Wildflowers in Provence. The blue-eyed grass is an invasive species from North America, now widespread in the limestone hills of the region.

Bugs, Biology, and Molecules, part 1: Insect Apocalypse

A series of essays in memory of my mother, Helen van Laer.

A few weeks ago, Neal and I spent a week in Provence, France, a place known for its abundance of great food and natural beauty. It lived up to its reputation; but there was one thing missing—staggeringly and prominently missing—which became profoundly disturbing the moment you noticed it.

There are barely any flying insects in Provence.

Provence is a fairyland filled with an endless number of wildflowers, thyme and oregano, lavender, broom, and sage, that stretch into the far distance. The limestone hillsides are glorious riots of floral color. 

But there are almost no honey bees or butterflies, no native flying insects — no insect of any kind except, perhaps, a few ants — to be seen anywhere. This, in a landscape that ought to be absolutely packed with pollinating insects .

Consequently, there are almost no birds. Guess what? Most of the birds in Europe have already STARVED TO DEATH because of the lack of insects. No kidding.

This will be happening in your back yard next.

Last weekend, right after we got back, we went down to Morristown New Jersey where my friend Douglas and his wife have a farm with a large meadow, currently covered with clover in bloom. 

Once again, in this vast field of clover, a single honeybee: and a European honeybee at that, not a native bee. 

No flying insects to be seen. Nary a one. This in a place where there ought to be bugs everywhere.

Why are all the insects missing?

It is too late to fix this problem; the birds are starving and we can expect to fewer and fewer of them every year from now on. It turns out that Rachel Carson silent spring is nearly upon us. 

The likely explanations for it are numerous, but almost certainly include the following:

1. Overuse of pesticides. Human beings wantonly spread pesticides around like maniacs, and they are piled up at Lowe's and Home Depot for public consumption day and night. (This while the consumer industry worries about the poisons in your garments… because that's where the problem is, right?) The agricultural community uses pesticides with impunity, and the US government has found a dozen, or maybe even 1000, different ways to prevent research into what chemicals actually do to the environment.

2. Burning lights at night. It turns out, according to recent research, that keeping lights on at night disrupts the reproductive cycle of insects, for reasons that aren’t yet well known. Trees exposed to light at night end up having 40% less caterpillars than those in full darkness. 

“Who cares?” you might say. “They’re just caterpillars.” But baby birds eat caterpillars. No caterpillars, no baby birds. And make no mistake about it, we are already there. You just aren't looking around enough at the natural world that surrounds you to notice it unless your attention is called to it.

3. Carbon dioxide. It's quite likely that air pollution from automobiles has had a significant effect on insect life. Insects are far smaller than we are and their nervous systems and digestive systems are far less likely to withstand the assaults of particulate matter than our own.

4. Aquatic pollution. Many insects depend on the same water sources that we do for survival, and we have been trashing them for over a century with chemicals now.

5. Persistent pollutants resulting from the breakdown of common household products. Plastics, contrary to popular opinion, don't last forever. They break down into smaller constituent particles, which are probably having effects on many different insects.

6. Decline of native species. Worldwide, human beings habitually landscape by inserting plants from entirely other countries into their ecosystems, and creating huge lawns which are ecological deserts for insects and birds. Every square meter of lawn and garden that isn't filled with native species deprives the ecosystem of the insect it needs to survive.

The bottom line here is that all of the forest and understory plants cannot live without the insects that pollinate them and eat them. In the long run, all of these vegetative systems will begin to die off and there won't be anything to speak of left. That is a real scenario, not an imagined paranoia. If you don't believe me, go out and get an education about it by reading some of the literature. This will turn out to be a much greater crisis than the loss, for example, of whales, which is tragic and deplorable but far easier to sell as an environmental cause.

To show how twisted our attitude towards insects is, let me give you an example from recent life. One of the women in the office, a person I generally otherwise respect, freaked out because tiny little red mites have infested our desks. These mites are absolutely harmless and should just be left alone; but she demanded that the company spray pesticides in order to fumigate because she thinks the bugs are creepy. When I was young and small insect got into the house and scared us, my mother always told my sister and I that they were "harmless creatures" –a statement that was not only true, but that eventually became family shorthand for crane flies, the species that was most often so labeled. 

My mother was a biologist and educated in these matters, and from the time I was a tiny little tyke in the late 1950s she trained me to understand that we should respect insects and not wantonly kill them as enemies. I grew up with that attitude, and I also grew up understanding that almost no one around me had any such idea. Fast forward to 2022: our ignorance and hatred for insects is about to destroy the environment we live in. It will destroy it very completely; many, perhaps as much as 90%, of the species that depend on the current state of the ecosystem to survive will become extinct with them. I'm not making this up.

Extinctions on the scale have taken place in the past. The planet has always recovered; but it takes millions of years to recover. I sincerely doubt human beings will have the staying power to be around for that. Certainly not the way we conduct our affairs right now.

Moral of the story is that you shouldn't be killing insects. If you are, stop. Find ways to help them instead of ways to kill them.