Insects - Atmospheric Pesticide Levels - query for data

Insect population declines, are widely reported. And seem obvious on windscreens, here in the UK, and DK. Also reports from far away places, eg Africa seeing declines.

So, a question: "Could the level of insecticides, in the global atmosphere, have achieved gas concentration that is enough to harm/impair/or even kill insects?"

Insecticides such as I wonder, the nerve agents (some quite persistent) with high vapour pressure and hugely toxic to insects (in synthetic pyrethroids; pyrethrins; and organophosphates such as malathion; parathion; dichlorvos; carbamates; phosphine). Or even, perhaps, in neo-nicotinoids (#NEONICS).

A kind colleague, in Cambridge, who measures trace gases thought it was improbable. And observed that it would require (o-o-m) a sample of 200 litres, accumulated by a liquid N2 cold trap, and would be messy/tricky to to get the measurement. So I thought no more.

The marvels of GC-MS, and the ppb levels that might be detected/enumerated, in the sample trapped from 200l would be a possibly interesting exercise. And maybe valuable?

However, other chemicals have achieved rather damaging levels in the atmosphere (and in oceans). One notably caused a large "ozone hole" over Antarctica. And, one might observe, in the days of cold war #MAD there were diagrams of vapour trails across Europe/Eurasia from chemical warfare. But it did not occur to the author, apparently, that actually and inevitably the many 500km-800km "vapour trails" he drew would simply merge, and gas everyone. There might be, on further reflection, similar misappreciations today?

www.nhm.ac.uk/discover/news/2019/february/the-world-s-insect-populations-are-plummeting-everywhere-we-look.html

What do you hope for, for the post corona-virus world? [a research topic]

What do you hope for, for the post corona-virus world?

Do you, possibly, know of someone who might want to fund a Covid-19 / aspirations-for-the-world survey?

Or, possibly, just the ZA and IN modules thereof.

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PROPOSED QUESTIONS:

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This question has three, separate, open answer sections - about what you desire for the world - from the perspective of i) your FOOD ii) your KIN and iii) from the perspective of your LIVING or WORK. 

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So, what do you hope for from the world, after the corona virus crisis has gone?

• from the perspective of your food.
• from the perspective of your descendants (including kin or relatives and great-grandchildren).
• from the perspective of your living or work.

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What goal would you most like to achieve in the next five years?

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To be published in:

• a journal paper (more ambitiously).
• a press release (and, sometimes, news articles).
• for my own edification.
• in tweets / social media / blogs.
• and, like two out of my four previous national-representative-studies (farming, worklifebal; susthopes; workdesires), eg osf.io/e7xnu