Silent Earth: Averting the Insect Apocalypse

Product Information

When some of us think of insects, it is common for them to be thought of in a negative light. Some of our earliest childhood memories include being stung, bitten, or just plain scared by the sight of them. I can remember running screaming from an outhouse at a provincial park when I was about five years old. What was so scary? It was the sight of a Yellow Garden Spider ( Argiope aurantia) hanging in its web in the stall. Fortunately, the experience didn’t make me fear or dislike spiders and as a gardener I know how beneficial they are to have around. While some insects may deserve our scorn—such as invasive species such as the LDD moth ( Lymantria dispar dispar); Emerald Ash Borer ( Agrilus planipennis); Japanese Beetle ( Popillia japonica), etc., by and large, the majority of insects are harmless and beneficial. Not long ago, I saw a couple—perhaps grandparents, out for a walk with their grandson. One of them was urging the young boy to stomp on an ant on the pavement, calling out “Get it! Get it!” It was disheartening to see. It is experiences like this that call for a shift in our thinking about insects. And this is also a shared view of the author of this book--British entomologist Dave Goulson. Goulson’s work is primarily focused on Bumblebees and as the founder of the Bumblebee Conservation Trust in the UK, he is dedicated to reversing the decline of them. He is also known for his work that was instrumental in influencing the European Union’s decision to ban neonicotinoids in 2013. Goulson wrote this book in an effort to bring more public attention to the recent and rapid decline of global insect populations—which are critical for our planet’s survival. He also explores the chief causes of insect declines such as habitat fragmentation, industrial farming practices, pesticides, climate change, and non-native insect diseases and provides suggestions for readers that can help support insects—especially gardeners. Er staan vrij weinig afbeeldingen in de tekst en dat is wel iets wat het nóg plezieriger had kunnen maken. Het is geen strikte noodzaak, maar zeker bij de stukken tekst die wat taaier zijn qua inhoud geeft een foto of een tabel wat afleiding en prikkelt het de lezer op een andere manier die stimulerend werkt om de informatie op te nemen. Nu moet Goulson het toch vooral van zijn beeldend taalgebruik hebben en toegegeven, dat is iets wat hem bijzonder goed afgaat. In 1872 John Udal makes first mention in Notes and Queries of the skull of Bettiscombe Manor. Dorset County Museum have written a comprehensive article on the legend of the skull here. Compelling, penetrating, devastating - Silent Earth is a wake-up call for the world.' Isabella Tree

The American biologist Paul Ehrlich likened the loss of species from an ecological community to randomly popping out rivets from the wing of an aeroplane. Remove one or two and the plane will probably be fine. Remove 10, or 20 or 50, and at some point that we are entirely unable to predict, there will be a catastrophic failure, and the plane will fall from the sky. Insects are the rivets that keep ecosystems functioning.

Categories

Miss M.G.A. Summers of Hazelbury Bryan, in the Folklore column of the Dorset County Chronicle in 1881, observed, ‘If you sit in the church porch on Midsummer Eve you will see those who are to die during the ensuing year enter the church and not come out again; whilst those who will have a serious illness will go in and return again’.

A ‘writer in the Somerset and Dorset Notes and Queries (1911), vol xii p. 232, states that an old Dorset woman, aged about 86, told him that she had been taught by her grandmother never to throw away soapy water on Good Friday. An editorial footnote confirmed the existence of this belief and added that it was also said that soapy water thrown away at this time turns to blood’.At Cheselbourne a certain man, Tom Trask, had the misfortune that whenever he slept, the devil threw the ceiling down on his head’. Reduce or avoid the use of pesticides and give beneficial predatory insects a chance to take care of the problem first. It's clear lunacy that pesticide/herbicide companies are largely left to self-govern and are not required to demonstrate their products' safety prior to them going to market. That the onus is on scientists to conduct decade long studies to prove harm before governments will act is bonkers. The scope of the damage that could be done is remarkable and possibly irreparable. That there is no unbiased resources for farmers to assist with deciding the required pesticide and fertilizer for their needs is ridiculous and essentially the companies with the best marketing win. I liked that he called out the UK government's hypocrisy for banning the use of some products but not the local production of those chemicals for export for use in poorer developing countries that have laxer regulations. By way of my amateur contribution, and aimed mainly at readers from Britain, here's where I think we should start: This guest blog by Wiltshireman Prof. Dr Terence Meaden is an ode partly written in Wiltshire country dialect. It is a companion piece to the Silent Earth blog dated on 6 June 2019 about the summer solstice sunrise and the core meaning of Stonehenge. A link to the original post is here. In the Stonehenge blog of 2019 it was explained how the planners’ concepts and belief in the Marriage of the Gods, or hieros gamos, was translated by the Stonehenge planners into watchable dynamic action involving stone-to-stone union by the Heel Stone’s moving shadow and its penetration into the female fertility monument that is Stonehenge. It is a joy to watch. Unfortunately, every year on 21 June great crowds stand in the path of ... Read More

analyse the history of colonialism and imperialism, and seek international alliances to strengthen those battling their legacy directly Drawing on thirty years of research, Goulson has written an accessible, fascinating, and important book that examines the evidence of an alarming drop in insect numbers around the world. “If we lose the insects, then everything is going to collapse,” he warned in a recent interview in the New York Times—beginning with humans’ food supply. The main cause of this decrease in insect populations is the indiscriminate use of chemical pesticides. Hence, Silent Earth’s nod to Rachel Carson’s classic Silent Spring which, when published in 1962, led to the global banning of DDT. This was a huge victory for science and ecological health at the time. While western societies may not eat insects, we do regularly consume them at one step removed in the food chain. Freshwater fish such as trout and salmon feed heavily on insects, as do game birds like partridge, pheasant and turkey. You stress that big changes are needed on an international scale, but there are things that individuals can do to help insects more locally. The Dorchester contributor has heard of a highly useful spell which will blister and burn your enemies — just throw a handful of salt on the fire in the morning, that is all!’.Does it matter if we forget what once was and future generations do not know what they've missed? Perhaps it's good that our baseline shifts, that we become accustomed to the new norm as otherwise out hearts might break for missing what we have lost."

Absolutely. This is very different from a lot of these big environmental issues where people feel completely helpless. With climate change, if you walk rather than drive, you don’t notice the planet getting any better. But plant some flowers in your garden and you actually can see butterflies turning up. It may be tiny, but you’ve done something positive, and it’s worked. If we want to save the planet, start with what’s right under our noses.It's remarkable that [insect] decline has gone largely unnoticed by non-specialists [...] Keep dreaming, Dave Goulson. We'll need more dreamers like you."