As always, I appreciated David Brooks’s reporting, this time on bugs:
“Save the bugs – before it’s too late” (Monitor front page, March 6).
But I would have appreciated a referral to other sources, beginning with the Nov. 27 New York Times Magazine story, “The Insect Apocalypse Is Here” and a more measured appraisal in the Feb. 19 Atlantic, “Is the Insect Apocalypse Really Upon Us?”
In the former, I especially related to “the Windshield Phenomenon” – how many people, and not just entomologists, have noticed that bugs no longer splatter on our windshields as they once did.
Have you noticed that?
While the loss of a single species (think monarch butterflies) would be regrettable, and the loss of a class (think honeybees) would have serious repercussions for our food supply, a more general “bug apocalypse” would lead to an existential threat of our way of life – if not our species.
The secondary headline says it all: “Insect apocalypse aside, it’s time to save the bugs” – and ourselves.
TOM CHASE
Northwood