The world’s insects are hurtling down the path to extinction, threatening a “catastrophic collapse of nature’s ecosystems”, according to the first global scientific review.
More than 40% of insect species are declining and a third are endangered, the analysis found. The rate of extinction is eight times faster than that of mammals, birds and reptiles. The total mass of insects is falling by a precipitous 2.5% a year, according to the best data available, suggesting they could vanish within a century.
The planet is at the start of a sixth mass extinction in its history, with huge losses already reported in larger animals that are easier to study. But insects are by far the most varied and abundant animals, outweighing humanity by 17 times. They are “essential” for the proper functioning of all ecosystems, the researchers say, as food for other creatures, pollinators and recyclers of nutrients.
Insect population collapses have recently been reported in Germany and Puerto Rico, but the review strongly indicates the crisis is global. The researchers set out their conclusions in unusually forceful terms for a peer-reviewed scientific paper: “The [insect] trends confirm that the sixth major extinction event is profoundly impacting [on] life forms on our planet.
Oh Shit Monday is….Oh! So fitting!
SNOW SNOW GO AWAY!
LikeLike
It snowed here last night, about 3 inches. I shoveled the deck, walkway and a path to the bird feeders. Only had to push the light and fluffy stuff, one of those easy snowfalls.
About to dry my hair and head to the library.
LikeLike
No snow here, yet, 35 degrees F, brrrr!
LikeLike
Shoveled off the deck and walkway, and by the end of the day it was clear and drier than dirt. Didn’t even make it to 30° today yet the snow is creeping away.
The birds are really happy out there, I think they’re feeling spring in the air.
LikeLike
Hey, I had to type in my email address and name in the above post, and in this one.
LikeLike
Clicked to make another comment, my email address and name didn’t stick again? What’s with that, I wonder?
LikeLike
Carol, if it makes you feel better, I have to type name & email likewise.
LikeLike
I made two more comments, and now they’re gone?
I complained that your page forgot my email address and name. Tried another comment, had to put my email address and name in again! What’s going on, I wonder.
LikeLike
LOOK! Now that I wrote another post because the other two were missing, the two missing ones are back after I refreshed this page.
And I STILL have to put my email address and name in AGAIN.
LikeLike
OMG, now the last comment I made has disappeared. Will this one stick?
LikeLike
WordPress might be having issues, they keep messing with stuff tring to new and improve it but it just makes it worse sometimes. Sometimes if you restart your computer things straighten out, sometimes not.
LikeLike
Snow, endless snow, falls faster than the removal crews can handle it all. Again a 21 minute minor mountain climb to the Hillside Cafe.
Is pretty, falling flakes, tho’,
LikeLike
Still snowing on the return. Stumbled along through the ever deeper piles.
Day 2: 47+37=84 minutes.
LikeLike
Comment was eaten.
Day 2: 47+37=84 minutes.
LikeLike
Ok, the lower landing and the upper third of the stairs have been relieved of about 15 cm of snow. That much is done top down. For the bottom 2/3rds I go to the bottom and work up to the minor landing dividing the two flights of stairs.
Still snowing a little…
LikeLike
Stairs cleared, snow stopped. Still have week’s worth of recycling to take down.
LikeLike
Eaten comment again. No name either.
LikeLike
Let’s see if my comment is eaten, spit out, digested, or________________?
Thought for the end of the day: Will Oh Shit Monday…turn into More Shit Tuesday?
I’m sooooooooooooooooooooooooooo tired of this wintry onslaught! Enough already.
But, it is pretty. 😉
LikeLike
Nope. Didn’t get eaten. And no need to key in name, etc.
LikeLike
No one has ever mapped a persons’ soul or proven it’s existence but there is a force that drives us through our daily lives, a place containing the good and the bad of ones existence. You know it’s there. What is it in ones soul that produces a Pope or a Pirate? The keys rest in the core of it all. All the past physical existences combined define the now, who you are minus your skeleton.
LikeLike
Quit messing with the light switch Igor! :
LikeLike