
The insect apocalypse is not here but there are reasons for concern - jkuria
https://www.economist.com/science-and-technology/2019/03/23/the-insect-apocalypse-is-not-here-but-there-are-reasons-for-concern
======
cure
Very disappointing article in the Economist. Their journalism is usually quite
sound, but not this time. The very conservative bend is clearly present.

The article summarizes as: there are a number of studies from specific
geographies (Germany, the Netherlands, Puerto Rico, etc) that show very
dramatic declines (> 50%) of insect populations over the last few decades.
Since there is no data for most other countries, we should not react for now
until more studies are done.

In the general case, when there is insufficient data, such an attitude can be
seen as rational. But not when the data are so severe, and time is clearly
running out. It is time for action, not for more business as usual.

Ugh. I hope future generations will be around to forgive us for screwing up
the planet.

~~~
devoply
This sort of reasoning is the basis for my belief that the way we conduct our
society is fundamentally flawed. It is trivial to introduce new technology,
and it's very difficult to remove it. This is evident with things like
cigarettes or pesticides or oil. This leads me to believe that at any time
we're only one piece of technology from catastrophe and even if we realize the
mistake it will take decades for us to stop using the technology that has led
to catastrophe. Combine this with the fact that the amount of technology that
we create and introduce is only increasing perhaps exponentially. We are in
very dangerous territory but we don't realize it... and even if we realize it
we can't do anything about it in the time frames needed to deal with it.

A society designed for longevity does not behave this way. Instead it follows
an approach of punctuated equilibrium where it accumulates technology and
robustly tests it in small pilot projects that are highly monitored and
contained. Then after maybe a 1000 or 10,000 years when technology has matured
it introduced a set of well tested technology into the system whose effects
are very well understood. In this way a society designed for longevity goes
through epochs and evolution... rather than extinction in short order.

It's also much easier living in such a society because change is very gradual
so having to retrain or learn new things in a lifetime is not necessary.

~~~
XorNot
I live less then 100 years.

I have no interest in an appointed elite debating for 40 years whether the
smartphone will be a problem before deigning to allow it's adoption.

~~~
devoply
It's a question for science the implications of technology to be tested under
controlled conditions -- i.e. small cities and like. It's not a political
issue to be decided through arguments and debate. And yes you will be dead and
most humans are vain enough that they couldn't care less if they destroy the
planet as long as they get all the benefits immediately even if there is
nothing left after that for future generations.

The point is also not to argue the adoption of a single piece of technology...
but to allow the adoption of an epoch of technology all at once whose
interaction you can predict... because proper science and due diligence has
been done on it. And also to create a real culture that you are born into and
will die with... rather than the disposable culture of everything... i.e. the
tech that you are born with is the tech you will die with.

~~~
XorNot
The desire to "slow down" is a meaningless platitude tossed out by those who
don't do the science but have decided they're scared of it.

The fact you're expressing it here is a more an attempt to step-around the
reality that the US refuses to confront it's fear of having a strong
government. The original Deus Ex game actually had a very good line regarding
this - "the West, so afraid of strong government, now has no government - only
financial power."

In a bid to avoid having to deal with the problems of corporations and wealth,
people like you would try and reach into research laboratories and tell people
to stop working on things which would genuinely improve the planet. Your
problem is not the adoption of technology, it's a cultural refusal to limit
the power of money in the belief that soon you'll have some and don't want to
be limited.

~~~
humanrebar
> The fact you're expressing it here is a more an attempt to step-around the
> reality that the US refuses to confront it's fear of having a strong
> government.

This presumes that strong governments don't deserve a critical eye. It's not
hard to find contemporary examples worldwide and historical examples in any
country.

~~~
XorNot
This is a very US response. "Strong" is equated with "violent". Not capable or
effective.

But the US government is violent today. Yet incredibly weak at protecting it's
citizens welfare or rejecting external manipulation against them.

~~~
humanrebar
A government doesn't have to be violent to be abusive or corrupt.

And the US government is formed by its citizens. It's presumptuous, and I'd
argue dangerous, that a government should be in a paternal position. In
particular, if a democracy is in charge of purifying the media its citizens
consume, who holds the the government censors and gatekeepers accountable if
(when) they become corrupt?

It's not a coincidence that Venezuelan leadership cracked down on courts and
independent media as it slid into the current mess.

Further, "protecting its citizens" is often narrowed to "protecting the _true_
citizens", enforcing bigotry with a patina of honorable intentions. See the
Jim Crow American South, the Spanish Inquisition, and the murder of Christians
in 17th century Japan.

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patientplatypus
The biggest issue is that the insects are dying because of pesticides and
fertilizers. And it's getting worse:

“The main cause of the decline is agricultural intensification,” Sánchez-Bayo
said. “That means the elimination of all trees and shrubs that normally
surround the fields, so there are plain, bare fields that are treated with
synthetic fertilisers and pesticides.” He said the demise of insects appears
to have started at the dawn of the 20th century, accelerated during the 1950s
and 1960s and reached “alarming proportions” over the last two decades.

The 2.5% rate of annual loss over the last 25-30 years is “shocking”, Sánchez-
Bayo told the Guardian: “It is very rapid. In 10 years you will have a quarter
less, in 50 years only half left and in 100 years you will have none.”

Source:
[https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/feb/10/plummeti...](https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/feb/10/plummeting-
insect-numbers-threaten-collapse-of-nature)

So...either we stop using intensive agg practices and our global food
production goes down and we starve, or we kill all the bugs and the food web
collapses.

I'm predicting between this, plastic, massive garbage problems and climate
change we're most likely going to have mass migration, war, disease and famine
outbreaks in the next twenty years. Like a billion+ dead outbreaks. As far as
I can see the entire industrial revolution has been a giant externality on
nature.

It saddens me that me and everyone around me will have to live through this.

~~~
SrslyJosh
> So...either we stop using intensive agg practices and our global food
> production goes down and we starve, or we kill all the bugs and the food web
> collapses.

I don't think those are the only two options. There are better farming
practices (read up on no-till, see here for example:
[https://www.usda.gov/media/blog/2017/11/30/saving-money-
time...](https://www.usda.gov/media/blog/2017/11/30/saving-money-time-and-
soil-economics-no-till-farming)) that require much lower inputs (fertilizer,
pesticides, water) than conventional farming techniques.

Wikipedia ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No-
till_farming#Profit,_econom...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No-
till_farming#Profit,_economics,_yield)) also notes that because the soil
retains water better and is more fertile in general, a farmer may have the
option to plant a new crop immediately after a harvest instead of leaving a
field fallow.

There are many other benefits (read the Wikipedia article!) that could make a
huge impact in both wildlife conservation and fighting global warming, were we
to convert wholesale to no-till (or similarly restorative techniques).

The problem, of course, is that we have massive political dysfunction which
leads to policy paralysis. How do you fight global warming when what is
currently the most powerful political party in the world (it hurts me to type
that ) refuses to acknowledge that anything needs to (or can) be done about
it?

~~~
pmoriarty
_" How do you fight global warming when what is currently the most powerful
political party in the world (it hurts me to type that ) refuses to
acknowledge that anything needs to (or can) be done about it?"_

By becoming more politically active.

If more people would organize, these clowns could be voted out of office.

~~~
vixen99
Given that the US now produces less emissions than in 2007, it would be more
productive to aim your campaign at China producing twice as much. Inevitably,
standard of living is linked to energy consumption and Chinese per capita
emissions are one third as much as in the US, so their emissions are bound in
increase if their general prosperity is headed upwards, which it is.
Renewables aren't going to provide a magic solution. We know that now.

------
libraryatnight
Usually I love the Economist, but this seems like head-in-the-sand reasoning.
"Oh good, the declines are only happening where we're measuring!"

------
dmix
> Using computer models of ecosystems, Nigel Stork of Griffith University,
> Queensland, estimates there are 5.5m species of insect and 6.8m of
> terrestrial arthropods (the wider category that includes spiders and
> crustaceans). That implies over 80% of insects remain undiscovered.

Does anyone know how this works?

Is it measuring the DNA and compares with known variations and using other
well-known species as a reference model to do a projection?

~~~
hydrox24
I don't, but the abstract of the paper he published may offer some insight if
you understand the key words:

> In the last decade, new methods of estimating global species richness have
> been developed and existing ones improved through the use of more
> appropriate statistical tools and new data. Taking the mean of most of these
> new estimates indicates that globally there are approximately 1.5 million,
> 5.5 million, and 7 million species of beetles, insects, and terrestrial
> arthropods, respectively. Previous estimates of 30 million species or more
> based on the host specificity of insects to plants now seem extremely
> unlikely. With 1 million insect species named, this suggests that 80% remain
> to be discovered and that a greater focus should be placed on less-studied
> taxa such as many families of Coleoptera, Diptera, and Hymenoptera and on
> poorly sampled parts of the world. DNA tools have revealed many new species
> in taxonomically intractable groups, but unbiased studies of previously
> well-researched insect faunas indicate that 1–2% of species may be truly
> cryptic.

Stork. "How Many Species of Insects and Other Terrestrial Arthropods Are There
on Earth?". Annual Review of Entomology. 2018. doi:
[http://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-
ento-020117-043348](http://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-ento-020117-043348)

You could always email him to find out: nigel.stork (at) griffith.edu.au

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SrslyJosh
TL;DR: There are no studies of insect life in Countries A, B, and C, so no
need to worry about a huge decline in biomass in the US and Europe!

ಠ_ಠ

~~~
FranzFerdiNaN
It’s what I believed at 3 years old: if I can’t see it it doesn’t exist and
can’t see me!

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corey_moncure
The solution is, as always, less people.

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ArtDev
The insect decline is shocking and will have drastic impacts we can only
predict

