75% decline over 27 years in total flying insect biomass in protected areas

edit: words.

Even a cursory definition of consciousness must include the sum total of all of our sensory perception, and without the biome to augment that perception, it is impossible that our consciousness would not shift to accommodate the inclusion and exclusion of whatever difference in our sensory input would give to our experience of being alive.

We would all _be_ conscious (presuming relative health), but if we were all on Pluto, for example, the lack of light would change our consciousness, and for each individual this change would happen at a rate determined by their experience.

Perhaps this change would happen gradually enough for some that it might be considered an artifact of evolving, but certainly the change would begin the instant we left Earth's influence, and what might be considered our 'normal' state.

I realize it's a little (though I detest this term) 'hand wavy' because it's a thought experiment based on zero examples, but we do know that our consciousness is dependent on what we perceive and don't perceive. Hence the question posed by Nagel [1] "what is it like to be a bat?", as bats are cognitively very close to humans (relative to the entire biome), but without eyesight, it is fairly clear that the consciousness of a bat would be different than that of a human.

I recognize that this point is not necessarily the one central to your comment, but I do think it's interesting to remember that if we were not here, we would not be as we are.

[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/What_Is_it_Like_to_Be_a_Bat%3F

So ten years ago when I was 20, I had the chance to go with my rich old friend-boss to a relatively high-end restaurant. He called a noodle dish -- I have eaten the same dish -- that cold noodle with shrimp paste (which smells pungent but tastes good) -- for hundreds of times in my life and I didn't expect anything different. But before we started, the waitress brought up a bottle that has a small pipette and dropped a little drop to the paste. The aroma was warm and fuzzy like how you would think of the cinnamon apple juice for a cold day. When I tasted the same dish, it tasted so warm, so rich, and so aromatic. But that's about as good as words get because it was unlike anything I have had in my life. It transformed the dish and my experience to another level of existence. It was that little bug that made me appreciate the food, my life, and the little heritage in the little country, where, honestly, not a lot of things really made sense. But definitely, that little drop of oil does make a lot of sense.

Fast forward one year ago, life has been so much easier to me. Food is abundant, but I sometimes miss that little dish. I asked my parents if they could get some of the ca cuong oil to me, even if it's expensive (as it always has been believed). They tried then replied that they couldn't source the oil, no one sells it. Further researching revealed to me that the little insect has gone practically extinct and it is now illegal to catch them. I want to believe that it wasn't me that contributed to it, but maybe I did. It was more widely believed, however, that the widespread use of pesticide and insect-resistant rice has pushed the little insect to extinction in just a matter of 10-15 years.

The day I figured that out, I feel died a little bit inside. I feel something was lost when I, and many people around me, was busy pursuing. I am now doing work that has a lot to do with biology, and I go to talks of people having that little spiel with how our challenge for the 8-billion people world is food security. I heard PhD students and faculty talking about how great is insect-resistant plants. The scientists in large agree with the assertion that GMOs aren't harmful. My friends would go great lengths to defend GMOs on their blogs and facebook statuses. They are all hardcore, hardworking, real scientists with good intents. I tend to believe smart people meant goodwill.

Still, the world marches forward for whatever it marches forward for, little insects that eat human's food be damned.

But it's not enough, right? We're completely dependent on cheap sources of fossil fuels to drive our economy. How much carbon is released in the atmosphere from just me eating food?