However, a less abusive association with insects would have to include some new ideas. If we have to intensively cultivate smaller areas to make room for wildlife, the advancement of vertical farming, with year-round crops stowed in storage and shipping crates using LED lighting and hydroponics instead of soil and pesticides will likely work well. with robotic pollinators if the original insect version failed to do the job.
Western societies may also struggle with the counterintuitive notion of eating insects as a way to save them. The vast swaths of land that we have turned into biodiverse deserts in many cases are not even directly available to humans – a third of the viable arable land is used for food production. for livestock, which themselves cover a quarter of the planet’s ice-free habitat. Worms and crickets, both excellent sources of protein that can proliferate in huge numbers in tight spaces, are a less destructive alternative to the traditional Western diet and should help alleviate the pressure. agricultural effects on insects, such as climate change, chemical use, and soil erosion. “There are less environmental problems when you eat insects. Arnold van Huis, a Dutch entomologist who has dined on over 20 species of insects, his favorites are termites and locusts grilled, deep-fried and served with chili peppers.
Perhaps one day, robotic bees could help support our food supply, and a revolution in the way we eat could help slow the rapidly ravaging store of life. splendor of the world. But our measures of success in preventing the insect crisis should be placed a little higher than that. After all, we won’t see the last insect emerge, as we will with the last northern white rhinoceros or Bengal tiger. No matter how many more atrocities we commit, there will always be insects somewhere, crawling on tree boxes by the windows in Chicago, gnawing at the edges of rice fields in Vietnam, fleeing the mountains. Fire licks a gum tree in Australia.
The tragedy will be how poor we will become, environmentally, spiritually, morally. Wasps can be taught to play soccer, will skip sleep to care for a nest, and can remember good and bad experiences, suggesting a form of consciousness. The violin has a distinctive shape, like the name suggests, like a violin, and the side is almost invisible. The monarch butterfly is very beautiful and can taste the nectar through its feet. We won’t lose everything, but it’s a small consolation when such masterpieces are being ripped apart. Entomologist David Wagner said: “The future is a very simplified global biota. “We’ll be at fault, but we’ll lose the big gaudy stuff. Our children will have a miniature world. That’s what we’re giving them.”
A pseudo-existence, a place where the spinal cord has been sucked from the bones of our surroundings, of a countryside pruned for machines that suck food from the remnants of the earth, could be one of the better scenarios we face if insects crash into ‘small empires unnoticed. The latest research shows that the loss of bees has begun to limit supplies of staple food crops such as apples, blueberries and cherries. Insectivorous birds are now on the decline not only in the magnificent fields of France but even in remote areas of the Amazon rainforest. Many insect populations around the world are declining by 1 to 2 percent per year, Wagner and colleagues recently confirmed, a trend he describes as “scary.” It can, and will almost certainly get worse. This disaster will fall on some sort of nadir, though we don’t seem to be near that point yet. We’re still on a downward slope, somewhere.
Taken from The Insect Crisis: The Fall of the Tiny Empires that Rule the World. Copyright (c) 2022 by Oliver Milman. Used with permission of publisher, WW Norton & Company, Inc. All rights reserved.
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