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1/2 of life on Earth has died in the last 40 years
| In 2014, an international team of biologists estimated that, in the past 35 years, the abundance of invertebrates such as beetles and bees had decreased by 45 percent. In places where long-term insect data are available, mainly in Europe, insect numbers are plummeting. A study last year showed a 76 percent decrease in flying insects in the past few decades in German nature preserves.
| The latest report, published Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, shows that this startling loss of insect abundance extends to the Americas. The study’s authors implicate climate change in the loss of tropical invertebrates.
“This study in PNAS is a real wake-up call — a clarion call — that the phenomenon could be much, much bigger, and across many more ecosystems,”
| said David Wagner, an expert in invertebrate conservation at the University of Connecticut who was not involved with this research.
He added: “This is one of the most disturbing articles I have ever read.”
"This is one of the most important articles in human history, and it's barely making headlines. Arthropods make up 85% of species on Earth, and now we have multiple studies on multiple continents indicating 50% to 98% dropoff.
| We are not talking about a few centimeters elevated sea level when the poles theoretically, eventually melt. This is an utter catastrophe in progress that cannot be overstated. These animals thrived for hundreds of millions of years – up until recently. This headline for this article might as well be, "Half of life on Earth has died in the last 40 years."
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https://www.washingtonpost.com/science/2018/10/15/hyperalarming-study-shows-massive-insect-loss/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.61935fb3f169
| At least for a short time in history a bunch of investors made a lot of money.
| The planet will be better without us around. We might use intelligence to prolong the agony of death and kill every other species before we go down finally. But that is nothing in the long run. In about 50000 years we hopefully would have all died. And the next 10-50 million years will witness another boom of new life, similar to what happened at the very beginning of the Triasic era.
| The universe was a mistake.
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| nsects around the world are in a crisis, according to a small but growing number of long-term studies showing dramatic declines in invertebrate populations. A new report suggests that the problem is more widespread than scientists realized. Huge numbers of bugs have been lost in a pristine national forest in Puerto Rico, the study found, and the forest’s insect-eating animals have gone missing, too.