3/4 of european insects are dying

[TylerDurden]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4998832/The-flying-insects-planet-depends-plummets-75.html

While some new pesticides are being blamed, it is also human agriculture and a weird desire for cleanliness/tidyness. For example, my idiotic relatives like to get the garden all trimmed and free of  so-called "weeds". I warned them that this would greatly reduce the insect population, and that, while they might not care one whit about that, that all the  cute-looking animals which depended on insects for their food, such as the bats or butterflies, would die out as well.

[a_real_man]

I don't like that at all. Insects are my favorite food.

[dariorpl]

I think insects are overrated. Aside from bees and other pollinators, we don't have much use for them.

However, if the reason they are dying out is because of pesticides, this could be a warning that we're poisoning our air, water and food. Even if those pesticides don't immediately kill us, they will have long lasting negative health effects, and it could be decades or more before science realizes what those are.

[dariorpl]

I forgot worms, beetles and other decomposers, also very important.

[a_real_man]

I think insects are overrated. Aside from bees and other pollinators, we don't have much use for them.

However, if the reason they are dying out is because of pesticides, this could be a warning that we're poisoning our air, water and food. Even if those pesticides don't immediately kill us, they will have long lasting negative health effects, and it could be decades or more before science realizes what those are.

Hans-Dietrich Reckhaus, "Why Every Fly Counts: A Documentation about the Value and Endangerment of Insects"

[dair]

Dave Goulson has written a great book "A buzz in the meadow". He says we focus on the extinction of exotic species of bid animals, of tigers, rhinos and pandas, but actually, there is a much more serious, hidden extinction going on, insects... if the panda would disappear, that would be bad, but there wouldn't be that many bad consequences, many just a bit more bamboo left in the forest. If insects would disappear, there would be chaos. No pollination, no food for birds and bats (feeding on grasshoppers and crickets), and, healthy soil is made by lots of bugs that aerate it and recycle the nutrients.