https://www.newscientist.com/article/21 ... e-thought/
11 February 2019
Huge global extinction risk for insects could be worse than we thought
Butterflies are at particular risk of extinction
Butterflies are at particular risk of extinction
Susana Gonzalez/Bloomberg/Getty Images
By Michael Le Page
Over 40 per cent of insect species could go extinct in the next few decades, with butterflies, bees and dung beetles most affected. The main cause is habitat loss. That’s the alarming conclusion of a review of all long-term surveys of insects published in the past 40 years.
“The repercussions this will have for the planet’s ecosystems are catastrophic to say the least, as insects are at the base of many of the world’s ecosystems,” says the paper, by Francisco Sanchez-Bayo at the University of Sydney, Australia, and Kris Wyckhuys at the China Academy of Agricultural Sciences in Beijing.
The study is a major step forward, says ecologist Georgina Mace of University College London. But there are still huge gaps in our knowledge, she says. “I don’t think it gives us the detailed information we need to really assess the consequences.”
What’s more, while it has been presented as a global study, almost all of the 73 studies reviewed were done in Europe and the US. For the entire continents of South America and Africa, for instance, the reviewers could find just one relevant study from Brazil and one from South Africa.
“The information presented here refers mostly to developed countries of Europe and North America since those regions have the most comprehensive historical records,” says the paper. So for huge parts of the planet, we simply do not know how insects are faring.
This is probably unlikely to be good news, though. “Actually the situation for tropical invertebrates is worse now than for temperate ones,” says Mace. “The review could be underestimating the situation in the tropics.”
Read more: Is life on Earth really at risk? The truth about the extinction crisis
According to the studies reviewed, the single largest cause of the decline in insects is habitat loss. Next up is pollution, from the pesticides and fertilisers used on farms to emissions from factories and cities.
insects going extinct too fast
Re: insects going extinct too fast
I'd be happy to see flies, fruit flies and mosquitoes go extinct.
Re: insects going extinct too fast
The gathering storm of human-caused threats to climate, nature and economy pose a danger of systemic collapse comparable to the 2008 financial crisis, according to a new report that calls for urgent and radical reform to protect political and social systems.
The study says the combination of global warming, soil infertility, pollinator loss, chemical leaching and ocean acidification is creating a “new domain of risk”, which is hugely underestimated by policymakers even though it may pose the greatest threat in human history.
“A new, highly complex and destabilised ‘domain of risk’ is emerging – which includes the risk of the collapse of key social and economic systems, at local and potentially even global levels,” warns the paper from the Institute for Public Policy Research. “This new risk domain affects virtually all areas of policy and politics, and it is doubtful that societies around the world are adequately prepared to manage this risk.”
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Read more
Until recently, most studies of environmental risk tended to examine threats in isolation: climate scientists examined disruption to weather systems, biologists focused on ecosystem loss and economists calculated potential damages from intensifying storms and droughts. But a growing body of research is assessing how the interplay of these factors can create a cascade of tipping points in human society as well as the natural world.
The new paper – This is a Crisis: Facing up to the Age of Environmental Breakdown – is a meta-study of dozens of academic papers, government documents and NGO reports compiled by IPPR, a leftwing thinktank that is considered an influence on Labour policy.
The authors examine how the deterioration of natural infrastructure, such as a stable climate and fertile land, have a knock-on effect on health, wealth, inequality and migration, which in turn heightens the possibility of political tension and conflict.
The paper stresses the human impacts go beyond climate change and are occurring at speeds unprecedented in recorded history.
Evidence on the deterioration of natural systems is presented with a series of grim global statistics: since 2005, the number of floods has increased by a factor of 15, extreme temperature events by a factor of 20, and wildfires sevenfold; topsoil is now being lost 10 to 40 times faster than it is being replenished by natural processes; the 20 warmest years since records began in 1850 have been in the past 22 years; vertebrate populations have fallen by an average of 60% since the 1970s, and insect numbers – vital for pollination – have declined even faster in some countries.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment ... c-collapse
The study says the combination of global warming, soil infertility, pollinator loss, chemical leaching and ocean acidification is creating a “new domain of risk”, which is hugely underestimated by policymakers even though it may pose the greatest threat in human history.
“A new, highly complex and destabilised ‘domain of risk’ is emerging – which includes the risk of the collapse of key social and economic systems, at local and potentially even global levels,” warns the paper from the Institute for Public Policy Research. “This new risk domain affects virtually all areas of policy and politics, and it is doubtful that societies around the world are adequately prepared to manage this risk.”
Sign up to the Green Light email to get the planet's most important stories
Read more
Until recently, most studies of environmental risk tended to examine threats in isolation: climate scientists examined disruption to weather systems, biologists focused on ecosystem loss and economists calculated potential damages from intensifying storms and droughts. But a growing body of research is assessing how the interplay of these factors can create a cascade of tipping points in human society as well as the natural world.
The new paper – This is a Crisis: Facing up to the Age of Environmental Breakdown – is a meta-study of dozens of academic papers, government documents and NGO reports compiled by IPPR, a leftwing thinktank that is considered an influence on Labour policy.
The authors examine how the deterioration of natural infrastructure, such as a stable climate and fertile land, have a knock-on effect on health, wealth, inequality and migration, which in turn heightens the possibility of political tension and conflict.
The paper stresses the human impacts go beyond climate change and are occurring at speeds unprecedented in recorded history.
Evidence on the deterioration of natural systems is presented with a series of grim global statistics: since 2005, the number of floods has increased by a factor of 15, extreme temperature events by a factor of 20, and wildfires sevenfold; topsoil is now being lost 10 to 40 times faster than it is being replenished by natural processes; the 20 warmest years since records began in 1850 have been in the past 22 years; vertebrate populations have fallen by an average of 60% since the 1970s, and insect numbers – vital for pollination – have declined even faster in some countries.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment ... c-collapse
the only good Tory is a lavatory
Re: insects going extinct too fast
Alarmist Global-Warming Study Claiming ‘Insect Collapse’ Is Debunked
"They observed a decline in insect populations in a rain forest in Puerto Rico and determined it was caused by rising temperatures, or global warming.
Because the insects, specially arthropods, comprise more than two-thirds of all land species and are centrally important to life as we know it, global warming represents and even greater risk to humankind and the planet than was previously known.
There was one problem with their study—it was wrong.
Turns out, the authors based their findings on a single weather station in Puerto Rico, which was known to have been unreliable since 1992.
Unaccounted “changes in equipment” are now believed to have been responsible for the abrupt increase in recorded temperatures at the station when, in reality, temperatures at the location have actually decreased in recent years."
https://www.libertyheadlines.com/alarmi ... -debunked/
"They observed a decline in insect populations in a rain forest in Puerto Rico and determined it was caused by rising temperatures, or global warming.
Because the insects, specially arthropods, comprise more than two-thirds of all land species and are centrally important to life as we know it, global warming represents and even greater risk to humankind and the planet than was previously known.
There was one problem with their study—it was wrong.
Turns out, the authors based their findings on a single weather station in Puerto Rico, which was known to have been unreliable since 1992.
Unaccounted “changes in equipment” are now believed to have been responsible for the abrupt increase in recorded temperatures at the station when, in reality, temperatures at the location have actually decreased in recent years."
https://www.libertyheadlines.com/alarmi ... -debunked/
Re: insects going extinct too fast
Saw that article. Laughed and laughed.TJ wrote: ↑February 13, 2019, 5:00 pmAlarmist Global-Warming Study Claiming ‘Insect Collapse’ Is Debunked
"They observed a decline in insect populations in a rain forest in Puerto Rico and determined it was caused by rising temperatures, or global warming.
Because the insects, specially arthropods, comprise more than two-thirds of all land species and are centrally important to life as we know it, global warming represents and even greater risk to humankind and the planet than was previously known.
There was one problem with their study—it was wrong.
Turns out, the authors based their findings on a single weather station in Puerto Rico, which was known to have been unreliable since 1992.
Unaccounted “changes in equipment” are now believed to have been responsible for the abrupt increase in recorded temperatures at the station when, in reality, temperatures at the location have actually decreased in recent years."
https://www.libertyheadlines.com/alarmi ... -debunked/
Believers caught in some more of their BS. This time, incompetence.
AMERICA: One of the Greatest Stories Ever Told.