Oliver Milman

This book is very welcome as there is clearly a major global crisis in class insecta that needs to be publicized. But unfortunately this book, with one or two exceptions, is unable to bring much order or perspective to it. Part of the problem is the author's anecdotal rather than analytical method: as the notes show, nearly everything is taken from secondary sources the author found online. The result is a jumble of excisions and loose summaries from mostly popular sources. I sometimes had the unpleasant feeling that he was cribbing from other people's reportage.

The only insects treated in detail are honeybees and monarch butterflies. The most interesting takeaway about bees was the way people's attempts to save them backfire: by introducing them into new areas where they can displace other pollinators vital to plants the bees don't visit; or by enabling the spread of bee diseases far and wide. Not surprisingly, humans come off as fecklessly clueless when it comes to side-effects of their virtuous eco-projects.

The best chapter in the book is the one on monarch butterflies. Their storied migrations, each thousand- or so miles of which involves multiple metamorphic life cycles (!) boggles the mind. The author does an exemplary job itemizing the environmental degradations that progressively disrupt the migration routes and that will likely annihilate this amazing species by mid-century. Yes, the book is depressing; it needs to be.

A much better book, in my opinion, is 2022's Silent Earth. by Dave Goulson, who, aside from being a fine writer and researcher, draws on decades of his own front-line entomological research in the U.K. and around the globe.… (more)

Excerpt from longer article...

Timely Take-Aways for Life-Long Learners: Insects

Insects are critical to healthy ecology systems. Unfortunately, these essential creatures are sometimes overlooked and often maligned. From wasps and moths to bees and beetles, several new and upcoming books explore the world of entomology and the important role of these tiny creatures. These titles invite readers to even respect cockroaches and crickets.

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The Insect Crisis: The Fall of the Tiny Empires that Run the World
Oliver Milman, Mar 2022, W.W. Norton Themes: Science, Life science, Nature, Entomology
From bees to beetles, THE INSECT CRISIS explores the impact of collapsing insect populations around the world. Of particular note is the wide range of examples and situations used to provide evidence of the crisis.
Take-aways: Educators will find the many examples useful in discussing the consequences of insect loss.

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Whether helping educators keep up-to-date in their subject-areas, promoting student reading in the content-areas, or simply encouraging nonfiction leisure reading, teacher librarians need to be aware of the best new titles across the curriculum and how to activate life-long learning. - Annette Lamb… (more)

A truly fascinating read about the problems of insects that will mirror what many of the rest of us have noticed, at least if we're paying attention. The author details the decline of insects and the potential problems for all species as a result. He sandwiches scientific information with stories of what it was like when drivers used to have to stop to clean the insects off their windows before they could keep going. He has a good way with a phrase, and I found myself reading passages aloud to my husband. Definitely worth a look.… (more)

nonfiction - science. Mass extinction event likely (pesticides, pollution, climate change) that will severely impact produce crop yields (especially those living in poorer countries) as well as the food chain (noticeable declines are already affecting birds that eat bugs), and the quality of the soil that bugs help us break down.

I didn't find out exactly why I keep finding lost ladybugs on the beach (I'm guessing neurotoxins in pesticides), but reading this did make me realize how dramatically fewer bugs I am seeing these days-- I can think of plenty of anecdotal (but still astonishing) evidence just within my own experiences-- the number of fireflies has noticeably gone down in my lifetime (I only see them when I travel east, but I know there used to be a lot more), the number of butterflies in the neighborhood is a lot fewer than when I was a kid (despite having the same plants and the neighbors even planting butterfly bushes), even the number of bugstrikes on the windshield does seem to have decreased.

This book compiles many of the hundreds of studies from all over the world that document the huge drops in population sizes among various insects--even allowing for gaps in the research and acknowledging the need for more research, none of it is looking positive. (It's also not heartening to learn that the big 6 pesticides companies have combined into a multinational big 3.)

This needs to be made into a PBS/BBC special to reach a wider audience of people. We also need a responsive US Congress, but... well.… (more)