The total mass of insects is falling by 2.5% a year

[The_jackalope]

From this year-old article:

"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."

Interestingly, ominously, but perhaps neither surprisingly nor coincidentally, that decrease of 2.5% a year is the same rate that the global GDP is increasing.

I'd gladly trade my leftover insects for cash, wouldn't you?

Plummeting insect numbers 'threaten collapse of nature'

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.

[OnDoutside]

1. And what's the political response ?

Crickets.

[The_jackalope]

2. Can't be. The crickets are all dead... nt

[OnDoutside]

3. Pinocchio is going to be gutted.

[Throck]

4. They must be bugging out.

Would you want to live on this earth with the pathetic humans?

The whole situation bugs me.

[5X]

5. Exept for the big-black wasps.

They have been relentless around our house, even in winter if it warms up.

[Moostache]

6. The end may really be nigh this time...

Birds.
Fish.
Insects.
Coral.
Arable land.
Drinkable water.

What do they all have in common?

They are disappearing so fast that it will make your head spin if you think about what that means...

For those unwilling or unable to follow along at home...with no base, the food chain becomes unstable and untenable.
For EVERYONE.

There is not going to be any way to replace the benefits of insect pollination.
There is no way to feed fisheries and schools of fish without a base of plankton, krill and tiny feeder fish.
There is no chance to support 10 Billion people with disappearing arable land and toxic dead zones from fertilizer run offs.

There will not be anything resembling the current social structure when this is all sorted out in reality and divorced from political arguments and fantasy thinking.

Starving people generally are very dangerous.
Human society (and the basis for the global economy) are going to meet reality soon. The fantastic wealth accumulation across the globe to put control of 99% of resources under less than 0.5% of the population is an untenable situation, period. Capitalism, unfettered and unregulated, will only make that worse until the riots and refugee wars start in earnest.

There are estimates that the natural world provides TRILLIONS of dollars of free economic aid to the global economy. TRILLIONS. Now think about the distribution of wealth on this fucking PLANET right now. The top 0.5% of EVERYONE owns or controls nearly 90% (or more) of the total wealth, leaving BILLIONS of people with little to nothing.

All I can say is for the rich asshats buying land in New Zealand or underground bunkers with private security forces, karma is a bitch and she is always paid in the end. No one gets out of here alive indeed...but the way they go can be determined from how poorly they treat their fellow man too. Without a strong, local support structure and communal lifestyle, humanity is going bye-bye just like everything else in this 6th mass extinction.

[The_jackalope]

7. Right on the nose.

The time to have done something about it is way back in the rear-view mirror.

The source of the problem is not our actions, but our attitudes. Specifically the one that says "Everything belongs to me. And that includes you."

We've been honing and spreading that attitude for 6,000 years. It broke out of the Mediterranean and Caucasus during a climate event around 4,000 BCE, right when bronze was invented. It crept across the planet at the point of a bronze sword, riding a toxic tide of conquest and blood. It finished up here in 2020 AD at the barrel of a gun.

[mountain grammy]

8. When the bottom of the food chain collapses

That’s it.