We are ignoring a vestibule of forgotten aids living to indirectly help us proliferate.
Once we have figured out how to convert our economic lifeblood to clean energy, the next step in our transformative wake-up call is to remove the stuff of nightmares – trapped atmospheric dwelling carbon reverberating around Earth’s marbled dome piece.
While we march, megaphone, and trade insults with each other, we’re forgetting a big problem once we have switched to solar, wind, and hydropower. That is, not only must we decrease emissions but remove carbon from Earth’s atmosphere.
But the most unspoken issue is one of the replenishment of arthropods (invertebrates) who automatically grind their way with and without instinct to propagate and stamp out crop-killing pests throughout the world. Not only are they responsible for defending our food stock, but they assist decomposition of dead vegetation, solid excretions, animals, and deadly virus-carrying insects. They’re a bio-marker for the planet’s health, more importantly, they’re important for plant regeneration obliquely carrying seeds and pollen to other flowers helping to germ new generations of biological matter. Without them, our world ceases to exist.
A well-circulated 2019 study uncovered 40% of insects are in decline due to habitat loss, a warming planet, destruction of food sources, and pesticide use. Year on year we’re losing an insect biomass of approximately 2-2.5%.
Bees are responsible for pollinating 60% of crops while flies (30%) and natural seed migration compensate for the rest. That’s right, your favourite excrement loitering, blood-sucking hummers are important supporters of the eco-system responsible for the world’s favourite foods such as coffee and chocolate. They do it for free, whilst turning a profit for us.
Diversity in species is not exclusive either. In the UK many invertebrates are in free fall including butterflies, dragonflies and midges. But many more are losing sight across the globe. It is estimated more than 10-30 million species of arthropods will go extinct before they’re discovered. But what is troubling about such a startling statistic, is that some of them might be holding the key to our biome, something we may never know. Should the world begin to dissipate beyond the frightening stride it is on right now it will be too late. But some arthropods may or may not have been lost before their discovery. No matter their status, saving their habitat from destruction is important should we seek to find a sliver of a chance for our lives beyond scenes of a warming atmosphere wall. Willingly destroying habitats through our purchasing habits is the silent killer. Are we all subconsciously suicidal? The decline of insects is a silent killer to many spectrums of human life, but mainly life itself.
Stanisland Magazine 