In today’s “oh shit, the apocalypse is imminent, isn’t it?” news, a recently released study has pointed out a “precipitous” decline in the number of the world’s insects, and suggests that they could all be extinct in just under a century.
Yes. All of them.
A first-of-its-kind global scientific meta-study in the journal Biological Conservation looked at 73 individual studies of insect populations and found an alarming trend: they’re all dying. More than 40 percent of insect species are in observable decline.
The analysis blames people for the precipitous decline in insect populations, pointing specifically to agricultural use of pesticides, climate change and urbanisation as the main reasons.
The total mass of insects in the world – which, by the way, outweighs the whole of humanity by 17 times – has been declining at a rate of about 2.5% every single year. That decline extrapolated suggests a total extinction in less than 100 years, which would have a devastating impact on global ecology.
“If insect species losses cannot be halted, this will have catastrophic consequences for both the planet’s ecosystems and for the survival of mankind,” Francisco Sánchez-Bayo of the University of Sydney told The Guardian.
This is not the first doom-and-gloom report about global insect populations. At the end of last year, the New York Times Magazine published a straight up frightening long read about the inclement “insect apocalypse,” which went viral online, warning that it has gotten to the point that the average person can intuitively tell there are less bugs around than there used to be.
The response online has been somewhat panicked.
Gah! What sort of planet are we leaving our children? The sixth major extinction event is gathering pace and its down to us.
You have yourselves a good evening y’all. https://t.co/zQ7MEoOsJo— Jim Al-Khalili (@jimalkhalili) February 10, 2019
This Guardian story is chilling: much of the planet’s insect population is hurtling towards extinction, threatening eco-system collapse.
#tomorrowspaperstoday pic.twitter.com/ce68rzgADH— John O’Brennan (@JohnOBrennan2) February 10, 2019
https://twitter.com/Jeff_Sparrow/status/1094694063100424192
Oh man, they were supposed to be our food source after we killed all the big animals. 🙁 https://t.co/XhuVGUtR43
— Adam Liaw (@adamliaw) February 10, 2019
Oh, but there’s this guy – inexplicably tweeting under the handle @wheat_daddy – saying it’s all bullshit. So it’s impossible to say whether it’s true or not.
Absolute rubbish, there’s more insects on my farm every year. pic.twitter.com/TjKrUYDrbA
— Andrew Ward 🇬🇧🚜 (@wheat_daddy) February 10, 2019
Everything is going well, folks!
