The living world.
2 minutes read.
- Birds. Rosenberg et al., "Decline of the North American avifauna," Science (2019): about 2.9 billion fewer breeding birds, or 29 percent, since 1970. Rachel Carson, Silent Spring (1962).
- Bees. Project Apis m., American Beekeeping Federation, and Honey Bee Health Coalition (2025): about 62 percent average commercial colony loss and 1.6 million colonies lost from June 2024 to March 2025, the worst on record. About $17 billion in United States agricultural value; pollinators reproduce more than 75 percent of flowering plants and about 35 percent of crops; neonicotinoid and Varroa synergy (Beyond Pesticides, 2025).
- Insects. Hallmann et al., PLOS ONE (2017), the Krefeld study: more than 75 percent decline in flying-insect biomass over 27 years in protected areas.
- Soil. The "60 harvests" figure (2014 FAO remark) has no rigorous basis as a single global number (Ritchie and Our World in Data; James Wong, New Scientist); real, uneven degradation persists.
- Farmers. About 300,000 farmer suicides in India over about two decades (NCRB). Causation contested: Shiva and Navdanya compared with Gruère, Qaim, and colleagues.
- Water. UNESCO and UN-Water, World Water Development Report 2024. Foreign farmland-and-water acquisition in Africa is real but the China-specific scale is overstated (Deborah Brautigam; Land Matrix downward revisions).
- Diet. T. Colin Campbell, The China Study (2005), and its critics: direction sound, strongest claim overstated.
- Chemistry, plastics, and EMF. IARC (WHO) 2015 on glyphosate (Group 2A) compared with EFSA, EPA, ECHA, and JMPR. Microplastics reported in placental and testicular tissue (Campen and colleagues, University of New Mexico, Toxicological Sciences, 2024) and accumulating in brain tissue (Nature Medicine, 2025); methods, samples, units, trends, and clinical meaning remain unsettled. RF-EMF remains IARC Group 2B, possibly carcinogenic; harm at ordinary exposures is not established.