'Hyperalarming' study shows massive insect loss.

[NNadir]

22. At the risk of being told I'm "pimping" for Monsanto instead of routinely "pimping" for nuclear...

...energy, I will offer my "pimp" opinion that I am discussing the paper referenced in the news article referenced in the OP.

I am not an expert in any sense of the word in arthropod biology, physiology or ecology. However, as often as is possible, when confronted with an environmental issue which affects the people for whom my pimping is directed - that would be all future generations - I try not to rely on journalists, most of whom mangle science when they try to discuss it, but go to the primary source.

I can do that fairly easily, since I am extremely fortunate to have access to almost all of the world's scientific literature, from which my pimp clarion calls derive.

Now since I have been described as a "pimp" for nuclear energy - about which I am an expert - I might note that I have a significant interest in pimping about climate change, the real object of my pimpery, which is actually, and in the case of the PNAS paper referenced, if one digs deeper, a factor in the PNAS paper to which the news article in the OP refers.

There is evidence that nicotinoid pesticides have played a significant role in colony collapse disorder among bees. This is not entirely surprising since nicotinoid pesticides are designed to kill insects. Of course, if, in some circumstances, no insects were killed at all, this might have an impact on the world food supply, just as the extinction of bees might have an effect on the world food supply. So pesticide use is a legitimate topic for someone who actually knows something about arthropod biology, physiology, ecology etc.

And though this might inspire other people to pimp for balance, I am not about to pimp for any topic about how to address or create balance in pesticide use. I did work in the relatively distant past professionally on agricultural issues, but my work was mostly about genetic modification, which I call "directed evolution" and other people call "vicious capitalist pig corrupt money grubbing blood sucking criminality." So be it. My interest in genetics today is mostly concerned with biomarkers and genetic modification of bacterial and Chinese Hamster Ovary (CHO) cells to make drugs that save people's lives.

This said, I do note that there are 7 billion people on this planet, and all of them would like to avoid starvation, but I am not in a position to pimp for them on the issue of the food supply. Because of my sometime ago exposure to this "blood sucking criminal industry" the ag industry, I did develop some scientific respect for the people who work in it, some of whom (gasp) worked for MONSANTO/SATAN.

Just as I think about, and have written here on, the topic of Why Birds Matter - although this interest was attached to my interest in pimping the question of whether pimping for the so called "renewable energy" industry represented an environmental interest or something else, I do care about the avian ecosystem of which insects are a prominent part.

In my pimping, I noted that there was a lot of hand waving and not a lot of sound science to support turning continental shelf avian ecosystems into industrial parks to generate, albeit temporarily, insignificant amounts of electricity:

After poking around a bit for some more updated stuff than what's in my files, I came across this nice piece: Lack of sound science in assessing wind farm impacts on seabirds (Green et al, Journal of Applied Ecology 2016, 53, 1635–1641) I believe it may be open sourced, so you can read it yourself if you're not in a library. (I'm in a library as I write, so I can't tell if it's open sourced, but I think it is.)

.

Of course, when I pimp my beliefs, I also note that half a century of cheering for wind and solar - through which I have personally lived - this may have something to do with my pimpery which, in a self serving fashion I describe as "caring" - did nothing to prevent the carbon dioxide concentrations in the planetary atmosphere as measured at Mauna Loa from rising to more than 400 ppm permanently. (For the week ending October 14, 2018 the figure was 406.00 ppm, 23.18 ppm higher than it was 10 years ago.)

People seldom note this, focusing on my pimping against the wind industry, but my pimping on the topic is actually because I note that the entire industry - which cost humanity a trillion dollars in the last ten years - is merely a red herring to conceal the realities of the gas industry, against which I claim I am really pimping. Again, from the same post on the topic of avian ecosystems just lined above I wrote:

By the way, birds and bats are only part of the reason that the wind industry sucks, but it is, I think, an important part.

The wind and solar industries are nothing more than fig leafs for the dangerous gas industry, and the dangerous natural gas industry is killing us as surely as the dangerous coal industry is.

In their smug, but deep and highly nuanced remarks noting that I am a pimp, most people ignore the question of whether my pimping against the wind industry many actually involve pimping against the gas industry - which by the way is shutting the nuclear industry in this country, raising the carbon dioxide cost of electricity by about 500 grams/kWh. There are people here who are actually cheering for this outcome, just as they cheer for the so called "renewable energy" industry, for which they pimp mindlessly and relentlessly with complete indifference that no one alive today will ever see carbon dioxide concentrations at the mountaintop at Mauna Loa of less than 400 ppm again.

I am certainly not popular for calling out the so called "renewable energy" pimps for pimping for gas in reality, but reality is not determined by popular beliefs. As a scientist, I believe that reality is often revealed by meaurement and the resulting data, like say, the concentration of carbon dioxide in the planetary atmosphere, along with measurement - very simple measurement - of its IR spectrum. In fact, I may be only regular contributor to this site who pimps against wind and solar, although I believe such pimping certainly needs to be done, since solar and wind did not work, are not working and will not work to address climate change, although their popularity is consuming vast amounts of rapidly declining resources.

However, my pimp nature is not the topic of the deeper level discussion which the OP evokes, at least if one opens the PNAS paper, which is, as I see it - and I could be wrong since everyone here is smarter than I am - is about an ecological effect of climate change.

Neither is it about pesticides, or agrochemistry, except for a paragraph in which it states that it does not attribute the decline of insect populations in a Puerto Rican rain forest to pesticides. Thus the paper is certainly not all about Monsanto, nor about traveling to some anti-capitalist meet up where one can read the writings of Leon Trotsky and his call for world wide revolution against capitalism. This is, in any case, true of the PNAS paper, which I have opened and through which I've scanned to learn about what the primary source was.

Agreeing that I am a pimp for nuclear energy - although as I near the end of my life, I claim to be pimping on behalf of the generations that come after I die, who many people claim, oblivious to reality, will be living in a 100% renewable energy nirvana, something that clearly will not happen - it is true that this PNAS paper is also not about nuclear energy either, although it is about climate change, and from where I sit, at least peripherally concerned about the worldwide growth, on a vast scale, of the use of dangerous fossil fuels.

Have a pleasant Sunday afternoon.