A Guardian article today leaves me frustrated and bemused (as is so often the case with articles in the Guardian whenever there is a connection, however, tenuous, with climate change). Its main headline suggests good news: “Midsummer butterflies spotted early in Britain after sunny spring” but its secondary headline suggests bad news: “Scientists fear early emerging insects may fall out of sync with pathogens, predators or availability of food”.
The article itself opens with good news: “Midsummer butterflies are on the wing in early May after a sunny spring prompted one of the most advanced seasons for Britain’s Lepidoptera on record.”
But there’s also bad news: “Last year was the second worst for common butterflies since scientific monitoring began 50 years ago” followed by more good news:
…butterfly experts are hoping that the sunny spring enables populations to recover some of their numbers.
“It’s been a wonderful spring for butterflies in Scotland,” said Prescott. “The butterflies are on the wing much longer and many species are moving north rapidly.”
That sounds pretty reassuring after last year’s dreadful statistics. But wait a minute – there’s more bad news: “While some species appear to be adapting their lifecycles to climatic changes, there are fears some early emerging insects may fall out of sync with pathogens, predators or the availability of food for their caterpillars.”
And of course we have to be worried about climate change: “Lepidopterists said the early appearances this year were caused by the prolonged sunny, dry spring but were also a clear sign of insects responding to global heating.” [My emphasis].
One sunny spring? Really? Global heating? Or just weather? Thirteen years ago, reflecting on the mixed weather in spring 2012, the Guardian made it clear that cold and wet weather are bad for butterflies:
…Some spring species emerged several weeks early in March, but the wettest April on record and the continuing rain this month has delayed the appearance of many butterflies.
And wildlife charity Butterfly Conservation is warning that if the wet conditions continue it could affect the breeding success of some species later in the year.
Cold, wet weather makes butterflies less active, reducing feeding and mating….
As for climate versus weather, it looked like weather was the predominant factor then, as I suspect it is now:
He [Richard Fox, Butterfly Conservation surveys manager] added: “Last year we had a hot spring and a poor summer. This year we’re having a poor spring, so let’s hope the summer is better.”
Speaking of the charity Butterfly Conservation, I thought I would take a look at their website, and in particular an article about the long-term decline of UK butterfly species. Unfortunately, this falls foul of the issue I complained of in Climate Change Ate My Homework, namely throwing climate change in as a makeweight with a load of other factors, while failing to assess the significance of each factor. Thus (Dr Richard Fox again):
I am devastated by the decline of our beloved British butterflies, and I’m sorry to say it has been brought about by human actions: we have destroyed wildlife habitats, polluted the environment, used pesticides on an industrial scale and we are changing the climate.
Destroyed habitats, polluted environment, industrial scale pesticide use….but climate change.
That means that when we have poor weather, these already-depleted butterfly populations are highly vulnerable and can’t bounce back like they once did – and with climate change, that unusual weather is becoming more and more usual.
Is it? Really? In the UK the weather has always involved extremes. Hot, cold, wet, dry, stormy, anticyclonic periods of calm – none of these things are new or unusual. They are just UK weather. And while weather from season to season and from year to year is clearly an influential factor in the success or failure of butterflies, nevertheless, according to Butterfly Conservation’s article, the problem appears to be predominantly habitat loss:
These species all require specific habitat to thrive, and those habitats have been destroyed over the past century.…
…By far the best thing we can do to help butterflies is to create more habitat. Last year we published research which showed that letting parts of your garden grow wild with long grass increases the number and variety of butterflies that you see. That is why we are calling on people and councils across the UK to pledge to not cut their grass this year from April to September: this simple act can make a real, immediate difference to butterflies, moths and other wildlife…
Returning to today’s Guardian article, interestingly Dr Fox also notes that evolutionary factors can help:
If the weather has tricked some into coming out too early it should not be a disaster. There should also be plenty of scope for evolutionary adaptation.
It’s clearly a very complicated subject, one worthy of more thoughtful and detailed analysis than scare-mongering about climate change in the context of weather variation from year to year. I prefer to celebrate the good news both for myself and for butterflies: a dry, sunny spring this year, as opposed to last year’s wet and miserable one, which, where I live, continued damp and cool through the summer.
Climate Scepticism 
Who knew they would replace polar bears with butterflies?
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A point that is possibly worthy of more emphasis by those of us who don’t believe in the climate crisis narrative is this:
…There should also be plenty of scope for evolutionary adaptation….
It has been both much hotter and much colder than it is now in recent times (recent in both geological and evolutionary terms). How did butterflies survive the Little Ice Age in the UK? How did coral reefs survive much warmer seas? And so on. We find ourselves returning to the theme that the main problem for life on earth caused by humankind isn’t climate change (even if we accept that humanity is mostly or entirely responsible for current climate change). Rather it’s hunting, habitat destruction, use of pesticides, real pollution (CO2 isn’t a pollutant), etc. And therefore the drive for renewables covering hundreds of thousands of acres of land and sea is not the solution. Instead it is a continuation of the problem.
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Mark, some ecological voices are more balanced in their view of human impact on nature, there being good things we have done, not only damage.
Ecologist Rebecca Nesbit in her new book, Tickets For The Ark: From Wasps to Whales – How Do We Choose What To Save?, launches a sustained frontal attack on the “myth of wild nature.”
“Ideas about pristine nature invoke a state that nature was in before humans affected it,” Nesbit notes. “The trouble is that humans have played a role in shaping nature for roughly 2.5 million years.” She explains that species and ecosystems do not have intrinsic value. Instead, humans confer value on them. This realization “should be liberating,” she argues, because it makes us “free to discuss logically what we should save and why, and not just fight an anti-extinction battle that is doomed to failure.” Nesbit notes that “The resources we dedicate to conservation will never be enough to prevent all extinctions, and we are forced to choose our priorities.” As she makes plain, it’s tradeoffs all of the way down.
Ronald Bailey’s article at Reason is The Myth of Wild Nature and Creating a New Form of Paradise.
My synopsis is:
Biodiversity Unwisely Aims to be Eden
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Ron,
Obviously it’s complex, but I still believe that the massive expansion of humanity to close to 8 billion people (possibly reaching a maximum of 10 billion at some point this century) has been devastating to the natural world. I maintain my belief that destruction of habitat, hunting, use of pesticides/insecticides and pollution have caused far more damage to nature than climate change has or ever will; and that renewable energy on an industrial scale is part of the problem rather than part of the solution.
Have we really played a role in shaping nature for roughly 2.5 million years? How many humanoids were on the planet then? My guess is that ecology on most of the planet was largely unaffected by humans until 20,000 years ago, and that we really started messing with it on a global scale only in the last five thousand years or less.
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Ron’s quotes from Ecologist Rebecca Nesbit & link above nails it, and Mark’s “How did butterflies survive the Little Ice Age in the UK?” just adds evidence to the short geological time frame (global warming) most doom Sayers always focus on. Everything before the Industrial revolution 1850? was just a biblical garden of Eden.
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A Babylonian poet writing our earliest known epic poem, recorded on clay tablets, The Epic of Gilganmesh, describes Gilgamesh and his friend, Enkidu, journeying to the Lebanon to cut down it’s cedar forests.
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There is no “myth of wild nature”. Nature is wild: that is what it is. It just so happens to have adapted around humans in manifold ways as we have shaped Earth to our liking or exploited its resources. However, there are animals that just cannot coexist with humans. Gorillas are one such. My prescription for them would be to ban all human contact with them, and to grant the surviving populations a large reserve kept clear of humans and any human influence.
There is a lot of other bunk distributed by ecologists these days. Pretending that conservation has a cost that means prioritisation is necessary is one such. If there is a cost, it only lies in the missed opportunity for exploitation or development. The fact is that extinctions brought about by humans can be forestalled by humans leaving things well alone. That was the promise of industrial farming: such high yields here, that we can afford to allow other places to stay wild or return to the wild. As societies develop, we move off the land and into big cities. As we are seeing now in the UK, development does not understand that there is a point beyond which we do not need to go.
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Here we go again:
“‘Concerning drop’ in number of butterfly species”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c74qqk592ywo
The number of four species of butterfly in Devon were at their lowest for at least a decade in 2024, new figures show.
Butterfly Conservation said the number of silver-washed fritillary, dark green fritillary, wood white and small heath were lower than at any time in the past 10 years.
The numbers come from the UK Butterfly Monitoring Scheme (UKBMS) and Butterflies for the New Millennium (BNM).
The charity’s Devon branch recorder, Pete Hurst, said humans had “destroyed wildlife habitats”, and said poor weather meant “already depleted” populations were vulnerable and unable to bounce back….
“Poor weather” – they mean last year’s cool, wet spring and summer that are predicted to be less common with climate change apparently super-heating things and giving us hot dry summers. And yet they we get this appallingly inaccurate and limp conclusion at the very end of the final paragraph:
…He said damage to habitats, pollution, and the use of pesticides on an “industrial scale” had contributed to the decline – adding climate change meant unusual weather was becoming “more and more usual”.
The obligatory – if inaccurate – reference to climate change just had to be made. “Unusual weather”? A cool, wet spring and summer? That’s neither unusual, sadly, nor is it what the climate change predictions have constantly told us.
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No Mow May looks awful ! While in Perth shopping yesterday we had to take a few detours due to roadworks through more housing areas, some of the houses are virtually surrounded by hay fields with the odd bike handle bars peeping out or the top half of a kids slide. How are they going to cut it and how are they going to get rid of the cuttings. Grass left to grow to full seeded height will never really go back to a nice short green finish until new shoots grow in. Will the lawn mower manage to cut it, forget the flimo, even a petrol driven will struggle with the tough stalks, most models have thin blades which end up bending. Good luck if you’ve done it.
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James, to put the side of Nature for a minute, few things annoy this ecologist more than grass being mown where it does not need to be. Unless you want to play ball games on it, the grass should be cut not more than twice a year. And some areas should be kept free of the mower for 1-2 years. That way, you will see biennials like teasel and mulleins flowering.
Excessive mowing in the name of tidiness is not good for bumble bees and much more besides.
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The Guardian has re-visited this story, but this time it draws more logical conclusions:
“Butterflywatch: British populations thrive thanks to record sunny spring
Dry weather helps insects get out early and survive longer but bigger picture still one of concern”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/jun/05/butterfly-watch-spring-numbers-good
It has been a very good year so far for butterflies in Britain, thanks to the sunniest spring since records began in 1910. Dry, sunny weather has helped butterflies get out early, survive for longer than usual and lay plenty of eggs.
The naturalist Matthew Oates noted 36 consecutive days when he saw butterflies on the wing, from Good Friday through to late May – a cheering and increasingly unusual experience in this country.
Lepidopterists are a bit like farmers, apt to grumble about the weather unless it is a perfect balance of sunshine and some rain. Without rain, caterpillar food plants shrivel up and die, and the next generation do not thrive. So the current rains are very welcome, and should ensure emerging caterpillars have plentiful food.
But this bright picture unfurls against much darker big-picture trends. Butterflies are sun-loving animals; global heating should mean British populations are booming, but in fact the opposite has been happening. Last summer was the second-worst year for common butterflies since scientific records began in 1976. For the first time, more than half of Britain’s 59 native species are in long-term decline.
Hopefully this summer sees a big bounceback for British butterflies, but even in good times we must note that these well-studied insects are a bellwether for the global collapse of insect populations. All life on Earth is imperilled unless we take meaningful steps to reduce chemical use, pollution and habitat destruction. [Mt-y emphasis]
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“Sharks and oysters set to thrive in warmer UK waters”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cx2gn5e9y33o
Good news!
The UK could see a boom in endangered sharks, rays and native oysters as species move habitats to respond to rising ocean temperatures, according to scientists.…
Oh, wait a minute:
…But some, including a clam that is the world’s longest living animal, could struggle to adapt.…
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“Insect boom for UK after warmest, sunniest spring on record”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/ce9xlrgypp5o
Good news!
Certain insects – including ladybirds, butterflies and wasps – are thriving after the warmest and sunniest spring on record across the UK.
Aphid numbers, the main food source of ladybirds, boomed according to the Royal Horticultural Society after a warm start to the summer....
But wait – bad news!
…But the relative lack of rain this spring and summer could lead to lower insect and amphibian numbers next year since eggs may not be laid and wetland areas are drying up.…
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