Panel: What about Bugs? Why Insects Urgently Need Human Empathy & Action

October 21, 2020 - 12:15pm

Pre-registration is required for this event. You will receive an email confirmation with the virtual event details after registering.  

Co-sponsored by the Yale Sustainable Food Program, the Yale Animal Law Society, The Yale Environmental Law Association, the Yale Peabody Museum, and the Yale Institute for Biospheric Studies. 

About the Speakers 

Many studies from Europe, North American, and most recently the tropics, are reporting worrisome insect declines. Even insects that humans care for directly–honeybees, butterflies, and other pollinators–have been suffering their own public health crises. The reduction in bug populations  amounts to an excavation at the base of the food web that could unwind ecosystems around the world. Behind the question of what to do about the “insect apocalypse” lurks another challenge–how can entomologists and writers convince people to preserve such alien creatures? This panel will discuss the state of the world’s insects and how to write about it for a popular audience. 

Brooke Jarvis

Jarvis is a contributing writer to The New York Times Magazine and The California Sunday Magazine and author of The Insect Apocalypse is Here cover story in the New York Times Magazine.  

David Wagner 

Wagner is an entomologist at the University of Connecticut, involved with invertebrate conservation and the study of insect population decline. 

Rob Dunn 

Dunn is an applied ecologist at North Carolina State University, author of Never Home Alone

DeAnna Beasley 

Beasley is an ecologist at the University of Tennessee, Chattanooga, uses insects as a model species to examine adaptations & biodiversity in urban environments.

Moderated by Noah Macey, programs fellow at the Law, Ethics, & Animals Program.

This event is presented as part of the Law, Ethics, & Animals Program’s One Health speaker series