'The Insect Crisis: The Fall of the Tiny Empires That Run the World' by Oliver Milman

 

From the BLURB: 

How would we live if insects no longer existed? 

When is the last time you were stung by a wasp? Or were followed by a cloud of midges? Or saw a butterfly? All these normal occurrences are becoming much rarer. A groundswell of research suggests insect numbers are in serious decline all over the world - in some places by over 90%. 

The Insect Crisis explores this hidden emergency, arguing that its consequences could even rival climate change. We rely on insect pollination for the bulk of our agriculture, they are a prime food source for birds and fish, and they are a key strut holding up life on Earth, especially our own. 

In a compelling and entertaining investigation spanning the globe, Milman speaks to the scientists and entomologists studying this catastrophe and asks why these extraordinary creatures are disappearing. Part warning, part celebration of the incredible variety of insects, this book highlights why we need to wake up to this impending environmental disaster.

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The Insect Crisis: The Fall of the Tiny Empires that Run the World by Oliver Milman is a nonfiction book that published in March 2022, and I listened to the audiobook narrated by Liam Gerrard.

An absolutely phenomenal read, about 'the plight of things that scuttle at our feet and hover in our gardens.'

I knew there was an insect crisis, but I didn't know how bad it was until this book. The one you hear the most about is the bee, and largely because its extinction affects human's access to honey and pretty pollinated flowers - and this is discussed in the book. The same way that the extinction of large and cute mammals (from polar-bears to pandas, koalas, and the world's last male northern white rhino that died in 2018) get good PR because there's a tangible face to put to their crisis ... insects and entomology struggle to rally support for their crisis that would have far greater and actual devastating impacts on humanity. Milman argues, the loss of the white rino - while tragic - doesn't have an impact on the daily-life of humans the same way that loss of many insect species would ... "You get rid of flies? You get rid of chocolate," said Erica McAlister, a senior curator at the Natural History Museum in London. Flies pollinate carrots, peppers, mangoes, many fruit trees and - chocolate. And they are hardier against cold-climates than bees.

Throughout the book Milman argues and highlights this crisis that is at once happening and devastating, and hard to quantify. "Counting the books while the library burns," is how he puts it - since there are anywhere from 5 to 10 million insect species in the world; impossible to study and catalogue, and therefore - unknowable when they die off ... he gives the example of the 2019 bushfires in Australia, where "billions of invertebrates were lost, with some models suggesting potentially trillions."

He does a brilliant job of quantifying the unquantifiable, like; a scientist in the jungles of Brazil who used to hang a white sheet in the rainforest and backlight it with a torch to show how many insects gathered (this is "manual collecting") and in the 70s these photos would show the sheet so blackened with many insects you couldn't even tell they were hanging on a backdrop ... but now? The sheet is clearly visible, only spotty with insects. The same way another citizen scientist used to drive his car down a certain stretch of road at night, and then photograph the insects splattered on the windshield; this manual collecting also harkens back to the "back in my day," crowd who can remember family road-trips that involved frequent pit-stops to clear the windshield of bugs ... not anymore.

Milman also does a good job of explaining the culprits to this crisis - humans, always humans. Monsanto and mono-farming culture (one entomologist suggests eliminating farms and just bolstering home gardens would do more for the environment and replenishing insects; and he's not wrong ... farms could help reverse damage they're doing by planting a border of wild flowers around all of their fields but - they won't, because most farms are corporate entities now, growing unsustainably for corporate greed.) Monsanto is a plight on humanity and the damage they've done is irreversible, alongside the greed and corruption within governments that allow them to run roughshod over the environment and the health of human-beings (Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil reversing laws against certain pesticide use has been catastrophic ... imagine what Trump is reversing too.)

And - what is lost when we lose insects? Their fine webbing of biodiversity, and tugging to break one thread will have a devastating domino-effect (just consider how many birds and mammals rely on insects for food-source) ... but more than that; imagine children growing up in a world, where they've never seen a butterfly (the monarch butterfly is expected to be on the brink in the next 30-years, it's happening and there's no stopping it).

'The tragedy will be how impoverished we will become, environmentally, spiritually, morally.' Or as entomologist David Wagner puts it; 'Our children will have a diminished world. That's what we are giving them.' Already in Australia, my nephews don't know what a Christmas beetle is; though they used to live in our households and gardens in the hotter months ... I used to find and rescue so many ladybugs as a child, carrying them to leaves on the tip of my finger - now, I can't remember the last time I saw one.

A diminished world indeed.

The audiobook is also *fabulous* - narrated by Liam Gerrard, who does a plethora of accents for all the entomologists quoted from all over the world (Australian, American, Brazilian, Chines ...) it really gave the book a feeling of; chorus of calamity.

5/5