; either this is fake news and I have a publication so desperate they need to post clickbait, or this isn't fake news and the rich are keeping vital information from the public because, most likely, we're screwed as a species.
There's a third possilbilty. This research was published in a scientific journal that isn't open access.
Just as true as the original headline: "Insect researchers could vanish within a century!"
The italicized word is doing a lot of work in both sentences....
And of course the solution is to sit on your ass and do nothing except make snarky comments and maybe increase the use of pesticides because the 70-90% declines in insect populations we are seeing already is clearly a non-issue.
You should mostly care because of the amount of effort being made to push such politicized BS down your throat, mostly in the aim of growing government control over you.
Its not a new thing, we even have a word for it, Totalitarianism.
The '98% drop' BS has been widely and strongly show to be utter BS, basically written an a sensationalist opinion piece by a 'researcher' who wanted a bit of attention, using a highly selected location which was statistically irrelevant and measures a short time after a couple of natural disasters had slammed the local ecosystem.
Most people with a bit of critical thinking made it about 10% of the way through before seeing this and turning off.
The media however grabbed and ran with what is pure sensationalism.
Now we have the second wave, people trying to use this false 'fact' to grab their own little bit of media frenzy attention.
Why does this happen? Its simple really, it suits the powers-that-be that there are 'scary things' for them to protect us from. They always love a good 'do something or there will be a disaster!' story.. because it gives them the ability to grab a bit more power, which they never let go.
Insects can adapt to climate change (unlike humans, apparently). All of nature can adapt to climate change.
However, insects cannot adapt to being bathed in nerve agents. The entire planet needs to immediately stop using insecticides of all kinds.
"But people will starve!"
Then tell people to stop making so many babies they can't feed. Seriously. We reproduce so damn irresponsibly it's sickening. We already have 10 times the people the Earth can sustainably feed and we keep right on paying people to crank out 10 kids and rewarding irresponsible behavior in exchange for votes.
Two things will solve this mass extinction event we've started:
1) Mandatory sterilization after 1 child. If the kid dies, too bad.
2) Complete global ban on all insecticide use in agriculture
Get the world population down to 1 billion and all the problems humans are causing go away.
Every single time there's a study like this, there's another study that wants us to panic over the exact opposite. EVERY. SINGLE. TIME.
A few weeks ago--I'm pretty sure it was right here on Slashdot--we were being told we were headed for some calamity because world-wide warming was going to make the disease-carrying insert population explode and there wasn't a damned thing we can do about it. Except cut carbon, as usual the miracle solution.
I'll believe any compelling evidence as much as the next guy, but please, when you have such contradictory positions, stop making the claim "the science is settled" and acting as if it was all done deal. Because you can't have both opposites going on at the same time.