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Thursday, March 3, 2022

Would It Be A Bad Idea To Kill Every Mosquito On Earth?

Nobody likes mosquitoes. No one. When it comes to disliked insects, the only one that could compete with the mosquito is the cockroach, and cockroaches aren't responsible for millions of deaths every year. Mosquitoes carry lots of nasty diseases, and that prompts a question. Should we just kill them all off?

Obviously, another question arises: Could we kill them all? And the answer is yes. It would be a project, but it could be done. We could target the 100 or so dangerous species of mosquitoes to either kill them all or modify them so the deadly diseases they carry are completely suppressed. Or, of course, we could go scorched earth and purge the planet of every single mosquito. That would probably be most people's preferred option. Mosquitoes are awful, why would we try to preserve them?

Here's the issue with full genocide (shocking, genocide isn't the solution): The dangerous mosquitoes represent a tiny fraction the overall mosquito family, which includes 3,500 or so species. Many of those species are not only not harmful to humans but actively beneficial to the environment. They're an essential part of the food chain as well. This is where I'm actually going to disagree with the experts, who say that, if we could eliminate all disease-carrying mosquitoes, we should, even if it means getting rid of all the harmless ones. Yes, people die from malaria and other diseases, but messing with the food chain in such a brazen fashion, you're just asking for ecosystem collapse. Things that feed on mosquitoes would die, and things that feed on those predators would die. This is the sort of hubris that I'd expect from the backstory of a stereotypical postapocalyptic sci-fi novel. We try to control nature to make our lives better, and instead we throw everything out of balance, and the world falls apart. If the butterfly effect can cause tornadoes, just imagine what wholesale slaughter would do.

So, in conclusion, just buy some bug spray.

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