book: Silent Earth: Averting the Insect Apocalypse , Dan Goulson
given the dominance of the Western culture that ignores or despises invertebrates, Goulson is filling an important niche by focusing on the plight of these critters.
atop the highly publicised concept of climate change, Goulson highlights the lesser-known problem of how fucked our agriculture system is. Arable agriculture gets a lot of free passes... consider how plant-based is praised with little room for discussion about how those plants are farmed. someone needed to write an approachable work that dragged arable ag over the coals. Goulson describes the issues of pesticides and habitat fragmentation, pushing back against the idea of a sustainable world being one of "untouched" nature reserves surrounded by intensified agriculture.
it is a good starter text for the unfamiliar, though I admit once I reached the later chapters that went beyond entomology/conservation and into the social-change aspects I began to grind my teeth. If you are to read the book, add in the caveat of "there is a lot more you can do to change the world in addition to what Goulson lists".
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