I hear folks saying bugs are dying off because of changes in the environment, but shouldn’t bugs be some of the best equipped to handle changes? I imagine they reproduce faster than humans, and so I’d think their genes could adjust faster as well. You’d think we’d be having a worse time than bugs as the environment changes?
In: Biology
The environment is changing faster than nature is able to keep up with, that’s why anthropogenic climate change is a big deal. It’s not that the climate is changing, it’s the *rate* at which the climate is changing that’s so alarming. Humans have been in control of our environment for a long time, we can build shelter and AC and whatnot.
A bigger issue facing insects in particular, however, is that we’re tearing down their native habitat, replacing it with farmland, then spraying that farmland with broad spectrum insecticides. We’re killing them on purpose because they’re threatening our food supply that we put right in the middle of where they live. Any time they adapt to those insecticides we just create new ones. Widespread collapse of insect populations is pretty much directly our fault, we’re destroying their food supply, their habitats, and poisoning them to boot.
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