Rising temperatures will drive mass human migration on a scale that is not only unprecedented, but is impossible to imagine.

The death toll from all this turmoil in coming decades will likely be in the hundreds of millions- if we are very very lucky…

I fear a more likely scenario is collapse of the global civilization – constant war and billions dead. All before the year 2100… The rise of fascism globally will happen long before that- indeed, it is clearly happening now.

I’ve lived in Florida on and off for years, and there is no doubt in my mind there just aren’t as many bugs as there used to be. Now I haven’t lived in the same place, and everything is changing due to industrialization, development; changes in agricultural practices, land use and habitat destruction play a role. But I have noticed the change. I expect birds and other vertebrates to be affected by human activity, but the changes in insect populations and tidal invertebrates is definitely noticeable. The latter is to be expected from the destruction of the marine environment, but the former is unexpected.

There is no doubt some of my favorite bugs seem to be scarcer, and some more than others. The big lubber grasshoppers seem to have disappeared, in fact, all grasshoppers seem scarcer now. I haven’t seen an oleander moth since I was a kid, although oleanders (the food of the larvae) are now widely planted everywhere as ornamentals. In fact, moths and butterflies seem to be greatly reduced in numbers compared to when I was a kid. A handful of species seem to be hanging on, but the colorful variety we used to enjoy year-round, even in the middle of the city, is no more. The hummingbirds seem to have left as well. Same diet, something concentrating in the flower nectar? Who knows?

Cockroaches seem to be much scarcer, I haven’t seen one in the wild for a long time, although I know they are still household pests. Occasionally one strays into the house and we kill it, but there used to be so many you couldn’t really get rid of them, all you could do was control their numbers. And I haven’t seen a giant waterbug in years. I don’t miss them at all. They bite! A lot of the fresh water species seem to be on the decline,
whirligigs, striders, boatmen, dragonflies, but that could just be because I don’t get out into the bush much anymore.

Part of the problem might be the destruction of the natural tree canopy. Imported ornamental trees replace the native species, but they are often selected for their shade hardiness and lack of leaf litter, the bugs won’t eat them and the birds won’t roost in them.

Other species, on the other hand, seem much more common; particularly mosquitoes, although that might be due to the decline in the numbers of bats and nighthawks, their natural predators. And it seems that new voracious varieties of termites and ants are moving into the state from the tropics almost every year. The fire ant, on the other hand, an import from South America, seems to be slowly dying out.

Maybe it is climate change, but no doubt new agricultural pesticides and simply urban development and habitat destruction probably are the real culprits. Insects are pretty resilient, changes in climate might prompt them to move, but I doubt it would kill them outright. And remember, every time a species declines or prospers, other species respond by increasing or decreasing as they compete for resources, and as the predator-prey relationships change.

I’m not sure we can blame all this on climate change, even if it does play a role. And of course, although climate change has been around for over a century, it is picking up speed and its effects have been much magnified just in this new century. But something IS definitely going on. Cockroaches are one of the most successful species on the planet, they’ve been around almost unchanged since the Coal Age, and they’ve proved they can live alongside us even in urban environments. When THEIR population dwindles its certainly nature’s way of telling you something’s wrong.