Silent Earth: Averting the Insect Apocalypse

Written by Dave Goulson

Narrated by Dave Goulson

In the tradition of Rachel Carson’s groundbreaking environmental classic Silent Spring, an award-winning entomologist and conservationist explains the importance of insects to our survival, and offers a clarion call to avoid a looming ecological disaster of our own making.

Drawing on thirty years of research, Goulson has written an accessible, fascinating, and important book that examines the evidence of an alarming drop in insect numbers around the world. “If we lose the insects, then everything is going to collapse,” he warned in a recent interview in the New York Times—beginning with humans’ food supply. The main cause of this decrease in insect populations is the indiscriminate use of chemical pesticides. Hence, Silent Earth’s nod to Rachel Carson’s classic Silent Spring which, when published in 1962, led to the global banning of DDT. This was a huge victory for science and ecological health at the time.

Yet before long, new pesticides just as lethal as DDT were introduced, and today, humanity finds itself on the brink of a new crisis. What will happen when the bugs are all gone? Goulson explores the intrinsic connection between climate change, nature, wildlife, and the shrinking biodiversity and analyzes the harmful impact for the earth and its inhabitants.  

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.

Supplemental enhancement PDF accompanies the audiobook.

• Language: English
• Publisher: HarperAudio
• Release date: Sep 28, 2021
• ISBN: 9780063088269

Dave Goulson

Dave Goulson is Professor of Biology at University of Sussex. He has published more than 300 scientific articles on the ecology and conservation of bumblebees and other insects. His books include the Sunday Times bestsellers, The Garden Jungle and A Sting in the Tale, which was also shortlisted for the Samuel Johnson prize and has been translated into fifteen languages. He is a Fellow of the Royal Entomological Society, a trustee of Pesticide Action Network, and an Ambassador for the UK Wildlife Trusts.

Reviews for Silent Earth

[adzebill · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Sobering look at the state of insect biodiversity, especially in Britain, which looks like a ravaged moonscape compared with New Zealand. But our monoculture farming is probably just as bad, and we're certainly using heaps of glyphosate and neonicotinoids, so the reckoning is likely coming. Goulson uses the in-depth research into insect decline and its causes, which has advanced quite a bit since the first alarming data from Germany, to lay out a general environmental programme that ticks all the Green boxes. Will hopefully push some people off the fence. He still can't spell Fiordland though.

[roarer-1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

A salutary warning about the alarming decline in the insect population and its consequences for ecosystems, the future of the planet and of the human population. If anything the author is too apologetic