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Comment by BlueTie | Hacker News Reader

I have a feeling that in a few generations people will look back and wonder how we were so concerned about an iceberg melting when we were eating a credit card per week of plastic and wiping out most of life on earth.

(For the record I do think global warming is a big deal - I just think the latter issues will hurt humanity far more far sooner)

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Climate change is one of the main factors in "wiping out most life on earth." Habitat fragmantation means that flora and fauna cannot shift (generally poleward) to remain in regions they are suited to climatically, so the effects of climate change on biodiversity are worse than they would be otherwise. Even without habitat fragmentation, or the other pressures humans exert on the biosphere, the rate of climate change is such that it alone could potentially induce a mass extinction.

I do agree that the biosphere as a whole should be the primary concern and the focus on only one component, namely climate change, is incredibly short sighted.

Global warming is going to be disruptive on the scale of COVID (probably worse), and it's going to happen during our lifetimes.

Without insects for pollination, it will be difficult to feed the current, let alone the growing, world population. At least at a reasonable price.

Artificial pollination works. Just not at the price that nature "demands".

And of course, climate change will play a massive role. But so will the sixth extinction.

Given the fact that we have studies showing -75% of insects in some regions (of Germany) [1], I feel that the system is already way out of bounds.

[1]: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal...

When I was a kid (say early 80s) we would go to a camp about 60 minutes drive from our house in the city. In the summer, the round trip would leave a crust of dead inspects on the grill we'd have to scrub off when we washed the car. These days, if I see a bug on the grill it's unusual.

I think that some of this effect is aerodynamics. Insects are pretty small — to get one to splatter on your windshield, the surrounding air needs to be under rather high acceleration so that the insect hits the windshield instead of following the air’s streamlines around your car. This condition isn’t great for aerodynamic drag. Newer cars try harder to be efficient, which reduces their tendency to splatter insects in their paths.

There's plenty of high calorie crops that don't need pollination.

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