No bugs, no us

 kw: book reviews, nonfiction, science, ecology, insects, polemics

I've been reading a lot of natural history lately. It is one of my great loves. Having read Silent Spring by Rachel Carson when it appeared in 1962 (I was 14), when I saw Silent Earth: Averting the Insect Apocalypse by Dave Goulson, I just had to read it. Goulson's message is as timely and urgent for our generation as Carson's was for its time. Perhaps it is more urgent.

I think to most people, all the little creepy-crawlies—insects, spiders, centipedes, and so forth—are "bugs", to be squashed or sprayed with something immediately upon detection. The primary impetus and funding for research about insects and related animals is aimed at killing them, mainly supported by the pesticide industry.

Dr. Goulson wants to reset our understanding of insects (et cetera). Perhaps some large number of people realize that bees and other pollinating insects are "good". Their understanding of insect benefits stops there. I wonder, though, how many stop to think what we would miss if the bees vanished.

I got this image from a page at Izismile.com titled Imagine Our World Without Insects. They have short pieces about 8 kinds of insects, including cockroaches (most roach species speed up the recycling of nitrogen in forests) and ants (although many ants eat seeds, many of the seeds they carry are dispersed, spreading plants faster).

Fun fact: According to Dr. E.O. Wilson, the world famous "ant man", ants are the only major group of insects that don't carry any diseases. They are so beneficial, he claims it is OK to let them invade your kitchen; they will kill and eat many other kinds of small insects that DO carry disease, making your house a healthier place to live.

At the end of the Izismile page, they picture mosquitos, saying they can't think of anything good about them. I can: Food for bats and fireflies and many, many species of small bird. Some species of hummingbird eat mostly mosquitoes and gnats. They are not all nectar-sippers.

Much of Silent Earth records what we have been doing with insects. Mostly, killing them. As a matter of fact, the number of insects on Earth today is about 1/10th what it was when I was a child. And the use of DDT had already reduced them, as Ms Carson outlined in Silent Spring. Have you heard of the "windshield indicator"? In the 1960's and before, taking a road trip required a stop every 50-100 miles to wash the dead insects off the windshield, and sometimes out of the grille. Not any more.

The core conclusion of both books is the same: There is no "focused" insecticide. Every insecticide kills every kind of insect. DDT was intended to kill flies. It also killed bees, and even birds, indirectly. Modern pesticides may be less lethal to birds and mammals, but they have already gone a long way towards making many beneficial insects extinct. Sadly, flies and other "more pesky pests" seem to develop resistance to pesticides more rapidly than wholly beneficial insects. If we manage to make all insects extinct, the last ones to go will be flies.

Further, if we manage to make all insects extinct, we are next on the list. Their "ecosystem services" are not well known, but they are worth tens of trillions. Maybe much, much more. We truly cannot exist without insects.

Can this juggernaut be turned? Possibly. In time? possibly. There are no guarantees.