I consider this to be a false argument, as Stonehenge, if left severely alone, would soon present the appearance of a jumbled heap of ninepins, many of the stones having reached a condition when they are liable to be blown down by any gale from the west, such as the one experienced last year. At Cheselbourne a certain man, Tom Trask, had the misfortune that whenever he slept, the devil threw the ceiling down on his head’. Eye-opening and inspiring, Silent Earth is a call to arms for profound change at every level and a passionate argument or us to love, respect and care for our six-legged friends. The first three parts of the book develop this case, in a calm but impassioned way. They summarise why insects are crucial (and very cool), the current state of scientific research, and ethical and policy arguments succinctly and accessibly. All manner of threats to insect survival and diversity are covered, including city light pollution, herbicides, fungicides, invasive species and more.

Dave Goulson at home in Sussex: ‘We will never know how many species went extinct before we could discover them.’ Photograph: Jeff Gilbert/AlamyIt's a bleak picture, and despite the increase in awareness since the 1960s, Goulson makes it pretty clear that its a vastly under-researched problem. I note that funding for ecological research has not fared well over recent decades, at the precise point when we needed it most. But there is enough data to be very concerned about plummeting insect numbers and probably many species going extinct without our even knowing it. Since insects are a vital foundation of ecosystems, as well as being fascinating, this is concerning on many levels. We rely entirely on healthy ecosystems for our own food, in the end. This is a lovely little book on how insects are disappearing. The studies, counter studies and facts. It’s not just one thing, it’s safe to say, but a combination of some or all of the following factors: This book gives a list of things that all of us can do to dampen the negative spiral. Grow our own food - even just a little bit of fresh green - mow our lawns less often, eat meat as a treat and not as an everyday occurrence and so on. Part 1: The March and September Quarter Dates A guest post prepared by Dr G. Terence Meaden mid-March 2019 Advances in archaeoastronomy are announced that introduce a new approach to examining the axial and recumbent stone circles of Ireland and Scotland by studying them at sunrise on what are deduced preplanned dates built into the monuments. Since 2012 research has advanced swiftly on several fronts and in this first article for Silent Earth the studies are illustrated with reference to the splendid Drombeg Stone Circle in County Cork, South-West Ireland (Figure 1). [caption id="attachment_4985" align="aligncenter" width="707"] Figure 1. Drombeg Stone Circle[/caption] HOW TO STUDY RECUMBENT STONE CIRCLES Until now most megalith-archaeoastronomy enthusiasts stood at the geometrical centre of recumbent stone circles gazing at ... Read More We must transform our food system. Growing and transporting food so that we all have something to eat is the most fundamental of human activities. The way we do it has profound impacts on our own welfare, and on the environment, so it is surely worth investing in getting it right. There is an urgent need to overhaul the current system, which is failing us in multiple ways. We could have a vibrant farming sector, employing many more people, and focused on sustainable production of healthy food, looking after soil health and supporting biodiversity.

Silent Earth is a well-written and logically structured book, neatly divided into five parts and 21 chapters, none of which run on for too long. Goulson gives you his reasons for why he thinks insects matter, examines the evidence for insect declines, discusses potential causes, and outlines what can be done. His pen is sharp and he is not afraid to lash out in places, but I also found his writing infused with intellectual honesty and a willingness to consider criticism.Want het gaat niet goed met de insectenwereld. Hoe slecht het écht gaat, daar is soms discussie over. Niemand weet het echt, jammer genoeg. Er zijn niet genoeg cijfers van heel vroeger om mee te vergelijken. En een groot deel van de insectensoorten is nog niet eens ontdekt. Wat wil zeggen dat er soorten uitsterven vo Insects are the most vivid expressions of the astounding fact of life in what may be a dead universe. Read this book, then look and wonder." Meanwhile we have all read stories about hive collapse syndrome affecting honeybee colonies and the tragic decline of monarch butterflies in North America, and more. But it is not too late to arrest this decline, and Silent Earth should be the clarion call. Smart, eye-opening, and essential, Silent Earth is a forceful call to action to save our world, and ultimately, ourselves. Goulson straalt door middel van zijn woorden een enorme dierenliefde uit. Een kriebelbeestjesliefde eigenlijk, als je het helemaal precies wil benoemen. Hij neemt de lezer mee in zijn passie en zorgt ervoor dat je open gaat staan voor het nut en de schoonheid van deze grote groep dieren. Hij doet dat op een heel toegankelijke en laagdrempelige manier. Natuurlijk kan de Jip en Janneke-taal niet doorheen het hele boek vastgehouden worden en dat zou ook afbreuk doen aan de professionaliteit, maar vooral aan de start van Stille Aarde word je als lezer niet overrompeld met een lading wetenschappelijke termen. De stijl blijft op die manier verfrissend met een goede balans tussen professioneel en aantrekkelijk. The more I studied bees, the clearer it became that they were declining. So my research began to focus on why this was happening and what we might do about it. But if you publish papers in dry academic journals, then nobody bloody reads them – apart from a handful of other academics. It seemed a bit futile. So I guess this book is the culmination of my efforts so far to try to break through to a wider section of society.

The amount of truth in these words is devastatingly scary. They sound alarmist and dramatic, but they are completely true. We are destroying our home. We are decimating the populations of the creatures we share the planet with. We are pushing the earth into extinction.He wants to revamp the education system to make nature interesting and engaging and for children to understand the importance of it in our lives. The real tragedy is that often even the teachers fail to understand it too. They offer uninspiring lessons on matters they don’t know enough about and then move on to the next subject. Speaking from experience, my lessons in biology at school were awful: they did nothing to capture the brilliance of the natural world. Something different is needed, something to help young people realise that the earth and her creatures are finite. We need to see her directly to understand her. There was one unfortunate tendency noticeable in these chapters: Goulson's Further Reading section is not always complete – especially the pesticide chapter sometimes misses relevant studies discussed in the text (e.g. on p. 106 Goulson mentions a study by Sur & Stork that is not listed). And because he neither clearly references all of them, nor uses footnotes, it is not always immediately apparent what study he discusses. I am familiar with the argument that in books for a general audience you do not want to constantly interrupt the flow of your narrative with citations, which is why I prefer superscripts leading to numbered endnotes. Though most can be identified with some effort, readers should not have to repeat Goulson's research, especially on controversial topics where the data matters.

Silent Earth] should be obligatory reading for politicians and those in power... compelling... [Goulson] draws up his case in a very readable and accessible style... an essential and timely book. John Green, Morning Star Rev. W.K. Kendall recorded ‘A very curious form which the customary bonfire celebration on the Isle of Portland on the night of 5 November had taken. When the bonfire was lighted, the following custom was observed. A man taking up one of the children in his arms gave the signal, and then all the others followed him in single file round the fire, over which he leaped with the child in his arms. When the fire began to burn low, the children also jumped over it. The following doggerel was sung:-In 1963, two years before I was born, Rachel Carson warned us in her book Silent Spring that we were doing terrible damage to our planet. She would weep to see how much worse it has become. Insect-rich wildlife habitats, such as hay meadows, marshes, heathland and tropical rainforests, have been bulldozed, burned or ploughed to destruction on a vast scale. The problems with pesticides and fertilisers, she highlighted, have become far more acute, with an estimated 3m tonnes of pesticides now going into the global environment every year. Some of these new pesticides are thousands of times more toxic to insects than any that existed in Carson’s day. Soils have been degraded, rivers choked with silt and polluted with chemicals. Climate change, a phenomenon unrecognised in her time, is now threatening to further ravage our planet. These changes have all happened in our lifetime, on our watch, and they continue to accelerate. One of the creatures that we really have to look after is insects. They are essential for life in so many ways, so of which we know and as Goulson, says in the book, echoes Donald Rumsfeld of all people, in ways that we have not even begun to comprehend. As they disappear because of our actions; spraying vast swathes of land with toxic chemicals, drenching plants with weedkillers and pumping vast quantities of climate-changing gasses into the atmosphere, the world as we know it will change irrevocably. People seem to forget that we are an integral part of the natural world and this planet. Ultimately, everything that we do will have an effect and repercussions much further down the line. This piece of art by Jim Vision and Louis Masai says it all really: