I can’t say I love a face full of midges. Lake lover, yes: sunrise, sunset, a day-appeasing libation, cob loaf, row boat. But midges, in their lecherous low clouds, waiting to press their faces onto my skin? No.
I’d swat them away if I could, but waving my palms through the many-legged weather does nothing, for which the birds and other predators are no doubt thankful.
Yet the midges’ dwindling brings me no relief. Despite my apish petulance, I recognise in them life and the sustenance of other life. A recent paper in Biological Conservation plainly concluded that the global state of insect biodiversity is dire, with almost half of all species rapidly declining and a third threatened with extinction. Bees, wasps, butterflies, ants, and labouring dung beetles are some of the hardest hit. And whilst climate change is a contributing factor (indirectly us), habitat change and pollution are the main drivers (directly us). Thankfully, “intensification of agriculture” and “synthetic pesticides” are entering common parlance, as is “sixth mass extinction”. The public are taking to the streets in ever increasing international numbers (e.g. Extinction Rebellion). Students are protesting outside of parliaments under the Fridays for Future movement. Growing numbers of farmers across the world are switching to conservation agriculture: no ploughing or turning of the soil and year-round diverse crop growth. A lot of people know that time is running out; a lot of people are trying to convince our elected, now little trusted, representatives of this fact.
Greta Thunberg, who stands at the heart of Fridays for Future, recently addressed MPs at the British Parliament. She represents an important but politically overlooked demographic: children who are soon to become voting adults. She opened her speech with characteristic frankness: “I was fortunate to be born in a time and place where everyone told us to dream big. I could become whatever I wanted to… We had everything we could ever wish for and yet now we may have nothing. Now we probably don’t even have a future any more… You lied to us. You gave us false hope. You told us that the future was something to look forward to.”
She brought science and reason into her speech, but it shouldn’t have been needed. Everyone gathered in Parliament has all the information they need to make educated decisions. To save lives. And yet, as she pointed out, the UK and other countries are not divesting their fossil fuel interests — quite the opposite.
“This ongoing irresponsible behaviour will no doubt be remembered in history as one of the greatest failures of humankind.” If, indeed, humankind survives.
Greta, and the millions like her, have an ally in the late Polly Higgins, the British barrister who fought to prosecute internationally the crime of climate ecocide, holding corporations and governments to account. She argued, and her team continues to argue, that there is no legal duty on companies that conduct ecologically dangerous activity, only a duty of financial profit. It should be self-evident that if ecosystems collapse, no one profits. It should be unacceptable that individuals can cause irreparable damage without fear of repercussion.
Other groups are seeking change through letters, lobbying, and learning. Natural Climate Solutions appeals to governments and international bodies such as the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (UNCBD) and the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCC) to not only acknowledge but actively support ecosystems. They state that ecosystems which are allowed to recover will draw down carbon from the atmosphere. Their recovery will also help to mitigate extinction.
Is it as simple as all that? It depends on what you are attached to in life. If you like to fly and drive when and to where you want, eat what you will, and buy whatever you can or can’t afford then no, the transition may not be that simple. If what you’re attached to is life itself, there’s simply no alternative. Some would say “choose”, others “you chose”. Best, perhaps, is “change”.
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