[dropcap]S[/dropcap]pring is in the air. But when we listen carefully to the music of nature, we are beginning to notice that some music we often heard in the past is amiss us. What could be that we are missing today? Obviously, it is the songs of the birds, animals and insects. The wild flowers too even look gloomy with no insects to woo them or birds and animals to admire their beauties. This is the stark reality today even in the far flung villages where once upon a time, the real handiworks of the creator could be seen of all hues. If we could spare sometime to listen to the nature, it could tell us thousands of stories about how the selfish actions of mankind has brought about tremendous climate change and the change in climate is affecting life on Earth. Every tree, every insect, every bird has something important to say on the subject. From every forest, every wetland and oceans come more stories than from the scientists. If we study the patterns of plant’s growth, the tunes of the insects or birds, they may perhaps relate to us that big changes is taking place in our forests, in the life of flowering plants due the impact of climate change. The talk of climate change can come from the bees or the pollinators too. To believe the words of researchers, the climate change is impacting the plight of the honeybee – they are disappearing without trace from their hives as impact of climate change. This is the thin end of the long-term catastrophe that now stares us in the face. We take one brick out of the ecological wall, others crumble around it. Then more crumble, on and on until the edifice collapses. Ecologists call it an extinction vortex. We lose bees, we lose plants. We lose plants, we lose more bees. Then more plants, then other insects, then the birds and animals that depend on them and on each other, all the way up the food chain. However, loss of these insects has not inspired national governments or the UN to take action to forestall it.The world’s most celebrated biologist, E O Wilson in his book – ‘The Creation’, pointed out that people need insects, but insects do not need people. He propounded that if all humankind were to disappear tomorrow, it is unlikely that a single insect species would go extinct, except three forms of human body and head lice… In two or three centuries, with humans gone, the ecosystems of the world would regenerate back to the rich state of near-equilibrium that existed ten thousand or so years ago… But if insects were to vanish, the terrestrial environment would soon collapse into chaos. Scary!!!
