Essay by Eric Worrall

Termites were well managed by our ancestors, but in the wake of banning powerful insecticides like DDT, they are now apparently a climate problem.

Hungry and on the march as the climate heats up: Termites in Australia

By Frances Vinall
January 1, 2023 at 2:00 a.m. EST

TENNANT CREEK, Australia — In a forgotten restaurant behind a gas station in this country’s red center, only metal and plastic parts remain unscathed. Chris Cook grabs at a timber door frame, which crumples like paper in his hand.

“This has all just collapsed,” says Cook, a manager at Territory Pest Control in Australia’s Northern Territory. He eyes boards hanging in ragged pieces from the ceiling. Since he last visited the abandoned building three years ago, thousands of uninvited guests have been busy.

The destruction at Galaxy Auditorium restaurant at Wycliffe Well — a tiny highway stop calling itself the “UFO capital of Australia” — is the destruction that could lie ahead for many places on the continent unless Mastotermes darwiniensis can be stopped. These termites are the last survivors of an ancestral species that shared space with dinosaurs 150 million years ago. They’re voracious and relentless. And because of climate change, they, like their fellow kin, are expanding their range.

…

Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/01/01/giant-termites-australia-climate-change/

The article also cites a 98 author study which suggests termites become more active in warm weather;

Termite sensitivity to temperature affects global wood decay rates

AMY E. ZANNE, HABACUC FLORES-MORENO, JEFF R. POWELL, WILLIAM K. CORNWELL, JAMES W. DALLING, AMY T. AUSTIN, AIMÉE T. CLASSEN, PAUL EGGLETON, KEI-ICHI OKADA, CATHERINE L. PARR, E. CAROL ADAIR, STEPHEN ADU-BREDU, MD AZHARUL ALAM, CAROLINA ALVAREZ-GARZÓN, DEBORAH APGAUA, ROXANA ARAGÓN, MARCELO ARDON, STEFAN K. ARNDT, LOUISE A. ASHTON, NICHOLAS A. BARBER, JACQUES BEAUCHÊNE, MATTY P. BERG, JASON BERINGER, MATTHIAS M. BOER, JOSÉ ANTONIO BONET, KATHERINE BUNNEY, TYNAN J. BURKHARDT, DULCINÉIA CARVALHO, DENNIS CASTILLO-FIGUEROA, LUCAS A. CERNUSAK, ALEXANDER W. CHEESMAN, TAINÁ M. CIRNE-SILVA, JAMIE R. CLEVERLY, JOHANNES H. C. CORNELISSEN, TIMOTHY J. CURRAN, ANDRÉ M. D’ANGIOLI, CAROLINE DALLSTREAM, NICO EISENHAUER, FIDELE EVOUNA ONDO, ALEX FAJARDO, ROMINA D. FERNANDEZ, ASTRID FERRER, MARCO A. L. FONTES, MARK L. GALATOWITSCH, GRIZELLE GONZÁLEZ, FELIX GOTTSCHALL, PETER R. GRACE, ELENA GRANDA, HANNAH M. GRIFFITHS, MARIANA GUERRA LARA, MOTOHIRO HASEGAWA, MARIET M. HEFTING, NINA HINKO-NAJERA, LINDSAY B. HUTLEY, JENNIFER JONES, ANJA KAHL, MIRKO KARAN, JOOST A. KEUSKAMP, TIM LARDNER, MICHAEL LIDDELL, CRAIG MACFARLANE, CATE MACINNIS-NG, RAVI F. MARIANO, M. SOLEDAD MÉNDEZ, WAYNE S. MEYER, AKIRA S. MORI, ALOYSIO S. MOURA, MATTHEW NORTHWOOD, ROMÀ OGAYA, RAFAEL S. OLIVEIRA, ALBERTO ORGIAZZI, JULIANA PARDO, GUILLE PEGUERO, JOSEP PENUELAS, LUIS I. PEREZ, JUAN M. POSADA, CECILIA M. PRADA, TOMÁŠ PŘÍVĚTIVÝ, SUZANNE M. PROBER, JONATHAN PRUNIER, GABRIEL W. QUANSAH, VÍCTOR RESCO DE DIOS, RONNY RICHTER, MARK P. ROBERTSON, LUCAS F. ROCHA, MEGAN A. RÚA, CAROLINA SARMIENTO, RICHARD P. SILBERSTEIN, MATEUS C. SILVA, FLÁVIA FREIRE SIQUEIRA, MATTHEW GLENN STILLWAGON, JACQUI STOL, MELANIE K. TAYLOR, FRANÇOIS P. TESTE, DAVID Y. P. TNG, DAVID TUCKER, MANFRED TÜRKE, MICHAEL D. ULYSHEN, OSCAR J. VALVERDE-BARRANTES, EDUARDO VAN DEN BERG, RICHARD S. P. VAN LOGTESTIJN, G. F. (CISKA) VEEN, JASON G. VOGEL, TIMOTHY J. WARDLAW, GEORG WIEHL, CHRISTIAN WIRTH, MICHAELA J. WOODS, AND PAUL-CAMILO ZALAMEA

Deadwood is a large global carbon store with its store size partially determined by biotic decay. Microbial wood decay rates are known to respond to changing temperature and precipitation. Termites are also important decomposers in the tropics but are less well studied. An understanding of their climate sensitivities is needed to estimate climate change effects on wood carbon pools. Using data from 133 sites spanning six continents, we found that termite wood discovery and consumption were highly sensitive to temperature (with decay increasing >6.8 times per 10°C increase in temperature)—even more so than microbes. Termite decay effects were greatest in tropical seasonal forests, tropical savannas, and subtropical deserts. With tropicalization (i.e., warming shifts to tropical climates), termite wood decay will likely increase as termites access more of Earth’s surface.

Read more: https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abo3856

Strangely our ancestors managed to build long lived wooden structures which weren’t instantly destroyed by termites.

What did our ancestors do differently?

I think you can guess from the image at the top of the page.

Termites can and are controlled by regular building inspections and five year applications of short term poisons. But if you want long term protection, there is no substitute for injecting DDT into the structural beams, and spraying the entire building with DDT.

It is not just termites. Where I live, there’s a nasty variety of sand fly, biting insects which live in the soil, especially loose sandy soil near beaches. But sand flies only seem to be a problem in some areas – mostly new developments which were built after DDT spraying was stopped. Old established areas of town, where massive public spraying with DDT was a regular event until the 1972, don’t seem to have a similar level of difficulty with sand flies.

Today Australians put up with mosquitos, horse flies, ticks, termites and sand flies, insects which simply weren’t a problem for our ancestors, who weren’t afraid to use powerful chemicals to make the places where they live comfortable and free from insect pests.

Monday Open Thread

From NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT

By Paul Homewood

h/t Ray Sanders

An unusually frank piece from the Guardian!!

Conservatories and house extensions could be helping to wipe out the reductions in gas use secured by insulating homes, according to a study that found insulation only provides a short-term fall in energy consumption.

In a surprise finding, the study into the long-term effect of loft and cavity wall insulation in England and Wales showed that the fall in gas consumption for each household was small, with all energy savings disappearing by the fourth year after it had been fitted.

Policy experts at the University of Cambridge said the findings suggested a “rebound effect” in energy use, where changing behaviour cancelled out the reductions in gas use. They also suggested that fitting insulation often happened alongside the building of house extensions, which use extra energy. For households with conservatories, any gains in energy efficiency disappeared after the first year.

The government and opposition parties have championed the retrofitting of homes with insulation as a way of dealing with the energy crisis. Ministers have announced insulation retrofits as a leading part of a programme to reduce the energy consumption of buildings and industry by 15% over the next eight years. Labour has said insulating homes should be a “national mission” that could save people £11bn in three years.

However, researchers said that while insulation was vital for fighting fuel poverty, it was not a “magic bullet” for reducing energy use and should come alongside advice to conserve energy and programmes to install heat pumps in homes.

Researchers said it was hard to identify the exact causes of the rebound effect. However, they stated that turning up the heating, opening windows in stuffy rooms or building extensions could all contribute. They made clear that in circumstances such as the current cost of living crisis, it was possible that energy savings from insulation could be more significant and longer lasting.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/jan/01/rebound-effect-cancels-out-home-insulations-impact-on-gas-use-study

This has actually all been very obvious for a long while, and did not really need an expensive study to prove it.

Energy efficiency is not something new dreamt up by the climate lobby. It is a natural process whereby technology continuously improves the products we buy and the way we live. Cars, for example, are twice as efficient as they were even twenty or thirty years ago; they did not need government mandates to make it happen.

But as energy efficiency improves, along with the cost of things we buy, we have more money to spend in other ways. In terms of energy, most people, I suspect, would use better insulation to enjoy warmer homes, not reduce bills.

Equally they will tend to buy conservatories etc, which will increase energy consumption. And, yes, people will open windows to let fresh air in – we have our bedroom windows open at night even in mid-winter.(No doubt the Guardian would be horrified!)

If people want insulation, fine – let them pay for it. But it should be a “national mission”, paid for by taxpayers, as the Labour Party want. And it certainly will not save the planet!