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Climate Strike -- Insects (week 44) [1]

['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']

Date: 2023-08-04  

You can make a difference to the hurt being caused by climate chaos and the great extinction event, in your town or your city! How? Reuse, repurpose, and recycle this information.

This is the letter for week 44 of a weekly climate strike that went on for 4 years in front of San Francisco City Hall, beginning early March 2019. For more context, see this story. For an annotated table of contents to see topics for all the strike letters, see this story. Meanwhile…

STRIKE FOR THE PLANET

Insects pollinate ¾ of the world’s flowering plants and at least 35% of our crops1; human fate rides on the fate of insects.2 And for insects, it’s apocalypse now.3

That’s why this week’s letter is about INSECTS IN SF.

What’s the problem?

Insects are being poisoned, evicted, starved, and directly killed at mass extinction rates. Natural habitat is being destroyed for farming and for human sprawl. The intensive use of devastating pesticides is increasing. Industrial pollution and light pollution are disrupting mating and other biochemical cycles. Non-native species are displacing native insects and destroying ecosystems. And climate chaos is moving ecosystem ranges and directly causing mass destruction.4

Why is this a problem for SF?

Humans depend on insects. Insects are at the base of the food web and do a huge amount of all nutrient recycling.5 But when was the last time you saw an insect downtown? SF is seriously out of balance and, by our actions, substantially contributing to the insect extinction crisis.

So what does SF need to do?

Create a huge number of insect gardens in parks and on rooftops. 6, 7, 8

Outlaw neonics and other wideband, persistent, and biosphere-poisoning insecticides. 9

Do much more planting, with all planting being of natives and near-natives (near-natives are CA and NV natives from ecosystems adjacent to our climate zone and therefore better able to survive in a hotter, drier SF — on the SF Climate Zone Map, for example, Zone 1 becomes Zone 2 or 3 10 — by the way, this map doesn’t appear to have been updated for climate change).

— by the way, this map doesn’t appear to have been updated for climate change). Create insect highways, migratory routes, and linked territories. 11, 12

Reduce cars. They are deadly to insects in myriad ways. 13, 14

Stop light pollution. 15 This is a positive health benefit for all species, including humans. 16, 17

This is a positive health benefit for all species, including humans. Create bioswales wherever possible. 18, 19

Promote out-of-the-box solutions, such as insect farming.20

Guess what? The above actions don’t just help insects, they help with a LOT of the problems facing us…if we start on them NOW!

How do we do this?

Involve businesses (especially nurseries) in maximizing insect habitat and diversity. Involve schools, especially in planting and maintaining native insect gardens. Involve parks in creating insect highways across the city, and in planting native and biodiverse ecosystems. Demand all construction have multiple insect gardens at multiple different levels equal or in excess of the footprint in square footage. Involve libraries, especially in planting and maintaining insect gardens and in showcasing native insect species in book, picture, and live collections. Involve community centers in hosting sections of the insect highways. Definitely involve golf courses. If golf courses want to continue to operate in SF, they need to adapt the game to the conditions of the biosphere. Eliminate astroturf. It is a bad, bad bet environmentally and economically. Promote via native insects on city websites, media, through events, commemorations, etc. Set the narrative. Insects are good. Insects are necessary. SF needs to be an insect-friendly location. Legislate. Change the regulations. Do everything in your power to promote insects. Lobby the state to change state rules and mandates so the insects we nurture aren’t murdered at the county borders.

And, hey, whaddaya know? All of these tactics work for the other issues we have to fix, too!

Here is a reminder of the long-range and medium-range projects you should already be starting on: massive native tree plantings, blackwater recycling, all electric and clean energy transportation, getting rid of plastics, switching to all local carbon-neutral or carbon-negative energy, and resilience and self-sufficiency.

Please note, this is my 44th week of striking, and there are only 44 weeks left in which to start acting decisively and with urgency. Act now or it will soon be too late to accomplish anything.21, 22

FOOTNOTES

1. Insects & Pollinators. USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service. Accessed 24 February 2020. https://www.nrcs.usda.gov/wps/portal/nrcs/main/national/plantsanimals/pollinate/ .

2. Joanne Kennell. What Would Happen If All Earth’s Insects Vanished? The Science Explorer. 9 December 2015. http://thescienceexplorer.com/nature/what-would-happen-if-all-earth-s-insects-vanished .

3. Damian Carrington. “Plummeting insect numbers ‘threaten collapse of nature’”. The Guardian. 10 February 2019. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/feb/10/plummeting-insect-numbers-threaten-collapse-of-nature .

4. Damian Carrington. “Fates of humans and insects intertwined, warn scientists”. The Guardian. 20 February 2020. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/feb/20/fates-humans-insects-intertwined-scientists-population-collapse .

5. Wolfgang Weisser and Evan Siemann. Insects and Ecosystem Function . ResearchGate. January 2008. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/321614575_Insects_and_Ecosystem_Function .

6. “Managing urban areas for insect pollinators: As town and cities continue to grow how can land managers help insect pollinators in urban areas?” Living With Environmental Change, Note No. 20-Insect Pollinators Initiative. October 2015. https://nerc.ukri.org/research/partnerships/ride/lwec/ppn/ppn20/ .

7. “Gardening for insects”. Amateur Entomologists’ Society. 1997-2020. https://www.amentsoc.org/insects/insects-and-man/gardening-for-insects.html .

8. M.G. Leonard. “Top tips to make your garden insect friendly”. CountryFile. 28 March 2017. https://www.countryfile.com/wildlife/wildlife-stories/top-tips-to-make-your-garden-insect-friendly/ .

9. Stephen Leahy. “Insect ‘apocalypse’ in U.S. driven by 50x increase in toxic pesticides”. National Geographic. 6 August 2019. https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/2019/08/insect-apocalypse-under-way-toxic-pesticides-agriculture/ .

10. San Francisco Climate Zone Map. RPD and DPW. 2009 and March 1991. https://www.sfpublicworks.org/sites/default/files/854-Climate%20Zone%20Map%20of%20San%20Francisco.pdf .

11. Hugh Warwick. “Save our bugs! How to avert an insect Armageddon”. The Guardian. 20 May 2018. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/shortcuts/2018/may/20/save-our-bugs-how-to-avert-an-insect-armageddon .

12. “Save wild flowers on road verges”. Plantlife. 23 January 2020. https://plantlife.love-wildflowers.org.uk/roadvergecampaign .

13. Stephen Messenger. Trillions of Insects Killed by Cars Every Year, Says Study. TreeHugger. 10 July 2011. https://www.treehugger.com/cars/trillions-of-insects-killed-by-cars-every-year-says-study.html .

14. Molly Michelson. Pollution and Honeybees. California Academy of Sciences, Science News. 7 October 2013. https://www.calacademy.org/explore-science/pollution-and-honeybees .

15. ed. Evan Dern. Light Pollution Decimates Insects in the Environment. Department of Physics, Florida Atlantic University. Accessed 24 February 2020. http://cescos.fau.edu/observatory/lightpol-Insects.html .

16. Ron Chepesiuk. Missing the Dark: Health Effects of Light Pollution. Environmental Health Perspectives. January 2009. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2627884/ .

17. Human Health. International Dark Sky Association. Accessed 24 February 2020. https://www.darksky.org/light-pollution/human-health/ .

18. John Roman. “New bioswales on campus could lessen mud, attract more insects, lessen labor”. The Vermilion. 27 February 2018. https://www.thevermilion.com/news/new-bioswales-on-campus-could-lessen-mud-attract-more-insects/article_5032675e-1bf3-11e8-99c4-afd1c49a63a5.html .

19. Aleli Balagtas. Planting for Pollinators: How Raingardens Can Help. Metro Blooms. 14 January 2015. https://metroblooms.org/2015/01/14/planting-for-pollinators-how-raingardens-can-help/ .

20. Kees Aarts. “Insects: the secret weapon to saving food waste?” World Economic Forum. 17 January 2016. https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2016/01/insects-the-secret-weapon-to-saving-food-waste/ .

21. Only 11 Years Left to Prevent Irreversible Damage from Climate Change, Speakers Warn during General Assembly High-Level Meeting. United Nations. 28 March 2019. https://www.un.org/press/en/2019/ga12131.doc.htm . See the action timeline in the report.

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