How you can help save the monarch butterfly -- and the planet | Mary Ellen Hannibal

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4.1 • 11.9K Ratings

🗓️ 1 April 2020

⏱️ 11 minutes

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Summary

Monarch butterflies are dying at an alarming rate around the world -- a looming extinction that could also put human life at risk. But we have just the thing to help save these insects, says author Mary Ellen Hannibal: citizen scientists. Learn how these grassroots volunteers are playing a crucial role in measuring and rescuing the monarch's dwindling population -- and how you could join their ranks to help protect nature. (You'll be in good company: Charles Darwin was a citizen scientist!)

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Transcript

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0:00.0	This TED Talk features author and journalist Mary Ellen Hannibal, recorded live at TED Women 2019.
0:10.0	Hi there. I'm in the habit of saying that I would like it if butterflies could talk, but I've been recently reconsidering that because we already have a pretty loud world.
0:20.6	Can you imagine if butterflies were yakacking out there all over the place?
0:25.0	But I would like to ask butterflies one question, which is, what is the meaning of some of the
0:30.8	stories that we humans tell about them?
0:33.7	Because remarkably, all over the world, cultures have really similar stories, similar mythologies, about butterflies having to do with the human soul.
0:42.2	Some cultures tell us butterflies are carrying the souls of children who have died wrongly or too soon, and other cultures tell us that butterflies are carrying the souls of our ancestors among us.
0:53.3	So it's possible that butterflies have some sort of outside role in our afterlife.
1:00.0	But in this life, in this world, butterflies are in really serious trouble.
1:05.1	So today, more than 60 species of butterflies are endangered around the world, but even more than that, insects are declining, declining, declining.
1:15.0	In the last 50 years, we've lost nearly 50% of the total number of bodies of insects.
1:20.9	Now, this is a disaster.
1:23.5	It could impact us in a more serious way more quickly than climate change because butterflies
1:28.9	don't do that much in the ecosystem that we depend on, but they do things for other
1:34.6	creatures that we do depend on. And that's the same story with all insect life. Insect life is at
1:40.9	the very foundation of our life support systems. We can't lose these insects.
1:47.0	Biodiversity all over the globe is in a vast decline.
1:50.0	Habitat loss, pesticides, herbicides, and impacts of climate change.
1:56.0	Habitat loss is very serious,
1:58.0	and that's where we really have to get developing better,
2:01.6	more mindfully.
2:05.3	It's the worst of times.
	...

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