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Creepy-crawlies

The COVID-19 pandemic, which has had us worried about our today and tomorrow for well over a year, did something good too; it taught me things even at my ripening age. I have now become an expert on what insects mean to us – and how they are vital to our very existence

Creepy-crawlies
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Barely 25-30 years ago, as I drove down the highways and open roads in my country, every few kilometers would see me stopping the car because I could just not see where I was going. My windscreen would be an opaque smorgasbord of dead and dying insects, flattened as swarms of them ploughed into my car which would then be traveling at well over 100 kmph (no speed limits then). Today, the scenario is totally different. There's nothing on the highways to hit my windscreen. No insects, moths, flies, mosquitoes or beetles, which by the way are all attracted to light, and hence perished by smashing into my windshield, mistaking my headlights for the moonlight. At a mere four to five feet off the ground, windshields were then the perfect height to catch these doomed insects, which unfortunately met their demise.

Today, as mentioned, things are terribly different. We probably find more insects underwater or in the Amazon swamps, and none whatsoever close to us. And that's because a helluva lot of us now live in habitats that were once reserved by nature only for the wilderness, flora, fauna and beasts of all likes and creed. And unbeknownst to most of us, this is leading mankind to a terrible tomorrow, much worse than today's COVID-19 pandemic, and certainly more telling and completely final in its verdict – that the only way for the Earth to survive is for humans to disappear. And we are well and truly on our way.

Albert Einstein, the greatest scientist of all time, saw this coming decades ago, and he prophesized: "If the bee disappears off the face of the Earth, man would only have four years left to live." You've probably seen this quote before, in connection with Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD), a mysterious disease that is sweeping through the United States and European honeybee hives. It has now well and truly arrived in many other parts of the world, including India.

25% down, and falling

The fact is that in just the last 30 years, insect numbers have fallen by 25 per cent, and they continue to sink further. "We are heading for an insect annihilation," Jeremy Clarkson, the renowned television presenter, said in a recent program on an OTT platform. Let me

take his prediction a step further – forget about Global Warming or plastics in our oceans… The disappearance of insects from our Planet alone will ensure that all life on Earth will end, and rather quickly at that. Everything. And I am no doomsayer.

This killing process by mankind has been in motion for hundreds of years, but it is really the last century that has seen mono sapiens increasingly seizing centerstage and taking over, wading shamelessly into habitats that nature, eons ago, had carefully designed for creatures large and small alike (including humans), all inter-twined and dependent on each other to exist and flourish.

But one day, the humble rhesus macaque (monkey) evolved into the lascivious homo sapien (man) and everything hit the fan. Homo Sapiens began by politely 'exploring' new lands and then surreptitiously moved on to ravaging vast tracts of our Planet. They tamed the oceans, conquered deserts, dwarfed looming mountain peaks and finally overcame the most derelict and desolate of regions, be it the Silk Route, the Panama Canal or the hundreds of dams built to provide new-age electricity for humans, all while displacing all other natural genus. Years before them, we had Genghis Khan, Alexander III of Macedon and Napoleon Bonaparte plundering and rampaging hitherto unexplored areas. In the process, Mr Genghis, a Shamanist, and some other like-minded fellows sired many of our forefathers and produced a greater number of humans, mercilessly taking over the habitat of other species.

Clearly, unlike the natural cataclysm that culled dinosaurs in an instant, we humans are taking our time to destroy Planet Earth. But don't you worry, we are well on our way.

Why do I say so?

Well, because the true impact is beginning to be felt quite tellingly. Ironically, it is the Western part of the world that is showing the first indications of glooming doom, for that is where the industrial and agrarian revolutions first dug in their feet. It shall be a painful paradox if those that found the feet for us first have now lost their own footing. I say this because in Britain alone, they tried to feed their people better, especially after World War II. In the process, they expanded, modernized and revitalized. To what end? Since 1945, Britain has lost 140,000 miles of hedgegrows, over 40 per cent of its ancient woodlands and 97 per cent of all its wildflower meadows – everywhere that insects used to live. They are paying a terrible environmental price.

Let's talk India and our financial capital, Mumbai. Reports claim that an area that was home to over 500,000 trees, variegated species of birds, insects and animals and once part of a national park, is largely gone. This was forest land of over 3,000 acres in North Mumbai, which has since been reduced to 1,300 acres. It is amongst the few green patches left to purify and detoxify the air in a city hosting crores of people. Guess why? It was taken over for urban development. Nice.

But my Delhi is not lagging behind either, so don't sell me short. India's Capital has lost over 78,000 trees over the last decade and still boasts of being amongst the greenest Capital cities of the world. We clearly don't like green, do we, as we embark on an escapade to chop down a further 16,000 trees in South Delhi alone? Come on. We have to make way for empirically-proven, rich real estate, to house the well-off, and forget brother kill brother, or brother's son kill Uncle, as we brutally maim those that have supported us – insects, roaches, bugs and little creepy-crawlies. We hate them in our Italian tiled houses now, but they have been protecting our life on Earth for ages.

The same pathetic scenario is being witnessed across India. Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh, and so on… my own 'Him-mantras' in Uttarakhand and Himachal to get some fresh air are down. I wanted to conquer them too and tried to over the

last few weeks after the lockdown, but whence I saw the teeming crowds descending on my pristine places with their fecal presence, I gracefully backed off. And shall, for a while.

So where do we go?

I wrote about another anal effect we are making, on our coral reefs. And how as a species, we are running the risk of eventual extinction… My narrative is not an end-game, fatalist or crazy. It is an impending truth; a truth and reality that we are not acknowledging, nor are we accepting it; most of us are not even aware, let alone prepared. Ironical it is that we may be gone, in a blink, the same way the dinosaurs did.

I can continue to belch COVID-19 and run amok. But I cannot forget something that is close to our conscience. For the last century, mankind has been the real scourge, quietly killing its own future. If I revert to coral reefs, they provide us with around 70 per cent of the oxygen that we breathe and absorb over 28 per cent of the carbon-dioxide that we exhale. And here I was, thinking that trees were the real harbingers of oxygen, the true disseminators of carbon-dioxide. I was wrong. It is more. Rainforests around the world are responsible for only one-third (28 per cent, to be exact) of the Earth's oxygen, while nearly 70 per cent of the oxygen is produced by coral reefs and marine plants. The remaining 2 per cent of our oxygen comes from other sources. We are killing these sources. We are killing ourselves.

Experts predict that coral reefs will be gone by 2050. BBC reported that Year 2046 would be the expiry date for coral reefs. Take a breath while you can – 70 per cent of the world's oxygen shall be gone in 25 years, perhaps. My insects and bees are in trouble. And we have been worried sick about Coronavirus. It has come and it eventually will go. But regardless of these pandemics, humans seem to be doing a great job of ensuring their own doom and disappearance. That's food for thought.

We have my good friend Christopher (Columbus) to thank, who must be taking a deep breath, wherever he rests now. If he hadn't discovered the Americas, that part of the world would still be divine and pristine. Chris thought he had found India. Yet, this is how we are turning out.

The writer is a communications consultant and a clinical analyst. narayanrajeev2006@gmail.com. Views expressed are personal

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