In mid-June we went raspberry picking for the first time this year. A two-inch rain a few days prior fattened the wild fruits and brought them to peak sweetness.
The morning was drenched with heavy dew. It was hot. A south wind puffed and sent ripples across the pond and shimmered the cottonwood leaves but did little to dull the heat. The air was thick. Heavy. We were soaked with sweat by 9 AM. As the first berries landed with dull thuds in our pails we were privy to an impromptu concert: an ensemble of vireos and warblers and cuckoos. We were hunter-gatherers, engaged in a ritual as old as humankind. Strangely, there wasn’t a mosquito. Not one, and I didn’t know if I should be grateful or concerned.
There’s a line of thought that says a healthy and balanced ecosystem should have few mosquitoes, because predators—fish and frogs, bats and birds— keep numbers in check. It’s logical, but why, in the far north, where some of the cleanest and healthiest environments still exist, do mosquitoes cloud the sky?
Why does our evening porch light attract so few moths, June bugs and lacewings? How is it we take a drive on a warm summer’s night and return with a clean windshield? Why have dragonflies, butterflies and grasshoppers nearly disappeared from our landscape?
Insects are the foundation of terrestrial food webs and their services and value are beyond measure. We might think we can live without them, but we can’t. Yet their absence, when noticed at all, usually causes little concern. We might prefer that most were gone.
Monitoring insect populations is limited to a select few. Pollinators, responsible for much of the food we eat, top the list. Next are those that threaten crops or timberland, especially when the threat comes from an introduced pest like gypsy moth or emerald ash borer. If an insect seems dangerous it gets our attention. Most do not.
In the world of insects there are over a million known species. The actual number may be 10 times higher as so many are yet to be discovered. Each fills a niche, plays a role, and most are in decline.
The Krefeld study measured flying insect numbers in German nature preserves. Over a 30-year period, observers found a 75 percent reduction in total biomass with no clear explanation. Another long term study, this one at the Guanacaste Conservation Area in Costa Rica, links a dramatic loss of moths and caterpillars directly to climate change. Renowned entomologist E.O. Wilson called insects “the little things that run the world,” and those little things are disappearing.
By the 4th of July the law of diminishing returns put an end to our pursuit of raspberries. The heat dome occupying the eastern half of the country sat like a brooding hen. The rains were spotty, and the corn fields missed grew pale, their leaves curled into spears.
We had seen exactly one monarch butterfly and were still awaiting the first grasshopper of the season when the Big Beautiful Bill was signed into law. The scalawags that pushed it through hailed it as the Golden Age of America, despite opposition from the majority. At its core was a permanent tax break for the wealthy at the expense of healthcare, education, foreign aid and food assistance. It removed incentives for electric vehicles and renewable energy, dismissed an assortment of science-based services, gave the fossil fuel industry the green light— all while threatening to add three trillion to the deficit and nudging us ever closer to authoritarianism.
For those of us who want to simply live, work, dream, and have a legitimate hope for a long and prosperous future, the bill has the appeal of a nuclear winter. It’s tempting and much easier to ignore it, embrace ignorance, and believe all will be well in the end. The good people of 1930’s Germany did exactly that.
Government incentives and mandates are essential to meaningful environmental policy. Capitalism won’t rise to the call on its own, at least not quickly. And with all the turmoil and confusion, the cries for justice and fairness, the chaos of tariff uncertainty, there is zero probability the current White House will intervene for the sake of butterflies or anything that hints of environmental wellness.
My former boss would say, “Expect the worst and you’ll never be disappointed.” It’s not the most joyful motto to live by but can offer unexpected comfort in the face of overwhelming odds, encouraging us to better appreciate the people in our orbit, the song of a wood thrush, a ripened peach, a perfectly chilled monastic brew…
Quiet resistance. Savoring what’s left. Sometimes it feels that’s all there is.
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