Kane, Joe (2000), The Phantom of the Movies' videoscope, p.292, ISBN 9780812931495, Murphy's New Zealand–set reworking of The World, the Flesh and the Devil, replete with racial angle…

As I was standing at my door, (a cottage at the foot of Church Hill) I saw a woman coming down the hill who was a witch or a hag. She saw me laugh at her. After I went to bed that night I felt a weight on my legs which gradually went upwards to my chest. I screamed and my son came in the room. As he opened the door, the lump fell off, and I distinctly heard the hag walk down the stairs and out of the door.’ (In connection with the above the Marnhill contributor suggests that it is interesting to compare the article in the Somerset Year Book for 1930 p41 ‘When people have the nightmare in that part of the country a common remark is that they have been ‘hag ridden’; they actually believe that a hag comes to them during sleep and sits on their chest, causing the miserable symptoms of nightmare’.) Goulson refers to a phenomenon called “Shifting Baseline Syndrome” where humans tend to only see their current world as “normal” and are unable to detect changes over time. Humans also tend to have something called “personal amnesia” in which they downplay the extent of change. With these points in mind, it is no wonder that most people would not know that insect populations have recently declined by as much as 75% and that there have been parallel declines in populations of insectivorous birds.

Tyson, Neil deGrasse (6 June 2014). " '2001' and beyond: Neil deGrasse Tyson names his top 10 sci-fi films". Los Angeles Times . Retrieved 16 June 2015.

The American biologist Paul Ehrlich likened the loss of species from an ecological community to randomly popping out rivets from the wing of an aeroplane. Remove one or two and the plane will probably be fine. Remove 10, or 20 or 50, and at some point that we are entirely unable to predict, there will be a catastrophic failure, and the plane will fall from the sky. Insects are the rivets that keep ecosystems functioning. Insects have been around for a very long time. Their ancestors evolved in the primordial ooze of the ocean floors, half a billion years ago. They make up the bulk of known species on our planet – ants alone outnumber humans by a million to one – so if we were to lose many of our insects, overall biodiversity would of course be significantly reduced. Moreover, given their diversity and abundance, it is inevitable that insects are intimately involved in all terrestrial and freshwater food chains and food webs. Caterpillars, aphids, caddisfly larvae and grasshoppers are herbivores, for instance, turning plant material into tasty insect protein that is far more easily digested by larger animals. Others, such as wasps, ground beetles and mantises, occupy the next level in the food chain, as predators of the herbivores. All of them are prey for a multitude of birds, bats, spiders, reptiles, amphibians, small mammals and fish, which would have little or nothing to eat if it weren’t for insects. In their turn, the top predators such as sparrowhawks, herons and osprey that prey on the insectivorous starlings, frogs, shrews or salmon would themselves go hungry without insects. Walter Goodman of The New York Times wrote, "...it's easy to watch most of the time and never positively painful." [9] Variety wrote, "One of New Zealand's top directors, Geoff Murphy has taken a man-alone theme and turned it imaginatively to strong and refreshing effect in The Quiet Earth." [10] Sheila Benson of the Los Angeles Times called Lawrence's screen presence "electrifying". [11] If I were ever fortunate enough to meet the author, I'd be keen to engage with him about the following: Perhaps the most problematic study of them all is the one that precipitated the insect apocalypse frenzy — a 2017 study co-authored by Goulson with 11 other scientists that compared insect populations in certain German nature reserves over the last quarter century. Its dramatic finding — that the biomass of flying insects had declined an astonishing 76 percent in 27 years — together with Goulson’s eager goosing of the press — generated the apocalyptic headlines he was clearly seeking....

Professor Goulson also included a disturbingly dystopian chapter, ‘A view from the future’, that I found to be both very frightening and a very effective recap of his argument. In it, he adopts a short story narrative format to summarise the mountains of scientific data he discussed throughout his book and uses this to make the point that ‘big picture thinking’ is essential, and it must be facilitated by clear communication between (seemingly) disparate academic fields. In an opening blog for Silent Earth here, Dr Terence Meaden began by explaining his discoveries of the visual happenings that recur annually at the ancient agricultural festival dates at Drombeg Stone Circle. First, were the intriguing spectacles that return biannually at the spring and autumn quarter dates at what many people call the equinoxes? Beltane and Lughnasadh were introduced, as well. Later blogs will provide photographic evidence of what happens on the other major festival occasions, notably at the solstices and at Samhain and Imbolc. Below is an ode in three stanzas written by Dr Meaden about the beauty and meaning of such happenings when considered in the context of a fertility religion, such as may be inferred for the Megalithic Age of Britain ... Read More Given these huge gaps in our knowledge, are biblical phrases such as “insect apocalypse” justified? This has been much discussed and there are two contributions worth highlighting. Ed Yong wrote an excellent piece for The Atlantic in 2019, pointing out that headlines of total insect extinction in X years are absurd (Goulson also calls this “ an unlikely claim” [p. 64]), and hits the nail on the head by reminding us that this question “ goes beyond the fate of insects: How do we preserve our rapidly changing world when the unknowns are vast and the cost of inaction is potentially high?” Do we wait and gather more data, or, with the precautionary principle in mind, act now? Then, just this June, the British Ecological Society put up a panel debate on YouTube whose take-home message effectively was “be worried, but don’t believe the hype”.

The good news is that Goulson is wrong. The surveys and studies he’s conducted and relies upon are flawed and incomplete, to say the least. Fortunately, scientist Matthew Moran and his hand-selected team published a comprehensive study in 2020 that challenged Goulson’s conclusions. Moran’s approach took raw data spanning decades for various insects in North America. Guess what? They found no significant change in population...Insects are the key to so many processes, food chains and the natural working of the planet. We need them. As Rachel Carson so powerfully advocated in Silent Spring, the misuse of pesticides has a hugely hushed up negative effect on the environment. Dave Gouson builds on her argument here, capturing the importance of insects and how the continued use of chemicals and climate change effects wildlife. He describes how our behaviour is annihilating one of the most overlooked types of creatures on the planet: he rightfully suggests that we need to do better. Reduce or avoid the use of pesticides and give beneficial predatory insects a chance to take care of the problem first. Despite the current state of things, Goulson is optimistic that insect declines can be stabilized or reversed because they are generally good at reproducing—we just need to support them better.

Overall, this is a very engaging book that discusses several important ideas. Whist I doubt it will make as many waves as its namesake Silent Spring, it certainly is no less brave in its scope and purpose. There was one unfortunate tendency noticeable in these chapters: Goulson's Further Reading section is not always complete – especially the pesticide chapter sometimes misses relevant studies discussed in the text (e.g. on p. 106 Goulson mentions a study by Sur & Stork that is not listed). And because he neither clearly references all of them, nor uses footnotes, it is not always immediately apparent what study he discusses. I am familiar with the argument that in books for a general audience you do not want to constantly interrupt the flow of your narrative with citations, which is why I prefer superscripts leading to numbered endnotes. Though most can be identified with some effort, readers should not have to repeat Goulson's research, especially on controversial topics where the data matters. Compelling, penetrating, devastating - Silent Earth is a wake-up call for the world.' Isabella Tree I got this book after a conversation with my son, in which we were discussing the " fewer flies on the windshield" debate. I made the point that cars are a lot more aerodymic these days, but the more I thought about it, the less effective my argument seemed to feel. I decided to "read up" on the subject. The Quiet Earth is a 1985 New Zealand post-apocalyptic science fiction film directed by Geoff Murphy and starring Bruno Lawrence, Alison Routledge and Peter Smith as three survivors of a cataclysmic disaster. It is loosely based on the 1981 science fiction novel of the same name by Craig Harrison. [2] [3] Other sources of inspiration have been suggested: the 1954 novel I Am Legend, Dawn of the Dead, and especially the 1959 film The World, the Flesh and the Devil, of which it has been called an unofficial remake. [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] Plot [ edit ]In 1872 John Udal makes first mention in Notes and Queries of the skull of Bettiscombe Manor. Dorset County Museum have written a comprehensive article on the legend of the skull here. Everyone wants something to be done about environmental issues, but nobody is in favour of legislation that impedes upon, or demands any changes of, their own behaviour. Yes, we all recycle, but let's be realistic - our recycling infrastructure is only there to make us sleep better. It exports the problem to piles of trash in India, in exactly the same way that we've outsourced the rest of our polluting industry.