Is the Silent Spring upon us? The NYT Sunday magazine’s article on Dec. 2 concerning the “Insect Apocalypse” confirms the unraveling of the web of life on earth. If you haven’t heard, insect populations are massively crashing worldwide. Nobody has firm numbers but it appears that roughly 80 percent of the insects on earth have vanished since the 1970s. And plankton is down 40 percent since 1950.
These are the foundations of our food chains and we all should be very, very concerned. Birds and bats eat bugs. Bees are bugs. Who is going to pollinate our food?
This is serious, no bugs and plankton means no food chain.
When was the last time you Massachusetts residents had to scrape bugs off of your windshield and headlights? If you are not old enough to understand this question, ask a gray hair about their reality not so long ago.
Contemplate this: The National Academy of Sciences calculates that today humans and our meat comprise 96 percent of the mammal biomass. Worldwide just 4 percent of mammals (by weight) are wildlife!
If you think I’m a crackpot, please make concise queries on Google to debunk this line of thought. Dig deep and come up with challenges like: “Are we destroying the environment” and see what you find.
We are moving toward a collapse of the worldwide food chain in real time. And yet, like proverbial frogs in a sauce pan, we are ignoring the blatant warning indicators.
Imagine our frosty fields turning green this spring but remaining barren of all insect life. Insect decline is the tangible tip of the climate change iceberg. It is real and it is upon us now.
Robert Cabral
Amherst
