From the archive: ‘A different dimension of loss’: inside the great insect die-off – podcast

The Audio Long Read

The Guardian

Society & Culture

4.3 • 2.4K Ratings

🗓️ 26 May 2021

⏱️ 32 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

We are raiding the Audio Long Reads archives and bringing you some classic pieces from years past, with new introductions from the authors. This week, from 2017: Scientists have identified 2 million species of living things. No one knows how many more are out there, and tens of thousands may be vanishing before we have even had a chance to encounter them. By Jacob Mikanowski. Help support our independent journalism at theguardian.com/longreadpod

Transcript

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0:00.0	Make your 2023 memorable with Emirates.
0:03.0	Fly better to stunning Indian Ocean Islands like Mauritius and Maldives,
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0:11.7	Start your journey on board with delicious regional cuisine.
0:14.9	Be spoiled for choice with thousands of entertainment channels,
0:18.0	featuring the biggest blockbusters, TV shows and music.
0:21.6	And enjoy more space to relax and comfort on your way to a next holiday.
0:26.0	Fly Emirates. Fly better.
0:34.0	The Guardian.
0:36.3	Hi, I'm Jacob Mckinesky and I'm the author of The Peace Year about to hear.
0:39.9	When I started working on this essay, I was actually interested
0:42.8	not in extinction, but in the abundance of life on Earth.
0:46.5	I wanted to write a story about the sheer numbers of unknown species on this planet.
0:54.2	We have about 50 species a day are being discovered,
0:57.2	and that's just the tip of the iceberg of how much unknown life there is on this planet.
1:02.6	But as I began researching it, I found this mounting
1:05.5	disk quiet among the different scientists and topologists,
1:09.2	invertebrates specialists, I was speaking to.
1:12.2	The species that they devoted their lives to studying were disappearing.
1:16.8	Sometimes the actual species were going extinct,
1:19.6	and a lot of the time the numbers were plummeting.
1:22.0	The abundance scientists had come to expect from the Amazon,
	...

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