Peak Everything, Overshoot, & Collapse

Preface. Below are excerpts from two articles on why and how the extinction of insects could lead to our own extinction and many other species. Although climate change is more deadly now, an insect apocalypse will kill far more people and other species in the future. Billions of people, birds, plants, animals, fish, and more will starve since 75% of crops depend on insect pollination. They also control insect pests, break down organic matter to recycle their nutrients for new plants, aerate the soil, disperse seeds and more (Goulson D (2019) The insect apocalypse, and why it matters. Current Biology).

E. O. Wilson explained the problem in greater detail:  “If invertebrates were to disappear, I doubt that the human species could last more than a few months. Most of the fishes, amphibians, birds, and mammals would crash to extinction about the same time. Next would go the bulk of the flowering plants and, with them, the physical structure of the majority of the forests and other terrestrial habitats of the world. The earth would rot. As dead vegetation piled up and dried out, narrowing and closing the channels of nutrient cycles, other complex forms of vegetation would die off, and, with them, the last remnants of the vertebrates. The remaining fungi, after enjoying a population explosion of stupendous proportions, would also perish. Within a few decades, the world would return to a state of a billion years ago, composed primarily of bacteria, algae, and a few other very simple multicellular plants.”

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