Editorial: The insects will win

Abstract

Last year was memorable for many things, locally for earthquakes and floods, but internationally for the growing realisation that mankind is poised on the edge of multiple disasters. The year saw the human population reach seven billion, the international monetary system move inexorably towards total collapse, nuclear sabre-rattling and a reluctant acceptance of the growing potential threat of climate change, and even more reluctance to do anything about it. A dispassionate observer might be forgiven for predicting that humanity is incapable of meeting all these potential threats, and that the species, having had such a rapid rise, will have an equally rapid demise, a mere flash in the history of the earth.