Book review: The Insect Crisis highlights how an existential threat for the world’s tiniest species could spell the end for us all

Guardian journalist Oliver Milman has a bleak message about insects: they might be largely invisible to most of us, but millions are now at risk of extinction and, without them, the Earth cannot survive

A European hornet: if insect declines are not halted, terrestrial and freshwater ecosystems will collapse, with profound consequences for human wellbeing. Picture: Getty

The insect kingdom is remarkably resilient. Over the course of its 400 million-year reign, it has weathered four great mass extinction events relatively unscathed. Today, however, the world’s insect populations face an array of existential threats far greater than at any time in the past.

“Our Pyrrhic victory at the very last gasp of Earth’s history means for the first time that a single species is the primary cause of an extinction episode to impact ...