Rebugging the planet : the remarkable things that insects (and other invertebrates) do

Title:

Rebugging the planet : the remarkable things that insects (and other invertebrates) do - and why we need to love them more

Author:

Hird, Vicki.

ISBN:

9781645020189

Personal Author:

Hird, Vicki.

Publication Date:

2021

Physical Description:

224 pages : illustrations (colour) ; 22 cm

Abstract:

Meet the intelligent insects, marvellous minibeasts, and inspirational invertebrates that help shape our planet - and discover how you can help them help us by rebugging your attitude today! Remember when there were bugs on your windshield? Ever wonder where they went? We need to act now if we are to help the insects survive. Robin Wall Kimmerer, David Attenborough, and Elizabeth Kolbert are but a few voices championing the rewilding of our world. This title explains how we are headed toward 'insectageddon' with a rate of insect extinction eight times faster than that of mammals or birds, and gives us crucial information to help all those essential creepy-crawlies flourish once more. Vicki Hird passionately demonstrates how insects and invertebrates are the cornerstone of our global ecosystem. The book shows small changes we can make to have a big impact on our littlest allies.

Subject Term:

Insects.

Insects -- Ecology -- Popular works.

Entomology -- Popular works.

Popular Science and Nature.

Copies:

Available:*

Library	Shelf Number	Material Type	Item Barcode	Status
Searching... Brompton Library	595.7	Book	30116021217037	Searching... Unknown

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Summary

"This is a lovely little book that could and should have a big impact...Let's all get rebugging right away!"--Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall

Meet the intelligent insects, marvelous minibeasts, and inspirational invertebrates that help shape our planet--and discover how you can help them help us by rebugging your attitude today!

Remember when there were bugs on your windshield? Ever wonder where they went? We need to act now if we are to help the insects survive. Robin Wall Kimmerer, David Attenborough, and Elizabeth Kolbert are but a few voices championing the rewilding of our world. Rebugging the Planet explains how we are headed toward "insectageddon" with a rate of insect extinction eight times faster than that of mammals or birds, and gives us crucial information to help all those essential creepy-crawlies flourish once more.

Author Vicki Hird passionately demonstrates how insects and invertebrates are the cornerstone of our global ecosystem. They pollinate plants, feed birds, support and defend our food crops, and clean our water systems. They are also beautiful, inventive, and economically invaluable--bees, for example, contribute an estimated $235 to $577 billion to the US economy annually, according to Forbes.

Rebugging the Planet shows us small changes we can make to have a big impact on our littlest allies:

Learn how to rewild parks, schools, sidewalks, roadsides, and other green spaces. Leave your garden to grow a little wild and plant weedkiller-free, wildlife-friendly plants. Take your kids on a minibeast treasure hunt and learn how to build bug palaces. Make bug-friendly choices with your food and support good farming practices Begin to understand how reducing inequality and poverty will help nature and wildlife too--it's all connected.

So do your part and start rebugging today! The bees, ants, earthworms, butterflies, beetles, grasshoppers, ladybugs, snails, and slugs will thank you--and our planet will thank you too.

Reviews (3)

Publisher's Weekly Review

Environmental campaigner Hird (Perfectly Safe to Eat?) outlines the alarming rate of decline among invertebrate populations and suggests a slew of actions average citizens can take to help protect them--a restorative movement she calls "rebugging." Bee, butterfly, ant, and beetle populations are increasingly at risk, she writes--and rebugging, a version of rewilding specific to the critters, can be done "almost anywhere." She starts with a primer on bug benefits--the creatures turn waste into fertilizer, pollinate plants, and control pests--then provides a multitude of ways people with no expertise can contribute to reversing the demise of bugs. People should first reframe their attitudes toward insects (to recognize their beauty and sentience), and can set up bug havens in their gardens, eat pesticide-free food, support local charities to grow bug-friendly plants, and talk to local garden centers about their efforts to promote chemical-free gardening. Most important, Hird writes, is lobbying politicians to effect protective legislation: "Keep bugging them. Always. For the bugs," she pleads. Though serious entomologists may find this too lighthearted, lay readers will enjoy the compendium of ways to get involved. Brimming with tips and tools, this is sure to leave nature-lovers inspired. (Sept.)

Booklist Review

Have you noticed fewer butterflies and bees flitting around your garden? Maybe fewer bugs splattering on your car windshield? While there are many reasons for people to dislike bugs, life on Earth would not continue without insects. They pollinate plants, nurture soil, and are a high-protein food source for birds, fish, and even an estimated two-billion people. Researcher and environmentalist Hird warns of a looming "Insectageddon" and a resulting "depleted world" wrought by the decline in the number of bugs and diversity of species. The causes are complex and involve deforestation, large-scale farming, pesticides, climate change, pollution, including noise, light, and wireless signals. She advocates for "rewilding" or recreating natural ecological systems and "rebugging," reintroducing absent species to insecticide-free locales populated with native plants and letting nature do the rest. She describes how insects obtain food, communicate, defend themselves, and care for their young. Hird suggests changes in public policy and urges people to be more insect-like, that is, altruistic and less wasteful, in their daily life. That includes valuing bugs and their crucial role in sustaining earthly life.

Choice Review

Entomologist and environmental consultant Hird directs the sustainable food campaign for Sustain, a nongovernmental environmental advocacy organization based in London. Her passion for ecological justice is evident throughout the book, which employs a combined narrative and text box format and introduces readers to a considerable number of important insects and other common invertebrates. The boxes are a clever device to break up the narrative; each one briefly introduces an invertebrate or a "bug" by name and describes its function. Later in the text, tips on taking action appear in the boxes, giving readers an easy way to parse out nuggets of actionable information related to the book's larger message of respect for a group of creatures readers may have despised. Around the boxes, Hird's sometimes personal narrative stresses the importance of insects, their specific roles in the world, and how interested readers may become involved in efforts to help "rebug" the planet. Chapter 3 ("Rewilding by Rebugging") offers personal stories about projects to restore lost species to the landscape and introduces important terms and concepts, such as keystone species. In this approachable text, general audiences and early collegiate readers will find inspiring information about "why and how" citizens in a changing world should prioritize insects Summing Up: Recommended. Lower-division undergraduates. General readers. --Andrea L Myers, Michigan Technological University

Foreword	p. ix
Introduction	p. 1
1 Rebugging our attitudes	p. 17
2 What bugs do for us	p. 33
3 Rewilding by rebugging	p. 49
4 Parks and recreation: rebugging your world	p. 71
5 The bigger bug challenges	p. 87
6 Why our farming, food and shopping need bugs	p. 107
7 Putting bugs into politics and the economy	p. 141
8 Imagine a rebugged planet	p. 165
9 You don't have to rebug alone	p. 171
Acknowledgements	p. 189
Notes	p. 190
Index	p. 202

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Bound With These Titles

On Order

Summary

Summary

Reviews (3)

Publisher's Weekly Review

Booklist Review

Choice Review

Table of Contents