Overcoming environmental doom and gloom

Environmental news is full of doom and gloom, with headlines that look something like: “Climate change will destroy life on earth”, “Another 10 species on the edge of extinction”, or “Massive oil spill poisons the Gulf”. Just reading stuff like this plummets my hope for the future of the planet. One area that has been especially depressing to read about lately is the collapse of insect populations. Every book, article, and study I’ve read on the subject talks about how insect abundance is declining every decade because of pesticides, climate change, and loss of habitat. I’ve even seen the decline near my home firsthand. I noticed a haunting absence of insects in my daily life. They weren’t in my yard, they weren’t in the parks, and they definitely weren’t in the city. I started to believe they were actually gone, but I needed to see for myself if what I had been reading was true. Luckily for me, I landed a job studying bats in US National Forests, and since bats’ and insects’ lives are closely intertwined, I was hoping to get some answers. <a href="https://medium.com/the-island-conservation/overcoming-environmental-doom-and-gloom-6df8c5ec9691">Read More</a>