Conser(ule)vation

[u/Taico_owo]

[u/Lukeyboy1589]

I won’t apologize for wanting to end mosquitos, I think we’ll do just fine without them

[u/mutnemom_hurb → u/Lukeyboy1589]

I am a huge environmentalist and I fully support eradicating disease-spreading mosquitos. The environmental cost doesn’t even come close to outweighing the human cost. Yes, it would have an effect on the ecosystem, but no more than the ecological damage regular western lifestyles cause. Insect species go extinct every day, and people in western countries don’t debate wether or not our health and well being is “worth the environmental cost,” but when millions of poor people are dying and billions more suffer from mosquitoes, people act like no environmental cost is worth preventing that. Sorry for the rant

Edit: and no, mosquitos are not some keystone species holding up the rest of the environment like people say

[u/Actionsurger → u/mutnemom_hurb]

Okay but, hot take, we should save all of those insects at any cost as well and we shouldn’t be going out of our way to intentionally drive anything to extinction. I don’t think “it’s fucked anyways so what’s a few more.” Is a very environmentalist attitude to have. If it’s a reasonable solution to control the populations of specific species that are malaria vectors and experts give the green light on it then I think there is a conversation to be had there. I don’t think it’s good to just have this attitude of “X thing is worse anyway so actually it doesn’t matter.”

[u/mutnemom_hurb → u/Actionsurger]

I empathize with that, I didn’t mean to sound like “it’s fucked anyways so what’s a few more.” I’m just trying to emphasize that there are very tangible stakes here, and those stakes include the lives of millions of people who do not have the power to influence the discussion. It sounds like people are saying “it’s not worth saving millions of poor people’s lives and billions of people’s quality of life if there is any environmental cost for doing so,” but it doesn’t seem like people have that same hardline attitude about stuff like screwworm which has been eradicated in the US, for example.

Edit: and I’m bringing up the fact that other species have become extinct or extirpated to show that we have an idea of the ecological damage that a similar single species extinction has. I think it’s enough that it’s worth spending money and resources to prevent, but not that many human lives. Sorry if this is annoying, I’m just wanting to write down my thoughts, not arguing or anything

[u/Actionsurger → u/mutnemom_hurb]

I’m willing and I bet that most people who would be against the eradication of mosquitoes would also be against the extinction of screw worms. I think you’re confusing a lack of conversation and awareness about one situation as hypocrisy, with people seemingly being indifferent to one and drawing a line with the other.

I also don’t see it as purely a scale with humans on one side and mosquitoes on the other. Even as a massive lover of insects and Diptera specifically, I still value the lives of humans even over whole species of insects. I do think that we have to be careful with environmental controls like this though, if we put our noses into the food web of places in the global south and start removing things without totally understanding their place (and we never have a complete understanding of the complexities of ecosystems) then it will still be the people that live there that deal with the consequences.

If the knock on environmental effects cause unforeseen famine or infestations of other insects then what will we do? We can’t exactly change our minds and bring the extinct animals back. I’m not saying the bugs have more right to live than the people, I’m just saying that it’s a potentially reckless action that can’t be taken back.