Convenience Big Store: Without insects, we’re doomed

15 October, 2021

In the headlines

The Queen has been caught on microphone criticising the inaction of world leaders over climate change. "It is very irritating when they talk, but they don't do," she says. Britain certainly isn't above criticism: a leaked document from the Department for International Trade recommends prioritising economic growth over the environment in trade deals. But down under, an Australian government source has called Britain's High Commissioner a "sanctimonious bore" for her environmental "haranguing", says Lucy Fisher in the Telegraph. The EU is considering curbing British access to European energy, says the FT, if negotiations over the Northern Ireland protocol get ugly. Good thing Kwasi Kwarteng, the Business Secretary, has been showing energy bosses a Met Office briefing predicting that we're in for a mild winter.

Comment of the day

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Without insects, we're doomed

Insects are dying out, says Simon Barnes in Tortoise. For most of us, "that seems pretty good news": fewer flies and wasps. But the loss of insects is "horrifying". Biologist Edward Wilson wrote: "If all mankind were to disappear, the world would regenerate back to the rich state of equilibrium that existed 10,000 years ago. If insects were to vanish, the environment would collapse into chaos." The ecological services supplied by wild insects in the US are worth an estimated $57bn a year.

Insects are vital pollinators. Ninety per cent of flowering plants and 75% of all food crops depend on animal pollinators, mostly insects. In Sichuan, China, where insects are scarce, farmers are paying human workers to pollinate fruit trees by hand, using a paintbrush. Farmers in Central Valley, California, now bring in more than a million hives of domestic bees every spring to pollinate almond trees, at $200 a hive. We're killing off our "life support" system through infrastructure, agriculture and climate change. A quarter of insect species in the UK could go extinct in the next decade. It's time we start caring about their fate.

Biden's Afghan pullout has a silver lining

America's disengagement from the Middle East "may be a positive force for peace", says Fred Kaplan in Slate. Gulf Arabs are rattled by pictures of Afghans abandoned by their American protectors. These countries – Qatar, Oman, the UAE, Bahrain and Saudi Arabia – will now have to take more responsibility for their own security. "And that may be for the good." Iran and Saudi Arabia – the bitterest rivals in the Middle East, which have supported and armed opposite sides in several of the region's proxy wars, including Yemen's – have held four rounds of diplomatic talks in recent months. That's new.

Some fear Russia or China will step in to replace the US. "Fine. Let them get bogged down in this quagmire of sand for the next 40 years." Would that really harm American security interests? Would the Arab states refuse to give us oil if at some point we needed it? Are they really going to turn down the dollar? The Iran-Saudi talks show us "a potentially brighter side of this picture". Perhaps America's unqualified assurances of unabashed support kept Saudi Arabia in an infantilised state. Its comprehension of a new situation – that it can't count on an outside power rescuing them from the next calamity – might turn it into a more responsible regional power.

Shopping

Charlotte Gainsbourg, daughter of 1960s icons Jane Birkin and Serge Gainsbourg, has launched a denim-based fashion collection for Zara. The 50-year-old actress and singer tells Vogue she inherited her style from her parents: "My father really had two pairs of jeans, four shirts, four T-shirts and his white Repettos, and that's it." Her 19-piece collection includes jeans, denim shirts and a corduroy trench coat. The blazer, leather boots and cashmere sweater have sold out.

Life

Jemima Khan became such a fan of arranged marriages that she helped set them up for her friends in Pakistan. When she moved to the country at 21 to marry cricket legend Imran Khan, she thought it was a "mad, outdated idea", she tells the Evening Standard. But she soon came round, saying it "injected" pragmatism into a world "led entirely by love". "I genuinely ended up arranging marriages. Quite often these children of friends of my ex-husband would say: 'OK, we'll have an arranged marriage, but can Jemima be involved?'"

Snapshot

Noted

Reality TV star Gemma Collins, plagued with guilt after spending £1,450 on gold-encrusted steaks at the Nusr-Et Steakhouse in Knightsbridge, decided to "give some good back to the universe", she says in her podcast. She donated "four bags of really nice bras" to charity.

Snapshot answer

It's a painting by the star of this week's Frieze London art fair, Issy Wood, whose works on velvet and linen sell for as much as $300,000. The 28-year-old American, who is based in London and trained at the Royal Academy, has been described by Artnet as a "young painting sensation". Last month she sold two of her latest works – which often depict fetishist leather interiors and relics from her grandmother's house – for six-figure sums at Art Basel.

Quoted

"It's hard to think of a single thing that you can do for your mind and body that's better than a little dose of awe."
American psychology professor Dacher Keltner