The Quiet Extinction of Bugs

  I remember being a kid in the summertime & catching fireflies in jars to use as a nightlight. You could fill a whole Mason jar with them at my grandma's house in the inner city. We'd let them go in the morning and refill it the next night. Fast forward to the 2020s and I see 1 or 2 of these beautiful creatures on a typical summer night in bumfuck rural America, where they should be twice as abundant as in the cities.

This got me thinking about bugs in general. As a country kid, a Sunday drive down a dusty backroad would leave our car completely covered in bug guts... the windshield especially. Even a 30 mile trip to "town" had that effect, often requiring use of the windshield wipers so we could see! This was the case from the mid-80s through at least 1993.

Typical caterpillar found in the Plains/Southwest

And it wasn't just us: cars used to come with "bug shields" to go on the hood--now that's much rarer. There were a few days per year when Monarch butterflies absolutely filled the sky on their way to/from Canada and Mexico & a month where Junebugs would fly into your hair/face/mouth so bad you couldn't sit outside at night. And caterpillars... those cute fuzzy tan and black ones. They were everywhere in the summer. My sister & I kept a couple as pets, letting them drink water droplets off our fingers. (Yes, nerdy af). I distinctly recall more dragonflies too... Now? There's a plethora of dangerous pests like ticks, mosquitoes & wasps/hornets but that's about it. And those fake Asian ladybugs that sting the shit out of you. And "fun" spiders like the brown recluse and black widow. Oh, and screwworms are back. Joy.

One is 'awww', the other 'ahhhh!'

Climate Change & the Rise of Dangerous Pests

No one's arguing that these insects and creepy crawlies don't play an important role in the food chain somewhere.  But they're certainly a pest and potential health risk to humans, and the harmless-to-risky bug ratio seems to be way out of balance.  My dad's best friend & coworker was killed by a single wasp sting that ended up making the local news about 10 years ago.  Another distant relative died of West Nile Virus in 2017.  I've never been stung by a red ant, bee, wasp or other stinging insect in my life so for all I know, I could react the same way.  But mosquitoes do love feeding on my Type O blood.  The disease I really fear is Alpha-GAL, a disease carried by Lone Star ticks that I wrote briefly about here.  TL;DR - It goes far, FAR beyond a standard food allergy.  

None of this is a surprise if you've been paying attention.  Climate change is projected to increase vector-borne disease dramatically in the coming years.  Scientists call the current age the "Pandemicene" for this reason.  750 million GMO mosquitoes were approved for release in Florida in 2020, and Google (of all evil companies) wants to do similar in California.  And for good reason.  In addition to West Nile Virus, malaria may be making a comeback soon according to the CDC.  It may already be being misdiagnosed as other things like babesiosis in some cases.  

So while I mourn the disappearance of "good" bugs like dragonflies, lightning bugs & caterpillars/butterflies, I also fear the rise of dangerous ones like mosquitoes, ticks & screwworms as the Earth becomes more uninhabitable due to climate change/deforestation/pesticide use & other man-made problems. For anyone wondering whether the "bug thing" is a case of the Mandela Effect, it most certainly is NOT.

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