in conversation with sophie next, they close for that and then i'm back in 30 with more of the stories effecting your world today. good by the join me every thursday on the alex simon show. and i'll be speaking to guess in the world, the politics sport. business. i'm show business. i'll see you then. mm . the welcome to feel free, go visionaries. me so think chevy knots in our plan of biodiversity has long been crying for help, but now 100 species could vanish in the face of the earth and we're talking end of

the century. these are one of them. what does their extinction mean for our future? talk to dave colson, professor of biology at the university of sussex and author of silent earth burning . in sic apocalypse. busy dave galsen, professor of biology at the university of sussex and author of fallon, earth of burning the in sick polyps. welcome to our show, pray to have you this pleasure to be here. all right, so when you tell someone that the populations of insects are going down and the most frequent reaction will be what lake. oh, well, whatever. there would be less of that annoying, buzzing and stinging. can you summarize? whereas what exactly happens when we superior and why really shouldn't be happy yet? of course, i mean, you're absolutely correct. many people really don't like insects very much and, and they think it's a good thing if they're, if you're insects, but actually it's

a disaster. so insects make up the bulk of all life on earth of we've named so far about one and a half 1000000 species of animal plant on our planet of which 1100000 different types of insect. so they are bio diversity ready or big chunk of it. and the food for many of the organisms that infect says lots of birds and baths and small mammals and freshwater fish. and i'm to be ins unless they all eat insects at the insects. they will go but insects also do lots of other things that are really important, like they control crop pests. they, they're really important in recycling. they recycle dead bodies. dead trees leaves all sorts of organ material, lay break dire, and they keep the soil healthy. they distribute seeds, and of course,

the thing that is perhaps the most familiar, they polonaise. so the large majority of all the plants in the world need pollinating by insects, i wouldn't say. and he said with them would disappear. and approximately 3 quarters of all the crops that we men's gro, depend upon insect pollinators, everything from strawberries and raspberries, and apples to pumpkins and blueberries, and tomatoes, and chili peppers, and even coffee and chocolate depend upon insect pollinators. so their life would be pretty di, revise without all the foods and, and be honest, truth is we couldn't feed everybody with insects. so whether you love them all loads them. we really do need in facts according to the european parliament data about a 3rd of bees and butterfly populations are declining and 10 percent of these and butterfly pieces are actually endangered massive amounts of insects have

disappeared in the past few decades alone. so what kind of an environmental effect are we looking at already? well, if, if we don't do something about it pretty urgently, when we're looking at the kind of the collapse of the functioning of ecosystems that essentially grind to a halt if we continue to lose insects, not just extinction, but it's the luck. it's the, the fall than abundance of species that are probably really most crucial has been some really dramatic evidence. for example, from germany where a long study find that the, the bio massive fly insects, the weight of flying insects fell by 76 percent in the last 26 years. so instead of just becoming much, much less common, which means all the jobs that they do are not being done anymore. and that is the real danger. and that's what's going to, going to impact on us to actually know of the insect species that have already gone

extinct. and they're never coming back because of us. yeah, there are some the probably a great number of them that we don't know about is it's really interesting actually that we, we think that there may be another 4000000 or more species of insect that we haven't even named yet. and it's really quite side. but there's no dive at all the species are going extinct before we've discovered them. but they're all insects that we do know of gone extinct. so for example, there was the world's biggest a week, which probably doesn't appeal to many people, but it lived on the island to send a lane or in the, in the atlantic. and it's gone forever. there's a bumblebee franklin's bumble which used to live in california. and oregon and it's extinct. that's it. for franklin's bumblebee. so some of gone but most haven't and

it's, and it's not too late for those. you know we, we could bring them back. but how do you actually know that there definitely extend . because we've heard this before that these are that species, not only sex in general are and thing, and then 102030 years on. we see them come back. yeah, it's a good question. and of course, it's almost impossible to prove beyond any dyers, but something has gone extinct, particularly when it's small, you know, we're, we're pretty sure the dinosaurs are extinct. because we would be hard to miss one. but if it's a be already away or a little wall or something, then then it's, it is difficult to be certain. there isn't one hiding somewhere. which is why most insects, it's why not that many insects have yet been declared formally extinct. because while di remains, they all declared extinct. but so for example,

franklin's bumblebee, there hasn't been c 9 for 15 years. and every year people have gone to all the places where, where it used to be fined and searched for it. and nobody can find it. it is possible i'd have to admit that there might be some hiding somewhere in the rocky mountains of north america where they haven't yet been rediscovered. so yeah, if we're really lucky, there might be a few left but but as i said, i think the really critical issue is not whether or not individual species have gone extinct, but it's this broad collapse in numbers of infects that's, that's really critical that we talk about pollinators of flow of, of plants such as different types of bees like you mentioned and especially are endangered at this moment. why them, what is happening? are we having less flowers? some of the world doesn't have many flowers,

particularly the way farming has changed with bigger and bigger fields. heavy mechanization, large monoculture is of crops growing with lots of herbicide use to me, and there are so there aren't any weeds, means there are very few flowers in the landscape. and when they're all flowers, they're often contamination with insecticides with pesticides designed to, to be poisonous. to insects. so it's probably habitat last to intensive farming is the biggest driver of b declines. but also climate change is starting to, to kick in iowa, and particularly with bumble bays, which are my kind of speciality the big ferry beads that are common in the northern hemisphere. they're really well adapted to living in cool places like great britain and lots of russia, and they don't like warm weather. so they're really beginning to be pushed northwards by the effects of climate change. why are farmers so keen on using

pesticides and if it actually hurts pollinators and therefore their livelihoods. yeah, it's difficult one and i have a lot of sympathy for pharmacy. and we shouldn't forget that we absolutely need farmers because we'd all starve to death for them. and we need to somehow find a way of growing food and feeding everybody which is sustainable, which isn't doing ever increasing damage to the environment. and as i think one of the biggest challenges that humanity faces is working out how to do that. so far farmers use pesticides because they're worried, the lose their crop if they don't. and often they're working on very small margins that they struggle to make a living and they can't afford that crop to, to be damaged by in fact pass. so in the short term, they use them because they feel a half day. but the danger is that in the long term, we're undermining the very kind of basis the environmental health,

which crop production depends upon them. so in the long term, those farmers will suffer because they crops wont be pollinated, but they're more worried about getting this year's harvest in, understandably because they need to make a living. so we need to help them basically quite, i mean, all of us can actually stop you saying past the sides in our own gardens, right. but will individual effort like yours and my even make any difference. it's fast and sides, and chemicals are still being used on an industrial level. you know, how is it possible to give up this gigantic nature of our food production? i mean, especially in the context of cost and population growth. well, so the cheese at 2 interesting things. first is i do think it would make a difference if, if individual homeowners, gardner stopped using pesticides you know, i don't know the figures the russia, but in the u. k. there are about 22000000 private gardens that cover an area of

a bio is 400 size and hector has of land which is actually a bigger area than all the natures as in the united kingdom. so, you know, just imagine the always gardens were pesticide free and were full of b friendly. flowers about actually make a really substantial difference. but it probably wouldn't overcome all the problems because a much bigger area of land is farmed than is god. and so we do need to come back to this question of, you know, how do we feed the world in a way that is truly sustainable? and i do think that is it's, it's not impossible. you know, where we're clever creatures. if we put our mind to it, we can do this. and i actually, i think part of the answer is to invest more in research and development into alternatives to pesticides. yeah, there's a lot of money poured into developing new pesticides, millions of of pines dollars a year. go into research to, to find new pesticides. hardly any goes into research into,

into ways to minimize pesticide use because the big companies make them money from selling the pesticides not from not using pesticides. but that's where it gives me and needs to step in, i think, and, and, and fund research into more sustainable fami methods. we're going to take a short break right now. and when we come back, we'll continue talking to dave, golf, and professor of biology at the university of sussex. other of solid earth averting that in the apocalypse, talking about what the extinction of 6 mean for human kind. stay with the the the in the wake of the 2nd high level meeting, where does the fraught china

u. s. relationship stand? the 1st meeting in anchorage, alaska was an embarrassing failure for secretary of state blinking at the 2nd meeting. the chinese presented the americans with a set of demand. it would seem the stage a set for real negotiations and not just the roof for my phone, i 69 month and i just saw under the dollar format isis fighters, and now a boarding, a philippine naval ship with this has been done in $900.00 just aren't abdulla still don't know what's

waiting for them can i get a hold of me . ready ready ah, back with they've gotten professor of biology at the university of sussex and other of silent earth averting the insects apocalypse. dave in china. i heard farmers have sorry to pollinate their orchards by hand. can this be the future of recall

true. i mean, everywhere in the world they've, china can do it. well, yeah, no it's, i mean it's pretty terrifying. actually. you're right in in 5, west china, there are a big areas of apple and pare orchards, which and i will hand pollinated. but in china, labor is very cheap compared to most of the rest of the world. and it's a relatively high value crop. it's really hard to see farmers in, in the developed world being able to afford to pay people to, to walk around the fields, hand pollinating every flower. and it would certainly be incredibly expensive and it would mean massive increases in the price of food. and it seems kind of nuts to spend all that money on employing people to do what b, 's, they really well for free. it would be much cheaper i think, to look after the base than to try and do that job for them. you know, there is

a famous episode of black marrow. i don't know if you've seen a, where everybody bees are being used in the u. k. because of the real bees actually died. i mean, it's kind of sy fi ok, but companies are already looking into that possibility. do you think that will be our last resort? i really hope not. and you're absolutely right. yeah. the rest robotics engineers around the world, i know of at least for labs, for the building robot base right now. but it seems kind of nuts because that's gonna, it's going to be expensive. it's going to require lots of resources. metal plastics, energy they're going to need repairing and replacing. they're going to break dial and lift the countryside. and that's the worst case scenario. you know, if terrorists break into the, to the be bought control system and turn them against something. when will real base their biodegradable less self replicating that carbon neutral being poly 900

flowers for more than 100000000 years and they're really good at it. it seems to me that but looking after the real thing would be much cheaper than, than building their replacements. so climate change has a precarious hole in flor phone everywhere on planet. we know, for instance, how it causes ice to melt right and prolongs arctic summer and sand curl, bears storm ation. what impact does climate change have on insects? it depends on the insect. and actually, i mean broadly, many insects like warmth, their, their firm affiliate, they bosque to warm themselves up. so you'd think on the face of it that actually it might be quite good for many insects to have warmer weather. but the reality is that it doesn't seem to be the case that the most insects that have been studied in this respect, even ones that like warm weather like butterflies,

are actually declining as a result of climate change. and it's, it's partly because we think the habitats that they live in a ny very fragmented so lots of creatures live on little natures as a little islands of habitat surrounded, i see intensive farmland, all cities, roads, all sorts of mine made things where they places where they can live so historically, when the climate change gradually, as i say just came and went, insects ranges shifted towards the poles and they could do that because they could move for, there was a continuous habitat for them to move slowly northwards. but now if they've got to move northridge, they may have to jump hundreds of kilometers to find the next a suitable habitat and many insects just on capable of doing that. so the stranded on the little island, which is becoming too hot for them and they can't get to the next place where they

could theoretically live. so all the evidence we have is that basically climate change is adding to poor insect woes. is that i hope actually that bees bumblebees in sax, in particular, bumblebees will adapt to mounting changes. i'm talking about resisting pesticides, heat waves, for instance. yeah. these, i mean sunny insects camera evolve resistance to pesticides, but it takes time. and i think the problem, the insects have a way to kind of bombarding them with lots of different problems all at the same time. they might be able to cope with one pesticide if we kept using the same pesticide, eventually they'd probably become resistant to it. but actually, you know, in the european union, for example, we currently use about 500 different pesticides and they change all the time. so there's little chance of the, the bees having time to, to have old resistance to them before that switch for something else. and it's not

just the pesticides they're also having to cope with the climate changing. but loss of that habitat with invasive species moving in also to other issues which makes it really hard for them to keep up. so sure things can adopt over time, but it takes sizes of years and we're not giving them anything like that. you know, well, pollinators are endangered, climate change is causing some insects of normal activity. i have growing temperatures, increase pass metabolism and you know, they're more hungry. there are options and crops become more ravaging. climate change cannot be turned around. that's for sure. but is there anything that can be done about this particular problem? i think this, the simple answer is we have to try and minimize all of these other pressures that we're putting on insects. you're absolutely right. we're not going to stop climate change from happening. we can mean we can reduce the severity of

a by acting soon and decisively. and that's really, really important, not just of course, for insects, but for many other reasons too. but in the meantime, if we provide these, for example, with some way to live, i'm with lots of flowers and we stop poisoning them. they might be able to cope with climate change if they've got lots to eat. and everything else is looking rosy . they're not going to be able to cope with climate change if we keep poisoning them and destroying that homes. just wondering, is it possible to exterminate, i don't know, like a selected insect species without actually harming others. yeah, well, a might be one day. it isn't at the moment, but that has been researched on 2 things called gene drives, which i another geneticist. and i, i can't explain the mechanism exactly. but essentially you insert

a gene that makes an insect steroidal, which spreads through the population. and theoretically, you can release some of your genetically engineered insects into the wild and wipe site their entire species. in lab experiments, this has been done with one species of mosquito successfully. and so it does offer the offer the potential live in the future. we might be able to say, you know, here's a species we've decided we don't want it anymore. we're going to wipe it eyes. but that i must admit, terrifies me because that is a kind of power. but you know, we're playing god on the global scale. it will be really hard to police apart from anything else because, you know, if one country or one bar tree releases these genetically engineered creature, they're not going to stop the national boundaries, they'll spread everywhere. and so where would we stop which species would we decide? we didn't want and who would decide which species where is

a pretty scary world a habit s for bees are disappearing. not only because of past decide views, but also because our growing population needs new places to lee. right? well, we can try to help the situation. we can't really just stop encroaching and fields and meet meadows. can we? no, we can't. we just need places to live, but we can, we can live alongside these and other insects we can. they can live in the garden. as we discussed earlier, my garden is full of life. i'm looking, i've got quite a big garden, but i'm looking at the window behind my laptop right now in the red butterflies flying around and bumblebees. if everyone's garden was like that, then it wouldn't really be a problem. if urban air is expanded because wildlife would be living with us. so i think that is part of the solution is persuading people to, to invite life in, you know, we're, we're, we're,

we're very many people because they don't really like in thanks. they don't want them in their gardens, but if we could, if we could just wind them over, persuade them to love in fact, which is kind of my mission in life. then maybe that be realize high, beautiful and interesting these creatures. and they would welcome into their gardens. but i mean, i mean, something i don't like and fax, it just says there's some insects that i would want in thing that malaria mosquitos and such will i need some poor. i definitely won't cry. they disappear with unfortunately, the insects we don't like tend to be ones that would be extremely difficult to, to get rid of even if we wanted to. and they are ones that a thriving in the modern world. things like some species of things like high flyers, mosquitoes, cockroaches, they're really tough and adaptable. so there's

a kind of irony that the insects we would really like to do with eyes doing just fine. the ones we really need and that we value as being beautiful or important is pollinators. are the ones that are disappearing, which is yeah, unfortunate. oh, you know, that's how good and evil works in the world. there's 95 percent of good, but the 5 percent of evil is just so well organized. you know? yeah, something like that. so growing more in sex attractions in gardens is one thing you advocate very strongly can personal garden 10 didn't really become a trend so powerful. they actually overturned the current insect extermination process. it would really help. it would certainly some in things could survive just in gardens and, and actually i, i, i've no idea what it's like in russia, but in the u. k, there is a real movement to do this. there are lots of people filling their gardens with be friendly flowers, right, nire. if you look on social media,

everyone's talking about it posting pictures of a garden full of flowers and b, 's, long grass and so on. so there is, is a social movement taken off and i've seen signs of it in other countries too. so that would really help. but as i say, the impacts of farming are bigger on a global scale. and there are lots of insects that won't be able to survive just in gardens alone. so we do need to tackle the issue of global food production. but as i said earlier, i don't think that's impossible. i mean, actually the current intensive farming system is really inefficient. we produce very crudely 3 times as much food as we need to feed everybody on the planet, right? but then we waste roughly a 3rd of that food and we feed another 3rd of it to livestock, which is just a really inefficient way of feeding people. so if we could be more efficient, reduce food waste and persuade everyone to eat less meat than actually we could

greatly reduce the amount of farmland and we could set aside much more land for, for wildlife. they've, thanks a lot for this wonderful. inside the world of insects, thank you so much. it's been such a pleasure and very interesting talking to you. i'm inspire to the gardening of this interview. so i hope this top or anyone else who's season here is that i have say, thank you. thank you. bye bye. the the . ah. when i was shot the wrong one all just don't the

rules. yes to shape out the thing because the after an engagement equals the trail. when so many find themselves worlds apart and we choose to look for common ground algorithm. so neural networks have been following us every where we look online, because our relationships are what matters most of us. and that's how we find meaning. and how we make sense in our place in the silicon valley see don't mention in their sleep presentations. however, the ghost workers who train the software human they're involved in every step of the process when you're using anything online. but we're sold as this miracle of automation behind your screen is available workforce. that seems algorithm is for

next to nothing. on a very good day, i could do $5.00 now. a really bad day. i could do 10 business workers, removable by design. it's about labor costs, but it's also about creating layers of lessening responsibility between those who solicit the kind of work and need it. and those who do it oh right now, there are 2000000000 people who are overweight or obese. it's profitable to sell food that is fancy and sugary, and faulty and addicted. not at the individual level. it's not individual willpower . and if we go on believing that will never change as obesity epidemic, that industry has been influencing very deeply. the medical and scientific establishment, ah, what's driving the vehicle? its corporate. me

the board for headline stories today. shocking revelations by boat gary as hell minister does . he admits cobra vaccination failures, of course, the country almost 10000 live russian ugly stuff that took your lympics. keep seeing gold. it's left western media, police increasingly seeing read the question the teams right to be their pot shoes of chemical waste, contaminated soil, and toxic and missions and environmental specialist outlines different potential dangers of this week's deadly. last intro from a chemical point of view, it is really possible to imagine a huge.