This article doesn't mention the declining insect population at all but I would think it's clear that a quickly declining food source would be a major cause of population decline. I wonder if there's a similar decline in other animals that rely on insects, eg bats. Although, interestingly, the article does mention neonicotinoids as a direct reason for the decline in population. It's hard to imagine humans taking the…
> or we die out and the planet recovers on its own. That makes it sound like there's some kind of natural 'ideal state' for the planet to recover to. Without us, the planet would just go on changing, without anything to judge the current environment at any point as good or bad to any particular standard. Saving the environment is simply saving ourselves. Nothing more, nothing less.
If you want to know what the natural state for an area is, ask a native person from a population that has un uninterrupted culture, that is if you can find one.
A native person I know often describes a discorded ecosystem by saying: "The land is sick."
To equivocate and to claim all states are equally natural, is to deliberately miss the point.
A healthy ecosystem—and most of us haven't ever seen one—is obviously healthy when you see it.
It's a tautology to say that everything is natural. You could argue that plutonium and dioxin are natural, but without considering the concentration and distribution, it's meaningless semantics.